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His first rush of inarticulate resentment had been followed by asteadiness and concentration of tone more disconcerting to Lily than theexcitement preceding it. For a moment her presence of mind forsook her.She had more than once been in situations where a quick sword-play of withad been needful to cover her retreat; but her frightened heart-throbstold her that here such skill would not avail. Though she boasted an unequalledfamiliarity with the secret chronicles of society, she had the innocenceof the school-girl who regards wickedness as a part of “history,” and towhom it never occurs that the scandals she reads of in lesson-hours maybe repeating themselves in the next street. Mrs. Peniston had kept herimagination shrouded, like the drawing-room furniture. But society, amused for a while at playing Cinderella, soon wearied ofthe hearthside role, and welcomed the Fairy Godmother in the shape of anymagician powerful enough to turn the shrunken pumpkin back again into thegolden coach.
Brief Biography of Edith Wharton
He was aplump rosy man of the blond Jewish type, with smart London clothesfitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyes which gave him theair of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac. There were a thousandchances to one against her meeting anybody, but one could never tell, andshe always paid for her rare indiscretions by a violent reaction ofprudence. There was no one in sight, however, but a char-woman who wasscrubbing the stairs. Her own stout person and its surrounding implementstook up so much room that Lily, to pass her, had to gather up her skirtsand brush against the wall. As she did so, the woman paused in her workand looked up curiously, resting her clenched red fists on the wet clothshe had just drawn from her pail. She had a broad sallow face, slightlypitted with small-pox, and thin straw-coloured hair through which herscalp shone unpleasantly.
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She had come to himwith no definite purpose; the mere longing to see him had directed her;but the secret hope she had carried with her suddenly revealed itself inits death-pang. But she did not weepeasily, and the long habit of self-control reasserted itself, though shewas still too tremulous to speak. Even on her way up the stairs,she had not thought of preparing a pretext for her visit, but she nowfelt an intense longing to dispel the cloud of misunderstanding that hungbetween them.
Edith Wharton
His understanding of Lily helped toconfirm her own belief in her friend. Gerty instanced her generous impulses—herrestlessness and discontent. The fact that her life had never satisfiedher proved that she was made for better things. She might have marriedmore than once—the conventional rich marriage which she had been taughtto consider the sole end of existence—but when the opportunity came shehad always shrunk from it. Percy Gryce, for instance, had been in lovewith her—every one at Bellomont had supposed them to be engaged, and herdismissal of him was thought inexplicable. This view of the Gryceincident chimed too well with Selden’s mood not to be instantly adoptedby him, with a flash of retrospective contempt for what had once seemedthe obvious solution.
She had alwaysbeen a looker-on at life, and her mind resembled one of those littlemirrors which her Dutch ancestors were accustomed to affix to their upperwindows, so that from the depths of an impenetrable domesticity theymight see what was happening in the street. Lily obeyed, and when she turned back into the room her father wassitting with both elbows on the table, the plate of salmon between them,and his head bowed on his hands. Thedisgusting part of it was that many of these cousins were rich, so thatLily imbibed the idea that if people lived like pigs it was from choice,and through the lack of any proper standard of conduct.
But at the outset she perceived a subtle resistance to her efforts.If Mrs. Trenor’s manner toward her was unchanged, there was certainly afaint coldness in that of the other ladies. The indication wasa slight one, and a year ago Lily would have smiled at it, trusting tothe charm of her personality to dispel any prejudice against her. But nowshe had grown more sensitive to criticism and less confident in her powerof disarming it.
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Suddenly, however, she became aware that one of the passing shadowsremained stationary between her line of vision and the gleaming asphalt;and raising her eyes she saw a young woman bending over her. Strive as she would to put some order in her thoughts, the words wouldnot come more clearly; yet she felt that she could not leave him withouttrying to make him understand that she had saved herself whole from theseeming ruin of her life. While he spoke she had moved slowly to the middle of the room, and pausednear his writing-table, where the lamp, striking upward, cast exaggeratedshadows on the pallor of her delicately-hollowed face. At five o’clock she rose, unlocked her trunk, and took out a sealedpacket which she slipped into the bosom of her dress. Even the contactwith the packet did not shake her nerves as she had half-expected itwould. She seemed encased in a strong armour of indifference, as thoughthe vigorous exertion of her will had finally benumbed her finersensibilities.
Three months later, at Monte Carlo, Lily finds herself in a potentially explosive social situation, as everyone knows that her role on the trip is to distract George Dorset while his wife Bertha takes part in an adulterous relationship with the young, innocent Ned Silverton. This fragile situation collapses after George catches Bertha with Ned. To detract the attention from her own adulterous behavior, Bertha invents lies about Lily, accusing the young girl of trying to seduce her husband. Weeks later, when Lily returns to New York, she realizes that everyone has turned against her and that people only believe Bertha’s version of the story, for the simple reason that Bertha is rich and powerful.
It spoke much for the depth of Mrs. Trenor’s friendship that her voice,in admonishing Miss Bart, took the same note of personal despair as ifshe had been lamenting the collapse of a house-party. The words roused Selden from the musing fit into which he had fallen. Hehimself did not know why he had led their talk along such lines; it wasthe last use he would have imagined himself making of an afternoon’ssolitude with Miss Bart. But it was one of those moments when neitherseemed to speak deliberately, when an indwelling voice in each called tothe other across unsounded depths of feeling. Lily paused as she caught sight of the group; for a moment she seemedabout to withdraw, but thinking better of this, she announced herapproach by a slight shake of her skirts which made the couple raisetheir heads, Mrs. Dorset with a look of frank displeasure, and Seldenwith his usual quiet smile.
“Hold me, Gerty, hold me, or I shall think of things,” she moaned; andGerty silently slipped an arm under her, pillowing her head in its hollowas a mother makes a nest for a tossing child. In the warm hollow Lily laystill and her breathing grew low and regular. Her hand still clung toGerty’s as if to ward off evil dreams, but the hold of her fingersrelaxed, her head sank deeper into its shelter, and Gerty felt that sheslept. At the word, Lily’s face melted from locked anguish to the open misery ofa child. Miss Bart released her, and stood breathing brokenly, like one who hasgained shelter after a long flight. She shrank back as thoughLily’s presence flashed too sudden a light upon her misery.
The provoking part was that Lily knew all this—knew how easy it wouldhave been to silence him on the spot, and how difficult it might be to doso afterward. Mr. Simon Rosedale was a man who made it his business toknow everything about every one, whose idea of showing himself to be athome in society was to display an inconvenient familiarity with thehabits of those with whom he wished to be thought intimate. Lily was surethat within twenty-four hours the story of her visiting her dress-makerat the Benedick would be in active circulation among Mr. Rosedale’sacquaintances. Sheunderstood his motives, for her own course was guided by as nicecalculations.
It was no surprise to Lily to find that he had been selected as her onlyfellow-guest. Though she and her hostess had not met since the latter’stentative discussion of her future, Lily knew that the acuteness whichenabled Mrs. Fisher to lay a safe and pleasant course through a world ofantagonistic forces was not infrequently exercised for the benefit of herfriends. It was, in fact, characteristic of Carry that, while sheactively gleaned her own stores from the fields of affluence, her realsympathies were on the other side—with the unlucky, the unpopular, theunsuccessful, with all her hungry fellow-toilers in the shorn stubble ofsuccess. “I can’t see how I can possibly be of any help to you,” she murmured,drawing back a little from the mounting excitement of his look. From beneath its luggage-laden top, she caught the wave of a signallinghand; and the next moment Mrs. Fisher, springing to the street, hadfolded her in a demonstrative embrace. Grace, in reply, wept and wondered at the request, bemoaned theinexorableness of the law, and was astonished that Lily had not realizedthe exact similarity of their positions.
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Simon Rosedale—A successful and socially astute Jewish businessman—the quintessential parvenu—who has the money but not the social standing to be accepted into the circle of New York's leisure class. Building his fortune in real estate, Rosedale makes his first appearance in the story when he observes Lily leaving his apartment building after what appears to be a tryst with one of his tenants. Rosedale is interested in Lily because not only is she beautiful, but what is more important, she is also a social asset in gaining him a place in high society. She reflects that she has put herself in his power by her clumsy dress-maker fib and her refusal to allow him to take her to the station which would have given him the prestige of being seen by members of the society with whom he was aspiring to gain acceptance. As his social ascendency continues, he offers Lily marriage which would provide her a way out of her financial dilemma and her precarious social standing; she puts him off.
It was a keen satisfaction to feel that, for a fewmonths at least, she would be independent of her friends’ bounty, thatshe could show herself abroad without wondering whether some penetratingeye would detect in her dress the traces of Judy Trenor’s refurbishedsplendour. The fact that the money freed her temporarily from all minorobligations obscured her sense of the greater one it represented, andhaving never before known what it was to command so large a sum, shelingered delectably over the amusement of spending it. In the first leap of heranger she was about to ring and order the woman out; but an obscureimpulse restrained her. Bertha Dorset’s letters were nothing to her—they mightgo where the current of chance carried them!
The strange solitudeabout them was no stranger than the sweetness of being alone in ittogether. At length Lily withdrew her hand, and moved away a step, sothat her white-robed slimness was outlined against the dusk of thebranches. Selden followed her, and still without speaking they seatedthemselves on a bench beside the fountain. In the long moment before the curtain fell, he had time to feel the wholetragedy of her life. It was as though her beauty, thus detached from allthat cheapened and vulgarized it, had held out suppliant hands to himfrom the world in which he and she had once met for a moment, and wherehe felt an overmastering longing to be with her again. The scenes were taken from old pictures, and the participators had beencleverly fitted with characters suited to their types.
Those ambitions were hardlymore futile and childish than the earlier ones which had centred aboutthe possession of a French jointed doll with real hair. Was it only tenyears since she had wavered in imagination between the English earl andthe Italian prince? She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making, and itwas odious to her that her husband should make a show of himself beforethe servants. Oh, certainly, mydear—give him an order for twelve hundred.” He continued to laugh. Mr. Bart dropped into a chair, and sat gazing absently at the fragment ofjellied salmon which the butler had placed before him.
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