Edith Wharton

“ The idea of Charlotte’s marrying Joe Ralston—her own Jim’s cousin—without revealing her past to him, seemed to Delia as dishonourable as it would have seemed to any Ralston. And to tell him the truth would at once put an end to the marriage; of that even Chatty was aware. Social tolerance was not dealt in the same measure to men and to women, and neither Delia nor Charlotte had ever wondered why: like all the young women of their class they simply bowed to the ineluctable. ”

“ Delia stared at her with a kind of terror. “You are horrible, Charlotte. Upon my honour, I haven’t thought of Clement Spender for years.”
“Ah, but you have—you have! You’ve always thought of him in thinking of Tina—of him and nobody else! A woman never stops thinking of the man she loves. She thinks of him years afterward, in all sorts of unconscious ways, in thinking of all sorts of things—books, pictures, sunsets, a flower or a ribbon—or a clock on the mantelpiece,” Charlotte broke off with her sneering laugh. ”

“ But this affair with young Halsey has opened my eyes. I must take Tina away. We must go and live somewhere where we’re not known, where we shall be among plain people, leading plain lives. Somewhere where she can find a husband, and make herself a home.”
Charlotte paused. She had spoken in a rapid monotonous tone, as if by rote; but now her voice broke and she repeated painfully: “I’m not ungrateful.”
“Oh, don’t let’s speak of gratitude! What place has it between you and me?”
Delia had risen and begun to move uneasily about the room. ”

“ VII DELIA RALSTON sometimes felt that the real events of her life did not begin until both her children had contracted—so safely and suitably—their irreproachable New York alliances. The boy had married first, choosing a Vandergrave in whose father’s bank at Albany he was to have an immediate junior partnership; and young Delia (as her mother had foreseen she would) had selected John Junius, the safest and soundest of the many young Halseys, and followed him to his parents’ house the year after her brother’s marriage. ”

“ When Delia, who came of the laxer Lovells, and was naturally inclined to novelty, had first proposed to her husband to dine at six o’clock instead of two, his malleable young face had become as relentless as that of the old original Ralston in his grim Colonial portrait. But after a two days’ resistance he had come round to his wife’s view, and now smiled contemptuously at the obstinacy of those{58} who clung to a heavy mid-day meal and high tea.
“There’s nothing I hate like narrow-mindedness. Let people eat when they like, for all I care: it’s their narrow-mindedness that I can’t stand.” ”

“ Jim had once said in his heavy way. Delia Ralston roused herself and pressed her cousin closer. “Chatty, tell me,” she whispered.
“There’s nothing more.”
“I mean, about yourself ... this thing ... this....” Clem Spender’s voice was still in her ears. “You loved some one,” she breathed.
“Yes. That’s over—. Now it’s only the child.... And I could love Joe—in another way.” Chatty Lovell straightened herself, wan and frowning.
“I need the money—I must have it for my baby. Or else they’ll send it to an Institution.” She paused. “But that’s not all. I want to marry—to be a wife, like all of you. ”

“ And then, when he came back four years ago, and there was no you for him any more, he began to notice me, to be kind, to talk to me about his life and his painting....” She drew a deep breath, and her voice cleared. “That’s over—all over. It’s as if I couldn’t either hate him or love him. There’s only the child now—my child. ”

“ Delia thought, “how old and ugly she looks! More than ever like an old maid; and she doesn’t seem to realize in the least that she’ll never have another chance.”
“You must try to be sensible, Chatty dear. After all, one’s own babies have the first claim.”
“That’s just it.” The girl seized her fiercely by the wrists. “How can I give up my own baby?”
“Your—your—?” Delia’s world again began to waver under her. “Which of the poor little waifs, dearest, do you call your own baby?” she questioned patiently.{33}
Charlotte looked her straight in the eyes. “I call my own baby my own baby.” ”

“ How often Charlotte Lovell, staying alone in town with her infirm grandmother, must have walked home from evening parties with Clement Spender, how often have let herself and him into the darkened house in Mercer Street, where there was no one to spy upon their coming but a deaf old lady and her aged servants, all securely sleeping overhead! Delia, at the thought, saw{138} the grim drawing-room which had been their moonlit forest, the drawing-room into which old Mrs. Lovell no longer descended, with its swathed chandelier and hard Empire sofas, and the eyeless marble caryatids of the mantel ”

“ After young Delia had left the house in Gramercy Park it was inevitable that Tina{97} should take the centre front of its narrow stage. Tina had reached the marriageable age, she was admired and sought after; but what hope was there of her finding a husband? The two watchful women did not propound this question to each other; but Delia Ralston, brooding over it day by day, and taking it up with her when she mounted at night to her bedroom, knew that Charlotte Lovell, at the same hour, carried the same problem with her to the floor above. ”

“ She longed to plead with Charlotte, to implore her not to be in haste, to picture to her the cruelty of severing Tina from all her habits and associations, of carrying her inexplicably{123} away to lead “a plain life among plain people.” What chance was there, indeed, that a creature so radiant would tamely submit to such a fate, or find an acceptable husband in such conditions? The change might only precipitate a tragedy. Delia’s experience was too limited for her to picture exactly what might happen to a girl like Tina, suddenly cut off from all that sweetened life for her ”

“ She was a brilliant and engaging creature, and people marvelled at poor Chatty’s luck in having chosen so interesting a specimen among her foundlings (for she was by this time supposed to have had a whole asylum-full to choose from) .
The agreeable elderly bachelor, Sillerton Jackson, returning from a prolonged sojourn in Paris (where he was understood to have been made much of by the highest personages) was immensely struck by Tina’s charms when he saw her at her coming-out ball, and asked Delia’s permission to come some evening and dine alone with her and her young people. ”

“ Delia echoed vaguely.
“Unrealities for her. Young men who make love to her and can’t marry her. Happy households where she’s welcomed till she’s suspected of designs on a brother or a husband—or else exposed to their insults. How could we ever have imagined, either of us, that the child could escape disaster? ”

“ Delia crossed the Square to Broadway.
The Lovell house in Mercer Street was a sturdy old-fashioned brick dwelling. A large stable adjoined it, opening on an alley such as Delia, on her honey-moon trip to England, had heard called a “mews.” She turned into the alley, entered the stable court, and pushed open a door. In a shabby white-washed room a dozen children, gathered about a stove, were playing with broken toys. ”

“ What, Tina? You walked home with Lanning? You imprudent child—in this wet snow! Ah, I see: Delia was worried about the baby, and ran off early, promising to send back the carriage—and it never came? Well, my dear, I congratulate you on finding Lanning to see you home.... Yes—I sat up because I couldn’t for the life of me remember whether you’d taken the latch-key—was there ever such a flighty old aunt? But don’t tell your Mamma, dear, or she’d scold me for being so forgetful, and for staying downstairs in the cold.... You’re quite sure you have the key? Ah, Lanning has it? Thank you, Lanning ”

“ No one in New York had forgotten the death of the poor Henry van der Luydens’ only{31} child, who had caught small-pox at the circus to which an unprincipled nurse had surreptitiously taken him. After such a warning as that, parents felt justified in every precaution against contagion. And poor people were so ignorant and careless, and their children, of course, so perpetually exposed to everything catching. No, Joe Ralston was certainly right, and Charlotte almost insanely unreasonable. But it would be useless to tell her so now. Instinctively, Delia temporized. ”

“ Delia seemed to hear the old cry: “But how can I give up my baby?” Her own momentary resentment melted, and she bent over the mother’s labouring shoulders.
“Chatty—it won’t be like giving her up{156} this time. Can’t we just go on loving her together?”
Charlotte did not answer. For a long time she lay silent, immovable, her face hidden: she seemed to fear to turn it to the face bent down to her. But presently Delia was aware of a gradual relaxing of the stretched muscles, and saw that one of her cousin’s arms was faintly stirring and groping. ”

“ Charlotte had said long ago that Clement Spender had never really belonged to her; now she had perceived that it was the same with Clement Spende{186}r’s child. As the truth stole upon Delia her heart melted with the old compassion for Charlotte. She saw that it was a terrible, a sacrilegious thing to interfere with another’s destiny, to lay the tenderest touch upon any human being’s right to love and suffer after his own fashion. Delia had twice intervened in Charlotte Lovell’s life: it was natural that Charlotte should be her enemy. If only she did not revenge herself by wounding Tina! ”

“ Delia wondered, knowing that young Delia, out of regard for John Junius’s business hours, never stayed late at evening parties. Doubtless Tina had delayed her; Mrs. Ralston felt a little annoyed{135} with Tina’s thoughtlessness in keeping her cousin up. But the feeling was swept away by an immediate wave of sympathy. “We must go away somewhere, and lead plain lives among plain people.” If Charlotte carried out her threat—and Delia knew she would hardly have spoken unless her resolve had been taken—it might be that at that very moment poor Tina was dancing her last valse. ”

“ One knew the profession of the lovers by their crooks and the shape of their hats. This frivolous time-piece had been a wedding-gift from Delia’s aunt, Mrs. Manson Mingott, a dashing widow{17} who lived in Paris and was received at the Tuileries. It had been entrusted by Mrs. Mingott to young Clement Spender, who had come back from Italy for a short holiday just after Delia’s marriage; the marriage which might never have been, if Clem Spender could have supported a wife, or if he had consented to give up painting and Rome for New York and the law. ”

“ The Ralston and Lovell wines rounded off the effect, and even Joe’s drawn face had mellowed by the time the Lovell Madeira started westward. Delia marked the change when the two young men rejoined her in the drawing-room.
“And now, my dear fellow, you’d better tell her the whole story,” Jim counselled, pushing an armchair toward his cousin.
The young woman, bent above her wool-work, listened with lowered lids and flushed cheeks. As a married woman—as a mother—Joe hoped she would think him justified in speaking to her frankly: he had her husband’s authority to do so. ”

“ Whatever Lanning’s faults are—and I don’t believe they’re grave—I share your liking for him. After all—” Mrs. Ralston paused—“what is it that people find so reprehensible in him? Chiefly, as far as I can hear, that he can’t decide on the choice of a profession. The New York view about that is rather narrow, as we know. Young men may have other tastes ... artistic ... literary ... they may even have difficulty in deciding....”
Both women coloured slightly, and Delia guessed that the same reminiscence{114} which shook her own bosom also throbbed under Charlotte’s strait bodice. ”

“ And then, the babies; the babies who were supposed to “make up for everything,” and didn’t—though they were such darlings, and one had no definite notion as to what it was that one had missed, and that they were to make up for.
Yes: Charlotte’s fate would be just like hers. Joe Ralston was so like his second cousin Jim (Delia’s James) , that Delia could see no reason why life in the squat brick house in Waverly Place should not exactly resemble life in the tall brownstone house in Gramercy Park. ”

“ He has been given to understand that, in view of your bad{81} health, the engagement is broken by your wish—and he accepts your decision; but if he weakens, or if you weaken, I can do nothing for you or for little Tina. For heaven’s sake remember that!”
Delia released her hold, and Charlotte leaned back silent, with closed eyes and narrowed lips. Almost like a corpse she lay there. On a chair near the bed hung the poplin with red velvet ribbons which had been made over in honour of her betrothal. A pair of new slippers of bronze kid peeped from beneath it. Poor Chatty! ”

“ When she took Charlotte she took Charlotte’s foundling too: a dark-haired child with pale brown eyes, and the odd incisive manner of children who have lived too much with their elders. The little girl was called Tina Lovell: it was vaguely supposed that Charlotte had adopted her. She grew up on terms of affectionate equality with her young Ralston cousins, and almost as much so—it might be said—with the two women who mothered her. But, impelled by an instinct of imitation which no one took the trouble to correct, she always called Delia Ralston “Mamma,” and{89} Charlotte Lovell “Aunt Chatty.” ”