Edith Wharton: New Year's Day, False Dawn, The Old Maid & The Spark (4 Books in One Edition). Edith WhartonЧитать онлайн книгу.
favour ma’am,” said Mr. Ambrose Huzzard, “is on your side, in so amiably inviting us.”
Mrs. Raycie curtsied, the gentlemen bowed, and Mr. Raycie said: “Your arm to Mrs. Raycie, Huzzard. This little farewell party is a family affair, and the other gentlemen must content themselves with my two daughters. Sarah Anne, Mary Adeline — ”
The Commodore and Mr. John Huzzard advanced ceremoniously toward the two girls, and Mr. Kent, being a cousin, closed the procession between Mr. Raycie and Lewis.
Oh, that supper table! The vision of it used sometimes to rise before Lewis Raycie’s eyes in outlandish foreign places; for though not a large or fastidious eater when he was at home, he was afterward, in lands of chestnut-flour and garlic and queer bearded sea-things, to suffer many pangs of hunger at the thought of that opulent board. In the centre stood the Raycie epergne of pierced silver, holding aloft a bunch of June roses surrounded by dangling baskets of sugared almonds and striped peppermints; and grouped about this decorative “motif” were Lowestoft platters heavy with piles of raspberries, strawberries and the first Delaware peaches. An outer flanking of heaped-up cookies, crullers, strawberry short-cake, piping hot corn-bread and deep golden butter in moist blocks still bedewed from the muslin swathings of the dairy, led the eye to the Virginia ham in front of Mr. Raycie, and the twin dishes of scrambled eggs on toast and broiled blue-fish over which his wife presided. Lewis could never afterward fit into this intricate pattern the “side-dishes” of devilled turkey-legs and creamed chicken hash, the sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, the heavy silver jugs of butter-coloured cream, the floating-island, “slips” and lemon jellies that were somehow interwoven with the solider elements of the design; but they were all there, either together or successively, and so were the towering piles of waffles reeling on their foundations, and the slender silver jugs of maple syrup perpetually escorting them about the table as black Dinah replenished the supply.
They ate — oh, how they all ate! — though the ladies were supposed only to nibble; but the good things on Lewis’s plate remained untouched until, ever and again, an admonishing glance from Mr. Raycie, or an entreating one from Mary Adeline, made him insert a languid fork into the heap.
And all the while Mr. Raycie continued to hold forth.
“A young man, in my opinion, before setting up for himself, must see the world; form his taste; fortify his judgment. He must study the most famous monuments, examine the organization of foreign societies, and the habits and customs of those older civilizations whose yoke it has been our glory to cast off. Though he may see in them much to deplore and to reprove — ” (“Some of the gals, though,” Commodore Ledgely was heard to interject) — “much that will make him give thanks for the privilege of having been born and brought up under our own Free Institutions, yet I believe he will also” — Mr. Raycie conceded it with magnanimity — “be able to learn much.”
“The Sundays, though,” Mr. Kent hazarded warningly; and Mrs. Raycie breathed across to her son: “Ah, that’s what I say!”
Mr. Raycie did not like interruption; and he met it by growing visibly larger. His huge bulk hung a moment, like an avalanche, above the silence which followed Mr. Kent’s interjection and Mrs. Raycie’s murmur; then he crashed down on both.
“The Sundays — the Sundays? Well, what of the Sundays? What is there to frighten a good Episcopalian in what we call the Continental Sunday? I presume that we’re all Churchmen here, eh? No puling Methodists or atheistical Unitarians at my table tonight, that I’m aware of? Nor will I offend the ladies of my household by assuming that they have secretly lent an ear to the Baptist ranter in the chapel at the foot of our lane. No? I thought not! Well, then, I say, what’s all this flutter about the Papists? Far be it from me to approve of their heathenish doctrines — but, damn it, they go to church, don’t they? And they have a real service, as we do, don’t they? And real clergy, and not a lot of nondescripts dressed like laymen, and damned badly at that, who chat familiarly with the Almighty in their own vulgar lingo? No, sir” — he swung about on the shrinking Mr. Kent — “it’s not the Church I’m afraid of in foreign countries, it’s the sewers, sir!”
Mrs. Raycie had grown very pale: Lewis knew that she too was deeply perturbed about the sewers. “And the night-air,” she scarce-audibly sighed.
But Mr. Raycie had taken up his main theme again. “In my opinion, if a young man travels at all, he must travel as extensively as his — er — means permit; must see as much of the world as he can. Those are my son’s sailing orders, Commodore; and here’s to his carrying them out to the best of his powers!”
Black Dinah, removing the Virginia ham, or rather such of its bony structure as alone remained on the dish, had managed to make room for a bowl of punch from which Mr. Raycie poured deep ladlefuls of perfumed fire into the glasses ranged before him on a silver tray. The gentlemen rose, the ladies smiled and wept, and Lewis’s health and the success of the Grand Tour were toasted with an eloquence which caused Mr. Raycie, with a hasty nod to her daughters, and a covering rustle of starched flounces, to shepherd them softly from the room.
“After all,” Lewis heard her murmur to them on the threshold, “your father’s using such language shows that he’s in the best of humour with dear Lewis.”
2.
IN spite of his enforced potations, Lewis Raycie was up the next morning before sunrise.
Unlatching his shutters without noise, he looked forth over the wet lawn merged in a blur of shrubberies, and the waters of the Sound dimly seen beneath a sky full of stars. His head ached but his heart glowed; what was before him was thrilling enough to clear a heavier brain than his.
He dressed quickly and completely (save for his shoes), and then, stripping the flowered quilt from his high mahogany bed, rolled it in a tight bundle under his arm. Thus enigmatically equipped he was feeling his way, shoes in hand, through the darkness of the upper story to the slippery oak stairs, when he was startled by a candle-gleam in the pitch-blackness of the hall below. He held his breath, and leaning over the stair-rail saw with amazement his sister Mary Adeline come forth, cloaked and bonneted, but also in stocking-feet, from the passage leading to the pantry. She too carried a double burden: her shoes and the candle in one hand, in the other a large covered basket that weighed down her bare arm.
Brother and sister stopped and stared at each other in the blue dusk: the upward slant of the candle-light distorted Mary Adeline’s mild features, twisting them into a frightened grin as Lewis stole down to join her.
“Oh — ” she whispered. “What in the world are you doing here? I was just getting together a few things for that poor young Mrs. Poe down the lane, who’s so ill — before mother goes to the store-room. You won’t tell, will you?”
Lewis signalled his complicity, and cautiously slid open the bolt of the front door. They durst not say more till they were out of ear-shot. On the doorstep they sat down to put on their shoes; then they hastened on without a word through the ghostly shrubberies till they reached the gate into the lane.
“But you, Lewis?” the sister suddenly questioned, with an astonished stare at the rolled-up quilt under her brother’s arm.
“Oh, I— . Look here Addy — ” he broke off and began to grope in his pocket — “I haven’t much about me . . . the old gentleman keeps me as close as ever . . . but here’s a dollar, if you think that poor Mrs. Poe could use it . . . I’d be too happy . . . consider it a privilege . . . ”
“Oh, Lewis, Lewis, how noble, how generous of you! Of course I can buy a few extra things with it . . . they never see meat unless I can bring them a bit, you know . . . and I fear she’s dying of a decline . . . and she and her mother are so fiery-proud . . . ” She wept with gratitude, and Lewis drew a breath of relief. He had diverted her attention from the bed-quilt.
“Ah, there’s the breeze,” he murmured, sniffing the suddenly chilled air.