Of course we must dine with Mrs.Carfry, dearest,"Archer said; and his wife looked at him with an anxious frown across the monumental Britannia ware of their lodging house breakfast-table.
In all the rainy desert of autumnal London there were only two people whom the Newland Archers knew; and these two they had sedulously avoided, in conformity with the old New York tradition that it was not "dignified" to force one's self on the notice of one's acquaintances in foreign countries.
Mrs.Archer and Janey, in the course of their visits to Europe, had so unflinchingly lived up to this principle, and met the friendly advances of their fellow-travellers with an air of such impenetrable reserve, that they had almost achieved the record of never having exchanged a word with a "foreigner" other than those employed in hotels and railway-stations.Their own compatriots--save those previously known or properly accredited--they treated with an even more pronounced disdain; so that, unless they ran across a Chivers, a Dagonet or a Mingott, their months abroad were spent in an unbroken tete-a-tete.But the utmost precautions are sometimes unavailing; and one night at Botzen one of the two English ladies in the room across the passage (whose names, dress and social situation were already intimately known to Janey) had knocked on the door and asked if Mrs.Archer had a bottle of liniment.The other lady--the intruder's sister, Mrs.Carfry--had been seized with a sudden attack of bronchitis; and Mrs.
Archer, who never travelled without a complete family pharmacy, was fortunately able to produce the required remedy.
Mrs.Carfry was very ill, and as she and her sister Miss Harle were travelling alone they were profoundly grateful to the Archer ladies, who supplied them with ingenious comforts and whose efficient maid helped to nurse the invalid back to health.
When the Archers left Botzen they had no idea of ever seeing Mrs.Carfry and Miss Harle again.Nothing, to Mrs.Archer's mind, would have been more "undignified" than to force one's self on the notice of a "foreigner" to whom one had happened to render an accidental service.But Mrs.Carfry and her sister, to whom this point of view was unknown, and who would have found it utterly incomprehensible, felt themselves linked by an eternal gratitude to the "delightful Americans"who had been so kind at Botzen.With touching fidelity they seized every chance of meeting Mrs.Archer and Janey in the course of their continental travels, and displayed a supernatural acuteness in finding out when they were to pass through London on their way to or from the States.The intimacy became indissoluble, and Mrs.Archer and Janey, whenever they alighted at Brown's Hotel, found themselves awaited by two affectionate friends who, like themselves, cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace, read the memoirs of the Baroness Bunsen and had views about the occupants of the leading London pulpits.As Mrs.Archer said, it made "another thing of London" to know Mrs.
Carfry and Miss Harle; and by the time that Newland became engaged the tie between the families was so firmly established that it was thought "only right" to send a wedding invitation to the two English ladies, who sent, in return, a pretty bouquet of pressed Alpine flowers under glass.And on the dock, when Newland and his wife sailed for England, Mrs.Archer's last word had been: "You must take May to see Mrs.
Carfry."
Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction; but Mrs.Carfry, with her usual acuteness, had run them down and sent them an invitation to dine; and it was over this invitation that May Archer was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins.
"It's all very well for you, Newland; you KNOW them.
But I shall feel so shy among a lot of people I've never met.And what shall I wear?"Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her.
She looked handsomer and more Diana-like than ever.
The moist English air seemed to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow of happiness, shining through like a light under ice.
"Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week.""Yes, of course.I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear." She pouted a little."I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to be ridiculous."He tried to enter into her perplexity."But don't Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening?""Newland! How can you ask such funny questions?
When they go to the theatre in old ball-dresses and bare heads.""Well, perhaps they wear new ball-dresses at home;but at any rate Mrs.Carfry and Miss Harle won't.
They'll wear caps like my mother's--and shawls; very soft shawls.""Yes; but how will the other women be dressed?""Not as well as you, dear," he rejoined, wondering what had suddenly developed in her Janey's morbid interest in clothes.
She pushed back her chair with a sigh."That's dear of you, Newland; but it doesn't help me much."He had an inspiration."Why not wear your wedding-dress? That can't be wrong, can it?"
