In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they
talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit,
and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded
to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland
was thinking: “It’s a mistake for
Ellen to be seen, the very day after her arrival,
parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with
Julius Beaufort—” and the young man
himself mentally added: “And she ought
to know that a man who’s just engaged doesn’t
spend his time calling on married women. But
I daresay in the set she’s lived in they do—they
never do anything else.” And, in spite
of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself,
he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker, and about
to ally himself with one of his own kind.
The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to
dine with the Archers.
Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society;
but she liked to be well-informed as to its doings.
Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson applied to the
investigation of his friends’ affairs the patience
of a collector and the science of a naturalist; and
his sister, Miss Sophy Jackson, who lived with him,
and was entertained by all the people who could not
secure her much-sought-after brother, brought home
bits of minor gossip that filled out usefully the
gaps in his picture.
Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer
wanted to know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine;
and as she honoured few people with her invitations,
and as she and her daughter Janey were an excellent
audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead
of sending his sister. If he could have dictated
all the conditions, he would have chosen the evenings
when Newland was out; not because the young man was
uncongenial to him (the two got on capitally at their
club) but because the old anecdotist sometimes felt,
on Newland’s part, a tendency to weigh his evidence
that the ladies of the family never showed.
Mr. Jackson, if perfection had been attainable on
earth, would also have asked that Mrs. Archer’s
food should be a little better. But then New
York, as far back as the mind of man could travel,
had been divided into the two great fundamental groups
of the Mingotts and Mansons and all their clan, who
cared about eating and clothes and money, and the
Archer-Newland-van-der-Luyden tribe, who were devoted
to travel, horticulture and the best fiction, and
looked down on the grosser forms of pleasure.
You couldn’t have everything, after all.
If you dined with the Lovell Mingotts you got canvas-back
and terrapin and vintage wines; at Adeline Archer’s
you could talk about Alpine scenery and “The
Marble Faun”; and luckily the Archer Madeira
had gone round the Cape. Therefore when a friendly
summons came from Mrs. Archer, Mr. Jackson, who was
a true eclectic, would usually say to his sister:
“I’ve been a little gouty since my last
dinner at the Lovell Mingotts’—it
will do me good to diet at Adeline’s.”
