The Custom of the Country

The Custom of the Country

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Custom of the Country, by Edith
Wharton This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Custom of the Country
Author: Edith Wharton
Release Date: February 12, 2004 [EBook #11052]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY ***

Produced by Steve Harris and PG Distributed Proofreaders

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY
by EDITH WHARTON

1913

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY

I
"Undine Spragg--how can you?" her mother wailed, raising a
prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which a
languid "bell-boy" had just brought in.

But her defence was as feeble as her protest, and she continued to smile
on her visitor while Miss Spragg, with a turn of her quick young fingers,
possessed herself of the missive and withdrew to the window to read it.
"I guess it's meant for me," she merely threw over her shoulder at her
mother.
"Did you EVER, Mrs. Heeny?" Mrs. Spragg murmured with
deprecating pride.
Mrs. Heeny, a stout professional-looking person in a waterproof, her
rusty veil thrown back, and a shabby alligator bag at her feet, followed
the mother's glance with good-humoured approval.
"I never met with a lovelier form," she agreed, answering the spirit
rather than the letter of her hostess's enquiry.
Mrs. Spragg and her visitor were enthroned in two heavy gilt armchairs
in one of the private drawing-rooms of the Hotel Stentorian. The
Spragg rooms were known as one of the Looey suites, and the
drawing-room walls, above their wainscoting of highly-varnished
mahogany, were hung with salmon-pink damask and adorned with oval
portraits of Marie Antoinette and the Princess de Lamballe. In the
centre of the florid carpet a gilt table with a top of Mexican onyx
sustained a palm in a gilt basket tied with a pink bow. But for this
ornament, and a copy of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" which lay
beside it, the room showed no traces of human use, and Mrs. Spragg
herself wore as complete an air of detachment as if she had been a wax
figure in a show-window. Her attire was fashionable enough to justify
such a post, and her pale soft-cheeked face, with puffy eye-lids and
drooping mouth, suggested a partially-melted wax figure which had run
to double-chin.
Mrs. Heeny, in comparison, had a reassuring look of solidity and reality.
The planting of her firm black bulk in its chair, and the grasp of her
broad red hands on the gilt arms, bespoke an organized and self-reliant
activity, accounted for by the fact that Mrs. Heeny was a "society"
manicure and masseuse. Toward Mrs. Spragg and her daughter she
filled the double role of manipulator and friend; and it was in the latter
capacity that, her day's task ended, she had dropped in for a moment to
"cheer up" the lonely ladies of the Stentorian.
The young girl whose "form" had won Mrs. Heeny's professional
commendation suddenly shifted its lovely lines as she turned back from

the window.
"Here--you can have it after all," she said, crumpling the note and
tossing it with a contemptuous gesture into her mother's lap.
"Why--isn't it from Mr. Popple?" Mrs. Spragg exclaimed unguardedly.
"No--it isn't. What made you think I thought it was?" snapped her
daughter; but the next instant she added, with an outbreak of childish
disappointment: "It's only from Mr. Marvell's sister--at least she says
she's his sister."
Mrs. Spragg, with a puzzled frown, groped for her eye-glass among the
jet fringes of her tightly-girded front.
Mrs. Heeny's small blue eyes shot out sparks of curiosity.
"Marvell--what Marvell is that?"
The girl explained languidly: "A little fellow--I think Mr. Popple said
his name was Ralph"; while her mother continued: "Undine met them
both last night at that party downstairs. And from something Mr.
Popple said to her about going to one of the new plays, she thought--"
"How on earth do you know what I thought?" Undine flashed back, her
grey eyes darting warnings at her mother under their straight black
brows.
"Why, you SAID you thought--" Mrs. Spragg began reproachfully; but
Mrs. Heeny, heedless of their bickerings, was pursuing her own train of
thought.
"What Popple? Claud Walsingham Popple--the portrait painter?"
"Yes--I suppose so. He said he'd like to paint me. Mabel Lipscomb
introduced him. I don't care if I never see him again," the girl said,
bathed in angry pink.
"Do you know him, Mrs. Heeny?" Mrs. Spragg enquired.
"I should say I did. I