Edith Wharton - SSC 10 (3 page)

 
          
“Well,”
said Targatt with sudden resolution, “tell your sister if she’ll make a
twenty-five per cent cut on the rent I’ll take over the balance of the lease.”

 
          
Nadeja
gasped. “Oh, James, you are an angel! But what do you think you could then do
with it?”

 
          
Targatt
threw back his shoulders. “Live in it,” he recklessly declared.

 
          
  

 
          
It
was the first time (except when he had married Nadeja) that he had ever been
reckless; and there was no denying that he enjoyed the sensation. But he had
not acted wholly for the sake of enjoyment; he had an ulterior idea. What that
idea was he did not choose to communicate to any one at present. He merely
asked Katinka, who, under the tuition of Mr. Bellamy’s experienced butler, had
developed some rudimentary ideas of house-keeping, to provide Nadeja with
proper servants, and try to teach her how to use them; and he then announced to
Nadeja that he had made up his mind to do a little entertaining. He and Nadeja
had already made a few fashionable acquaintances at the Bellamys’, and these
they proceeded to invite to the new flat, and to feed with exotic food, and
stimulate with abstruse cocktails. At these dinners Targatt’s new friends met
the younger and lovelier of the Kouradjines: Paul, Olga, Nick and Mouna, and
they always went away charmed with the encounter.

 
          
Considerable
expense was involved by this new way of life; and still more when Nadeja, at
Targatt’s instigation, invited Olga, Nick and Mouna to come and live with them.
Nadeja was overcome with gratitude at this suggestion; but her gratitude, like
all her other emotions, was so exquisitely modulated that it fell on Targatt
like the gentle dew from heaven, merely fostering in him a new growth of tenderness.
But still Targatt did not explain himself. He had his idea, and knowing that
Nadeja would not bother him with questions he sat back quietly and waited,
though Wall Street was growing more and more unsettled, and there had been no
further news of Boris, and Paul and Olga were still without a job.

 
          
The
Targatts’ little dinners, and Nadeja’s exclusive cocktail parties, began to be
the rage in a set far above the Bellamys’. There were almost always one or two
charming young Kouradjines present; but they were now so sought after in
smartest Park Avenue and gayest Long Island that Targatt and Nadeja had to make
sure of securing their presence beforehand, so there was never any danger of
there being too many on the floor at once.

 
          
On
the contrary, there were occasions when they all simultaneously failed to
appear; and on one of these evenings, Targatt, conscious that the party had not
“come off’, was about to vent his irritation against the absent Serge, when
Nadeja said gently: “I’m sorry Serge didn’t tell you. But I think he was
married today to Mrs. Leeper.”

 
          
“Mrs.
Leeper? Not the Dazzle Tooth-Paste woman he met at the Bellamys’, who wanted
him to decorate her ballroom?”

 
          
“Yes;
but I think she did not after all want him to decorate her ball-room. And so she
has married him instead.”

 
          
A
year earlier Targatt would have had no word but an uncomprehending groan. But
since then his education had proceeded by leaps and bounds, and now he simply
said: “I see—” and turned back to his breakfast with a secret smile. He had
received Serge’s tailor’s bill the day before, and had been rehearsing half the
night what he was going to say to Serge when they met. But now he merely
remarked: “That woman has a two million dollar income,” and thought to himself
that the experiment with the flat was turning out better than he could have
imagined. If Serge could be disposed of so easily there was no cause to despair
of Paul or Olga. “Hasn’t Mrs. Leeper a nephew?” he asked Nadeja; who, as if she
had read his thought, replied regretfully: “Yes; but I’m afraid he’s married.”

 
          
“Oh,
well—send Boris to talk to him!” Targatt jeered; and Nadeja, who never laughed,
smiled a little and replied: “Boris too will soon be married.” She handed her
husband the morning papers, which he had not yet had time to examine, and he
read, in glowing headlines, the announcement of the marriage in London of
Prince Boris Kouradjine, son of Prince Peter Kouradjine, hereditary sovereign
of Daghestan, and Chamberlain at the court of his late Imperial Majesty the
Czar Nicholas, to Miss Mamie Guggins of Rapid Rise, Oklahoma. “Boris has a
little exaggerated our father’s rank,” Nadeja commented; but Targatt said
thoughtfully: “No one can exaggerate the Guggins fortune.” And Nadeja gave a
quiet sigh.

 
          
It
must not be supposed that this rise in the fortunes of the Kouradjines was of
any direct benefit to Targatt. He had never expected that, or even hoped it. No
Kouradjine had ever suggested making any return for the sums expended by
Targatt in vainly educating and profitably dressing his irresistible in-laws;
nor had Targatt’s staggering restaurant bills been reduced by any offer of
participation. Only the old Princess (as it was convenient, with so many young
ones about, to call her when she was out of hearing) had said tearfully, on her
wedding-day: “Believe me, my good James, what you have done for us all will not
be forgotten when we return to Daghestan.” And she spoke with such genuine
emotion, the tears were so softening to her tired magnificent
eyes, that
Targatt, at the moment, felt himself repaid.

 
          
Other
and more substantial returns he did draw from his alliance with the
Kouradjines; and it was the prospect of these which had governed his conduct.
From the day when it had occurred to him to send Katinka to intercede with Mr.
Bellamy, Targatt had never once swerved from his purpose. And slowly but surely
he was beginning to reap his reward.

 
          
Mr.
Bellamy, for instance, had not seen his way to providing for the younger
Kouradjines; but he was ready enough to let Targatt in on the ground floor of
one of those lucrative deals usually reserved for the already wealthy. Mrs.
Leeper, in her turn, gave him the chance to buy a big block of Dazzle
Tooth-Paste shares on exceptional terms; and as fashion and finance became aware
of the younger Kouradjines, and fell under their
spell,
Targatt’s opportunities for making quick turnovers became almost limitless. And
now a pleasant glow stole down his spine at the thought that all previous
Kouradjine alliances paled before the staggering wealth of Boris’s bride.
“Boris really does owe me a good turn,” he mused; but he had no expectation
that it would be done with Boris’s knowledge. The new Princess Boris was indeed
induced to hand over her discarded wardrobe to Olga and Mouna, and Boris
presented cigarette cases to his brothers and brother-in-law; but here his
prodigalities ended. Targatt, however, was not troubled; for years he had
longed to meet the great Mr. Guggins, and here he was, actually related to that
gentleman’s only child!

 
          
Mr.
Guggins, when under the influence of domestic happiness or alcohol, was almost
as emotional as the Kouradjines. On his return to New York, after the parting
from his only child, he was met on the dock by Targatt and Nadeja, who
suggested his coming to dine that night at a jolly new restaurant with all the
other Kouradjines; and Mrs. Guggins was so much drawn to the old Princess, to
whom she confided how difficult it was to get reliable window-washers at Rapid
Rise, that the next day Targatt, as he would have put it, had the old man in
his pocket. Mr. Guggins stayed a week in New York, and when he departed Targatt
knew enough about the Guggins industries to make some very useful
reinvestments; and Mrs. Guggins carried off Olga as her social secretary.

 
          
  

 
          
Stimulated
by these successive achievements Targatt’s tardily developed imagination was
growing like an Indian juggler’s tree. He no longer saw any limits to what
might be done with the Kouradjines. He had already found a post for the old Prince
as New York representative of a leading firm of Paris picture-dealers, Paul and
Nick were professional dancers at fashionable night-clubs, and for the moment
only Mouna, the lovely but difficult, remained on Targatt’s mind and his
pay-roll.

 
          
It
was the first time in his life that Targatt had tasted the fruits of ease, and
he found them surprisingly palatable. He was no longer young, it took him more
time than of old to get around a golf-course, and he occasionally caught
himself telling his good stories twice over to the same listener. But life was
at once exciting and peaceful, and he had to own that his interests had been
immensely enlarged.
All that, of course, he owed in the first
instance to Nadeja.
Poor Nadeja—she was not as young as she had been,
either. She was still slender and supple, but there were little lines in the
corners of her eyes, and a certain droop of the mouth. Others might not notice
these symptoms, Targatt thought; but they had not escaped
him.
For Targatt, once so unseeing in the presence of beauty, had
now become an adept in appraising human flesh-and-blood, and smiled knowingly
when his new friends commended Mouna’s young charms, or inclined the balance in
favour of the more finished Olga. There was nothing any one could tell him now
about the relative “values” of the Kouradjines: he had them tabulated as if
they were vintage wines, and it was a comfort to him to reflect that Nadeja
was, after all, the one whose market value was least considerable. It was sheer
luck—a part of his miraculous Kouradjine luck—that his choice had fallen on the
one Kouradjine about whom there was never likely to be the least fuss or
scandal; and after an exciting day in Wall Street, or a fatiguing struggle to
extricate Paul or Mouna from some fresh scrape, he would sink back with
satisfaction into his own unruffled domesticity.

 
          
There
came a day, however, when he began to feel that the contrast between his wife
and her sisters was too much to Nadeja’s disadvantage. Was it because the
others had smarter clothes—or, like Katinka, finer jewels? Poor Nadeja, he
reflected, had never had any jewels since her engagement ring; and that was a
shabby affair. Was it possible, Targatt conjectured, that as middle age
approached she was growing dowdy, and needed the adventitious enhancements of
dress-maker and beauty doctor? Half sheepishly he suggested that she oughtn’t
to let herself be outdone by Katinka, who was two or three years her senior;
and he reinforced the suggestion by a diamond chain from Carder’s and a
good-humoured hint that she might try Mrs. Bellamy’s dress-maker.

 
          
Nadeja
received the jewel with due raptures, and appeared at their next dinner in a
gown which was favourably noticed by every one present. Katinka said: “Well, at
last poor Nadeja is really
dressed
,”
and Mouna sulked visibly, and remarked to her brother-in-law: “If you want the
right people to ask me about you might let me get a few clothes at Nadeja’s
place.”

 
          
All
this was as it should be, and Targatt’s satisfaction increased as he watched
his wife’s returning bloom. It seemed funny to him that, even on a sensible
woman like Nadeja, clothes and jewels should act as a tonic; but then the
Kouradjines
were
funny, and heaven
knew Targatt had no reason to begrudge them any of their little fancies—especially
now that Olga’s engagement to Mrs. Guggins’ brother (representative of the
Guggins interests in London and Paris) had been officially announced. When the
news came, Targatt gave his wife a pair of emerald ear-rings, and suggested
that they should take their summer holiday in Paris.

 
          
It
was the same winter that New York was thrown into a flutter by the announcement
that the famous portrait painter, Axel Svengaart, was coming over to “do” a
chosen half-dozen sitters. Svengaart had never been to New York before, had
always sworn that anybody who wanted to be painted by him must come to his
studio at Oslo; but it suddenly struck him that the American background might
give a fresh quality to his work, and after painting one lady getting out of her
car in front of her husband’s motor-works, and Mrs. Guggins against the
background of a spouting oil-well at Rapid Rise, he appeared in New York to
organise a show of these sensational canvases. New York was ringing with the
originality and audacity of this new experiment. After expecting to be “done”
in the traditional setting of the Gothic library or the Quattro Cento
salon
, it was incredibly exciting to be
portrayed literally surrounded by the acknowledged sources of one’s wealth; and
the wife of a fabulously rich plumber was nearly persuaded to be done stepping
out of her bath, in a luxury bathroom fitted with the latest ablutionary
appliances.