Free The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton Page A

to fancy a ‘nice girl’ like Harriet Ray. Harriet Ray was neither vulgar nor ambitious. She regarded Washington Square as the birthplace of Society, knew by heart all the cousinships of early New York, hated motorcars, could not make herself understood on the telephone, and was determined, if she married, never to receive a divorced woman. As Mrs Marvell often said, such girls as Harriet were growing rare. Ralph was not sure about this. He was inclined to think that, certain modifications allowed for, there would always be plenty of Harriet Rays for unworldly mothers to commend to their sons; and he had no desire to diminish their number by removing one from the ranks of the marriageable. He had no desire to marry at all – that had been the whole truth of it till he met Undine Spragg. And now –? He lit a cigar, and began to recall his hour’s conversation with Mrs Spragg.
    Ralph had never taken his mother’s social faiths very seriously. Surveying the march of civilization from a loftier angle, he had early mingled with the Invaders, and curiously observed their rites and customs. But most of those he had met had already been modified by contact with the indigenous: they spoke the same language as his, though on their lips it had often so different a meaning. Ralph had never seen them actually in the making, before they had acquired the speech of the conquered race. But Mrs Spragg still used the dialect of her people, and before the end of the visit Ralph had ceased to regret that her daughter was out. He felt obscurely that in the girl’s presence – frank and simple as he thought her – he should have learned less of life in early Apex.
    Mrs Spragg, once reconciled – or at least resigned – to the mysterious necessity of having to ‘entertain’ a friend of Undine’s, had yielded to the first touch on the weak springsof her garrulity. She had not seen Mrs Heeny for two days, and this friendly young man with the gentle manner was almost as easy to talk to as the masseuse. And then she could tell him things that Mrs Heeny already knew, and Mrs Spragg liked to repeat her stories. To do so gave her almost her sole sense of permanence among the shifting scenes of life. So that, after she had lengthily deplored the untoward accident of Undine’s absence, and her visitor, with a smile, and echoes of
divers et ondoyant
in his brain, had repeated her daughter’s name after her, saying: ‘It’s a wonderful find – how could you tell it would be such a fit?’ – it came to her quite easily to answer: ‘Why, we called her after a hair-waver father put on the market the week she was born –’ and then to explain, as he remained struck and silent: ‘It’s from
un
doolay, you know, the French for crimping; father always thought the name made it take. He was quite a scholar, and had the greatest knack for finding names. I remember the time he invented his Goliath Glue he sat up all night over the Bible to get the name … No, father didn’t start
in
as a druggist,’ she went on, expanding with the signs of Marvell’s interest; ‘he was educated for an undertaker, and built up a first-class business; but he was always a beautiful speaker, and after a while he sorter drifted into the ministry. Of course it didn’t pay him anything like as well, so finally he opened a drug-store, and he did first-rate at that too, though his heart was always in the pulpit. But after he made such a success with his hair-waver he got speculating in land out at Apex, and somehow everything went – though Mr Spragg did all he
could –
’ Mrs Spragg, when she found herself embarked on a long sentence, always ballasted it by italicizing the last word.
    Her husband, she continued, could not, at the time, do much for his father-in-law. Mr Spragg had come to Apex as a poor boy, and their early married life had been a protracted struggle, darkened by domestic affliction. Two of their three children had died of typhoid in the