Chapter: The blinds of Mrs. Peniston's drawing-room were drawn down against the
oppressive June sun, and in the sultry twilight the faces of her
assembled relatives took on a fitting shadow of bereavement. They were
all there: Van Alstynes, Stepneys and Melsons--even a stray Peniston or
two, indicating, by a greater latitude in dress and manner, the fact of
remoter relationship and more settled hopes. The Peniston side was, in
fact, secure in the knowledge that the bulk of Mr. Peniston's property
"went back"; while the direct connection hung suspended on the disposal
of his widow's private fortune and on the uncertainty of its extent.
Jack Stepney, in his new character as the richest nephew, tacitly took
the lead, emphasizing his importance by the deeper gloss of his mourning
and the subdued authority of his manner; while his wife's bored attitude
and frivolous gown proclaimed the heiress's disregard of the
insignificant interests at stake. Old Ned Van Alstyne, seated next to her
in a coat that made affliction dapper, twirled his white moustache to
conceal the eager twitch of his lips; and Grace Stepney, red-nosed and
smelling of crape, whispered emotionally to Mrs. Herbert Melson: "I
couldn't BEAR to see the Niagara anywhere else!"

A rustle of weeds and quick turning of heads hailed the opening of the
door, and Lily Bart appeared, tall and noble in her black dress, with
Gerty Farish at her side. The women's faces, as she paused
interrogatively on the threshold, were a study in hesitation. One or two
made faint motions of recognition, which might have been subdued either
by the solemnity of the scene, or by the doubt as to how far the others
meant to go; Mrs. Jack Stepney gave a careless nod, and Grace Stepney,
with a sepulchral gesture, indicated a seat at her side. But Lily,
ignoring the invitation, as well as Jack Stepney's official attempt to
direct her, moved across the room with her smooth free gait, and seated
herself in a chair which seemed to have been purposely placed apart from
the others.

It was the first time that she had faced her family since her return from
Europe, two weeks earlier; but if she perceived any uncertainty in their
welcome, it served only to add a tinge of irony to the usual composure of
her bearing. The shock of dismay with which, on the dock, she had heard
from Gerty Farish of Mrs. Peniston's sudden death, had been mitigated,
almost at once, by the irrepressible thought that now, at last, she would
be able to pay her debts. She had looked forward with considerable
uneasiness to her first encounter with her aunt.  Mrs. Peniston had
vehemently opposed her niece's departure with the Dorsets, and had marked
her continued disapproval by not writing during Lily's absence. The
certainty that she had heard of the rupture with the Dorsets made the
prospect of the meeting more formidable; and how should Lily have
repressed a quick sense of relief at the thought that, instead of
undergoing the anticipated ordeal, she had only to enter gracefully on a
long-assured inheritance? It had been, in the consecrated phrase, "always
understood" that Mrs. Peniston was to provide handsomely for her niece;
and in the latter's mind the understanding had long since crystallized
into fact.

"She gets everything, of course--I don't see what we're here for," Mrs.
Jack Stepney remarked with careless loudness to Ned Van Alstyne; and the
latter's deprecating murmur--"Julia was always a just woman"--might have
been interpreted as signifying either acquiescence or doubt.

"Well, it's only about four hundred thousand," Mrs. Stepney rejoined with
a yawn; and Grace Stepney, in the silence produced by the lawyer's
preliminary cough, was heard to sob out: "They won't find a towel
missing--I went over them with her the very day----"

Lily, oppressed by the close atmosphere, and the stifling odour of fresh
mourning, felt her attention straying as Mrs. Peniston's lawyer, solemnly
erect behind the Buhl table at the end of the room, began to rattle
through the preamble of the will.

"It's like being in church," she reflected, wondering vaguely where Gwen
Stepney had got such an awful hat. Then she noticed how stout Jack had
grown--he would soon be almost as plethoric as Herbert Melson, who sat a
few feet off, breathing puffily as he leaned his black-gloved hands on
his stick.

"I wonder why rich people always grow fat--I suppose it's because there's
nothing to worry them. If I inherit, I shall have to be careful of my
figure," she mused, while the lawyer droned on through a labyrinth of
legacies. The servants came first, then a few charitable institutions,
then several remoter Melsons and Stepneys, who stirred consciously as
their names rang out, and then subsided into a state of impassiveness
befitting the solemnity of the occasion. Ned Van Alstyne, Jack Stepney,
and a cousin or two followed, each coupled with the mention of a few
thousands: Lily wondered that Grace Stepney was not among them.  Then she
heard her own name--"to my niece Lily Bart ten thousand dollars--" and
after that the lawyer again lost himself in a coil of unintelligible
periods, from which the concluding phrase flashed out with startling
distinctness: "and the residue of my estate to my dear cousin and
name-sake, Grace Julia Stepney."

There was a subdued gasp of surprise, a rapid turning of heads, and a
surging of sable figures toward the corner in which Miss Stepney wailed
out her sense of unworthiness through the crumpled ball of a black-edged
handkerchief.

Lily stood apart from the general movement, feeling herself for the first
time utterly alone. No one looked at her, no one seemed aware of her
presence; she was probing the very depths of insignificance. And under
her sense of the collective indifference came the acuter pang of hopes
deceived.  Disinherited--she had been disinherited--and for Grace
Stepney!  She met Gerty's lamentable eyes, fixed on her in a despairing
effort at consolation, and the look brought her to herself. There was
something to be done before she left the house: to be done with all the
nobility she knew how to put into such gestures. She advanced to the
group about Miss Stepney, and holding out her hand said simply: "Dear
Grace, I am so glad."

The other ladies had fallen back at her approach, and a space created
itself about her. It widened as she turned to go, and no one advanced to
fill it up. She paused a moment, glancing about her, calmly taking the
measure of her situation. She heard some one ask a question about the
date of the will; she caught a fragment of the lawyer's answer--something
about a sudden summons, and an "earlier instrument." Then the tide of
dispersal began to drift past her; Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Herbert
Melson stood on the doorstep awaiting their motor; a sympathizing group
escorted Grace Stepney to the cab it was felt to be fitting she should
take, though she lived but a street or two away; and Miss Bart and Gerty
found themselves almost alone in the purple drawing-room, which more than
ever, in its stuffy dimness, resembled a well-kept family vault, in which
the last corpse had just been decently deposited.



In Gerty Farish's sitting-room, whither a hansom had carried the two
friends, Lily dropped into a chair with a faint sound of laughter: it
struck her as a humorous coincidence that her aunt's legacy should so
nearly represent the amount of her debt to Trenor. The need of
discharging that debt had reasserted itself with increased urgency since
her return to America, and she spoke her first thought in saying to the
anxiously hovering Gerty: "I wonder when the legacies will be paid."

But Miss Farish could not pause over the legacies; she broke into a
larger indignation. "Oh, Lily, it's unjust; it's cruel--Grace Stepney
must FEEL she has no right to all that money!"

"Any one who knew how to please Aunt Julia has a right to her money,"
Miss Bart rejoined philosophically.

"But she was devoted to you--she led every one to think--" Gerty checked
herself in evident embarrassment, and Miss Bart turned to her with a
direct look. "Gerty, be honest: this will was made only six weeks ago.
She had heard of my break with the Dorsets?"

"Every one heard, of course, that there had been some disagreement--some
misunderstanding----"

"Did she hear that Bertha turned me off the yacht?"

"Lily!"

"That was what happened, you know. She said I was trying to marry George
Dorset. She did it to make him think she was jealous.  Isn't that what
she told Gwen Stepney?"

"I don't know--I don't listen to such horrors."

"I MUST listen to them--I must know where I stand." She paused, and again
sounded a faint note of derision. "Did you notice the women? They were
afraid to snub me while they thought I was going to get the
money--afterward they scuttled off as if I had the plague." Gerty
remained silent, and she continued: "I stayed on to see what would
happen. They took their cue from Gwen Stepney and Lulu Melson--I saw them
watching to see what Gwen would do.--Gerty, I must know just what is
being said of me."

"I tell you I don't listen----"

"One hears such things without listening." She rose and laid her resolute
hands on Miss Farish's shoulders. "Gerty, are people going to cut me?"

"Your FRIENDS, Lily--how can you think it?"

"Who are one's friends at such a time? Who, but you, you poor trustful
darling? And heaven knows what YOU suspect me of!" She kissed Gerty with
a whimsical murmur. "You'd never let it make any difference--but then
you're fond of criminals, Gerty! How about the irreclaimable ones,
though? For I'm absolutely impenitent, you know."

She drew herself up to the full height of her slender majesty, towering
like some dark angel of defiance above the troubled Gerty, who could only
falter out: "Lily, Lily--how can you laugh about such things?"

"So as not to weep, perhaps. But no--I'm not of the tearful order. I
discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge has
helped me through several painful episodes." She took a restless turn
about the room, and then, reseating herself, lifted the bright mockery of
her eyes to Gerty's anxious countenance.

"I shouldn't have minded, you know, if I'd got the money--" and at Miss
Farish's protesting "Oh!" she repeated calmly: "Not a straw, my dear;
for, in the first place, they wouldn't have quite dared to ignore me; and
if they had, it wouldn't have mattered, because I should have been
independent of them. But now--!" The irony faded from her eyes, and she
bent a clouded face upon her friend.

"How can you talk so, Lily? Of course the money ought to have been yours,
but after all that makes no difference. The important thing----" Gerty
paused, and then continued firmly: "The important thing is that you
should clear yourself--should tell your friends the whole truth."

"The whole truth?" Miss Bart laughed. "What is truth? Where a woman is
concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a
great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's story than mine, because she
has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms
with her."

Miss Farish still fixed her with an anxious gaze. "But what IS your
story, Lily? I don't believe any one knows it yet."

"My story?--I don't believe I know it myself. You see I never thought of
preparing a version in advance as Bertha did--and if I had, I don't think
I should take the trouble to use it now."

But Gerty continued with her quiet reasonableness: "I don't want a
version prepared in advance--but I want you to tell me exactly what
happened from the beginning."

"From the beginning?" Miss Bart gently mimicked her. "Dear Gerty, how
little imagination you good people have! Why, the beginning was in my
cradle, I suppose--in the way I was brought up, and the things I was
taught to care for. Or no--I won't blame anybody for my faults: I'll say
it was in my blood, that I got it from some wicked pleasure-loving
ancestress, who reacted against the homely virtues of New Amsterdam, and
wanted to be back at the court of the Charleses!" And as Miss Farish
continued to press her with troubled eyes, she went on impatiently: "You
asked me just now for the truth--well, the truth about any girl is that
once she's talked about she's done for; and the more she explains her
case the worse it looks.--My good Gerty, you don't happen to have a
cigarette about you?"



In her stuffy room at the hotel to which she had gone on landing, Lily
Bart that evening reviewed her situation. It was the last week in June,
and none of her friends were in town. The few relatives who had stayed
on, or returned, for the reading of Mrs. Peniston's will, had taken
flight again that afternoon to Newport or Long Island; and not one of
them had made any proffer of hospitality to Lily. For the first time in
her life she found herself utterly alone except for Gerty Farish. Even at
the actual moment of her break with the Dorsets she had not had so keen a
sense of its consequences, for the Duchess of Beltshire, hearing of the
catastrophe from Lord Hubert, had instantly offered her protection, and
under her sheltering wing Lily had made an almost triumphant progress to
London. There she had been sorely tempted to linger on in a society which
asked of her only to amuse and charm it, without enquiring too curiously
how she had acquired her gift for doing so; but Selden, before they
parted, had pressed on her the urgent need of returning at once to her
aunt, and Lord Hubert, when he presently reappeared in London, abounded
in the same counsel. Lily did not need to be told that the Duchess's
championship was not the best road to social rehabilitation, and as she
was besides aware that her noble defender might at any moment drop her in
favour of a new PROTEGEE, she reluctantly decided to return to America.
But she had not been ten minutes on her native shore before she realized
that she had delayed too long to regain it. The Dorsets, the Stepneys,
the Brys--all the actors and witnesses in the miserable drama--had
preceded her with their version of the case; and, even had she seen the
least chance of gaining a hearing for her own, some obscure disdain and
reluctance would have restrained her.  She knew it was not by
explanations and counter-charges that she could ever hope to recover her
lost standing; but even had she felt the least trust in their efficacy,
she would still have been held back by the feeling which had kept her
from defending herself to Gerty Farish--a feeling that was half pride and
half humiliation. For though she knew she had been ruthlessly sacrificed
to Bertha Dorset's determination to win back her husband, and though her
own relation to Dorset had been that of the merest good-fellowship, yet
she had been perfectly aware from the outset that her part in the affair
was, as Carry Fisher brutally put it, to distract Dorset's attention from
his wife.  That was what she was "there for": it was the price she had
chosen to pay for three months of luxury and freedom from care.  Her
habit of resolutely facing the facts, in her rare moments of
introspection, did not now allow her to put any false gloss on the
situation. She had suffered for the very faithfulness with which she had
carried out her part of the tacit compact, but the part was not a
handsome one at best, and she saw it now in all the ugliness of failure.

She saw, too, in the same uncompromising light, the train of consequences
resulting from that failure; and these became clearer to her with every
day of her weary lingering in town. She stayed on partly for the comfort
of Gerty Farish's nearness, and partly for lack of knowing where to go.
She understood well enough the nature of the task before her. She must
set out to regain, little by little, the position she had lost; and the
first step in the tedious task was to find out, as soon as possible, on
how many of her friends she could count. Her hopes were mainly centred on
Mrs. Trenor, who had treasures of easy-going tolerance for those who were
amusing or useful to her, and in the noisy rush of whose existence the
still small voice of detraction was slow to make itself heard. But Judy,
though she must have been apprised of Miss Bart's return, had not even
recognized it by the formal note of condolence which her friend's
bereavement demanded.  Any advance on Lily's side might have been
perilous: there was nothing to do but to trust to the happy chance of an
accidental meeting, and Lily knew that, even so late in the season, there
was always a hope of running across her friends in their frequent
passages through town.

To this end she assiduously showed herself at the restaurants they
frequented, where, attended by the troubled Gerty, she lunched
luxuriously, as she said, on her expectations.

"My dear Gerty, you wouldn't have me let the head-waiter see that I've
nothing to live on but Aunt Julia's legacy? Think of Grace Stepney's
satisfaction if she came in and found us lunching on cold mutton and tea!
What sweet shall we have today, dear--COUPE JACQUES or PECHES A LA MELBA?"

She dropped the MENU abruptly, with a quick heightening of colour, and
Gerty, following her glance, was aware of the advance, from an inner
room, of a party headed by Mrs. Trenor and Carry Fisher. It was
impossible for these ladies and their companions--among whom Lily had at
once distinguished both Trenor and Rosedale--not to pass, in going out,
the table at which the two girls were seated; and Gerty's sense of the
fact betrayed itself in the helpless trepidation of her manner.  Miss
Bart, on the contrary, borne forward on the wave of her buoyant grace,
and neither shrinking from her friends nor appearing to lie in wait for
them, gave to the encounter the touch of naturalness which she could
impart to the most strained situations. Such embarrassment as was shown
was on Mrs. Trenor's side, and manifested itself in the mingling of
exaggerated warmth with imperceptible reservations. Her loudly affirmed
pleasure at seeing Miss Bart took the form of a nebulous generalization,
which included neither enquiries as to her future nor the expression of a
definite wish to see her again. Lily, well-versed in the language of
these omissions, knew that they were equally intelligible to the other
members of the party: even Rosedale, flushed as he was with the
importance of keeping such company, at once took the temperature of Mrs.
Trenor's cordiality, and reflected it in his off-hand greeting of Miss
Bart. Trenor, red and uncomfortable, had cut short his salutations on the
pretext of a word to say to the head-waiter; and the rest of the group
soon melted away in Mrs. Trenor's wake.

It was over in a moment--the waiter, MENU in hand, still hung on the
result of the choice between COUPE JACQUES and PECHES A LA MELBA--but
Miss Bart, in the interval, had taken the measure of her fate. Where Judy
Trenor led, all the world would follow; and Lily had the doomed sense of
the castaway who has signalled in vain to fleeing sails.

In a flash she remembered Mrs. Trenor's complaints of Carry Fisher's
rapacity, and saw that they denoted an unexpected acquaintance with her
husband's private affairs. In the large tumultuous disorder of the life
at Bellomont, where no one seemed to have time to observe any one else,
and private aims and personal interests were swept along unheeded in the
rush of collective activities, Lily had fancied herself sheltered from
inconvenient scrutiny; but if Judy knew when Mrs. Fisher borrowed money
of her husband, was she likely to ignore the same transaction on Lily's
part? If she was careless of his affections she was plainly jealous of
his pocket; and in that fact Lily read the explanation of her rebuff. The
immediate result of these conclusions was the passionate resolve to pay
back her debt to Trenor. That obligation discharged, she would have but a
thousand dollars of Mrs. Peniston's legacy left, and nothing to live on
but her own small income, which was considerably less than Gerty Farish's
wretched pittance; but this consideration gave way to the imperative
claim of her wounded pride.  She must be quits with the Trenors first;
after that she would take thought for the future.

In her ignorance of legal procrastinations she had supposed that her
legacy would be paid over within a few days of the reading of her aunt's
will; and after an interval of anxious suspense, she wrote to enquire the
cause of the delay. There was another interval before Mrs. Peniston's
lawyer, who was also one of the executors, replied to the effect that,
some questions having arisen relative to the interpretation of the will,
he and his associates might not be in a position to pay the legacies till
the close of the twelvemonth legally allotted for their settlement.
Bewildered and indignant, Lily resolved to try the effect of a personal
appeal; but she returned from her expedition with a sense of the
powerlessness of beauty and charm against the unfeeling processes of the
law. It seemed intolerable to live on for another year under the weight
of her debt; and in her extremity she decided to turn to Miss Stepney,
who still lingered in town, immersed in the delectable duty of "going
over" her benefactress's effects. It was bitter enough for Lily to ask a
favour of Grace Stepney, but the alternative was bitterer still; and one
morning she presented herself at Mrs. Peniston's, where Grace, for the
facilitation of her pious task, had taken up a provisional abode.

The strangeness of entering as a suppliant the house where she had so
long commanded, increased Lily's desire to shorten the ordeal; and when
Miss Stepney entered the darkened drawing-room, rustling with the best
quality of crape, her visitor went straight to the point: would she be
willing to advance the amount of the expected legacy?

Grace, in reply, wept and wondered at the request, bemoaned the
inexorableness of the law, and was astonished that Lily had not realized
the exact similarity of their positions. Did she think that only the
payment of the legacies had been delayed? Why, Miss Stepney herself had
not received a penny of her inheritance, and was paying rent--yes,
actually!--for the privilege of living in a house that belonged to her.
She was sure it was not what poor dear cousin Julia would have
wished--she had told the executors so to their faces; but they were
inaccessible to reason, and there was nothing to do but to wait. Let Lily
take example by her, and be patient--let them both remember how
beautifully patient cousin Julia had always been.

Lily made a movement which showed her imperfect assimilation of this
example. "But you will have everything, Grace--it would be easy for you
to borrow ten times the amount I am asking for."

"Borrow--easy for me to borrow?" Grace Stepney rose up before her in
sable wrath. "Do you imagine for a moment that I would raise money on my
expectations from cousin Julia, when I know so well her unspeakable
horror of every transaction of the sort? Why, Lily, if you must know the
truth, it was the idea of your being in debt that brought on her
illness--you remember she had a slight attack before you sailed. Oh, I
don't know the particulars, of course--I don't WANT to know them--but
there were rumours about your affairs that made her most unhappy--no one
could be with her without seeing that. I can't help it if you are
offended by my telling you this now--if I can do anything to make you
realize the folly of your course, and how deeply SHE disapproved of it, I
shall feel it is the truest way of making up to you for her loss."

 We're back in New York, two weeks after Lily's return from Europe. Mrs. Peniston has died, and everyone has gathered to hear the reading of her will. Her estate, valued at about four hundred thousand dollars, is assumed to be left to Lily. Unfortunately for our protagonist, Mrs. Peniston, having heard of Lily's scandalous break with Bertha , leaves only ten thousand dollars to her, and the rest to Grace Stepney. Lily is shocked but manages to keep herself under control, say something nice to Grace, and watch as the crowd of social elite leaves the room with the now-rich Grace. Lily remains alone with Gerty Farish, realizing that she's now completely insignificant to the People Who Matter. Lily and Gerty go back to Gerty's place, mostly because Lily has no other place to go. She finds it amusing that her legacy from her aunt is only a thousand bucks more than the nine grand she owes Trenor. Gerty is firmly on Lily's side. She thinks it's ridiculous that Grace got the inheritance, as she certainly didn't have any "right" to the money. Lily is almost able to laugh at her situation because she realizes she's completely, completely screwed. She knows that it's easier for society to believe Bertha's version of the story than her own, because Bertha is loaded and Lily has nothing to her name at this point. Still, she doesn't seem angry, and she's not blaming Bertha or anyone else for her current situation. "It's in my blood," she says, meaning it was her upbringing to require luxury and be dependent on things like appearances and reputation. It's now the last week in June, and Lily is staying at a hotel in New York. She recounts recent events: after Bertha turned her off the yacht, Lily made plans to return to New York. Unfortunately, she got there too late, and news of the break with the Dorsets had already reached the social circles in the city. Rather than defend herself by telling the truth, Lily merely accepted what had happened. She muses that a feeling of "half pride and half humiliation" kept her from trying to bring the real story to light. She knows that it was her job to distract George from Bertha's affair, that she was required to perform that service in order to earn the right to live in luxury aboard the Sabrina. Lily now knows that her goal is to regain her social position in New York, and she's hoping that Mrs. Trenor can help her do that. One day, out to lunch with Gerty, Lily does indeed spot Mrs. Trenor, out with Mrs. Fisher, Mr. Trenor, Simon Rosedale, and others. Lily has been waiting for such an "accidental encounter" to re-instill herself in Mrs. Trenor's good graces, but Mrs. Trenor gives her the cold shoulder. This greatly concerns Lily, since "where Judy Trenor , all the world follow." She suddenly remembers how much Mrs. Trenor always disliked Mrs. Fisher's mooching off her husband, financially. Lily realizes that Mrs. Trenor isn't jealous of her husband's affections - only his wallet. Lily immediately commits herself to paying Gus back the nine thousand, just as soon as she gets her legacy from Aunt Peniston's will. She realizes that, with that inheritance gone, all she will have to live on is a very small income - even less than Gerty Farish. Another problem is the delay in getting the cash from the will. Apparently it's going to take a year for the lawyers to sort out the details, which leaves Lily high and dry in the meantime. She realizes she'll have to ask Grace Stepney to loan her the ten thousand ahead of time. So, Lily goes to Mrs. Peniston's former house to see Grace. Grace is mourning over Mrs. Peniston's death, and tells Lily that she herself is in the same position - she hasn't yet received her own inheritance. Lily asks if Grace could borrow the money on Lily's behalf, but Grace refuses. Mrs. Peniston hated the idea of debt, and in fact it was the news of Lily's own debts that made her so ill and probably caused her death. Grace wouldn't dare to disgrace her memory by taking on a debt for the inheritance.

