Xingu (Or The Lunch Club): Chapter Two

In this short novella by Edith Wharton, we are treated to a hilarious vignette of a New York ladies' Lunch Club in the early 1920s. In Chapter Two, the group assembles nervously in Mrs Ballinger's drawing room to meet their dazzling guest Ozric Dane, author of 'The Wings of Death'.

But Ozric Dane's penetrating and some might say merciless gaze does not make her the easiest of guests, and Mrs Ballinger's failure to brief the other ladies with a discussion topic beforehand only adds to their sense of unease.

Transcript

Hello,

It's Mandy here.

Thanks for joining me tonight.

Welcome back to Jingu by Edith Wharton.

Wharton wrote and told stories from an early age.

When her family moved to Europe,

And she was about four or five,

She started what she called making up.

She invented stories for her family and walked with an open book,

Turning the pages as if reading,

While she was actually improvising a story.

She began writing poetry and fiction as a young girl and attempted to write her first novel at the age of 11.

She was just 15 years old when her first published work appeared,

A translation of a German poem.

She was paid $50 for it.

Anyway,

Before I begin,

Please go ahead and make yourself really comfortable.

Settle down into your chair or your bed.

Relax your hands.

Loosen your shoulders and soften your jaw.

That's brilliant.

So if you're ready,

Then I shall begin.

Part two.

Mrs.

Leverett,

On the eventful day,

Arrived early at Mrs.

Ballinger's,

Her volume of appropriate illusions in her pocket.

It always flustered Mrs.

Leverett to be late at the lunch club.

She liked to collect her thoughts and gather a hint,

As the others assembled,

Of the turn the conversation was likely to take.

Today,

However,

She felt herself completely at a loss,

And even the familiar contact of appropriate illusions,

Which stuck into her as she sat down,

Failed to give her any reassurance.

It was an admirable little volume,

Compiled to meet all the social emergencies,

So that,

Whether on the occasion of anniversaries,

Joyful or melancholy,

As the classification ran,

Of banquets,

Social or municipal,

Or of baptisms,

Church of England or sectarian,

Its student need never be at a loss for a pertinent reference.

Mrs.

Leverett valued it,

However,

Rather for its moral support than for its practical services,

For though in the privacy of her own room she commanded an army of quotations,

These invariably deserted her at the critical moment,

And the only phrase she retained,

Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook,

Was one she had never yet found occasion to apply.

Today she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume would hardly have ensured her self-possession,

For she thought it probable that even if she did,

In some miraculous way,

Remember an illusion,

It would be only to find that Osric Dane used a different volume.

Mrs.

Leverett was convinced that literary people always carried them,

And would consequently not recognize her quotations.

Mrs.

Leverett's sense of being adrift was intensified by the appearance of Mrs.

Ballinger's drawing room.

To a careless eye,

Its aspect was unchanged,

But those acquainted with Mrs.

Ballinger's way of arranging her books would instantly have detected the marks of recent perturbation.

Mrs.

Ballinger's province,

As a member of the lunch club,

Was the book of the day.

On that,

Whatever it was,

From a novel to a treatise on experimental psychology,

She was confidently,

Authoritatively up.

What became of last year's books,

Or last week's even,

What she did with the subjects she had previously professed with equal authority,

No one had ever yet discovered.

Her mind was a hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers,

Without leaving their address behind,

And frequently without paying for their board.

It was Mrs.

Ballinger's boast that she was abreast with the thought of the day,

And her pride that this advanced position should be expressed by the books on her table.

These volumes,

Frequently renewed and almost always damp from the press,

Bore names generally unfamiliar to Mrs.

Leverett,

And giving her,

As she furtively scanned them,

A disheartening glimpse of new fields of knowledge to be breathlessly traversed in Mrs.

Ballinger's wake.

But today,

A number of maturer-looking volumes were adjointly mingled with the primeur of the press.

Karl Marx jostled Professor Bergson,

And the Confessions of St.

Augustine lay beside the last work on Mendelism.

So that even to Mrs.

Leverett's fluttered perceptions,

It was clear that Mrs.

Ballinger didn't in the least know what Osric Dane was likely to talk about,

And had taken measures to be prepared for anything.

Mrs.

Leverett felt like a passenger on an ocean steamer,

Who is told that there is no immediate danger,

But that she had better put on her life belt.

It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van Vleuk's arrival.

Well,

My dear,

The newcomer briskly asked her hostess,

What subjects are we to discuss today?

Mrs.

Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by a copy of Verlaine.

I hardly know,

She said,

Somewhat nervously.

Perhaps we had better leave that to circumstances.

Circumstances,

Said Miss Van Vleuk dryly.

That means,

I suppose,

That Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual,

And we shall be deluged with literature.

Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vleuk's province,

And she resented any tendency to divert their guests' attention from these topics.

Mrs.

Plinth,

At this moment,

Appeared.

Literature,

She protested in a tone of remonstrance,

But this is perfectly unexpected.

I understood we were to talk of Osric Dane's novel.

Mrs.

Ballinger winced at the discrimination,

But let it pass.

We can hardly make that our chief subject,

At least not too intentionally,

She suggested.

Of course,

We can let our talk drift in that direction,

But we ought to have some other topic as an introduction,

And that is what I wanted to consult you about.

The fact is,

We know so little of Osric Dane's tastes and interests that it is difficult to make any special preparation.

It may be difficult,

Said Mrs.

Plinth,

With decision,

But it is necessary.

I know what that happy-go-lucky principle leads to.

As I told one of my nieces the other day,

There are certain emergencies for which a lady should always be prepared.

It's in shocking taste to wear colours when one pays a visit of condolence,

Or a last year's dress when there are reports that one's husband is on the wrong side of the market,

And so it is with conversation.

All I ask is that I should know beforehand what is to be talked about.

Then I feel sure of being able to say the proper thing.

I quite agree with you,

Mrs.

Ballinger assented,

But.

.

.

And at that instant,

Heralded by the fluttered parlour maid,

Osric Dane appeared upon the threshold.

Mrs.

Leverett told her sister afterwards that she had known at a glance what was coming.

She saw that Osric Dane was not going to meet them halfway.

That distinguished personage had indeed entered with an air of compulsion,

Not calculated to promote the easy exercise of hospitality.

She looked as though she were about to be photographed for a new edition of her books.

The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio to its responsiveness,

And the sense of discouragement produced by Osric Dane's entrance visibly increased the lunch club's eagerness to please her.

Any lingering idea that she might consider herself under an obligation to her entertainers was at once dispelled by her manner.

As Mrs.

Leverett said afterward to her sister,

She had a way of looking at you that made you feel as if there was something wrong with your hat.

This evidence of greatness produced such an immediate impression on the ladies that a shudder of awe ran through them when Mrs.

Robey,

As their hostess led the great personage into the dining room,

Turned back to whisper to the others,

What a brute she is.

The hour about the table did not tend to revise this verdict.

It was passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs.

Ballinger's menu,

And by the members of the club in the omission of tentative platitudes,

Which their guests seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive courses of the luncheon.

Mrs.

Ballinger's reluctance to fix the topic had thrown the club into a mental disarray,

Which increased with the return to the drawing room,

Where the actual business of discussion was to open.

Each lady waited for the others to speak,

And there was a general shock of disappointment when their hostess opened the conversation by the painfully commonplace inquiry,

Is this your first visit to Hillbridge?

Even Mrs.

Leverett was conscious that this was a beginning,

And a vague impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject,

It is a very small place indeed.

Mrs.

Plinth bristled,

We have a great many representative people,

She said,

In the tone of one who speaks for her order.

Osric Dane turned to her,

What do they represent,

She asked.

Mrs.

Plinth's constitutional dislike to being questioned was intensified by her sense of unpreparedness,

And her reproachful glance passed the question on to Mrs.

Ballinger.

Why,

Said that lady,

Glancing in turn at the other members,

As a community,

I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for culture.

For art,

Miss Glyde interjected,

For art and literature,

Mrs.

Ballinger amended,

And for sociology I trust,

Snapped Miss Van Vleuk.

We have a standard,

Said Mrs.

Plinth,

Feeling herself suddenly secure on the vast expanse of generalisation,

And Mrs.

Leverett,

Thinking there must be room for more than one on so broad a statement,

Took courage to murmur,

Oh certainly we have a standard.

The object of our little club,

Mrs.

Ballinger continued,

Is to concentrate the highest tendencies of Hilbridge,

To centralise and focus its intellectual effort.

This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost audible breath of relief.

We aspire,

The president went on,

To be in touch with whatever is highest in art,

Literature and ethics.

Osric Dane turned to her again,

What ethics?

She asked.

A tremor of apprehension encircled the room.

None of the ladies required any preparation to pronounce on the question of morals,

But when they were called ethics it was different.

The club,

When fresh from the Encyclopædia Britannica,

The Reader's Handbook or Smith's Classical Dictionary,

Could deal confidently with any subject,

But when taken unawares it had been known to define agnosticism as a heresy of the early church,

And Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist.

And such minor members as Mrs.

Leverett still secretly regarded ethics as something vaguely pagan.

Even to Mrs.

Ballinger,

Osric Dane's question was unsettling,

And there was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glide leaned forward to say,

With her most sympathetic accent,

You must excuse us,

Mrs.

Dane,

For not being able,

Just at present,

To talk of anything but the wings of death.

Yes,

Said Miss Van Vleuk,

With a sudden resolve to carry the war into the enemy's camp.

We are so anxious to know the exact purpose you had in mind in writing your wonderful book.

You will find,

Mrs.

Plinth interposed,

That we are not superficial readers.

We are eager to hear from you,

Miss Van Vleuk continued,

If the pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own convictions,

Or merely,

Miss Glide thrust in,

A sombre background brushed in to throw your figures into more vivid relief.

Are you not primarily plastic?

I have always maintained,

Mrs.

Ballinger interposed,

That you represent the purely objective method.

Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee.

How do you define objective,

She then inquired.

There was a flurried pause before Laura Glide intensely murmured,

In reading you,

We don't define,

We feel.

Osric Dane smiled.

The cerebellum,

She remarked,

Is not infrequently the seat of the literary emotions,

And she took a second glump of sugar.

The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal,

Was almost neutralized by the satisfaction of being addressed in such technical language.

Ah,

The cerebellum,

Said Miss Van Vleuk,

Complacently.

The club took a course in psychology last winter.

Which psychology,

Asked Osric Dane.

There was an agonizing pause,

During which each member of the club secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others.

Only Mrs.

Robey went on placidly sipping her chartreuse.

At last,

Mrs.

Ballinger said,

With an attempt at a high tone,

Well,

Really,

You know,

It was last year that we took psychology,

And this winter we have been so absorbed in.

She broke off,

Nervously trying to recall some of the club's discussions,

But her faculty seemed to be paralyzed by the petrifying stare of Osric Dane.

What had the club been absorbed in?

Mrs.

Ballinger,

With a vague purpose of gaining time,

Repeated slowly,

We've been so intensely absorbed.

Mrs.

Robey put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with a smile.

In Jingu,

She gently prompted,

A thrill ran through the other members.

They exchanged confused glances and then,

With one accord,

Turned a gaze of mingled relief and interrogation on their rescuer.

The expression of each denoted a different phase of the same emotion.

Mrs.

Plinth was the first to compose her features to an air of reassurance.

After a moment's hasty adjustment,

Her look almost implied that it was she who had given the word to Mrs.

Ballinger.

Jingu,

Of course,

Exclaimed the latter with her accustomed promptness,

While Miss Van Vleuk and Laura Glide seemed to be plumbing the depths of memory,

And Mrs.

Leverett,

Feeling apprehensively for appropriate illusions,

Was somehow reassured by the uncomfortable pressure of its bulk against her person.

Osric Dane's change of countenance was no less striking than that of her entertainers.

She too put down her coffee cup,

But with a look of distinct annoyance.

She too wore,

For a brief moment,

What Mrs.

Robey afterward described as a look of feeling for something in the back of her head.

And before she could dissemble these momentary signs of weakness,

Mrs.

Robey,

Turning to her with a deferential smile,

Said,

And we've been so hoping that today you would tell us just what you think of it.

To be continued.

Reviews

Hilarious! Thanks, Mandy, for bringing this story to life! 💖😊

Love the biting satire; yet I can’t dislike these ladies who are all too human. Thanks Mandy🙏🏻

LOL this story is hilarious! I can see the great Dames of theater sitting around the table, looking so proper, nervously shifting looks from one to another to get out of one predicament after another! 🙏🏻😆💖