The Pretext by Edith Wharton (1930)
Margaret Ransom, the middle-aged wife of a Wentworth lawyer, discovers after a visit from Guy Dawnish, a young Englishman her husband has taken under his wing, that she can still blush and feel young. Studying herself in her mirror, she loosens her hair and considers small vanities, then checks herself against her strict New England conscience. Her husband Robert Ransom, absorbed and slightly fatuous, reminds her of that evening's college banquet at Hamblin Hall, where he is to speak for the bar, and has the maid telephone Dawnish to escort Margaret to hear the speeches. Alone, Margaret reviews Dawnish's photographs of his family's English world—Guise Abbey, his uncle Lord Askern, the tennis party where a girl named Gwendolen Matcher is pictured near him—and reflects on how richly connected his life is compared to Wentworth's flat routine, and on his hints that he is reluctant to leave. At the banquet, overwhelmed by heat and by hearing her husband speak, Margaret asks Dawnish to take her outside. They walk to a bench by the river near Hamblin Hall, where Dawnish, agitated, says he has something to tell her before he leaves. Margaret, sensing a confession of love, begs him not to name it, asking to leave their friendship undefined "like an unfinished picture." He submits, kisses her hands, and they part as Ransom's unglamorous figure appears ahead. During Dawnish's remaining days in Wentworth he does not seek her out alone, which she reads as delicacy. On his last day, an unexpected visit from Mrs. Sperry prevents any private farewell; he later stops by after dinner while Ransom is present, and Margaret loses her chance to touch his hand in parting. After his departure she lives in secret exaltation, treasuring the memory and his subsequent, increasingly infrequent letters, and gradually resumes her ordinary domestic and social routine, including devoted study of English Gothic cathedrals for the Higher Thought Club. Months later a friend's letter from London reports gossip that Dawnish, though understood to be engaged to an heiress, Gwendolen Matcher, has broken it off, citing an "unfortunate attachment," to his family's dismay. Soon after, Margaret finds a Times clipping among her husband's papers confirming the broken engagement. She weeps, believing herself the cause, and treasures the belief as proof of a great unspoken love, resisting the urge to write him a consoling letter. Nearly a year after their bench conversation, as Margaret prepares her cathedral paper for the Club, Lady Caroline Duckett, Dawnish's sharp, worldly aunt, arrives from England demanding to know the identity of the woman for whom her nephew jilted Gwendolen Matcher, believing it must be Robert Ransom's daughter-in-law. Margaret, confused, eventually realizes Lady Caroline has mistaken her for an older relation and has never suspected Margaret herself of being the woman in question. When Margaret states plainly that she is Mrs. Robert Ransom, Lady Caroline is startled, then baldly explains that Dawnish must have used Margaret's name only as a pretext to cover his real attachment to someone else, and presses Margaret—unsuccessfully—to help identify that other woman before departing, unrepentant about the intrusion. Left alone, Margaret climbs to her room and again faces her mirror, now seeing only her true, aging face and understanding she was merely a pretext, not a beloved. She feels no anger, only enduring sadness, recognizes that her life in Wentworth will go on unchanged, and returns to the ordinary task of finishing her lecture notes on cathedral architecture as her husband's daily return approaches.
By Edith Wharton · First published 1930 · Genre: Social Realism, Psychological Fiction, Drama · 5 chapters · 15,114 words
First lines
MRS. RANSOM, when the front door had closed on her visitor, passed with / a spring from the drawing-room to the narrow hall, and thence up the / narrow stairs to her bedroom.
Though slender, and still light of foot, she did not always move so / quickly: hitherto, in her life, there had not been much to hurry for, / save the recurring domestic tasks that compel haste without fostering / elasticity; but some impetus of youth revived, communicated to her by / her talk with Guy Dawnish, now found expression in her girlish flight / upstairs, her girlish impatience to bolt herself into her room with her / throbs and her blushes.
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The Pretext is listed on Textopian as a short story by Edith Wharton, dated 1930 CE.
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- Work type: Short story
- Author: Edith Wharton
- Date: 1930 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Social Realism, Psychological Fiction, Drama, Romance
- Length: 15,114 words
- Structure: 5 chapters, 188 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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Genres
- Social Realism — The narrative focuses on the social dynamics and moral values of the upper class society.
- Psychological Fiction — The narrative delves into the psychological complexities of its characters.
- Drama — The narrative is filled with emotional conflicts and dramatic turns.
- Romance — The narrative includes romantic relationships as a central theme.
Tags
Romance · Novel · Classic · Literary Fiction · Social Commentary · Psychological Insight · Character Study · Marriage · Deception · Society · Upper Class · American Literature