Summary
At the Bellomont, Lily and Mrs. Trenor are gossiping as
usual. Mrs. Trenor tells Lily that Percy Gryce has left Bellomont
because he felt snubbed when Lily canceled her walk with him to
spend time with Selden. Worse, Gryce's departure may have been influenced
by Bertha Dorset, who told Gryce about the "skeletons" in Lily's
closet as well as her serious financial problems related to gambling
debt. Lily thought she could simply spend one day with Selden and
the rest of her stay with Gryce in at attempt to win him over, but
her hopes of marrying him are not yet defeated. Still, she knows
that Gryce has become a topic of conversation among the women at
the Bellomont, most of whom find him disagreeable. Lily also realizes
that she is accruing enormous debt from gambling and buying nice
clothes, so she decides to return to the house of her aunt, Mrs.
Peniston, as soon as possible.
Before leaving, Lily goes to the train station to pick
up Gus Trenor, coming home to the Bellomont from a business trip.
As they talk on the ride, the topic of Wall Street and investment
comes up. Knowing that some of her friends have had success with
stock market speculation, Lily decides to ask Trenor to invest some
money for her. Trenor assents, although we later find out that he
is interested in helping Lily because he is sexually attracted to
her. Lily confesses to him that she is considering marriage to Gryce,
about which Trenor expresses disgust. She admits that she needs
more financial security and is no longer able to stay at the Bellomont.
The Wall Street speculation works initially; Lily begins
receiving checks, which she uses to pay off her various gambling
and clothing debts. She feels a sense of superiority over women
such as Carry Fisher, who rely on the rich men with whom they flirt
to pay off their debts. Several weeks after she begins investing,
Lily's cousin Jack Stepney marries Gwen Van Osburgh. At the wedding,
Lily meets Gerty Farish, a socially inept and generally disliked
cousin of Selden who spends a lot time with him. Lily learns to
her horror that Gryce and Evie Van Osburgh, the youngest Van Osburgh
daughter, have been courting one another since they met at the Dorsets'
house under the invitation of Bertha Dorset. Lily now knows that
Bertha actively tried to prevent her marriage to Gryce.
Financially, Lily's investments continue to produce money;
Lily receives another check for $4,000.
Trenor invites her to return to the Bellomont to stay for several
weeks, but Lily refuses his offer at first. He also encourages her
to be friendly to Simon Rosedale, to whom Lily is ordinarily rude
because she dislikes him intensely, as we see in a meeting between
the two.
Chapter Nine introduces us to Mrs. Peniston and her house
at Richfield, which Mrs. Peniston cleans thoroughly once every autumn.
At her aunt's house, Lily has ample time to wander and think about
her social situation, and she decides to stay away from the Bellomont
until the Christmas holidays because the people there have become
bored with her, knowing her too well.
Later that fall, Lily receives a visit from Mrs. Haffen,
the woman who worked as a maid at the Benedick, where Selden lives.
She presents to Lily a collection of letters written to Selden which
he had not properly destroyed after reading. The letters, written
by Bertha Dorset, are presumably love notes she wrote to Selden
when they were having an affair (though this is never said explicitly).
Realizing the letters could hurt Selden if they fell into the wrong
hands, Lily purchases them from Mrs. Haffen and decides to destroy
them. Before she can do so, however, Mrs. Peniston returns from
Stepney's wedding and announces that Bertha was personally responsible
for arranging the marriage between Evie Van Osburgh and Gryce. Realizing
that the letters could also be used to blackmail Bertha, Lily decides
to save them in her drawer so that they can be used to her advantage
later.
