The Age of Desire (13 page)

“How have I done?”

The woman Eliot has drawn, her mouth set just so, her figure straight and determined, exudes efficiency and self-possession.

“Is this how I look?” Edith asks.

“I think you look rather handsome.”

“This woman looks as though she needs nobody whatsoever to help her.”

“Then I’ve captured you.”

Edith has worked her whole life to be self-sufficient, to make herself as intellectual as her brothers, who had the benefit of university educations, to write as well or better than any of the two dozen male authors she admires. And to do it all on her own. But the woman in the drawing appears unassailable. Edith learned long ago that men are drawn to women who are either undeniably beautiful or alluringly vulnerable. She’s never been either.

She sighs loudly. Eliot is famous for making the accepted and the longing-to-be-accepted look more beautiful than they really are. He laughs about it. It is the trick which makes him so wildly popular. But in her case, he seems not to have changed a thing about her. Her chin is as lanternlike as ever.

“Oh dear. Lady Edith isn’t happy,” he says. He minces his mouth with counterfeit upset.

“No. I think it’s quite true to what I see in the glass. But what happened to your uncanny way of making your subjects more attractive?”

“Since you’ve pointed out to me exactly how I swindle the masses into thinking themselves all beautiful enough for fairy tales, I knew you’d be insulted if I attempted to deceive you as well.”

She laughs.

“Watch out for Fullerton,” he says as he gathers his pencil and sketch pad.

“Whatever for?” she asks.

“Just be circumspect,” he says. “He’s a very charming man. Too many people find him irresistible. And,” he adds, “if you fall under his charms, I will not protect you. I am the sort of man who likes to watch such a spectacle. The bottom line, dear Edie, is you’re on your own.” His smile is reminiscent of the Cheshire cat.

It is late and they are already dressed for dinner when Edith looks out the main floor gallery window to discover it has begun to snow. Snow in October! Fat flakes already sparkle on the brick walls of the forecourt and the drive. And then she sees the lights of the Panhard breaking the darkness, coming closer. Her throat and chest tingle.

Downstairs in the entrance hall, Alfred White opens the door and Edith hears him ask for Fullerton’s coat and hat. As Fullerton stamps the snow from his shoes and hands off his gray felt hat, Edith comes down to greet him. Nicette and Mitou follow and jump at his ankles.

“I hope you don’t mind the dogs,” she says.

“Not at all. They’re my old friends. Aren’t you, fellas?” He squats down to let them lick his hand. He is natural with the dogs and easy in himself.

“I’m so glad you could come. I did so want to show you The Mount!”

“Did you order this weather to create the Currier and Ives feel, to show off your manse at its best?” he says, standing again. “Your reputation as a thoughtful hostess hasn’t been stressed enough.”

She laughs. “How was your train ride?”

“I slept nearly the whole way here. I’m afraid I look it.” He draws his hand over his hair. His slightly rumpled look serves only to make him more pleasing.

“Alfred will take you to your room to wash up. We’ll hold dinner for you. You must tell him if you need anything at all.” Fullerton has only two leather suitcases and a hatbox. Alfred lifts both suitcases. “We’ll just put these on the trunk lift, sir,” he says.

“A trunk lift?” Fullerton takes back one of the cases. “Henry tells me that you supply your guests with things they don’t even know they need but will need forever after. So I am girding myself to keep from being spoiled. I don’t want the rest of my life to be a disappointment!” She watches as he climbs the stairs with the one suitcase, his compact figure disappearing around the landing. In the passage beyond the hall, Alfred starts the trunk lift’s motor whirring and clanking just to send a single suitcase up to the third floor.

Fullerton arrives in the drawing room a few minutes later, freshly washed and neatly turned out in a crisp shirt and dinner jacket. His hair is combed in a perfect part, his mustache is smoothed and his eyes are as bright as though he’s just awakened after a full night’s sleep. His dark eyelashes are starry, still wet from being splashed.

“What a beautiful house,” he says. “As charming and restrained and elegant as advertised.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fullerton.”

“And Eliot Gregory, well! I had no idea you’d be here. Good to see you.” The men shake hands. Edith watches Eliot appraise Fullerton with impatient eyes. Fullerton does not look entirely comfortable in Gregory’s presence either.

“How was Bryn Mawr and your lecture?” Edith asks.

“It seems the young ladies of Bryn Mawr are quite passionate about our friend Mr. James.” Fullerton says. “But they all want to ask questions about the early works.
Daisy Miller
. That’s all I heard all night.”

“That’s because they see themselves in Daisy Miller,” Edith says. “Fresh, brash. The new American woman.”

“Or because it’s his shortest book and the only one they could chop their way through,” Eliot says.

“Bryn Mawr was surprisingly stimulating,” Fullerton offers. “Women allowed to exercise their intellects. To fill their minds with all the right things. Did you know my sister, Katherine, is a lecturer there?”

“Is she? She must be quite accomplished.”

“She’s a Radcliffe graduate. I don’t think I’ve ever known a brighter woman. Except for you, Mrs. Wharton.”

His face colors as he speaks about Katherine, but Edith hears nothing but the words he says about her. “You flatter me,” she says.

“You’ll discover something,” Fullerton tells her. “I flatter only those who deserve it.”

“Then it isn’t flattery, is it?” Eliot asks drily.

“What’s that?”

“If one truly means the compliment, it’s no longer flattery.”

“Ah,” Fullerton challenges him. “Must the word always be pejorative?”

“What do you think, Mistress of Letters?” Eliot says to Edith. “I’d say so.”

“We’ll get the dictionary.” Edith rings Alfred and asks him to bring the gargantuan red book from the library. While they wait, she pours each of them a glass of dry sherry. Fullerton takes his glass and stands by the fire. He is not a tall man, but there is a certain athletic beauty about him, a lean magnetic energy.

Alfred carries in the dictionary. It must weigh ten pounds. He lays it on the table by the window and Edith opens it to look up the word.

“Fruitery . . . flummox . . . flattery. . . . Well, Eliot may win here,” she says after a moment, and begins to read: “‘To compliment insincerely. To play upon the vanity or susceptibilities of . . .’ Hmmm. Well, then, if that’s what you’ve done, Mr. Fullerton, I would opt to never be flattered again,” she teases. But when she looks up, she sees that Eliot is beaming quite triumphantly and Fullerton is looking sour. What is it with men that one must always defeat the other?

“You get three writers in a room and disaster ensues,” she says. “By the end of the evening we will be parsing our words so finely, we will be completely unable to speak to each other.”

“Then we will have to speak in gestures,” Eliot says. “The servants will have no idea whatsoever what secrets we’re sharing. It will ruin their night.”

“Will you deign to pantomime with us, Mr. Fullerton?” Edith asks softly. She didn’t expect she would have to jolly him out of a mood so early in the evening. But in short order, the warmth of the sherry and the novelty of new snow outside the window reinstate the camaraderie just in time for dinner. Over a leg of lamb, they speak of Paris and Fullerton’s friendship with Clemenceau, France’s new prime minister, about whom he has written a much-discussed article.

“He’s the most brilliant politician I’ve ever known,” Fullerton declares. “He isn’t there for self-aggrandizement but for the public good.”

“Like our TR,” Edith says, referring to her friend Teddy Roosevelt. “Perhaps, years from now, they will declare this a time of wise politicians. I suspect as time goes by, politicians will be made more and more of pasteboard. Now that they can make appearances by motorcar—and be seen even where trains don’t go—I’m afraid the handsome and blustery ones will be the winners. That will be a sad state of affairs.” They all agree.

By the time dinner is over, the snow has stopped. Eliot says the wine and all the good talk have made him tired, and besides, he wants to pen some thoughts before bed. He shakes Fullerton’s hand and kisses Edith’s cheek and they can hear his heavy footfall on the stairs.

“Would you like more wine, Mr. Fullerton?” Edith asks.

“No. I’d like a different draught. I’d like to breathe in those famous pines from your terrace. Sally Norton would cut me from her life if I didn’t.”

They ring for the maid to bring their wraps and hats from downstairs. And Edith asks her to bring Teddy’s galoshes as well, which fit perfectly over Fullerton’s polished French shoes. Buttoning on her own winter boots, she shivers with excitement like a child. The first snow!

The scent of the pines reaches their noses the moment the French doors are opened. The shock of cold is vitalizing. With the heavy clouds mostly gone, the stars gleam like ice chips in the sky. Ghostly outlines trace the hedges in the gardens and the lindens in the lime walk below. Edith relishes the sound of her feet crunching on the inch and a half of snowfall.

“What a perfect night,” he tells her. “It makes me think of my childhood. The air here is an elixir. I can see why you chose this place.”

“Yes. It’s very special.”

He gestures to the garden. “In this light, it looks black and white, like a steel engraving.”

How accurate and clever, she thinks, noting that the scene does indeed seem devoid of color.

His voice grows intimate. “I almost didn’t come here, you know.”

“Why?”

“The train schedule was impossible. I had to change trains three times. It would have been easier to go directly to my parents’.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You.” He turns to her. “I wanted more of your company.”

She feels an exquisite expansion of her lungs. It is not unlike the one and only time she was allowed to take a roller-coaster ride as a child. Her mother had a headache, so her father took her for the afternoon to the Frascati Gardens in Paris. She can still recall the big sign with its gold and red letters: L
E
C
HEMIN DE
C
ENTRIFUGE
.

“We’ll keep this a secret from your mother,” her father had said. Oh, how special Edith felt that day! They’d had to wait in line in the sun for ages. She remembers her trembling childish anticipation as they were ushered into their little carriage and strapped in with leather straps. Her father put his arm around her and the tiny train began a slow frightening ascent up the steel mountain.

“Are you afraid?” her father whispered in her ear.

“No, Papa. Because I’m with you.” And then, at the top of the hill, they were looking out over all eternity. When the coaster descended, she had the sensation that her stomach dropped away, allowing her lungs to expand to ten times their size. And this is exactly how she feels right now. The rush of air into her lungs leaves her speechless for a moment.

“I’m so pleased you decided to come,” she finally manages to tell Fullerton, though her voice meters out breathy and soft.

“After being here, Edith, I shall never think of you the same.”

She shivers at the sound of her Christian name from his lips.

“No?”

“Houses say so much about people, don’t they?”

“I’ve always thought so.”

“Yes, I know you do. The way you describe houses speaks volumes about your characters. You even use “house” in your title of
The House of Mirth
. It’s from Ecclesiastes, isn’t it?”

“So few people realize that.”

“My father is a minister. I grew up with a Bible always at hand. ‘The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.’ Did I get it right?”

“Well done!” she says.

He steps back on the terrace so he can see the house more fully. “If I were a reader and you were a character, I’d say this house belongs to an extraordinarily haunting woman at the peak of her life. Would you like me to tell you more?”