The Age of Desire (33 page)

You know I never wanted you to write unless you wanted to. And I always understood it would not go on for long. But this is so sudden that I almost fear you are ill, or that something has happened to trouble you.

Think! You have not even answered my first letter, my letter from the steamer, which must have reached you on the 10th; and five steamers have come in, that might have brought an answer to it.—Don’t think I don’t mean what I said when I last wrote, or what I reiterated to you so often before we said good-bye: that I don’t want from you a sign, a gesture, that is not voluntary, spontaneous—irrepressible!—

No—I am still of that mind. Only, as I said, this is so unbelievably sudden. My reason, even—my reason much more than my feeling—tells me it must be some accident that has kept you silent; and then my anxiety begins its conjectures.

Send a word, dear, to reassure me. And if it’s not that, but the other alternative, surely you’re not afraid to say so? My last letter will have shown you how I have foreseen, how I have accepted, such a contingency. Do you suppose I ever have, for a moment, ceased to see a thousand reasons why it was inevitable and likely to be not far distant?

Allons donc!
You shall see what I am made of—only don’t be afraid to trust me to the utmost of my lucidity and my philosophy!

—But no! I don’t ask you to say anything that might be painful to you. Simply write: “Chère camarade, I am well—things are well with me”; and I shall understand and accept—and think of you as you would like a friend to think.—Above all, don’t see any hidden reproach in this. There is nothing in it but tenderness and understanding. I am well, and the week since I wrote last has managed to get itself lived. And the novel goes on. And people come and go.—I can’t tell you more now, but another time, perhaps—

And now and always I am yr so affectionate E.

But still day after day passes with no word. She lies in bed and wonders: how could he have taken her literally when she wrote “Don’t write”? Yes, her words have been misleading, contradictory. But Morton understands women better than other men. Surely he knows she breathes for him. Surely he knows.

“Since when have you not been able to decipher my handwriting?” she finds herself storming at Anna. “I’ve never had pages back from you so mistyped!”

Anna seems to shrink before her eyes. And she is already the smallest adult Edith knows.

“Have I truly misread your pages?” Anna’s voice is so tiny it’s barely audible.

“Yes. Here. I wrote, ‘He found her less restless and rattling than usual.’ But you typed ‘He found her less restless and railing than usual.’ Railing. What on earth were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry.”

“And here. ‘The other lay cold in his clasp, and through it there gradually stole on him the benumbing influence of his thoughts. . . .’ ‘
on
him,’ Tonni? I wrote ‘
to
him.’”

“I . . . I don’t know how I made the mistake. ‘On him’ must have seemed right. ‘Stole to him’ . . . didn’t seem right perhaps. . . .”

“Oh, and are you choosing my words now? You wish to redirect my life, comment on my characters and now redirect my writing? Why don’t you just write the book yourself. Perhaps you think yourself better qualified.”

Anna gasps and steps backward. “I . . .” And then she turns and runs from the room. Later, the pages show up at Edith’s bedroom door, retyped. And Anna seems to disappear. For two or three days, Edith doesn’t see her at all. Her pages are typed and set at her door each day, but Anna isn’t apparent at all.

Anna can scarcely leave her room. Her limbs are heavy. Her heart doesn’t seem to work hard enough to sustain her. Sometimes she peers out the window and sees Teddy, so jolly these days as he tramps to the barns and back. Perhaps they have exchanged sturdiness and misery. He is fine, and she has sucked up his wretchedness like a leech used to suck out bad blood.

She attends dinner with the servants but hardly touches the food, rarely speaks. When Gross stops her in the hall to ask if she’s all right, she says, “Of course.” But her heart is in pieces. Too shattered to mend. If she went back to New York, she could find a room in a boarding house. She has saved some money. Surely she could become a social secretary to someone. Perhaps the Lawndale children will need a full-time tutor? No. Far too close to 882, and memories. She will have to be strong. She will have to begin again. How tired it makes her feel.

At last, Edith resolves to cable Morton. He’s left her no choice. She must make a trip to town to do so. She could never give the task to White. She could never expose herself so.

She stands in the cable office shaking, trying to pen the note. Why didn’t she compose it earlier, at her desk? Why did she wait until now, with the telegraph man standing at the counter on the other side of the room, watching her?

Am concerned for your safety STOP No word for days STOP Tell me you’re alive and well STOP Nothing else matters STOP

Ridiculous. Too dramatic. She tries again.

Haven’t heard from you in weeks STOP Am concerned STOP Please tell me you are well STOP That’s all I need to hear STOP

No. There isn’t
enough
urgency. She must let him know that he has made her suffer! That he has withheld from her the one thing that keeps her alive. Otherwise he might not respond! And how would she feel if he didn’t respond even to a cable! She dies a little just imagining it.

No letter for three weeks STOP Am sick with worry STOP Have I done something to upset you STOP Please let me know if you are all right and ease my mind STOP Always yours STOP

No words will ever be right. She’ll just have to send it flawed. She hands the paper to the operator and he nods, counts the words, tells her how much she’ll owe. She is quivering as she draws the appropriate bills out of her purse, fumbles with the change. She wishes she had the courage to grab back the cable request sheet. Surely it would be better to send nothing. How desperate will she appear to Morton, if indeed he is alive? And yet, she
must
do something. She can’t go on not knowing if he’s dead in the backseat of a car. Angry or in love with someone else. Could he be with Katherine? She feels her skin growing damp. Her hairline, her neck, her breasts are prickly with perspiration. She is breathing as she used to in those dark Newport days when she could barely draw air in and out of her lungs. She finishes paying and forces herself to go outside and sit on the bench by the Lenox post office. She prays no one will come along and spot her. Sitting perfectly still, she stares at the ground, waiting until the feeling of dread passes.

The problem, she tells herself, is that once she expected nothing out of life. She knew that no good thing could come to her, and accepted her fate. Now that she’s tasted the opiate of love and happiness, she craves it, aches for it. And, denied it, she is left with a sense of misery so profound at moments she feels she can’t go on.
Is
it better to have loved and lost? To have discovered the one thing most worth knowing? To have shared her heart so selflessly? There are moments—like this one—when she doubts it.

No! She must have more mettle than this! Where is her proud self? The one who lived on books and flowers and observations and words—a million words—that arranged themselves so satisfyingly? Where is the woman she’s worked so hard to become?

Edith sends one of the maids to bring Anna to the drawing room for tea. Nervously, Anna seats herself in the needlepoint bergère across from Edith. She can’t even bear to look up, so she stares at her hands. But her eyes are unseeing. Her heart is rattling in her chest like a motorcar with a faulty engine.

“Would you like a cake?” Edith asks.

“No. I ate too much at luncheon.” In truth, she ate nothing.

“The new cook is very good, isn’t she? I think the food is the best we’ve had here since we’ve taken up at The Mount.”

Anna nods, still can’t look up. If she sees Edith’s face, will she see a Gorgon before her? Will she turn to stone?

“Tonni, I want to offer you something,” Edith says. “A present, really. I hope you’ll hear me out, and be open to it.”

Anna’s nerves keep her from sitting still. Her legs jerk as though they wish to run.

“All winter while we were in Paris, you talked about how you wanted to get over to Germany, about your time there when you were young.”

Anna nods but has a hard time remembering ever telling Edith that she wished to go back to Germany. Maybe she mentioned it once when they were talking about German poetry. But surely she didn’t speak of it all winter as Edith implies.

“I want to give you a gift of a trip abroad.”

“You . . . I don’t understand.”

“We’re quite fixed for money these days. It’s rather stunning how well the books have done. Especially
The House of Mirth
. It’s such a success in France.”

“Yes.”

“I want to send you to Europe for the rest of the summer. Germany, Italy, wherever you like. I owe it to you.”

Now Anna raises her head and gazes on the woman she has known best in all her life. She is expecting to see an ugliness in her familiar face, but Edith simply looks like Edith. She is pale, and her mouth is sweet and kind, as it was when she was a child offering Anna a flower she’d picked from the field.

“You owe me nothing,” Anna says.

“But I do. I owe you everything. In truth, I’m not much fun to be with right now. I’m not myself. I fear I’ve been unkind to you.”

“I seem to irritate you,” Anna ventures.

“It’s not you. Everything irritates me right now. I am suffering. And only you know why.”

“But I don’t know why. You haven’t told me anything. . . .”

“You know the source of my suffering. I don’t want to tell you what’s happened. You’ll only gloat.”

“Gloat!” Anna is shocked. “I could never gloat at your pain.”

“I talked to Teddy about it. And we both want to send you to Europe as a thank-you. If you want, you can come back in the autumn for a bit, and until we leave for France in the winter. Or, you could stay the rest of the summer and autumn and meet us in Paris. That’s another option. . . .”