The Age of Desire (43 page)

It is a terrible crossing. Winter crossings are always the worst. Iceberg warnings. Large waves. No need to worry about Teddy wandering the deck when the air is so frigid and the winds so intolerable. Anna visits him every day in his cabin, as do Gross and White. They take turns, even draw up a schedule so he’s rarely alone. He won’t come to the dining room, feeling so ill. So they make sure food is delivered. And flowers. And sweets. Nothing seems to alter his dark mood. And with the high waves, even intrepid Anna isn’t feeling quite herself. She can only pick at the food when it’s set before her in the dining room. I must be unerschütterlich! she tells herself. Thomas would expect it of me!
She thinks longingly of their dinners together on the
Amerika
, sharing Wiener schnitzel and Moselle wine. How the whole upper class dining room watched the two of them and wondered. That crossing feels like years ago.

“Just sit here and talk to me, Anna,” Teddy tells her when she visits his cabin with Nicette in her arms, hoping that the little dog will cheer him up. “Talk in the old way. About the things we both care about.” She settles the Pekinese in her lap, and Teddy reaches out and pets the golden creature’s delicate turtle-shaped head, then lets his hand fall with exhaustion.

Anna prattles about how happy the dogs will be to see Edith again. “As will you,” she says. She reminds Teddy about the horses he bought near the end of the summer.

“You can ride them next summer,” she tells him. “Just imagine you’re on one of those leafy paths that lead to town. There you are on your horse, warm breezes just
kissing
your face. Perhaps you and I can have a sumptuous picnic on Laurel Lake. We’ll ride the horses there.”

“But you don’t ride.”

“I haven’t ridden since I was a child in Massachusetts. But you could teach me again. I imagine you’re a very good teacher.”

His mouth softens into a hazy smile. “I think I might be.”

The man needs compliments, appreciation. And who has offered him any all these years?

“Will you teach me to ride? I would look forward to that. But you’d have to be patient, of course.”

“Of course,” he says.

It is comical to imagine herself on a horse. An old lady with gray hair doing something so foreign.

He reaches out and grabs her hand.

“Anna, hold me,” he says.

“Mr. Wharton!”

“As a friend. As a friend! It would make me feel so much better. It’s all I’m asking.”

She sets Nicette down in her chair. The little dog curls up and yawns. Then she leans over Teddy, gray-faced and miserable, slumped in his bed, and she slips her arms about his shoulders. With a surprising violence, he clutches her to him so tightly she gasps. And then she understands he’s sobbing against her. His whole body trembles in her arms.

“There, Mr. Wharton. No need for that.”

“Hold me,” he calls out.

“I won’t let go,” she tells him.

When he sobs himself to exhaustion, she finally lays him back on his pillow.

With his eyes closed, tears splaying his pale lashes, his voice just a whisper, he says, “If I die, Anna, you can tell everyone that you were the only one who made me want to live.”

SEVENTEEN

SPRING 1909

“I
t,” Edith writes Walter. “Teddy has arrived in worse shape than ever. And if it wasn’t for dear Anna, I swear I’d go mad. She somehow can tolerate him, sits at his bedside and talks to him of the most inane things. I have come to realize that I am not, by nature, a tolerant person.”

Edith had imagined that the arrival of the household in Paris would bring one difficult task: to apologize to Anna, or in any case to repair the fence that has sprung up between them. Instead, Teddy has pilfered all the focus. He barely could manage the steps up to the Vanderbilts’ apartment. His face was the color of a hospital corridor.

“Dear God. What’s happened to you . . . ?” Edith said, seeing him for the first time in the entry hall.

Anna, coming up the steps behind him, grabbed Edith’s elbow and pulled her aside while White helped Teddy to his bed.

“He’s as bad as he was last winter. Gout or melancholia, whatever it is. Dr. Kinnicut says . . .”

“You spoke to Dr. Kinnicut?”

“I was so worried . . . I had to see what he recommended. And he was so kind. He went to visit Mr. Wharton at the Knickerbocker Club. As a friend. As a member of the club. He did it at my behest. I don’t think Mr. Wharton suspected . . .”

“You never said a word to me. . . .”

“You seemed so happy. I didn’t want to worry you.”

Edith looked into Anna’s eyes.

“Bless you,” she said. “I didn’t know I was leaving you with such a heavy burden.”

“I didn’t mind,” Anna told her.

So days pass and Edith has yet to take Anna aside and apologize to her, reassure her. They are back to being good friends and helpmates. Is there any point in bringing up the last miserable year at all? Edith’s fresh writing pages are lifted from her doorway every morning and returned in the afternoon, neat and edited for typos. Anna always asks good questions: “Edith, I just have a few . . . queries,” she might say, standing in the hall looking even smaller than usual.

“Yes.”

“On page 91 here, would Peter Van Degen really say that? It sounds like something Ralph Marvell would say instead. And here. I thought the child was in the room. What happened to him?” Edith is grateful to have Anna as her first reader, thankful that they seem to be back into the old rhythm. Fannie Thayer had done a good job in Anna’s absence. But she wasn’t dear, thoughtful Anna. The only sign that anything is amiss emerges when Fullerton’s name is spoken, and then Edith notes the subtle hitch of Anna’s fragile shoulders, the pressing of her lips. All so restrained that no one but Edith could detect it. Still, Edith appreciates her restraint. These days, in truth, the thought of Fullerton makes her own shoulders hitch. Blackmail. Lovers. She is still absorbing it all. An indigestible meal that doesn’t want to go down.

One night, lying in bed, Edith realizes she’s never even taken a moment to ask Anna about her trip, about the mysterious detour to Greece and with whom she traveled. “I’ll bring it up tomorrow,” she resolves. She has so firmly imagined that it must be another maiden lady endowed with family money, traveling for “adventure,” that Edith has even named her: Imogene. Imogene with a felt hat and men’s shoes, a tweed jacket with leather pockets. And a voice like a parrot. But when morning comes, Edith’s resolve to find out more about Anna’s summer is as cold as ashes. Other urgent matters push their way to the top: a short story idea that crystallized while she slept, a need to answer a letter from Walter, the desire to leave the house early so she doesn’t have to spend too much time with the ailing, impossible Teddy.

Edith doesn’t see Morton much that spring. At first, he writes, “Can we be together this Saturday?” and she pneus him back to say she’s got plans. He stops by without warning, gifting her with the same Ladurée macarons that pleased her so last year, and she sets the box in the entryway, doesn’t even ask for the treats to be laid out on a plate for him; if he wants them so badly let him buy a box for himself! She finds herself cold, inarticulate, the impossible woman he wooed last year. Later, she feels guilty, writes to apologize, but oh, how she hates the war that ensues inside her: she wants him and she fears him. Wouldn’t it be better—safer!—if they were close friends like they were before he became so much more. She is comfortable as the older woman, sharing her experience, her counsel. Morton, whose desire to charm endows him with a chameleon’s ability to read cues, to shape-shift, begins to consult her about his blackmailer, implores her to give advice. How easy and right it feels to write back about how he should handle this woman, “a person you believe to be half-mad.” It is easy to forget that “this person” might not be so different from herself. Oh, she would never blackmail, but the desire for any leverage to maneuver a man as recalcitrant as Morton certainly has its dark appeal.

“Then listen to me, dear, when I say don’t go on Saturday. Why should you be ordered about in that way?” she writes. Or, “When the interview does take place, why should it not take place before witnesses? Have you not a friend who would go with you? Or could you not take an
homme d’affaires
if there are business matters to be settled?”

One March night, when they unexpectedly meet at Rosa’s salon, he is seated next to her, and beneath the table, he grasps her hand, resting his on her thigh. She can hardly bear the sensation: it enters her. It eddies and sings and sparks in a spot just above her pubic bone, a holy nexus that just last year she didn’t know existed. She can’t bear the ecstasy. The way it whips up her long-stored desire like a windstorm excites every particle of dust on a desert street. She rises in the middle of a conversation and rushes into the red drawing room to sit a while, to catch her breath. Later, she tells Rosa it was a touch of asthma, and Rosa doesn’t question it. But Morton, smiling quizzically at her before he leaves, appears unsettled. Let him remain so, she decides, turning her face away. The next day, he writes another letter, begging her advice, flattering her.

“You always tell me the right things to do. I listen to you because you see so clearly what I cannot see.” She smiles but keeps her distance. For the moment, it is the only safe thing to do.

Sharing her cautious mood, the season arrives slowly. Buds huddle in knots on the trees for weeks before opening. The lawn of Les Invalides waits to awake, a faded, straw-colored carpet. And she is heartsick much of the time, for last spring her life did indeed
spring
open like a jack-in-the-box after a lifetime of a metallic, insistent melody. But this year, she is wracked with doubt. Morton Fullerton was her whole world. And now she thinks she was just one of many to him. Nothing he does or says seems quite sincere.

But when Frederick Macmillan contacts her to say he thinks she may be the perfect person to write a book about Paris for the American market—how wonderful her motor-flight book was!—she has an idea. She’ll recommend Morton. Who better to compose a book about Paris than a man who has lived beneath its lights for eighteen years? A journalist. A man who knows the city inside and out. If she can get Morton to agree, Macmillan can give him an advance to help wipe away his debt to his landlady! He’ll be liberated. She’ll be a hero! The thought electrifies her. She can’t even wait for a pneu to reach him. She calls his bureau.

“I have a solution for you,” she says, not even announcing herself. “At last, dear. A perfect solution.”

She expects to be scolded, frozen out. He doesn’t like to be called during his workday. But who can turn down a
solution
?

When she shares her plan, she hears his voice change from heavy, serious, formal, to excited, open.

“But do you think they’ll accept me as the author instead of you? You’re world-famous, whereas I . . .”

“I’ll recommend you,” she insists. “Say that you’re the only one I know so qualified for the spot. Mr. Macmillan is in New York. He’ll have to take my word. . . . No, I have a better idea. I’ll recommend you, and ask Macmillan to write to HJ. HJ will support you one hundred percent.”

“And what if I am not qualified?” he asks softly.

“Morton, how can you suggest such a thing? Of course you are. Of course you’re perfectly, brilliantly qualified. Think of all you’ve taught me about Paris. How well you know the city. And you’re Harvard educated. You’re so extraordinarily bright, so sensitive.”

Flattery. She’s flattering him now. They have exchanged roles. And it feels dazzling!

“Yes,” he says. “Put me up for the job. God knows I need it.”

“You mustn’t be afraid of the work. It’s nothing. It will be second nature to you.”

When she hangs up, she knows there’s one more thing to do: not only will she have to suggest that Macmillan hire Morton, but she’ll have to supplement the advance. Fred Macmillan would never pay an untried writer like Morton enough to free him from his blackmailer. And Edith certainly doesn’t want Morton—who says he’s too proud to take money from her—to know the money is lifted from her own pocket.

She’ll work it all out with Henry! She’ll have the money sent to Henry’s account in Rye. Then he can tell Macmillan he believes so much in Morton that he’s offered to help pay extra toward the advance. (He wants to help the young fellow have enough to live on so he’ll write more.) Henry will like the solidity, the financial stability the offer would convey to Macmillan. Morton will have the money he needs to extricate him from his landlady’s spider web. Henry will have the standing he’s been longing for. And she’ll be the anonymous savior, reveling in the results rather than the gratitude. It’s the perfect plot. It belongs in a book! But better than a book, because the repercussions will have a real and lasting effect! Oh, if only every day could turn out so satisfying!

Anna is extraordinarily relieved to be back in Edith’s good graces. She has returned to her beautiful room at the top of the house. She enjoys her walks through the Faubourg, even when her knee aches from the damp French weather. And she doesn’t mind the hours she spends keeping Teddy’s head above water.

But when a letter arrives from Thomas, she feels much less certain.

Dearest Anna,

I am hoping that you are reading this letter. It is the third I’ve sent and all have returned sealed. But at last I have discovered how to reach your famous Mrs. Wharton and have sent this letter in care of her and pray that you have it in your hands wherever you may be.

I have thought much about how we said good-bye, and have come to the conclusion that you misread my intentions. If you are in Europe, mightn’t I come see you? I am not afraid of travel, and the things I wish to say can’t be spoken in a letter.

In haste and kindness,

Thomas Schultze

Anna touches the ornate handwriting on the front of the letter. An old-fashioned German hand not unlike the one gracing the yellowed letters her father penned her mother. She sets the letter on her bedside table, not sure how to answer him. Could she have misread his intentions? And if so, would it really make a difference?

Greece is a memory so warm and beautiful; in the cold embrace of Paris there are days Anna cannot envision herself as the main character of those reminiscences. Surely it is something she read instead of lived: a wealthy man, a yacht, good food, fine wine,
attention
. How tenuous she felt, moored off the coast of Crete with these gifts all around her. Sitting on the sand on a beach in Corfu with a picnic laid out before her. Never once had she ever imagined such a life could be hers. And how odd she found those offerings difficult to bear, feeling too often like an actor in the wrong play.

And then one night, Thomas said he wanted to make the arrangement permanent. They were on the deck of the yacht. A storm was blowing up and they were waiting for the captain to row them to shore so they could take hotel rooms and wait out the weather. But even with the storm gathering, the air was so warm and sweet, it felt like a love potion.

Thomas took her hand and looked at her. He often spoke without letting his eyes rest on her, dreamily looking out toward some future that didn’t include her. But now he gazed at her frankly.