“It’s the coldest summer I’ve ever spent,” she tells him. “It’s rained every day since you left. I do believe I am growing moss on my left side.”
“That is not a romantic thought,” he says drily.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry. It doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm an iota. There. Do you feel my enthusiasm?”
“Yes. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more enthusiasm.”
He laughs softly, and then his lips brush her ear, “All through my time in Massachusetts, I thought of you. When things were bad with my father, I thought of you.”
“Oh . . .”
“But if my father had the least idea exactly what I thought about you, it would surely have killed him!”
“You are terrible.”
“I am terrible, aren’t I? And to prove it, I’m going to do things to you you’ve never dreamed of,” he tells her. “Terrible things.”
“Oh, do expand my worldview,” she tells him. “I dare you.”
“You oughtn’t dare me. That could be dangerous.”
With Henry up front with Cook, she and Fullerton in the back (How fortuitous that she sent Gross off to Alsace to see her cousins as though she guessed Henry’s surprise!), they motor all through Essex, hunting down quaint little inns, traversing beautiful towns. Every night, after a full meal and good laughter, she and Morton find each other. In her bed. In his. It hardly matters. They want each other equally. Their pleasure seems endless, like a magic bottle that refills every time a glass is poured. Never in Edith’s life has she guessed that her body could give her such unceasing pleasure. With Henry as their buffer and chaperone, they don’t argue. There is no tussle for power. She cannot remember ever being happier. If she were to die tomorrow, she knows she’s tasted the sweetest morsels life could offer.
Having had Dr. Kinnicut’s second round of serum treatments, Teddy grows jollier by the day. One morning he leaves in the carriage and returns with a new car. Sitting behind the wheel, he swerves into the forecourt, spitting stones, screeching the tires, stopping just before the front door. The car is as shiny red as a candied apple. The roof is coal black stitched in crimson. And the steering wheel sports a sewn leather cover with tiny holes in it just like golf gloves. But what really captures Anna’s attention is that the car has a face. Its headlights are cats’ eyes. Its grille, an angry mouth. She has never seen a car that looks so feral.
The entire household crowds the front door to ooh and aah over the new vehicle.
“When did you learn to drive yourself?” Anna asks him.
“An idiot can do it, I tell you. You cannot possibly imagine how fast this little filly can go. You will swoon when I drive you at that speed.”
“I think I’d rather take your word for it,” she says.
She doesn’t like the idea of Teddy driving himself. Cars are for people with experience, experts like Cook. And Teddy is no expert. Lately, his happiness has again become giddy. Sometimes she hears him in his library laughing to himself as though he is too full of hilarity to contain it. He has begun to boast at dinner how his investing has netted the household a pretty penny. Soon Edith will have to acknowledge that when it comes to money, he is simply brilliant. “I may have quadrupled the money by summer’s end,” he declared just the night before last.
“White, what say we pull a bottle of the best champagne out of the cellar,” Teddy proposes now. “I want the whole household to toast our newest arrival.” He gives the fender a jaunty tap.
“The whole household, sir?” Albert says, his mouth barely opening.
“As I said.”
Anna senses the maids’ excitement. They skitter behind her, breathing through their teeth.
“I’ve never had champagne in my life,” one of them whispers. “Wait until I write and tell my mother!”
Later that night, White stops Anna as she climbs the stairs to her room.
“Are you still here, Albert? I thought you’d gone home.”
“Anna, I’m worried about him. Worried sick.”
She nods.
“He’s gotten a bit . . . a bit . . . out of control. And driving about by himself. Do you think we should tell Mrs. Wharton?”
“I don’t know,” Anna says. “Maybe we should keep an eye on him.”
“I’m afraid he’ll kill someone . . . or himself.”
“Even Mrs. Wharton wouldn’t be able to stop him from driving if that’s what he’s a mind to do.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” White says. “I don’t think I’ll sleep a wink tonight. Or maybe ever again.”
When the motor trip around Essex has come to an end, and Henry is dropped at Lamb House, Cook is sent ahead to Paris, and Edith and Morton cross the Channel alone, arriving in Boulogne in the early evening. There are many things to see in Boulogne, but there is nothing that can compete with the pleasures of a hotel room. Signed into the Hôtel des Fleurs as Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Selden—Morton’s idea, making Edith nearly choke with laughter when the bellman insists on taking “Mrs. Selden’s effects up to the room”—they bathe together in the giant cast-iron bathtub, eat cross-legged on the bed, lifting the silver domes of the dishes, trying to guess what’s beneath each, and lie naked in each other’s arms all night. When she blinks herself awake in the morning, the sun is pouring onto their skin as thick as honey. Morton has kicked off the covers, still asleep. She lets her eyes trace the landscape of his unclothed body: the hirsute expanse of his chest, the sharp blue knots of his shoulders, the sensual rise of his hip, the lazy slant of his penis. She knows she must imprint this moment on her memory like a painting seen at auction but bought by someone else.
She leans back into the pillows, sated and happy nevertheless. The room is peppered with the entwined aromas of sexual union and sweat. She has never breathed a sweeter perfume. She wakes him after a while to make love one more time before they must return to Paris. The only thing one can count on when it comes to Morton is that he is insatiable.
Teddy has started making regular trips to Boston, often not coming home at all. No one knows what to expect of him anymore. He may be gone two, three days, yet doesn’t call The Mount to warn anyone. No one knows what he will do on any given day. The cook prepares a meal each evening, but a good part of it goes uneaten.
“Is he visiting his mother, do you think?” Anna asks White. “When he goes and doesn’t return?”
White shrugs. “He’s never come back from visiting his mother nearly so jolly.”
More often than not, Anna eats alone in the servants’ dining room, late, because she wants to be available for Teddy if he does arrive. When he doesn’t, she finds herself as irritated as a scorned wife. Was her company not enough for him? What is drawing Teddy away to Boston with such a siren song? She longs for those earlier summer evenings spent so companionably in the drawing room. She is ashamed that she misses how he made her feel, just for a shimmering moment, like the lady of the house.
During one five-day disappearance, Anna worries he’s in the hospital, injured in a car accident. In a drawer at the Boston morgue. She pads about the house with growing unease, thinks to call the Boston police, Sally Norton, anyone who might have clues to find him. She sits down at the servants’ table, and puts her head in her hands. What will she tell Edith?
“You could eat upstairs, Miss Bahlmann,” Mrs. Cotton, the housekeeper, tells her, drifting into the dining room. “No one would mind serving you there.”
“Oh.” Anna raises her head. “I couldn’t,” she says. “It wouldn’t feel right. It hardly feels right as it is, but Mr. Wharton insists on my company when he’s around. . . .”
“Do you mind my joining you here?” Mrs. Cotton asks. “I ate already. But I was hoping to talk to you. Edna, bring Miss Bahlmann her supper.”
The roast beef is brou
ght, the mashed potatoes, the spinach. A pretty plate. Anyone would enjoy the meal. But with worry over Teddy, Anna has no idea how she will get it down.
“The thing is . . . I’m sorry to tell you this,” Mrs. Cotton says, leaning forward, biting her lip. “And maybe I oughtn’t say anything. But Lonnie, the parlor maid, had a day off yesterday. She went up to Boston to see her beau and they were in the Common. You know how young people like the Common. Well, I certainly did in my day. Such a romantic place for a stroll, right in the heart of a city, no less!”
Anna leans back and hears herself sigh impatiently. What does the woman want to tell her?
“And she says . . . well, she reported to me that she saw Mr. Wharton there . . . with . . . with a woman.”
Anna sets her fork down, feeling herself blanch.
“Well, we don’t know who that might have been . . . maybe his sister?” Anna’s voice is very level. When others are in a panic, one must keeps one’s wits. She learned this long ago in the days when Lucretia would fly off the handle at Mr. Wharton, and Anna would softly, sweetly draw Edith into another room.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. But I know you and Mr. White have been worried about him. Lonnie says they were making a bit of a spectacle of themselves, if you get my meaning. She sure weren’t his sister! And she was not the sort of woman anyone would expect to see with a gentleman like Mr. Wharton.”
Anna doesn’t want to hear more, can’t tolerate more complication in their already complicated world. Teddy with a questionable woman? And here Anna is again: in possession of information that will upset Edith. Why does this fly ash of disturbing information always land on her ears, forcing her to consider whether she must be the bearer of bad news? It’s her curse!
Anna scrapes her chair from the table, having lost her appetite.
“I have things to attend to in my room,” she says. “Excuse me.”
“I’ve offended you,” Mrs. Cotton says, rising, grabbing Anna’s elbow. “Please. I debated all day whether I ought to tell you. I’m sorry. I should have waited until you were through with your supper at least.”
Anna shakes her head. “I’m glad you told me, Mrs. Cotton. The thing is . . . I don’t know what to do about it. He’s not himself these days. And I feel it’s my job to look after him. Mrs. Wharton counts on me to look after him.”
“You have an elephant on your shoulders with that task,” Mrs. Cotton says.
Anna feels tears welling in her eyes. Is she emotional because she is caught in a storm, no shelter in sight? Or is she hurt? It had all been too pleasant. Too easy. Everything she could have wished for, for a brief, extraordinary moment. She feels mortified, ashamed that she wanted that ease and intimacy with Teddy so much—something that will never truly belong to her.
Oh, but it’s more. It’s that Teddy Wharton has disappointed her profoundly. Her friend. A vulnerable man she has defended so unceasingly. She believed in Teddy even when no one else did. She never expected it could come to this.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as she draws up her skirts, willing her tears to wait until she gets to her room.
Mrs. Cotton nods and lets Anna pass.
Edith lands on the perfect apartment at last. And to think it’s just across the street from the Vanderbilts’ on the Rue de Varenne. But bigger, and newer, with its own guest suite and servants’ quarters and steam heat! Unheard of in Paris. And what makes it so extraordinary is that the rooms are luxuriously spacious and overlook a small but elegant garden. A garden! It’s all she could want in space and light. Precisely in the part of the Faubourg she loves. Of course, it wants work. The walls and floor are worn, though it can’t be more than a few years old. And since it is to be leased empty, there is so much to purchase to make it a home. Edith is thrilled to throw herself into the task of finding objects and furnishings that express her own taste. Because since their arrival back in Paris, having once enjoyed such a perilous, delicious, inimitable closeness with Morton, she has written him almost every day, and received little in return.
Except that every time he does see her, he tries to persuade her that their intimacy will die if they don’t tend to it. Sometimes he suggests that if she won’t be alone with him at the Crillon, then they should check into a small hotel for just a few hours. He has many small urban inns to recommend, most of them tucked away on back streets, most reasonably priced, all reminding her that Morton has been to each of them with someone else. She can’t do it. Outside of Paris, it was different for her, almost acceptable. But in Paris, the thought of a few hours at a second-class hotel feels like a tawdry way to express their love. She wants long, thoughtful walks in the Tuileries, whispers, talks about poetry. She wants him to value their intellectual connection as much as their physical one. But he vanishes, answers fewer of her notes, doesn’t always show up when he says he will. And when she asks if he has begun the book about Paris for Macmillan—if he only knew she’s paid for it!—he merely laughs.
“Will you never learn to leave me alone about that?”
“But I’ve vouched for you. My name is at stake.”
“Nothing whatever will happen to your precious name. I’ll write it when I can.”
Morton. Like a sunbeam she tried to catch in her hand: when she opens her fist, alas, he was only a trick of the light. Soon Teddy will arrive. And any moments with Morton, even long, thoughtful walks, will have to be stolen.
The new apartment is a blessed distraction, assuages the sting of loss. But to really conquer the task, she needs Anna. No one can turn chaos into harmony faster or with more aplomb. A wizardess at keeping receipts, calling tradesmen, filing everything away with ease. Edith has already picked out Anna’s room. Not in the servants’ quarters at all, but right next to Teddy’s. In case he needs her. In case he calls for her. A lovely room with a view of the garden and plaster sprays of lilies of the valley lacing the edges of the ceiling. It will be Edith’s gift to Anna, who has so loyally watched over Mr. Wharton at his worst.
So she is unsettled when she receives a letter on the same day from Anna and Dr. Kinnicut, reporting that Teddy is acting “in a distinctly exalted state” (Dr. Kinnicut), “the unpredictable, giddy way he did last summer” (Anna). Dr. Kinnicut says his greatest fear is that shipping Teddy off to Paris might “send the pendulum back in the other direction.”
But what is Edith to do? She cannot return to the United States. She will not. She’d be trading his happiness for hers. This is the only place where she can breathe. Where she can write. Where she belongs. Teddy will simply have to come to Paris with Anna at the end of July, and then she’ll judge his state for herself. Perhaps, she thinks wishfully, he will choose to return to New York in time. She can live on in Paris. And though still married, without scandal or malice, they can live perfectly cordial existences continents apart. Oh, life seems a fragrant day in spring when she thinks of it!
NINETEEN
LATE SUMMER 1909
Gathering up the wayward Teddy, and having White pack for him, since he can’t seem to concentrate from one minute to the next, Anna gets him as far as New York, where they both check into the Waldorf on Fifth Avenue the day before their ship is to sail. But that night as she meets him for dinner—at last, a dinner with Teddy after weeks of hardly seeing him!—they stop at the desk and discover word has arrived from Teddy’s sister, Nannie, that old Mrs. Wharton is very ill and may not live.
“I have to head back up to Boston,” Teddy declares, looking happier than he should to be attending his mother’s deathbed. “I just wish I had the damn car.”
White asks to travel with him.
“Don’t be silly,” Teddy replies. “Go tend to the Missus in Paris.” And in a blink, he is off to Grand Central Station.
“We’re doing the best we can with him,” White tells Anna with a sigh, and excuses himself to follow
through with his plan to visit some New York friends.
Perhaps, Anna worries, as she picks at her filet of sole alone in the echoing Waldorf dining room, ugly rumors about Teddy having a paramour have reached Teddy’s mother, and are what has made her so gravely ill. The rumors certainly make Anna queasy. If she consults Edith, she’s afraid Edith will ask her to spy on Teddy, to check into a hotel in Boston and stick close by. So Anna doesn’t tell Edith a thing. She wants nothing more than to escape Teddy’s mania.
She can deal with his melancholia. Every time his spirits dropped, he reached out for her. But now, having been transformed into a mad, childish version of himself, he has pushed her away. What if Edith blames Anna for it? What if Edith is angry yet again at Anna for not caging him in? She’ll have to risk it. Anna wants, she needs, to be in Paris with Edith.
All the way across the ocean she is despondent. No word from Thomas. Teddy gone mad. Edith always picking her out as the perfect scapegoat. Anna tells herself soothingly that if things don’t work out, she’ll become a teacher again. How much more reliable and satisfying children can be than adults! And there’s always Kansas City. Jessie Toibin would allow Anna to work in the library with her two days a week if she asked. She’s sure of it. On Sundays, she’d dine with Aennchen and William, Charles and the boys. These daydreams sweep her across the ocean just as surely as the rumbling ship’s motor, the rudders and waves.
By the time Anna reaches Paris, word has come that old Mrs. Wharton has died, leaving Teddy an estate to clean up. Teddy writes Edith that he will stay on in Boston for a while with Nannie.
“Imagine that, Tonni,” Edith says. “Teddy agreeing to spend time in Boston. The man hates the place. Perhaps he is becoming less agitated, after all. I think you and Dr. Kinnicut were crying wolf. He sounds perfectly normal.
The Age of Desire Page 35
