The Age Of Desire: A Novel Part 16

"You couldn't possibly understand," he says. "We should go if we want any time in the Tuileries at all."

"Yes."

She listens to their footsteps echoing together on the gravel.

"Is my worldview so narrow?" she asks after a while.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You said I couldn't possibly understand what's bothering you. You might try me."

"This has nothing to do with you," he snaps.

"I'm sorry."

He shakes his head. "You wanted to see me?" he asks.

"I don't understand," she tells him. "You longed for nothing but time alone together and now that it's easier, you eschew it. And we're seeing each other less."

"Well, we're together now."

"Yes, but you're not talking to me."

"I'm talking to you. You hear my voice."

She shudders. "I know I've been tiresome. Who'd want to be with a tedious woman like me? And I'm aware how busy you are, how the bureau has tormented you for days. Is that it? Is that why you've been reluctant to commit more time?"

"I have my reasons," he says.

"I'm sure you do. Just share them, please."

"There are things you don't know about me. Pressures you can't possibly imagine."

"I can imagine them if you share them. It's not much to ask. I can support you better if you tell me."

"I wish I could." He doesn't look at her. His eyes have a glazed, far-off stare.

"I don't like it when you're being mysterious. I suppose some women might find it exciting. It merely makes me distrust you."

"Distrust me, then. . . ."

How could things have become so awfully derailed between them? If only she'd gone with him that day to the inn. Why is it so hard for her? Other women in love would have followed, would have lain down with him in those sheets, enjoyed his whispers and caresses.

"Is it your work?" she asks.

"I told you I don't want to discuss it."

A warm tear escapes and runs down her cheek. Perhaps it's over. Perhaps there's someone else already more willing than she. A younger woman, no doubt more beautiful. What woman wouldn't respond to his attractiveness, his magnetic charms? She barely suppresses a sob, and feels him glance her way.

"So," he says, suddenly falsely bright. "Tell me what you hear from Henry. He writes he's coming to visit!" Seeing her cry, he must pity her, and is trying to make small talk.

"Yes," Edith says, ruing the quaver in her voice. "He's coming. In May."

"Splendid. I wrote him about us, you know."

"You did? About us?"

"He was pleased. He said you should be treated with the sweetest care. He's right, of course."

She can hardly believe it. She looks at him and cannot read his face. If Morton has told Henry their secret, then he must have lasting feelings for her. She should be angry-having been exposed as a philanderer to the one person she most admires-but Morton says Henry's glad for them. In which case she's thrilled to include him in the conspiracy.

"He says he loves us both, and can absolutely see why we might love one another."

"Is that what you told him? That we love one another?" she asks, her voice brightening.

"More or less . . ."

"Which is it, more . . . or less?"

Morton just shakes his head and laughs, but she can see it's with aggravation.

"What did you tell him?"

"Well, I don't have a copy of the letter in my jacket, Edith. I suppose I told him we have feelings for each other."

"What sort of feelings? Like good friends, I suppose."

"Do you know you really can be vexing?"

"I'm not trying to be vexing. . . ."

"We're not even lovers. And yet you'd like to manage every word that's spoken about us. Everything we say to one another. As though we're characters in one of your books and you can rewrite the scene to suit yourself."

"That's unfair. I have a right to know what you're saying about us to Henry. . . ."

"I'm under a great deal of pressure. Don't you understand? I try to please you. Really I do. And yet there's nothing I can do to make you happy."

"You do make me happy."

"And that's why you're crying, I suppose."

Edith searches for a handkerchief in her purse and dabs her eyes. By now they have reached the carousel, and the colors and sounds of small children full of delight wound her more than soothe.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to irritate you or wheedle or make things difficult. That's the last thing I want. I want to be valuable, to be supportive. I thought with Teddy gone now you would be happy. . . ."

"My upset has nothing to do with you," he says.

"Really?"

He looks down and his eyelashes glisten in the light. Then he raises his eyes with unexpected tenderness. His mouth softens. "I've been harsh. I'm sorry. There are things you couldn't possibly understand. Once they're settled, we'll be like we were. But better . . . because Teddy's gone."

She nods. "That's all I want."

"Have patience with me, my love," he says. "As I've had patience with you."

"Yes. Fair enough," she says before her voice trails off and the sadness feels once again like sacks of rocks weighing on each of her shoulders.

She doesn't hear from him at all for four days. And then Morton's sister, Katherine, arrives.

"Will you join us for dinner?" Morton bleus her one morning. "My sister wishes to meet you."

Edith is stunned and thrilled. If Morton is choosing to introduce her to his sister, the clouds of their previous meeting must have pa.s.sed. They agree to dine at Gerald's, a restaurant with dark velvet booths and quiet carpets that reminds Edith of the theatre. Edith picks up the Fullertons in her motor. Morton gets into the car first, settling next to Edith. Oh, the feel of him, the warmth of him beside her! Quietly, she slips him a note.

He takes it, but, worrying over Katherine's entrance into the car, he holds it in his hand, between his index finger and middle finger like a cigarette, rather than sliding it into his pocket for later inspection.

Earlier in the day, after receiving his pet.i.t bleu, Edith had thought it important that she bridge the gap between their miserable meeting and this dinner. Now she wishes she hadn't bothered. For whatever reason, she hadn't imagined that slipping it to him would have been so awkward.

Dearest [she wrote on this, her third attempt], Are things better now? I have been worried far too much about you since our last meeting. I was reluctant to write. But when you told me you wanted to meet for dinner tonight, it stirred my courage like embers in a fire. I do hope you've forgiven me for whatever trespa.s.ses I've committed.

Your E When Katherine has fully gathered her skirts into the motor and Cook has closed her door, Edith leans over to see her. Tiny and beautiful with dark wavy hair, which she wears pinned up in front but loose around her shoulders, she seems more like a child than a woman. Her face strikes Edith as an Italian cameo. Perfect and unlined with a sweet, mysterious smile.

"My sister Katherine," Morton proclaims. He is more than a little proud of his sister, presenting her to Edith like a decorated cake. "Two great women meet."

Edith reaches over and shakes Katherine Fullerton's tiny hand.

"I hope you are enjoying Paris?"

"I love Paris," Katherine says. "I'd be happy to make it my home." She glances over at Morton with a knowing smile. Has he offered to have her come to Paris for good?

As they are getting out at Gerald's, exiting on Edith's side, Morton, perhaps having forgotten he was holding her note, drops it on the motorcar floor, and Katherine says, "Oh!" right before she steps on it and picks it up. Thank G.o.d Edith didn't write "Morton" on the outside of the envelope.

"Is this yours, Mrs. Wharton?" she asks, holding it out as she slides from the car, her blue eyes wide and innocent. "I'm awfully sorry I stepped on it."

"Oh dear. It certainly is." Edith feels the vein in her neck pulse with warning. She should be angry at Morton for carelessness, yet she finds even this pleases her. Perhaps he wants Katherine to know that they are more than friends. She tucks the note into her purse, wondering if she should give it to him at all.

Later, Katherine announces over soup in a voice as soft and melodious as a girl in her teens, "My brother says wonderful things about you, Mrs. Wharton. In practically every letter. He sent me The House of Mirth last year and I was quite taken with it."

Edith looks fondly over at Morton, but he is too rapt with Katherine to share her smile.

"I've even pa.s.sed the book on to other women at Bryn Mawr. There was a great deal of excitement about it. It's rare to find a book by a woman. But to find one so accomplished! It's presently everyone's favorite book at the college. And to think you're friends with Will! It's so clever of him to acquire such ill.u.s.trious friends."

Edith is amused how formally she speaks. Though her voice is soft, she carries more authority than most young girls. Morton said she is a lecturer at Bryn Mawr! Edith tries to imagine how her life would have been if she had had the opportunity of such a notable job and so much freedom. Edith can't help being impressed.

She is surprised how physically protective Morton seems of Katherine, touching her blue silk sleeve often during the meal, especially when she says something he deems clever. Katherine clearly adores him, glancing over often for approval. "Don't you think, Will?" she asks. And yet she is brilliant. Sharper than almost any woman Edith has known. She meets Edith measure for measure in discussions of Dante and Meredith. She writes poetry. She teaches at a university. She has decided to write a novel, which she has already outlined. She has hands as delicate and white as porcelain. Edith wonders why just sharing a meal with Katherine should give her a jealous ache. Maybe it is simply Katherine's s.h.i.+ning youth, and the aura of possibility she wears like a halo.

"Mother says that Will is not living up to his potential at the Times," Katherine says in a semi-teasing voice over dessert. "She thinks if he came back to Boston, he could be a professor at Harvard. And then she could see him more often."

"Harvard!" Edith says, surprised.

"I could never leave Paris," Morton says flatly.

"Charles Elliot Norton would vouch for him. He'd be employed immediately. He told mother so. Especially now with all of Will's worldly experience. He's always been fond of Will."

"Is it something you've considered?" Edith asks, bewildered.

"It's something that Mother and Katherine have cooked up to control me," Morton says. "And nothing more. Now don't go spreading unfounded rumors," he tells Katherine. She sighs and pushes her mouth out into a pretty pout.

"Katherine thinks if she keeps saying it aloud in front of others, it will come true," Morton says. "I'm afraid that would be a different Morton Fullerton."

"A happier one, perhaps," Katherine says.

"A miserable one with a very large belly stuffed by motherly love and sisterly intrusion. No thank you."

"Mother says Will is the most stubborn Fullerton in the history of all Fullertons. And you should meet Father!" Katherine says.

"Please stop quoting Mother, or I shall have to leave the table and go to the bar and chat up the barkeeper," Morton counters.

"Because he's the eldest, he's very spoiled," Katherine confides in Edith.

She laughs. "I can see that," she says, but Morton doesn't look like he's in on the joke.

The next morning on Edith's breakfast tray is a pet.i.t bleu.

Dearest, Thank you for being so thoughtful as to meet my sister. She can speak of nothing but you. Was there something in that note I should see?

Yrs. MF "I met Fullerton's sister," Edith tells Anna. Maybe if she begins to speak of him, Anna will see him less as a threat. "As lovely a girl as you can imagine. And do you know she teaches at Bryn Mawr? She can't be more than in her early twenties, and yet she has a job teaching at a college."

"Is she terribly brainy?" Anna asks.

"Oh yes, but not at all worldly. Rather naive, I think. But Morton is so proud of her. His whole face lights up when he speaks of her accomplishments. Can you imagine, Tonni, if I'd been able to teach college? Or you? If such a thing had been possible when we were young? I wonder what our lives would have been like."

Anna nods. "It's hard to imagine."

"Ah, if I were younger," Edith says. "I'd do it all over again. Every part of my life, except for the writing, of course."

NINE.

SPRING 1908.

The following weekend, with Katherine on her way to a convent in Tours to work on her novel "without distraction," Edith finally has her full day with Morton: a motor trip to Montfort l'Amaury. It starts out like many April days, the Paris streets veiled in rain, but by the time they reach Montfort, the sun is brilliant. Leaving Cook far below in the motorcar, Edith and Morton take the stone path up the hill to explore the ruin of an old castle built in 996. They laugh at how winded they soon are, trudging up the rocky lane.