The Age Of Desire: A Novel Part 19

"Of the moment. Once it was older men . . . but now, it's older women. Not that you're old, mind you. Not that you're old."

"Men?" Edith feels her mouth open, and has a sense of losing balance, dropping, falling.

"Oh, stop asking me," de Noailles says. "You can be such a bore. Enjoy the moment."

Edith says nothing. She knows she is as red as can be. And her hands have lost their steadiness.

"Oh, don't tell me you didn't know Mr. Fullerton has a reputation. Surely you knew that, ma chere?"

"I a.s.sumed . . . but I didn't know what you're telling me. . . ."

"Well, so let's discuss your writing, and I'll tell you all about mine!" De Noailles taps her on the knee. "But first, is there no liquor in this house?"

"Wait, I want to know more about Mr. Fullerton."

"Absolutely not," de Noailles says, straightening her long neck. "Ask him yourself. I am here for the liquor and the company. Not to give you a biography of Mr. Fullerton. Go on. Tell me about what you're writing. Have you created any characters based on me?"

Edith won't do it: won't ask Fullerton about what Anna de Noailles told her. Asking about Katherine did damage enough. And what if Morton was involved-in his youth-with some older man. What if he was? She can't obsess over what happened long ago. Years ago, in her stupid youth, she chose Teddy Wharton over Walter Berry, and what did that say about her?

Still, now that desire is her new play toy, constantly rekindled by the smallest reminder, she cannot help picturing a graying, elegant man propping himself on his elbow on some Oriental daybed, gazing down over Morton's beautiful body, testing the smooth surface of Morton's young chest with his beringed fingers, exploring Morton's masculine lips with the tip of his buffed thumbnail. It makes her s.h.i.+ver with a sort of agonized delight. De Noailles is right. The very inappropriateness of it, the shocking thought of it makes her heart pound. She will not, cannot ask him. The image is too delicious to spoil.

Tucked into an overly ornate chair in Harry's library, falling asleep over a book about xenophobia in French culture, she is jerked awake when the bonne raps on the door and says there is someone waiting to see her in the parlor. She isn't expecting anyone; her hair is pinned up artlessly. A week at Harry's with little contact from Morton has taken its toll. She's wearing her old s.h.i.+rtwaist and a gray flannel skirt that's more comfortable than comely. She can't imagine who would visit without calling or writing first.

"A gentleman? Did you get his name?" Edith asks.

"Yes, but I can't remember." A bonne so careless wouldn't survive a day in her household.

Still holding her book to her chest, Edith peeks in through a crack in the parlor doors. In the velvet bergere by the fire sprawls Morton Fullerton. He looks so young, so carefree. Leaning his elbow on the armrest, his head c.o.c.ked sideways onto his hand, he appears so at home he could easily be the lord of the manor. With his slender legs outstretched, he seems taller than he is, perhaps merely because his confidence is so oversized. She envies him this, and is also wary of it.

"h.e.l.lo," she says, gliding into the room. "Did you tell me you were coming?"

"No, I'm a terribly rude, bad boy. I had to pursue a story just across Thomas Jefferson Square. I wanted to see where you've been hiding."

"Well, you found me."

Just seeing him sends a shock of new energy through her. Since their trip to Montfort, desire sits on the very surface of her skin these days. Anything the least sensuous seems to set a spark. And Morton has allowed this flame to smolder in her alone. Oh, how she wishes to touch him! At the same time, she is certain she will be reduced to ashes if he places his fingers on her.

"This seems quite the house. Take me on a tour," he says. "I've never been to Place des etats-Unis."

"It's just like my brother to choose to live in Paris but reside on a street called American Place," she says.

"Ah yes. Sophisticated Mrs. Wharton wouldn't be caught dead here . . . and yet here you are!"

She shakes her head. "Why is it I feel the way about you that I do?" Oh, the effort to sound dry when he washes over her the way he does!

He flashes a clownish smile, then kisses her lightly on the cheek by her ear, sending waves of delight through her.

"Will you give me a tour?"

"It's not a very big house," she says.

She leads him on a short exploration of Harry's rooms, from the overdecorated parlor with its heavy silk damask drapes, the dining room with its ten paintings of s.h.i.+ps all lined up as a grid on the wall and the library with its gilded chairs.

"Harry and I don't share the same taste," she tells him. "This is my room for the moment, though pink is far from my favorite color."

"Like cherry ice cream," he says, looking about. "Makes me want to lick it." He shuts the door with his back and pulls her toward him.

"The servants," she says weakly.

"Hush. They're not even your servants. And I've missed you."

"But you've barely written and made no attempt to . . ."

"I've had concerns. It had nothing to do with you." He turns her around and presses her up against the door, raising her hands above her head and insinuating his body against hers. The feeling is unbearably delicious. To be so totally owned. How easily she melts under his touch, dissolves to nothing. But not here!

"Morton. You disappear for days . . ."

"Stop talking," he says sharply, then kisses her as urgently as he used to in the dark doorways of restaurants, and at Montfort. Oh, how she wishes to reject him. Instead, she is shamed to hear herself panting.

"I'm being watched here. The woman who brings my breakfast tray . . ."

"Hush. . . . Wouldn't you like to feel again what I made you feel at Montfort?"

"I can't."

"You can."

He walks her backward to the bed, pressing her down onto the cream matela.s.se coverlet.

"No," she pushes at him lightly.

"My dear." He runs his hand up her leg.

She continues to push back at him. "No," she says. When his fingers insinuate themselves beneath her underclothes, her reaction is sudden and violent; her whole lower body shoves him back with enough force that he stumbles against the chest of drawers and almost falls.

For a moment there is a hideous silence. Morton straightens himself proudly, yanking down his waistcoast, smoothing his hair, not looking at her.

"Well," he says.

Edith is mortified. She stands, her knees quaking. "Not here. That's all I'm saying. . . ."

"Sometimes you are an awful lot of effort."

"I'm sorry." She closes her eyes, remorseful. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Did I hurt you?"

He glares at her, not answering. "HJ is coming soon. You understand?" he says.

Her lips quiver.

"Then we'll have no time alone together . . . even if he does approve of our enchevetrement romantique."

"Just not here. Not here at Harry's."

"And then you sail. 'Not here.' It's an excuse, you know. It's an excuse because you have no heart."

"I do have a heart. . . ." In fact, she feels it sinking, clanking away from her like a rock down a well. She must know him better, feel closer to him before she can feel close in that other way. "What sorts of concerns have you had?" she asks.

"What?"

"You said you've had other concerns which kept you from me. What sorts of concerns?"

"I told you it has nothing to do with you. Why would it help to share my worries?"

"It might make me feel nearer to you. . . ."

"Women always think it's a good idea to know more about a man. But what they discover rarely does anything but upset them."

Edith opens the door and heads for the parlor. All her remorse, all her longing freezes in her veins. He wants her to give up everything, and intends to give nothing in return. He follows her down the hall straight to the front door. The scent of his lavender cologne precedes him.

"Thank you for visiting," she says, opening it.

"Listen to the ice in Madame's voice. You push me away, and don't even offer me tea to ask for forgiveness?"

"There's a tea shop just at the corner."

"I have a mind to start shouting until all the servants come running." And then his voice rises to an ear-shattering volume. "Mrs. Wharton's breaking my heart!"

"Hush," she says, exasperated. "All the servants here speak English." The bonne is already running into the room with a concerned look on her face.

"Is everything all right, Madam?"

"We're fine, Celeste. Mr. Fullerton is just leaving."

"Yes, Ma'am."

When the bonne's footsteps retreat, Edith turns to him. "If you want tea with me, or anything, things will have to change. I can't keep up with you. One minute you have no time for me. The next you're on my doorstep."

"Ah, we'll have tea soon and far more," Morton says, s.n.a.t.c.hing his hat from the stand in the hall and flas.h.i.+ng a broad, a.s.sured smile. "Because fortunately, dear, you love me."

Henry and Edith have a plan. Instead of his coming directly to Paris as usual, he'll sail to Le Havre and take the train to Amiens, where they can enjoy the cathedral together. He writes her: To see the cathedral in the late afternoon will be of the last refinement. And it will be adorable to have WMF-kindly tell him, with my love, how immensely I feel this.

Knowing that Henry is far too fastidious to ever act on his adulation for Morton, could never have been the older man with whom Morton dallied, Edith sees that she has been appointed his surrogate. She smiles at his note. He wants Edith and Morton to be together.

When she tells Morton about it on the telephone-all the rage she felt the last time she saw him had astonis.h.i.+ngly melted away-he agrees to join her in picking up Henry at the train station in Amiens. "After Henry goes to bed, the rest of the night will be ours," he says. "If you promise not to hurt me in the process."

The morning of Henry's arrival, however, Edith wakes, her heart pounding to the sound of a terrible deluge. Thunder. Rain rus.h.i.+ng down the streets in torrents. Wind rattling windows. No day for a motor-flight of any kind. She immediately wires Henry to come straight to Paris instead of Amiens, and dashes off a note to Morton as well. As she sips her morning tea, she is astonished at how relieved she feels.

Arriving in Paris larger, more winded and red-faced than ever, Henry is happy to be welcomed into Harry's dry and fussy little house.

"In retrospect, I see that a side trip to Amiens might have killed me. I must be grateful to the G.o.ds for concocting this wretched rain."

He is pleased that Harry has agreed to let him have the yellow bedroom overlooking the just-budding rose garden. Before he takes a nap to fortify himself for the rest of the day, he hugs Edith warmly.

"You are so exceedingly important to me, dearest Edith," he says with stentorian grandeur, as the servants mill about with fresh towels and fire stoking. "Or I should never have dragged my weighty, miserable soul across the channel. I want you to drink in my stay, because I may never come again." Edith begins to close the door when she hears Henry calling through it.

"When I wake, will I get a glimpse of Miss Bahlmann?"

"No, I'm sorry. She's gone back to the States."

"Why on earth would she desert you? That doesn't sound like her."

Edith bites her lip and demurs. "I sent her back."

Henry frowns. "What did she do to deserve that?"

"She disapproves of Morton," Edith says.

"Ahhh. Well, in the future, you can always send her to me. I know she doesn't disapprove of me. And I find her very useful."

Park Avenue could not look more foreign to Anna if it were Tverskaya Street in Moscow. After such a long season in Paris, the houses (especially 882 and poor 884 with no window boxes and tired curtains) look small and plain and rather oddly unpeopled. Though Anna has always appreciated New York more than Edith, perhaps she has finally caught Edith's Americaphobia as one might catch a cold. Everything looks smaller, more provincial and more foreboding than it has ever seemed to her before.

It takes a good two weeks of unpacking her trunks and reacquainting herself with her treasured things: her books, her favorite mulberry-colored teapot, her Aunt Charlotte's mohair armchair, to feel comfortable once more. But she has to admit, she is remarkably happy to be away from Edith. How painful it was to have to hear from Cook two, three times a week about her lunches with Morton Fullerton. And Anna wouldn't have even minded that so much if Edith hadn't appeared so unconcerned about Teddy, so defiant of all the things she's been taught, of the vows she once took so solemnly. In some odd, angry way, Anna wishes she would never have to lay eyes on Edith again.

After some days, Anna is surprised to find herself revitalized by familiar smells and sounds of New York. Even the steam train rattling through the open tunnels on Park Avenue warms her heart. Everyone is talking about how, come June, the law is forcing the railroads to switch to electric trains only. It feels like an era pa.s.sing. New York is growing up. And she has missed so much of it. If she stays with Edith, she will miss more.

One day, Anna walks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and wanders among her favorite Greek and Roman galleries, and then spends time among the American paintings, something she has hardly ever done. She stops at a George Inness painting t.i.tled Autumn Oaks, with its light just breaking through the clouds and spilling onto the golden-green gra.s.s. There is a sort of innocent optimism about American paintings that feels spirited and true.

And then, as Anna stands there, tears well up in her eyes. A rush of them. She fumbles in her handbag for a handkerchief, sits on a bench near Autumn Oaks and tries to hide her face from others in the room. What's come over her? She feels suddenly, excruciatingly brokenhearted.

How happy Edith is with Morton and Henry, gathered at luncheon in the courtyard of the Hotel d'Angleterre, the three of them relaxing under a mauve umbrella, sipping cold white Bordeaux. The breeze in Beauvais is as sweet and warm as July. Two little girls sit cross-legged on the stone pavement under a fringe of fragrant wisteria, playing clapping games in high, cheerful French. The waiter is whistling. Sweet-faced pensees bloom around a stone fountain plas.h.i.+ng with water. Canaries sing in unison in a fat silvered cage by the restaurant door. Was there ever so sweet a symphony?

"Oh happy day," Henry declares, clasping each of their hands. "We are together at last! And in such a lovely place!"

Edith smiles at him, and then at Morton, who initially didn't want to come to Beauvais at all but now looks as happy as she's seen him in a while. How startlingly handsome he is when relaxed. She watches Henry gaze over at him fondly. He, too, revels in Morton's beauty.

"It will be uncomfortable with the three of us," Morton had fretted when she invited him. "I'll want your attention. He'll want mine."

"Please come. The thought of you not being there makes me sad. You must come."

Having them both here now, how could she feel more magnificent? Free and happy to be out of Paris and Harry's house of servants and strictures. Today in the suns.h.i.+ne and country air, she feels ten years younger.

"If only one could put a day into a potion and drink it whenever one likes," Henry says. "I would choose today and Beauvais."

"I would choose today," Edith agrees.

"I would choose the day I graduated from Harvard," Morton says.

Henry shakes his head and laughs. "You're a scamp, dear man."