The Age Of Desire: A Novel Part 31

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 grat.i.tude. 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 sh.o.r.e 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.

"I want to ask you to marry me," he said. As though he were going by script. As though it was all planned out. "But before I say the words, I must tell you something. You know I have three daughters, Anna. But I haven't told you about Tabita. It's time to tell you about my daughter . . . because this trip, this respite, is for me just a prelude for what I wish to happen for us."

"What about Tabita?" Anna asked.

"Unfortunately . . ." He cleared his throat. "She will be a girl all her life."

"I don't understand."

"My other daughters, Baldegunde, Sabinchen, haven't married, but I suspect they will. Though they are taking their time. . . ."

"I'm sure they will," Anna says encouragingly.

"But you see, Tabita . . ." He opens his wallet and pulls out a small photo. The girl in the photo is clutching a doll to her chest so ferociously it is the first thing Anna notes about her. Because from what Thomas said, she is a teenager. And then Anna peers more carefully, at a moon face beneath pale curls. At eyes with an epicanthic fold that reads as Asian, and a mouth that is sweet and smiling but slack in its way, open.

"She's . . . she's a mongoloid," Anna says, using the English word, not knowing how to say it in German.

"Yes, a Mongoloider Krueppel. You know about children like this?" Thomas asks.

"I knew a child like her once when I was young. I tried to help her learn to read."

When Anna was living at Aunt Charlotte's, there was a girl who lived down the street named Alissa with the same odd features and slack, happy smile.

"What's wrong with her?" Anna had asked Aunt Charlotte after they pa.s.sed her for the first time on the street and she had said, "h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Bahlmann," in a sloppy, soft voice.

"Oh, Alissa? She's a mongoloid idiot," Charlotte told her. Anna found the description perplexing. Charlotte was not a woman who called others names.

"Why do you call her an idiot?" Anna was indignant.

But Charlotte patiently explained. "I don't call her that. That's what the world calls people with her malady. Mostly, I just think of her as poor Alissa."

Anna liked tiny Alissa, who was eager to learn and addressed everyone openly and without fear of looking foolish. Anna would try to find books in Aunt Charlotte's library to show her. Together they sat on the steps of Alissa's house, Anna pointing at pictures and the words beneath them. Alissa loved the books, and in time learned to identify the letters, and with a great deal of repet.i.tion began to sound them out. She loved Anna, wanted to follow her everywhere. It breaks Anna's heart realizing that since Aunt Charlotte died, she's rarely thought of Alissa at all.

"Can Tabita read?" Anna asks.

"I think if someone were kind and patient . . . as you are. We didn't know if Tabita would live through childhood. But she has . . . ," Thomas says gravely. "She outlived Agnes. I never thought that would happen. Miss Bahlmann, you've never met a sweeter child. And you, having been a governess . . . well, you seem the perfect person to help her. To be there for her when I'm not."

"So you really want me as a governess, then? Not a wife . . . ?"

Anna s.h.i.+vers at the memory of that moment. She has no objection at the thought of helping the little girl in the photo. But the disappointment was dizzying. All along she imagined that Thomas might be falling in love with her, had chosen her for some unfathomable reason. But at that moment she knew with a chill what he really wanted.

How could she have believed that Thomas was falling in love with her? An old maid with gray hair and a tired knee. Not that he was a romantic hero. Aging. A bit stiff. He wrapped his napkin around his neck when he ate anything he feared might spatter. He rarely looked her in the eye. But for a few honeyed weeks, she had believed the stars had wheeled around in the sky and at last had dealt her a fate too good to be true. She should have known that stars can't spin so far from their natural orbits.

"I am going to ask something difficult of you, Tonni. And I hope you won't be angry about it. But you must take Teddy back," Edith says. "You're the only one I can trust to cross with him. Dr. Kinnicut says there are new treatments he'd like to try. Some serums. And Teddy's getting worse by the day, don't you think? I am at wit's end."

"You want me to travel alone with him?" Anna asks.

"We'll send White, of course. You'll need help. White's strong and Teddy trusts him. I'm sorry to ask this of you, but Teddy wouldn't even consider going without you."

Anna thinks: why can't you come along? Why must you stay in Paris? Fullerton is a rare visitor. She hardly hears his name anymore. So why can't Edith start her summer when the Vanderbilt apartment is handed over in April instead of moving into Harry's or the Hotel Crillon and flouncing to the salons and chatty lunches?

"But do you think Mr. Wharton can bear being away from you?" Anna asks.

"Me? You're the only one who can settle him down these days. He's angry at me. Or haven't you noticed?"

Anna is baffled. She agrees that Teddy is sinking faster than she could have imagined. He hardly makes sense some days. She hasn't told anyone, but more than once he's called her other names: Nanny, his sister's name. And a few times p.u.s.s.y. And there have been a few violent episodes, such as the day he threw his food tray across the room right toward the little housemaid with the red hair who quit in a flurry of French, saying she couldn't work for a madman. Or the evening he wandered into the salon while Edith was hosting an elegant old Faubourg clan-the Hermes family-and screamed at them that he couldn't stand to hear another frog word from their lips.

"Your voices are the voices from h.e.l.l! With your jabbering French! Get out of this apartment immediately!" Except for the youngest Hermes, they didn't speak a word of English and had no idea what he said. But that was the last time Edith felt safe to invite people over.

"I need to stay in Paris," Edith says. "I've already arranged to scout for an apartment of our own. A place I can lease so we can stay year-round. You, me, all of us. In the Faubourg, preferably. I've already leased The Mount out for the summer. We had a particularly good offer. And how could Teddy spend the summer there in his state?"

"But he loves it there. He'll be crushed if he hears . . ."

"I've already told him and he didn't say a word."

"Are you sure he heard you?"

"He may be unstable. He's not deaf."

Anna is bereft. Who will look in to see fat Lawton in the pig house? Or stroll the beautiful new paths? Who will whisper to the horses and feed them sugar lumps and take them out on the trails? Strangers. The notion gives her an unsettled feeling, a pain in her ears. She can't soothe Teddy anymore with tales about how they'll ride together or visit the animals. What can he look forward to? His wife, whom he adores, can hardly bear him. He's lost the one sanctuary that made him giddily happy.

"Don't look at me that way, Tonni. I have no choice but to send you with him."

"I don't mind going with him."

"Then what? What are you thinking? After all you and I have been through, it's best you tell me. There have been enough misunderstandings between us."

Misunderstandings? Is that what Edith thinks they were?

"I'm worried about him, that's all. And, I'm worried about you."

"About me? Why should you be? Without the burden of Teddy, I'm just fine."

"That's what worries me. It's that you think you can just s.h.i.+p him off and be fine! I've never thought of you as cavalier! He's your husband. In sickness and in health. Aren't those the words?"

Edith's face burns with anger. Her nostrils flare.

"And what could you possibly know about those words, Miss Bahlmann?"

Anna looks down at the floor. Edith's right. What could she know?

But Edith has paled. She sighs. "I don't want to be angry with you, Tonni. Why must you bait me?"

"I wasn't baiting you. It just feels wrong."

"You're not my governess anymore. Right and wrong are concepts I create for myself."

"Right and wrong are concepts you create?" Anna says, but so softly that Edith says, "What?"

There is so much Anna could say. But she knows she can't change her old student at this point, or even her point of view.

"When will Mr. Wharton and I travel?" she asks.

"White will make arrangements. We'll let you know."

Anna nods and turns to leave the room, but Edith goes on.

"Sometimes . . . sometimes things become just too much. Sometimes we don't do the things we think we should. We do the things we must."

Anna turns to her.

"You've told him that he's going back? You've warned him you're sending him away?"

"I have. Or I think I have. You can reiterate it."

"Edith . . ."

"Yes."

"I don't want us to be at odds either. . . ."

"Then stop taking Teddy's side."

"There are no sides," Anna says, leaving the room. "He's not acting this way on purpose. He's in pain. He's ill."

"I know that. I'm not good at helping him. You know I'm not. You are. I'm turning him over to you."

Anna wonders if turning Teddy over to her strikes Edith as a compliment.

"I understand," Anna says, leaving Edith, now sitting at her desk, eyes closed, head down, as penitent as Anna's ever seen her.

Anna writes to Thomas that they cannot meet in Europe, that she is due to sail back to America with her ailing employer's husband and doesn't know when she'll return. She worries that Thomas will think she's avoiding him, or even escaping him. So she adds at the bottom of the letter.

Please understand that I would be happy to see you again and hear what you have to say. Perhaps I will be back in Paris by summer. I will be sad to miss the spring here which I consider very beautiful.

She thinks to sign the letter "Anna Bahlmann" but stops at merely "Anna."

EIGHTEEN.

EARLY SUMMER 1909.

Even without Teddy in Paris, Edith is at loose ends. Living at the Crillon with no secretary at all to sort out the burgeoning pages of Custom, she's set it down and turned to writing poetry and short stories. She wants closure and they provide it. She needs something to show for the hours she's spent with a pen in her hand, and they are much more easily tied up with a bow. Besides, sharing herself with Undine Spragg was taking its toll. Undine has far too clear a sense of ent.i.tlement, often seems too big for the page, when Edith herself feels that she owns nothing: her pa.s.sion for Morton is folded up in tissue paper. She is walking away from the house she built to hold all her dreams. (How those dreams have fallen to pieces!) And now she doesn't even have the ease of the Vanderbilt apartment.

The afternoons and evenings she s.p.a.ckles over with gay lunches and teas. And salon dinners. And long walks just to repress the sense of restlessness that has again arisen. I'm icing a very badly formed cake, she thinks. A smear of gaiety over crumbling uncertainty. She looks at apartments to lease, but hasn't found one to her liking.

Morton will occasionally stop by unannounced, a book or box of sweets in his hand. He has finally signed the contract with Macmillan agreeing to write the Paris guide and has pocketed the money and ostensibly given it to his blackmailer, though somehow she still lingers on the sidelines, tormenting him.

"Have you begun to outline the book?" she asks.

"All in good time," he says.

"You've been given an advance. They won't wait forever."

He shakes his head and smiles at her.

"Yes, Mother." Often, he tries to kiss her lips when they part, taking her by the shoulders, drawing her against his chest. And she pulls away with a pained smile. She doesn't trust him. She doesn't know what he wants from her. She doesn't want to be just one of many women who find him irresistible.

"Not now," she says. "Please, not now."

Come May, Edith decides to return to England, where she found happiness the previous fall. She knows she will encounter overlit rooms (Oh, those sparkling just-washed chandeliers of London!), gaiety and spontaneity. Also an air of reticence and even untruth. Ah, the Englis.h.!.+ But truth is not what she wants or needs right now. What she longs for is pastel-colored distraction. Wit!

When she tells Morton she's crossing in late May, he asks that she wait until the beginning of June. He's had word that his father, the Reverend Fullerton, is ill, and he's booked pa.s.sage from Southampton to America.