“Perhaps I had. The most prudent girls aren’t always prudent. What made you think of it now?”
Mrs. Slade seemed to have no answer ready. But after a moment she broke out: “Because I simply can’t bear it any longer—!”
Mrs. Ansley lifted her head quickly. Her eyes were wide and very pale. “Can’t bear what?”
“Why—your not knowing that I’ve always known why you went.”
“Why I went—?”
“Yes. You think I’m bluffing, don’t you? Well, you went to meet the man I was engaged to—and I can repeat every word of the letter that took you there.”
While Mrs. Slade spoke Mrs. Ansley had risen unsteadily to her feet. Her bag, her knitting and gloves, slid in a panicstricken heap to the ground. She looked at Mrs. Slade as though she were looking at a ghost.
“No, no—don’t,” she faltered out.
“Why not? Listen, if you don’t believe me. ‘My one darling, things can’t go on like this. I must see you alone. Come to the Colosseum immediately after dark tomorrow. There will be somebody to let you in. No one whom you need fear will suspect’—but perhaps you’ve forgotten what the letter said?”
Mrs. Ansley met the challenge with an unexpected composure. Steadying herself against the chair she looked at her friend, and replied: “No; I know it by heart too.”
“And the signature? ‘Only your D.S.’ Was that it? I’m right, am I? That was the letter that took you out that evening after dark?”
Mrs. Ansley was still looking at her. It seemed to Mrs. Slade that a slow struggle was going on behind the voluntarily controlled mask of her small quiet face. “I shouldn’t have thought she had herself so well in hand,” Mrs. Slade reflected, almost resentfully. But at this moment Mrs. Ansley spoke. “I don’t know how you knew. I burnt that letter at once.”
“Yes; you would, naturally—you’re so prudent!” The sneer was open now. “And if you burnt the letter you’re wondering how on earth I know what was in it. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Slade waited, but Mrs. Ansley did not speak.
“Well, my dear, I know what was in that letter because I wrote it!”
“You wrote it?”
“Yes.”
The two women stood for a minute staring at each other in the last golden light. Then Mrs. Ansley dropped back into her chair. “Oh,” she murmured, and covered her face with her hands.
Mrs. Slade waited nervously for another word or movement. None came, and at length she broke out: “I horrify you.”
Mrs. Ansley’s hands dropped to her knee. The face they uncovered was streaked with tears. “I wasn’t thinking of you. I was thinking—it was the only letter I ever had from him!”
“And I wrote it. yes; I wrote it! But I was the girl he was engaged to. Did you happen to remember that?”
Mrs. Ansley’s head drooped again. “I’m not trying to excuse myself...I remembered...”
“And still you went?”
“Still I went.”
Mrs. Slade stood looking down on the small bowed figure at her side. The flame of her wrath had already sunk, and she wondered why she had ever thought there would be any satisfaction in inflicting so purposeless a wound on her friend. But she had to justify herself.
“You do understand? I’d found out—and I hated you, hated you. I knew you were in love with Delphin—and I was afraid; afraid of you, of your quiet ways, your sweetness...your...well, I wanted you out of the way, that’s all. Just for a few weeks; just till I was sure of him. So in a blind fury I wrote that letter...I don’t know why I’m telling you now.”
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Ansley slowly, “it’s because you’ve always gone on hating me.”
“Perhaps. Or because I wanted to get the whole thing off my mind.” She paused. “I’m glad you destroyed the letter. Of course I never thought you’d die.”
Mrs. Ansley relapsed into silence, and Mrs. Slade, leaning above her, was conscious of a strange sense of isolation, of being cut off from the warm current of human communion. “You think me a monster!”
“I don’t know... It was the only letter I had, and you say he didn’t write it?”
“Ah, how you care for him still!”
“I cared for that memory,” said Mrs. Ansley.
Mrs. Slade continued to look down on her. She seemed physically reduced by the blow—as if, when she got up, the wind might scatter her like a puff of dust. Mrs. Slade’s jealousy suddenly leapt up again at the sight. All these years the woman had been living on that letter. How she must have loved him, to treasure the mere memory of its ashes! The letter of the man her friend was engaged to. Wasn’t it she who was the monster?
“You tried your best to get him away from me, didn’t you? But you failed; and I kept him. That’s all.”
“Yes. That’s all.”
“I wish now I hadn’t told you. I’d no idea you’d feel about it as you do; I thought you’d be amused. It all happened so long ago, as you say; and you must do me the justice to remember that I had no reason to think you’d ever taken it seriously. How could I, when you were married to Horace Ansley two months afterward? As soon as you could get out of bed your mother rushed you off to Florence and married you. People were rather surprised—they wondered at its being done so quickly; but I thought I knew. I had an idea you did it out of pique—to be able to say you’d got ahead of Delphin and me. Girls have such silly reasons for doing the most serious things. And your marrying so soon convinced me that you’d never really cared.”
“Yes. I suppose it would,” Mrs. Ansley assented.
The clear heaven overhead was emptied of all its gold. Dusk spread over it, abruptly darkening the Seven Hills. Here and there lights began to twinkle through the foliage at their feet. Steps were coming and going on the deserted terrace—waiters looking out of the doorway at the head of the stairs, then reappearing with trays and napkins and flasks of wine. Tables were moved, chairs straightened. A feeble string of electric lights flickered out. Some vases of faded flowers were carried away, and brought back replenished. A stout lady in a dust-coat suddenly appeared, asking in broken Italian if any one had seen the elastic band which held together her tattered Baedeker. She poked with her stick under the table at which she had lunched, the waiters assisting.
The corner where Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley sat was still shadowy and deserted. For a long time neither of them spoke. At length Mrs. Slade began again: “I suppose I did it as a sort of joke—”
“A joke?”
“Well, girls are ferocious sometimes, you know. Girls in love especially. And I remember laughing to myself all that evening at the idea that you were waiting around there in the dark, dodging out of sight, listening for every sound, trying to get in—. Of course I was upset when I heard you were so ill afterward.”
Mrs. Ansley had not moved for a long time. But now she turned slowly toward her companion. “But I didn’t wait. He’d arranged everything. He was there. We were let in at once,” she said.
Mrs. Slade sprang up from her leaning position. “Delphin there? They let you in?—Ah, now you’re lying!” she burst out with violence.
Mrs. Ansley’s voice grew clearer, and full of surprise. “But of course he was there. Naturally he came—”
“Came? How did he know he’d find you there? You must be raving!”
Mrs. Ansley hesitated, as though reflecting. “But I answered the letter. I told him I’d be there. So he came.”
Mrs. Slade flung her hands up to her face. “Oh, God—you answered! I never thought of your answering...”
“It’s odd you never thought of it, if you wrote the letter.”
“Yes. I was blind with rage.”
Mrs. Ansley rose, and drew her fur scarf about her. “It is cold here. We’d better go...I’m sorry for you,” she said, as she clasped the fur about her throat.
The unexpected words sent a pang through Mrs. Slade. “Yes; we’d better go.” She gathered up her bag and cloak. “I don’t know
why you should be sorry for me,” she muttered.
Mrs. Ansley stood looking away from her toward the dusky secret mass of the Colosseum. “Well—because I didn’t have to wait that night.”
Mrs. Slade gave an unquiet laugh. “Yes; I was beaten there. But I oughtn’t to begrudge it to you, I suppose. At the end of all these years. After all, I had everything; I had him for twenty-five years. And you had nothing but that one letter that he didn’t write.”
Mrs. Ansley was again silent. At length she turned toward the door of the terrace. She took a step, and turned back, facing her companion.
“I had Barbara,” she said, and began to move ahead of Mrs. Slade toward the stairway.
THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.nyrb.com
Copyright © 2007 by NYREV, Inc.
Introduction copyright © 2007 by Roxana Robinson
All rights reserved.
The stories “After Holbein,” “Diagnosis,” and “Pomegranate Seed” are reprinted by permission of the estate of Edith Wharton and the Watkins/Loomis Agency.
Cover image: Childe Hassam, Washington Arch, Spring, 1890
Cover design: Katy Homans
The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier printing as follows:
Wharton, Edith, 1862–1937.
[Short stories. Selections]
The New York stories of Edith Wharton / by Edith Wharton ; selected and with an introduction by Roxana Robinson.
p. cm. — (New York Review Books classics)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59017-248-3 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-59017-248-5 (alk. paper)
1. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Robinson, Roxana. II. Title.
PS3545.H16A6 2007
813’.52—dc22
2007019564
eISBN 978-1-59017-436-4
v1.0
For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:
Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
The New York Stories of Edith Wharton Page 50