The Age of Desire

by Jennie Fields

  At the train to Le Havre, Morton is dutifully waiting with her diary under his arm. She takes the leather book and tucks it into her hand luggage.

  “Dearest,” she whispers, and longs desperately for just a moment alone, a whispered word, anything that speaks of all they’ve been to each other. She successfully begged Harry not to come and see her off, just so that she might have that moment with Morton, so that words might be spoken which she can enclose in her hand and clutch all the way to New York. But all around them, like a thrumming conspiracy, are people they know.

  “My God, Pussy, what good luck to see you!” Her cousin Le Roy King steps between Morton and her, and throws his arms around her shoulders.

  “Don’t you look splendid! Are you off today as well? Don’t tell me you’re on the Provence? This is just too lucky, I say! Let’s make certain we’re at the same table for dinner tonight. We’ll pop champagne and I’ll catch you up on Bunny and Abel and what’s been happening to the whole ugly brood. Where’s my good friend Teddy? At Hot Springs? Who’d choose Hot Springs over Paris? He’s a madman!”

  Morton is looking out into the crowd, his face unreadable, smoking.

  “Have you ever met my friend, Mr. Fullerton?” she asks. “He was good enough to see me off. I’m afraid we have a bit of business to discuss before the train leaves.”

  “How do you do there, Fullerton. Seems we’ve met somewhere, but I have no idea where. We didn’t go to school together, did we? I’m an Eli. You? Harvard. Gosh. Harvard, old man, what were you thinking?”

  While Le Roy prattles on, Edith watches Morton for a sign of annoyance, or even misery, at their parting. But there is nothing to decipher. She feels as distant from him as if she were already halfway across the Atlantic. The idea sends a dart of pain through her chest. No wonder the words “broken heart” were created. She does feel as though her heart is a dried-out tea biscuit, left on the floor and stepped on.

  “Last time I traveled, two of my trunks were lost or stolen. Never did find them again. . . . Someone out there is wearing my evening clothes!”

  “Le Roy, let’s plan on dinner tonight,” Edith says, finding a spot to break into his monologue at last. “Right now, Mr. Fullerton and I have a few last-minute business items to discuss. He’s handling my stories with the Revue de Paris and we must chat about the coming few months. You wouldn’t mind giving us a moment, would you?”

  “Just remember to look me up on the ship then, dear,” Le Roy says. He shakes Morton’s hand with absurdly good cheer and then, thank God, he is gone.

  Morton boards the train with her and helps settle her luggage onto the overhead rack. His eyes already look bored. Or is it just fear that makes her read impatience into his expression. Could he really be happy to see her go? He has read her diary. He knows what he has meant to her. She wonders if it was a mistake to share the words with him. Like snapping open her ribs and presenting her heart. Perhaps she trusted too much. She had thought of it as a gift of her love. But maybe he sees it as an expression of her need for him. He has always balked when she’s asked too much.

  “Dear Mrs. Wharton, are you on your way for the season?”

  Edith looks up to see the Abbé de Mugnier insinuating himself into their compartment, another gray-haired gentleman behind him. The unfairness, the misery of so many people milling about! She feels she is being punished.

  “This is my brother!” the good Abbé says. “He’s on the Provence. Are you as well?”

  She nods and shakes the Abbé’s brother’s plump little hand.

  “And you too, Mr. Fullerton?”

  “No, I’ve just come to see Mrs. Wharton off.”

  Edith loves the Abbé and his wonderful sense of humor. But she longs to make him disappear altogether. She fears she will begin to cry.

  “Well, I hope you and my brother get to spend some time together while at sea. I think you’ll find you have much in common. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you two alone to say your good-byes.” He looks from Edith to Morton with a wry smile. My God, Edith wonders, does he know? The train whistle hoots its dire warning.

  “I’d better go,” Morton says.

  “But we finally have a moment alone!”

  He closes his eyes with what could be impatience, or sadness. “I’ve never been very impressive at good-byes. I’m much more comfortable slipping off and writing a note later. . . . Besides, you know I plan to come to the States some time this summer.”

  “Will you write a note? I feel as though I’m being torn in two.”

  His eyes are kind. “I know,” he says. Perhaps these are the only kind words she’ll get from him. Her heart sinks. He kisses her quickly on the mouth, but she grabs his shoulders and takes one last deep draught from his lips.

  He straightens up. His cheeks are stained with color.

  “Bon voyage. I’ve written something for you in your diary,” he says before he disappears through the compartment door.

  “Thank you,” she whispers.

  She sits alone, chilled in the May heat. She can’t feel her feet. Or her nose. Perhaps she is hyperventilating. Or close to death.

  She spots Fullerton outside her window. He waves and smiles, and as the train squeals and jerks forward, she holds up her hand and smiles too, though to smile at this moment seems as incongruous as looking joyful while someone is slitting her throat.

  Once outside of Paris, she reaches into her handbag for her diary. On the last page he’s written a whole page of script.

  What Mrs. Wharton isn’t saying is how she was transformed this winter from a cold, formidable, frigid wife to a warm, open lover. How she discovered the heat of passion and learned to impart it too. How she was willing to lie naked with a man who was not her husband and discovered that the gates of hell did not squeak open. As a pupil, as a lover, as an adulterer, she was insatiable, giving and true. Does she know there is so much more to teach her, so much more for her to learn? I hope the day will come when we can begin again.

  Not a word about love. Not a word about their souls becoming one. Maybe that’s not how men think. Maybe he is being self-protective, knowing she is married. Maybe love is not what he felt at all? But lust. No. She can’t believe it. She closes the diary and shivers as the train carries her farther and farther away.

  THIRTEEN

  EARLY SUMMER 1908

  Anna arrives at The Mount a few hours before Edith’s scheduled arrival. Just the crunch of gravel on the drive sets her heart pounding. At last she is back to her real life—where she can make a difference to someone, make her small dent upon the world. The Lenox air is a good ten degrees cooler than New York City’s. Gross preceded Anna by a full week, so she could spur the local staff into folding and storing the off-season canvas covers, dusting and washing floors, walls and ceilings, expelling unwanted creatures and whipping the place into “Edith” shape. Flowers already grace the big vases in the hall. The house smells scrubbed and fresh, exuding country air and baking, and hope for a beautiful summer.

  Anna’s small room sits at the end of the hall on The Mount’s servant floor with a view of the forecourt and a bed whose linens whisper of lavender. Anna is thrilled to find it empty and ready. Like a book that is yet to be written. She shoves open the windows as far as she can, and lets the breeze pour in, carrying with it the sweet whinny of horses in the barn, cows lowing in the field. With her view of the forecourt, Anna will hear the gravel singing again when Edith and Teddy arrive. And she wants to know first thing. How she longs to see them both!

  She changes out of her traveling clothes—the blue serge suit that once was Edith’s, the high-collared broadcloth shirt, now damp at the neck from the sweltering train. She pulls her old gray-green dress out of her carry-bag. It has happily been washed so many times its nap feels like velvet, and even having been bunched in her handbag, it breathes
out its wrinkles in a moment. It is a quiet dress, the kind that makes Anna disappear into the background. She merely wants to observe: to see Teddy, well and strong and happy once again. To look into Edith’s eyes and know whether she has forgiven her for the warning against Fullerton. She wonders what happened with Fullerton all spring. Has he disappointed Edith yet? She splashes her face in the basin and enjoys a cool, wet linen rag on the back of her neck. If Edith hasn’t forgiven her, what will she do? Where will she go? The thought slows her down for a moment, and as she buttons up her fresh dress, she gazes at herself in the dressing mirror. She is too old to start over. Too shy. Too tired. But she has never been one to sink. She is a swimmer.

  A knock at her door announces Holly and Jeff, the two local brothers that come every summer to open the house. They’ve hoisted her trunks off the trunk lift in the hall and ask to set them in her room as though they are requesting a favor.

  “Good to see you, Miss Anna,” Holly says. “I read that book you gave me.”

  “Did you?” Anna can’t remember which book.

  “This Mark Twain fella, does he live on the Mississippi?” Ah, it must have been Huckleberry Finn.

  “Not anymore,” Anna says. “He did once. There are more of his books in the library in town if you wish to read on.”

  “Well, maybe,” Holly says. He tips his hat at Anna as they leave.

  All of Anna’s dresses and hats find their rightful places in her armoire. She’s brought too many books, she fears, but she stacks them on her dresser in neat piles. She won’t have time to read them all, but she couldn’t bear to let them sit lonely and dusty in her empty room on Park Avenue. And then, just as she opens the book she’s chosen from the pile, she hears gravel scattering and rushes to the window to see Mr. Wharton climbing out of the wagon. Standing tall, he pauses for a moment, doffing his hat, glancing around at the grounds, up at the house.

  “Looking just fine!” he declares. The familiar sound of his dear, rusty voice, so full of hope, eases her in a way she hasn’t felt in months. “We’re here at last,” Teddy says. “Here at last.” He turns and helps Edith out.

  Edith, taking in the house as Teddy did, appears thinner, and even from up here, Anna can see there is no light in her eye. She looks crushed, uncertain. Not emotions Anna usually sees in the grown-up Edith Wharton.

  Anna gives them time to settle. She hears the clatter of the trunk lift, voices weaving through the halls and, after a time, Edith’s voice just below in her room. She is telling Gladys, the new maid, where she wants her things. But Anna doesn’t go down to see her. Not yet. She tries to read her book, though the words float up from the page without meaning. When she hears Edith heading back down to the parlor floor (she would know her footsteps anywhere), Anna follows.

  Edith is in her library, seated at the desk, looking out over her room, and her face is ghostlike and lost, like a child parted from her mother.

  “Hello,” Anna says.

  “Tonni.” Edith stands and takes Anna into her arms, then straightens her arms to look into Anna’s eyes. “I’m happy to see you,” she says. But she doesn’t look happy at all. It’s not because of me, Anna tells herself sternly.

  “A good crossing, Herz?” Anna asks.

  Edith’s chin quivers.

  “It was a nice ship,” she says. “The Abbé’s brother was aboard, and my cousin Le Roy. And you? You had a nice spring in New York, it seems.”

  Anna nods. “Very nice. Do you have work for me?” Anna asks. “I would so like to know where the book has gone. I’ve thought often of Undine, and wondered about her fate.”

  Edith shakes her head. “Later maybe,” she says.

  “Are you all right, dear?”

  Edith shakes her head ever so slightly, closes her eyes. Her lids are the color of violets. She hasn’t been sleeping. Anna knows the signs. Edith is a language she’s spoken fluently for years and years.

  “Well, Miss Anna!” Teddy enters the room with such energy, the books seem to shake on the shelves. His face is full of light, too red. Almost absurdly happy compared to Edith’s. “I got me my wife back, and now my good friend Anna. It’s a fine day indeed. How’s by you, little Anna?” He seems to take up the room today. The last time she saw him, he could hardly walk, speak, and most of all he seemed to be shrinking in his bed. His head hurt, his whole body screamed in pain. She doesn’t mind that he is so full of life now, that he has no sensitivity to Edith’s gray mood. She just feels blessed to see him renewed.

  “You’re looking well, Mr. Wharton!” she says.

  “Pussy knew just the cure: I needed them Arkansas waters. Did me a world of good. I owe it all to her. Ever had Arkansas fried chicken? They spice it up with some of that cayenne pepper. Could cure anyone. Might even make you grow, Anna. Pussy’s looking like she could use some too. She’s skinny as a little boy. Guess she missed me so much, she couldn’t eat.” He leans over and squeezes Edith’s shoulder. She recoils so obviously, it even surprises Anna. But if Teddy notices, he doesn’t show it.

  “I’ve always liked fried chicken,” Anna says encouragingly.

  “The pig barn is nearly done. The hennery. We’re finally getting this place shaped up. Have you gotten around? Taken a look?”

  “No sir. I just arrived this morning too.”

  “Pussycat, you up for a hike in the mud? I can’t wait to show you how the piggery is looking.”

  “Not now, Teddy,” Edith says. “Letters.” She reaches into her desk drawer and pulls out a handful of writing paper.

  “You’re in the country at last and you want to write letters to all the intellects in Paris? The girl don’t have a clue how to conduct herself in the backwoods. How about you, Miss Anna? You want to come down and see the new barns? I’m itching to show them to someone who might exhibit some appreciation.”

  “Well, I certainly am looking forward to seeing them. But Mrs. Wharton might need me.”

  “Go with him,” Edith says. “Go. I have a headache anyway. And letters. Letters to write.” She looks beseechingly at Anna. Take him off my hands! her eyes beg.

  “If it ain’t one of us with an aching head, it’s the other. Come on, Miss Anna. You better go find your boots because it’s a mud pile out there.”

  Teddy, kneeling in the muck, hugging his beloved Hampshire porker Lawton, catches Anna’s eye. “You did me a good turn back in Paris, Miss Anna. And a man don’t forget that sort of kindness.” Anna is surprised to hear his voice grow soft and thoughtful. Especially in his new ebullient mood.

  “I felt you needed a friend,” she says after a moment. “I am always your friend.”

  “The kindest of friends. Am I right in thinkin’ you and Puss had yourselves a falling out?”

  Anna steps back with surprise. “No. No,” she says. “What makes you think that, Mr. Wharton?”

  “Seems like she sent you back early this spring. I was surprised to hear it.”

  “She didn’t think there was room at her brother’s when it was time to move there. She sent back Gross and White too.”

  “Them, sure. No need for them at Harry’s house. But you . . . well, she needs your services no matter where she is. And you never took up much room in your life. You want to tell me what’s eating her?”

  “Eating her?”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. Bothering her. She’s not herself. You think I’m just a blunderbuss who don’t see these things, but I assure you, I do.”

  “She’s probably tired from the journey. I guess you, more than anyone, know what it’s like to feel done in.”

  “I was sick with gout. Doctors diagnosed me. What’s ailing Puss?”

  Anna shrugs. She’s doing all she can not to color, not to give anything away. The last thing she wants is Teddy mentioning Fullerton. He knows, of course. He always knew that
Edith was being beckoned away from him. That’s why he grew so ill. Anna never doubted for a moment that Edith’s moral lapse was one of the triggers of Teddy’s ailments.

  “You think I can win her back?” he asks very softly.

  “Win her back?” Anna says.

  “Don’t toy with me, Missy. You know what I mean. We speak the same language, you and I. You understand me better than she does. She’s all I got, Anna. All I ever cared about. I can’t compete on her intellectual plane. But I’m not ready to give her up.” He stands, and reaches out as though to grab Anna’s shoulders, then turns his hands upward to show they’re full of mud and drops them to his sides.

  “Please. Tell me what I can do to win her back.”

  Anna feels for him. His plea twists her soul.

  “Listen to her. Ask her questions. Ask what she’s thinking. What she’s reading.”

  “When I do, I hardly know what she’s jawing about these days. Her head is filled with ideas I’ll never be able to sort out.”

  Anna nods. “You could still let her talk. Act like you want to understand. Have her explain things.”

  “And make myself out like a fool?”

  “Acting interested doesn’t make you a fool.”

  He shakes his head. “When we have those conversations, she picks up right away that I don’t get a word . . . reminds her why she don’t need me no more. . . .”

  “The main thing is,” Anna says, “she’s away from Paris now. Here at The Mount you share a different life. You can remind her now how much she loves her gardens; together you can enjoy the dogs—do the things you’ve always cared about as a . . . as a couple. She’s a different person here. Remind her of that.”

  He smiles, and his eyes clear.

  “That makes good sense,” he says. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Come on!” His face is animated again. His voice high and full of joy. How quickly his mood has returned to frantic joy. It disturbs her. “You’ve just gotta see the hennery. It’s the best hennery in all the land!” She follows him through the mud, through the straw. All the places Edith no longer wishes to go.