The Age Of Desire: A Novel Part 7

"I wish you didn't." She tries to control the quaver in her voice.

As he leaves the darkened library, desire for him cuts through to her marrow. Later, bound with craving, she finds herself wandering down the hall to his room. She is wearing only her nightgown, barefoot. Her hair is loosened. It is a warm night, and she can hear the crickets rasping outside. Urging her on. Perhaps it is better to risk and make a mistake than to do nothing. She has spent a lifetime doing nothing. Living in a ghostly marriage. Watching other women bloom amidst the spoils of a life she will never know. If she just knocks on his door. If she just whispers, "Before you leave in the morning, do let us be closer. . . ." What is the worst that can happen? She wants to be fearless like Anna de Noailles. At his door, she stands for a long while before she raps. Two knocks. The crickets scream. The clock downstairs chimes. She can taste his lips, feels his arms. . . . But there is no answer. She raps again. And nothing. Is he so soundly asleep already? Is he somehow not in his room? Or is he simply disinterested? She is middle aged, has never been beautiful like so many of the women Walter has escorted. Her heart sinks. How foolish she feels wandering back down the hall to her maiden bed to spend a forlorn night tangled in longing.

When William naps in the afternoons, Anna takes advantage of her stay. She spends time out of the house, exploring the neighborhood. Could she live here? she asks herself. Would she fit in? She walks the boys to the park, and starts to teach them German. She befriends the librarian, Jessie Toibin, who shares books with her that she thinks might reinvigorate William. Though not a single new book has arrived in years-it's a quaint old library-Anna finds many things that please her. On a cushioned window seat in the back of the library, overlooking a wooded knoll, Anna sometimes sits to read and finds solace.

One day, she and Jessie Toibin strike up a conversation.

"What is it you were doing in Paris all winter? I've seen pictures of Paris. And imagine! You've actually been there."

"I'm a secretary," Anna tells her. "For a writer."

Jessie, who is in her early forties, biscuit plump, with steel-rimmed gla.s.ses and a sweetheart candy of a mouth, leans forward with interest.

"A writer? Someone I may have heard of?"

"I don't know if you've heard of her. Edith Wharton."

"Oh my!" Jessie sits right down on the window seat next to Anna and puts her hand over her mouth. "Edith Wharton!"

Anna raises her brows. "You know of her? But you don't have her books. I've looked."

"We don't have any books that didn't arrive before you and I were born. But I read every word of The House of Mirth in Scribner's Magazine. I read it twice! I saved it!" She grabs Anna's arm. "You know her? You worked with her on this book?"

Anna nods, a bit uncomfortable at Jessie's enthusiasm.

"What's it like being part of something so . . . so important?"

Anna beams. "I hardly know what to tell you."

"Is she a nice lady, Mrs. Wharton?"

"Oh yes. She is my closest friend." Anna feels herself blush with pride.

"And to think I know you . . . and you know her. When nothing ever happens around here but new paint on the walls once a decade. And you come along just like that to my library!"

From that day on, every time Anna enters the library, Jessie gets up from her desk and gives Anna a hug. And if others are in the library, she is sure to tell them what Anna does "in her real life": "Why, she works hand in hand with the greatest lady writer that ever was!"

As time pa.s.ses, each time Anna receives a letter from Edith, she feels a pang. Edith describes her days at The Mount, Teddy's childlike joy at the planning out of a new pig house and a visit from Walter Berry. She tells Anna of the conversations she's had, or what she's reading. Presently, she is reading Immanuel Kant in German. "You would find him very exciting, Tonni. I wonder when you are coming back?"

Her life with Edith seems a lifetime away. Is it possible that two such worlds could exist simultaneously? On the days when she receives Edith's letters, she sees her new life in Kansas City through a more critical lens. Is this the life she was meant for? Is she willing to be just one more mouth to feed, one more person to crowd the house? She offers Charles money for her board, but he squarely refuses.

She considers renting a small house of her own, thinking that William might share it, the two of them, aging brother and sister, making a second life together. Perhaps, he would feel less of a burden to his daughter that way. Independent again. But even with his company, which is becoming more loquacious, what would Anna do to fill her days? How empty she has always felt without a purpose. Once William is better, will there be any use for her at all? Who will hire a nearly sixty-year-old teacher?

And then she pictures herself handing Edith's freshly typed pages to her, and asking, "Is this character consistent, Herz?" "Is this the right word? Or did you mean 'absolving?'" In her own small way, affecting literature! And Edith grateful and loving, smiling in that soft, distant way that is hers alone.

Edith alternates between feeling murderous toward Anna and feeling her absence as an intentional wound. Miss McCrae is more of a burden than a help. If Anna had planned out her trip in advance like sensible people do, she might have had the kindness to find a subst.i.tute for herself. From time to time, Anna sends Edith a postcard adorned with a tinted photo of a museum, a library, a grand house. "Found a book about Dutch still lifes at the library," she writes in her perfect, elegant hand. "Did you know that one of the most important Dutch still-life painters was a woman who had ten children?" And, "This house is considered the fanciest house in town. I've visited and it's decorated in the Louis style. It's quite garish and you would not like it at all. The carpets are the color of gra.s.s. I thought flowers might sprout from them." The notes are tailored to Edith's interests. Collecting in her handkerchief drawer, they give Edith pause when she reaches for a fresh linen hankie each morning and invoke in her a surprising fondness. Is she angry, or does she simply miss her?

Often, as Edith prepares for bed, she imagines that when she wakes, Anna will be back, moving about the house in her mouse-footed way.

FIVE.

LATE SUMMER 1907.

Two months pa.s.s. William tells the children stories at night now. He stands out on the porch and remarks about the weather, the flowers, the sunset. In the evenings, he walks the neighborhood with Anna.

"I've been thinking of writing a book about the value of literature in the schools. Real literature. Not just McGuffey Reader tripe." Anna rejoices to hear the melody of strong opinion in his voice.

"It's not a popular concept, using real literature," he says, rubbing his chin in thought. "Too many teachers are ill-schooled themselves. But imagine how it could lift a cla.s.sroom to read Herman Melville or Joseph Conrad or Henry James, or even Jack London."

"How indeed! And you're just the person to bring those books to life for them, William."

"Yes, maybe I am."

"Write the book!" She squeezes his arm with encouragement. That very night, he begins to gather volumes from his library, writing himself notes.

A week later, hearing the children shriek with glee at a particularly absurd tale their grandfather is sharing with them, Anna begins to pack her trunk.

"Must you go?" William asks that night, joining her in her room, eying the trunk which is now nearly full.

She nods, smiles, feels tears filling his eyes. "I have a job to do. I'm expected back East."

He sits on her bed and thoughtfully, slowly rubs the tops of his thighs. "I will never forget what you have done for me. You have a place here," he tells her. "You don't need a job. Not anymore."

She looks up at him, at his graying hair, his soft pale eyes.

"I think, William, we both need jobs. It's just how we're made."

"A man needs a job," he says. "But you . . ." He looks at her quizzically.

"You'll write that book. I'll help Mrs. Wharton. Even a woman-at least a woman like me-lives better when she feels useful. You are well. And now I am needed elsewhere." William nods, his eyes lighting with understanding.

Two days later, Anna takes the train back to Lenox, where she feels useful indeed.

On August 31, when Edith awakes, Anna is there with a smile, wearing a soft green dress, her face suffused with light in a way that Edith hasn't seen in years.

"You've come back," Edith says.

"Here I am."

"I can see Missouri agreed with you."

"Oh yes," Anna says. "But I'm happy to be home."

"I'm so glad you think of it as home." For a moment the two women are silent, finding tranquility in each other's presence. Edith takes Anna's small hand and squeezes it.

"You have months of typing to tackle, I'm afraid," she says.

"I'm up to the task."

"Oh, dear, dear Anna. You are always up to the task. Bless you. What on earth have you done with that awful Miss McCrae?"

"White gave her a cheque and we sent her packing."

"Amen! Well, then, you'd better get started. There's plenty to do."

She missed me, Anna thinks. She missed me!

Autumn blows in, bringing fiery hues to the tops of the mountain trees and cool nights for sleeping. Anna works all hours to catch up with the typing. Edith can hear the clucking of her typewriter even after dinner. It's too much work, Edith reflects, but how gratified Anna seems doing it! And Edith finds herself putting in extra hours of writing each morning. She is starting a different sort of novel. The house feels like a newly tuned engine.

"I am intrigued with this woman," Anna says, handing freshly typed pages to Edith one afternoon. "This Undine."

"What intrigues you?"

"Whether I should like her or not. And I know I don't like her mother. I suspect I'm not meant to like anyone in this first scene. This ma.s.seuse!"

"I didn't mean for you to like them. I meant for you to enjoy reading about them."

"Oh, I did. Right from the start. They are so obtuse for protagonists. Is Undine the protagonist?"

Edith sighs and nods, expecting that Anna just doesn't understand what she's attempting to do. And then Anna sits down across from Edith, a gesture very unlike her. The next thing she says surprises Edith even more.

"I think it very bold of you, Edith. To create main characters who are less than sympathetic. I like it. It feels extraordinarily . . . audacious."

"You like it, then . . . as far as it goes."

"Very much. It's a treat. I don't know how else to put it. It made me laugh. Should I be laughing?"

"Yes. I want you to laugh."

"You haven't done that before. Invited me to laugh at your characters. Sometimes d.i.c.kens does that. But rarely the main characters, just the peripheral ones. I think it very daring."

"Thank you, Tonni."

"It's dangerous, of course," Anna says, standing again.

"Dangerous?"

"Because it's almost essential you make them unlikeable . . . well, to a degree."

"Why? Why do you say that?"

"If you have us laugh at them and they are likeable, then you as the writer will be the one who's unlikeable. You will be the one who's cruel."

Edith sits back in her chair and looks at Anna.

"I think I intuited that. I never really looked at it quite like that. It's a good thought. A great thought."

"Thank you." Anna bows her head.

"I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Tonni. And I don't mean this cruelly. Some people have a sweet tooth. Others don't. Some people have an ear for music. Others have ears of tin. A sense of humor is not dissimilar."

"I also have a sweet tooth and an ear for music," Anna says, smiling, before she gets up and closes the door. "I look forward to seeing how Undine makes her way in the world."

One morning, when Anna brings in the tray of letters, a pale blue envelope penned with a confident, educated hand captures Edith's attention. Morton Fullerton writes that he has been invited to give a lecture on Henry James at Bryn Mawr, and if Mrs. Wharton's kind invitation is still good, he would be most pleased to stop and spend a few days at The Mount before journeying up to his family home in Brockton. He wants most of all to see Edith's famous gardens, and could she be enticed to share with him the fragrance of the pine trees from her terrace at last?

That afternoon, Edith writes him back.

The Mount Lenox, Ma.s.s.

October 15, 1907 Dear Mr. Fullerton, We are so pleased that you have not forgotten your promise to look us up-especially as dear HJ, in a letter received last week, skeptically prophesied: "You won't see Fullerton. . . ."

We shall hope for you, then, either on Friday evening or on Sat.u.r.day morning, & your "few hours" will, I trust, be elastic enough to extend over Sunday, as I want to show you some of our mountain landscapes, & have time for some good talks too?

I am so glad you are going to talk about dear James at Bryn Mawr.

Yours sincerely,

Edith Wharton Edith is fortified with new energy as she chooses which guest room will be right for Fullerton. She sees that extra effort is put into refreshing the house after the long summer. The French doors to the terrace are washed. Books in the library are dusted down. An old acquaintance, portrait painter and essayist Eliot Gregory, is scheduled to arrive a day before Fullerton. Eliot considers himself a great observer, but in fact he is a fussy, self-important t.i.ttle-tattle with his own popular newspaper column. Sometimes, in the middle of a too-quiet season, he brings just the right pinch of caustic merriment to her mix of guests. But Teddy can't stomach him. And Edith has doubts about Teddy meeting Fullerton as well. Or, if she's really being honest with herself, it's Fullerton meeting Teddy that unnerves her. Somehow the two have never come face-to-face, even when Fullerton came calling last winter to see Henry James. What will Fullerton think when he discovers that Edith is married to a buffoon? It sends ice up her spine. So when word arrives that Teddy's mother is ill in Boston, Edith can't help but feel a moment's guilty satisfaction that he will need to go to her at once. Teddy's bags are hastily packed and Cook drives him to the station.

Eliot, who divides his time between New York and Paris, has a great deal to say about the very people Edith is trying to capture in her new book-the nouveaux riches and their desire to impress, their impact and intrusion on a world that once pretended they didn't exist. In fact, Eliot has something tart to say about just about everyone. (Edith wonders what he says about her when she's not around.) In Paris, he's found a particularly unconventional garret in a not-quite-chic neighborhood, where his clients, American society wives and daughters, are forced to climb his rickety wooden stairs, threatening to run splinters through the hems of their Worth dresses. "It's an adventure for them," he tells Edith. "They giggle, 'It's so charmingly rustic!' though just months ago they were entertaining people with manure on their boots in Omaha."

While Edith gathers flowers from the garden for Fullerton's arrival, Eliot follows behind her, stooping to observe more closely a particularly beautiful flower, pulling a stem to his nose now and then.

"Did you invite Fullerton," he asks drily, "or did he invite himself?"

"I invited him, of course," she says.

He arches his eyebrows. "Uh huh," he says.

"Why so skeptical?" she asks.

"I live in Paris, my dear," he says. "I hear things."