The Age Of Desire: A Novel Part 9

"Call me any name but Mr. Fullerton," he says.

"Good night, Morton," she says and listens to each and every one of his footsteps on the stairs.

The next day, after an excited night tossing, often waking, Edith props herself up in bed and writes, but stops early, feeling the tug of wanting to see Fullerton again.

Eliot and Fullerton are chatting by the drawing-room fire when she comes downstairs. "Would anyone like a tour of the gardens?" she asks. Eliot shakes his head, announcing he is happy to stay inside with old Jules warming his feet. Jules barely lifts his head to acknowledge Edith's presence, and sighs loudly as he settles his chin back down on Eliot's velvet slipper. But Fullerton stands, and with an impish smile, raises his hand like a little boy at school. Wraps and boots are supplied, and the pups intuitively head for the French doors.

As Edith and Fullerton work their way down the icy staircase from the terrace, he holds out his arm for her. She grabs onto the warm tweed of his coat, relis.h.i.+ng the solidity of his muscles. Fullerton turns his head to her, his eyes gleaming.

"So, this is how Admiral Peary felt as he ventured out into the frozen wild. Imagine Nicette and Mitou pulling our dogsled."

The thin panes of ice at the edges of the steps shatter beneath their feet. The dogs run ahead onto the pristine garden paths, kicking up flurries of white, letting out shrill foxlike yelps.

Frosted like ice cream bombes, the lime trees, whose beauty arises from how they flutter, now stand encased in ice, paralyzed, like the trees in murals she's seen in old New England houses. Epic. Childlike. Beneath them, Fullerton gathers sticks brought down by the storm and tosses them toward the dogs for a game of fetch. As Edith watches his youthful antics, she feels as though Fullerton is the only object in her world that's moving at normal speed. All else feels slowed. The late morning sun breaks at an angle through the pines, spreading the hedges and frozen beds with b.u.t.tery light. She can hear her own heartbeat in her ears. How measured it sounds! The snow silences all else. Has she ever felt so extraordinarily sated or content?

The game moves farther and farther along the path toward the edge of the woodlands, until Fullerton has gone so far, he stands and waves and begins to run back to her. He exudes such joy, as though he could not possibly wish to be anywhere else or with anyone else.

Later, as they walk through the beds of frozen flowers, their footsteps match, and Edith can feel the heat and pressure of his arm through her wraps. It makes her too breathless, too giddy.

So she stoops to tap snow off the once-glorious chrysanthemums.

"I do hate seeing the season end like this," she says.

What was just yesterday an efflorescence of russet and spice has grown limp and blistered, black and slimy. "It's a shame you weren't here even one day sooner. The garden was still beautiful."

"I wouldn't have given up this snow for all the flowers you had," Fullerton says. "We'll remember the snow. I might not have remembered the flowers." She is warmed by how he speaks of them as "we."

As they chat and stroll beyond the gardens and through the shady paths, Edith finds it difficult to concentrate on his words-she is so distracted by the insistence of his presence. She feels dented by him. He marks her soul more than anyone she's ever known. She thinks briefly of Eliot's warning. Fullerton is indeed a very charming man.

She can hardly bear to end the garden walk, but the sun is now directly above them and there isn't much more time: they need to eat lunch. The plan is for all of them to enjoy a motor trip through the Berks.h.i.+res, then drop Fullerton at the Westfield station where he can board a train for his parents' house in Brockton. Afterward, Edith and Eliot will head south to the home of William Sheffield Cowles and Anna Roosevelt in Connecticut. When she tells him they must go back in, he presses his lips together with disappointment.

"Must we? I could stay out here forever," he says.

She nods. "I'd stay with you," she says, "but you have a train to catch. Unless you can extend your visit another day. Might you?" she entreats. She would happily give up her own journey for him.

He shakes his head. "Mother would be wounded to her toes."

Edith shrugs. "Well then . . . come, mes pet.i.ts," she calls out to the dogs. Mitou obeys cheerfully and dances toward the house, but Fullerton has to chase Nicette as she darts away from them down the garden paths.

"Nicette is a nature lover," she calls after him.

Morton slips and slides, running after the puff of fur.

"You devil," he yells. Eventually, he corners her in the Italian walled garden. Picking her up, he displays her like a prize through the opened arch in the wall. "Voila!" he shouts out. How enchanting he looks as he comes into view, warming tiny Nicette against his chest.

Anna Bahlmann peers down from her window at Edith and Fullerton in the snow. She didn't have a chance to greet him last night-he arrived late from the station, long after she had joined the staff for dinner. But she knows his compact shape, his neatly arched back. She met him once or twice in the Rue de Varenne apartment. And even then she thought him a popinjay. Seeing them together now makes her apprehensive. For, even from up here where their voices reach her panes only by riding the wind, she can tell that Edith fancies him. She watches her lean into him like a girl being courted. Anna can hear her laughter, see how animated Fullerton makes her; she gestures openly, touches Fullerton as she speaks. She is never like this with Teddy. She is often icy, or bored. Anna closes the sheer curtains and sits down on her bed with a sinking heart.

It's not my business, she tells herself. But how at odds she feels, for it's most natural for her to love what Edith loves. When it comes to plays, music, books, they have always been of such intellectual sympathy that there is rarely, if ever, discordance in their tastes. And with people, it's the same. Anna is a bit afraid of Henry James but wors.h.i.+ps his brilliance, as Edith does. And Sally Norton is the dearest human being alive. Eliot Gregory is always entertaining, if treacherous. The Bourgets are a treat. Anna de Noailles is fascinating. So why does she feel this way about Fullerton? Nervous. Distrusting. It makes her cross with herself.

She forces herself to think of her family in Missouri, where her life was indeed her own. She goes to the desk and begins a letter to her niece.

"Dearest Aennchen, How I miss all of you! How is your dear Papa?"

At lunch, Fullerton suddenly looks up from his soup. "Good G.o.d, Edith! There's something I must tell you."

"What's that?"

"The Revue de Paris will be publis.h.i.+ng The House of Mirth."

Edith sets down her spoon and puts her hands on either side of her plate. "That's wonderful. Thank you so much for making that happen, Morton," she says. "What perfect news. You were saving it to surprise me?"

"I was saving it because . . ." He looks delightfully sheepish. "Because I forgot to tell you."

"Well, I'm glad you remembered." When their eyes meet, Edith sees something in his that is indefinable: pride, joy, pleasure at having pleased her? Eliot seems to notice it too, for he flashes Edith a raised eyebrow and a warning smile.

After lunch, Fullerton sends down his bags, and Edith and Eliot each have their cases packed for their overnight trip. Cook brings around the Panhard. Fullerton is amused by it. "I could barely see it in the dark last night, though Cook showed me the electric lights inside," he said.

"Henry says it's a moving divan."

"Oh no, it's much bigger than a divan! It's a moving parlor!"

Eliot sits in front with Cook. Edith, dressed in her heavy serge driving duster and veiled travel hat, shares the back with Fullerton. She is so delighted to be near him, to feel the pressure of his knee against hers. It's a glorious afternoon as the Panhard takes to the road. The snow has mostly melted where the sun has licked it. As they climb the first real peak, panoramic views stretch open and they all sigh with appreciation, even Cook.

"Can you see a single thing?" Fullerton asks her, tugging at her veils. He pulls them back, then-in a sweet, unexpected way-smooths her hair, enchanting her with his touch. "Much better," he says. "You've improved your view, and mine."

The farthest mountains are a dazzling dragonfly blue; the fields glow amber with the syrup of late-afternoon light.

"There couldn't be a more perfect day, could there?" Fullerton says.

"Not in all the world," she says. But halfway up the mountain, they can feel the car s.h.i.+mmy precariously near the edge of the embankment, making Edith gasp.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Wharton. We'll have to turn off," Cook announces. "It's slippery up here still. We need to put chains on the tires." He turns onto a packed-earth dogleg, meant as an overlook. As he heads back to the boot to find the chains and Eliot joins him, Edith gets out of the car and stretches in the chilly mountain air. Fullerton stands beside her and presents an open silver cigarette case. "Care to?" he asks. She takes a cigarette and waits for him to find a match.

"What do you say," she asks after he's lit her cigarette, "shall we go down and sit on that bank? There's no snow right there."

He nods, and she lifts the heavy plaid rug from the motorcar. The view from the bank is breathtaking. Indigo mountains braid the horizon; fallen and falling red and yellow leaves embroider the landscape. Snow sits in every crevice but the one they've intended as their perch. But before she sits down, she spots it.

"Look. What a sight!" she says, pointing as Fullerton lays the blanket on the ground. A beautiful little witch hazel shrub is shouting with fresh red blooms against the blue-white snow. Instead of the customary yellow flowers, tiny crimson rags undulate on its twigs, like banners of happiness. She crosses the sugary white to snap off a sprig. When she brings it back to Fullerton, he takes the stem between his fingers.

"The proverbial late bloomer, Mrs. Wharton," he says. He glances at her and smiles.

Does he have any idea how empty her marriage is? Does he sense that she is beginning to wonder whether he is the one to fill that emptiness with belated beauty, so that her life might finally flower, like the beguiling and brazen witch hazel?

"I imagine the color of that witch hazel is not so different from the color of your hair as a child," he says tenderly. "Am I right?"

"Yes," she says. "It was red. It gave me no end of grief."

"Well now, it gives me no end of pleasure. It's the color of maple syrup," he says. "I wish I could take it down and see it in the sun. Does it ripple?"

Edith feels herself blush. "Yes. It's wavy when I take it down." She's forty-five years old. But in Morton Fullerton's presence, she feels as sensitive and untried as an eighteen-year-old. Deliciously uncertain. She has spent her adult years working to be impressive, imposing, so that people might take her seriously. How has he torn it all down with a few impertinent words?

There is much noise up the hill as Cook and Eliot haul a second set of chains from the boot of the car and drop them in coils on the ground.

When Morton hands back the witch hazel sprig, his hand caresses hers. A silvery dart of pleasure pierces Edith just beneath the ribs, then runs like cold water to her very center. The air is punctuated by the sounds of winter birds and the stirring of fallen leaves.

She self-consciously tucks the sprig into the pocket of her duster, her hands shaking visibly. She's relieved to see that Cook and Eliot are caught up in the job of running the chains beneath the car's wheels and haven't been watching.

While Fullerton glances away, she furtively takes in his strong profile and sky-tinged eyes. When those eyes turn to her once more, she doesn't think she's ever felt another's gaze so keenly.

"If HJ were here," he says, "I suppose he'd compose a fifty-nine-word, twelve-part sentence about this moment," Fullerton says. "He'd say," and he drops his voice, adding the slow exact.i.tude that makes Henry's voice a caricature, "'Despite the late snow, and the air which was too chill to enjoy-though Fullerton chose to enjoy it nonetheless-and because of the company of the lady, a company which he would later recount to his friends with much pleasure, and think about in the quiet of his room, he felt an unfamiliar wave of gratification, which overtook him and made him suddenly note the slightest, most extraordinary detail of the a.s.signation.'"

Edith smiles. "Fifty-nine or so beautiful words, Mr. Fullerton," she says.

"Henry. Call me Henry."

"Ah, but what would Morton Fullerton write about this moment?" she asks.

"I'd write . . ." His voice changes from playful to sincere. The s.h.i.+ft is seismic. And his mouth, which a moment ago was pursed with irony, softens. "Mr. Fullerton was perfectly content in her company." Then he glances away again, as though he recognizes he's revealed too much. She imagines having a photograph of this very moment. A caption written in ink below would read, "Edith and Morton on a snowy bank in the Berks.h.i.+res." She envisions sliding it into the embrace of an etched silver frame, reaching for it on lonely nights.

"Contentment is underrated, isn't it?" she says.

"Yes. It's a very fine thing. One doesn't know until one no longer has it." She wonders: is he so malcontent with his life? Henry recently said Fullerton has much on his mind. How she would like to ease it.

She glances up the hill to see that Cook and Eliot have secured the chains around two of the tires. They seem to be having a fine time with the task. She rises, brus.h.i.+ng the damp from her duster, then peers out over the s.h.i.+mmering valley. It seems to hold, like a cup, all the colors of the universe.

After Fullerton's visit, and Edith's trip to Connecticut, Anna notes a change in Edith's routine. Usually she doesn't wake until Agnes, her maid, arrives to rouse her, but now Agnes reports she finds her each morning sitting up in bed, already littering her bed with pages. Ethel, the cook, mentions that Edith seems to have stopped eating. Her plates return to the kitchen seemingly untouched.

"She didn't eat any breakfast at all today, and I made her pancakes . . . which she never fails to eat. Is she ill again?"

"Are you coming down with something?" Anna asks. "Are you feverish?" She places her own cool hand on Edith's forehead.

"No. I'm quite well. Why on earth do you ask?"

"I just thought perhaps you're feeling queer," Anna ventures.

"Not in the least," Edith snaps.

"It's not your allergies?" Anna asks. "Sometimes this time of year . . ."

"It's nothing, Tonni. Stop fussing over me." Her words are stern, but she finishes them with a smile. She is certainly smiling more often lately.

A few days later, intent on a scene in her book, forming her lips around the dialogue, Edith looks up and Anna is standing there with the mail. Scribner's writes that early sales of The Fruit of the Tree, her first novel since The House of Mirth, are not as promising as Edith had hoped. Another letter is covered with Sally's spidery penmans.h.i.+p, and then there is a thick cream envelope postmarked "Brockton, Ma.s.sachusetts." Edith waits for Anna to leave before she slices it open. A sprig of witch hazel slips from the envelope. A rare scarlet, just like the bush on the hillside. The note from Fullerton is simple and gracious-about how much he enjoyed his stay at The Mount, the aroma of the pines and the game of fetch in the snow. And how deeply honored he feels to have had the chance to become truly acquainted with a woman as brilliant and special as Edith Wharton.

Later, Edith pulls down a bound book of blank pages that was given to her many years earlier. She tears out the five leaves of a diary she began long ago, and then, sitting at her desk, takes up her pen and writes: The Life Apart (L'ame close.) The Mount. October 29th, 1907 If you had not enclosed that sprig of wych-hazel in your note I should not have opened this long-abandoned book; for the note in itself might have meant nothing-would have meant nothing to me-beyond the inference that you had a more "personal" accent than week-end visitors usually put into their leave-takings. But you sent the wych-hazel-& sent it without a word-thus telling me (as I chose to think!) that you knew what was in my mind when I found it blooming on that wet bank in the woods, where we sat together & smoked while the chains were put on the wheels of the motor.

And so it happens that, finding myself after so long!-with someone to talk to, I take up this empty volume, in which long ago, I made two spasmodic attempts to keep a diary. For I had no one but myself to talk to, & it is absurd to write down what one says to one's self; but now I shall have the illusion that I am talking to you, & that-as when I picked the wych-hazel-something of what I say will somehow reach you.

Then she picks up the still-crimson sprig between her fingers, twirls it in wonder and settles it into her newly begun journal.

SIX.

LATE AUTUMN 1907.

Against Teddy's wishes, Edith arranges for the household to return to Paris far earlier than planned. They aren't even going to enjoy Christmas at The Mount-a tradition only recently established, but that she and Teddy have enjoyed so much. Still, the thought of Christmas in the City of Lights thrills her.

"I wonder if it will feel quite like Christmas," Anna says hesitantly. "All it does is rain in December in Paris."

But Edith's eyes glitter. "The shops will be filled with holiday specialties. Buche de Noel. Christmas pates. We'll bring with us a whole ap.r.o.nful of pinecones to throw on the fire at the Vanderbilts'! It will be the best Christmas we've ever had." Anna admits to herself that she's looking forward to reuniting with her friends in the common room, and settling back into her own sunny garret beneath the eaves with its comfy bed, cherry eiderdown and rooftop views.

Edith dreams of Tuesday-night salons at Rosa's, cafe lunches graced by Paul and Minnie Bourget's comic banter, a return to the grandeur of George Vanderbilt's apartment.

Most of all, she envisions Morton Fullerton arriving for tea. She can see him at the door of 58, rue de Varenne, in his full Paris dress, radiant with joie de vivre, his fingers casually caressing hers as he bestows on her the perfect nosegay-a fragrant bunch of early violets. Their eyes will meet with knowing communion. This is her chief fantasy, and nothing strikes her as a more blissful tableau.

Teddy, on the other hand, is furious she's moved up the date of their departure.

"Without even consulting me, Puss? Have I no say in your plans? You at least used to pretend I did."

"Well, we did discuss it. You just choose to forget."

"I remember perfectly. And when you brought it up, I said no. I didn't want to go early. You're the one who's chosen to forget."

"A few more winters in Paris, and you'll feel just as at home there as you do in New York."

"Oh really?" he says. "Will they all have learned to speak English by then?"

He slams his book closed, sets it down and leaves the room. She lifts the tome from his ottoman. Basic Pig Husbandry.

There's one more reason Edith wants to leave. The Fruit of the Tree has been such a disappointment. Its initial printing of 50,000 copies sold out at once, but the next edition of 30,000 seems to be gathering dust. Since it's a drama about a mill, about working people, it's apparently not what her newly minted fans expected after The House of Mirth. They want "another glimpse into upper-crust society," her publisher tells her-a society, Edith notes, that excludes most of them.

"I've already written The House of Mirth, she laments to Sally when Miss Norton comes for a short visit. "Why must I write it again? Why must one be hung on the same peg forever?"

"It's rea.s.suring for people to hang their coats on the same peg every time," Sally offers.

"Be that as it may, I am not an old coat."

Despite Teddy's grumbling, the Whartons set sail on December 5 replete with servants, dogs and trunks. As soon as they are settled at 58, rue de Varenne, Edith is swept up in her old routines. Tuesdays at Rosa's, cafe lunches with the Bourgets, just as she imagined. A walk in the Faubourg with Paul Hervieu. Tea with the Abbe de Mugnier. She feels as though she is coming alive after months in mothb.a.l.l.s. Even though The House of Mirth is just beginning its run in the Revue de Paris, it is instantly an extraordinary success-perhaps the most unexpected triumph the Revue de Paris has ever had. It helps Edith forget about the poor reception for The Fruit of the Tree.

Anna de Noailles writes that she is in the midst of reading Edith's "tour de force" in the Revue.

Dear Mrs. Wharton, you have robbed me of two nights of sleep already, for which I may never forgive you. As a rule, I only allow lovers to compromise me in such a cruel way.