The Age of Desire (9 page)

“We’ll be back at The Mount before you know it, Tonni,” she consoles Anna, patting her hand. “Before you can so much as blink.” Anna gives her a doleful look.

Edith thinks of those last weeks as a fine transition. They make her actually glad to be heading off to Le Havre and the ship home. How happy she has been in Paris this winter. The salons! The people! The talk! The week before departing, she scribbles a note to Fullerton. She tells him that she is “findable” at The Mount in Lenox any time up until Christmas and hopes he will visit.

He writes back:

Dearest Mrs. Wharton,

As discussed, I have indeed decided to visit the States this summer. There is much on my agenda. A lecture at Bryn Mawr. A day or two with the Nortons. And a great deal of time eating mother’s cooking and reminding her that despite my so-called worldly knowledge, she is indeed my favorite cook. Amidst all that, I hope to see you.

Morton Fullerton

During that last week in Paris, Anna too receives a letter. She slides it into her pocket and opens it three, five, eight times over the course of the day. It’s from her niece, Anna Louise, in Missouri, imploring Anna to come.

Maybe not just for a visit, Aunt Anna. Would you consider coming for good? Is there any way we could entice you? Father does miss you. Your good company would perk him up considerably. You’ve worked hard for so many years. Wouldn’t you like to make a home with us in Missouri, as you always said you would? We would be so happy to have you in our daily lives.

At first, Anna feels a heaviness as she reads the note. Her brother William is the eldest in their family; Anna is the youngest. William has recently retired from a career as a teacher, a school principal, a college professor. He taught German, loves poetry, books, ideas. But William’s life has been marred by tragedy. His son, Lewis, the very soul of his life, a golden boy, shattered William’s world by holding a rifle to his head and taking his own life after an ill-fated romance. The following year, William’s beloved wife died of a broken heart.

William’s heart is equally damaged, but he has not been lucky enough to die, he tells Anna sometimes. Alone, he’s moved reluctantly from Warrensburg, where he taught, to Kansas City to live with his daughter. Anna’s niece has written that there are entire days when he barely speaks. He goes to bed at dusk. He pushes his plate back not having touched a thing. And then, for months at a time, he’ll be more like himself, until the dark times return. Anna is no fool. She’s seen Teddy Wharton’s dark days. Surely her brother’s taken a turn for the worse. Otherwise, why would Anna Louise ask her to come now?

So she shudders on receiving this letter. And frets about it. Then she begins to envision what life in Missouri might be like, how calm and enveloping, and she starts to feel giddy at the thought.

She remembers one Fourth of July during a family visit years ago. How glorious the parade was up and down the main street of Warrensburg, Missouri, stars and stripes adorning farm wagons, children waving triumphantly from the seats, dogs prancing in ruffled red, white and blue collars. And the fireworks, the ice cream! It held a wholesomeness and hopefulness she can still savor. On that trip, she visited Kansas City. It hardly seemed more crowded, and offered the same innocence. Entirely different from the world she inhabits now—Edith’s world of formal dinner parties, ironic banter. And Anna always feeling as though she’s standing backstage.

In Missouri, the stage would be her own. She’d be surrounded by her great-nephews and great-niece! Billy, whose letters make her laugh. Charlie, the two-year-old. And the baby, a girl named Abbott—a baby she could hold in her arms! Well, that sounds fine indeed. To truly be “Aunt Anna.” To have a place in the world!

Anna fantasizes telling Edith, “When we return to the States, I believe I will retire. I’d like to go to Kansas City, to be with my family.”

She pictures Edith’s shock, her hands clasped in distress, pleading, “But Tonni, I need you. How am I to
write
without you to lighten the load? Without your counsel?”

The thought of Edith so openly appreciating her would be worth the terror of breaking the tie. And Teddy. He would grasp her hands in his. His fingers would be warm and dry. He’d realize what Anna meant to all of them. To him in particular.

“Are you sure of this, Miss Anna?” he’d say. “I don’t want you to leave.” Her heart aches to think of it. She takes his locket into her hand, presses its eggshell smoothness into the nest of her palm and feels a sense of peace she hasn’t felt for years.

The morning before they are to go to Le Havre to board the ship—the first morning it hasn’t rained in a week—she asks Edith if she might take a walk with her.

“A walk?” Edith asks. “When there is so much to do?” She looks annoyed, but nods and asks the
bonne
to bring their wraps. “All right, then. Let’s not take too long.” They have been walking companions for many years. As they skirt the park, they say nothing. The sound of motorcars and horses, laughing children and some nearby construction seems to press between them. Anna’s heart leaps against her throat. She feels light-headed.

And then she stops. “I’ve been thinking,” she says at last.

“Thinking what?” Edith’s voice is stern.

Anna cannot get the words out. She is sure she’s going to faint.

“Can we sit down?” she asks.

Edith looks at her with concern. “What is it? Are you ill, Tonni?”

Anna shakes her head. They settle themselves on the nearest bench.

“I was thinking, when we go back, perhaps I won’t come to The Mount with you. . . .” Her tongue feels thick in her mouth.

“You’d rather stay in New York?”

She can’t swallow. She can barely breathe. “I want to go to Kansas City and be with my family, Edith. They want me to come.” For an orphan, could there be anything more seductive than to be wanted? “They want me to
stay
.”

Edith pales. She looks into Anna’s eyes and Anna realizes Edith’s face is dearer to her than any face she’s ever known, more familiar than her brother’s or her niece’s. It’s the face she’s understood for too many years to count. Tears fill her eyes, then spill hot and plentiful.

“Well, then you shall go home, Tonni.” Edith says softly. It’s the voice she uses for Nicette and Mitou, the souls she loves most in the world. She strokes Anna’s back, just as she does the Pekinese. “We’ll arrange a reservation on a train out West the minute we land. You can join us at The Mount later in the summer. I can manage.”

Anna hadn’t anticipated an interim solution. She could go out for the summer. She could cheer her brother up, help with the children, spend time with her family and then return.

“Of course, you are homesick! I would never keep you from your home or family. I would be happy to pay for your trip.”

But is this what Anna wants? No laying down of her burden? No breathing easily at last?

Anna puts her face into her hands.

“There, dearest,” Edith says, patting her hand. “No call for crying. We must hurry back. We have many things to accomplish! Especially if you are about to leave me.”

It is as cold as a winter morning and still dark as the blue Panhard-Levassor roars away from the city toward Le Havre. Edith turns and watches the rows of electric lamps disappear to a single point on the horizon. She doesn’t want to leave Paris. She has been awakened by the daily sting of its beauty, a venom, she knows, that will bedevil her forever. The promise of The Mount doesn’t fill her with the pleasure it should. And in the port office in Le Havre, they are informed that the ship has boiler problems and will be delayed by at least two days.

“Boiler problems?” Cook scoffs. “Not likely. That gentleman over there says it’s a strike.”

“Why is it never simple?” Edith says petulantly, tossing her pale kid gloves down onto the stone floor. “First Anna wants to desert us. Now, this. I take it as an omen that we should turn right around and stay in Paris for the whole summer.” Everyone knows that Edith doesn’t like surprises. And two in a row! Cook gingerly squats for her gloves and hands them back to her.

“Bite your tongue, Puss.” Teddy says. “You would stay at your brother’s miserable little place rather than our Mount? Do you know what Paris is like in the summer? A cesspool.” When Teddy gets upset, his lips turn as gray as liverwurst.

“And are your needs the only ones to be considered, Mr. Wharton?” Edith says.

Cook steps nervously between them. “Excuse me for interrupting. But perhaps I can offer you and Mrs. Wharton a short motor trip. In two days you could see a good deal of Normandy.”

In the silence that follows, Edith’s aspect lightens from surly to serene.

“That’s exactly what we should do. Teddy?”

The color returns to Teddy’s lips. “You’ll get no argument from me.”

The servants’ trunks are separated from the rest. A hotel is found for Anna and Alfred White and Catherine Gross so they can stay on in the port with the trunks and the dogs.

In short order, the purr of the motor, the Normandy air and beautiful sights smooth all tempers. As they swoop past green fields and apple orchards, long velvet beaches and timbered houses, Teddy reaches over and squeezes Edith’s hand. Edith can’t help reflecting that despite this potentially sour ending, she has spent a wonderful season in France, one of the best of her life. She senses it the way animals sometimes anticipate an earthquake—pawing the ground, restless—that something is about to shift. It gives her spirits wings.

“Isn’t this grand?” she exclaims.

“Brilliant!” Teddy leans over and kisses her brow.

After a full day of touring, they come to a beautiful stone inn in Bayeux. Because no plans have been made in advance, there is only one servant’s room for Cook and one last guest room vacant, and no other inns for miles. Exhausted, Teddy turns to Edith.

“Only one room.” He looks at her anxiously. “What do you make of it, Puss?” Edith smiles. How could she not be grateful to Teddy for allowing her so full a time in this magical country? Nearly six months.

“Well, Mr. Wharton,” she says. “I think we can manage well enough.”

It is the first time they have shared a room in years, let alone a bed, and on those rare occasions it has always been a misery. But with the windows open and the scent of the distant ocean wafting in, when Teddy puts his arm around her, Edith wonders if tonight they might have relations for the first time in a very long time. Maybe now, more sure of herself, experiencing a new sense of longing, she might actually enjoy it.

“Ah, dear Puss,” he whispers. She’s always liked his voice, rich and warm. And then . . . nothing. His arm grows heavy, his breathing even, and she knows he is asleep. She doesn’t mind his heavy arm on her. She even feels surprisingly close to him. He is a good man, really. He loves her. But even as she falls asleep, she feels the beat of her unsatisfied heart.

Anna had imagined that her trip to Missouri would constitute a nice, clean break. But instead, it feels like a painful tearing away. The moment they reach New York, Edith busies herself directing everyone and their trunks into various hansoms and taxis and barely takes a moment to hand Anna a book and wish her farewell.