The Wharton Plot, page 15
Edith noted the switch in pronouns. Purposely evasive as to the significance of Mr. Phillips in her life? Or more evidence that brother and sister were a single entity?
“He and his sister?” Anna Walling nodded. Edith said, “They seem extraordinarily close.”
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Walling’s eyes shone with genuine fervor. “I remarked the very same thing when we were in Paris. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, this love. It was like the sun.”
In Edith’s experience, the sun warmed, but also burned and wore one out. Still, Mrs. Walling had her theme and she let her continue.
“The way she supported him—and he her! They lived in perfect harmony, every step in life they took together…”
Wishing to introduce the topic of alienated husbands, Edith said, “Not her marriage, certainly.”
Halted in her passionate endorsement of the Phillips siblings, Anna Walling said, “I couldn’t say.”
“So you liked Mr. Phillips immediately. He was not so … directive then?”
The other woman laughed. “Oh, no, he was. Many opinions. He despised fashionable women who were motivated by a desire for material comfort and status rather than genuine love and sensuality.”
Both women became aware of Edith’s coat, its collar and cuffs trimmed in sable. Hastily Mrs. Walling added, “But he felt that men and women were both responsible for the degrading barter of women. And he candidly confessed to liking luxury himself. He worked as he did partly to avoid the lure of frivolity and indulgence. The way he talked, the things he thought about—he had a luminous intellect. His mind could go here, there, anywhere his reason took him. ‘Make your mistakes a ladder, not a grave,’ he said. He seemed to me a boy, a wondrous boy.”
“You sound smitten.”
“He fired my heart,” said Mrs. Walling simply.
Edith found herself touched by the other woman’s vulnerability. Her passion for the dead man was such she could not help showing it.
“And Mr. Walling? What of his heart? Did he share your fondness for David Graham Phillips?”
A clumsy little shrug. “… Of course.”
Edith raised an eyebrow. “I pay you the compliment of saying you are a sincere woman and a poor actress. I find it rare that spouses agree on friends of a certain kind.”
“I don’t have ‘kinds’ of friends, Mrs. Wharton. Only friends.”
Oh, yes? Such as Jack London? But Anna Walling was already bristling. A direct challenge could provoke a departure. Edith decided to retreat to safer ground.
“Tell me, how did you and Mr. Walling meet?”
“We met in San Francisco,” said the other woman. “We were both members of a group opposed to tsarist tyranny in Russia.”
“Ah, yes, your homeland.”
“I would not call it that. My family came to America when I was nine years old.”
Nine years old. Far too young to have been the despairing beauty in the wagon. Her vision of a lurid past on the Russian steppe spoiled, Edith recalled Henry Frevert’s words: Graham had finally found a woman who could match wits with him. She still felt strongly that Phillips had revealed his illicit attraction in his work.
She said, “Mrs. Walling, it’s your view that David Graham Phillips was murdered to stop the publication of Susan Lenox.”
“I said I felt he was murdered to silence him,” she corrected.
“And yet I don’t find Susan Lenox a specifically political work.”
“The lives of women in this country—the insulting conjunction of personal and economic—the way we are all forced into prostitution of some kind? You don’t find that political, Mrs. Wharton?”
Edith noted the reference to prostitution. But she would not be distracted. “I do find that Mr. Phillips was obsessed with a certain kind of woman. One thing I observe: Often the woman who inspires great passion in our hero has a name that begins or ends with A. She is Anita or Alice or Viola. In one novel, she is Russian, the captivating Baroness Nadeshda.”
“I assure you, I am not a baroness.”
“In another, she is Selma, who also happens to be Jewish.”
“And hardly the only Jewish woman in the city of New York.”
“The women he deems worthy of love defy convention. They are driven. Unwilling to live off a man’s largesse and reputation. Didn’t you say you prefer to write under your maiden name, that you deplored having to live under your husband’s shadow?”
“Mrs. Wharton, are you implying I am the inspiration for Graham’s heroines?”
“I am wondering how a man who never married became so intimately acquainted with passion. The dialogue is laughable, but the mechanics seem to be in order.”
“And you think I am Graham’s dark-haired lady?”
“You are certainly dark-haired and certainly attractive. As well as married.”
Anna Walling’s aspect became brittle. “I see. In your little story, it is William who shoots Graham for love of me.”
“At Mrs. Frevert’s house after the funeral, you said you hoped the murderer was not anyone who knew Graham. Then you added, ‘knew his work.’ Meaning, I think, that you actually are worried that he was killed by someone who knew him. An acquaintance. Even a friend.”
“… Not in the slightest, I assure you.” Edith noticed that Mrs. Walling’s hands were tight in her lap. “Also, I think this is none of your business.”
“Very little of what we concern ourselves with is our business, Mrs. Walling, that’s a poor dodge. And let me remind you, you asked me to involve myself in the matter of David Graham Phillips.”
“His work, yes. Not his private life.”
“He was a writer, Mrs. Walling, his work and private life are hopelessly intertwined. Who was Susan Lenox? If not you, then who? Do you know?”
“I do,” whispered Anna Walling.
Edith leaned forward.
“She is a figment of Graham’s imagination.”
“Beloveds, real or fiction, usually are. I know your husband is staying at this hotel, Mrs. Walling. May I ask why?”
Here Mrs. Walling grew less confident. “We have four children,” she stammered. “It can be difficult to work at home…”
“That’s what offices are for.”
Anna Walling took a deep breath. “Mrs. Wharton, as writers, we see things others don’t and have the courage to put them on the page so that others can see as well. But in this, your vision is clouded. My husband is not a violent man. And he was very fond of Graham. He would never have killed him.” She stroked her throat as if it ached. “No matter what had passed between us.”
It was not, perhaps, to the point, but Edith couldn’t resist asking, “What did pass between you, Mrs. Walling? Were you very much in love?”
Did you lose your head? Your dignity? Did you do things of which you never imagined yourself capable? And yet, rather than die of shame afterwards, you were exultant?
“He was more so,” Anna Walling said carefully. “But I had more to lose.”
“When did things end between you?”
The other woman hesitated; Edith wondered if she did not wish to give a time frame that might implicate her husband.
“I’m not sure it ever really began, Mrs. Wharton. This was not an affair, you understand. Really, I would call it a pantomime.”
“That is the first time I have heard that euphemism.”
“It’s true. Graham had never been in love, at least in the traditional way, and I think he decided that he should be. It was something he needed to understand for his work.”
Morton Fullerton had told her the exact same thing—that she needed to know not just the glory of love but the pain as well. That she would write better as a result.
“I think you underestimate your appeal, Mrs. Walling.”
“I do not, believe me, Mrs. Wharton. Things were written. Things were said. Finally, I proposed a meeting. Alone in a place where we would not be seen. Graham went into a fever of anticipation.”
Edith knew well the logistics of infidelity could be a challenge. “And?”
“And then he did not come. We never spoke of it again. From that time on, he was … cool to me. Angry. As if it were somehow my fault.”
That tallied with Henry Frevert’s observation that Phillips had become rageful against women of sophistication.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Walling, but I did and do dislike that man.”
The other woman smiled sadly. “He was afraid. It is frightening, isn’t it? To give love? Even to want love?”
Much as she detested yielding to Mr. Phillips’s views in anything, Edith knew: Love gave no quarter to dignity, especially when you embarked on it late in life.
Still, she exclaimed, “Oh, dear! Poor Mr. Phillips! How terrifying for him! To emerge from behind his sister’s skirts and the edifice of his own pride. Why, he might have discovered that we are more than the meager roles he assigns us.”
Leaning in so she might whisper, she asked, “Whatever drew you to him?”
“He was vital. He was talented. He was … not unattractive.”
Perhaps not, thought Edith, recalling the dark hair, cleft chin, and intense arrogant eyes. Still, she retained the memory of an angry boy.
Then she heard Anna Walling say, “And at the time, I was unhappy.”
“I am sorry,” said Edith, meaning it.
Tugging at the tips of her gloves, Anna Walling said, “You have seen that William and I are living apart. Perhaps, not living in America, you are unaware that my husband has been accused by a young woman of promising her marriage. Two years ago, she sued him for breach of promise. The trial will begin soon. Of course, the woman’s claim is entirely untrue.”
She delivered this official statement with a lofty toss of her head Edith did not believe for a moment.
“But as a family, we have been distracted. I was distracted. And injured, I suppose. William says it is his fault, my distraction. That I became enamored of another man to strike back at him. I feel patronized when he says this. My passions are my passions. I don’t feel them out of spite.”
“But perhaps as an escape?”
“Perhaps.” Mrs. Walling looked down at her knotted hands. “In truth, I’m no longer sure why I am angry at William, only that I can’t stop. And so we have found it beneficial to live alone for a time. But that is why we live apart, Mrs. Wharton. Not because my husband”—here she lowered her voice—“murdered Graham.”
Edith found herself intensely sympathetic to Mrs. Walling—but suspicious. Gently, she said, “Mrs. Walling, don’t you agree that a man whose pride has been wounded can be a very dangerous animal?”
“I do. But William never knew it was Graham.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one thought Graham interested in that sort of thing. My husband is not a man of great imagination.” Edith heard the unspoken or insight.
Taking last night’s note out of her reticule, she laid it on the table. Mrs. Walling peered at the paper, then frowned.
“You don’t recognize it?” Edith asked.
The other lady shook her head.
“It is on the same paper and in the same handwriting as the notes David Graham Phillips received before he was killed. I received it yesterday.”
Anna Walling looked genuinely appalled. “Mrs. Wharton, you must believe me, I never actually thought they would dare. Not with you…”
“Who would not dare, Mrs. Walling? And why not with me? Why should a jealous author or jealous husband, for that matter, show any regard for my well-being?”
Anna Walling shook her head, deeply distressed. She waved her hand over the note as if willing it to go away.
Edith pressed. “You put me into this situation the moment you invited me to the Phillips home, knowing Carolyn Frevert would ask me to read Susan Lenox. Now I have read it and I am receiving threats. The first note was a blunt instruction not to write this story. This one is more nuanced. It shows some knowledge of society, yet it was clearly written by someone who feels cast out of society. The paper is excellent, as is the handwriting, suggesting a level of expensive education. Does that remind you of anyone?”
“Mrs. Wharton…”
Anticipating evasion, Edith insisted, “The very least you owe me is a candid answer as to who you believe is responsible. Even if that person is dear to you.”
Her tone had become imperious. Mrs. Walling turned cold. She took her time in answering.
“Not dear to me, Mrs. Wharton,” she said finally. “But perhaps to you.”
She tapped the note. “You think the person ‘cast out of society’ is my husband. But I think it is you. The people you write about—you think it inconceivable that they see you as one of their own, and yet a person ‘who does just about what she wishes’?”
It was absurd, thought Edith. Entirely absurd. Anna Walling was trying to lure attention away from her husband. And yet she could not speak because she was stuck on another thought: Her poor placement at dinner. Alice’s pointed greeting to Teddy. Nannie’s endless carping. HJ’s snipes about talons …
Many did see her as a woman who did just what she wanted.
She heard Anna Walling say, “In The House of Mirth, you wrote about the cruelty of these people. I would have thought you have some idea of what they’re capable of.”
Edith recovered herself. “Yes. But this is not how they deliver their warnings.”
“Then why are you receiving threats, Mrs. Wharton?”
It was so obvious that for a moment, Edith was lost for words. “Because I involved myself in Susan Lenox. Because I wish to know who killed Mr. Phillips…”
Another toss of the head. “Do you?” As Edith scoffed, she spoke over her saying, “You are questioning the wrong people and asking the wrong questions, because in your heart, you don’t want the answer.”
Too astonished to be offended, Edith asked, “And where should I be looking, Mrs. Walling?”
“Closer to home.”
“I have no precise home at the moment. It shall have to be a name, I’m afraid.”
Anna Walling looked slowly around the opulent tearoom. Turning back to Edith, she said simply, “And what if the name I gave you was Vanderbilt?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I would say you were a liar or a fantasist was Edith’s preferred response. But she settled for “What on earth would the Vanderbilts have to fear from Susan Lenox?”
“Not from Susan Lenox, Mrs. Wharton. From Treason of the Senate.”
Now she did laugh. “The Senate? To my knowledge, no member of the Vanderbilt family has ever joined that august body.”
“Of course they haven’t. Gentlemen do not engage in politics. It would never do for them to sully themselves by courting the good will of the people. Instead, they court a few specific men who will persuade the public that the people’s interests and those of families like the Vanderbilts are one and the same. Men like Senator Depew. In return, to quote Graham, these men are ‘rewarded with scant and contemptuous crumbs.’ If you can call Senator Depew’s three magnificent houses crumbs.”
“Are you accusing Alice Vanderbilt of murder?” It was so ridiculous, Edith allowed herself to smile.
“Of course not, Mrs. Wharton. Women like Alice Vanderbilt, like yourself, do not have to act in order to protect your interests. You have men to do that. Lawyers, accountants, doctors, butlers, valets—as well as politicians.”
“And yet Senator Depew told me himself he is about to retire.”
Even as she said it, she realized that was not exactly true. He had talked of retirement. And Alice had said, “We shan’t let you.” Then he had made some twinkly remark about strange doings in Albany …
Anna Walling said, “But only a year ago, he was confident of reelection. Even as late as this summer, he said he would like another term.”
“Well, these grand old men. It can be hard to persuade them to leave the stage.”
“The Vanderbilts do not wish him to leave the stage. If he does, they lose their influence in government. They will have to break in an entirely new lapdog. But the old guard is falling, Mrs. Wharton. The Big Four who controlled the Senate on behalf of the wealthy are losing their grip. First John Spooner left the Senate. Then Nelson Aldrich, so-called boss of the Senate and Rockefeller retainer, announced his retirement. Now Depew’s power is in jeopardy. Do you know what these men have in common, Mrs. Wharton? Graham wrote about each of them in Treason of the Senate.”
“That book was published years ago. Why kill Mr. Phillips now?”
“Because its effects are being felt now, Mrs. Wharton. Five years ago, Senator Depew’s seat was secure. Now, his allies are falling. People are asking questions. ‘Why does my senator oppose direct primary elections?’ ‘How does a public servant live like a prince?’ Who would have thought a nobody from Indiana would threaten the fortunes of the Big Four? And in doing so, the families they serve, the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts?”
“So it is your opinion that David Graham Phillips was killed not to stop Susan Lenox from being published, but to avenge the ruin of Senator Depew’s career.”
“And to make it clear to others what happens to those who dare to expose the corrupt influence of wealth over the American government.”
“Senator Depew must be in his seventies. A man of his years—not to mention fame—could never hope to shoot a man in broad daylight and get away unrecognized.”
“Even lapdogs have lapdogs.”
Her grim certainty was such that Edith found herself flummoxed. “But why try to stop me from reading Susan Lenox? These are not people who read widely, Mrs. Walling. I can’t imagine how they would know the book even exists…”
But then she remembered Alice’s dinner. Herself, bored and flustered, desperate to make conversation with the monosyllabic tombstone opposite. David Graham Phillips. Apparently, he’s about to publish some huge novel. Been working on it for ages. Explosive, explosive! Will expose the hypocrisy and evils of … well, everything, I suppose …
She heard Anna Walling say, “The Vanderbilts and Depew don’t need to know what it’s about, Mrs. Wharton. They will have heard that David Graham Phillips, the man who wrote Treason of the Senate, has completed the book it took him a decade to write, in which he exposes corruption and hypocrisy in America.”
