The Wharton Plot, page 16
Yes, thought Edith, they do know that. Because I told them. She who had such terror of saying the wrong thing might have made the greatest conversational blunder of her life.
“And if Edith Wharton, one of their own, decides to defend that novel, how much harder will it be for them to deny that everything it says is true? No, much better if she is scared enough that she stops reading, flees back to Paris, and the Comstocks and their verminous allies can stop it from ever seeing the light of day.”
For a brief moment, Edith was persuaded. Then shook herself. No. It was both too tidy and too outrageous. A neat little bundle of conspiracy that pulled in the wealthiest families, famous politicians, and bigoted censors: all the people Anna Walling despised. And yet when Edith tried to find the loose thread so she might tug the other woman’s argument apart, all she could think of was the younger Depew, with that strange flat voice: Are you making a joke?
Edith was tired. Her head ached. She felt Mrs. Walling must be in error, but she could not find the right words, except to say, These people who horrify you, they are so mediocre, you cannot imagine.
And—stubbornly, she came back to it—the word vampire was not a political word.
Although the theft of someone’s reputation could also be seen as taking a life that did not belong to you.
The younger Depew did take offense easily. If he had any prospects beyond his father’s employment, she could not imagine them.
And he had frightened her. Briefly. But frightened her nonetheless.
She heard Anna Walling say, “You don’t believe me.”
“I am thinking. Of course I wonder if you’re making these accusations in order to protect your husband. You have four children. And, if I’m not mistaken, you still love him.”
Anna Walling dropped her gaze. Smoothing the napkin on her lap, she said, “Shall I tell you the thing I love most in William?”
“Please.”
“William’s family created its wealth through the enslavement of other people. I am not speaking poetically of factories. I am speaking of human beings that they owned. Much of what William has—his education at Harvard, his security and freedom—comes at the cost of other people’s lives. There is a reason he fights for complete political and economic equality. There is a reason he works for the American Federation of Labor. And that is because he knows the burden of sin.”
Anna Walling looked at her. “William Walling is a man conscious of his crimes. He has dedicated his life to atonement. Does that sound like a man who would shoot a man he admires, then walk away?”
“It depends on how badly he felt that man had betrayed him. No matter how selfless, there is always something—or someone—we wish to call our own, to whom we demand absolute rights.”
“I am not property, Mrs. Wharton. No human being is.”
“One’s emotions do not always match one’s ideals.”
She expected an argument, full of abstractions and platitudes. To her surprise, Anna Walling nodded, wearily conceding the point.
“What is a happy marriage, Mrs. Wharton?” asked the Russian woman. “How is it achieved? Do you know? If so, please tell me.”
“Travel,” she said. “Either together or apart. If together, you may be the same people, but at least you are in a different space.”
“Travel involves so many of the choices of marriage: Where do you wish to go? Change—is it exciting or tiring? How long do you wish to stay? May others join your journey…?”
Edith knew that Mrs. Walling was asking if she had ever been distracted. For a moment, she longed to say yes, to make the Russian woman a new HJ, a better one, who would understand that at times it felt impossible to be a woman and love—passionately, heedlessly—and not be degraded. Men seemed to manage it, loving but keeping themselves intact. Why couldn’t women?
Taking up her teacup, she said, “I find three a very difficult number to manage. A natural pair occurs and one is left to sulk.” She met Mrs. Walling’s eye. “Or worse.”
“I have told you who is responsible for Graham’s murder, Mrs. Wharton. If you read Treason of the Senate, you will see I am right.” She stood. “But perhaps, unlike my husband, you are incapable of confronting the cruelties of your people with courage or integrity. It’s difficult, I know. We see … and we make excuses. The careless young fellow who runs someone down with his motorcar—well, he drinks too much. The gentleman who fondles the little housemaid—a bit of a bore. The lady who fires that housemaid without pay—somewhat rigid. They do bad things, people we love, but we insist they are not bad people. Or some of them are bad people—we’ll say so just between us late at night—but they’re not dangerous. It would be ill-mannered to take offense at their behavior. To call it what it is: criminal.
“I had hoped that the woman who wrote The House of Mirth might be braver. But now I see the author portrait was correct. You are a grand society matron who takes the viciousness and brutality of her friends and makes of them a charming comedy. They are appalling, these people, and you admit as much. But in the end, you present them as the only people of any real interest or importance. Good day, Mrs. Wharton.”
It was a dare, Edith told herself as she ignored Mrs. Walling’s departure. A silly one. Do not look at me, but at yourself. What a convenient thing the wealthy were; one might blame them for anything.
But Mr. Jewett had also mentioned Treason of the Senate. Him, she could not dismiss as a grief-stricken radical. As much as she resented Mrs. Walling’s accusations, she could not lay them aside until she had shown she was not afraid to face … well, the muck.
In the distance, she noticed the hotel manager directing one of the bellboys in the removal of the last of the holiday garlands from the lobby. The Christmas festivities were finally over. It made her think of a Christmas long ago—celebrated at the largest, most splendid house in America, an estate to rival Versailles or Blenheim.
A house only a Vanderbilt could build.
* * *
At Appleton, the youth was surprised to see her. “Soldiering on with Susan Lenox?”
“No, actually.”
Briefly, they smiled in shared loathing of that work.
“I wonder if you could bring me a copy of another of Mr. Phillips’s books. Not the novels, but Treason of the Senate—do you have that?”
He said he would bring it to her straightaway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“No, Edith—no!”
HJ peered at her through the three-inch crack between the door and its frame. His face was flushed with the effort of keeping her at bay, his eyes bright with determination.
“It is late,” he announced. “I am tired.”
“It’s nine o’clock.” She held up Treason of the Senate. “And I bring a book.”
He looked at the title; his eyes were poor and he had to squint. “That’s not a book, it’s a pamphlet. Is this more about the Phillips business?” The door shuddered, threatened to close.
“Partly. It’s also about George Vanderbilt and Biltmore. Christmas 1905.”
She had surprised him. More than that, she had given him the opportunity to be eloquent in complaint, a thing he loved. His grip on the door relaxed.
“I detest Biltmore,” he said. “It’s a space utterly unaddressed to any possible arrangement of life. But what do the Vanderbilts have to do with your dead writer?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Allowed in, she took her customary chair. While HJ poked at the fire and settled his foot properly, she thought back to their visit to North Carolina. A French château in the Appalachian territory might have struck some as whimsical, and others as crazed. But when one had the Vanderbilt millions and the assistance of Frederick Law Olmsted and Richard Morris Hunt, one could turn such outlandish fantasies into even more outlandish reality.
Christmas of 1905, she had been festive and full of herself. It was the year of Mirth, when her book was published in the astonishing number of forty thousand copies—a count that later rose to one hundred thousand. At last, she stood secure on the one pedestal bearing the title that mattered most: author. When George and his wife asked her to the most extravagant house in America on the most extravagant of holidays, she had known it was precisely the place she should be and dragged HJ along for good measure. She had gamboled around the estate, reveling in its spectacular collection of books and jovial St. Bernards, who left whorls of slobber on all the rugs. She delighted in the thirty-foot-high tree, the vast brimming punch bowls, the brightly wrapped presents, and the gardens of jasmine and juniper, honeysuckle and cascading fruited ivy over the stone terrace walls. It seemed that everyone agreeable was there and they all wished to congratulate her.
Now, reclining in his chair, HJ recalled, “My room was half a mile from the mile-long library. And there were people one didn’t know. And one didn’t like.”
“On that subject, do you remember Chauncey Depew?”
“Notable gasbag and senator?” HJ consulted his memory. “A friend of your friend Mr. Roosevelt.”
“A friend to many, apparently. He was at Biltmore that Christmas. I thought it odd at the time that George, normally so discerning with his guest list, would mix artists and politicians. When I asked him, he said Willie insisted.”
“George’s older brother who married the harridan Alva,” Henry remembered. “She left him, and he went horse mad. And house mad. And yacht mad.”
“Naturally, I made every effort to avoid the senator and his party. But one night, I went looking for George in his study. A Renoir was badly placed, and I felt he should know. I was in the corridor when I heard a man shouting about some writer and people named Spooner and Aldrich.”
“And you didn’t care so you walked away.”
“Almost. But then I heard someone say, ‘He’s just throwing muck to see if it’ll stick. But anything he throws at me spatters you as well.’ A few minutes later, Depew and Willie came out of the study.”
“… and?”
“Soon after that, Mr. Phillips published Treason of the Senate. In which he accused Senator Depew of acting with impropriety on behalf of the Vanderbilts.”
HJ looked dubious. “You’re not suggesting an elderly politician hobbled down Twenty-First Street, shot Phillips, and managed to limp away without being caught? More than five years after being attacked in print by him?”
“No. But he has a son. Who is nearly twenty years younger than I am, so presumably capable of running up and down streets and shooting people.”
“I return to my earlier question: Why?”
“Because he knew Mr. Phillips was about to publish an explosive new book. He knew it because I told him so the day before David Graham Phillips was murdered.”
In vain, she waited for Henry to absolve her with Oh, don’t be ridiculous. But he was silent.
She added, “And, although I met him only briefly, his manner was strange.”
“One hears of these people called police. If Senator Depew’s son shot Mr. Phillips, surely they will discover as much.”
“But the police would be inclined to look the other way, wouldn’t they? If the son of a famous, influential politician was involved?”
HJ’s eyes narrowed. “You make an unlikely Jacobin.”
“It’s hardly revolutionary to suggest that public figures enjoy a certain amount of leeway.”
“Also an unlikely detective. You were only asked to read a book and say something nice about it. You were not asked to solve the man’s murder.”
“The man was a writer, Henry. Maybe not a writer to my taste. But even in New York, the killing of writers seems a new outrage.”
HJ’s face lightened. “Ah, now Socrates might disagree.”
Dimly, she recalled the Jacques-Louis David painting of the philosopher sentenced to die by drinking poison. “What was the charge?”
“The moral corruption of Athenian youth.” When she nodded knowingly, he said, “No, unlike Plato, Socrates did not indulge; he was very ugly. The jury found him guilty of encouraging the young to disrespect the established gods. Socrates felt that their society had grown lazy, apathetic. A plodding horse, it needed a good sting. Not surprisingly, the state did not appreciate it. Like a mule, it kicked.”
It took her a moment to decipher the analogy. “So, Depew and the Vanderbilts are the mule and Mr. Phillips is Socrates?”
“Surely the Vanderbilts are our established gods,” said HJ slyly. “Senator Depew the workhorse. Still, I don’t see what you can do about it. I don’t even see why you’d want to.” He pulled a face of mock horror. “The Vanderbilts would never ask you to dine again!”
“Well, if they’ve taken to assassinating writers, I’m not sure I want to.”
But it was a poor joke and her problem remained unsolved. Settling her chin in her hand, she thought. It was obviously not a thing she could discuss with Alice. Or even George. Who had, she now remembered, called Depew “our senator.” Such a task was not something one would put in writing, the way she gave instructions to staff. Morning: drive senator to speech. Midday: shoot writer. It seemed most likely that the son would have committed the murder on his own initiative. Perhaps he had been spurred on by a “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” outburst from the senator. Young Depew didn’t seem particularly gifted or competent. But that, he could do.
But how to prove he had done it?
HJ spoke, deep and round as if from the bottom of a well: “You have become enamored of the extreme.”
And you have become terrified, she thought. It showed in his work. All that brilliant language winding around the characters like a fog. Discreet coughs and ellipses where there should be candor. Or … truth. Irritatingly, Mr. Phillips’s favorite word came to her. She had not liked HJ’s last novels. The delicacy of language, which, like the most elaborate lace, had once revealed the intricate patterns of human existence, was now cotton wool, muffling and suffocating. The ability to set life at a remove so that the reader might see it in all its complexities had become a refusal to examine life up close. HJ held life aloft on a long branch, as if it were a hornet’s nest, fascinated by its gray bulbous shape—something so ugly must be organic—yet terrified of the agony that might come flying out of it at any moment.
Perhaps, she thought, that was one reason the New York Edition had failed. The world had moved on.
“So,” he said, “will you invite Alice to tea and suggest that the man who has served her family faithfully for his entire career is a murderer? Or his son is?”
“I might see Alice tomorrow night, as a matter of fact. Walter has asked me to the opera.”
“Is Walter still in the city? Such the world traveler, one expects him to wing off elsewhere.”
He widened his eyes. “I wonder what keeps him.”
Ignoring this, she continued, “It is quite the event. The New York debut of Natoma. No doubt the senator will be there. With his son.”
Smiling, she stood and gave him her hands. Henry gazed up at her. “Please don’t get shot,” he said. “I should miss my Devastating Angel.”
“I am sure she has nothing to fear,” she lied.
* * *
Walter was not at all grateful when she accepted his invitation to Natoma, clearly feeling she should have said yes ages ago and spared him the nagging.
“Who will be at the gala dinner?” she asked.
“Literally everyone,” said Walter, using the words accurately given his definition of everyone. “The mayor. Thomas Edison. Mrs. Fish. Minnie. Various branches of the Vanderbilts. I believe Senator Depew is giving the toast. The man’s running for office, even if he pretends otherwise.”
“Delightful.”
“Well, delightful or dismal, I think Natoma will be an excellent distraction for you. It is an ‘American’ opera set in California.” She heard the amusement in Walter’s voice. “I suspect there will be much to criticize.”
Edith made an agreeable sound. But she knew women like the one he imagined her to be: cantankerous old vultures hovering, wishing for catastrophe so they might have a good feed. She did not wish to be one. At least not for many more years.
Thinking of Alice and her hallowed spot in box three of the Diamond Horseshoe, she asked where they were seated.
“We shall be sitting in Mrs. Robert Goelet’s box.”
She paused, then asked, “With Mr. Goelet?”
“I believe Robert is away.”
So this was why HJ had made a point of wondering why Walter was still in the city. Cross, Edith thought to say she didn’t much like being used as cover for Walter’s liaison. For God’s sake, she thought, couldn’t you have chosen someone less vapid? Elsie Goelet was nearly half his age.
No, that was not why she was disappointed. She felt inside herself, pressing here and there for the bruise. The places of loss felt tender—too tender—and she left off exploring. Of course it is Elsie Goelet, she thought. Young, voluptuous, eager for life—why shouldn’t she be, there is so much of it left to her. Who would not want to embrace that?
Walter had revealed his secret. Should she tell him hers? If so, which one? She thought of telling her oldest friend about the notes delivered to the hotel. Her sense the other evening that she was being followed. She thought to ask him if they were now so old they shouldn’t mind dying. If he still felt as fiercely about living as he had when he was twenty-one. Or if, at the half-century mark, they were supposed to recede like spirits, fade through the walls and be heard only occasionally as moans and whispers, easily mistaken for wind through the trees.
“Tomorrow then,” said Walter.
“Yes, tomorrow.”
* * *
Predictably, Teddy did not want to go to the opera. He also did not want her to go to the opera. He especially did not want her to go with Walter Berry.
