The Wharton Plot, page 17
“I shall not enjoy it,” she promised him.
“But you’ll enjoy it more than an evening with me.”
I am sorry, she thought wearily, that my life is full and yours is not. I am sorry that you take joy in so few things. It is a large world, with so much to do. Why do you not go in search of what will make you happy?
She remembered Teddy’s actress. Had she made him happy? She rather hoped so. If she had not been exorbitantly expensive, it might have been worth it to keep her on.
Later, she met with White in her room. While she was at the opera, perhaps it would be best for Mr. Wharton to dine at the hotel and have an early night.
“Mr. Wharton does not care for the food at the Belmont,” said White. “In any event, he has informed me he has plans for the evening.”
“Plans?” White nodded. “But what—?”
“He did not inform me as to what they were,” he clarified. “Only that he would be out.”
“I see.”
She thought of the night she had returned to her room to find the sprig of witch hazel and the petit bleu on her pillow. Had Teddy made similar plans that evening? Did they involve young actresses? Investments? He no longer had access to her funds, so she supposed it made no difference. Even if it did, she could hardly ask White if her husband was consorting with other women because he thought she was consorting with other men.
“Thank you, White.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Edith, dear, how lovely to see you!”
“Mrs. Wharton, such a surprise…”
“Darling Edith, how we’ve missed you.”
“Do give our love to Teddy…”
“What are these dreadful rumors that you’re leaving us?”
To everyone in Edith’s New York, the opera was the buzzing center of the winter season. The city’s elite families gathered at the Metropolitan Opera House, ostensibly to hear music, but in truth to make matches and do battle. The boxholders in the Diamond Horseshoe enjoyed lengthy intermissions that allowed them to pay calls on one another, going from box to box just as they would from home to home to pay their respects. Careers were promoted, reputations enhanced or destroyed. The Metropolitan Opera had been founded in a fit of pique when Alva Vanderbilt was denied one of the eighteen boxes at the old Academy of Music, and Edith often wondered where American cultural life would be without New Yorkers’ thin skin. Someone was always starting something because they had been snubbed and wished to keep someone else out.
As Edith and Walter made their way into the house from the private carriage entrances reserved for the patrons and their guests, she found it difficult to breathe and she was not sure whether it was the sheer number of people or the people themselves. They were all here. The Vanderbilts, the Belmonts, the Harrimans, the Fishes, the Clewses, the Wilsons. She reminded herself that the person who unnerved her the most was probably not in the crowd. The Depews would come with Alice, and she never arrived until the first aria was underway, and she departed halfway through the finale. But the Depews would stay for the gala. The thought of confronting the hulking, dull-eyed junior Depew set her heart pounding and she wondered: Would she be relieved if he did not come?
No. She would not. Guilt over having blabbed about Susan Lenox weighed on her. If she was in any way responsible for provoking Depew into an act of violence against David Graham Phillips, it felt imperative to expose him. At least it felt imperative that she try.
Her plan, inspired by Hamlet, was to raise the subject of the murder and watch the son’s reaction. He did not possess his father’s gift for evasion. If he had a violent disposition, it would be easy enough to bait him into an outburst. Even now she was not entirely sure what she meant to say to him. When she imagined it, she had a vision of throwing David Graham Phillips in his face as you would a glass of water and watching him sputter into some sort of confession.
“Why did you change your mind?” Walter asked as they climbed the stairs.
“Did I?”
“I distinctly recall a reference to wild horses and their inability to drag you within a hundred feet of an American opera.”
“Clearly the horses had more oomph than I realized.”
As they entered the parterre, Edith steadied her nerves by noting the superficial things. Walter, magnificent in white tie. The new color scheme of the house—gold and maroon to replace the old ivory decor, which had been deemed unflattering to the ladies. Partridges were a popular motif for fans. Opera coats were gold and black, with touches of peacock. She put her ear to the buzz of conversation around her. Most of the opera’s patrons were intensely preoccupied by the genuine stars of the evening, which were not the singers but the patrons themselves. They had managed to be in the most important place on this most important evening, when the most important event in the city was taking place: the debut of Natoma! People were keen to show off their knowledge of the evening’s entertainment. One matron resplendent in emeralds looked forward to the “Dagger Dance.” Her companion had heard that the production featured a papoose. Also vaqueros, although he was unclear as to what those were.
Escorted to the salon area of the Goelet box, Edith surrendered her wrap, then took a deep breath as she prepared to pass through the red velvet curtains into the heart of the house. As she did, she was assaulted by the thrumming excitement of more than three thousand people. Also the vast stage curtain of dazzling gold and the sight of Mrs. Robert Goelet. Barely thirty, Elsie Goelet was ravishing, with crystalline eyes, dramatic brows, and luxurious masses of dark hair. She made Edith feel approximately a hundred and nine years old.
Edith had heard that the enchanting Elsie was dallying with Henry Clews, who was here this evening with his wife. Watching Elsie simper in Walter’s direction, Edith told herself perhaps she had heard wrong. But she inquired after Mr. Clews nonetheless. Just to be polite.
They arranged themselves in the usual manner on the seats of dark mahogany and black rattan: Edith and Elsie in the front, Walter seated behind Elsie. While he made gallant and Elsie charmed with her fan, Edith resented her assigned role as duenna. She had been asked not for her company, but to give the appearance of propriety. My dear, I saw Walter Berry with Mrs. Goelet at the opera!—And you saw Mrs. Wharton right there next to him, don’t dramatize! That she had used HJ in exactly the same way when traveling with Fullerton mollified her not at all.
She looked toward Alice Vanderbilt’s box. The chairs stood empty, the curtains still.
Then there was a storm of applause as the conductor took the podium. The lights dimmed and the magnificent gold curtain rose. Natoma was about to begin. As the overture played, she recalled a performance of La Figlia di Iorio. Fullerton had quietly joined her in the darkness mid-act. They said nothing, and yet she felt suffused by him, their minds and sensibilities so attuned they did not need words. This, she had thought, must be what happy women felt. What a gift to be found and rescued—late in life, to be sure, but rescued nonetheless.
Thoughts of rescue stayed with her as the first act got underway. Edith considered herself receptive to the “new.” At the very least, she had disdain for people who weren’t and a determination not to be counted among them. She had attended Stravinsky’s L’Oiseau de Feu, admired Diaghilev, and thought Cocteau delightful. Her tastes were in no way hidebound.
So she felt quite confident in her opinion that Natoma was terrible. The first time one heard the tunes, they had some freshness and charm. By the second act, they began to bore. By the twentieth repetition, Edith strongly considered snatching the baton from the conductor’s hand and thrusting it through his eyeball.
Restless, she looked about the darkened theater and saw that Alice had finally arrived. Dressed in her customary black, strands of pearls around her neck, she sat, a grand immobile totem, impervious to the lesser beings around her. Senator Depew, his old eyes large and brilliant, sat with his liver-spotted hands resting hard on the silver handle of a cane. Beside him, his son, gargantuan and gangly in his ill-fitting white tie, did not watch the action on the stage. From his expression, she judged that the young man was acutely unhappy to be at the opera.
Of course there, he was not alone. The rapturous applause that erupted when the last notes faded was the sound of a people liberated from torment. Huzzahs and bravos resounded throughout the house, although Edith heard a distinct menace in the bravos. The prima donna was pelted with orchids and violets. Then she brought on the composer, who, had the audience had offal on hand, might have been pelted as well. Afterwards, the crowds trailed out, wide-eyed in shock, aware that the gala reception—and reviews—lay ahead. The rush to the bar was so speedy it might have been the bell at Belmont racetrack.
Edith could see Senator Depew, waving and cheerful as he made his way through the crowd. To him, the opera itself was merely the overture. Now the real star would take the stage. Retiring or not, he still wished to show he was beloved in the hearts of New Yorkers, at least the ones who truly mattered.
Behind her, Walter whispered, “Do you want to stay? I think we’ve suffered enough.”
“All that despair and recrimination? The descent into gloom when the reviews are read? I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But if it is past Mrs. Goelet’s bedtime, you may pop her into her cradle whenever you see fit.”
The reception was held in the grand foyer of the opera house. Buffet tables laden with hams, lobsters, oysters, roasts, as well as acres of vegetables and every sort of bread and roll imaginable, surrounded fifteen tables, each of which sat ten prominent guests. At the center of each table was a basket of spring flowers. A vast American flag hung overhead, flanked by the flags of New York and California. The hall’s columns were decorated with tiger lilies and crowned with forsythia. Enormous bay trees stood on either side of the entrance. The walls and ceilings were adorned with Southern smilax woven with pink and white azaleas and pink electric lights. American Beauty roses emphasized the national triumph of the occasion.
As did the guests themselves. Thomas Edison was in attendance, as were Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson. The mayor and his wife were present. (“Is that the one who was shot in New Jersey?” Edith whispered to Walter.) Yet another wing of the Vanderbilt clan was represented by William K. and his new wife. As was her habit, Alice had departed during the last aria. But her daughter-in-law was reeling in every personage in the room, all of whom seemed to have dined at her home at one time or another. “I feel deeply for poor dear Marie Antoinette,” Grace said to Prince Paul Trubetskoy. “If revolution came to America, I should be the first to go!”
Walter, who had found it prudent to separate from Mrs. Goelet for a time, chatted with Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. Edith greeted an obscure member of the Astor clan and a minor Stuyvesant. As she worked her way into the senator’s orbit, her surroundings grew notably more masculine, with black wool replacing an array of silks and lace. Doleful, she took in wizened necks, pouched eyes, and flapping arm flesh. There was no denying it: They were an aging group.
“A pessimist,” boomed Senator Depew to his admirers, “is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes they are.” The younger Depew lurked at a distance behind his father, as if he were one of the waiters attempting to seat people so the dinner service might start. As Edith inserted herself into the circle of sycophants, she drew on her full display of regal entitlement. She was a Jones, a Schermerhorn, cousin to the Astors. She was not going to be intimidated by a Depew.
The senator greeted her with equanimity; he had spent enough time with people like her to know when to stand down. But he was canny, asking, “And where is your fine husband this evening, Mrs. Wharton?”
“Toothache, I’m afraid. But preferable, I daresay, to the evening’s entertainment.”
A round of masculine chuckles. The senator returned, “Ah, but we must embrace the new!”
“The new, by all means,” she said. “The dreadful and earsplitting, perhaps not.”
“Progress is often seen as disruption, Mrs. Wharton. Change is inevitable.”
So it is, she thought. In a matter of months, you may be out on your ear.
Borrowing Alice Vanderbilt’s stern tone and furrowed brow, she said, “Ah, but is change always desirable? If, for example, we were to rid New York of all that awful brownstone, I would rejoice. The city is now so crowded. And the level of crime shocking.” Turning her gaze on the son, she added, “Just the other day, a colleague of mine was murdered in broad daylight.”
The senator smiled benevolently; if women were not shocked by the world, his role as a gentleman able to navigate it on their behalf would disappear.
“It is regrettable,” he said, “but so many women now insist on walking unescorted in the streets, there are bound to be difficulties.”
A woman who leaves her home is neither pure not protected, thought Edith. One of the senator’s witty aphorisms? That his son would have heard repeatedly?
“But it wasn’t a woman,” she said. “He was a writer. Shot dead in the street. David Graham Phillips. You must have seen it in the newspapers.”
Turning, she addressed the son directly. “You remember, we spoke of Mr. Phillips at dinner the other evening. I’ve been reading his new book. It is indeed revelatory…”
“I assure you,” said the senator solemnly, cutting her off, “that I shall make the safety of New York’s citizens a priority should I return to the Senate. Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen”—he glittered at Edith—“and Mrs. Wharton, I believe I am expected on the dais.”
He was too good, she thought, watching him slip away. Too experienced in evasion. So intent was she on watching the senator, she only belatedly noticed that the son did not follow him to the dais but headed in the opposite direction. She tried to follow him, but Walter arrived to escort her to their table.
By happy surprise, Edith found Minnie seated near her. Once her sister-in-law, now one of her dearest friends, Minnie had taken the astonishing step of parting with Edith’s brother after catching him in flagrante with another woman. To her mother’s horror, Edith had sided with Minnie—as had many others. Such was Minnie’s quality, her reputation had not suffered. When asked if she enjoyed the opera, Edith made a face of a silent scream. Minnie put her hands to her cheeks in feigned horror.
“But when the reviews are read,” said Minnie, “you must say, ‘Well, they didn’t understand it.’” Then, unfurling her napkin onto her lap, she said, “Henry has come to stay with me. He said he found it difficult to rest at the Belmont.”
“I was not such a menace, I assure you, that he needed to flee to Washington Square.”
“Well, it is where he grew up,” said Minnie. “He feels at ease there.”
But Edith was not in the mood to discuss Henry’s fragility. Glancing toward the dais where Senator Depew was seated at a long table at the head of the room with the soprano Miss Garden, the composer Mr. Herbert, and various other luminaries, Edith asked, “Is it your opinion that Senator Depew will return to Washington?”
“Heavens, how should I know?” Then, having made a proper display of ignorance about politics, Minnie added, “I understand he means to retire.” She leaned in to be heard below the conversation. “Apparently, the levels of greed became ostentatious. Or perhaps he was pushed from the trough by younger, more robust swine.”
Or by one writer, thought Edith, who is now dead. She saw that the younger Depew had landed at a table close to the doors. His fellow diners were mostly single men, with one couple she did not recognize. None of them greeted him as he sat down. It was what Edith called an odds-and-ends table, a place to seat people who had no friends nor people who wished to be their friend.
“And his son?” she inquired. “Does he seek a place at the trough?”
“Does he have a son?” asked Minnie. Edith cast a discreet glance in that gentleman’s direction. “I know nothing of him. You often see it, dazzling father, dud son drawn along on his papa’s coattails. Oh, speak of the devil—the senator has risen. The first review must have come in.”
The tinkling sound of sterling on crystal brought the room to silence. Glass in hand, the senator said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here to celebrate the premiere of Natoma, the first truly American opera!”
This was greeted by bellows of “Hear, hear” and the thumping of hands upon the tables.
“I think it appropriate at this time”—here Depew held up a sheaf of paper—“to read some reviews.”
An apprehensive hush fell over the room.
The senator cleared his throat, then read: “‘What happened last night in the opera house was neither opera nor drama. It was certainly not related to music in any way.’”
Glances ranging from shocked to gleeful darted around Edith’s table. Every word was true, obviously, but to say so out loud?
The senator moved on to the next clipping. “‘The performance last night at the opera was disgraceful and should not have been allowed.’”
The murmurs rose, became hostile. Everyone knew they had endured a travesty; why rub their noses in it?
Serene, the senator continued. “Ah, and here we have, ‘The composer of the new opera may have talent for some things, but writing opera is obviously not one of them.’”
Then he grinned at the aghast assemblage.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have just read to you the actual reviews of Bizet’s Carmen.”
A roar of relief was followed by a storm of clapping. Miss Garden and Mr. Herbert swooned. Crowds swarmed the senator, demanding to shake his hand. Cries of “Well done, sir, well done!” were everywhere. A call of Depew for president went up—Edith felt sure it had started at his table, but it lasted a surprisingly long time. Edith looked at William K. Vanderbilt, applauding vigorously, and thought, Hail, thou good and faithful servant.
She looked to the younger Depew’s table. The commotion that greeted the senator’s speech had given young Chauncey’s dining companions an excuse to desert him. While everyone else was on their feet, he remained seated, scraping and scrabbling at his meal as if it were his last. Edith thought he looked morose. Which was a suitable aspect for someone at this ridiculous occasion. Also, what one might expect to see in a man who had shot another man only five days ago.
