The Wharton Plot, page 6
“Mrs. Wharton?”
“Yes?”
“I recognized you from your author portrait.”
“Oh, dear,” said Edith. “Scribner’s always tells me those photos look nothing like me.”
“They don’t do you justice. But of course they wish to show you as the grand society matron. From your work, I suspect you are more than that.” She held out her hand. “Anna Strunsky Walling.”
It was terrible manners, but Edith could not help wondering why a woman would call herself Strunsky when she had the name Walling. “A pleasure, Mrs. Walling.”
Catching the slight pause, the other woman said, “This taking of the husband’s name by a woman when she marries merges her individuality into his. In my work I desire the use of the name that means me.” She turned her luminous eyes on Walter. “I hope my views cause no offense, Mr. Wharton.”
“This is Mr. Walter Berry,” Edith explained. “A very old friend. My husband was unable to come.”
She braced for censure, but Mrs. Walling seemed charmed by the unorthodoxy. Gesturing to the doors where William Walling stood, she said, “Shall we?”
Edith was not generally inclined to walk with people she didn’t know, much less women who insisted on their maiden name, an affectation she found tiresome. But there was something good-humored, even mischievous, about Mrs. Walling. Of course she was a radical; radicals did not tend to like Edith’s work, and in turn, she did not like them. But she had given Edith the first note of welcome since she’d arrived.
William Walling she liked no better on close inspection. He had that blend of feebleness and self-importance that confirmed her suspicion that his natural habitat was a croquet pitch. He responded to her condolences with a stiff nod, clearly feeling a woman of her means had no place at a celebration of a man of the people. Edith had met his sort before, a man who could think of no better way to show disdain for his own class than by treating other members of it with contempt.
As they emerged from the church, the men following, Anna Walling said to Edith, “I am curious as to how you knew Graham.”
Noting the use of Mr. Phillips’s middle name, Edith said, “I argued with him two days ago in a tearoom. That was the sum of our acquaintance.”
Anna Walling laughed. “He once rebuked me for riding in a motorcar. He feared I was becoming an aristocrat.”
The hearse was still parked by the church, its back door now open to receive the casket. A small group stood nearby, most prominently the woman in black and the man who resembled Mr. Phillips. “Members of the family?” Edith asked Mrs. Walling.
“His sister, Mrs. Carolyn Frevert, and their brother. Harrison, I believe. He arrived yesterday.”
The gawkers were still present. They had stood in the cold throughout the service, just for the chance to encounter the key players of the drama one last time. The young man with long hair had procured a lily. Now he dashed up to the family and presented it to Mrs. Frevert. Startled, but not displeased, she took it, asking did he know her brother? No, but he was a writer himself … At this, a balding, round-bellied gentleman stepped forward and gently removed the young man from the family’s orbit.
“And is that Mr. Frevert?” asked Edith, noting the plump man’s protective attitude. He put her in mind of a penguin, which disposed her favorably toward him.
“No, that is Graham’s editor,” said Mrs. Walling. “Rutger Bleecker Jewett.”
Edith recalled the large advertisement. “From Appleton?”
Mrs. Walling nodded. “Mrs. Frevert has asked some of us back to the apartment. I’m sure it would mean something to the family. The presence of…” A graceful gesture to indicate Edith’s stature.
Edith was not overly interested in an introduction to Mrs. Frevert, who might expect effusive tributes to her brother she would find hard to produce. But an editor who showed his devotion to his author in ways both personal and material—that man she did wish to meet. And so, ignoring Walter’s agitation behind her, she said it would be an honor.
CHAPTER NINE
Almost immediately, she regretted it. The Phillips apartment was small—to her eye, at least—certainly too small for the multitudes of Mr. Phillips’s friends and admirers. She could feel Walter mutinous beside her; in this crush, it would be hard to quietly slip away. It was a motley group, spartan in their dress and aggressive in their speech. Two men, a veritable Tweedledee and Tweedledum, stood in the corner. One wept; the other stared glumly at the funeral repast, as if wanting to partake, but worried hunger would betray a lack of grief. They looked out of place and Edith said so. “They are from the Princeton Club,” whispered Mrs. Walling. “They were there when it happened.”
Determined to prove herself not the fussy society matron, Edith praised the apartment. So cunning of Mrs. Frevert to achieve graciousness in these rooms. Not to mention the feat of caring for both brother and husband in such … quickly, she discarded the words tiny, cramped, crowded, finally arriving at “the same household.”
Impulsively, she asked Mrs. Walling, “Or is Mrs. Frevert widowed?”
A fraction of hesitation. “No. Henry Frevert is very much alive, but he no longer lives here. I believe he resides downtown somewhere.”
And yet he had not come to the funeral. Edith was about to inquire further when Anna Walling turned to accept greetings. At that moment, a hefty gentleman stepped into Edith’s path and someone went through with a bottle, causing the crowd to shift. Mrs. Walling vanished, Walter was carried off, and Edith found herself suddenly separated and alone. She felt the stirrings of panic. She was not used to crowds; every function she attended was carefully paced, with a specific number of guests and servants to move them gently through the event as though through a minuet. This was a scrum. Frantically, she searched for the Appleton editor, but he was nowhere in sight. On the opposite side of the room, she saw Walter towering yet cowering as he was besieged by a broad-shouldered man demanding to know his views on Taft. Nearby, a man wept extravagantly into a handkerchief, saying, “I knew it, I knew it would happen one day.” Those around him muttered somberly in agreement. One woman cried, “I say we march to the senator’s house!” There were murmurs of agreement, muttered accusations against the rich, the powerful, the enemies of truth. “It is the fault of society!” pronounced William Walling to general acclaim. Well, yes, thought Edith crossly, society ought not to let madmen wander about with pistols.
Oh, God, now even Walter had disappeared. Edith found herself turning this way and that. It would amaze those who did not know her well, but for much of her life, she had a terror of speaking. Assertions were unthinkable, requests impossible. Even conversation was a vast expanse of quicksand. A wrong step and you could plunge into suffocating depths of mortification. The wrong word to the wrong person could easily mean social death. Or a tantrum. Screaming. Threats. Breakage.
This was, in part, like a weak limb after a childhood illness. She dreaded the possibility that she might march up to someone, fully prepared to unleash Mrs. Edith Wharton, only to snap back into gulping, sad-eyed Puss Jones. She was better now, braver. But there were times when it still required courage to open her mouth and say what she meant. Sometimes, she resented that the other person had not made it easier. When she saw their disapproval of her sharpness, she grew sharper still. When the discussion was over and the other person had slunk away grumbling, she did not feel victorious, only that she might have handled it better.
So, yes, she was imperious because she had discovered that the internal dithering and stammering attempts at tact were not only unbearable but pointless; if she was going to be thought awful no matter what, better to just say it.
Awful made her think of David Graham Phillips, sideways in his chair, legs crossed, talking not in paragraphs but pages. Well, in honor of the murdered man, she too would assume everyone wished to hear what she had to say. Thus resolved, she made her way to the most harmless-looking guests, the Tweedledee men from the Princeton Club.
It seemed they had also gone unwelcomed because they responded to her overture with pathetic gratitude. They were Mr. Frank Davis and Mr. Newton Jarvis. When Edith introduced herself, Mr. Davis pointed to her, beaming.
“… Mirth!”
“Yes, I did write The House of Mirth,” she said, pleased.
“Poor Lily Bart!” he said. “I was shocked by the ending. Never saw that coming.”
“Who’s Lily?” Mr. Jarvis wanted to know.
“A character in my novel,” she told him. “I understand you were with Mr. Phillips at the last. That must have been some comfort for him.”
“Don’t know about that,” said Davis dolefully. “Went his own way, Graham. Wasn’t the chummy sort. Most fellows, you chat over a few brandies. He didn’t care for drink, and the last time we spoke, we argued.”
“I thought he was going to thump you over that income tax argument,” said Jarvis.
Mr. Jarvis, she felt, was failing to strike the right note. Giving her attention solely to Davis, she said, “To witness such a thing! I cannot fathom.”
She actually couldn’t fathom it. What would it be like to see a man killed right in front of you? “Did you see the killer? Or did you hear the shots first?”
“Heard,” said Davis as Jarvis said, “Saw.”
“What did you see, Mr. Jarvis?” Edith inquired, even as she wished the more voluble Davis were the one with the visual memory.
“A man,” he said as if it were obvious. “With a gun.” He waved his finger in the air.
“Well-dressed, would you say?”
It was a tactful way, she felt, to inquire if the shooter was poor. But neither man seemed sure.
“He wore a scarf,” said Jarvis. “Hung halfway down his back. I noticed that because I thought, ‘Hello! That’s a long scarf.’ Striped,” he added triumphantly.
Edith smiled even as she thought, Striped—how useless. Was it Breton? Chevron? Why did men not notice important things like height or hair color? Although, now she thought about it, most gentlemen wore their scarves tucked within their overcoats. A loose scarf indicated a student or a radical, hardly the wealthy “prince of corruption” the eulogist had accused.
“And you just let him run away?” she asked.
“He had a gun,” Jarvis reminded her.
Davis shook his head. “After it happened, all I could think to do was look after poor old Graham. It was hard to see him down on the ground like that.”
“Did he say anything?” asked Edith. “What were his last words?”
Davis frowned, trying to remember. “Oh, yes, he said, ‘Davis, I’ve been shot.’”
Suddenly, Mrs. Walling was back with her. Quickly detaching Edith from the Princeton men, she said, “Mrs. Wharton, I should like to introduce you to Graham’s sister, Mrs. Carolyn Frevert.”
Mrs. Frevert was dark like her brother, but small and plaintive, with no brightness or ferocity to her, a wren to his eagle. She was, Edith guessed, five to ten years older. But rather than sniff at Edith’s work as her brother had, she pronounced herself an ardent admirer of Edith’s short stories. Mortified that she had prepared no corresponding praise, Edith said, “My encounter with your brother was so stimulating, I yearn to read his work.”
Mrs. Frevert went still. “Do you mean that?”
Caught out, Edith stammered, “… Of course.”
“Would you like to see Graham’s study?”
An intake of breath from Anna Walling indicated that this was a great honor. Seeing no possible way to decline, Edith said, “Very much.”
As she was guided out of the parlor, she caught sight of Walter, who glared. He wished to go. Now. She widened her eyes to show helplessness. Despite being petite, Mrs. Frevert was strong. And determined.
Mr. Phillips’s study was down a short, narrow corridor. It was not a large room; in her own home, it might have been allocated to one of the junior kitchen maids. There was very little in it, save for a tall desk of battered oak—no stool or chair—and an astonishing amount of paper. No, pages. From what she could see, every scrap was covered in ink, stroke after stroke, line after line, words piling and tumbling across the page. There were piles of foolscap at least as high as her knee, tidier shorter bundles representing finished work, stray sheets half filled and allowed to fall to the floor, crumpled balls of discarded thought. She felt as if she were drowning in the words of David Graham Phillips. An old gray coat hung on a peg, arms limp, quietly human.
“Extraordinary. Are these all finished work?”
“No.” Energized by the chance to explain, Mrs. Frevert darted to the center of the room. “No, these—” She extended her arm to the wall opposite the desk where some rough shelves of bare planks had been built. Pointing to the bottom shelf, she said, “These are ideas he felt were not working. These”—the top shelf—“showed promise, but he couldn’t decide how to proceed. These”—she ran a hand over the four piles on the easily reached middle shelf—“were current works in progress. All plays. My brother felt his future was on the stage. And this…”
With one step, she moved to the desk, which Edith now saw, bore a single towering manuscript.
“This was his masterpiece. He was to send it back to the publisher that afternoon.”
Carolyn Frevert laid both hands on the stack, as a mother would on a child’s shoulders. Then her features creased with tears and she clapped her hands over her eyes. Offering a handkerchief, Edith begged her to sit and gestured to the window seat.
As Mrs. Frevert composed herself, Edith glanced at the “masterpiece,” Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise. The pages had been typeset, meaning it had already been edited and approved. Lifting the title page, she saw that Mr. Phillips had chosen to introduce his own work. One bold sentence stood apart from the blocks of text.
There are three ways of dealing with the sex relations of men and women—two wrong and one right.
A small sound—mirth or shock—escaped her. To cover it, she asked, “What is the subject of the book, Mrs. Frevert?”
“It is the story of a woman who escapes an unhappy marriage to become…” Mrs. Frevert hesitated. “A woman of business.”
So, a prostitute, thought Edith; it was one of those stories. Also on the desk, a notebook where the dead man had jotted ideas, fresh phrasing, possible titles, notes to self. Scrawled in large letters: “Work is the only permanently interesting thing in life.”
Touched in spite of herself, she said, “I do hope they catch the man who killed him. Do the police have any idea who did it?”
“I know who did it,” said Mrs. Frevert listlessly. “The police don’t believe me.”
Remembering the fevered pronouncements in the other room, Edith suspected she wouldn’t either. Not wanting to argue, she asked, “What will you do now? Is there someone to help you?” She glanced around the room. “This is a great deal to manage.”
“It is. But it will give me something to do.”
“Is there anything I might do for you?”
The hands leapt from the lap to claim hers; for an instant, she saw the woman’s resemblance to her fierce sibling. “Not for me. But for Susan.”
It took her a moment to realize Mrs. Frevert meant the novel. “When does it come out?”
“This is my fear, Mrs. Wharton: It may never come out. There are people who do not want this book to be published and I am terrified they will find a way to stop it.”
Seeing Edith’s disbelief, she said, “They murdered my brother, Mrs. Wharton. Do you understand? They killed him because they thought without him, the book would have no champion. No one to fight when they challenge it, which they certainly will now that he’s gone.”
This was why radicals were so irritating. To persuade themselves of their importance, they insisted the entire world was involved in a vast intrigue to thwart them. When in reality, no one gave a toss. Still, the woman was suffering. In the kind voice she used with Teddy, Edith said, “I am sure Appleton will stand firm.”
“Publishers are businesses, Mrs. Wharton. They’re slaves to common opinion and the market. You know that. They resisted publishing Susan Lenox for years because they were afraid of the storm it will cause. Now that my brother is dead, they may hold it back altogether. Or else they will cut it, make it tame and inoffensive.” She pulled at Edith’s hand. “Will you help?”
Edith liked to help. She prided herself on it. But she couldn’t imagine how she could and said so.
“Be the champion Susan Lenox needs. Fight for her.” Anticipating Edith’s next point, she shook her head. “I can’t do it. Not as you could. Everyone will be very kind, but in the end, they’ll say, ‘Poor lady, mad with grief,’ and protect themselves.”
Edith, who was also thinking Poor lady, said, “My editor tells me your brother’s books sell well. His tragic death will only increase interest. Appleton has much to gain by publishing now.”
“They have more to lose,” insisted Mrs. Frevert. “They will threaten them as they threatened my brother.”
Edith didn’t want to expose the woman’s delusions by asking the identity of the mysterious “they.” The answer would no doubt be vague and all-encompassing. She was about to offer to speak with Mr. Jewett—which she wished to do anyway—when Mrs. Frevert smiled.
“Graham spoke of you, you know.”
“Did he.”
“Yes. You irked him quite a bit. He never liked to lose an argument. I thought what a formidable woman Mrs. Wharton must be to get the best of my brother.”
“This is shameless flattery, Mrs. Frevert.”
“Is it working? Will you help us?”
Us—as if she and Susan Lenox were a pair. “I don’t publish with Appleton, I have no sway with them.”
“But you are Edith Wharton.”
Edith knew the woman’s awestruck tone was only meant to spur effort on her brother’s behalf. Still—she did like the feel of a pedestal beneath her feet.
