The Age of Desire (2 page)

“What I think,” Comtesse de Noailles says, “is that talent and gender are completely independent. You do not judge a racehorse by the barn it is housed in. You judge it by how swiftly and beautifully it runs, do you not? If exquisite talent is housed in a woman, do we dismiss it?”

Edith is struck by her words. Should she despise this woman for her defiance, or see her as Jeanne d’Arc, leading feminine legions to victory? Up until now suffragists have annoyed Edith. Man hating. Angry. Edith loves the company of men and is proud to have been included in their inner circles. Most women don’t deserve a place at the table, in her opinion. But de Noailles—she celebrates womanhood, creates her own intellectual circle and deigns to let men in! Edith is stunned when Morton Fullerton leans forward and gestures to Edith. “Mrs. Wharton here has proven that talent wins out, Comtesse,” he says. “All of New York is talking about her latest book. I’ve never heard a woman’s work so lauded. Some reviewers have called her the greatest living American writer.”

Edith feels the blood rising to her temples. “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Fullerton,” she says. “Far too kind.”

“What do you write, Mrs. Wharton?”

“Novels, short stories, some poetry.”

“Do you write as a woman, about women, for women?”

Edith wants the Comtesse to applaud her. And yet, she is a stickler for honesty. Has she ever written
for women
?

“I write about how in certain strata of American society, there are different rules for men and women. And different consequences. And there is nothing”—she struggles to find the perfect word in French—“
just
about it.”

Edith feels surprisingly exposed.
The House of Mirth
said all this and more. But she has never openly spoken of it. And part of her—the part that is disdainful of sudden change—knows her book has pointed out the misfortune of women in this world, yet cannot envision a society without such poorly weighted rules. She questions her own words.

And yet de Noailles seems galvanized by them. “Bravo, my friend. I would very much like to read your book. Sadly, my English is like lace. There are holes in it. Has it been translated into French?”

“I’m hoping it will be soon.”

“I’ll read it the moment it comes out.” Her smile is like morning sun. Edith feels the magnificence of its heat and the shame that perhaps she does not deserve it.

When the dinner is over, topics volleyed and returned, and cigarettes and cigars smoked, Edith kisses Rosa good-bye, and then Anna de Noailles steps around Hervieu and the Abbé to take her hand.

“Madame Wharton, I wish to know you better. You will come have tea with me, won’t you? Of everyone here, you are the fish I would like to catch.” Edith breathes in the musky Oriental perfume which rises from the Comtesse’s unearthly smooth skin.

“I’d be honored,” Edith says.

And then Edith is ruffled by her very breeze as de Noailles flicks her wrap over her shoulders and glides out into the night. Edith looks around for Mr. Fullerton, to thank him for his kind words at dinner, but it’s as though he vanished into the cigar smoke at the end of the evening. She searches every open room until she’s satisfied he’s truly gone.

Paul and Minnie offer to walk Edith home since their flat is just around the corner on the Rue Barbet de Jouy. Minnie takes one arm, Paul the other. They walk hip to hip, as the sidewalk is narrow. It’s late, the rain has stopped, and the air is now perfectly icy. The grand and glittering buildings seem to lean over the narrow street like a bower of trees. Oh, how Paris has thrilled Edith. Its beauty never fails to rouse her. And the company. What fine company she has found here!

“Well,” Minnie says. “Anna de Noailles doesn’t let another soul get a word in, does she?”

“Did you feel that?”

“Didn’t you? She monopolized the entire conversation. You barely said a word, Edith. And that’s not like you.”

“I must admit, I was rapt. The things she said . . . did you not feel she was . . . stirring? Her point of view. I found it so modern. I fear I’m lagging behind in that thinking.”

“It’s all about
her
. She speaks only of herself. She sets herself up as a deity.”

“And what do you think, Paul?” Edith asks.

“I’m a man. I am blinded by her. But of course, I can’t hear a word she says.”

Minnie shoves him with annoyance. “It was nice of Mr. Fullerton to speak of your book, though, I must say,” Minnie adds turning to Edith.

“You said something earlier about Mr. Fullerton,” Edith says. “Something not entirely flattering.”

“I have nothing against him . . . exactly,” she says.

“Fullerton’s a decent enough fellow,” Paul says.

“But I don’t care to know him better,” Minnie says.

“Why?”

She shrugs. “One hears things.”

“What sorts of things?”

“I don’t repeat gossip.” It was true: it was one of Minnie’s most admirable and irritating traits. She too often hinted at hearsay she wouldn’t clarify.

“Besides, even if he is handsome, I don’t find him quite appealing.”

“Minnie only has eyes for me,” Paul says.

Edith squeezes her dapper friend’s arm.

“As she should, Paul. As she should.”

“While Paul only has eyes for Anna de Noailles,” Minnie says with an exaggerated pout.

“Tell Minnie I’ll wear a blindfold next time I see Madame la Comtesse.”

“Please inform Paul that I will be the one that ties on the blindfold.”

“And now,” Edith says, reaching 58, rue de Varenne, “I have to appease Teddy, who is no doubt staring at the wall.”

“Why don’t you bring him next time?”

“Because he wouldn’t comprehend a word that’s spoken. He refuses to learn French. He can’t even pronounce
merci
or
s’il vous plaît
properly!”

“Well, say hello for us,” Minnie grips her husband’s arm. “In English, of course.” Edith can tell she is looking forward to being alone with Paul. Either to scold him or flirt with him. Minnie and Paul are a love match, something as foreign to Edith as French is to the man she married.

The ancient apartment that the Whartons are renting this winter belongs to their friend George Vanderbilt. Edith was enamored the moment she stepped in to visit George a few seasons ago. It boasts all the Faubourg’s most ravishing touches: high ceilings, exquisite boiseries and elegant moldings. George’s oriental vases and lush Aubusson carpets only make it more elegant.

Marthe, the young
bonne
they’ve hired locally, sleepily greets Edith at the door, pleased she’s come at last. Edith hands over her furs and wraps. Mitou, one of the Pekinese, comes skidding up the hall with little yips of glee and jumps at Edith’s skirts. Edith lifts him for a kiss. Jules the bearded collie follows, with a comic, lugubrious gait. He looks away as Edith squats down to pat his head, as though saying, “I didn’t ask for this attention.” They are her babies. Both so different. Both so lovable. When Edith looks into the eyes of her dogs, she feels an abiding love she feels for no one else—has never felt for anyone else. Sometimes she is sad to recognize this. Other times she knows she is blessed to at least have her pets.

“My angels,” she says. “Are you glad Maman is home? Where’s Nicette?” She glances about for the other Pekinese.

A whispery voice answers. “Nicette is with Mr. Wharton.”

Edith stands to greet Anna Bahlmann with a smile. She never hears her secretary arriving. Dressed in gray wool as always, Anna is a little sparrow, and alights in a room as silently.

“A nice evening?” Anna asks. Her American accent has melted into a sort of elegance over the years, modeled perhaps on Edith’s own. When Anna speaks, she is as quiet as a librarian. And as she ages, as her hair mottles from golden to silver, her voice grows softer and more airy.

“Oh, Tonni, it was wonderful. Anna de Noailles was at the salon tonight!” Edith says.

“Was she? Is she all they say she is?”

Edith has shown Anna Bahlmann some of de Noailles’s poems and, as expected, they made Miss Bahlmann grow pale and tongue-tied. How different these two Annas are!

“She’s even more extraordinary than I imagined,” Edith tells Anna. “She rivets a room even when she whispers. Men can’t stop looking at her. And . . .” Edith pauses, wondering how to explain. “I doubt she was wearing a single undergarment under her dress.”

Her eyebrows raised, Anna says, “It’s probably best if I don’t hear more!”

Edith laughs and gives her a hug. Anna Bahlmann’s sweet countenance and maidenly modesty are unchanged since the day over thirty years ago when she arrived on the Jones’s doorstep with an armful of weighty leather books and a brown paper sack of taffy apples, ready to introduce ten-year-old Edith to German poetry. Tiny and slender, with dark golden hair, Anna sat on the sofa in Edith’s nursery and brought out a glistening caramel apple on a stick. “Shall we start with one of these?” she asked, passing it to Edith. “In German this is called
ein Apfel.
”

Just a few months later, she moved in with the Joneses to become Edith’s “finishing” governess. She was barely taller than her charge. And though Mrs. Jones pronounced this tiny German American girl no match for her impossibly headstrong daughter, Anna has matched Edith infinitely well for years and years. Dear Tonni (the Rutherford boys next door, who employed her first, gave her the name, a childish twist on
tante
, or aunt) has slipped in and out of Edith’s world, spending entire summers teaching other children, or seasons in Virginia visiting relatives while Edith’s family toured abroad, or even a full year in Cuba with another family, but whatever paths they’ve taken, their lives have become inextricably tied. She is more than an aunt to Edith. A friend, a substitute mother, a conscience. When they’re apart, there are always letters. Anna is the first to read Edith’s written words and comment, the first to guess when she is happy or unwell. She accompanies the Whartons to dinners, to the theatre sometimes. She is even willing right now to sleep upstairs in a servant’s room to be of service. Edith has promised she will find her a flat nearby, but hasn’t had the time, and Anna hasn’t complained. There is probably no one who knows Edith better than Anna.

“Teddy’s still up?” Edith asks, yawning.

“In the library.” Anna colors and looks down at her hands. “He was agitated for a while after you left, Herz. I heard him speaking to himself. I don’t like to say it . . . but . . . he isn’t happy when you leave . . .”

“He tries to start a fight with me every Tuesday evening. As though he can stop me from going to Rosa’s! And he manages to be perfectly miserable the rest of the night. We’ve trained the dogs. How can we train Teddy to stop doing that?”

“He enjoys your company, Edith. He’s sorry when you’re not around.”

From the moment she met him, Anna thought Teddy a fine match for Edith. “He’s a good man,” she told Edith. “Generous and kind. Even if he doesn’t read literature, is that so important in a man? One can’t expect men to appreciate what we appreciate.” When it comes to men, Anna knows very little.

Leaving Anna in the foyer, Edith strides down the hall to the library. She was hoping Teddy would have gone to bed, but she finds him, as usual, in the tall leather chair he wed the day they moved into the apartment. Nicette is lounging contentedly in his lap. Teddy certainly doesn’t look cheerful; he appears lost.

“Dear?” she says.

It’s as though he’s been on a long journey and has just now arrived back in the room. “Oh, Pussy. You’re back.”

Edith’s mother’s nickname for her feels as ridiculous and coquettish as a ruffled dress on a middle-aged woman. Unseemly. Still, Teddy can’t outgrow calling her Pussy, and speaks of her to everyone as Puss. She’s asked him not to, but to no avail.

He looks down at Nicette as though surprised she’s there. Edith struggles as she observes him. In so many ways, Teddy is like a child. He simply wants her attention, to hear that he matters. Surely she can find some patience in herself? She has never thought of herself as vindictive, but lately she has found that puzzle piece of her mother’s snapping into place when she is near her husband. How her mother punished her father when he annoyed her or didn’t give her what she wanted!