Edith Wharton sat alone in the Palm Garden of the Belmont Hotel and considered the question of beauty. Not with regard to the room, which she found deeply unattractive, but in people. What made a face and form beautiful? One knew it when one saw it, but it was not always easy to say why. (Whereas deficiencies were easy to categorize—she had done so often enough with her own slab of a face.) When creating Lily Bart, she had imagined freshness. A purity that was just beginning to show the traces and smudges of being on display for years. Lily Bart suffered from exposure; unclaimed too long, she had grown just that bit stale.
Seeing Anna Strunsky Walling, nervous and defiant at the room’s entrance, Edith decided she was beautiful. And yet she was a woman who had most certainly been in the world, and Edith guessed she had not always been protected. As she came into the tearoom, her movement suggested power and vigor, but she was not coarse. Her face was uncrowded, her features boldly drawn—strong dark brows; eyes rich and brown as the center of a sunflower; ears that stuck out slightly from her lovely round head; a nose that was a genuine nose, although Edith’s mother would have had something to say about its length, and Edith noticed it herself. Her black hair was parted down the middle; her long white neck was ravishing. Her figure was extraordinary. Yet she was not merely beautiful, thought Edith. She was romantic. A woman to dream on.
Which men had dreamed of her? In Russia, who knew? But in this country, Walter had mentioned a long friendship with Jack London. London was also a journalist, politically minded, a good-looking rough-and-ready sort from America’s West Coast. There were similarities, she thought, between him and the deceased Mr. Phillips.
But unlike Lily, Anna had been claimed, although she would probably resent that statement, insisting marriage had been her choice. But her husband’s presence at the Belmont suggested she had cause to regret that choice. What Edith wished to know was: Where had that regret led her? Where had it led William Walling?
As she made her way into the tearoom, Mrs. Walling’s clear and creamy brow was furrowed with confusion at being summoned to such a place and by such a person. But she gave a cry of delight when presented to Choumai, immediately babbling to the dog in Russian, then French in a way that made Edith feel that even if Mrs. Walling was a socialist, she was at least a dog lover.
“I am reading Susan Lenox,” Edith told her.
Mrs. Walling smiled. “And?”
“I am not sure I share your”—this word Edith had planned beforehand—“ardent admiration of his style. But certainly he has things to say.” She sat back in her chair. “You are quite the champion for David Graham Phillips. Have you known him long?”
“I met them in Paris a few years ago.”
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?”