What she mustn’t do, thought Edith, was laugh. The policemen—there were two: one very young and very pale who had been sick at the sight of Mr. Goldsborough’s ruined head, and an older man with a very impressive gray mustache. She kept thinking to compliment it, and then deciding, no, he would think that strange under the circumstances, but it really was tremendous.
The policemen—she refocused herself—were concerned. Even though she had assured them several times that she was fine. She had thought Mr. Goldsborough was going to shoot her, but he hadn’t. Well, they could see that, couldn’t they? But she was fine. Entirely unharmed.
She raised her arms to show them. Felt dizzy. The younger officer rushed in to prop her up; the older one steadied her by taking hold of her shoulder. Which she found rude and overfamiliar, but she supposed they meant well. In fact, the officer had probably stopped her from falling off the bench into the snow.
Someone had opened the gate. She didn’t know who and she wasn’t sure when it had happened. All she could remember was someone shouting that the lady needed to sit down, and a few minutes later, she found herself sitting on a wretched little bench in Gramercy Park. The younger officer had cleared the snow with his sleeve. Which was still wet, poor man. She was about to tell him he ought to change out of that coat—but perhaps they only had one, the New York City police wouldn’t be in the habit of handing out multiple uniforms, but she did worry he would catch cold …
The older officer had asked her something. Embarrassed, she asked him to repeat it.
“You said his name was Goldsborough.”
“Yes. Fitzhugh … I’m sorry, there was a middle name, but I don’t remember it. He lived nearby, I think. Just over there.”
She thought of pointing. But the prospect of raising her arm did not appeal.
“He lived opposite, you see. That’s how he knew when he came and went. And how he knew where to send the notes.” Suddenly, she worried. “I mentioned the notes, didn’t I?”
Yes, they assured her. She had.
“He lives across the street, I’m fairly sure. Oh!”
She had almost forgotten.
“In his desk drawer, there is a diary. His desk at the office, not in his home. But if you read that, you’ll see.”
The two men exchanged looks. She felt annoyed. Were they not listening?
“See what, ma’am?” asked the older officer.
No—clearly, they were not listening. What on earth was wrong with the New York police? Teddy Roosevelt had mandated intelligence and competency standards decades ago; obviously, those had lapsed. She might have been talking to two cabbages.
“The diary,” she repeated. “If you read it, you’ll understand.”
The younger man winced, as if struggling to hear. “Why he shot himself?”
“No!” Now she was really irritated. “Why he killed David Graham Phillips.”
The younger man’s eyes went wide. The older one got out some sort of little notebook.
“You say this is the man who killed David Graham Phillips?”
“Yes! Just over there.”
She pointed to the Princeton Club. Which had once been Stanford White’s old house. Which would probably be something else one day soon, knocked over, rebuilt, something bigger and uglier taking its place. Because this was New York, and everything would fall eventually.
Allowing the word fall into her mind had been a mistake. Too late, she gazed up the trees to center herself. Green, nature, freshness always did that. But all she saw were bare dark winter branches. They looked like bones, starved, old fingers clawing at the sky, wanting the sun, its warmth and brightness. But the sun wasn’t there. Just gray, just slush, old snow, trod on by so many feet and no longer new. Even in Gramercy Park, the gate left open, she and the policemen, they’d left all these tracks where once it had been rather pretty. That girl who had been sketching, someone should tend to her.
She thought of the blood. And then did not wish to think anymore.
They all came; they all fussed. Minnie begged her to come and stay. Edith refused. “You have one invalid, you don’t need another.” Henry was unable to come, although he sent his ardent wishes for her recovery. Walter came, more than once, mostly to demand what she had been thinking. How could she put herself at risk like that? Did she realize how foolish she had been? What might have happened? Did she understand, how he would have felt if…?
Taking his hand, she pressed it and said yes, she understood.
The accepted story was that a deranged young man had taken his life in front of her, entirely by chance, and she was suffering from shock. Teddy was told only that she had become dizzy near Gramercy Park and needed rest. It had happened enough in the past that he didn’t question it. In fact, she thought he rather enjoyed bossing the hotel staff on her behalf, instructing visitors that they weren’t to stay too long, and sending White on errands to “fetch that mushroom soup you like, the one they do at the Waldorf” or buy new socks at Lord & Taylor’s, “get something proper on your feet.” Choumai was also pleased, allowed to be on the bed as much as he liked, curled protectively at her hip, gimlet eyes fixed on guests who might drop crumbs.
So much care and attention was wearying; one could only say “I’m fine” so many times. Surely that was why her head felt foggy. One afternoon she was dozing when she became aware of a gentle knock. Her eyes opened, and she saw Morton Fullerton at the door. He leaned halfway in—or out—of the room.
He smiled at her confusion. “Henry told me.”
Yes, that made sense. What she didn’t know was whether or not to be angry. Not, she supposed. She was too tired to be angry.
When she didn’t order him out, he stepped into the room, closing the door. He took the liberty of sitting on the edge of her bed. Wary, Choumai resettled himself.
“Well,” he said, taking her hand and examining it as if what had happened might show itself in her palm. “You’ve been wandering. What did you find?”
He looked up, gaze warm and intent. She remembered his mouth.
“A vampire,” she said to surprise him. “No, I found an unhappy young man with a gun. An unexceptional thing in this part of the world.”
“Was he what you thought?” he asked. He turned his attention back to her hand, his finger making its way along the ball of her thumb.
“I don’t know what I thought he would be. So I can’t answer that.”
He waited for her to explain. When she didn’t, he knew he had been denied something. Setting her hand down, he drew himself up by crossing one leg over the other.
“My letters,” she reminded him.
“As I’ve said, they’re in Paris. Quite safe, I assure you.”
His reference to their safety was meant to remind her how dangerous they were. But she found his possession of her words and feelings no longer terrified her. If he made their existence known, he would be shunned by every person he valued, barred from every house he hoped to enter, because in doing so, he would reveal what he really was. She thought of the books she had encouraged him to write. The time she had arranged for him to meet Mr. Roosevelt—and he refused to come. Changes in his career he should have made. Every time, he avoided, evaded. Why should he make the effort?
He had not come when she needed him. And not for the first time. He was not really a man who did things, she realized. And you will continue to do nothing, she thought looking at the man known as the Beautiful Fullerton. Create nothing. In years to come, you will be known for the people you seduced—and abandoned. The promises you made, never intending to keep them. You will be known for what you did not do.
At long last, detachment came, like rain in a dry acrid summer. One cavorted in relief, aware that yes, some things like shoes might be ruined, but they were well sacrificed for an end to the brain-destroying heat.
Of course he wanted to keep her letters. They were, after all, the work of Edith Wharton.
On the third day, she grew tired of being fussed over and decided to be well. She took Choumai for a walk, allowing him to relieve himself directly below the Depew Place sign. Then she returned him to White and went to Appleton. It was only right to finish Susan Lenox. If she was going to speak for it, she didn’t want any nasty surprises in the final chapters. And she supposed she did want to see how it turned out.
There was a new young man at the front desk, efficiently sliding paper into envelopes. Rejection slips, she imagined. So many of them. He asked if she wanted to see Mr. Jewett; he had said he wished to be notified if she came in.
She said, “Not yet.”
Going to the spare room, she took up where she had left off: Susan’s first encounter with playwright Robert Brent, a lion of a man with exhausting integrity who made all other men seem lesser, including Susan’s current paramour. Ah, thought Edith, at last we see the author in the story. And, she assumed, Susan’s happy ending.
But in the final chapter, Robert Brent was murdered by Susan’s lover in a fit of jealousy. Disquieted, Edith read the lover’s defense of himself.
“I did it,” continued he, “because I had the right. He invited it. He knew me—knew what to expect. I suppose he decided that you were worth taking the risk. It’s strange what fools men—all men—we men—are about women.… Yes, he knew it. He didn’t blame me.”
For a long moment, she sat, trying to set the timing straight in her mind. Susan Lenox had been finished well before Phillips’s death. He had worked on it for a decade. And yet he had ended it with an uncanny prediction of his own murder. Susan’s happy ending was not marriage but liberty and financial security—gained when the murdered Robert Brent left her his fortune.
There was a knock on the door. Mr. Jewett’s pleasant face appeared. “Mrs. Wharton!”
She smiled. “I thought I would slip in and slip out. I didn’t wish to disturb you. But I did want to finish.”
He looked at the pages on her lap. “And?”
“And … I think it now makes sense to me.”
He offered her tea in his office and she accepted. As he poured, he said, “I am very glad you came today.” He gazed at his door, presumably thinking of the young man who had sat outside just a few days ago. “I remember my boast that we do not publish murderers. It seems, however, we did hire one.”
“When did he come to work here, Mr. Jewett?”
“About a year ago. Shortly after Adventures of Joshua Craig was published.”
“And you turned down his book,” she said gently.
“I did. It was tremendously old-fashioned stuff. Fine stalwart men rescuing helpless maidens of good virtue. Of course now I wish we had published it. Maybe if we had…”
“You mustn’t feel guilty, Mr. Jewett. How could you have known?”
“I had no idea he was stalking Graham, even taking rooms across the street from him. Graham never said a word.”
“I suppose it was not in his nature to show fear.” She paused, then said, “I hope it’s not terribly burdensome, working out the legalities of his estate. All his royalties…”
“Oh, no, quite simple. He left everything to his sister.”
As Henry Frevert had predicted he would.
She said, “If Susan Lenox is the … sensation you expect, she will do quite well.”
“Let us hope. I also hope you will join me in defending it from Comstock and his ilk.”
She nodded: Of course. Then said, “I am curious about one thing: When did Mr. Phillips change the ending? I’m right, aren’t I? That he rewrote it?”
Surprised, Jewett said, “Yes. About three months ago.”
Thinking back to Mr. Goldsborough’s insane diaries, she wondered how many notes David Graham Phillips had received by that point. Enough, clearly, to take them seriously.
“Mrs. Wharton?”
Shaking herself free of her thoughts, she said, “What a tragedy this has been.”
As Mr. Jewett walked her to the door, she smiled a goodbye to the new youth, who seemed preoccupied by finding a particular key on the typewriter. On impulse, she asked, “What is your name?”
He looked surprised. “Halliwell, ma’am. Gerald Halliwell.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Halliwell.”
At the elevator, Rutger Jewett opened his mouth, prepared to say something charming. Then closed it on a smile.
“No last words?” she asked.
“Only that … I hope they’re not.”
She smiled approvingly. “À bientôt, Mr. Jewett.”