“Why must it always be Rossini?” Edith complained as she and Teddy rode back to the hotel. “All that simpering comedy. Does Alice think we’ll faint at the sight of drama?”
“I don’t want to go to California.”
Teddy spoke just as her nerves were beginning to settle. They had pulled it off—for the most part. Teddy had become argumentative when Reggie praised the new Packard motor, his voice rising sharply and his manner becoming agitated. Edith had stepped in to say, Must go, so lovely, simply exhausted.
Now she said, “I thought Emmy Destinn was in marvelous voice.”
“I don’t want to go to California.”
Noting Teddy’s fists, planted on his knees, she reminded herself: It was difficult to be ill. Angelic invalids existed only in the works of Mr. Dickens.
Dr. Kinnicutt had advised that when a tantrum loomed, she simply take no notice. In a bright voice, she asked, “How was the menagerie? You went today, didn’t you? White tells me you saw a buffalo.”
He turned to meet her eye; what she saw made her stomach flutter. “I don’t want to go to California.”
Facing front so she could feel reassured by the presence of the driver, she said, “Nonsense, of course you want to go. You said so yourself. Mr. Roosevelt tells me the thing one must not miss in California is the redwoods.”
Teddy slammed his fist onto his leg. “I don’t want to go and I shouldn’t have to go. Alice is right, you whip me here and there…”
Edith felt pain bloom just below her ear. It spread along the line of her skull. Extraordinary, she thought, that a sixty-year-old man could sound so much like a six-year-old child.
“I know,” she said, her voice low and soothing. “You’ve had such a trying time. With your teeth and…”
“I’ve had a trying time because you don’t care for me. Nannie says…”
Yes, Nannie says. Edith was well aware of Nannie’s views. In Nannie’s view, there was nothing wrong with Teddy. Any treatment that went beyond Edith being a “better wife” was rejected with the full force of old Boston ignorance and self-righteousness. The doctors suggest a sanitarium. Nannie says no. A spa in Arkansas. Nannie says no. A rest cure in Neuilly. Nannie says no. Because to Nannie, any solution that did not rest with Edith giving her life over entirely to her brother was a veiled rebuke to her own sad, thwarted existence. There were times when Edith thought she and Teddy might manage, were it not for the endless litany of Nannie says.
Frustration made her sharp. “I certainly should have been more attentive when you spent fifty thousand dollars of my money on actresses and bad investments.”
Immediately, the fight went out of him. He raised a shaking hand to his mouth, as if he’d been sick. “Yes. Yes, I know. You’ve been noble, Puss. The way you’ve forgiven me.”
The word noble depressed her. For one thing, it was not true. She had demanded he repay the money out of his inheritance. And she had removed him from management of her financial affairs, a step his family thought humiliating. She did not want to be noble. Nobility required too much silence, sacrifices that meant nothing to her anymore. Moreover, they did nothing to help Teddy.
“I want to be with you,” he said miserably. “I’m unhappy when we’re apart. Just let me stay with you. Please. I can forget if you can.”
His hand tried to cover hers; she pulled it away.
The car stopped in front of the Belmont. Edith waited as Teddy paid the fare. They smiled good evening to the doorman, then proceeded through the crowded lobby.
Groping her way back to a place they shared, she said, “I was thinking, perhaps we might visit the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Have a look at our water bowls. Show Choumai.” She and Teddy were founding members of the organization; together, they had campaigned for water bowls to be placed on streets throughout the city so that dogs could be refreshed on warm summer days. The hot concrete was so brutal on their poor paws. Then she realized it was winter. The bowls would not be out.
Teddy said, “I am not talking of an afternoon or water bowls. I am talking … or trying to … about us.”
They had reached the elevators. Looking left, then right, she whispered, “I cannot help but feel we are easier when we have some time apart.”
“It is easier for you because you can be with him.”
Even in this crowded, public space, he had not lowered his voice. Glaring, she considered reminding him of their original understanding. Words were her domain. He must never expect to best her in argument. Already, she had her answer. Quiet and cutting, it would begin with real estate—that apartment in Boston. A gentle inquiry about the girl; how was she faring? Did Teddy mean to call on her on his way West? Had there truly been five others, as he once claimed, or was that rather a fantasy? Really, five, when he could not even manage one wife …
The elevator arrived. Getting on, they bid good evening to the operator. Waited, faces front, as they rose to the top floor.
Leaving the elevator, she moved a little ahead of Teddy. All she had to do, she thought, was get inside the suite. Then a swift kiss on the cheek, a we’ll discuss it tomorrow, and she could retreat to her room. Throughout their marriage, they kept separate rooms, even when traveling.
Later, she would scold herself: She had been hasty. No sooner had she heard the door shut than she turned and said, “I’m exhausted…”
He had a small crystal bowl in his hand. It had sat on a little table in the hall, a place for keys and coins and such. His jaw was thrust forward, his eyes afire. His arm shaking, he hurled the bowl past her head—just—and it smashed against the wall. Then he stared at her as if to say, Look what you made me do.
She answered his look: Is that such an achievement?
Then, in the steadiest voice she could manage, she called, “White.”
Teddy’s valet appeared at the door to his room. She understood that he had been standing there since they came in.
“Mr. Wharton is ill,” she told him.
“No,” said Teddy, instantly and jarringly contrite. He took a step toward her, and she flinched.
“Forgive me, Edith. I didn’t mean to…”
She said to White, “The green bottle.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It was a hideously familiar scene. Hearing her instructions, Teddy dropped to his knees and hobbled toward her, liver-spotted hands outstretched. In her mind, the words Oh, for God’s sake clashed with Teddy, don’t, for your own dignity. It hurt her, having remembered him jolly, long arms swinging, to see him so shriveled. His hair was gone, his teeth irregular, the eyes confused and broken veined. Old. He was old.
Whining, he pawed at her legs, as if desperate to crawl into her lap. Putting her hand between them, she turned her head. She stayed thus as White pulled Teddy’s hands from her and lifted him to his feet. She waited until she heard the door shut and the sound of his voice had faded into the other room.