To Paradise

XI

The sonnets were recited by an all-female troupe, more enthusiastic than talented, but young enough so that, despite their lack of skill, they were still fresh and appealing to watch—it was easy to applaud them at the show’s conclusion.

He wasn’t hungry afterward, but Charles was, and suggested—hopefully, David thought—that they might have something to eat at his house. “Something simple,” he said, and David, from lack of anything to do and in need of distraction, agreed.

Back at the house, Charles suggested they sit in his upstairs parlor, which, though as inappropriately extravagant as the downstairs one—carpets so thick they felt like pelt beneath the foot; curtains of gloria that crackled, like burning paper, when one brushed against them—was at least smaller, friendlier in its scale. “Shall we just eat in here?” David asked him.

“Shall we?” Charles asked, raising his eyebrows. “I had told Walden to set the dining room. But I would far prefer to stay here, if you would.”

“Anything you decide,” he replied, suddenly losing interest, not only in the meal but in the conversation about it.

“I shall tell him,” said Charles, and pulled the bell. “Bread and cheese and butter and maybe a little cold meat,” he instructed the butler when he returned, turning to David for his approval, which he gave with a small nod.

He was determined to be silent and childish and sullen, but once again, Charles’s pleasant way soon coaxed him into conversation. He told David about his other nephews: Teddy, in his final year at Amherst (“So he will now take James’s title as first in our family to graduate college, and I mean to reward him for it”), and Henry, soon to matriculate at the University of Pennsylvania (“So, you see, I shall be having to come south—well, yes, I consider this south!—much more often”). He spoke of them with such love, such affection, that David found himself irrationally jealous. He of course had no reason to be—his grandfather had never said an unkind word to him, and he had known only ease. But perhaps his envy was misdirected; perhaps it was understanding how proud Charles was of them, and knowing that he had done nothing to bring his grandfather the same kind of pride.

Into the evening they talked of various aspects of their lives: their families; Charles’s friends; the wars down south; their country’s détente with Maine, where, given that state’s semi-autonomy from the Union, Free State citizens were better tolerated, while not quite accepted; and their relations with the West, where the potential for danger had become much greater. Despite the occasionally grim subjects, their company was easy, and David found himself in several moments on the verge of confiding to Charles as if to a friend, and not someone who had offered marriage, about Edward: his dark, quick eyes; the pink that rose in the hollow of his throat when he was speaking of music or art; the various struggles he had overcome to make his way in the world alone. But then he remembered where he was, and who Charles was, and bit back his words. If he could not have Edward in his arms, he wanted Edward’s name on his tongue; by speaking of him, he would bring Edward alive. He wanted to show him off, wanted to tell anyone who would listen that this was who had chosen him, that this was who he spent his days with, that this was who had brought him alive once again. But in the absence of that, he would have to be satisfied with the secret of Edward, which he carried inside him like a lick of bright-white flame; something that burned high and pure and which warmed only him, and which he feared would vanish if he examined it too closely. By thinking of him, he felt almost as if he’d conjured him, a phantom only he could see, leaning against the secretary at the back of the room behind Charles, smiling at David and David alone.

And yet—he knew—Edward was not there, not just in body but in essence as well. Over the weeks, as he waited and waited to hear from Edward, dutifully writing his letters (whose ratios of what he hoped were amusing news about his life and the city versus expressions of affection and yearning had tipped almost wholly in the direction of the latter), his concern had been replaced by confusion, and confusion by bewilderment, and bewilderment by hurt, and hurt by frustration, and frustration by anger, and anger by desperation, until he was back at the beginning of the cycle once more. Now, at any moment, he felt all of these sensations all at once, so that he was unable to distinguish one from the other, and these were heightened by a pure and profound craving. Curiously, it was being in the presence of Charles, someone kind and in whose company he could relax, that made these feelings the more potent, and therefore oppressive—he knew that, if he told Charles of his agony, he would have advice, or at least sympathy, but of course the cruelty of his situation was that Charles was the one person whom he could never tell.

He was thinking all this, reviewing his predicament again and again, as if in the next revisitation of the problem a solution would magically announce itself, when he realized that Charles had stopped speaking, and that he had been so deeply consumed with his own dilemma that he had altogether ceased to listen.

He apologized hurriedly and profusely, but Charles only shook his head, and then stood from his chair and crossed to the divan where David sat, and joined him.

“Is something the matter?” Charles asked.

“No, no—I’m very sorry. I think I’m only tired, and this fire is so lovely and warm, I’m afraid I’ve grown somewhat sleepy—you must excuse me.”

Charles nodded, and took his hand. “You seem very distracted, though,” he continued. “Troubled, even. Is it not something you can tell me?”

He smiled, so Charles wouldn’t worry. “You’re so kind to me,” he said, and then, more fervently, “so kind. I wonder what it would be like, to have a friend like you.”

“But you do have me as a friend,” said Charles, smiling back at him, and David understood that he had said the wrong thing, that he was doing exactly what Grandfather had said he oughtn’t: The fact that he was doing so unintentionally made no difference.

“I hope you should see me as your friend,” Charles continued, his voice low, “but also as something else,” and he put his hands on David’s shoulders and kissed him, and continued kissing him until he finally pulled David to his feet and began to unbutton his trousers, and David let Charles undress him and waited as Charles then undressed himself.

In his hansom home, he bemoaned his own stupidity, at how he had, in his confused state, let Charles believe that he might be interested in being his husband after all. He knew that with each occasion he saw Charles, with each conversation they had, with each communication he answered, he was going farther and farther down a path that would lead, inexorably, to one destination. It was not too late for him to stop, to announce his intention to turn and retreat—he had not given his word, they had signed no papers, and even if he had behaved poorly, misleadingly, he would not be breaking a promise—but if he did, he knew that both Charles and his grandfather would be justifiably wounded, if not livid, and that the blame would be entirely his. He had acquiesced to Charles in part from gratitude for his compassion (and, David had to admit, to reward Charles for being fond of him when he was uncertain of fondness from Edward), but his other reasons were altogether less honorable and generous: a sense of misplaced and unfulfilled lust, a desire to punish Edward for his silence and unreachability, a need to distract himself from his own difficulties. By doing so, he had made another difficulty, one entirely of his own creation, in which he was undeniably the pursued, the object of another’s longing. It chilled him to realize that these were his thoughts, that he was so proud and selfish that he had encouraged not just another person, but a good person, to form false hopes and expectations simply because his pride was injured and he wanted to be flattered.

Yet so powerful was this feeling, this hunger to subdue the disagreeable sentiments that Edward’s absence and persisting silence awakened in him, that over the next three weeks—three weeks in which February twentieth came and passed, three weeks in which he heard nothing from Edward—he returned to Charles’s house again and again. Seeing Charles, the enthusiasm and excitement that he made no efforts to conceal, made David both powerful and scornful; watching Charles fumble with his buttons, clumsy in his impatience, the upstairs parlor’s door hastily closed and locked as soon as Walden had delivered him inside, he felt a seducer, an enchanter, but later, hearing Charles whisper endearments into his ear, he felt only embarrassment for the man. He knew what he was doing was wrong, even wicked—intimacy was encouraged before an arranged marriage between men, but it was usually to be explored only once or twice, and only to determine one’s compatibility with one’s possible intended—and yet he found himself unable to stop, even as, privately, his motivations became less and less defensible, even as his new, wholly unjustifiable disdain for Charles began to curdle into a kind of disgust. But here too he was confused. He did not enjoy relations with Charles, not exactly—although he came to welcome the attention, and Charles’s consistent and sustained excitement and physical strength, he thought the man too earnest, both dull and inelegant—but continuing them made his memories of Edward inexplicably sharper, for he was always measuring one against the other, and finding the former wanting. Feeling Charles’s girth moving against him, he yearned for Edward’s sylphlike leanness, and imagined how he might tell Edward about Charles, and how Edward would laugh, his low, mesmerizing chuckle. But of course—there was no Edward to tell, to share in his unkind, unspoken mocking of the person who was before him, steadfast and true and responsive in every way: Charles Griffith. Charles had become disagreeable to him because he was available, and yet that same generous availability also made David feel less vulnerable, less helpless in the face of Edward’s continuing silence. He had come to nurse a small hatred for Charles, for loving him so much, and, mostly, for not being Edward. His budding disgust for Charles made being with him feel sacrificial, a delicious self-punishment, an almost religious act of degradation that—if only to him—proved what he was willing to withstand in order to someday be reunited with Edward.

“I believe I am in love with you,” Charles said to him one night in early March as he was preparing to leave, buttoning up his shirt and looking about for his tie. But although he had spoken clearly enough, David pretended he’d not heard him, and said only a cursory goodbye over his shoulder as he left. He could tell that by now Charles was bewildered, even hurt, by his coolness, by David’s now unignorable unwillingness to reciprocate his declarations of affection, and he was aware as well that in his behavior toward Charles he was perpetuating a small but very real sort of evil, one in which he was repaying honor with cruelty.

“I must go,” he announced into the quiet that greeted Charles’s proclamation, “but I shall write you tomorrow.”

“Shall you?” asked Charles, softly, and David felt again that mingling of impatience and tenderness.

“Yes,” he said. “I promise.”

He saw Charles next on a Sunday afternoon, and as he was leaving, Charles asked him—as he always did after their encounters—whether he might like to stay for supper, whether he might like to attend this concert or that theater performance. He always demurred, aware that with each successive encounter the question David knew Charles dared not ask loomed larger and larger, until it began to feel as if it had somehow materialized as a fog, so that every movement the two of them made brought them deeper into its obfuscating, impermeable murk. David had once again spent most of his time with Charles thinking of Edward, trying to imagine Charles to be Edward, and although he was, as always, polite to Charles, he was increasingly formal, despite the increasing intimacy of their behavior.

“Wait,” Charles said, “don’t get dressed so quickly—let me look at you a while longer.” But David said his grandfather was expecting him, and left before Charles could ask again.

After each visit, he was increasingly miserable: at how he was treating poor, decent Charles; at how he was conducting himself as a Bingham, and his grandfather’s charge; at how his desperate hunger for Edward was driving him to behave. Though he could not blame his choices on Edward, no matter his reasons for not writing—it was his decision, and only his, and instead of bearing his anguish alone, and bravely, he had now let it infect Charles as well.

And although he returned to Charles to distract himself, being with him also inspired unwanted questions, new doubts: Whenever Charles spoke of his friends, of his nephews, of his business associates, he was reminded that Edward had made it impossible for David to ever locate him. Edward’s friends had been identified only by their Christian names, never their family ones—David realized that he didn’t even know the sisters’ married names. Whenever Charles asked him questions about himself, his childhood and school years, his grandfather and siblings, he was reminded that Edward had rarely asked him such questions: He had not noticed it at the time, but he remembered it now. Was he not interested? He thought bitterly of how he had once felt that Edward had been seeking his approval and was grateful when David gave it to him, and recognized now how wrong he’d been, how, all along, it had always been Edward who had been in control.

The following Wednesday, he was tidying the classroom after his lesson when he heard the sound of his name echoing through the hallway. The previous week, the piano, which until then had remained standing at the front of the room, a monument to Edward and then to his disappearance, had been relegated to its corner, where neglect would return it to its natural state of disrepair.

He turned, and into the classroom marched Matron, looking at him disapprovingly, as always. “Go back to your rooms now, children,” she told the few stragglers, patting them on the heads or shoulders as they greeted her. And then, to him, “Mister Bingham. How are the classes coming along?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“It is very good of you to come teach my children. You know they are very fond of you.”

“And I of them.”

“I came to bring you this,” Matron said, and drew from her pocket a thin white envelope, which he took and nearly dropped when he saw the handwriting.

“Yes, it is from Mister Bishop,” she said, witheringly, spitting out Edward’s name. “He has at last deigned to return to us, it seems.” In the weeks since Edward’s disappearance, Matron had been David’s only, unlikely, and unwitting ally, the sole person in David’s life who was as interested in Edward’s whereabouts as he was. Her motivations for recovering him, however, were rather different—Edward, she had confided in David when he had finally forced himself to ask her, had begged her for leave because of an emergency in his family; he was to return to class on February twenty-second, but that date had passed and there had been no word from him, and Matron was finally forced to terminate the class altogether.

(“I believe his mother, who lives in New England, is very ill,” Matron had said, sounding put out by the fact of the ill mother.

“I believe he is an orphan,” David had ventured, after a pause. “I believe it was his sister who had had a baby?”

Matron stopped and considered this. “I’m fairly certain he had said his mother,” she said. “I would not have given leave for a baby. But, well,” she said, softening—at some point in every interaction with David, she would visibly recall that he was her school’s patron and would adjust her voice and manners accordingly—“perhaps I am mistaken. Goodness knows there are people telling me things about their lives and difficulties all day long and I am simply unable to keep track of every last detail. He said she was in Vermont, is she not? There are three sisters?”

“Yes,” he’d said, relief filling him. “Exactly.”)

“When did you receive this?” he asked, faintly, wanting both to sit down and for Matron to leave, immediately, so he could tear into the letter.

“Yesterday,” Matron huffed. “He came by—the nerve!—to ask for his final payment, and I gave him a piece of my mind as well; told him how he had disappointed the children, how selfish he’d been, taking off and not returning when he promised he would. And he said—”

David interrupted her. “Matron, I’m very sorry,” he said, “but I really must leave; I’ve an appointment I mustn’t be late for.”

Matron drew herself very straight, her dignity clearly injured. “Of course, Mister Bingham,” she said. “I certainly wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. I shall see you at least next week.”

It was only a few meters from the front of the school to his hansom, but he was unable to wait even that long, and he opened the letter directly on the front steps, nearly dropping it again, his fingers trembling from the cold and the anticipation.

My dearest David— March 5, 1894

What must you think of me. I am so ashamed, so embarrassed, so deeply, profoundly apologetic. I can only say that my silence was not by choice, and that I thought of you every minute of every hour of every day. It was all I could do, upon my return yesterday, to not throw myself onto the steps of your house at Washington Square and wait for you to beg your forgiveness, but I was unsure of how I might be received.

I am unsure now, as well. But if you will give me the privilege of attempting to make my amends to you, I beg you to come by the boardinghouse, anytime.

Until then, I remain—

Your loving Edward