To Paradise (17 page)

He did his best to forget the wildness of emotion, the passion, that he had felt around Andrew, but sometimes he was gripped with
the memory of that time, and its humiliation, and he would retreat once more to his room and take to his bed. These episodes, what he and his grandfather would come to call his confinements—and what his grandfather characterized, delicately, to Adams and his siblings as his “nervous trouble”—would usually be preceded or succeeded by a period of mania, frenzied days he would spend feverishly shopping, or painting, or walking, or at the bordello: all things he did in his normal life, but intensified and excessively writ. They were, he knew, ways for him to escape himself, and yet he had not invented these methods; they had been invented for him, and he was at their mercy, they made his body move either too quickly or not at all. Two years after his return from Europe, he had received a card from Andrew announcing the adoption of his and his husband’s first child, a girl, and he had written a congratulatory note back. But then, that night, he had begun to wonder: What was the purpose of Andrew’s note? Had it truly been sent intentionally, or was it an oversight? Was it a gesture of friendship, or was it meant to ridicule? He sent a longer letter to Andrew, inquiring about him and confessing how he missed him.

And then it was as if something had been undammed in him, and he began to write letter after letter, by turns accusing Andrew and pleading with him, condemning him and imploring him. After dinner, he would sit with Grandfather in his drawing room, trying to stop his fingers from twitching with impatience, looking at the chessboard but seeing in his mind his desk with its paper and blotter, and as soon as he was able, he would leave, running up the final steps, and write Andrew again, ringing for Matthew late into the night to post his most recent missive. His disgrace, when it came—as even he knew it would—was great: An attorney who represented Andrew’s husband’s family asked for a meeting with Frances Holson and gravely drew from his case a stack of David’s letters to Andrew, dozens of them, the last twenty or so not even opened, and told Frances that David must stop bothering his client. Frances spoke to his grandfather, and his grandfather spoke to him, and though he had been gentle, David’s anguish had been so intense that this time it had been his grandfather who had confined him to
his room, with one of the maids to watch over him day or night, so worried was he that David might harm himself. This, David could see, was when his siblings had lost their final residue of respect for him, was when he became, truly, an invalid; someone whose normal state went from being one of health to one of illness, so that wellness was something to be measured in interludes, a respite before he was returned to his native lunacy. He knew he had become a problem for his grandfather, and although his grandfather never mentioned it, he feared he would soon graduate from being a difficulty into being a burden. He did not go out, he knew no one; a marriage would clearly have to be found for him, for he was incapable of finding his own. And yet he rejected all of Frances’s candidates, unable to contemplate the energy and deception it would take to trick someone into marrying him. Gradually, the offers had thinned, and then stopped, until, at some point, Frances and Grandfather must have talked about finding a different caliber of man—that is how Frances would have stated it:
A different caliber, perhaps someone slightly more mature,
what did Nathaniel think?—and Charles Griffith had been contacted by the marriage broker, and David’s dossier presented to him as a possible candidate.

This was the end for him. This year, he would be twenty-nine. If Charles knew of his confinements, others did as well—he must not delude himself about that. With each year, his money meant less, for the world was growing wealthier: Not now, but within the next few decades, there would emerge a family richer than the Binghams, and he would have rejected all his opportunities, and still be living in Washington Square, his hair gone white, his skin lined, spending his money on amusements—books and drawing paper and paints and men—as a child does on candy and toys. He did not only
want
to believe Edward, he
had
to believe him; if he went to California, he would be leaving behind his home and his grandfather, but might he not also be leaving behind his sickness, his past, his mortifications? His history, so entangled with New York itself that every block he walked was the scene of some past embarrassment?: Could it not be draped in a sheet and hung in the back of his closet like his winter coat? What was life worth if he might not have his chance, slim as it
might be, of feeling that it was truly his, his to make or destroy, his to mold like clay or shatter like china?

Grandfather was waiting for his reply, he realized. “He loves
me,
” he whispered to his grandfather. “And I know this.”

“My child—”

“I have asked him to marry me,” he continued, helplessly. “And he has accepted. And we are going to California together.”

At this, his grandfather sank into his chair, and rotated his body to look into the fire, and when he turned around once more, David was amazed to see that his eyes were shining. “David,” he began, quietly, “if you marry this man, I will have to cut you off—you know that, don’t you? I will do it because I must, because it is my only way to protect you.”

He knew this, and yet, hearing it, he felt as if the floor had sunk from beneath him. “I will still have my parents’ trust,” he said, at last.

“Yes, you will. I cannot stop that—as much as I wish I could. But
my
allowance to you, David,
my
bestowment: That will end. Washington Square will no longer be yours, not unless you promise me you will not go with this person.”

“I cannot promise you,” he said, and now he too was beginning to feel himself on the verge of tears. “Grandfather—please. Don’t you want me to be happy?”

His grandfather inhaled, and then exhaled. “I want you to be safe, David.” He sighed again. “David, child—what is the hurry? Why can you not wait? If he truly loves you, he will wait for you. And what about this Aubrey fellow? What if Wesley is indeed correct, and you go with your Edward all the way to California—a dangerous place for us, may I remind you, a potentially fatal one, indeed—only to discover that you have been hoodwinked, that they are a couple and you their stooge?”

“It is not true. It cannot be true. Grandfather, if you could see the way he is with me, how much he loves me, how good he is to me—”

“Of
course
he is being good to you, David! He
needs
you!
They
need you—Edward and his beloved. Don’t you see?”

He was angry then, an anger that had been building inside him
but that he dared not voice because he did not want to make it true by saying it aloud. “I was unaware you thought so little of me, Grandfather—is it so difficult, so impossible, to believe that someone might actually love me for the fact of me? Someone young and beautiful and self-made?

“I see now that you have never thought me worth someone like Edward—you have been ashamed of me, and I understand that, I understand why. But is it not possible that I am someone else, someone you do not see, someone who has been loved twice, by two different men, in the space of a year? Is it not possible that, for as well as you know me, you have known only one aspect of me, that you have been blinded to who I might be, because of your familiarity with me? Is it not possible that, in your protectiveness, you have discounted me, that you have lost any ability to see me in any other way?

“I must go, Grandfather—I must. You say I will be throwing my life to the winds if I leave, but I think I will be burying it if I stay. Can you not grant me this right to my own life? Can you not forgive me for what I will do?”

He was begging, but his grandfather again stood: not angrily, not declaratively, but with a great weariness, as if he were experiencing a terrible pain. And suddenly, and with great violence, he turned his head sharply to the right and brought his right hand up to shield his face, and David realized that his grandfather was crying. It was an amazing sight, but for a moment, he was unable to comprehend the feeling of devastation that swiftly descended upon him.

But then he knew. It was not just the fact of his grandfather’s tears; it was because he knew that, with them, his grandfather was acknowledging that he understood that David would, finally, disobey him. And with that, David knew as well that his grandfather would not yield, and that when he left Washington Square, he would be leaving it behind forever. He sat, immobile, understanding that this would be the last time he would sit in this drawing room, before this fire, the last time this would be his home. He understood that now his life was not here. Now his life was with Edward.

Late April was the one time the city could be described as soft, and for a few precious weeks, the trees would be clouds of pink-and-white blossoms, the air cleansed of its grit, the breezes gentle.

Edward had already left for the day, and David had to leave as well. But he was glad of the silence—though it was never quite completely silent in the boardinghouse—for he felt the need to compose himself before he stepped outside.

He had been living with Edward in the boardinghouse room for little more than four weeks. After leaving his grandfather and Washington Square that night, he had gone directly to the boardinghouse, but Edward was out. The little maid let David into his cold and dark room, though, and David had sat still for a few minutes before he had stood and begun, at first methodically and then feverishly, an examination of the room, pulling and replacing clothes from Edward’s trunk, paging through every one of his books, rifling through his papers, stamping upon the floorboards to see if any might be loose, with secrets hidden beneath. He found answers, he supposed, but there was no way of telling if they were answers he sought: A small etching of a pretty, dark-haired girl, tucked into a copy of the
Aeneid
—was this Belle? A daguerreotype of a handsome man with a knowing smile and a hat tipped rakishly on his head—was this Aubrey? A roll of money, secured with a length of string—was this stolen from Aunt Bethesda, or his earnings from the institute? A sheet of crackling onionskin, pressed between the pages of his Bible, inscribed “I will always love you” in a fluttery hand—was this
from one of his mothers, his first or his second? Belle? Bethesda? Aubrey? Somebody else entirely? The second trunk, which he had bought Edward, with its brass clasps and leather straps, held the little porcelain bird and a few blank music-composition books, but the tea set he had placed in it before leaving to see his grandfather—a ceremonial gesture toward packing, toward the creation of the new house they would have together—was missing, as was the silver set he’d bought.

He was contemplating what this might mean when Edward walked in, and David turned and saw the mess he had made, all of Edward’s possessions strewn about him, and Edward himself before him with an unreadable expression, and after his first, absurd question burst from his mouth, the only question he could think to ask because he did not know where to begin with the rest—“Where is the tea set I bought you?”—he began to weep, sinking to the floor. Edward picked his way across the piles of clothes and books and crouched next to him, holding him in his arms, and David turned and sobbed into his coat. Even after he was able to speak, his questions came as staccato explosions, one following the next with no apparent logic or order, but all seeming equally urgent: Was Edward in love with another? Who was Aubrey to him, really? Had he lied about who he was, who his family was? Why had he really gone to Vermont? Did he love him? Did he love him? Did he
truly
love him?

Edward had attempted to answer his questions as he asked them, but David interrupted before he was able to finish any of his explanations; he was unable to comprehend anything Edward said. The only things he had brought with him from Washington Square were the bundle of Edward’s letters answering his own, and the report from Wesley, which he finally retrieved, still sobbing, from his own coat pocket and handed to Edward, who took the pages and began to read, first with curiosity and then with anger, and it was witnessing this anger, Edward’s explosions of “Blast!” and “The devil!” that, curiously, quieted David’s own upset. When he was finished, Edward threw the pages across the room, into the blackened hearth, and then turned to David. “My poor David,” he said. “My poor
innocent. What must you think of me?” And then his face hardened. “I never thought she would do this to me,” he muttered. “But she has, and has placed in peril the relationship I value most.”

He said he would explain, and so he did: His parents were indeed dead, his elder sisters in Vermont, his younger in New Hampshire. But, he admitted, there
had
been a schism between himself and his mother’s sister, Lucy, who was his great-aunt Bethesda’s caretaker. He
had
lived with Bethesda for a period after leaving the conservatory—“I did not want to tell you, because I wanted you to think me independent; I wanted you to admire me. It would be too cruel if this omission, one motivated by my own fears, becomes the thing that now makes you doubt my truthfulness”—but had left to find his own lodgings after a matter of months: “I am enormously fond of my great-aunt; I always have been. She and my aunt arrived soon after we settled in the Free States, and she has been the closest I have to a grandmother. But the idea that she is wealthy, much less that I have stolen money from her, is laughable.”

“So why would Lucy have said you did?”

“Who can know? She is a spiteful, petty woman, never married, never made a mother, friendless, but possessed of a vivid imagination—as you can see. My mother used to tell us all that we were to be kind to her, as her sourness was a reaction to her enduring loneliness, and we were, all to the best of our abilities. But this is too much, too far. And at any rate, my aunt Bethesda died two years ago; I have not seen my aunt Lucy—my aunt in name only—since; but this is proof, though of the worst kind, that she is still alive and still vengeful, still irreparably destructive.”

“Dead? But earlier when you spoke of Bethesda, you said you were enormously fond of her, as if she were still alive.”

“She is not. But can I not be enormously fond of her still? My affection for her hardly ended with her death.”

“And so you were not adopted by a Free State couple?”

“No, of course not! Lucy’s lies about my supposed thievery—conjured out of what I can only imagine is sport and resentment for my youth—appalls, but her denial of my family (and hers, might I
add) absolutely sickens. For her to deny my parents that—! She is an unwell woman. I wish Belle were here so she could tell you herself what absolute rubbish this all is, and about my aunt’s character.”

“Well—can she not?”

“Of course, and it is an excellent notion—I shall write her tonight and have her answer any questions you might have.”

“Well, I have more—many more.”

“And how could you not, after that report? (I have only the greatest respect for your grandfather, but must admit I’m somewhat shocked that he would place so much trust in someone who would believe everything told him by one lonely, clearly deranged woman.) Oh, my poor David! I cannot tell you how disgusted I am that this woman’s—
mischief-making
should have caused you such distress. You must allow me to explain.”

So he did. Edward had an answer for all of David’s concerns. No, he was assuredly
not
in love with Aubrey, who, anyway, was married to Susannah (His sister! My God, of
course
not! The depravity in this report!) and not one of their kind besides. The two were dear friends, but nothing more—David would see for himself in California, and “I would not be surprised if you and he should become even better friends than he and I are; you are both highly practical people, you see. And then I shall be the suspicious one!” Yes, he had been in a relationship with Christopher D., and yes, it had ended poorly (“He had become—and I say this not to boast, but as fact—besotted with me, and after he proposed marriage and I declined, he became fixated on me, and I, I am ashamed to say, began to avoid him, for I knew not how to convince him I was not in love with him. Although he was overbearing, my cowardice was my fault, and mine only, and I am deeply remorseful about it”), but, no, Edward had certainly never been with him for his money, nor had his parents ever tried to intervene on their son’s behalf: He would introduce David to Mr. D. so he could ask for himself. No, he would! He absolutely would! He had nothing to hide. No, he had never stolen anything from anyone, least of all his parents, who, after all, had nothing for him to steal, even if he had been that sort of person: “Of all the cruelties of this report, the cruelest is the denial of my parentage, of my childhood,
of the sacrifices my mother and father made for me and my sisters, of the slander levied against my father: A gambler? A runaway? A cheat? He was the most honest man I ever knew. For him to be manipulated into this…this
criminal
is a level of evil to which I had not known even Lucy capable of sinking.”

On and on they talked, and after an hour and more had passed, Edward seized David’s hands. “David—my innocent. I can and will refute everything in these pages. But the primary thing I must disabuse you of is this: I do not love you, I do not want to make a life with you, for your money. Your money is yours, and I have no need of it. I have not ever lived with it—I would not know what to do with it. Besides, I shall soon have my own, and—though I intend no ingratitude—I prefer it that way.

“You asked what I had done with the tea set. I sold it, David, and it was not until afterward that I realized what a mistake I had made, that it was something you had given me out of love, and I, in my desire to prove to you that I could take care of you, take care of
us,
exchanged it for money. But do you not see that it was done out of my own sense of love? I never want to ask you for anything—I never want you to be in discomfort. I will take care of us both. Dear David. Do you not want to be with someone who will not expect you to be David Bingham but merely beloved companion, trusted husband, dearest spouse? Here”—and here Edward reached into his trouser pocket and drew out a purse, which he pressed into David’s hand—“here is the money from it. I will go buy it back tomorrow, if you wish. It, and the silver set, too. But either way, the money is yours to keep. We shall spend it on our first meal in California, on your first set of new paints. But the important thing is that we shall spend it together, making our life together.”

His head ached. He was overwhelmed. The tears had dried on his cheeks and left his skin stiff and itchy. His limbs felt boneless, and he was taken by a tiredness so intense that when Edward began to undress him and then laid him in the bed, he felt none of the anticipation or excitement he usually did in those moments, just a kind of dullness, and although he responded to Edward’s commands, he did so as if in a daze, as if his arms and legs were moving of their
own accord and he was no longer their master. He kept thinking of what his grandfather had said—“
They
need you: Edward and his beloved”—and when he woke early in the morning, he slipped out from beneath Edward’s arm and silently dressed and left the boardinghouse.

It was so early that the candles still flickered in the lamppost lanterns, and the light was drawn in shades of gray. He walked along the cobblestones, his boot heels echoing, to the river, where he watched the waters slap against the wooden pier. It would be a damp day, damp and chill, and he wrapped his arms around himself and gazed out toward the opposite shore. He and Andrew had sometimes strolled along the river and talked, though those events now seemed very long ago, incidents from decades past.

What would he do? Here, on one side of the river, was the Edward he knew, and there, on the other, the Edward his grandfather thought he knew, and between them was an impassable body of water, not wide but deep and apparently unbreachable. If he left with Edward, he would forever lose his grandfather. If he stayed, he would lose Edward. Did he believe Edward? He did; he did not. He kept remembering how upset Edward had been the night before—upset but, he reminded himself, not flustered; there were no inconsistencies, or very few, in his reassurances, and those that existed did not seem worrisomely consequential—and how that alone proved his truthfulness. He thought of the tenderness with which Edward spoke to him, touched him, held him. Surely he was not imagining it? Surely that could not be a pantomime? The passion they felt for each other, the fever of their encounters—that could not be a charade, could it? Here was New York, and everything he knew. There, with Edward, was someplace else, someplace he had never before been but, he could recognize, he had been searching for his entire life. He had thought he might have found it with Andrew, but it had been a mirage. He would never have found it with Charles. Was this not the point of life, the reason his ancestors had established this country at all? So he might be allowed to feel the way he did, so that he might entitle himself to happiness?

He had no answers for himself, and he turned and walked back
toward the boardinghouse, where Edward was waiting for him. The next several days passed in the same manner: David would wake first and walk to the river, and then he would return and continue his interrogation, which Edward bore patiently, even indulgently. Yes, the girl in the illustration was Belle; no, the man in the daguerreotype was not Aubrey, but an old beau, from the conservatory, and if it bothered David, he would—See? He was doing it now!—burn the image, for the man meant nothing to him, not any longer; yes, the note was from his mother. Always he was full of explanations, which David drank and drank until, by evening, he was disoriented and exhausted again, whereupon Edward would undress him and lead him to the bed, and then the cycle would begin again.

He could not settle. “My dearest David, if you have any further doubts, then we should perhaps not marry,” Edward said one afternoon. “I shall still want to be with you, but your fortune will be safe.”

“So you
don’t
want to marry me?”

“I do! Of course I do! But if this is the way I might convince you that I have no intentions, no desire, to possess your money—”

“But our marriage would not be recognized in California at any rate, so it would not be much of a sacrifice for you, would it?”

“It would be
more
of a sacrifice, had I any intentions to steal your money, for if I did, I should marry you now and take everything you own and
then
leave you. But that is
not
my intention, which is why I am suggesting it!”

In the coming months and years, he would reflect upon this period and wonder if he was misremembering: Had there not been a moment, an hour, a day, in which he decided, declaratively and definitively, that he loved Edward, and that his love for him would overcome all of the uncertainties that still lingered in his mind, despite all of Edward’s reassurances? But no—there was no single episode, no revelation that he might date and commemorate on paper. It was simply that, with every day he failed to return to Washington Square, with every letter—at first just from his grandfather, but then from Eliza and John and Eden and Frances and even Norris—that he ignored, either throwing them into the fire or securing them,
unopened, into the bundle of Edward’s letters he’d brought with him, with every item of clothing and book and notepad he asked to be sent him from his grandfather’s house, with every day he decided not to send a note to Christopher D., asking him to meet and talk, with every week he did not inquire whether Edward had in fact sent a letter to Belle asking her to corroborate his account, and with every week that passed without a reply from her, he was declaring his intention to begin another life, a new life, a life anew.