“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.