America was not for everyone—it was not for them—and yet everywhere were reminders of the careful, constant work that had been and was still being done to appease America, to keep the Free States autonomous and independent: Here were the early plans for the arch that would crown the Square, commemorating, as did the Square itself, General George Washington, that the Binghams’ next-door neighbor had had built five years ago, from plaster and wood; here were the subsequent drawings of the arch, now to be rebuilt in glittering marble quarried from Bingham family land in Westchester, for which David’s grandfather—who had bristled at the idea of being upstaged by a minor businessman who lived across Fifth Avenue from them, in a house not quite as stately—had largely paid.
All these David had seen many times before, but even so, he, like the others, found himself perusing everything as carefully as if it were altogether new to him. Indeed, the room was hushed, the only sound the women’s swishing silk skirts, the men’s occasional coughs and cleared throats. He was examining Lincoln’s spiky hand, the ink faded to a dark mustard, when he felt rather than heard the presence of someone behind him, and when he straightened and turned, he saw it was Charles, his expression shifting between surprise and happiness and sorrow and pain.
“It is you,” Charles said, in a small, strangled voice.
“Charles,” he replied, not knowing how to proceed, and there was a silence before Charles bumbled onward.
“I heard you were sick,” he began, and, after David nodded, “I’m very sorry to sneak up on you like this—Frances invited me—I had thought—that is to say—I do not wish to embarrass you, nor for you to think I was trying to catch you unawares.”
“No, no—I didn’t think that. I have been sick—but it was important to my grandfather I come, and so”—David made a helpless gesture with his hands—“I did. Thank you for the flowers. They were quite beautiful. And the card.”
“You’re welcome,” said Charles, but he looked so unhappy, so distraught, that David was about to step toward him, thinking he might collapse, when Charles instead moved to him. “David,” he said, in a low, urgent voice, “I know this is neither the place nor the time for me to speak to you like this, but—I am—that is to say—do you—why have you not—I have been waiting—” He was quiet, his movements contained, but David froze, thinking that everyone in the room must sense the fervor, the anguish, that surrounded the man, and that everyone too must know that he was the cause of such anguish, that he was the source of such distress. Even in his horror, for Charles and for himself, he could see how Charles had been affected—his jowls gone slack, his round, good-natured face blotchy and damp.
Charles was opening his mouth to speak again when Frances appeared at his elbow, patting him on the arm. “Charles!” she said. “My goodness—you look as if you’re to faint! David, do get someone to fetch Mister Griffith some water!,” and there was a general parting of the crowd as she led Charles to a bench and Norris slipped away to find some water.
But before Frances escorted Charles away, David had seen the look she darted at him—disapproving; disgusted even—and he abruptly turned to leave, understanding that he must get away before Charles recovered and Frances sought him out. As he did, though, he nearly collided with his grandfather, who was peering over his shoulder at Frances’s back. “What on earth is happening?” Grandfather asked, and, before David could form an answer, “Why, is that Mister Griffith? Is he feeling ill?” He began moving toward Charles and Frances, but as he did, turned around to look at the room. “David?” he asked the space where his grandson had once stood. “David? Where are you?”
But David had already left.
XIV
When he opened his eyes, he was for a moment bewildered—where was he? And then he remembered: Ah, yes. He was at Eden and Eliza’s, in one of their bedrooms.
Since fleeing the party two nights ago, he had been staying at his sister’s house on Gramercy Park. He’d not heard a word from his grandfather—although Eden, before disappearing for her class the following morning, had assured David that he was livid—or from Edward, to whom he had sent a brief note, or from Charles. He was, at least for the present, spared from explaining himself.
Now he washed and dressed and visited the children in their nursery before going downstairs, where Eliza was in the parlor, kneeling on the floor in her trousers, the carpet covered with fuzzing balls of yarn and gray woolen socks and stacks of cotton nightshirts. “Oh, David!” she said, looking up and giving him one of her beaming smiles. “Do come in and help me!”
“What are you doing, dear Liza?” he asked, crouching next to her.
“I’m assembling these supplies for the refugees. See, each bundle gets a pair of socks, two nightshirts, two of these balls of yarn, and two of these knitting needles—they’re in the box next to you. You tie them like so—here’s twine and a knife—and then put the finished packages into this box, here, near me.”
He smiled—it was difficult to feel too despairing around Eliza—and the two of them fell to their tasks. After they had worked in silence for several minutes, Eliza said, “So, you must tell me about your Mister Griffith.”
He winced. “He is not mine.”
“But he seemed rather nice, or what I saw of him anyway, before he took ill.”
“He is nice, very nice indeed.” And he began to tell Eliza of Charles Griffith—of his kindness and generosity; of his sense of industry; of his practical nature, with its unexpected flights into the romantic; of his authority, which never shaded into pedantry; of the heartbreaks he had suffered and the elegant sense of forbearance with which he bore them.
“Well,” said Eliza, after a pause. “He does sound lovely, David. And it does sound as if he loves you. But—you do not love him back.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I do not think I do.”
“And why not?”
“Because,” he began, and then realized what his answer would be: Because he is not Edward. Because he did not feel like Edward did in his arms, because he did not have Edward’s sprightly manner, Edward’s unpredictability, Edward’s charm. Compared with Edward, Charles’s consistency felt like stodginess, his solidity like timidity, his industriousness like dullness. They both, Edward and Charles, wanted companions, but Charles’s companion would be a fellow in complacency, in regularity, whereas Edward’s would be a fellow in adventure, someone bold and brave. One offered a vision of who he was, the other of who he hoped to become. He knew what life with Charles would be. Charles would leave for work in the morning and David would stay home, and when Charles returned in the evening, there would be a quiet dinner together and then he would be obliged to submit to Charles’s meaty hands, his prickly mustache, his overly enthusiastic kisses and compliments. Occasionally, he would accompany Charles to a dinner with his business associates—Mister Griffith’s handsome, rich, young husband—and after David had excused himself, Charles’s friends and colleagues would congratulate him on his catch—young and lovely and a Bingham! Griffith, you sly thing, what a lucky man you are!—and Charles would chuckle, embarrassed and proud and besotted, and that night he would want to be with David again and again, padding into his bedroom and lifting up a corner of his bedcover, his paw reaching for him. And then, one day, David would look at himself in the mirror and realize that he had become Charles—the same thickened waist, the same thinning hair—and realize too that he had given his last years of youth to a man who had made him old before he needed to be.