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.
XIX
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?