Afterward (Edith Wharton) — graded reader B1–B2

Afterward

A graded reader · Edith Wharton · B1–B2

Warm-up

• Do you enjoy ghost stories? Do you prefer them loud and scary, or quiet and strange?

• Would you like to live in a very old house? What would you love, or hate?

• If you suddenly became rich, where in the world would you go to live?

• Can a house or a place "remember" what happened there? What do you think?

The author and the book

Edith Wharton (1862–1937)

Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones in New York City in 1862, into a rich old family. The saying "keeping up with the Joneses" is said to refer to her father's family.

When she was nine, she nearly died of typhoid fever. While she was getting better, she read a frightening story, and it left her with a terrible fear. Until she was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, she could not sleep in a room with a ghost story in it. Sometimes she even burned the books.

Later, she wrote ghost stories herself. She also designed her own house, The Mount, in Massachusetts, and then made her home in France. In 1916, France gave her the Legion of Honour for her war relief work.

In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, for The Age of Innocence. She died near Paris in 1937.

"Afterward" first appeared in The Century Magazine in January 1910, and later that year in her book Tales of Men and Ghosts.

Key words

haunted

the downs

mine

(of a place) visited by a ghost

low, round, grassy hills in the south of England

a place where people dig gold, silver or other metals out of the ground

lawsuit

newspaper clipping

a case that one person brings against another in a court of law

a short article cut out of a newspaper

Let's talk

• Wharton was terrified of ghost stories for years, then wrote them. Why might fear help a writer?

• Have you ever understood something important only much later? What happened?

• How do people usually become very rich? Is it always fair?

• The story is called "Afterward". What kind of ghost could you only recognise afterward?

PART 1 OF 4

You'll never know it

PART 1 · YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IT

"Oh, there is one, of course, but you'll never know it."

Mary Boyne remembered those words on a dark December afternoon, as she stood in the library at Lyng, waiting for the lamps.

Six months earlier, in a bright June garden, their friend Alida Stair had told them about the house. Mary and Ned Boyne were Americans, looking for an old English country house: the older and more uncomfortable, the better.

"Well, there's Lyng, in Dorsetshire," Alida had said. "It has no electric light and no heating. You can get it for almost nothing."

"It's too uncomfortable to be true!" Ned laughed. "But you're hiding something. Is there a ghost?"

"Oh, there is one, of course, but you'll never know it."

"Never know it? But what makes a ghost a ghost, if people don't know it?"

"I can't say. But nobody knows it's a ghost. Not till afterward, anyway."

"Till afterward?"

"Not till long, long afterward."

"And then suddenly," said Mary, in a strange, deep voice, "long afterward, you say to yourself, 'That was it?'"

Her words fell on their laughter like a stone. "I suppose so," said Alida. "One just has to wait."

"Oh, forget waiting!" said Ned. "Life's too short for a ghost you can only enjoy later."

Three months later, they were living at Lyng. For fourteen years, Ned had worked hard as an engineer in the American Middle West. Then, suddenly, the Blue Star Mine had made them rich.

PART 1 · YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IT

Now Mary could paint, and Ned could write his book.

But lately Ned had changed. He walked alone on the downs, and there were new lines of worry between his eyes.

"Can it be the house?" she wondered, as the shadows filled the long room.

Then she remembered an afternoon in October, soon after they arrived. She had found a hidden staircase up to a flat part of the roof, and brought Ned up to see the view. They stood close together, his arm around her, looking down the long avenue of lime trees.

Suddenly she felt his arm go loose. "Hullo!" he said sharply.

A man was walking slowly down the avenue towards the house, like a stranger looking for his way.

Mary's eyes were weak, and she saw only a thin figure in grey clothes. But Ned saw more. A shadow of anxiety crossed his face.

"Wait!" he cried, and he ran down the stairs without her.

When she got downstairs, the front door was open and the courtyard was empty. Ned was alone in the library.

"Who was it?" she asked.

"Who?" He shrugged. "I thought it was Peters, one of the workmen. But he's gone. Shall we climb Meldon Steep before sunset?"

That was all. They climbed Meldon Steep for the first time that day, and she forgot the man.

But now she wondered. If it was only Peters, why had Ned looked so anxious? And when he didn't find him, why had he looked so relieved?

Book club

PART 1 · YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IT

1. What did Alida Stair say about the ghost at Lyng?

2. How did the Boynes become rich, and what did they plan to do at Lyng?

3. What happened on the roof that October afternoon?

4. Ned wanted a house "too uncomfortable to be true". Would you? Why or why not?

5. Mary feels a secret between them. Have you ever sensed that with someone close to you?

6. Who do you think the man in the avenue was?

PART 2 OF 4

A stranger in the garden

PART 2 · A STRANGER IN THE GARDEN

Mary went to the window. Outside, in the grey evening, a figure was coming across the courtyard. Her heart jumped. "It's the ghost!"

But a moment later she saw that it was her husband.

"I actually took you for the ghost!" she laughed.

He didn't laugh. "Did you think you'd seen it?" he asked, after a pause.

"Yes. I give it up. Have you?"

The maid brought in a lamp and the letters.

"I never tried," he said, opening a newspaper.

"Well, there's no use trying," said Mary. "You can't be sure till so long afterward."

Suddenly he looked up. "Have you any idea how long?"

"No. Have you?"

"Lord, no! I only meant, is there any old story about that?"

"Not that I know of," she said.

A little later, as he read his letters, the lines of worry left his face. He smiled at her. "Here's a letter for you."

She opened it, and jumped to her feet. In her hand was a newspaper clipping.

"Ned! What's this? What does it mean?"

He stood up at the same moment, as if he had heard her cry before it came. For a second they watched each other across the room, like enemies.

"It's from the Waukesha Sentinel," she said, shaking. "A man called Elwell has brought a lawsuit against you. Something about the Blue Star Mine."

To her surprise, Ned looked calmer. "Oh, that!" He folded the paper. "I thought you'd had bad news."

"But who is this Elwell?"

PART 2 · A STRANGER IN THE GARDEN

"A man I helped into the business. It's all very complicated. I thought that kind of thing bored you."

She had never paid much attention to his business. Now she saw how little she knew about the money her happiness was built on.

"Doesn't it worry you?"

"It did at first. But it's all over now. The case has been withdrawn."

"Because he saw he had no chance?"

"Oh, he had no chance," said Ned.

"When was it withdrawn?"

He paused. "I've just had the news. In one of my letters."

"It's all right?" she asked.

"I give you my word it never was righter!" he laughed, and held her close.

The next morning, the winter sun was shining, and Mary felt safe again. In the garden, she was waiting for a boiler expert from Dorchester.

She heard steps behind her and turned. A youngish, thin man stood there, in a soft felt hat.

"Is there anyone you wish to see?"

"I came to see Mr Boyne," he said. His voice sounded faintly American. In the shadow of his hat, his face looked serious, like a man on business.

"Have you an appointment?"

He hesitated. "Not exactly an appointment."

"Then I'm afraid he can't see you now. He's working."

He lifted his hat. He would come back later, he said. As he walked away between the yew hedges, he stopped and looked up at the quiet house in the winter sunshine. Then he was gone.

Book club

PART 2 · A STRANGER IN THE GARDEN

1. Who did Mary take for the ghost at the window?

2. What was in the newspaper clipping, and how did Ned explain it?

3. What did the stranger in the garden want, and what did Mary tell him?

4. Should married couples know everything about each other's money? Why or why not?

5. Do you believe Ned is telling Mary the whole truth? What makes you think so?

6. The stranger will "come back later". What do you think will happen?

PART 3 OF 4

The gentleman who called

PART 3 · THE GENTLEMAN WHO CALLED

The expert from Dorchester arrived, and Mary spent the rest of the morning with him in the greenhouses.

At last Trimmle, the maid, announced lunch. Mary opened the library door. Ned was not there.

"Mr Boyne must be upstairs. Please tell him lunch is ready."

Trimmle hesitated. "If you please, Madam, Mr Boyne's not upstairs."

"Then where is he?"

"He's gone out, Madam."

"Which way? And when?"

"Out of the front door, up the drive, Madam." Trimmle never answered more than one question at a time.

Mary looked out at the long avenue of bare lime trees. It was empty.

"Did he leave a message?"

"No, Madam. He just went out with the gentleman."

"The gentleman? What gentleman?"

"The gentleman who called, Madam."

Trimmle hadn't seen him herself. The kitchen-maid had opened the door to him at about one o'clock. He didn't give his name. Instead, he wrote something on a piece of paper, folded it, and asked her to take it to Mr Boyne at once.

Mary ate lunch alone. It was strange: these days, Ned lived as regularly as a clock. Perhaps he was walking his visitor to the station. In the afternoon she walked to the village, and came home across the downs as it was getting dark.

She went straight to the library. It was empty. The papers on Ned's desk lay exactly as they had lain at lunchtime.

Suddenly she was afraid. In the long, dark room, something seemed to be there among the shadows, watching, and knowing. She pulled hard on the bell.

Trimmle hurried in with a lamp.

"You may bring tea if Mr Boyne is in."

PART 3 · THE GENTLEMAN WHO CALLED

"Mr Boyne is not in, Madam. He's never been back."

"Not since he went out with... the gentleman?"

"Not since he went out with the gentleman."

"But who was the gentleman?"

"That I couldn't say, Madam." Trimmle, too, looked frightened now.

The folded paper! Mary searched the desk, but it wasn't there. Instead, she found an unfinished letter in Ned's writing, with his pen lying across it, as if he had dropped it suddenly.

"My dear Parvis," — who was Parvis? — "I have just received your letter announcing Elwell's death, and while I suppose there is now no further risk of trouble, it might be safer—"

That was all.

The kitchen-maid was brought in, trembling. She had taken the paper into the library, she said, but the gentleman followed her in, so she left them together.

Soon after, she saw them go out of the front door.

"Then you saw him twice. What did he look like?"

The girl struggled for words. "His hat, mum, was different-like, as you might say..."

"Different? A wide brim, you mean? And his face was pale, a youngish face?"

Suddenly Mary knew. The stranger in the garden! It was he who had called for her husband, and taken him away.

But who was he? And why had Ned gone with him?

Book club

PART 3 · THE GENTLEMAN WHO CALLED

1. Where was Ned when Mary went to call him for lunch?

2. Why couldn't anyone tell Mary the visitor's name?

3. What did Ned's unfinished letter say?

4. Trimmle answers one question at a time. How does that add to the tension?

5. If you were Mary, what would you do first?

6. Who do you think the stranger is? Where has he taken Ned?

PART 4 OF 4

Long, long afterward

PART 4 · LONG, LONG AFTERWARD

England was "such a hard place to get lost in", Ned used to say. Now his name and picture were on the walls of every town and village, and the police searched the whole country. But there was no word of him. Nobody had seen him anywhere. The sunny English noon had swallowed him completely.

Weeks passed, and the search slowed down. Mary stayed at Lyng. She did not believe Ned would come back. But the house knew. The library had seen the stranger's face. And Lyng would never tell its secret.

Then, one day, a card was brought to her: "Mr Parvis". In the library sat a small, bald man with gold glasses. What, he asked, did Mrs Boyne plan to do about Bob Elwell's family?

"I know nothing," she said. "You must tell me."

So he told her. Young Robert Elwell had shown Ned the Blue Star scheme. But Ned got ahead of him, and made his fortune at Elwell's cost.

"I don't say it wasn't straight, and yet I don't say it was straight. It was business."

Elwell had borrowed most of the money he lost. When his lawyers told him he had no chance, he shot himself.

"He killed himself? Because of that?"

"Well, not exactly. He lasted two months before he died."

Now his widow was ill and poor, Parvis said, and people had started a collection for her. He handed Mary the Sentinel. Under the headline "Widow of Boyne's Victim Forced to Appeal for Aid" were two pictures. The first was Ned.

PART 4 · LONG, LONG AFTERWARD

The second was a youngish, thin man, his face half hidden by the shadow of a hat-brim.

Mary cried out. "This is the man! The man who came for my husband!"

"It can't be, Mrs Boyne. It's Robert Elwell. Why, Elwell was dead! Don't you remember Boyne's letter?"

Yes, she remembered. That was the deepest horror of it. Elwell had died the day before Ned disappeared.

"When did Robert Elwell try to kill himself?" she asked quietly. "The date, please."

Parvis looked at the paper. "Last October, the..."

"The 20th, wasn't it?"

"Yes, the 20th. Then you did know?"

"I know now. That was the day he came first. We saw him from the roof.

Ned ran down, but there was no one there." She nodded, like a child solving a puzzle. "He tried to come then, but he wasn't dead enough. He couldn't reach us. He had to wait two months. And then he came back again, and Ned went with him."

Suddenly she pressed her hands to her head.

"Oh, my God! I sent him to Ned! I told him where to go! I sent him to this room!"

The walls seemed to fall in on her. Far away, Parvis was calling to her. But she heard only one clear voice: Alida Stair's, on the lawn that bright June day.

"You won't know till afterward. You won't know till long, long afterward."

Book club

PART 4 · LONG, LONG AFTERWARD

1. What happened to the search for Ned?

2. What did Parvis tell Mary about Elwell and the Blue Star Mine?

3. What did Mary see in the newspaper, and why was it impossible?

4. "It was business," says Parvis. Do you agree, or did Ned steal from Elwell?

5. Mary cries, "I sent him to Ned." Is she in any way to blame?

Big questions

1

Did Ned deserve what happened to him? Was it justice, or revenge?

2

Mary never asked where their money came from. Does that make her guilty too?

3

The ghost looks like an ordinary, polite young man. Is that more frightening than a monster?

4

Wharton never tells us where Ned went. Do you want to know? Does it matter?

5

"It was business." When do people still use that excuse today?

6

Alida's warning came true. What does "afterward" mean to you now?

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key

Part 1 · 1 That there was a ghost, but you would never know it: not till afterward, not till long, long afterward.

Part 1 · 2 The Blue Star Mine made them rich. At Lyng, Mary wanted to paint, and Ned wanted to write his book.

Part 1 · 3 They saw a man in grey walking down the lime avenue. Ned looked anxious, ran down without her, and found no one. He said it was Peters, one of the workmen.

Part 2 · 1 Her husband, Ned, coming across the courtyard in the grey evening.

Part 2 · 2 It said a man called Elwell had brought a lawsuit against Ned about the Blue Star Mine. Ned said Elwell was a man he had helped, the case had been withdrawn, and everything was all right.

Part 2 · 3 He wanted to see Mr Boyne. Mary said he couldn't, because Ned was working, so he said he would come back later.

Part 3 · 1 He wasn't there. He had gone out of the front door and up the drive with a gentleman who called.

Part 3 · 2 The visitor didn't say it. He wrote something on a folded paper for Ned, and the paper had disappeared.

Part 3 · 3 That Ned had just heard of Elwell's death, and that there was now probably no risk of trouble, but "it might be safer—".

Part 4 · 1 The police searched the whole country and found no trace. Slowly, the search slowed down.

Part 4 · 2 Elwell had shown Ned the Blue Star scheme, but Ned got ahead of him and made his fortune. Elwell lost everything, shot himself and died two months later.

Part 4 · 3 A picture of Robert Elwell: the man from the garden who came for Ned. It was impossible because Elwell had died the day before Ned disappeared.