Wharton’s Summer is the story of a summer romance doomed to failure that begins with seduction at a picnic.
When Charity Royall, a small-town girl of seventeen, falls for Lucius Harney, a socially upscale architect, she loses her innocence at a picnic. The outing and picnic lunch are critical moments in the narrative suggesting the shift in conflict: the awakening of love in a ruined farmhouse and the loss of innocence.
Passion bubbles when Harney hires Charity to drive him to see the local farmhouses, particularly “the brown house,” a ruin on the high ground above the village. It’s a long ride, and Charity takes a picnic lunch for: “The sun rose without a cloud, and earlier than usual she was in the kitchen, making cheese sandwiches, decanting buttermilk into a bottle, wrapping up slices of apple pie, and accusing Verena [the cook] of having given away a basket she needed, which had always hung on a hook in the passage.”
When a storm comes up, Charity and Harney take shelter among the local mountain people, who are Charity’s kinfolk. Charity is ashamed but Harney isn’t bothered. He embraces Charity and comforts her. The result is melodramatic. Harney abandons Charity, who is pregnant.
With great trepidation, Charity attempts to get an abortion but does not go through with it.
Featured Image: Edith Wharton’s farmhouse in Lennox, MA, (1906), now in ruins
See Edith Wharton. Summer. Scribner’s: New York, 1917