An Inconvenient Wife (28 page)

“Victor should like Seaward,” he said. “But don’t feel the need to show him around too much, Lucy. You leave that to Julia,
and to . . . whoever else might take a fancy to him.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” I said quietly.

William’s gaze went hard. “Just remember, my dear,” he said, “I expect you to remember who you are.”

W
hen William at last kissed me good-bye and had David drive him to the steamer, I was so relieved I sagged into one of the
wicker chairs on the veranda and watched him drive away.

When he was gone, I could not be still. Victor planned to arrive in the afternoon, after wrapping up his morning appointments.
I paced the gardens and wondered jealously if Julia was one of them; if he dismissed Irene to run errands when she came, as
he did with me; if the blinds were lowered and dark, so the phrenology head gleamed bone white and ghostly in sunlight filtering
past the edges.

The thought of it made me so irritable I snapped at Sadie and watched her mouth go tight and drawn and realized that that
was the expression that was familiar to me, that her pleasant smile these last days had been odd. I felt a niggling guilt
and walked down to the edge of the lawn to stare out over the sea.

It seemed to call to me, the way it always did, and in other years I’d ignored the call until eleven, the fashionable hour
to go to Bailey’s Beach, when I would swim among all the others. Not since I was a child had I clambered down these rocks,
and then only when Papa was not there to see and my nanny had turned her back.

I had not forgotten how. Huge rocks bolstered the six feet or so to the beach. I lifted my skirts and climbed down them, my
inadequate boots slipping on the smooth edges, my petticoats catching. I tore my stocking and scraped my shin, but at last
I stumbled to the sand. The tide was coming in, so I had only a short distance to go, and little time, but I decided to walk,
as difficult as it was on sand that slipped and gave beneath my heels. I went down the beach, past the cottages like Seaward
and the marble châteaus beyond that were growing more prevalent every year, with their staffs of gardeners and butlers and
servants, their fountains and pagodas and ballrooms.

I did not look to them but out at the sea, at the change of the light upon the water, the shifting colors, the tangles of
seaweed that swayed with the waves yet amazingly did not move at all. I lifted my face to the salty breeze. Before I knew
it, the water was to my feet, wetting my hem, and the sand I walked upon was only a narrow strip that would soon disappear.
I had no choice but to turn around.

When I reached the rocks of Seaward again, the tide was in so far I had to walk through inlets of water that came to my ankles.
My boots were ruined. It was more of an effort to climb the rocks back to the lawn, and my stockings squished in my boots.
I sat down on the lawn, silk gown and all, and grappled with my boots, but even had the water not swollen the leather tight,
I could not have begun to loosen them without a buttonhook. I got up again and trudged the expanse of lawn, holding my hat
in my hand, bedraggled and dirty, sweating. I felt alive; the walk had soothed me; the wet flap of my gown about my ankles
was a sound I had not heard since I was a girl.

I was halfway across the lawn when I heard a call. Victor was coming down the steps of the porch, striding toward me.

I felt ensnared again, jerked to him without will or sense, suddenly so dizzy and desirous that I was both material—a body
only, simply visceral sensation—and without substance at the same time.

All I could think was that I loved him, and that he might be lying to me.

“Lucy,” he said. He started to reach for me, and I jerked away.

He frowned. “Isn’t William gone?”

“He left this morning. He’ll be back again on Friday.”

“So we’ve a week to ourselves.”

I could not contain myself. The words came bursting from my lips. “William told me you were at Daisy Hadden’s that weekend—that
weekend I did not go—with Julia Breckenwood.”

He looked surprised, and then angry, and then his expression settled into a careful mask. “Ah,” he said.

“Is she your patient? Does she require your assistance day and night? Do you ‘take care’ of her the way you take care of me?”

“Julia Breckenwood is a lonely woman who’s donated money for my research.”

“Is she a patient?”

“Come, Lucy, you know I can’t tell you that. My career depends on my discretion.”

“Her husband would ruin you if he found out, you know this, don’t you? He would ruin you. All you’ve worked for—”

“It’s not what you think, Lucy.”

“Has she formed an ‘attachment’ to you too? Does she tell you she loves you?”

“Lucy, hush.” He took hold of my arm, pulling me closer. His thumb stroked the silk of my sleeve. He bent to whisper in my
ear, “I haven’t laid a hand on her.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because Julia Breckenwood is not you,” he said, tracing down my arm, winding his fingers about my wrist. “I would not risk
losing you, Lucy. You must believe me. I would not risk it.”

His breath sent a shudder along my skin, and I could not bear it. To be so close and not to touch. I looked up at him. “Perhaps
I could show you to your room.”

“Yes,” he breathed.

With effort, I stepped away from him and turned to the porch, where I saw Sadie, standing near the table, darting quick glances
at us.

That first week, there were still so few people that it was as if we had Newport to ourselves. Outwardly Victor was the perfect
guest. He was entertaining over supper, kind to the servants, and he kept me in high spirits. We spent every day in idle pursuits:
long, leisurely breakfasts on the porch, walks along the beach from which we returned damp and sandy and laughing, and early
afternoons when I sat on the lawn and Victor wrote furiously beside me. The servants had been told that Victor was my doctor;
it explained too well why he must attend to me constantly.

There were no stolen hours here, they were full of him already, and there were too many risks to be taken in the daylight,
so we would wait until nightfall for our trysts. The day would be one long aching stretch of need and anticipation, so when
he came to my room, my need of him was so intense I did not waste a moment. It was luxurious and fine, to make love on a bed
instead of an office floor or a settee, and it always seemed that exhaustion came far too quickly, that the night should stretch
on longer, that I should take every minute until the early hour before the servants woke, when he would disentangle himself
from me and return to the rose room, the room that had once been mine.

I spent those hours in a daze of happiness and contentment. When he touched me, I forgot everything: who I was, William, the
world. I was under a spell, with Victor the magician keeping me bound and I a willing victim.

When Friday came and William drove up in the late afternoon, looking tired and anxious, I felt his presence like a gash in
the landscape. I was angry at his interruption of these rainbow-hued days.

“Hello, darling,” William said as he came walking around the side of the house. I was lounging on a blanket laid upon the
grass, staring up at the sky. Victor sat beside me, the sleeves of his boiled shirt rolled up over his arms as he scribbled
away in a ledger.

William squatted down beside me and kissed me lightly on the head, while I suppressed a shudder, and then he looked at Victor.
“Why, hello, Victor. I see you managed to tear yourself away from the city.”

Victor smiled at him. “A pity you can’t do the same.”

“Yes, well, most of us must work during the week. How lucky you are that your work is here.” William threw a glance at me.

“You’ve a charming home,” Victor said.

“Enjoying yourself, are you?”

“Immensely.”

“The weather to your taste?”

“It’s been clear every day.”

“I assume Lucy has been seeing to your needs adequately.”

I could not look at him. Or at Victor. I squinted at the clouds in the sky, trying to find a shape, but they were frayed and
loose and would not coalesce into anything I recognized.

Victor laughed. “To be honest, William, it’s the other way around. I’m at her beck and call, as is so often the case with
patients. But she’s doing better these days. I assume you’ve seen the difference.”

“Oh yes,” William said. I could not decide if there was sarcasm in his tone. “No more fits, no more moods. Cook has finally
decided to stay—she was threatening to quit twice a week. You’ve worked wonders with her, Victor.”

“I am sitting right here,” I said. “There’s no need to talk about me as if I were some piece of horseflesh.”

“You see? Delightful.” William looked to me. “What have you been doing this week, my dear? Busy planning parties and such?”

“So few people are here yet,” I said. “And I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Victor, of course.”

“Still the hypnosis?” William asked.

Victor said, “It’s best to continue the suggestion until it’s firmly planted in the unconscious.”

“Is that so? How long must this ‘planting’ continue? Do we expect a harvest anytime soon?”

“Not before the summer is over, I would think,” Victor said.

“That long, then? Nine months? A child takes as much time.” William squeezed my shoulder. I stiffened.

“Victor tells me there are some patients who must be treated for years,” I put in.

“Oh, I should hope not,” William said. “Surely not that long.”

“Lucy is making great strides, but the mind is an impossible thing to predict. We don’t understand it fully even now.”

“Yes, yes, so you’ve said.” William was impatient. “But we’re not talking of just any mind, we’re talking of a woman’s. Lucy’s.
How complex can it be?”

I began to rise. “I think I’ll see about tea.”

“Thus far, I’ve seen little real evidence that a female brain is simple,” Victor said.

“But certainly more primitive, isn’t it?”

Victor shrugged. “Perhaps. Certainly they don’t seem capable of specialization in the same way as a man.”

“You see?”

“Yes,” I said wryly. “I’ll just see about the primitive necessity of food.”

“Call Sadie,” William said. “Where’s the bell?”

“The bell? I haven’t used it since we’ve been here.”

“How are you calling the servants, then?”

“I’ve been walking into the house to find them,” I said. “Really, William. The bell seems so insensitive, don’t you think?”

He looked at me as if I had fallen into a fit before him. “You’re the lady of the house,” he said. “Their job is to serve
you.”

“Yes, but it seems so ludicrous when it’s just as easy for me to—”

“Sadie!” he called. “Sadie!”

Victor was watching us with interest, and I was embarrassed. “Please, William.”

“Sadie!”

She came hurrying onto the porch, flustered. “Yes sir, Mr. Carelton? Is there something you’re needing?”

“The service bell, for one thing,” William snapped. “Mrs. Carelton is not to rouse herself. She is your mistress.”

“Please, William, there’s no need for this.”

He ignored me. “Where is the bell?”

“On the piano, sir, where it’s been since last fall.”

“Bring it to me.”

Sadie began to turn back into the house.

“No,” I said. I spoke more sternly than I had intended.

Sadie stopped. William looked at me in surprise. “What?”

“I don’t want the bell. Sadie, please leave it where it belongs.” I turned to my husband. “I’m not an invalid, and I won’t
be treated like one. If my mind is so primitive, William, my body is not. I can walk. I can skip and jump too, if I care to.
I won’t be catered to like some delicate flower.”

Under William’s eyes, I felt as if I were some oddity in Barnum’s museum—a two-headed calf, a dried mermaid. “As you wish,”
he said finally. Then he said to Victor, “What the hell are you smiling about?” before he turned on his heel and strode angrily
away.

Sadie lingered on the porch, confused.

“We’ll have tea on the porch, Sadie,” I said gently, and she nodded and hurried into the house as if she were relieved.

Only then did I look at Victor.

He was sitting up, and slowly, quietly, he clapped his hands. “That was magnificent,” he whispered. Then he dipped his head
and smiled, turning back to his ledger, to his endless writing.

That night I lay in bed, waiting in dread for William to come to our room. He and Victor had gone to the porch after supper,
to smoke their cigars and drink port. I could not bear the tension of it any longer and left them to themselves. I tried to
read, but I could not concentrate, and when at last I heard the closing of the door and footsteps on the stairs, I blew out
the candle and closed my eyes and pretended to sleep while I listened to Victor’s low “Good night,” and his footsteps passing
my door on the way to his room, his infinitesimal hesitation.

It was some minutes before I heard William’s heavy step on the stairs. I turned on my side and evened my breathing, but I
could not relax. When he opened the door and paused, letting his eyes grow used to the light, I knew he wasn’t fooled.