by Megan Chance
“Until you ran out of there.”
“I cannot stay.” I grabbed his arm with my free hand. “Please, William, take me home, or I swear I will go by myself.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” His face was angry, intent. “You’ll go back in there and dance with me.”
“Oh, I can’t. I can’t.” I could not bring my voice above a whisper; I felt the hot beginning of tears. “Please, William.”
“I cannot go now. Robert Carr is unhappy with Stevenson. He wants a new broker.”
“Please, William, if you love me, you’ll send me home.”
He paused. His grip eased.
“You can stay if you like,” I plunged on. “Say I was taken ill.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, and I saw the confusion in his face and was sorry for him in a way I could not communicate. “You seemed so much better. Last night . . .” He shook his head, and then he let go of me sadly and turned to the servant, who was trying hard not to watch. “Fetch my wife her wrap and summon our carriage,” he said. He put his arm around my shoulders, drawing me back as the servant nodded and hurried out the door.
“When do you see Seth again?” William asked in a low voice.
“Tomorrow.”
The servant returned with my cloak. Within moments, my husband was escorting me from the hall into the blessedly cold night air. He opened the carriage door for me and bundled me inside, saying, “I’ll make your excuses,” in a forlorn and familiar way. Then he closed the door, and I watched as he turned and hurried back up the stairs as if I was already forgotten.
Chapter 7
I’m not feeling well,” I told Dr. Seth the moment I entered his office. “Last night we were at supper, and I began to feel ill. I had the strangest thoughts.”
Seth rose from his chair, frowning. “Mrs. Carelton, you’re trembling.”
I was fumbling with my gloves, which I could not get off. “Yes, I . . . I’ve been like this since last night.”
“Please, sit down.”
“It’s so odd, really. I was feeling better. Much better, and then I began to have these visions. It was like a nightmare, really.”
“Please, sit down,” he said again. He motioned toward the big red chair.
“A nightmare,” I repeated. My bag was slipping out from beneath my arm. My right glove simply would not come off. I shook my hand in frustration. “Oh, this . . . this—”
He came to me and gently took my bag, setting it aside. Then he held out his hand. “Give me your cloak, and we’ll discuss this.”
“I just don’t understand—”
“Forget your gloves, Mrs. Carelton. Your cloak. Please.”
I hesitated only a moment, then I did as he asked, though I struggled with the cloak’s clasp. He hung it on the coatrack and bade me once more to sit down. When I did, he pulled the other red chair to face me, sitting with a languid ease.
“Now, Mrs. Carelton, tell me exactly what frightens you.”
“I’m not frightened,” I said.
“You sound quite frightened.”
“I’m not. It isn’t fear, exactly. It’s more . . . disturbing.”
“Very well.” He folded his hands together—long fingers, careful movements. “Then tell me what has disturbed you.”
Faced with his calm, with his quiet, soothing voice, I found myself wordless. I struggled for something to say, a way to explain. “I—I had a dream.”
It was not what I’d meant to tell him.
He waited.
“A dream about here,” I rushed on. “This office. I was walking across the room to the window. I had my hands pressed to the glass. I was crying.”
“Did anything else happen to you in this dream?”
“No, but it felt quite real. As if it had really happened. I could see the cigar sign and the light. . . .”
“It should feel real,” he said. “You did walk, while you were in a deep hypnotic state.”
“You mean . . . the last time I was here?”
“Yes.”
“But you said I slept.”
He shrugged. “It’s easier to explain that way. The state of profound unconsciousness is most like sleep. Unlike sleep, however, you are quite aware of everything around you.”
“But I remembered nothing of it.”
“Your unconscious remembered it,” he pointed out. “Which is why you had the dream. Now tell me: You said you were having disturbing visions. Did you mean the dream?”
“No, there was a forest.”
“Ah,” he said. “That was a suggestion I made to you. I thought such a scene would calm you. When you began to feel out of control, as if you were going into a fit, you were to think of a peaceful forest, a walk. There was a rock, a—”
“Bird,” I finished.
He nodded. “A bird. A pretty song. Apparently it did not have the desired effect. You were disturbed by it.”
“I didn’t expect it,” I said. “You said nothing about a forest. You said you made a suggestion that I would be calm.”
“Which also apparently did not have the desired effect. The forest was only for oncoming hysteria. A secondary suggestion, if you will, in case the first did not work. Tell me, Mrs. Carelton, how you felt when you left my office.”
“Rested,” I said reluctantly. “Peaceful.”
“Did that feeling last beyond the time it took you to reach your home?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “It lasted until I had the dream, and it lingered beyond that, though not as strongly.”
“Then we made a temporary improvement,” he said with satisfaction. “A good sign.”
“Is it?” I leaned forward. “Is it a good sign?”
“It shows your cerebral condition can be modified,” he said.
“But it didn’t last.”
“It will,” he assured me. “Your unconscious has been badly trained; we must retrain it to be well. What you must relinquish, Mrs. Carelton, is intellectual control. Reason is the enemy of unconscious suggestion. What occurred with the suggestion of the forest is an example: You realized the forest was not a real memory; your reason rejected it as impossible, and therefore you rejected the calm it was meant to convey. You no doubt began to feel hysterical.”
“Yes. Yes, that was exactly what happened.”
“It was my mistake. I should have told you about the image. I won’t forget again. More importantly, you said you were calm until you had the dream that was not a dream, simply your unconscious memory. Were there any other details you remembered?”
I shook my head.
“How did you feel after remembering this?”
“Sad,” I said. “I felt sad.”
“Why is that?”
I tried to remember. “I don’t know. My hands were on the window, and I wanted to cry.”
“Did it remind you of anything else? Any other memory you have of a window?”
“No.”
His gaze was solid, penetrating. I looked away, feeling uncomfortable again.
“What kind of a relationship do you have with your husband, Mrs. Carelton?”
I was startled. “What has that to do with anything?”
“It may have a great deal to do with everything,” he answered. “Is it a loving relationship?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Did you marry for love?”
“Why, yes,” I said. “Yes, I did.”
“Did your father approve?”
“Approve? He did all he could to push me into William’s arms.”
“You don’t sound happy about that.”
“I was not at first,” I said. “Then it didn’t matter.”
“And your conjugal relationship,” he said. “Is it loving as well?”
I stiffened.
“Does he have a mistress?”
“Not that I know of. Really, Dr. Seth, I’m most uncomfortable with this conversation.”
“Do you derive pleasure from sexual congress w
ith your husband?”
“Dr. Seth!” I rose. My face was burning.
“Please sit down, Mrs. Carelton,” the doctor said. “I don’t wish to unduly distress you.”
“I won’t answer that question.”
“You are unable to conceive,” Dr. Seth went on matter-of-factly. “Your husband informed me that you have tried often but have never succeeded. He believes your illness is caused by the lack of children, and you have been diagnosed with uterine monomania at least once before. I believe that the state of your uterus—as well as your unconscious—is highly relevant to a cure.”
I sat down, tight-lipped.
“If your desires are so concentrated on having a child, then we must—”
I rose and paced to the window, twisting my hands together. “I won’t discuss this.”
“How can I possibly help you, Mrs. Carelton, when you refuse to cooperate?”
“I don’t know,” I said desperately. I stared at the flaking paint on the brick wall outside, the blur of COXLEY’S CIGARS. “I don’t know if you can help me at all.”
His voice became cajoling. “Perhaps we should work on finding that calm again, hmmm? If you will just sit down . . .”
I felt a touch on my shoulder and twisted around to see him just behind me. How had he moved there so quickly, so silently? I had not even seen his reflection in the glass. I jerked away from him until the window was at my back.
“Don’t!” I said, in a panic. “Don’t touch me.”
He held out his hand as if I were a wild animal ready to bite. “You are quite distressed, Mrs. Carelton. Forgive me. Please, if you will come back and sit down, we’ll start with electrotherapy today. That should make you feel better.”
I resisted his hand. I curled my fingers against the window.
“Come,” he said quietly. “I can help you.”
Perhaps it was the way he looked at me, with that unwavering gaze, but I was afraid of him, of his questions, his interest. I was afraid of what I might tell him, of what that gaze would lure from me.
“I want only to be like everyone else,” I said desperately, uncertain why I felt the need to say it. “I just want to be an ordinary woman. . . .”
He came closer, holding out his hand again. “I know exactly what you want,” he said, and I found myself relenting. I put my hand in his; I let him lead me to the dressing screen and call Irene, and then, when I was naked but for my chemise, I sat in his wooden chair, and parted my legs when he touched my knee, and lost myself to the electric wand.
Notes from the Journal of Victor Leonard Seth
Re: Mrs. C.
January 22, 1885
Mrs. C. was extremely distressed over the suggestion I’d made at our last visit, that she visualize a walk through the woods rather than give in to a hysterical fit. I was surprised by how well her unconscious took to it, how intense the image seemed to her. I had expected to make the suggestion at least once more before her unconscious accepted it, but the problem seems to be not with her unconscious mind but with her conscious one. She recognized the image as a false one and found it frightening.
Unfortunately, my neglect in telling her of the suggestion has had serious consequences. Whatever trust she had been willing to give me has evaporated. She is wary and uncooperative, and my attempts to delve more deeply into her biography were met with violent resistance.
This turn is frustrating at best. She should not be so difficult. Mrs. C. is readily put into a deep hypnotic state, and her amnesia when waking from the trance is so nearly complete that she remembered what had happened to her under hypnosis during our last visit as only a vague, disturbing dream. This would all indicate a patient who is easily cured, and I have no doubt this is the case. Yet her reason has overcome a suggestion that offers her unconscious mind what she so clearly wants. Why did she fight it? Her dismay over it seems too extreme, as if she is afraid. I must admit I find this intriguing as well as annoying. It suggests she is hiding something—but that is absurd. I cannot imagine what a woman such as this would have to fear. She has everything she could want. No, I must assume that her rejection of such a suggestion of peace is simply an anomaly, and with a few more studied attempts, I can effect a lasting cure. I would like, at some point, to suggest another calming memory or image for her to rely on during the onset of hysteria, but given her distress over the last suggestion, I prefer to wait until I can discover an image from her own experience.
This may be more difficult now. I must reassure her that she can trust me. Fortunately, Mrs. C. is highly sensitive to touch. Faradization has brought her to climax quickly, and she achieved a trance through touch-induced stimulus—which leads me to believe that Mrs. C. has normal female passions that have been severely discouraged, perhaps by her husband, perhaps by others in her life. Because she confessed that she married her husband for love—as much as that can be so—I suspect her nervousness and irritability may stem from interrupted coitus, an epidemic in the upper classes. If nothing else, faradization may ease these symptoms, bring her to my office in a more anticipatory state, and perhaps allow me to utilize her satisfied passions to regain her trust. If there is no trust, there can be no crédivité. And without that, I cannot be effective.
Chapter 8
Over the next days, I felt remarkably rested. I had only a few arguments with the servants; I weathered my social schedule better than I had in some time and, according to William, was “delightful.” I ran the household more efficiently than I ever had. My only complaint was at night, when my dreams were restless and strange, full of images I did not understand—most of which involved Dr. Seth’s disturbing gaze. But these dreams did not seem to have any effect during the daytime. Then I scarcely remembered that I was having dreams at all.
“I’m glad to see Seth’s methods are working so well,” William said with satisfaction at dinner. “Am I imagining things, darling? Or are you feeling better?”
“I am,” I said. “Much better.”
“He said he believed you were making progress.”
I stilled in the midst of taking a bite. “He said? You spoke to him?”
William nodded. “Yesterday. He was at the lunch counter at Bodes. We got to talking.”
“The lunch counter?”
“His office is not far from there, I suppose.” William shrugged. “In any case, I’m very pleased with his efforts. I’ve asked him to come to the Athletic Club with me tomorrow.”
I was dismayed, though I was hard-pressed to say why. “He hardly seems the sporting type.”
“I would have thought the same myself. But he expressed an interest.”
“I see.”
“You seem surprised.”
I played with the remains of my fish, my appetite gone. “Well, yes. After all, he’s not like us. He’s a Jew.”
“He’s no longer practicing, he says. I’m merely showing him my appreciation, nothing more. There are already plenty of doctors at the club. He’ll fit in nicely. And perhaps he can use it to expand his practice.”
“How thoughtful you are to suggest it,” I said.
William’s dark brows came together in a frown. “Are you telling me I shouldn’t be grateful to him for restoring my wife to me?”
I could not answer. Restore seemed such a finished word, and despite my improvement these last days, I did not feel finished, hardly so. It did disturb me that William intended to form a friendship with my doctor, though I could not think of a reason why. After all, I had first met Seth at a supper, and it was clear he already moved in our circle of friends. It would be foolish not to expect to see him publicly.
“I’ve been hoping you might come with me to McKim’s office tomorrow morning,” William said. “He’s finished the plans for the new house.”
Our discussion about Seth was over. I forced myself to take a forkful of fish and put aside my dismay over the doctor. “Oh? So soon?”
“I’d like you to see them.”
“I’m su
re anything you’ve agreed to is fine.”
“You’re going to live there as well,” William pointed out. “And I’d like you to see the plans before you go to Goupil’s. You should know what we need before you begin choosing things.”
I gave him a weak smile. “Yes, of course.”
“Then it’s settled. We’re to be there tomorrow at ten.”
I did not argue. I feigned the excitement I wanted so badly to feel. I would do this for William, for myself. After all, I did feel better.
The next morning I met my husband in the foyer, dressed and ready. It did not take long to arrive at McKim’s office, despite a cloud of snow that fell in a light and constant fog. We were met in the anteroom by an earnest young man who showed us into Charles McKim’s office.
Charles was there already, seated at a huge maple desk, surrounded by rolls of paper. One wall was completely lined with bookshelves; the others held framed photographs of houses he’d apparently designed, though the electric lamp on his desk shone upon the glass at an angle, making the pictures hard to see.
He rose when we entered, extending a hand to William, giving me a warm smile. William and I sat in two silk-covered chairs.
“I’ve brought Lucy to give her final approval,” William told him with a conspiratorial smile.
“I’m certain you’ll be pleased, Mrs. Carelton,” Charles said. He reached for a seemingly unmarked roll among a set of other rolls and spread it out over his desk, using paperweights to hold the corners. William rose and went to look over his shoulder, gesturing for me to join him. I did, but the drawing was impossible for me to decipher. It was only rows of lines, parallel and perpendicular, a semicircle here, words written in tiny letters.
“Look here,” William said, pointing to a square on the paper. “This is the foyer. We’ll have steps leading up to the front, all of cut limestone.” His finger traced down a set of lines. “Do you see? They curve on either side down to the sidewalk. There are pillars here and here, and the porch roof is a terrace that leads out from the ballroom.” His fingers moved over the plans so rapidly I could barely follow his motions; his voice was excited. “Do you see, Lucy? The entrance hall will be huge, with marble pillars reaching up three stories to a stained-glass dome. Mostly in rose, I think, so there will be a perpetual sunset over the floors below. Or sunrise, I suppose, depending on the light.”
