An Inconvenient Wife

by Megan Chance

  “Very well,” he said, and though there was resignation in his voice, I had the strange feeling that he was not at all resigned. “Then we will try again. Be at my office tomorrow. At one o’clock.”

  “One o’clock,” I agreed.

  “What is it he does?” William asked for the dozenth time as we came into the house. He followed me as I handed my cloak to Harris. I headed for the stairs, pausing to adjust the gas, waiting for the little pfftt as it went out. “You were so calm when I came back with your father.”

  I sighed. “So you’ve said.”

  “I tell you, it was like magic. Like some parlor trick. What does he do to you?”

  “It’s hypnosis, William. He explained it to you.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. But I should like to see it.”

  “I’m tired,” I said, reaching the first landing. “I should like to go to bed.”

  “But Lucy”—he reached for my hand before I could continue on, curling his fingers around mine to imprison my hand on the banister—“what does he say to effect it?”

  “I don’t know what he does or what he says,” I said. I jerked my hand away and continued up. “He’s a magician, I suppose.”

  “He is a genius.” William’s voice was hushed.

  I turned on the stairs to look at him. “I wouldn’t call him that. He hasn’t cured me.”

  “Not yet. But I’m convinced he’s the man who can. More convinced than ever. I forbid you to even think about not seeing him. In fact, I’ve asked him to attend to you more fully.”

  I stopped. “You’ve done what?”

  “I think it’s certain we’ll begin to see him in social situations more and more often. I’ve asked him to watch—”

  “You’ve asked him to spy on me?”

  “No, no, no, not that. But if he can do what he did tonight . . .”

  I felt ill. “I thought you wanted him to be discreet.”

  “I’m certain he will be. I’ve merely asked him to be aware.”

  I remembered how much I had disliked seeing Seth there, intruding upon my life, observing the things I didn’t wish him to, and I began to move again, wanting the sanctity of my room so badly it was all I could do to keep from running there.

  “How odd that you trust him so,” I said, finally reaching my door. William was behind me. “It’s almost as if he’s hypnotized you as well.”

  William laughed. I pushed open my door and went inside, not even saying good night before I closed the door and leaned against it, keeping my hand on the knob, holding my breath, waiting for William to push inside. Instead I heard his laughter fade as he passed my door and went on to his own.

  “Good night, my dear,” he called, and there was a joy in the words that I had not heard for a long, long time.

  Irene was not in the office the next afternoon. I paused, unsure of what to do. I knocked lightly on his door.

  “Come in,” he called.

  When I went in, he was at the desk writing furiously, his round glasses nearly sliding off his nose, the hair that was normally swept off his forehead falling lankly into his face. A smoldering cigar perched on the saucer of a teacup next to his elbow, befouling the air.

  “Am I interrupting?” I asked. “I’d thought you said one o’clock.”

  He looked up, and I realized he hadn’t really seen or heard me before that moment. His gaze was blank at first, and then he broke into a smile. “Lucy,” he said.

  “Mrs. Carelton,” I corrected.

  He put down his pen and shoved back his chair, took off his glasses, and he was once again the doctor I’d grown accustomed to. He stood and motioned for me to hang my things on the coat- rack. I glanced at the wooden cabinet, which was open to reveal the electrotherapy machine, and the sight of it sent a shudder through me—of revulsion or anticipation, I could not say.

  “We won’t do faradization today,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “Unless you’d prefer it.”

  “As you wish,” I said.

  “You seem nervous.” The doctor took his customary seat in the wing chair and motioned for me to do the same.

  “I am always nervous,” I said.

  “Shall we move beyond that, Lucy? You’ve promised to be honest with me. No edict of your husband’s could force you to do that unless you harbored some hope of success yourself. Isn’t that true?”

  “I try to be an obedient wife,” I said.

  “But you aren’t, are you? You’ve taken refuge in hysterical fits for years, and therefore achieved just what you wanted: some wretched imitation of autonomy. You’ve done everything you possibly could to fight the constraints of your life while still clinging to the semblance of it. In what way do you believe you’re an obedient wife?”

  I searched for the answer to his question, for some hint that I was no different from any other wife, that I inhabited my place with grace and humility. Only one thing came to me, and it was so intimate I could barely say it. “I continue to try to conceive a child.”

  Dr. Seth’s gaze held me in place. It was as condemning as his words. “Unconsciously, you fight even that. Your body obeys your mind.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked. “That I don’t want a child?”

  “Isn’t it true?”

  “No! No, of course not.”

  “There’s no need to lie to me,” he said calmly. “I’m your doctor. I can’t help you without some knowledge of your feelings, however unsavory they might be.”

  He knew, though he could not know; it was something I barely admitted to myself, something I tried to deny. But there was also relief in his knowing, and that was the worst of it—I couldn’t acknowledge that relief, so I persisted with the fiction. “Why would you say such a thing to me, when I never told you I didn’t want a child?”

  “Under hypnosis you did.”

  “It was a lie.”

  “No,” he said. “It was the truth. You know it was, Lucy. Stop trying to protect an ideology you don’t believe in.”

  “I’m not. I’m not.”

  “The truth,” he said gently, “is that you haven’t conceived a child because you don’t want one.”

  “But that’s absurd! I could not possibly! There’s something wrong with my womb.”

  “Who has told you that?”

  “Why, other doctors.”

  “They’ve found abnormalities in your uterus?”

  “Well, yes. Of course they have. They’ve suggested ovariotomies—”

  “To treat your hysteria.”

  “And rest—”

  “To treat your hysteria.”

  “And the water cure—”

  “To treat your hysteria.”

  Desperately, I shouted, “Shock treatments, nutrition, massage, blisters, leeches, camphor douches . . .” I ran out of breath and sputtered the last. “The only thing I haven’t tried is an asylum.”

  “Which is where you’ll end up if you continue to deny the truth.”

  I was clenching my fingers into fists so hard they hurt. “You’re saying that it’s only my thoughts that have kept us from conceiving.”

  Dr. Seth nodded slowly. “Yes. That’s what I’m suggesting.”

  “Believe me, Doctor, I would like to think my mind is so strong. It’s not, I can assure you. I feel I’m losing a little bit of it every day.”

  “Sit down, Lucy.”

  “I think I’d prefer to stand.”

  “Sit down.”

  I went to the chair across from his and sat, pulling my knees to the side so they would not brush his, pushing against the back of the chair to put distance between us. He would not let there be distance. As he had in the carriage, he leaned in so that his hands brushed my arms. What if you could be the woman you were meant to be?

  I jerked at my memory of the words, which were so loud in my head it was as if he’d just said them to me.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want it. You told me you would not.”

  “Would not what, Lucy
?” he asked calmly.

  “I want to be like everyone else,” I said. I could not stop the tremor in my voice. “I want to be what William wants.”

  “And what your father wants?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry, Lucy,” he said. “You won’t be sorry that you put your trust in me.”

  Then he took my hands.

  Notes from the Journal of Victor Leonard Seth

  Re: Mrs. C.

  February 2, 1885

  I find myself plagued by my questions re: Mrs. C. I have not slept for thinking of them. She resisted my attempts to convince her to give in to her inner life, and though that does not surprise me—in fact, it should quiet the ceaseless questioning in my mind—I cannot rest so easily.

  Though I knew it would avail me nothing, I could not keep myself from suggesting my new theories to her husband. I met him at the Staten Island Athletic Club. It was a foul day, so I proposed we take ourselves to the boxing ring and spar. He is fairly proficient, though I beat him readily. Years of fighting the other boys on Hester Street have left their mark upon me, I fear, and I don’t wish to embarrass myself by admitting I have no idea how to row or play polo—rich men’s games that I never learned.

  I found it the perfect opportunity to explain my new theories regarding his wife. I couched them carefully—he is quite ambitious and sensitive regarding his place in society and does not want to upset the balance he’s managed to attain over the years. I understand that, but I begin to think that he could help his wife in some elemental ways. I told him that I believed Mrs. C. is a passionate woman caught in the confines of a society that reviles such passion.

  At first he pretended not to know what I meant. Then he proceeded to tell me that his wife was everything he expected in a woman—she did her duty uncomplainingly, and he did not expect passion from one so well bred. He was even slightly repulsed by the notion. He confided to me that before their marriage, he kept a mistress, but he felt she was draining him of energy, so he left her. He has been “faithful, for the most part—more than any wife can expect,” though he said there have been times when he has visited prostitutes in an effort to keep his filthy passions from sullying his wife.

  These mindless notions weary me, but I pretended to understand his reasons and refrained from telling him that his wife would no doubt benefit from his filthy passions. Only a few days ago, I had a letter from my old mentor, William James, who has recently been made professor of philosophy at Harvard. I had felt confident in revealing my problems with Mrs. C. to him—my peers in Boston are more open to ideas of the brain as a psychic organ and are not so insistent on the centrality of the somatic as the cause of nervous disorders. Though James strongly disapproves of my reliance on hypnosis, he has spoken of Mrs. C.’s case with G. Stanley Hall at Johns Hopkins. They both wonder if the root of her problems is sexual in nature: i.e., that the repression and sublimation of sexual instincts, particularly in women, may lead to intense hysteria and/or neurasthenia.

  This indeed may be the case. I strongly suspect that the only orgasm Mrs. C. has ever experienced has been through faradization. She, like many women of her class, has learned to subvert her sexual passions. Most women channel such passions into their children, of which Mrs. C. has none, so she may have channeled this sexual passion into religion, poetry, and painting. When even these were taken from her, she had no outlet for her passion but hysteria.

  But when I suggested to Mrs. C.’s husband that she be satisfied sexually, he was profoundly opposed to the idea. He muttered of corruption and indecency and reminded me forcibly (by boxing me into a corner and nearly spitting in my face) that they had come to me for help in making Mrs. C. more normal, not less. “My wife has fits, Victor. They already talk of her as if she doesn’t quite belong, and her lineage beats any of theirs. Make her well. What I certainly don’t need—and what no one in our circle will accept—is one of those New Women.”

  His refusal will cost me. Treatment would move much more quickly if Mrs. C. experienced sexual release other than through faradization. For now I did not gainsay him. But I could not stop myself from the smallest of tests, from planting a simple suggestion in Mrs. C.’s unconscious, only to satisfy my curiosity. Perhaps I will be wrong, and her reason will once again overcome her unconscious, in which case I will return to my earlier attempts to treat her. In any case, it can do no harm, and I shall be satisfied once I know for certain if I am correct.

  Chapter 10

  The Morris ball was the following night. Clara Morris was not the most effusive of hostesses. I knew no one who actually looked forward to attending one of her entertainments, but there wasn’t a soul who would send his regrets. Clara rarely gave a supper or a ball—she was too parsimonious for that—but to be invited was a mark of distinction outdone only by Caroline Astor’s suppers. Like the Astor events, the Morris invitations determined once and for all who was acceptable and who was not.

  Even the worst headache would not have kept me from the Morris house, but thankfully, Dr. Seth’s calming instruction had relieved that worry. As William and I made our way up the stairs to the third floor of the Morris brownstone, the ballroom, I felt calm and happy, hopeful that I could have the peace I craved.

  There was to be no late supper, but canapés were set on silver trays throughout the room, and champagne was poured liberally—on that Clara Morris would not have dared to skimp.

  The room was crowded and hot, and the musicians in the corner looked as if they’d been squeezed into place. Clara had lit candles throughout, and their light glittered on gold tassels and fringe. A profusion of gilded mirrors and frames encompassed the large, dark paintings that had been in Clara’s family for years. The whole effect was like being in Midas’s cave, both blinding and ancient.

  “I wish Seth could have been here tonight,” William said in a low voice.

  “I’ve been to hundreds of balls,” I said, unable to completely disguise my resentment. “I hardly need him here. And he could not have hoped to win an invitation to this.”

  William sighed. “That’s true enough.”

  “I feel quite well, William.” I put my hand on his arm and smiled. “You worry too much, my dear.”

  “It’s become a habit.”

  “One I hope to break you of soon.”

  He smiled. “I hope so, darling.”

  Just then the musicians began tuning up in preparation for the dance, and there was a flash of white as the men began to take their gloves from the table near the door. William went to get a pair himself, and then he was back again, leading me onto the floor for the first dance. To say we danced would be an absurd overstatement; the room was much too small, but we moved in time to the music.

  “How little I’ll miss this when we move into our new home,” William murmured. “To have a full-size ballroom . . .”

  “Yes,” I said. The room was growing hotter; the smell of perfume was a heavy cloud that competed with candle wax and smoke and the increasing odor of chilled salmon.

  “I’ve had McKim install ventilation shafts to warm it in the winter. In the summer we can open the attic dormers to bring in the cool air.”

  “How wonderful,” I said.

  “We’ll need simple furniture for the ballroom. Nothing too elaborate. It should be easy to move but elegant. Have you visited Goupil’s yet?”

  I felt an urge to take off my gloves, such a foreign thought that it surprised me. I pushed it away, but it was back then, fiercer than before. My fingers clenched against William’s hands.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” I said. “No.” But my fingers were sweating inside my gloves, and the fine seams irritated my skin. I wanted nothing more than to take them off. I could think only of how fine it would feel to have the air on my skin. I fought the urge. How odd it was—I had not felt this way since I was a girl, when I was growing accustomed to wearing them. I could not take them off while we were dancing. It would be improper, agai
nst tradition and etiquette. I would not take them off. But the urge was so great within me that it was like a physical pain, and I could fight it no longer. Before I knew it, I had taken my hands from William’s, muttering “Excuse me” while I pulled them off furiously, as if they were burning my skin. I let them drop to the floor, and then I could breathe.

  William’s face was baffled. “What are you doing?” he hissed, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed. “Good God, Lucy, what has come over you?”

  I prepared to explain, then paused, suddenly horrified at what I’d done. I wasn’t certain why I’d gone against convention. I had never dared to do such a thing, and gloves had not bothered me for years and years. Why they should do so today—

  “I could not wear them another moment,” I explained weakly.

  William bent and picked them up, holding them out to me. “Put them on.”

  I stared at that pile of crumpled white kid. I did not want to touch them again, and to put them on . . . but that was ridiculous. It wasn’t me. I didn’t understand.

  “Come, Lucy. You’re causing a scene.”

  People were indeed beginning to look our way. I took the gloves from William and forced them on, stretching my fingers into the kid, pulling them over my arms, and it felt as if my skin were shrinking, smothering. Take them off, I thought, and that voice was so insistent, it took all my strength of will to deny it, to take William’s hands again.

  He swept me onto the floor, though his face was set in a tight mask, and I felt his disapproval. I danced with him, but all I could think of was how I wanted to feel his hands bare against mine. How much I wished to touch him the way I had at Bailey’s Beach that long-ago day when he pulled me close.

  The next afternoon I was alone in Victor Seth’s office. Irene had shown me in, telling me he would be late, and now I wandered around the room, running my fingers along the leather spines of the books littering his shelves, many of them with fading foreign titles. Du Sommeil et des États Analogues, Sur la Baquette, Divinatoire, Illustrations of the Influence of the Mind upon the Body in Health and Disease, Essays on Phrenology, The Principles of Medical Psychology, and The Temples of Aesculapius. The last one intrigued me. I had just taken it down when the door opened and Dr. Seth came in.