An Inconvenient Wife

by Megan Chance

  I went for my pencils and sketch pad and tried to forget Dr. Seth, and the Gérôme, and that persistent, guilty pleasure. I wished I had not gone to Goupil’s at all.

  The fear—and the secret pleasure—only increased over the next days. It was as if spring had lit within me. I drew feverishly and long and at every spare moment sketches of everything in the garden, and of Washington Square, where I now walked almost daily. Though I went to suppers and balls, I could not have told you when or where I’d been, what I’d done. I thought of nothing but my hidden sketchbook; my fingers ached constantly for a pencil.

  I saw Dr. Seth twice a week. His treatment was working as he’d promised: I was calmer, less given to fits. But my dreams had grown strange. I could not stop thinking about Dr. Seth, and the images from my dreams intruded at the strangest times—when I was among my friends or choosing fabrics for the new house—leaving me distracted and troubled.

  I found myself doing odd things, as I had at the Morris ball, when I’d removed my gloves. At the opera one night, as I stood in the lobby with Hiram Grace, listening idly to his latest harangue about the growing invasion of immigrants, I heard him as I never had before. His complaints and opinions had never had any impact; I usually barely listened to him, but I was hearing him when he told me that he felt the surest way to eliminate crime and immorality was to keep degenerates from procreating and allow that right to moral men only.

  “How could that succeed?” I asked, professing an opinion of something I’d never bothered to think of. “I’ve heard you say yourself that women possess smaller skulls, that they’re less developed. How, then, can moral men pass on their superior intellect when the vessel for doing so is clearly inferior?”

  Where the words came from, I had no idea. Someone who stood near us laughed, and Grace reddened in embarrassment before he moved quickly away.

  I had never done such a thing before, and I was humiliated at my unkindness. Yet in my heart lurked that secret joy, the happiness of rebellion I’d felt as a girl. I was afraid of it, and horrified that it had gained sway. I didn’t understand; it was not me who said those things, and yet I’d heard my own voice. Who could it be?

  There were other things. I went to Goupil’s, as William still expected me to do, and I found myself again ignoring his wish for landscapes. I was taken by bright colors and interesting scenes, by rustics and exotics. Jean-Baptiste urged caution; he had heard from my husband what he wanted, but I insisted. The only landscape I bought was a fuzzy Turner that was chaotic and interesting, and which I hoped William would like but sensed he would not. I purchased a sculpture of two people caught in an embrace, tangled about each other, nude, licentious, and was arrested by the feelings the sculpture raised in me. It made me frankly hungry, made me want to be touched. Such obscene thoughts, thoughts that were growing bolder and franker day by day and especially at night, when they tangled with my dreams.

  I was myself and not myself. But it was not until the last night of the season, and the Fitzgeralds’ masquerade ball, that I realized how strange I had become.

  Chapter 12

  The Fitzgeralds’ masque was an annual event. Preparations had been made months in advance. This year the theme was Ancient Egypt, and William and I had long ago been fitted for our opulent disguises as Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.

  But as the night of the ball approached, I began to view my costume with dread. It had too much gold appliqué, too much fringe, too many jewels about the golden girdle. I had once loved it, but now it offended me. Late one night I began cutting away all the ornamentation.

  When I was finished, my urge to wear the costume was overwhelming. It was of gold and white tissue, with one shoulder completely bare. I wore my hair down, so it fell to the middle of my back, and adorned it with only a thick gold ruby-studded circlet to match William’s fire: my one nod to my husband’s ostentation, to his full red and golden Roman armor.

  When I came down the stairs, William said, “Good God, what happened? That isn’t what we asked for at all! Didn’t you look at it before now, Lucy? Do you think there’s time to rescue it? Moira! Moira!” When the maid came running, he said, “Fetch the seamstress who sewed this debacle. We’ll have her fix it immediately. We’ll be late, but there’s no help for it.”

  “I did it,” I admitted.

  He stared at me, dumbfounded. “What?”

  “I changed it,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “It just seemed too much.”

  “Are you mad, Lucy? You’ll be the poorest-looking woman there. What will they all think?”

  “Let them think what they will.”

  “This is ridiculous.” William began to pace the hall. I had to stifle an urge to laugh as his Roman skirt bounced against his knees; his feet looked so strange and bare in his open sandals. “You cannot go this way.”

  “I will not go any other way,” I said. I wanted to wear this simple costume more than I could say. The thought of jewels and ostentation were anathema to me as they had never been before.

  “I cannot afford to let them believe we’re in financial trouble. Not after last year. I have clients, Lucy, who expect me— This doesn’t befit our status.”

  “For heaven’s sake, William, it’s gold tissue. It cost a fortune.” I came fully down the stairs. “Do you think I look ugly?”

  He stopped and looked up at me. “No. No, of course not. You look beautiful.”

  “Then this is how I shall go.”

  He hesitated. “At least wear the ruby necklace I gave you last fall.”

  “No, William,” I said gently.

  He did not know what to make of me, I could tell by his sudden uncertainty, as if I had become as much a stranger to him as I was to myself. I could not explain my insistence, and I did not try as we went to the Fitzgeralds’, where we were to meet Dr. Seth. He had met Stewart Fitzgerald at the Staten Island Athletic Club and secured his own invitation, much to my surprise and William’s, though my husband took a possessive pride in having been the man who embraced Dr. Seth and introduced him to SIAC. It was still hard for me to assimilate Seth into my circle of friends, so personal was my relationship with him, and it was difficult to treat him as an acquaintance when it seemed I spent every moment with him, even in my dreams.

  Dr. Seth was already inside, and I was surprised to see him equally simply dressed, in leather and linen, as Mark Antony, though we had never discussed it. He looked nothing like the doctor I knew; his glasses were gone, his legs bare beneath the Roman costume.

  “What is this?” William asked as we approached him. “Mark Antony?”

  “At your service.” Dr. Seth made a little bow. He looked at me. “Mrs. Carelton, you look captivating.”

  “She does, doesn’t she?” William said. “I would have preferred jewels, but she wished this. The two of you look quite matched.”

  I glanced at him, thinking I’d heard some little anger in his voice, but his expression was open and guileless. I felt vaguely uncomfortable. “It’s quite a coincidence,” I said. I looked at Dr. Seth, unsure. “We never discussed it, did we?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “A coincidence, as you said. Nothing more. Shall we go inside? It all looks quite fantastic.”

  It was true; the Fitzgeralds had never skimped when it came to their decorations, and this year was no exception. There was golden satin draped to look like the pyramids of Giza, and there were bright sarcophagi, golden urns filled with palm fronds, burial masks, and stiffened muslin painted with desert scenes covering the walls. Dark blue bunting painted with sparkling stars billowed from the ceiling.

  “Do I hear water?” William asked. “Is there a fountain?”

  “The Nile,” Seth said, nodding to the side of the ballroom, where there was indeed a sinuous trough of water about five feet wide. It trailed from the back of the ballroom, where a small orchestra gathered, to the opposite wall. It appeared to sink into the floor, but if one looked closely, it was plain that t
he floor sloped upward to greet it. They had built a platform to house it, and sand covered its banks; rushes and palm trees bent toward it.

  “Stewart has outdone himself this time,” William said admiringly.

  I knew what he was thinking: When our house is built . . . What we will do then . . . I turned from the pretend river and thought of how tonight was the end of the season. Lent began tomorrow. Until the summer, when we all retired to Newport, there would be no more of these balls where we each tried to outdo the other. Until August I would not have to endure parties or late suppers. I would not have to pretend.

  I drank champagne and mingled with my friends. I felt William’s eyes on me, but he let me go, and after a short time I lost him in the crowd. I tried not to think of Dr. Seth, though I knew where he was at every moment, and I knew he watched me as well.

  Waiters dressed as Egyptian slaves began to circulate with trays of champagne. I had turned to take a glass when my hand met Millicent’s as she reached for the same one.

  “Lucy!” she said in surprise. She was dressed as an Egyptian priestess. “My, Lucy, you look lovely. Who would have thought such plainness would suit you?”

  “William doesn’t like it.”

  “You’re not wearing his rubies.”

  “He was not happy about that either.” There was a thoughtful set to her face that made me curious. I said, “What are you thinking, Millie?”

  “You seem . . . changed,” she said.

  “Do I?”

  “Less . . .”

  “Caged?” The word came from my mouth before I could stop it.

  She frowned. “Perhaps it’s only the gown.”

  But it was not, and I knew it. “No,” I whispered. I pulled Millie closer, half behind the open door of a sarcophagus, and said urgently, “It’s more than that, Millie. I do feel different, and I don’t know why. It’s . . . I’ve been saying things and doing things I don’t even understand. This gown . . . it wasn’t like this at all. It was jeweled and beaded, and there was a girdle, and I couldn’t stand it. I spent all night cutting it off.”

  She looked uncomfortable but not surprised. “Don’t be silly, Lucy. It’s quite striking. You’re the center of attention.”

  “Yes,” I told her miserably. “Because the gown is so plain. But it was not what I wanted. And Millie, I’m having the strangest dreams. I don’t understand myself at all.”

  The silence was loud between us before she looked at me knowingly and said, “Hiram Grace.”

  “Yes.” I gripped her arm, grateful that she understood. “Yes, exactly. I have no idea why I would mock him so. I care nothing for those things. Why, I never knew I had an opinion on them. And then that—to say that—it’s not like me. I’ve never done such a thing before.”

  “You could not have picked a worse man, Lucy,” she said. “You humiliated him. He’s been saying that he thinks you were drunk.”

  “Drunk?”

  “That’s not all,” Millie said in a low voice.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your behavior’s been noticed, Lucy. Hiram Grace is only part of it. Others are talking. They’ve seized on his idea that you’re drinking. Some are even saying you’re verging on mad.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake.”

  Millicent turned, dislodging my hand, and gave me a look that was like a shake. It sent me shrinking into the corner. “Lucy, listen to me. I’ve meant to talk to you about this before now, but . . . It doesn’t matter why I haven’t. Are you still taking laudanum?”

  I frowned at her. “Hardly. A small bit sometimes. I don’t seem to need it so much.”

  “And you’re still seeing this new doctor?”

  Inadvertently, I searched for him. He stood at the punch bowl beside Hiram Grace, who was dressed as an Egyptian prince and looking absurd in the costume, with his white fleshy, hairy legs peeking from layers upon layers of what looked like gold foil. A headdress was slipping from his thinning gray hair. Beside him, the doctor looked young and vibrant. I felt his presence from across the room.

  Millie had followed my gaze. “Him?” she asked. “Victor Seth is your doctor?”

  I shook my head. “He’s simply a friend.”

  I knew Millicent heard the lie in my voice. “Lucy, you have a husband who adores you. William would do anything for you; you’ve the funds and the position to have anything you desire. To turn elsewhere for happiness is foolish.”

  I stared at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “You must be careful,” she said. “Your behavior was acceptable as long as it was simply a fit now and then, or headaches. There isn’t a one of us who hasn’t felt the same. But no one will tolerate what you’ve been doing. You haven’t had your calling day for weeks. Daisy Hadden said she saw you drawing in Washington Square, and when she spoke to you, you looked right through her.”

  “Daisy Hadden? I don’t remember that at all.”

  Millie leaned close. “Tell me you didn’t leave Julia Breckenwood’s entertainment to sketch a picture of her garden, even when there was nothing there but vines and dirt.”

  “Well, yes, I did that, but—”

  “Good Lord, Lucy, you must see how unacceptable that is. What is wrong with you? Ask Seth—or whoever your doctor is—to prescribe something else. Take the laudanum again if you must. After tonight the season is over. You have weeks before Newport. As your friend, I feel I must warn you: Take some rest, or whatever you must do to be yourself again. You know this. Clara Morris and Mamie Fish and the others will have nothing better to do in Newport than make you the summer’s sport. They’ll ruin you without compunction. The Van Berckel name will be no help to you then.” She squeezed my arm. “Please, Lucy. Be careful. You must be careful.”

  She gave me a final pleading look, and then she left me standing there alone. I was afraid. I felt as if my friends stared at me when I passed. I imagined them turning to one another, I imagined their words.

  The room wavered around me. I clutched my skirt in my hand and went searching for air, but the crush was such that I could not get through.

  “Lucy.”

  It was as if I imagined his voice, coming as it did so strongly into my head. I stopped and turned to search for him, and he was there. He held two glasses of champagne, and he smiled and pressed one into my hand, tapping the bottom of the stem with his finger, urging me to drink it. I did, caught—as I always was—by his eyes.

  The champagne eased the tightness in my throat. I curled my fingers around the stem and held it close to my lips.

  “Breathe,” he whispered, and I did. “Now,” he said, “do you feel better?”

  He seemed to read my mind, and the thought made me ner-vous. I laughed a little giddily and said, “How did you know?”

  He nodded toward the doors that were closed against the night. “You were making a beeline for the window.”

  “You were watching me.”

  “That is my job.”

  “Yes,” I said, taking refuge in the champagne. “Yes, of course.”

  “Come, let’s get some air.” He put his hand on my bare arm, urging me forward, but I did not move. He looked down at me with a little smile and said, “What is it, Lucy?”

  Suddenly I understood. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before this moment. The memory of that image he’d suggested to me so long ago—the walk in the woods, the bird—came back to me. “You knew,” I whispered. “You’ve done this to me.”

  “Done what?”

  “Changed me.”

  “Changed you?” He gave me a distracted smile and said, “Of course I have. It’s what you wanted. You’re having fewer fits. Aren’t you happier?”

  “Yes,” I said. “No. I— There are so many strange things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, tonight. This costume. You knew what I would wear tonight. That William and I were coming as Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.”

  “How would I know that?”


  “I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps I told you when I was asleep.”

  “You were never asleep.”

  “Whatever it was. That’s what happened, isn’t it? I told you I was coming as Cleopatra.”

  “If you did, I wouldn’t have expected this kind of costume,” he said. “I would have expected something a bit more . . . elaborate. How could I possibly know that you would choose this?”

  That stopped me, but there was something wrong with his logic. His eyes were dark; was that truth I read in them? “I suppose that’s true,” I said reluctantly.

  “Come,” he said. “Let’s talk about this outside.” He urged me forward again. His hand had been on my arm all this time. I felt a flutter of fear, and of pleasure too. I could not deny the plea-sure, and that frightened me more than anything else.

  I told myself that I went with him only to be away from watching eyes. We went out onto the pavilion that at the beginning of the season would be lit by lanterns and candles, with the doors open to extend the ballroom into cool autumn nights. Dr. Seth closed the doors behind us, and the music turned faint and whispering, the steady hum of talk disappeared. Now there was only the night, and the two of us alone together.

  As we often were, I reminded myself. It was all quite innocent. I pulled away from his hold and walked to the edge of the pavilion, where the marbled floor ended at the narrow lawn overlooking the Astor mansion next door. All the lights in that house were dim; I had seen Caroline Astor earlier that evening, holding court in Malva Fitzgerald’s ballroom as if she owned it.

  Seth’s voice came to me across the darkness, nearly disembodied. “What is it that bothers you tonight, Lucy?”

  “I don’t understand myself,” I said. “I’ve been doing things, saying things. People are beginning to talk.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “That I’m drinking. Or worse.”

  “You aren’t drinking.”

  “But they don’t know that. Or they wouldn’t believe it.”