by Megan Chance
“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.
“Asleep already, darling?” he whispered. “Such a pity. Not even a welcome for your husband after all these days without me?”
I did not answer. I heard him fumble on the tabletop beside the door, the strike of a match, the lighting of another candle. He closed the door and came to my side of the bed, where he stood, shining the candlelight on me so I could no longer pretend. I opened my eyes.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking at you,” he said. “Wondering whose spirit has taken over my sweet wife.”
“Don’t be silly, William.”
“Does he tell you what to say?”
“No, of course not.”
“What does he tell you then?”
“Nothing. He’s helped me, William—even you must see that.”
“Yes.” He sounded confused. “You do seem better, but—”
“But what?”
He paused. “Nothing,” he said, and then, “I went to the house before I came here today. It’s progressing rapidly, Lucy.”
“Is it?”
“McKim is certain we’ll be able to move in by mid-September. I’ve told him I want to hold a ball to open it at the start of October. The sixth, to be precise.”
I rolled onto my back, shielding my eyes from the light. “I can’t possibly have everything ready by then.”
“You will,” he said easily. “I’ve ordered the invitations. Three hundred of them. They should be done in a few weeks. I’ll have them sent here, and you will address them and have them delivered.”
“But William—”
“I don’t ask much of you, Lucy, but on this I must insist. This is the start of our new life. I want nothing to go wrong.”
I could not imagine it. That life seemed so far away.
William stood there holding the light, wavering. I closed my eyes. “I’m tired, William. Put out the light.”
He sighed. “You know, Lucy, I do love you.”
“Yes, I know,” I whispered.
“We’ll be so happy there.” He remained a moment longer, and then he went to his side of the bed and set the candle down. I heard him undress, and then the sputter as he blew out the candle and crawled in beside me. The bed sank beneath his weight, and I stiffened to keep from rolling into the valley between us. My breath came shallow as he turned toward me and put his arm around me, pulling me to him.
“I’m tired, William,” I said.
He released me.
“Yes, of course,” he said, rolling onto his back again, and his voice was so resigned it ached within me. “Forgive me.”
In the morning he was out of bed before I woke, but I heard him talking downstairs, and I smelled the heavy, greasy scents of bacon and potatoes and eggs. Sadie had remembered William’s favorites. I rose and went to the window, pulling aside the drapes. I heard the front door open and close, and then I saw William stepping onto the lawn, walking toward the rocky seawall. He was alone.
I quickly put on my dressing gown, opened the bedroom door as quietly as I could, and hurried down the hall to Victor’s room. The door was closed; he wasn’t up yet. I tapped on it lightly, and before he could answer, I cracked it and peeked in.
He was still abed but awake, staring out the windows. He wore only his union suit, and he looked sleepless and weary, but his face lit when he saw me.
“William’s gone down to the beach,” I whispered. “But I’ve only a minute. He hates the sand.”
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, and he lifted his hand. “Come here,” he said. I went to him, sitting on the edge of the bed, letting him wrap me in his arms, breathing deep his scent. He kissed my jaw, my ear. “How are you this morning, my darling? Do you still belong to me?”
I was so enraptured by the endearment that I barely heard the rest. I was breathless with his affection, with the words he’d never used before. “Yes,” I said. “Oh yes. Always. Tell me to leave him, Victor. Tell me and I will. I swear I will.”
But he did not say the words, and soon I forgot I had asked him to.
Notes from the Journal of Victor Leonard Seth
Re: Eve C.
June 22, 1885
I have retired to Newport Beach with Eve, as her personal doctor. At this critical stage of her treatment, it is preferable that I be with her as often as possible. Here, where she is at her most naturalistic, where she feels an affinity for the endless ocean, her mind is at its most accepting. In the city her newfound self might crumble beneath the onslaught of social habit and the control of her husband. Removed from all of that, under my constant influence, she is becoming a truly marvelous creature.
While her husband is away in the city during the week, Eve is mine to manage without interference. We have spent nearly every moment together, and although one’s environment is uncontrollable and I cannot completely protect her from those who would come between us, I am confident that I have strengthened our bond. She is a strong and vibrant woman, one I have fashioned from whole cloth; one I have improved from a submissive, tentative, neurasthenic woman groping for some way to drug herself into passivity. I continue to be amazed at my success and preoccupied with her every nuance. She belongs to me in a way that no human being has ever belonged to another.
I have had another letter from Hall. He cautions me to temper my enthusiasm. He says I am spending far too much time with a married woman, and that such far-reaching exploration of her sexual bein
g is too dangerous—he believes it can have only disastrous consequences—such hypocrisy from the man who counseled that interrupted coitus and suppressed passion may be a leading factor in her unhappiness, which I have proved to be true. I had quoted Aristotle, “All men by nature desire to know,” and his answer was to accuse me of sophistry: “With your emphasis on the development of the self at the cost of everything else, what then is individualism truly but selfishness? In this poor woman, who has a life beyond yours, who must return to it with a soul that has since known a freedom she cannot hope to grasp again, have you not simply destined someone to be unhappy? To be a pariah? She is a woman, meant to serve others, to live within a certain prescribed world. You have not thought of her life but only of your own scientific inquiries. Is it your right to ask those sacrifices? Is it your right to play God with this poor woman’s mind? Your goal, my friend, should have been to teach her to find happiness in her role, to teach her to be happy within her femininity, and not to urge her to seek pleasure and fulfillment in a world she is not allowed access to. She is not, after all, a man.”
He misses the point: that I have created someone; that hypnosis and other aspects of treatment have forged a new soul. The idea that it can even be done is remarkable, and yet he dares to question me on the grounds of morality. What is morality but another way humans hold one another in bondage? Should science and truth be held in thrall to such a manufactured thing?
Hall is wrong; I find no agreement with the Sophists and their beliefs that absolute truths are unknowable. Socrates said that through rational thinking and logic one can find universal truth, and that is what I believe, that is what I have found in Eve. I have proved that the will is not only knowable but pliable. She is on her way to becoming the kind of woman I have never before seen. I must continue on, I cannot rest, I am full of her. When Hall and the others see what I have done, they will understand. Until then she belongs to me.
Chapter 21
When William left again, the rest of the world came knocking.
As Victor and I sat on the porch or in the side yard, I saw the wagons come. There was a regularity to them, at least one a day, loaded down with trunks and boxes, with women who waved at me and men who tipped their hats. The cards began to make their appearance, sent by servants to announce arrivals; they rested in a pile on the silver salver in the foyer. The early time, the alone time, was over so soon. I cursed myself for not coming earlier, for not finding weeks alone with Victor instead of only days. But William never would have allowed that, so I resigned myself to the ending of idyllic hours.
The first supper was at Millicent’s. She had been coming to Newport only the last two years, and her husband had bought a house farther down Bellevue Avenue—a ten-room cottage they were busily adding onto and redecorating.
The regular crowd was still small and intimate, so Millie had invited a faster set as well. They were a welcome diversion now, before August brought Caroline Astor and her social watchdogs. Twenty or so of us gathered that night in Millie’s sea- motifed dining room, and I was aware every moment of where Victor was in the room; it took all my will to keep from monopolizing him, touching him, showing them all that he belonged to me. I was distracted enough that I found it hard to listen to Alma Fister as she leaned close to me at the table.
“I could hardly bring her with me,” she was saying in a loud whisper. “She insisted that she be allowed to go back to the city once a week to take her wages to her mother. How could I possibly allow such a thing? I mean, really, how important can a few cents be? I’ve half a mind to let her go as it is—the way she looks at me is so impudent. I can hardly give her an order that she isn’t mocking me with her eyes. But you know how difficult it is to get a good servant, and she does my hair so wonderfully.”
“Perhaps she only wants a few hours to herself,” I said.
Alma looked at me as if I’d just committed heresy. Her dark brows rose high, accenting the odd contrast between them and her rapidly graying hair. “Why, she’s a servant, Lucy. She’ll take what hours I choose to give her. And I simply can’t afford to lend her the time. What with all the promenades and parties, I need someone constantly to attend to my hair.”
“You could forgo one or two hours. I expect it would hardly make a difference. You might even find you like it. I’ve taken several hours for myself. Just to sit idly on the beach is invigo-rating.”
“Have you?” Alma’s blue gaze darted down the table. “How do you manage to do that with a guest about?”
She had looked to where Victor sat, not far away, engaged in conversation with Millicent. I smiled patiently. “Victor spends much of his time engrossed in his work, I’m afraid. I’ve tried to convince him to go out himself, but he claims he came here for peace and quiet.”
“A pity William doesn’t find his way here more often. He could take Victor out to the Reading Room or the Casino.”
“Yes, but William’s quite busy. It’s a wonder he’s managed to be here every weekend.”
“It’s so hard for them to get away,” Alma commiserated. “Gerald complains of it often.” Alma’s husband usually spent his weekends not at his summer estate with his wife and her friends, who searched constantly for the next amusement, but anchored in the bay, watching the goings-on from his yacht, the Mary Dare.
Alma whispered, “You would think Steven Breckenwood would at least attempt to do the same.” She glanced at Julia Breckenwood, who sat a short distance away, and whose presence made me anxious—I had not forgotten William’s words regarding her and Victor—and wrinkled her nose. “Poor Julia. Everyone knows he’s been seeing that little actress. It’s quite scandalous. We must do what we can to keep Julia occupied this summer.”
There was laughter at the end of the table. Victor was smiling in that diffident way he had. I heard him say, “Mesmer was interested primarily in magnetic energy.”
“Oh yes, I’ve read all about it,” Leonard Ames—one of the few men at the table and well known as Alma’s Newport monkey—spoke eagerly. He took a sip of his wine. “Something about some energy fluid that runs through the body, isn’t it? Didn’t he use magnets to direct it? Quite fascinating, really. Is that what you do, Victor? Have you your magnets? Perhaps we can try it out.”
“It’s not the same thing at all,” Victor said impatiently. “There was nothing scientific about it. Human magnetism has nothing to do with hypnosis—nor, for that matter, does celestial magnetism.”
Alma frowned. “Celestial magnetism?”
“A kind of spiritualism, I gather,” Leonard put in. “Can you summon the dead, Victor? Let’s have a séance.”
“And wake them from their graves?” Victor asked wryly. “Leave that to the charlatans. I’ve nothing to do with it.”
“Then what do you do?” Alma asked. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Hypnotism is simply a form of sleep,” Victor explained sharply, “where a suggestion is made to the unconscious mind to modify behavior.”
Leonard leaned forward eagerly, sloshing droplets of wine on the tablecloth. “You mean that if I were having trouble sleeping, you could make a suggestion that I sleep and I would?”
“It depends on the strength of your will,” Victor said. “But yes, essentially.”
“You mean you take over someone’s will?”
“It’s not possible with everyone; but in some cases, yes.”
“You could make me do anything you wanted me to do?” Leonard poured more wine. “Could you make me do something like, well . . .”
“He’s terribly shy, really,” Millie said, and everyone laughed. “Could you make him do something truly outrageous?”
“Probably.” Victor eyed Leonard speculatively.
“Oh, please, try,” Leonard said. “Show me how this hypnosis works.”
“Will you, Victor?” Alma asked.
“It’s not a parlor game,” Victor said.
“Well, of course,” Millie put in. “But perhap
s seeing it would explain it to us a little better. And it’s been such a dull week. I’m sure we could all use some amusement.”
It surprised me when he considered it. They were all sitting forward, as if by the very pressure of their movement they could get him to agree. I found myself urging him as well. He was a brilliant man, and I wanted them to understand him. I wanted them to think of him as I did. When he looked at me, I nodded and said, “Perhaps you can make them understand.”
He set down his goblet. “Very well,” he said, “but I must remind you that this isn’t a game.”
“Take me first.” Leonard stood, spreading his arms as if sacrificing himself. “I’ve a longing to see how it feels to have no will.”
“I would have thought you’d already know what that feels like,” Julia said.
The rest of the table laughed, as did Leonard. “Well, then, to see what it feels like to have someone else’s.” He widened his eyes. “I shall be a new creature. Like Frankenstein’s monster.”
Victor stood. “Perhaps someone less dramatic,” he said. “Perhaps Julia?”
All eyes went to her. Julia set down her napkin, licking her lips with a little nervousness. Her expression was reproachful, even petulant, but she smiled and said, “Of course,” and rose against Leonard’s loud protests.
“Do you have a comfortable chair, Millie?” Victor asked.
“In the parlor.” Millie got to her feet, ushering us all from the dining room. They followed Victor like rats after the Pied Piper, seduced by his charisma, as I had been. We went from the dining room into the first parlor, which also was decorated in a sea theme, with settees and chairs of aqua silk, glass jars of shells, wallpaper flocked in shades of sand. Victor motioned Julia to the settee and pulled a chair opposite her in a formation that reminded me of his office. I knew what Julia was feeling as he sat across from her, and I saw with a small shock that it was familiar to her as well. She seemed comfortable and calm, as if she knew what was going to happen. I felt a keen stab of jealousy. I wondered why he had not chosen me.
