An Inconvenient Wife (15 page)

T
he 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, against 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.

He looked flushed, as if he had come some distance, and quickly. He still wore his coat and his hat, which he took off with
an apology when he saw me.

“You’re late, Doctor,” I said.

“Forgive me. I was unavoidably delayed.” While he unbuttoned his coat, I opened the book in my hand, letting the pages turn
without intervention, watching the words go by. Then he was behind me. He took the book from my hand and snapped it shut.
Startled, I stepped away.

“You move too quietly,” I said.

“
The Temples of Aesculapius,”
he read. “Are you interested in the ancient Romans?”

“I hardly know.”

“Asklepios was the son of Apollo. The cult named after him flourished for many years, well into the Christian era. They built
temples for healing. Particularly for hysteria.”

“Did they use hypnosis as well?”

“A form of it. They worked often through dreams.” He put the book back on the shelf. “Now, Lucy, suppose you tell me how the
Morris ball went last night.”

“William was worried that I might do something foolish.”

“Did you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I moved away from him, running my gloved fingers along the edge of his desk, picking up a fine film
of dust. “I had the strangest thought while we were dancing.”

“Yes?”

“I took off my gloves,” I said. “I couldn’t bear the feel of them another moment. It was so odd.”

“How did taking them off make you feel?”

“As if I could breathe again,” I said. “It was such a relief—at first. And then I was appalled. I haven’t done anything like
that since I was a girl.”

“Before your father threw your paints away.”

“Yes.” I glanced at him, and then I remembered. “But I was always too rebellious then. Thankfully, I’ve learned my place.”

“You were rebellious,” Dr. Seth repeated. He leaned against the bookcase lazily, but his eyes were alert, intense. “How so?”

“With my painting, of course.” I moved to the window. “But even before that. There was the poetry, and before that, the church.”

“The church? I fail to see how those things are rebellious. It sounds like the usual course of events for a young girl.”

I laughed a little nervously. “Yes, perhaps. But not the way I went about it. I was in the grip of religious fervor. I went
nearly every day until Papa put an end to it, and then I fought him. I cried and cried. I told him I would run away and join
a convent.”

“What happened?”

“It passed. That was when I found Byron.” I touched the window; the cold of the day seeped through the glass and my gloves
into my fingertips. “He thought I would run off to the Continent and learn terrible French ways and be irredeemable. It would
not do. I am his only child.”

“Would you have done that, given the chance?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and the knowledge made me sad, though I was not sure why. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

In the glass, I saw the vague image of him behind me, but only as the fading color of his reflection, only the slight movement
of his fingers as they moved upon his face. Then he said, “The window. Once again, Lucy, you seem drawn to the window.”

I jerked back my hand.

“How old were you when your mother died?”

I turned, confused by his question. “Ten.”

“When did you turn to religion?”

“I suppose it was not long after that. I was eleven, perhaps, or twelve.”

“How did she die?”

I did not like to talk of it. “She drowned.”

“Were you with her when it happened?”

“No, I wasn’t. That is, I was at the summer house, but I wasn’t at the beach with her.”

“Was this in Newport?”

“No, no, it was long before we took a cottage there. It was upriver—on the Hudson.” I remembered it well, though I had been
there so long ago. “It was a beautiful place. It had been my great-grandfather’s summer house.”

“Do you go there still?”

“My father sold it after Mama died. I heard it was torn down.”

Seth stroked his small beard. “What was your mother like?”

“Papa says I look like her, but I don’t remember her well any longer.”

“Did you love her?”

“She was my mother.”

He smiled a little. “Did you love her?”

I was growing used to these questions. “She was . . . very quiet. Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. Papa was a much
bigger presence.”

“Did you love her, Lucy?”

“I don’t remember,” I admitted. “I don’t really think of her at all. I’m not sure I ever did, even when she was alive.”

“Do you remember the day she died?”

“Only as a great fog.”

Again the thoughtful expression that made me nervous. Dr. Seth went slowly to the red chair, then motioned me to the other
one, and I went as though under his spell, unquestioning.

When I was seated, he leaned forward and took my hand, turning it in his so my palm was up, and then he said, “We’re going
to remember that day, Lucy.”

When I woke, it was to find my arms around his neck and my face pressed into his shirt, which was wet with my tears. He was
holding me tightly, but as I came to myself, he let me go.

“You’ll be at peace tonight, Lucy,” he said, but I only nodded, embarrassed at such intimacy, feeling awkward and nervous
as I pulled away and went for my coat.

I did not ask him what had happened. I did not want to know.

From the Journal of Victor Leonard Seth

Re: Mrs. C., whom I will now refer to as Eve C.

February 3, 1885

Things have transpired in this case that I could not have dared to imagine. I find myself unable to proceed as I have been
directed. I cannot, after all, resist the temptation that has presented itself.

But to start at the beginning: At our last meeting, I made a suggestion during hypnosis that Eve C. remove her gloves when
she was dancing with her husband. I had hoped to gain some insight into whether Eve’s unconscious would respond to a suggestion
that fed in to her innermost wishes, or whether her will would overpower it and the habit of reason would hold. Eve would
have been brought up with the severe etiquette of dancing with gloves on. The upper class do not touch; bare skin is anathema
to them. The suggestion went against everything Eve has known, learned, or understood about her life. I had to know: Would
she do it? And if she did, what would she feel about it?

She told me during our appointment that ultimately she had taken off the gloves and, in doing so, was struck by an intense
sense of pleasure and freedom.

My theory had proved correct. When presented with the opportunity, her
unconscious mind can overpower her will
.
This is a stunning discovery, and it made me wonder what power her unconscious could have if it were given free rein. Could
I lead it, through hypnosis, to completely overtake her reason? Could I change her will?

To be given what I so ardently wish for—to have in my hands a subject who can help me win the respect of my colleagues, one
who can help me prove the power of the unconscious mind, and yet to be told to ignore this knowledge, to proceed as she and
her husband wish, to rid her of her unconscious passion—