An Inconvenient Wife (26 page)

“I must go out,” I told her. “Ready my burgundy walking suit.”

“Will you be needing the carriage, ma’am? Should I tell Jimson?”

“Yes. Tell him to bring the brougham around.”

I turned to the window and stared across at the park, allowing myself the smile I’d hidden from Moira.

I knew that William had gone to see Victor yesterday, and that Victor had persuaded him that I still needed care. William
had reluctantly allowed me to continue seeing the doctor “for now,” as he put it, but I had heard nothing from Victor and
had worried. I’d thought so much about him that I assumed it must be obvious to everyone, and now my anticipation threatened
to burst through my skin. He had sent word, as I’d wanted, but I had expected more. Words of love, perhaps, some sign that
he felt as I did, anything. The note was so brief and so plain. What would he tell me when I went to his office? What did
he mean to do? Would it be as it had been two nights ago, or had that simply been an aberration, something he would apologize
for, a terrible mistake? I did not know whether I could bear it if he did that. I tried not to question myself or think about
what my desire really meant or how I had betrayed my husband.

When the outfit was laid out, I dressed as quickly as possible, cursing Moira inwardly for her fumbling slowness as she fastened
the tapes of the bustle about my waist. My mouth was dry, and I felt I was shaking, though I saw in the mirror that I looked
perfectly composed. When I left the house, not a hair was out of place; I looked like a woman going about her business, not
what I felt I was: a woman rushing to an assignation with a lover.

Jimson was waiting. When we reached Lower Broadway and he helped me down, I stood looking at the building before me. How things
had changed since I’d last seen it. But now it was not evening, and the lights in the little shop were on, the sidewalks were
full of men bustling about and street sweepers brushing madly away and men unloading crates and barrels onto the walk. I hurried
through them, not wanting to waste a single moment. I could barely contain myself when I reached his door, when I pulled it
open.

The outer office was empty. Irene was nowhere to be seen. I did not wait to see if she would appear; I went to his door and
rapped sharply upon it. I did not think I could bear those few seconds before he called, “Come in.”

I turned the knob and stepped inside, unsure of what I would see, afraid that it would not be what I wanted.

The electric lights were off; the room was dimly lit by the bright daylight surging around the cracks of the lowered blinds.
He was at his desk. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his hair was tousled, much as it had been the other night.
I carefully closed the door behind me and stood there composed and erect, searching his face for something, some sign.

He’d been writing. He put down his pen and said, “I wasn’t certain you would come.”

“Of course I would come.” How breathless I sounded.

“William told you, then, that he came to see me?”

“Yes.”

“And the result?”

“He said he had agreed to continue my treatment. ‘For now,’ he said.”

“Is that how he worded it? Did he tell you that he told me it was you who wished to end it?”

“No,” I said. I pressed my hands together. I felt a little faint. “No, of course not. Of course that’s not what I wish.”

“Are you sure, Lucy?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

He looked satisfied, even smug, but not relieved, as I had hoped. He had said nothing to reassure me; he had not referred
to the other night at all. I felt miserable again and could not take my eyes from him, yearning for him so that I could not
quite think.

He had not moved from his desk. He jotted a note in his notebook, and I began to perspire.

Then he rose, and I began to resent him for his obvious calm, for not mentioning the other night, for not touching me or kissing
me, for not seeing how I wanted him.

“Take off your cloak,” he said. “Come and sit down.”

“Only my cloak?” I asked him, and his gaze shot to mine with an intensity that took my breath.

“Sit down,” he said.

I did as he asked. He had turned to the window, and when I sat, he turned back again. I saw how restless he was now that he
was standing, how he could not quite be still. He came toward me.

“Are you going to hypnotize me?”

He paused behind the other red chair.

I reached for the buttons on my collar. “You said you wanted to see all of me. Shall I start now?”

He swallowed. His voice sounded strangled when he said, “There are other things we must work on.”

“Such as?”

“I’d planned to make a suggestion regarding your drawing.”

“It’s unnecessary. William has forbidden it.”

He didn’t look at me. “If you truly want to be the woman I think you can be—”

“I want only you, Victor. Please, I’ve thought of nothing but you. Haven’t you thought of me? Didn’t the other night matter
to you at all?” I rose and stepped toward him, moving around the chair that shielded him. “The woman you talk about, the woman
you want me to be, shouldn’t this be a part of it? Shouldn’t I know about passion?”

“Yes, of course,” he said.

“Then I want you to show me,” I said. “Teach me how to be that woman. I want to learn.”

“Your . . . expectations must be . . . tempered,” he said. “Only then can . . .” He looked at me. “Only then . . .”

I hardly heard his words. I knew only that he was wavering, that I had him, and I reached for him, putting my hand on his
chest, curling my fingers against his suit coat.

“Lucy,” he whispered, and I was triumphant.

He pulled me close and kissed me with his open mouth, as desperate and hungry as I was.

“I’ve given Irene the afternoon off,” he murmured, kissing my cheek, my jaw, my throat, fumbling with the buttons at the front
of my bodice until we were both working together. My fingers jerked against his as we unfastened them.

“The things women wear,” he said as I shrugged from my bodice and stepped from my skirt. He was struggling with the tapes
of my bustle and the crinolette. When they were loose, he flung them away from me; I heard the springy scrape of the bustle
as it bounced against the wall and slid to the floor. I stood before him in only my corset and stockings, and he fell to his
knees before me and unfastened my garters, pushing the stockings down my legs, rolling them off. I took off the corset cover
and undid the front fastenings of the corset, and then he was standing again, pressing against me, roughly shoving the straps
of my chemise from my shoulders so it pooled at my waist, and I was naked in a way I had never been before. I could not remember
even William having seen me thus, and when Victor backed away to look at me, his gaze was so assessing that I crossed my arms
over my breasts in sudden shyness.

He shrugged from his suit coat, pulling his braces down and unbuttoning his shirt, and then his underwear, so that when he
came to me and pushed my hands away, I felt his skin against my breasts, and I lost myself completely. I had no more sense
of who I was or what I was doing, only that I wanted him, and before I knew it, we were on the floor, completely naked, and
I could hear nothing but my own cries and the rush of his breath.

“Is this what you want, Lucy?” he asked. “Is this why you came to me?”

I could only say, “Yes, yes,” and move against him and clutch him, gasping and trembling as I climaxed in his arms. How had
I lived without this before now? How could I live without it after?

“I’ve changed my mind,” I whispered. “I’m no longer falling in love with you. I am in love with you.”

He looked up, his weight still on me, his hair falling into his face. “This is all simply—”

“Don’t say it,” I warned, putting my finger against his lips. “Don’t ruin it.”

He pushed my hand away. “Love only complicates things. It can only imprison you. You said you loved William when you married
him, didn’t you?”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” I said. “Don’t say his name.”

“You can’t deny it. You did love him.”

“I thought I did,” I protested. “But I didn’t know. There was never anything like this. There won’t ever be. My life with
him is over.”

“It can’t be over, Lucy.”

“It is. I’ll tell him the truth. I’ll tell him I’m in love with you.”

“No.” His gaze was burning. His weight pressed me into the floor. “It would ruin everything.” His insistence surprised me.
“You’re weak now,” he went on before I could speak. “If you tell him the truth, he’ll destroy you. You’re not strong enough
to withstand social destruction alone.”

“But I won’t be alone. I’ll have you.”

“A Jew who lives in a tenement?”

“A doctor. A neurologist.”

“A hypnotist, Lucy. Think about it. You yourself called me a charlatan when we first met. Your father still believes that’s
what I am. This city hasn’t even begun to understand science. They don’t hear the word
hypnotism
without thinking of Mesmer. To them it’s some ridiculous parlor trick without study and experimentation, without results.
We would be pariahs, both of us. Is that what you want?”

“We would be together.”

“Your romantic notions are misplaced,” he said dryly. “Poverty is its own kind of prison. Social banishment is only another
set of chains.”

“You want me to stay with William.”

“For now.”

“For how long?”

He rolled onto his side, tracing my breast and stroking to my rib. I began to melt again, to want him.

“Just tell me what to do,” I murmured as his hand stroked down the soft underside of my arm, a steady caress. “I’ll do whatever
you say.”

Notes from the Journal of Victor Leonard Seth

Re: Eve C.

April 25, 1885

I have convinced Eve’s husband to allow treatment to continue, and Eve has not only agreed, she has given me carte blanche.

Today I planted the suggestion that she would want above all things to see me, in spite of any persuasion by her husband or
anyone else against me. I have also reinforced my insistence on secrecy and instructed that she continue her life
as it is
until I determine she is ready to make decisions about her future.

Newport Beach, Rhode Island

June 1885

T
his year I packed for Newport with an excitement that far surpassed any other season’s.

Though I’d always loved Newport, and the chance to summer at the cottage my father had owned since he sold the summer house
on the Hudson, I had been growing to love it less and less. When I was a child, it had been a wonderful place, full of sea
breezes that rushed through the open windows and swept papers and knickknacks to the floor, and the sound of the waves rushing
upon the beach, and an expanse of lawn that rolled right to the edge of the sea. But now the rest of New York had discovered
it as well, and the summers that I’d spent alone and free had become full of social strictures and rigid schedules and notions
of etiquette that were as confining as New York City’s, with the addition of hot summer weather and sand.

This year, however, I was restless with my haste to go. The months could not pass quickly enough for me. Though I had held
tight to Victor’s conviction that I must stay with William, I wanted to spend some time without my husband. He would be able
to leave his work only on the weekends, and I was giddy with the freedom that promised.

The strain of this last month had worn on me. In the beginning I could not look at my husband without remembering what Victor
and I had done together—what we continued to do—but it became easier, my guilt and shame fading to acceptance; no, more than
that. It was as if my relationship with Victor were somehow a reward for all that marriage to William had taken from me, all
that my father’s dominance had taken from me. It had become my birthright, and in light of that, my guilt faded. But what
took its place was harder and less elastic. What took its place was resentment and impatience. I could not see William without
wishing him away, and the time we spent together became harder to bear.

Victor and I still met twice a week, but we gradually saw each other even more often. First an extra hour seized in his office,
and then, as he continued his ascent into my social circle, minutes grasped on an outdoor terrace, in an abandoned room down
a darkened hallway, stolen kisses. Oh, how I loved him. It seemed that the stronger my love grew for him, the more I chafed
at the social schedule that had kept me so bound for so long.

It began with my unwillingness to go to Daisy Hadden’s country house for two weeks.

“But you’ve always gone,” William protested. “She expects it of you.”

“Well, I don’t wish to go,” I told him. “I haven’t time.”

“You haven’t time? Good God, Lucy, you do nothing.”

“Daisy hasn’t a brain in her head,” I said. “She’s the most boring company I know, and I won’t spend another moment admiring
those diamonds Moreton gave her because he feels guilty over meeting Madeline Hoover at the Metropolitan Hotel.”