An Inconvenient Wife (27 page)

“Lucy!”

“Well, it’s true, William. You know it as well as I.”

“But—”

“Daisy knows it too. As long as she gets a weekly box from Tiffany’s, she doesn’t care.”

He was quiet, and I looked up to see him staring at me, a speculative expression on his face.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“What’s happened to you?” he asked. “What’s happened to my kind little wife?”

“Perhaps she’s grown tired of kindness.”

He took a deep breath. “Perhaps we should stay home for a while.”

I waved him away. “Soon it will be summer and you can send me off to Newport, where I won’t embarrass you.”

He looked thoughtful, and I felt a twinge of guilt that I banished quickly.

“Perhaps we should stay home this year,” he said. “The house . . .”

“William, it won’t be finished for months. There’s no reason to stay in the city.”

“McKim expects it will be done by the start of the season,” he said.

Already the house was rising into the air, brownstone and wood. I could not drive by it without thinking of it as prison walls.
“There will be something else to change,” I said. “There always is.”

“It will all come together more quickly than you think. And we’ve barely begun to furnish it.”

“Jean-Baptiste has it well under control,” I said. “Oh, William, you can’t mean not to go to Newport. I simply must.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said.

“But I would.”

“Yes. You’d shrivel up without your sea breezes and that wretched seaweed.”

“You can mock me all you like,” I said, feeling defiant. “I will go alone, then.”

He took a deep breath. His eyes grew sad. “You’ve changed, Lucy,” he said.

I turned away. “Yes, thank God. You should be grateful. I haven’t had a fit in ages.”

“That’s true,” he agreed, but I sensed that he was less happy about that than he had expected to be. When he said, “Don’t
make me regret being generous, Lucy,” I stared after him, perplexed and anxious as he left me.

I wanted no more of his silent thoughtfulness, or my sense that he saw more than I wanted him to see. Newport lingered like
a beacon before me.

My trunks were packed days before we were to take the steamer over, and I was not relieved until Narragansett Bay was before
me and I saw the huge yellow pagoda of the Ocean House Hotel and the waves splashing lazily against the boulders of Purgatory
Rocks. Then I felt my spirit leap to meet it.

A local woman, Sadie Longstreet, cared for the house during the rest of the year. As in other years, she had sent her son
David with a wagon for our trunks. The breeze was slight and full of salt, the elms bordering the street lending graceful
shade. Budding hydrangeas were bright green against weathered clapboards.

“Right on schedule,” David said as he tipped his hat to William and me. His shaggy dark hair fell forward, and he shoved it
back again beneath the brim. His teeth were stained from tobacco, but other than that, he was a handsome young man and much
stronger than his lanky frame suggested. He lifted our trunks easily and settled them in the wagon, then he helped me up beside
him while William perched in the bed.

“What’s changed, David?” I asked him, and he gave me a sideways glance.

“Now, ma’am,” he said. “You know nothing ever changes here.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” William muttered from behind me.

I ignored him, and we moved off, leaving the weathered and picturesque little town behind, making our way down Bellevue Avenue,
where the rocky, shallow cliffs and hills gave way to rolling lawns and summer cottages that had grown steadily larger in
the years since we’d first come here.

Seaward, our cottage, was one of the smaller ones. It was wood, instead of stone or marble, and no château. It was a charming
house, with mansard roofs over the dormers and striped awnings covering the porch that wrapped all the way around, with graceful
steps down to the lawn and bushy hydrangeas and climbing roses bordering the sides. The windows were wide and blinking in
the sun, the drapes already opened by the efficient Sadie, the wicker furniture set out on porch floors swept clean of sand
or debris tossed by winter storms.

When we arrived, I was so eager I leaped from the wagon nearly before it was stopped. I hurried from the drive to the front
porch, where Sadie waited at the door.

“Welcome, Mrs. Carelton,” she said. “It’s all ready for you. I had David repaint the porch in the spring, and I made sure
to scrub it this time, like you asked last year. I’ve removed all the dustcovers and aired out the mattresses. I think you’ll
find it quite satisfactory.”

“Oh, it’s lovely,” I said.

She frowned. My arrival last year came to me: how tired I’d been, how nervous. How the porch was in such a state, and the
rooms felt damp, and I needed to lie down immediately to quiet my pounding head.

The thought embarrassed me, and when she stepped back from the door, I went inside quickly. The entryway was big and square,
the hardwood floors gleaming. In the middle rose the staircase with its simple balustrades, smelling of beeswax. The doorways
were large and arched, so it seemed all the downstairs rooms connected to the hall and to one another. The breezes whirled
through on hot summer days, crossing in little eddies of current, so it was impossible to stand in the entry and not be cooled.

It looked as if I had just left yesterday. I went from room to room as David brought the trunks inside and lumbered upstairs
with them. The door of the first parlor, whose windows fronted the ocean, led onto the wide porch that shaded it. The back
parlor was all in green, with a calm, even light that shone on the piano and shelves filled with books—they would not fade
here, where the sun was not so harsh. The dining room opened onto the porch as well, and the kitchen held on its shelves green
and cranberry glass, dishes sturdier than what I kept in the city; there were so many alfresco dinners here.

Then there was the upstairs—five bedrooms, all with large windows and shining wooden floors covered by rugs in stripes or
florals. The room I’d had as a girl, done in roses, opened onto a small terrace; the room that had been Papa’s and now was
mine and William’s fronted the beach and led onto a huge balcony covered with an awning. In the past, we’d often taken our
morning coffee there.

I went up to the third floor, where the rooms, tucked under the eaves, were hot even in the early summer and would be sweltering
later. Those in the back of the house were the servants’ quarters; the front rooms were used for storage and sometimes as
extra guest rooms. There were fishing rods and nets and baskets for gathering shells, and wardrobes filled with bathing costumes
and boots and old summer hats and gloves for gardening.

I stood in the most forward of these and shoved open the window—a hard pound at each corner, because it had shrunk into the
frame during the winter—and leaned out and breathed in the fresh air and watched David unload the trunks, and William as he
walked out onto the lawn, examining it for flaws, pausing halfway across, putting his hands on his hips to stare out at the
ocean and the rocks that jutted from a promontory. He seemed a stranger to me, a man wearing a dark coat and hat where they
were so unsuited. I thought of Victor, of when he would come, and I felt both elated and nervous, because I had not yet told
William that Victor was coming to stay as a guest for a time—we had not yet determined how long. In my mind I had outlined
already the entire summer with him at my side, and though I did not think my husband would protest—many guests had stayed
for so long—I did not think he had quite put aside his reservations about Victor’s treatment. I was unsure what his reaction
would be.

Better not to give him notice at all, I had determined. Better to bring Victor out to play the available bachelor during the
summer, the way Lester Hines had done last year with Minnie Stevens, and that writer fellow with Alva Brooks. The ladies loved
it. Men to play escort during the week, when husbands were away. Yes, that was what I would pretend.

William glanced up at the window where I stood, and I felt caught by my thoughts. When he waved at me, I could barely lift
my fingers in answer. Instead I shut the window and hurried downstairs to the bedroom and began to fumble with the trunks
David had brought up, unpacking feverishly. I could not wait to be ensconced, to be permanent.

That night the two of us had supper on the veranda. It was a beautiful night, with the sunset gold and pink and purple and
the water deepest blue, with dark, foamy crests, and a breeze that pushed away the heat of the day. Sadie had set an intimate
table, with candles that called moths to flitter about the flames. William seemed preoccupied, and I wanted nothing more than
for the next day to fly by, to reach Monday again, so we ate in silence. When Sadie took our plates away and brought a final
course of pretty strawberry ices, my appetite was gone. I slipped my spoon into the molded pinkness and stirred it into a
melted puddle.

“Is something wrong?” William asked.

I glanced up, startled by the sound of his voice. “No, of course not.”

“You seem especially quiet tonight,” he said. He pointed with his spoon to the mess on my plate. “And you haven’t eaten any
of your ice cream.”

“I’m quite full.”

“I see,” he said. He took another spoonful of his own. When he’d swallowed, he said, “You could have stayed in town, you know,
Lucy.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You could keep your appointments.”

“My appointments?”

“With Victor.”

I was conscious suddenly of making a great mistake. I tried to smooth over it; I laughed lightly and said, “Oh, that. Yes,
well, you see, William, we’ve talked quite a bit about that, and we decided it would be much better if I didn’t stop seeing
him over the summer. He believes I’m not quite ready to be on my own for so long.”

“Does he?” William spoke wryly. “Yes, that doesn’t surprise me. He’s said as much to me before. How long does he expect this
to go on?”

I began to feel nervous. “I don’t know. He’s never said.”

“A year? Longer than that?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“Perhaps it would be best if you
did
take the summer off. We could see then how well you do without him.”

“But you see, he thinks it’s too soon to try.”

“Really, Lucy, you can’t expect to take the steamer into the city twice a week. You might as well stay at home.”

I fingered the lace edging of the napkin in my lap. “Of course you’re right.”

He was quiet. When I glanced up again, it was to find him staring at me. “Why do I have the idea that you’re not telling me
something?”

“It’s just that I hadn’t the opportunity,” I said, rushing on. “I meant to tell you, but there was so much to do to get ready,
and I thought you’d disagree—”

“Disagree about what?”

I tried to smile. “Why, that Victor should come here. It’s truly the best plan all around. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea
to end my treatment for the summer, and I had no wish to stay in town, and many of his patients will be summering elsewhere,
and so it seemed best for him to come to Newport.”

“He’s closing his practice for the summer so he can attend to you?”

“No, that’s not it at all.”

“I don’t pay him enough to do that.”

“That’s not what he’s doing. He won’t be dancing attendance on me constantly. He’ll go into the city occasionally, I’m sure.”

“Occasionally?”

I squirmed. “Or perhaps more often than that.”

“This is beyond absurd. Who ever heard of a doctor doing such a thing?”

“I’ve told you, he believes there’s still so much work to do.”

“I see. And where will Victor be staying while he attends to you? At the Ocean House?”

“The hotel is falling apart, William, you know it is. Hardly anyone who’s anyone goes there anymore, and we’ve so much room
here.”

“You’ve invited him to Seaward.”

His voice was flat. I said as brightly as I could, “Why shouldn’t I? We have guests here all the time. Last summer you brought
James Willard to stay the entire month of July, and left it to me to entertain him.”

William looked thoughtfully at me. “I suppose you’re right,” he said at last, reaching for his glass. “I suppose there can
be no harm, especially now that Seth is linked to Julia.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I said: You’re right. There’s no harm in it, certainly.”

“No, what did you say about Julia? Julia . . . Breckenwood?”

“Didn’t you know?” he asked rather smugly. “I would have thought you’d heard the gossip.”

“No, of course not,” I snapped. “I’m not about all day, listening to stock messengers and standing at lunch counters.”

“I’m too busy to come home at noon, Lucy, you know that. And I thought you preferred it this way.”

“What gossip have you heard?”

He shrugged. “John Bradley said he saw them together at Daisy Hadden’s country house. I believe Victor was there for the weekend,
and Julia had come down the day before.”

It took all my will to adopt a nonchalant tone, to say, “Perhaps she’s become his patient.”

“If she has, she’d never say, though I’ve heard nothing of her health failing. No, Steven was out of town last month. No doubt
Julia was just lonely.”

“No doubt.”

“Steven says she’ll be coming to By-the-Bay next week.”

“How nice,” I managed.

“So Victor will have someplace else to go, should he grow tired of playing doctor.”

He was watching me, measuring. I smiled, though it felt a tremendous effort, and said, “Yes. I would hate for him to be bored.”

William reached into his pocket for a cigar and bit off the end, spitting it into the hydrangeas. Then he lit it in the candle
flame, puffing so the flame grew high and bright. A nearby moth nearly singed its wings.

He sat back in his chair, puffing contentedly. The smell settled in a cloud around my nose, so I thought of Victor and his
cigars, and the sickness rose in my stomach. I could barely sit there companionably with my husband.