An Inconvenient Wife (38 page)

It was late when I heard the faint knock on the door. It opened slowly and carefully to show William. I had not been asleep.
I’d turned off the electric lights and lit a candle, and it was by that dim light that I saw him for the first time in almost
three months. He looked tired and worried, but when he saw me awake, he came to sit on the edge of my bed.

“Lucy, darling,” he said, with outstretched hands. “Forgive me for not being here. How I’ve missed you. . . . Have you seen
the house? What do you think of it?”

I let him take me into his arms. I pressed my face briefly against his chest, but my skin rebelled against him; I could not
stand to touch him. It was all I could do to keep my expression impassive. “It’s lovely, William,” I said. “But you knew that.”

“Do you like your room?” He gestured about. “It was quite easy, actually, to find the look of it. Everything in it reminds
me of you. It’s so delicate. So fragile.” He gave me an anxious look as if trying to find something in my face to reassure
him. “Dr. Little says you’re quite recovered. Is it true?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “I feel much better.”

“His letters over the last months were distressing.”

“Thank goodness you had the house to comfort you,” I said.

He frowned. “You can’t think it meant more to me than you. I was desperate, Lucy. You must believe me. I had no idea what
to do. After what Seth—”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” I said quickly.

William looked surprised, then comforted. He said carefully, “Should I take this to mean that you are . . . that you are quite
. . . finished with him?”

“My mind is clear, William,” I said quietly. “I am certain of my course in a way I have never been.”

“Then your stay there was successful.” He let out his breath in a rush. “You cannot know how anxious I was. To think I hadn’t
done the right thing . . .”

“You should not have worried.”

Apprehension flashed in his eyes. He ran a hand through his hair, which was growing sparser, I noticed. He looked haggard,
in fact, as if he had not been sleeping, and I felt a moment of pity. That I had worried him I didn’t doubt. But William’s
love was something I couldn’t think about. It had almost killed me.

“What did you tell everyone?” I asked.

“That you had gone to the continent,” he said.

“I imagine they were relieved.”

He seemed relieved himself that I had mentioned it. “Yes. They weren’t sure what to make of the summer. I assured them that
there had been nothing between you and Victor. I told them his only role as a doctor had been to prescribe a sleeping draft
for you.”

“They believed that?”

“They said they did.” His expression hardened. “Especially when I told them that he had made advances toward you. I said you’d
repulsed them but that I could not in good conscience continue to call him a friend.”

“You ruined him socially,” I said.

“He ruined himself, Lucy, when he seduced you,” he said angrily.

“Let’s talk of something else,” I said smoothly. “What did I miss while I was away?”

He turned eagerly to the topic. He told me of what had happened in the last months: how the new horse show had progressed,
what dinners he had attended. Julia Breckenwood had taken an unexpected trip to her parents’ home in Boston after catching
Steven with his latest mistress, and Steven had followed to beg her forgiveness. Caroline Astor had cut Daisy Hadden at the
opera because Daisy had slighted her in some ridiculous way William could barely remember. Antoinette Baldwin was engaged
to marry an earl she’d met during the early summer—much to her dismay, it seemed.

“I should leave you to sleep,” he said reluctantly. “Tomorrow will be a big day.” He went to the door, then paused, his hand
on the knob. His face softened. “How are you really, Lucy? Are you truly well? Should I believe it?”

I made myself smile. “I am not as fragile as the furniture, William,” I told him, and he smiled back, but tentatively.

“Good. That’s good. I should hate to think that you aren’t ready. It distressed me so to send you there, Lucy. I’m not sure
I could bear having to send you back.”

My smile felt frozen. I heard the threat in his voice, his tacit
behave
. “You won’t have to do that,” I promised him, and he nodded and left. All I could think was how I could not bear to be in
his company a moment longer. How much I yearned to be away.

After breakfast in the huge dining room with me seated at one end of a table meant to seat at least twenty while William watched
me anxiously from the other, he begged me not to lift a finger. Every detail had been already attended to. I should rest in
my room and prepare for two hundred of our closest friends to descend upon us this evening. He hoped I would wear the burgundy
silk with roses. And the diamonds.

I spent the afternoon watching the servants scurry around, polishing, dusting, arranging. The dining room table was extended
to its full length, which seated sixty-four, and other tables were brought to make up the rest. Candles were set everywhere.
There were roses bunched in vases on every table, in every corner, in colors ranging from pink to yellow to red. The house
was full of their scent, along with that of turtle soup and roasting beef, and I felt a growing agitation that made me glad
to do as William had suggested and retire to my room. I took a short nap. When I woke, it was time to prepare.

“I’ll wear the jet tonight, Bridget,” I said as I stood before the mirror, clad in the burgundy silk appliquéd with roses
and trimmed in black lace.

The girl frowned. “The jet, ma’am? Not the diamonds?”

“I prefer the black,” I said. She looked at me strangely but reached obediently into the case I’d opened. She took out the
jet, a web of beads and stones, and put it around my neck, where it fell against my skin like shadows. I fastened on the matching
earrings, jet drops that dangled against my jaw. It was a look that matched my mood this evening.

I said to Bridget, who hovered behind me, “You may leave me now.”

She nodded and curtsied. When she opened the door, the sound of music drifted in—the orchestra, which had arrived an hour
or so ago. I heard William’s voice shouting orders: There were only moments before the first guests arrived, why were the
candles not lit?

The door closed again, leaving me with the muffled sounds, the constant rush of footsteps. I adjusted the lace of my sleeve,
the décolletage. I patted my hair. I was perspiring, though my hands were like ice.

From below I heard the opening of a door. Voices. I went to the window, pushing aside the drapes to see the view. My room
looked out over Fifth Avenue. It was a wet night, and foggy. The rain had stripped leaves from the trees to gather on the
street, where they had been crushed into mulch by carriage wheels. Central Park was gloomy, its trees shrouded in fog, ghostly
in the arc lights. The edges of carriages were blurred. Drivers hurried from their damp perches to open doors, people huddled
into their coats and capes, a man paused to adjust his beaver hat before he rushed his partner beneath the canopy William
had erected over a burgundy-colored carpet leading up the steps.

I should go down,
I thought.
I should greet our guests.
But I knew how they would look at me, the things they would wonder. They would remember William’s words.
He’d made advances . . . she repulsed them . . . I can no longer call him a friend.
They would wonder what of that was true, and they would secretly believe that I had had an affair with Victor. They would
talk about it:
Wasn’t it scandalous, how she kept him? As a guest in her own house? We suspected it, of course, who wouldn’t? I heard she’d
gone to the continent.
Ultimately I would be forgiven; I was a Van Berckel, after all, but it would always be a stain.

I let the curtains fall and backed away from the window. I imagined myself moving down those stairs—an interminable length,
a promenade. Everything in me was measuring, measuring. Every beat, every moment. I heard them arrive, more and more. Twenty
and then thirty. There was a knock on the door.

“Mrs. Carelton?” Bridget called timidly. “Mr. Carelton’s asking for you, ma’am.”

“Tell him I’ll be down shortly,” I said.

The music was louder, no longer tuning up. I heard the rise of talk, appreciation, footsteps. My throat was dry. I imagined
them gathering, the rustle of rich silks, jewels glinting in the electric light, the smoke of candles, the salty, fishy scent
of oysters borne by a dozen servants.

“Mrs. Carelton?”

“In a moment.”

“Do you need help, ma’am?”

“No.”

The clatter of hooves on the cobbled drive, the squeak of leather hinges, doors opening, the slip of heels on wet rock, laughter.
My hands were cold and clammy within my gloves. It was growing late. They would expect me to be there. They would all be wondering.
William would be wondering.

It was time.

It was as if a clock had chimed the precise hour within me. I straightened. I was ready to go down. But there was one last
thing to do. I went to the armoire, plunging my hands through silks and satins and lawns to find the bag I’d brought from
Beechwood Grove. My fingers stumbled across it. Soft, well-oiled leather, a hard buckle. I pulled it out, ignoring the clothes
I pulled with it, scattering them on the floor. My fingers trembled on the buckle, but I pulled it open, stretching its jaws
wide, thrusting my hands past a grayed chemise, stockings, an inappropriate ball gown, a dressing gown, brushes that had never
seen the light of day at the asylum. Searching, searching . . .

My fingers came upon it. Smooth, cold metal. I sighed in relief and took it into my hands, pulling it loose so it gleamed
in the too bright light.

I grabbed my evening bag from the chair and slipped the gun inside.

It was not hard, then, to do the rest.

I went out of my room and down the stairs. The lights glittered upon gold and wax, melted upon roses. The smell of the flowers
was overpowering, along with a hundred different perfumes. My hand slid along the soft, polished wood of the banister; my
friends were below. They smiled at me as I came down, their eyes measuring as I smiled back, as I went down and down and down,
into their midst, past servants holding silver trays, past candles, through silks and satins.
Hello, Lucy, how are you, Lucy? How well you look! How was the continent?
I moved easily past them into the dining room. I saw Millie down the hall and waved to her with a bright little smile, and
her own smile died; she lifted her hand as if to stop me.

She came toward me at the same moment I saw William, holding a glass of bourbon. I willed her to stay away and finally had
to focus on my husband, who caught sight of me and smiled. For a moment, I went numb. I thought,
I can’t do this . . . after all this time . . . how ridiculous.

And then suddenly I could.

I opened my bag. I saw Millie coming, and I shook my head at her. William was moving toward me quickly now, looking worried.
The bourbon was spilling over his hands, spotting his cuffs. I reached into the bag, almost expecting that the gun would not
be there, but there it was, sliding into my palm. My fingers grasped the handle, cradled the trigger.

I pulled it loose and dropped my bag, and from the corner of my eye I saw people turn to me; I felt their hesitation. I paid
them no heed. I waited until I heard the startled scream, until William came to a shocked stop. Our eyes met, and I saw astonishment
there, then concern. I waited for the fear, and when I saw it, I felt a surge of satisfaction. Then I lifted the gun and pulled
the trigger.

The blast nearly sent me rocking back; the crack echoed in the arched ceilings, too loud. The glass in William’s hand went
flying, shattering on the floor, spilling bourbon. I heard the screams, and I saw the stunned horror in the eyes of those
around me. I saw the blood spreading across the marble floor, the women stepping back as if concerned it might soil their
hems and their pretty shoes. It was as if I watched from afar while the shock faded and men set upon me, their shouts like
echoes against my ears, their hands hard upon my arms, reaching for the gun, prying it from my fingers. They were shouting
questions, I think, though I could not be sure because I couldn’t take my eyes from the red of the blood creeping across the
floor. How dark it was, darker than I’d expected. I wondered whether it would still be warm if I touched it.

That is all I remember about that night, except for one other thing. When the president of the Board of Police arrived, and
my father gave the order for the men to take me to my room and lock me inside, I did not feel regret.

All I felt was free.

The Tombs

October 1885

I
heard the noises downstairs, the chattering of the guests as they were sent away, the splashing of the rain against carriage
wheels, and then the clatter of a police wagon arriving. I listened with some far-removed part of myself. I was too busy remembering
the look of surprise and alarm on William’s face, the way his glass went flying, the way he jerked back and fell, arms wheeling
as if to keep himself afloat.