An Inconvenient Wife (43 page)

“Gentlemen, we shall prove that Mrs. Carelton was not in her right mind when she shot her husband, but was in thrall to an
irresistible urge, an undeniable, desperate attempt to free herself from his manipulations and torture. Our expert witnesses
will testify that Mrs. Carelton was not in control of her emotions or her mind. We will also show that Mr. Carelton was not
the man he seemed to be, and that even his wife had no knowledge of the truth of him.

“Mrs. Carelton’s shooting of her husband is the saddest story of all, gentlemen, because it shows what can happen when a man
abuses the sacred contract that God Himself put down between men and women. This case is not about seeking the control of
money or about the freedom to be with a lover. This case is about what can happen when a man does not temper his superiority
and strength, does not offer kindness to the fragile woman in his care. When Mr. Carelton denied the charge put to him by
God and society, Mrs. Carelton was forced by desperation and fear to take the only avenue she could. Gentlemen, this fine
woman had no other choice. In the moment that she pulled the trigger, she was driven to a desperation that knew no rationality
or logic. She could no longer live in the world of his making.”

Here Howe paused. He lowered his eyes in abject sorrow.

“Yes, gentlemen,” he said. “This is a sad, sad case. But it is not Mrs. Carelton we should blame but her husband. I trust
you will find in your hearts the ability to understand this poor woman. I trust you will right the wrongs that have been committed
against her.” He pulled them in with his gaze. His voice was huge, dramatic. “I trust that you will prove to be wise men.”

New York, Monday, December 7, 1885

Today began the murder trial of Mrs. William Carelton. Mrs. Gerald Fister and Mrs. Moreton Hadden were in attendance, as were
Mr. Leonard Ames and several lesser luminaries of the city. As Mrs. Hadden said, “Of course we will stand by Lucy Carelton.
She’s one of our own.”

Mrs. Carelton wore a black wool gown with satin and jet decorations, and a hat decorated with black feathers. She constantly
fingered a mourning brooch—a brooch, Mr. Howe told us, that was made from her husband’s hair. Mrs. Carelton was tearful throughout
and obviously deeply disturbed by the proceedings.

The first witness called by the prosecution was Officer Edward Boyd, one of the men called to the Carelton residence on the
night of the murder. Officer Boyd described the scene in grisly detail. “The house was lit like the Fourth of July,” he claimed,
with electric lights. There was an orchestra in the room, but they were silent. “I never heard such a sound,” Officer Boyd
told the district attorney. “Or, I should say, such a nonsound. There was all these people there, all huddled around whispering,
and it was like being at a funeral.” The officers rushed directly to the dining room, where they found the fallen body of
William Carelton lying in a pool of his own blood, the mortal wound one that had struck his chest. “It was from close range,”
the officer said. “He was splayed open like a butchered hog.” Several of the ladies in the courtroom swooned at his description.
Mrs. Carelton bent her head and cried silently while Mr. Howe put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

Officer Boyd said that he had gone with the president of the Board of Police, Mr. Stephen French, to Mrs. Carelton’s sitting
room, where she had been led from the slaughtered body of her husband. Officer Boyd said that she “was perfectly calm. Dry-eyed,
if you want to know the truth. Nothing like I expected her to be.”

Mr. Scott asked, “And how was that?”

“Well, most females who’ve done in a man like that, they’re pretty shook up.”

“And Mrs. Carelton was not?”

The officer shrugged. “Not to my eyes.” He then told the jury that Mrs. Carelton did not seem to him to be in any way insane.
“She agreed with Mr. French’s terms as calm as you please,” he said. “It was like she wanted to be punished. Like she knew
she done wrong.”

The defense attorney, Big Bill Howe, asked the officer if he was qualified to judge a woman’s insanity. Officer Boyd answered
that he’d seen enough crazy women to know the look of one.

“Could it be that Mrs. Carelton was in shock over the sight of her husband?” Mr. Howe asked. “That she was not calm, as you
suggest, but deeply horrified by what she’d just done?”

Officer Boyd answered that it might be so.

“And isn’t it true, Officer Boyd, that you have never spent time in a lunatic asylum, and that you have no way of judging
the different ways in which insanity might claim a victim?”

Officer Boyd was clearly uncomfortable when he admitted that Mr. Howe’s statement was correct. Mr. Howe dismissed him after
asking if he had known Mrs. Carelton prior to her arrest, and if he had any reason to know what her demeanor normally was
when she was in shock or upset. Officer Boyd said he did not.

This reporter would have to say that although the officer’s description of the crime scene was vivid and disturbing, Big Bill
Howe clearly was the victor in the determination over Mrs. Carelton’s state of mind upon her arrest.

The court reconvenes tomorrow morning at nine
A.M
.

I
could not forget the words the officer had said, how William had looked to him like a butchered hog, and it was this description
above all else—a description I knew but could not remember—that kept me tossing and turning restlessly through the night.
That and my dreams of Victor, of how I’d last seen him, limned by moonlight in my room at Beechwood Grove. I was pale and
tired as I went to the courtroom the next morning.

Mr. Scott had been thorough. He first called Julia Breckenwood, and though Howe had told me her name was on the list, I was
startled by her appearance. She was dressed in dark green, elegant and self-possessed as they swore her in, and yet I remembered
her in Millie’s dining room at Newport, confused as she woke from a trance, straining to hear the music on the beach. I remembered
her quiet humiliation when I told her it wasn’t so, and then I remembered William’s insinuations about the weekend she and
Victor had spent at Daisy Hadden’s country house, and I realized uncomfortably that I had no idea what she would say.

Mr. Scott came over to her and smiled. He rested his hand on the witness box and said, “You were invited to the party Mr.
and Mrs. Carelton gave on October sixth to open their new house, were you not?”

“Yes,” she said.

“And did you go?”

“Oh yes. Everyone went.”

“It was quite an occasion, then?”

She nodded. “William had been talking about the house for nearly a year. He was very excited.”

“What about Mrs. Carelton? Was she excited as well?”

Julia glanced down at her hands, and I tensed with apprehension. “Well, it was odd, you see. I don’t know. She never spoke
of it. I would have spent every moment decorating, but Lucy seemed . . . she seemed not to care.”

“Did she ever tell you why that might be?”

“No.” She shook her head. A tiny curl came loose to bounce at her cheek, and she pushed it aside with a nervous movement.
“She never confided in me. We were friends, but not . . . good ones.”

“I see. But you had known Mrs. Carelton for many years, hadn’t you?”

“Oh yes.” She smiled thinly. “We shared the same friends. We even shared the same doctor.”

I went still.

“The same doctor,” Mr. Scott repeated. “And who was that?”

“Victor Seth.”

“What kind of doctor is Victor Seth?”

“A new—a neurologist.” She smiled in embarrassment. “It’s a hard word to say.”

“Do you know what the word means, Mrs. Breckenwood?”

“I believe he’s some kind of brain doctor.”

“And who recommended Dr. Seth to you?”

“Why, it was William,” she said. “William Carelton. He said that Lucy had seen Dr. Seth for some little irritability and that
she was doing remarkably well.”

“Objection,” Howe said. “Hearsay.”

“Sustained,” Judge Hammond ruled.

Scott nodded. “Did that seem to bother him, that his wife was doing remarkably well?”

“Objection!” Howe said.

But before the judge could rule, Julia answered. “Oh, goodness no. He was quite pleased. Exultant, I would say.”

“He was exultant.” Scott nodded. He stepped away from the box and looked meaningfully at the jury. “And this Dr. Seth, did
you have occasion to see him socially?”

Here Julia bit her lip. “Yes.”

“How so?”

“He was quite often at social occasions in the city, and when we removed to Newport, he was a guest at Seaward.”

“Seaward? What is that?”

“The Careltons’ summer home. Actually, I believe it belongs to DeLancey Van Berckel, but he is never there.”

“Who was at Seaward this summer, Mrs. Breckenwood?”

Julia kept her gaze steadfastly turned from me. I pressed my hands to my stomach to still the fluttering there.

“Lucy Carelton,” she said. “And Victor Seth.”

“Not Mr. Carelton?”

Slowly she said, “He came on weekends at first, and then there was a month or so when he didn’t come at all.”

“So Mrs. Carelton was alone with Dr. Seth?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find that strange, Mrs. Breckenwood? That Mrs. Carelton should be alone all summer with a male guest?”

“Usually I would not have thought so,” she said reluctantly. She was pulling at her gloves. “But Dr. Seth was quite attentive
to Lucy, and . . . people wondered.”

“I see. Did Mr. Carelton seem satisfied with this arrangement?”

“I thought not,” she said. “And then I was sure of it when he came to Newport in July.”

“What made you so sure?”

Julia pulled again at her gloves. “Well, there had been an unusual entertainment that summer. Dr. Seth could make people .
. . do things, you see. He called it hypnosis. He could put them in a trance and give them direction. It was all in fun. It
was very entertaining. He could make them hop like a frog or bark. It had become a favorite diversion. This night that William
came to Newport, Dr. Seth put someone into a trance and . . .” She hesitated.

“What happened, Mrs. Breckenwood?”

Julia swallowed. “William became quite upset.”

“Upset? How do you mean?”

“It was odd. He took Lucy from the party without even an excuse. He seemed angry. Everyone noticed it—it became the talk of
the night. Later, he told us that he’d discovered Dr. Seth had made improper advances toward her. I wasn’t at all surprised.
I’d suspected it all along. All of us had. It was obvious they had a relationship beyond that of a doctor and patient.”

Howe raised an objection, but the judge merely silenced him and let Mr. Scott go on.

“What happened after that night?”

“I don’t know,” Julia said. “Lucy was gone the next day. William said she’d gone to the continent.”

“I see.” Mr. Scott clasped his hands behind his back and paced to the jury. “When was it that you next saw Mrs. Carelton?”

“At the ball. The opening of their house.”

“How did she seem to you?”

“When I came in, she was coming down the stairs. I waited for her to greet me, but she walked on by. It was as if she didn’t
see me.”

“She seemed distracted, then?”

“Oh yes. Terribly. But driven too. As if she was on her way someplace and didn’t wish to be interrupted.”

“Did you see where she went?”

Julia nodded. She looked ready to cry. “Oh yes. Everyone did.”

“Where did she go?”

“To the dining room.”

“Did you follow her?”

“Yes. I was right behind her. I’d only thought to greet her, to ask her how her tour was.”

“But you never got a chance to do that.”

“No.”

“Why was that, Mrs. Breckenwood?”

“Because she went into the dining room, and I saw her reach for something, and then there was this terrible sound—like an
explosion—and smoke. Someone screamed, and then there was Lucy, holding a gun, and William was on the floor. He was dead.”
Julia was crying. Mr. Scott reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and handed it to her, and Julia dabbed delicately at
her eyes.

“Now, tell me, Mrs. Breckenwood—yes, I know this is very distressing, but if you could please tell the jury if you’re certain
it was Mrs. Carelton who held the gun.”

She sniffed and nodded. “Yes, it was.”

“Was it she who pulled the trigger?”

“Yes. No one else was near her.”

“Did this act of Mrs. Carelton’s surprise you?”

“Surprise me?” Julia paused. The handkerchief was suspended in air. “Why, yes. It surprised me greatly.”