An Inconvenient Wife Read online

  The carriage waited on the street; our driver, Jimson, was rubbing his hands together madly, trying to stay warm. Once we were inside the carriage, William sat heavily beside me, taking my gloved hand in his as if he wanted to anchor me there, as if he were afraid I would fly out the window and into the world. In truth, had I been able to do that, I would have been gone into that frigid air, breathing it so deep it stung my lungs.

  Instead I looked out my window, watching the lights of Fifth Avenue flash by, until we jolted to a stop before the storied citrus-yellow facade of the Metropolitan Opera House, and I was both relieved and anxious again. It was William’s way to deliver surprises before crowds, to shower largesse and distinction before those who still did not quite respect his background. He knew, too, that I would never challenge him before my friends, that I would feign the pleasure he wanted me to feel.

  The door to the carriage opened, and William stepped down and waited as I came out. I took his elbow. His arm was like an iron bar beneath my fingers. The doormen ushered us inside, into globe-lit brilliance that played off marble and gold and elaborate chandeliers. The opera had already started as we went to our box, which was, as William was wont to say, one of the finest in the house, near the middle of the first tier of boxes—the Diamond Horseshoe. My father’s name—or mine—would have brought us such positioning, but William had made sure of it by doing some business for the Vanderbilts and had procured this box well before the building was finished.

  The talk and laughter were loud even above the music. William pushed aside the heavy plush curtains and stood back for me to go inside. We arrived well into the performance, but it was early yet, and many of the boxes were empty, as they would stay until near the second intermission.

  William tapped my arm, and I reached into my bag for the opera glasses and handed them to him. I heard the little catch as he opened them up, then the quiet clicking of his tongue as he surveyed the boxes.

  “Julia Breckenwood is here sans Steven,” he leaned forward to whisper to me. “Ah, look at those diamonds at Daisy Hadden’s throat. No doubt old Moreton is paying for last week’s indiscretion.” He handed me the glasses. “Look for yourself.”

  I took them, but not to look at Daisy Hadden’s diamonds. I searched for Millicent, though I was not sure why. The intimacy of the other night was an embarrassment to me. When I did see her, sitting in her upper box with her husband, looking back at me with her own jeweled glasses, I glanced away, hoping she thought my attention had been elsewhere. Still, I sat until the first intermission in a gloom of anticipation; she would search me out, I knew.

  But it was not Millicent who arrived first at our box. It was Charles McKim.

  He was an architect who was developing a reputation for designing homes, and though I knew of him, I had never met him. Nor, I thought, had William. But when McKim entered our box, my husband nearly jumped in delight.

  “Charles!” he said, shaking the man’s hand and patting him on the back. “How good of you to come.”

  McKim nodded. “It was good of you to invite me. I confess I’ve been too busy this year to make many performances.” He looked past William to where I sat and said, “This must be the lovely Mrs. Carelton.”

  “My wife, Lucy,” William said. Then, to me, “My dear, this is Charles McKim. He’s an architect with McKim, Mead and White.”

  “Yes, I’m familiar with your reputation, Mr. McKim.” I held out my hand, which he shook limply, his eyes lingering—as they were meant to—on my diamond bracelet.

  “I’m delighted to be working for you, Mrs. Carelton. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to be of service.”

  “Working for me?”

  “Your husband has graciously hired me to design your new home.”

  “Our new home?” I looked beyond him to where William stood beaming with pride, and I realized that this was his surprise.

  “What do you think, Lucy?” William asked. He seemed hardly able to stay still. “I’ve been planning it for months.”

  “Planning . . . what?”

  “That property on Fifth Avenue. I’ve decided to build. It’s time, don’t you think, that we leave the Row?”

  I stared at him in shocked disbelief. Finally I said, “But . . . I grew up in that house.”

  “It was fine twenty years ago, Lucy, but things have changed. Why shouldn’t we have a fine house? Everyone else has. Mansions are going up daily. Certainly we should be among them. There’s electricity now. Electricity. Think of it—no more dim gaslight.”

  “No doubt Mrs. Carelton would be ecstatic about the chance to decorate such a home,” McKim put in.

  William came close to me and whispered, “What woman wouldn’t love the chance? You can shop all day if you like. It will take your mind off—it will . . . ah, just think of it, Lucy.” He turned to McKim and said silkily, “As you can see, my wife is quite overcome with excitement.”

  Just then, as if she’d planned the moment, the curtains swept aside and Millicent hurried in.

  “William! Lucy!” She held out her arms as if we hadn’t seen one another for a year. “Are you enjoying the performance?”

  “I think LaBlache is in fine voice tonight,” William said.

  “Ah yes, but such a gloomy part! I own I can hardly wait until she dies at the end.” Millicent smiled. “How lovely you look this evening, Lucy. I knew that green would be delicious against your pale skin. But where is your father? I haven’t seen him for the longest time.”

  “He dislikes the German,” William said. He looked at McKim. “DeLancey insists that he won’t come here until they bring back the French or Italian opera. I’m afraid he misses the Academy—he kept a box there until the very end.”

  “Or perhaps it’s only the Patti he misses,” Millie said with a smile.

  “I think we all miss Adelina Patti,” William said. “But Millicent, you’ve come at the perfect time. I’ve just given Lucy the surprise of her life.”

  “A surprise?” Millicent’s eyes went wide, but there was worry in them as she looked at me.

  I tried to smile. “Yes. It was quite delightful. It seems all William’s dreams are coming true. We’re to build on that plat on Fifth Avenue.”

  Millicent clasped her gloved hands before her, smiling. “Oh, so he’s told you, then.”

  “You knew?”

  “Everyone knew. He’s been keeping the secret for weeks. How glad you must be. I shall take you to the Art Association for the auctions. They have the most wonderful things. You’ll need more Louis the Sixteenth, of course. Perhaps the Duveens will set aside an old master or two for you—”

  My head began to ache. I put my fingers to my temples.

  “Shall I bring you some punch, darling?” William asked me. I nodded, and he and McKim left.

  Millie settled herself into the chair beside me. Her diamond tiara sparkled in the light, as did her earrings, so stars seemed to twinkle in her dark hair. She was wearing deep red velvet, and she looked young and pretty and alive, with her flashing dark eyes. I felt used up beside her.

  “Je m’étouffe,” I whispered, then regretted it; I had not meant to reveal how sick I felt.

  Millicent grabbed my arm. “Come. Let’s go outside, where the air is so much cooler.”

  I found myself rising, stumbling amid the chairs, pushing past the heavy curtains into the hallway, where the air was less close, less heavy. I could bring it into my lungs. I leaned against the wall, and my friend stood in front of me, shielding me from curious eyes, for which I was grateful.

  “I thought you would be happy,” Millie said. “We all thought you would be happy. The house he’s planning—why, it’s so beautiful. And it would be all your own. . . .”

  “Papa has taken up residence at the Union,” I said quietly. “He’s there nearly every moment.”

  “But the Row house is so cramped and small. And really, Lucy, it’s Fifth Avenue. I cannot understand you. Why aren’t you happy?”

  Sh
e sounded so plaintive and confused that it startled me. Then I saw Daisy Hadden just behind her, watching us, and I struggled to find solid ground, to soothe myself. “Why, of course I’m happy, Millicent,” I said, wishing that simply saying the words could make it so. “Of course I am. It’s just that I’ve a terrible headache.”

  Millicent looked relieved. “Oh, it’s no wonder. I’ve nearly one myself. This terrible music.”

  “Yes,” I said, relieved myself at our mutual deception. “I find I agree with Papa; I’ve a longing for the French or the Italian.”

  Millicent agreed: “The German is so hard on the ears.”

  We lapsed into silence. Once I would have said Millicent was my closest friend. She had been, and not so long ago, but these silences had begun to come more and more often, and I was not sure who to blame for them. She looked uncomfortable, and I felt nothing but a supreme weariness.

  I had to force myself to turn around and go back to the box, to sit down. When Millicent left, saying, “Are you going to the Baldwins’ after?” I could only nod numbly and stare at the stage before me, drowning in the dragging hours, wishing for my medicated darkness.

  “I wish you had told me your plans before we went,” I said to William as we made our way to the Baldwins’ home on Madison Square Park. The bright arc lights streaked into the carriage windows, blinding for a moment before lapsing again into darkness, and I shielded my eyes with my hand.

  “Really, Lucy,” he said. “You had to know already what I planned. You knew when I bought that plat; I’ve held on to it for nearly a year. What else did you think I would do with it?”

  “Sell it, perhaps,” I snapped. “As ill-gotten gains.”

  He laughed at that. “How melodramatic. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how your father made his money. You’ve lived for years on ill-gotten gains. I merely took advantage of an opportunity. Villiard wasn’t the only one ruined by Marine Bank’s collapse. We could have been there too, if I hadn’t seen it coming—”

  “Yes. Thank goodness you’re so clever.”

  He leaned over me with a puzzled and slightly angry expression. “What makes you so particular of a sudden?”

  I waved him away. “I like the Row.”

  He sat back against the seat with a heavy sigh. “It’s your father’s house.”

  “He’s never there.”

  “But it’s his nonetheless. It’s been four years since we married. You’re my wife. I can afford to keep you. I’ve been able to for some time. I haven’t asked you to move before because I knew it would upset you. But it’s time. There’s no need to be depen-dent on your father, and I think . . . I think it’s not good for you.”

  “Not good for me?”

  “Yes,” William said thoughtfully. “It’s time you stopped being a daughter.”

  My head was pounding again. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “I’ve thought it for some time, Lucy,” he went on. “I think it’s time you were mistress of your own house. One where your father can’t come in whenever he wants and reduce you to a blathering girl. It’s time we made our own life away from him.”

  I stared at him, bewildered. “I thought . . . you and Papa . . . you’re like his own son.”

  “I’m not speaking of me, Lucy, but of you,” William said impatiently. “You even think of yourself as DeLancey Van Berckel’s daughter, not as my wife.”

  “Oh, good heavens, William. I do not. I’m Mrs. William Carelton. I know that.”

  He studied me so searchingly that I had to turn away. “Do you?” he asked. “I’ve wondered for some time if that house isn’t the reason we haven’t had a child.”

  “The house,” I said, meaning to be light, to joke. “Yes indeed, it must be the house that holds such power.”

  William did not laugh. “We’ve seen so many doctors. None has found a reason. What else am I to think?”

  I gazed out the window, at the bright lights of the hotels, the theaters. “That we aren’t meant to have a child.”

  “I won’t believe that.”

  “And you think a mansion on Fifth Avenue will change everything.”

  “I think it must,” he told me.

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  I refused to meet his gaze. “It must,” he said, and I heard his certainty and his will and the words he left unsaid, the threat of Dr. Little’s asylum.

  Chapter 3

  I used to dream of Rome. When I was a girl, I read everything I could about the city. I had dreams of wandering through the Piazza, of suppers eaten in warm, sultry air scented with olives and oregano. I formed an attachment to Italian poets, hiding their books from my father, sneaking them into bed to read by candlelight late into the night. I dreamed briefly of painting there—the landscapes here were too muted, too familiar. My brush longed to depict Italian hills and golden sunsets, Italian flowers and swarthy Italian peasants. Rome. The word was magical to me, as if just its conjuring could enable my soul to fly.

  But I did not see Rome until William and I honeymooned there. It was only one stop on a European Grand Tour, before Paris—William had insisted that I be fitted by Worth for next season’s gowns—but it was the place I longed to be every moment I was somewhere else. I wanted to see it through the eyes of the poets I revered, through the misty, earthy colors of the artists. Rome. Surely there could be nothing bad in a world that harbored such a place.

  I did not see Rome through my poets’ eyes. Nor did I see it through the brushstrokes of any artist. When I finally saw Rome, it was through William’s impatience, his longing to be farther on, in Paris and London, to finish business there, to have my hands modeled in clay, to see me dressed in Worth finery, to live up to my social obligations, which decreed that we should spend two months on our tour, and that it should include the places everyone went. There was no lingering at outdoor tables, breathing the scents of olives and oregano. There was no time to walk through the Piazza. The days were spent calling on friends of my father’s, the nights dining at their tables. For me, Rome was just New York with different accents.

  As William led me up the stairs to the Baldwins’, I thought of Rome again, the Rome of my dreams, and how it had turned out nothing at all like I had imagined or wanted. It was impossible to believe that this life—the life of a wife, of a woman—had once been as intriguing to me as Rome.

  The door was opened by a solemn-faced butler, and we went inside.

  James Baldwin was a man who loved trees and forests, and the entrance hall was covered with pictures of landscapes, some by old masters and one by Millet that was greatly admired. Much was said of Ella Baldwin’s decor, which was styled to match her naturalist husband’s tastes, with pressed leaves imprisoned in glass, forever gold and red, and botanical studies kept immutable in tapestry and upholstery. I found it oppressive—nature forever inside, crushed by the massive weight of feathers and shells, stuffed birds preening on peeling branches beneath glass domes, wax flowers and paintings that echoed of what these things had forever left behind: the blessed course of life and death, nature at its cruelest and most sublime.

  Dutifully, I admired a new painting, a landscape in the golds and browns of the Hudson River School, though to me it looked as if everything in the scene were dying.

  “It is Father’s new favorite,” said Antoinette Baldwin—the pretty eighteen-year-old daughter—as she led us to the dining room, which was laid end to end with china and glassware that sparkled and twinkled in the light from a lily-globed gasolier. Candles had been lit as well, and the scents of wax and smoke and gas were heavy in the small room.

  “There you are, Antoinette, darling!” Daisy Hadden was coming toward us, fluttering in deep rose lace, her new diamonds glittering blindingly in the candlelight. She touched Antoinette’s arm and said in a low voice, “Your mama’s asking for you, my dear.”

  Antoinette gave us a pretty smile and hurried off. When she was gone, Daisy said to William and me, “How nice to see you both. Lucy, how
deliciously pale you look this evening. That gown is so bold against your skin.”

  William gripped my arm. “She has the headache. The opera was a trial.”

  “Well, yes. This season . . .” Daisy waved her hand languidly and lowered her voice. “This dinner should be just as wretched, of course. A pity Ella has such a lamentable cook. Although I suppose the good doctor might save us. Did you know he was here tonight? I thought Harry Everett might call him out last week. I quite imagined pistols at dawn.”

  “Doctor?” William asked. “What are you talking about? What doctor?”

  Daisy looked surprised. “Why, Dr. Victor Seth. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of him? I would have thought after all dear Lucy’s trials . . .”

  “I’m afraid not,” William said.

  “Oh.” She seemed nonplussed. “But then I suppose the two of you have been in the country these last few months. Seth has become quite notorious recently. The guest du jour.” She laughed. “They say he’s a Jew, but you would hardly know it to look at him. He’s very controversial, you know. He quite gives one the chills. Something about his eyes. But Ella swears by him. He’s just over there.”

  I had barely heard her words, but there was something about Daisy’s surreptitious curiosity that made me follow her gaze through the crowd to a man who stood near the back of the room, surrounded by Ella Baldwin and a group of our friends.

  I had never seen him before. He was nearly as tall as William and of a similar age. His dark hair was thick and brushed into smooth submission. He wore a thin mustache and a Vandyke beard. Even from this distance, I felt how commanding he was. It surprised me not to have sensed his presence the moment we’d stepped into the room.

  “He’s a doctor, you say?” William asked thoughtfully.

  “A nerve specialist,” Daisy said.

  “A nerve specialist?”