An Inconvenient Wife Part 15

"Indeed not," he said. "Please do. There are some exquisite paintings just over there"-he waved to a far wall-"that I know you would find perfect."

"Thank you." I rose.

I ignored Millicent's surprise and left them there. I walked farther into glowing semidarkness, past brown landscapes and mythical scenes, a Venus rising from the sea, a Cupid sending his arrow into a rounded, dimpled Venetian exquisite. Although these were all paintings my friends would buy to hang in their already crowded dining rooms, I was impatient with them. I wanted something else, though I could not imagine what.

Beyond me was a curtain that obviously concealed a small room. I was curious. I could not remember ever being in there before. I pulled aside the heavy velvet and plunged into an alcove lighted by a single sconce. It was a tiny room, every inch covered with paintings hanging on golden cords. The gaslight cast everything in a murky glow; the images were like a kaleidoscope-too many of them, all jangling together, and I turned again to leave, overwhelmed.

Then I saw the painting.

It hung beside the curtains, and the velvet of the drapes half covered it, but what I saw was arresting. A woman's nude back, glowing white in the darkness like a ghost. She was not a woman, or at least not yet one. She was stone from the thighs down, but above that her flesh was pale and slightly tinted, obviously alive, and she was bending toward something. A strong, dark arm gripped her waist, and fingers cupped a breast. Despite myself, I was drawn to it. I pushed aside the draperies to see more, and I realized the arm belonged to a man: the sculptor, who was holding on to the woman with a desperate and hungry pa.s.sion. She was bending to kiss him, an alabaster statue brought alive by the arrow of Cupid's bow. Pygmalion and Galatea.

I touched the canvas, tracing down her calf to her foot, still encased in marble, and it seemed I felt the chill cold of the stone. I longed to pull her foot free, to finish the job Cupid had started. I felt how she strained; I felt her restlessness.

"Mrs. Carelton? Mrs. Carelton?"

I s.n.a.t.c.hed back my hand. The curtains parted, and Jean-Claude was there, an anxious Millicent close behind him.

"Oh," he said, smiling. "I see you have found Jean-Baptiste's special room."

"His special room?"

"I am surprised you haven't seen it before," Jean-Claude said. "This is where Jean-Baptiste keeps the things he has brought over for certain clients. Items he has chosen specially. Your father has been in this room many times." He glanced at the picture. "Ah, Pygmalion and Galatea. A fine work. It's a Gerome. He's a student of David, I believe. This is reserved for Robert Carr. He asked specifically for a mythical scene for his guest room."

"I see." The news brought a keen disappointment.

"If you like it, perhaps we can find something similar for you," Jean-Claude went on. "This is the original. We could have it copied or perhaps find-"

"No," I said forcefully. "I don't want it copied. I want this one. I'll pay double what Robert Carr commissioned for it."

Jean-Claude looked dismayed. "Mrs. Carelton, I'm afraid I-"

"Has Mr. Carr even seen it?" I asked.

Reluctantly, Jean-Claude said, "I don't believe so, but-"

"Find him another mythical scene," I said.

Millicent broke in. "But Lucy, I thought you said William wanted landscapes."

I hesitated. William had indeed wanted landscapes, but surely he would not mind this one choice. I would put it in the sitting room he planned for me if he truly hated it.

"Yes, he does," I said slowly. "But I simply must have this Gerome."

I saw the faint worry puckering Millie's brow, but I could not help myself. As I talked Jean-Claude into selling it to me, I felt the oddest sense of power, of strength-the same sense I'd had yesterday in the garden. As if there were some force directing my actions, something that was wholly myself, a freedom. . . .

What if you could be the woman you were meant to be?

It was only a painting, a single choice, but I felt a secret plea-sure in it, and that pleasure frightened me-it was like the feverish days of poetry and religion. Perhaps my father was right after all, and I should not indulge my pa.s.sions.

But I made arrangements for the Gerome and told Jean-Claude that I would be back in a few days to see what else they had found for me. Afterward Millie and I enjoyed a pleasant luncheon, during which we spoke of ordinary things. Yet all the while I felt a guilty kind of joy.

When I arrived home, Dr. Seth's words haunted me. What if you could be the woman you were meant to be?

I went for my pencils and sketch pad and tried to forget Dr. Seth, and the Gerome, and that persistent, guilty pleasure. I wished I had not gone to Goupil's at all.

The fear-and the secret pleasure-only increased over the next days. It was as if spring had lit within me. I drew feverishly and long and at every spare moment sketches of everything in the garden, and of Was.h.i.+ngton Square, where I now walked almost daily. Though I went to suppers and b.a.l.l.s, I could not have told you when or where I'd been, what I'd done. I thought of nothing but my hidden sketchbook; my fingers ached constantly for a pencil.

I saw Dr. Seth twice a week. His treatment was working as he'd promised: I was calmer, less given to fits. But my dreams had grown strange. I could not stop thinking about Dr. Seth, and the images from my dreams intruded at the strangest times-when I was among my friends or choosing fabrics for the new house-leaving me distracted and troubled.

I found myself doing odd things, as I had at the Morris ball, when I'd removed my gloves. At the opera one night, as I stood in the lobby with Hiram Grace, listening idly to his latest harangue about the growing invasion of immigrants, I heard him as I never had before. His complaints and opinions had never had any impact; I usually barely listened to him, but I was hearing him when he told me that he felt the surest way to eliminate crime and immorality was to keep degenerates from procreating and allow that right to moral men only.

"How could that succeed?" I asked, professing an opinion of something I'd never bothered to think of. "I've heard you say yourself that women possess smaller skulls, that they're less developed. How, then, can moral men pa.s.s on their superior intellect when the vessel for doing so is clearly inferior?"

Where the words came from, I had no idea. Someone who stood near us laughed, and Grace reddened in embarra.s.sment before he moved quickly away.

I had never done such a thing before, and I was humiliated at my unkindness. Yet in my heart lurked that secret joy, the happiness of rebellion I'd felt as a girl. I was afraid of it, and horrified that it had gained sway. I didn't understand; it was not me who said those things, and yet I'd heard my own voice. Who could it be?

There were other things. I went to Goupil's, as William still expected me to do, and I found myself again ignoring his wish for landscapes. I was taken by bright colors and interesting scenes, by rustics and exotics. Jean-Baptiste urged caution; he had heard from my husband what he wanted, but I insisted. The only landscape I bought was a fuzzy Turner that was chaotic and interesting, and which I hoped William would like but sensed he would not. I purchased a sculpture of two people caught in an embrace, tangled about each other, nude, licentious, and was arrested by the feelings the sculpture raised in me. It made me frankly hungry, made me want to be touched. Such obscene thoughts, thoughts that were growing bolder and franker day by day and especially at night, when they tangled with my dreams.

I was myself and not myself. But it was not until the last night of the season, and the Fitzgeralds' masquerade ball, that I realized how strange I had become.

Chapter 12.

The Fitzgeralds' masque was an annual event. Preparations had been made months in advance. This year the theme was Ancient Egypt, and William and I had long ago been fitted for our opulent disguises as Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.

But as the night of the ball approached, I began to view my costume with dread. It had too much gold applique, too much fringe, too many jewels about the golden girdle. I had once loved it, but now it offended me. Late one night I began cutting away all the ornamentation.

When I was finished, my urge to wear the costume was overwhelming. It was of gold and white tissue, with one shoulder completely bare. I wore my hair down, so it fell to the middle of my back, and adorned it with only a thick gold ruby-studded circlet to match William's fire: my one nod to my husband's ostentation, to his full red and golden Roman armor.

When I came down the stairs, William said, "Good G.o.d, what happened? That isn't what we asked for at all! Didn't you look at it before now, Lucy? Do you think there's time to rescue it? Moira! Moira!" When the maid came running, he said, "Fetch the seamstress who sewed this debacle. We'll have her fix it immediately. We'll be late, but there's no help for it."

"I did it," I admitted.

He stared at me, dumbfounded. "What?"

"I changed it," I said.

"Why?"

"It just seemed too much."

"Are you mad, Lucy? You'll be the poorest-looking woman there. What will they all think?"

"Let them think what they will."

"This is ridiculous." William began to pace the hall. I had to stifle an urge to laugh as his Roman skirt bounced against his knees; his feet looked so strange and bare in his open sandals. "You cannot go this way."

"I will not go any other way," I said. I wanted to wear this simple costume more than I could say. The thought of jewels and ostentation were anathema to me as they had never been before.

"I cannot afford to let them believe we're in financial trouble. Not after last year. I have clients, Lucy, who expect me- This doesn't befit our status."

"For heaven's sake, William, it's gold tissue. It cost a fortune." I came fully down the stairs. "Do you think I look ugly?"

He stopped and looked up at me. "No. No, of course not. You look beautiful."

"Then this is how I shall go."

He hesitated. "At least wear the ruby necklace I gave you last fall."

"No, William," I said gently.

He did not know what to make of me, I could tell by his sudden uncertainty, as if I had become as much a stranger to him as I was to myself. I could not explain my insistence, and I did not try as we went to the Fitzgeralds', where we were to meet Dr. Seth. He had met Stewart Fitzgerald at the Staten Island Athletic Club and secured his own invitation, much to my surprise and William's, though my husband took a possessive pride in having been the man who embraced Dr. Seth and introduced him to SIAC. It was still hard for me to a.s.similate Seth into my circle of friends, so personal was my relations.h.i.+p with him, and it was difficult to treat him as an acquaintance when it seemed I spent every moment with him, even in my dreams.

Dr. Seth was already inside, and I was surprised to see him equally simply dressed, in leather and linen, as Mark Antony, though we had never discussed it. He looked nothing like the doctor I knew; his gla.s.ses were gone, his legs bare beneath the Roman costume.

"What is this?" William asked as we approached him. "Mark Antony?"

"At your service." Dr. Seth made a little bow. He looked at me. "Mrs. Carelton, you look captivating."

"She does, doesn't she?" William said. "I would have preferred jewels, but she wished this. The two of you look quite matched."

I glanced at him, thinking I'd heard some little anger in his voice, but his expression was open and guileless. I felt vaguely uncomfortable. "It's quite a coincidence," I said. I looked at Dr. Seth, unsure. "We never discussed it, did we?"

He smiled and shook his head. "A coincidence, as you said. Nothing more. Shall we go inside? It all looks quite fantastic."

It was true; the Fitzgeralds had never skimped when it came to their decorations, and this year was no exception. There was golden satin draped to look like the pyramids of Giza, and there were bright sarcophagi, golden urns filled with palm fronds, burial masks, and stiffened muslin painted with desert scenes covering the walls. Dark blue bunting painted with sparkling stars billowed from the ceiling.

"Do I hear water?" William asked. "Is there a fountain?"

"The Nile," Seth said, nodding to the side of the ballroom, where there was indeed a sinuous trough of water about five feet wide. It trailed from the back of the ballroom, where a small orchestra gathered, to the opposite wall. It appeared to sink into the floor, but if one looked closely, it was plain that the floor sloped upward to greet it. They had built a platform to house it, and sand covered its banks; rushes and palm trees bent toward it.

"Stewart has outdone himself this time," William said admiringly.

I knew what he was thinking: When our house is built . . . What we will do then . . . I turned from the pretend river and thought of how tonight was the end of the season. Lent began tomorrow. Until the summer, when we all retired to Newport, there would be no more of these b.a.l.l.s where we each tried to outdo the other. Until August I would not have to endure parties or late suppers. I would not have to pretend.

I drank champagne and mingled with my friends. I felt William's eyes on me, but he let me go, and after a short time I lost him in the crowd. I tried not to think of Dr. Seth, though I knew where he was at every moment, and I knew he watched me as well.

Waiters dressed as Egyptian slaves began to circulate with trays of champagne. I had turned to take a gla.s.s when my hand met Millicent's as she reached for the same one.

"Lucy!" she said in surprise. She was dressed as an Egyptian priestess. "My, Lucy, you look lovely. Who would have thought such plainness would suit you?"

"William doesn't like it."

"You're not wearing his rubies."

"He was not happy about that either." There was a thoughtful set to her face that made me curious. I said, "What are you thinking, Millie?"

"You seem . . . changed," she said.

"Do I?"

"Less . . ."

"Caged?" The word came from my mouth before I could stop it.

She frowned. "Perhaps it's only the gown."

But it was not, and I knew it. "No," I whispered. I pulled Millie closer, half behind the open door of a sarcophagus, and said urgently, "It's more than that, Millie. I do feel different, and I don't know why. It's . . . I've been saying things and doing things I don't even understand. This gown . . . it wasn't like this at all. It was jeweled and beaded, and there was a girdle, and I couldn't stand it. I spent all night cutting it off."

She looked uncomfortable but not surprised. "Don't be silly, Lucy. It's quite striking. You're the center of attention."

"Yes," I told her miserably. "Because the gown is so plain. But it was not what I wanted. And Millie, I'm having the strangest dreams. I don't understand myself at all."

The silence was loud between us before she looked at me knowingly and said, "Hiram Grace."

"Yes." I gripped her arm, grateful that she understood. "Yes, exactly. I have no idea why I would mock him so. I care nothing for those things. Why, I never knew I had an opinion on them. And then that-to say that-it's not like me. I've never done such a thing before."

"You could not have picked a worse man, Lucy," she said. "You humiliated him. He's been saying that he thinks you were drunk."

"Drunk?"

"That's not all," Millie said in a low voice.

"What do you mean?"

"Your behavior's been noticed, Lucy. Hiram Grace is only part of it. Others are talking. They've seized on his idea that you're drinking. Some are even saying you're verging on mad."

"Oh, for goodness' sake."

Millicent turned, dislodging my hand, and gave me a look that was like a shake. It sent me shrinking into the corner. "Lucy, listen to me. I've meant to talk to you about this before now, but . . . It doesn't matter why I haven't. Are you still taking laudanum?"

I frowned at her. "Hardly. A small bit sometimes. I don't seem to need it so much."

"And you're still seeing this new doctor?"

Inadvertently, I searched for him. He stood at the punch bowl beside Hiram Grace, who was dressed as an Egyptian prince and looking absurd in the costume, with his white fleshy, hairy legs peeking from layers upon layers of what looked like gold foil. A headdress was slipping from his thinning gray hair. Beside him, the doctor looked young and vibrant. I felt his presence from across the room.

Millie had followed my gaze. "Him?" she asked. "Victor Seth is your doctor?"

I shook my head. "He's simply a friend."