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Authors: Megan Chance

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“He seems grateful,” I said.

“How could he not be?” she said. “He has his wife back. No doubt he’ll hold on as tightly as he can.”

“Yes, no doubt,” I said. I could not think of another thing to say, though Millicent began to talk of something else, and
I didn’t think she noticed.

By the time we went in to supper, I was exhausted from smiling and trying to concentrate on conversation. It was late—one-thirty—before
we were called again to the ballroom. The young debutantes came out wrapped in gold tissue, with huge, elaborate winged breastplates
made of gilded papier-mâché, their hair fashioned into elaborate helmets. They gathered, posing as they sang in unison:

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

“Charge for the guns!” he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“It’s inspired,” whispered someone to my right.

William touched my shoulder. “You look pale, Lucy.”

Cannon to right of them

Cannon to left of them . . .

The gold of the breastplates was flickering. I recognized Antoinette Baldwin among the girls. She had a lovely voice, very
dramatic, and she struck a pose as if she’d been born for the stage.

It was such a pity, how that voice would go to waste. She would have her debut this year or the next, then marry, and that
voice would be used for pointless gossip over tea, polite conversation, chastising children. The thought made me horribly
sad. I could not lose the sense of my own life unfolding before me, so much the same, and my breath caught. I was suddenly
desperate for a place to sit down. William’s arm was hard behind me, holding me in place.
Not a fit. Not now.
I closed my eyes, forcing a breath, and a vision came into my head then, a pretty forest. I smelled the damp earth. I heard
the song of a bird—a little wren. I was walking.

But the forest was strange. There was a falseness about it, as if it were a set staged for me alone, a memory told to me that
I had grasped hold of and made my own, though it was not mine.

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro’ the jaws of Death

Back from the mouth of hell—

I didn’t know where the vision had come from. There was an insistency about it: The images commanded me to be comforted, to
be soothed. It was disconcerting; my head pounded. I had to find a place to sit down, to think—these were not my thoughts,
not my memory.

I turned from William’s arm and escaped the ballroom, past the table of gloves and gifts, down the stairs into the foyer,
where a servant clad in black looked at me questioningly, saying, “Madam?” as I went to wrench open the door and rush into
the cold night air.

But William was behind me. “What are you doing, Lucy?” He grabbed my arm, pulling me back again, slamming shut the door I
had just begun to open. “What are you doing?” This time a hiss, an anxious look about, a reassuring smile for the servant.
Then William grasped my wrist and backed me against the wall, leaning close enough that anyone watching might mistake it for
a lovers’ tryst. “Everyone noticed—what were you thinking?”

“No one noticed,” I said. “No one at all. They were watching the six hundred—”

“Until you ran out of there.”

“I cannot stay.” I grabbed his arm with my free hand. “Please, William, take me home, or I swear I will go by myself.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” His face was angry, intent. “You’ll go back in there and dance with me.”

“Oh, I can’t. I can’t.” I could not bring my voice above a whisper; I felt the hot beginning of tears. “Please, William.”

“I cannot go now. Robert Carr is unhappy with Stevenson. He wants a new broker.”

“Please, William, if you love me, you’ll send me home.”

He paused. His grip eased.

“You can stay if you like,” I plunged on. “Say I was taken ill.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, and I saw the confusion in his face and was sorry for him in a way I could not communicate.
“You seemed so much better. Last night . . .” He shook his head, and then he let go of me sadly and turned to the servant,
who was trying hard not to watch. “Fetch my wife her wrap and summon our carriage,” he said. He put his arm around my shoulders,
drawing me back as the servant nodded and hurried out the door.

“When do you see Seth again?” William asked in a low voice.

“Tomorrow.”

The servant returned with my cloak. Within moments, my husband was escorting me from the hall into the blessedly cold night
air. He opened the carriage door for me and bundled me inside, saying, “I’ll make your excuses,” in a forlorn and familiar
way. Then he closed the door, and I watched as he turned and hurried back up the stairs as if I was already forgotten.

Chapter 7

I
’m not feeling well,” I told Dr. Seth the moment I entered his office. “Last night we were at supper, and I began to feel
ill. I had the strangest thoughts.”

Seth rose from his chair, frowning. “Mrs. Carelton, you’re trembling.”

I was fumbling with my gloves, which I could not get off. “Yes, I . . . I’ve been like this since last night.”

“Please, sit down.”

“It’s so odd, really. I was feeling better. Much better, and then I began to have these visions. It was like a nightmare,
really.”

“Please, sit down,” he said again. He motioned toward the big red chair.

“A nightmare,” I repeated. My bag was slipping out from beneath my arm. My right glove simply would not come off. I shook
my hand in frustration. “Oh, this . . . this—”

He came to me and gently took my bag, setting it aside. Then he held out his hand. “Give me your cloak, and we’ll discuss
this.”

“I just don’t understand—”

“Forget your gloves, Mrs. Carelton. Your cloak. Please.”

I hesitated only a moment, then I did as he asked, though I struggled with the cloak’s clasp. He hung it on the coatrack and
bade me once more to sit down. When I did, he pulled the other red chair to face me, sitting with a languid ease.

“Now, Mrs. Carelton, tell me exactly what frightens you.”

“I’m not frightened,” I said.

“You sound quite frightened.”

“I’m not. It isn’t fear, exactly. It’s more . . . disturbing.”

“Very well.” He folded his hands together—long fingers, careful movements. “Then tell me what has disturbed you.”

Faced with his calm, with his quiet, soothing voice, I found myself wordless. I struggled for something to say, a way to explain.
“I—I had a dream.”

It was not what I’d meant to tell him.

He waited.

“A dream about here,” I rushed on. “This office. I was walking across the room to the window. I had my hands pressed to the
glass. I was crying.”

“Did anything else happen to you in this dream?”

“No, but it felt quite real. As if it had really happened. I could see the cigar sign and the light. . . .”

“It should feel real,” he said. “You did walk, while you were in a deep hypnotic state.”

“You mean . . . the last time I was here?”

“Yes.”

“But you said I slept.”

He shrugged. “It’s easier to explain that way. The state of profound unconsciousness is most like sleep. Unlike sleep, however,
you are quite aware of everything around you.”

“But I remembered nothing of it.”

“Your unconscious remembered it,” he pointed out. “Which is why you had the dream. Now tell me: You said you were having disturbing
visions. Did you mean the dream?”

“No, there was a forest.”

“Ah,” he said. “That was a suggestion I made to you. I thought such a scene would calm you. When you began to feel out of
control, as if you were going into a fit, you were to think of a peaceful forest, a walk. There was a rock, a—”

“Bird,” I finished.

He nodded. “A bird. A pretty song. Apparently it did not have the desired effect. You were disturbed by it.”

“I didn’t expect it,” I said. “You said nothing about a forest. You said you made a suggestion that I would be calm.”

“Which also apparently did not have the desired effect. The forest was only for oncoming hysteria. A secondary suggestion,
if you will, in case the first did not work. Tell me, Mrs. Carelton, how you felt when you left my office.”

“Rested,” I said reluctantly. “Peaceful.”

“Did that feeling last beyond the time it took you to reach your home?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “It lasted until I had the dream, and it lingered beyond that, though not as strongly.”

“Then we made a temporary improvement,” he said with satisfaction. “A good sign.”

“Is it?” I leaned forward. “Is it a good sign?”

“It shows your cerebral condition can be modified,” he said.

“But it didn’t last.”

“It will,” he assured me. “Your unconscious has been badly trained; we must retrain it to be well. What you must relinquish,
Mrs. Carelton, is intellectual control. Reason is the enemy of unconscious suggestion. What occurred with the suggestion of
the forest is an example: You realized the forest was not a real memory; your reason rejected it as impossible, and therefore
you rejected the calm it was meant to convey. You no doubt began to feel hysterical.”

“Yes. Yes, that was exactly what happened.”

“It was my mistake. I should have told you about the image. I won’t forget again. More importantly, you said you were calm
until you had the dream that was not a dream, simply your unconscious memory. Were there any other details you remembered?”

I shook my head.

“How did you feel after remembering this?”

“Sad,” I said. “I felt sad.”

“Why is that?”

I tried to remember. “I don’t know. My hands were on the window, and I wanted to cry.”

“Did it remind you of anything else? Any other memory you have of a window?”

“No.”

His gaze was solid, penetrating. I looked away, feeling uncomfortable again.

“What kind of a relationship do you have with your husband, Mrs. Carelton?”

I was startled. “What has that to do with anything?”

“It may have a great deal to do with everything,” he answered. “Is it a loving relationship?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did you marry for love?”

“Why, yes,” I said. “Yes, I did.”

“Did your father approve?”

“Approve? He did all he could to push me into William’s arms.”

“You don’t sound happy about that.”

“I was not at first,” I said. “Then it didn’t matter.”

“And your conjugal relationship,” he said. “Is it loving as well?”

I stiffened.

“Does he have a mistress?”

“Not that I know of. Really, Dr. Seth, I’m most uncomfortable with this conversation.”

“Do you derive pleasure from sexual congress with your husband?”

“Dr. Seth!” I rose. My face was burning.

“Please sit down, Mrs. Carelton,” the doctor said. “I don’t wish to unduly distress you.”

“I won’t answer that question.”

“You are unable to conceive,” Dr. Seth went on matter-of-factly. “Your husband informed me that you have tried often but have
never succeeded. He believes your illness is caused by the lack of children, and you have been diagnosed with uterine monomania
at least once before. I believe that the state of your uterus—as well as your unconscious—is highly relevant to a cure.”

I sat down, tight-lipped.

“If your desires are so concentrated on having a child, then we must—”

I rose and paced to the window, twisting my hands together. “I won’t discuss this.”

“How can I possibly help you, Mrs. Carelton, when you refuse to cooperate?”

“I don’t know,” I said desperately. I stared at the flaking paint on the brick wall outside, the blur of
COXLEY’S CIGARS
. “I don’t know if you can help me at all.”

His voice became cajoling. “Perhaps we should work on finding that calm again, hmmm? If you will just sit down . . .”

I felt a touch on my shoulder and twisted around to see him just behind me. How had he moved there so quickly, so silently?
I had not even seen his reflection in the glass. I jerked away from him until the window was at my back.

“Don’t!” I said, in a panic. “Don’t touch me.”

He held out his hand as if I were a wild animal ready to bite. “You are quite distressed, Mrs. Carelton. Forgive me. Please,
if you will come back and sit down, we’ll start with electrotherapy today. That should make you feel better.”

I resisted his hand. I curled my fingers against the window.

“Come,” he said quietly. “I can help you.”

Perhaps it was the way he looked at me, with that unwavering gaze, but I was afraid of him, of his questions, his interest.
I was afraid of what I might tell him, of what that gaze would lure from me.

“I want only to be like everyone else,” I said desperately, uncertain why I felt the need to say it. “I just want to be an
ordinary woman. . . .”

BOOK: An Inconvenient Wife
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