An Inconvenient Wife (48 page)

I
don’t know how long they’ll deliberate,” Howe said.

It was late the next morning. The window of my father’s dining room afforded me a view of clouds and thickly falling snow.
My uneaten breakfast of oatmeal and cream was abandoned on the table, and my coffee cup was still full; I had taken only a
single sip. Howe poured a cup for himself and sat without invitation at the table.

“You seem so certain,” I said.

He smiled in the affable way that had kept most of the courtroom on his side. “Mrs. Carelton, I have to admit that it’s seldom
I have a case so predisposed to succeed. A husband who hid his past and committed his wife to an asylum? A doctor who admits
he can control his patient? Good God”—he laughed out loud—“if they don’t come back with an acquittal, I’ll shoot them all
myself; they’d be too stupid to live anyway.”

I could not make myself smile. It was true, everything he’d said. I had known it myself, sitting in that courtroom, listening
to the testimony. I had seen sympathy on the faces of the jurors as I told my story complete with tears and unbearable anguish.
But I had spent too long in a world made by other people; I was afraid to hope for freedom now.

“I don’t know if I can bear to wait another moment,” I said.

Harris came to the door. “Madam,” he said. He held out a note. His hand shook slightly, though his expression was as impassive
as ever. “I believe it’s quite important.”

Before I could take it, Howe reached for it. “From the court,” he said, with an
I told you so
look. He tore open the message. “The jury’s back,” he said after scanning it. “We’d best go.”

My hands trembled. I pressed them hard into my stomach and tried to take a deep breath. It wouldn’t come; it felt as if my
lungs had frozen. A shallow sigh was all I could manage. Papa came down at that moment. He took one look at me and his face
went ashen.

“They’re back,” Howe told him.

“Then we must go,” Papa said. “We must go now.”

It seemed to take forever to reach the courtroom. The stairs of the Tombs were covered with ice; my thin boots slipped; my
feet were numb with cold. Howe took a firm hold on my elbow and led me into the building while Papa followed behind. Then
we were once again in the overheated room, with its smells of wet wool and sweat and steaming bodies. Now I smelled the deeper
odors, the ones that lingered in the hard wooden seats, in the scarred floor. The scent of must, of fear, of lingering sorrow.
I would not have thought those things had a smell, but they did. I puzzled why I had not breathed them before today.

The courtroom was full again. I wondered how all these people had known to come. Had they been waiting outside in the snow
and ice for word? Who had told Daisy Hadden? It was not yet noon; how had she managed to pull herself from bed? How had Millie
known? There she was. Her mouth trembled when I looked at her. The little stuffed bird on her hat dipped and moved as if it
were singing a bright song or an elegy, I could not tell. There were newspaper reporters, Miss Adler among them. She smiled
at me as I passed. In the front, at the prosecutors’ table, sat a dour Mr. Scott.

“You see?” Howe whispered into my ear, nudging me slightly. “Even Randolph knows when he’s beaten.”

I didn’t see Victor anywhere. I had not expected to.

Howe led me to the table. Mr. Blake was already there. I had never seen him smile, but he did now. Howe eased his corpulence
into the chair beside me and watched as the jury was marched in. I felt him studying each one of them. I could not make myself
look, afraid I would see the result on their faces, not wanting to know, not yet.

Howe took my hand and squeezed it. He bent to say something to me, but just then the judge came in, and we were bade to stand.
When we were seated again, the judge addressed himself to the jury: “Have you reached a verdict?”

The foreman—a graying, spindly man who was impeccably dressed, a warehouse owner, I remembered—nodded. He rose and handed
a paper to the bailiff, and we all watched that paper as it made its way across the room into the hands of the judge, who
read it and passed it back. The pressure built in my skull; the sounds in the courtroom were a meaningless buzz.

“Will the defendant please rise,” the judge directed, and I had a fleeting thought that he meant me, but I was paralyzed.
Howe rose and took my arm, lifting me gently to my feet. I swayed into him as the judge commanded the foreman to read the
verdict.

“We . . . jury . . . find the defendant . . .” The words were like music, lifting and falling through the buzz in my ears.
I caught one and then another, like a conversation barely heard amid the traffic of Broadway. “. . . not guilty by reason
of temporary insanity.”

My knees gave. I fell into my seat. There was whooping all around me. My father leaned over the bar to rest his hands on my
shoulders. Howe was beaming, shaking Mr. Blake’s hand so hard I wondered if it might not come off.

I was free.

I let my attorney and his assistant and my father surround me. I didn’t smile at Daisy Hadden, I did not even nod in Millie’s
direction. Reporters crowded around, shouting, begging for a word. Howe puffed out his chest dramatically and said, “Justice
has been done. Mrs. Carelton’s days of suffering are over!”

The walk out of the Tombs into the icy, snowy streets to my father’s waiting carriage was the longest one I had ever made.

Jimson smiled at me and helped me inside. When I was seated, he tucked a thick wool blanket around my legs, and I was bundled
and warm again, like a child. When he backed out, my father came inside. The smell of his cologne was overpowering in the
small space, more overpowering than he was. How shriveled he looked, I thought. How weak.

Howe leaned in. “Mrs. Carelton, should you ever find yourself in trouble again—”

“I trust that Lucy’s troubled days are over,” Papa said firmly. “We appreciate all you’ve done, Mr. Howe, but I doubt we’ll
be seeing you again.”

The door was closed in Howe’s face. I felt the shudder of the carriage as Jimson climbed onto the box, the lurch as the horses
pulled into streets so rutted and icy and jarring that we rocked back and forth against the walls.

Papa sighed. “Well, thank God that’s over.” He shook his head. “Time to get on with things, I suppose. We’ll want to decide
what to do about that house of yours. I’ve thought about selling it. God knows it’ll just sit there empty and useless unless
we do. But I suppose that can wait a few days. Once everything is back on course—”

“Back on course?” I laughed.

“What is it?” he asked, frowning. “During the trial, it was best to be about—couldn’t have everyone thinking you were guilty—but
now I think we should keep to ourselves for a bit. Give people time to forget. A trip to the country. I’ve made arrangements
for us to leave the day after tomorrow—had them made just in case, you know. It’ll be good for you to be coddled, I think.
Yes, I do think so. I’ve been corresponding with a doctor—Weir Mitchell, in Philadelphia. He believes it would be best if
you rest. Plenty of bed rest and good, rich food. Cream and butter and the like. No thinking at all, no more drawing or reading
or any of that nonsense—you’ll be yourself in no time.” He patted my knee through the thick blanket and my heavy skirts. “I’ll
take care of you now, my dear. You’ve nothing to worry about.”

I regarded him clearly. “This is what we shall do,” I said. “There is a ship leaving tomorrow for London. The
Lysander
. You will send Harris to procure me a ticket. A first-class cabin. I will be on it in the morning, and I will stay away for
some time.”

I saw shock in his expression. His mouth moved as if he might speak, and then he swallowed before he said, “A ship? Certainly
not! We will do as Dr. Mitchell suggested.”

“I will not be seeing another doctor,” I said calmly, adjusting the blanket. “I am a married woman, Papa. A widow. I have
control of my own fortune, and I will do as I please.”

“You will not—”

“Papa, I ask you to remember what happened to the last man who told me no.” I gave him a pleasant smile and was rewarded by
my father’s dawning comprehension. I rested my head against the seat. “I’ll require the ticket by this evening. But I think
I won’t have dinner with you tonight, Papa. This has all been quite draining. And I’ve so much packing to do if I’m to make
the ship.”

At last his words were gone. I reveled in the silence.

Early the next morning I stood waiting at the front door. My trunk was already packed and tied onto the carriage in the street.
The ticket had been purchased; I held it tight in my hand. On the table in the hall was a vase full of roses, sent by Mr.
Howe, along with a telegram of congratulations. It was the only one I received. From my friends there was only quiet, and
that would continue, I knew. In spite of my acquittal, I was too scandalous to receive in New York City.

I tapped the ticket against my gloved hand. Harris came into the hallway. “Your father begs your understanding,” he said,
“but he cannot leave his breakfast just now. He sends his best wishes. He expects that you will write.”

I smiled and opened the door onto a world swirling with white. It was a week until Christmas, and the maid had festooned the
front gate with greenery, which was sagging beneath the weight of snow. A carriage was emerging in Washington Square from
the fog of snow like a ghostly vision. Before me, Jimson waited.

I got into the carriage and settled myself and watched the passing scenery as we made our way to the transatlantic docks on
the Hudson. I did not expect to see these places again soon.

When we arrived, the docks were alive with people arriving and departing, men shouldering trunks. I said good-bye to Jimson
and paid a porter to carry my trunk to my cabin, then I made my way there myself, up the gangplank, past the staff, who waited
at the top with friendly smiles, who did not know who I was or where I’d been, only that I held a first-class ticket.

Someone showed me to my cabin. It was like all the others I’d occupied since I’d been old enough to travel. A bedroom, a sitting
room with a settee and a polished dining table and lovely plush chairs. I threw off my cloak and sank into one. This was where
I would stay until the ship was well under way. There would be no one waiting to bid me good-bye from the docks, no one who
cared if I was gone. No one to see the flexing of my wings.

There was a knock on the door. I felt a rush of excitement, a pull of desire like gravity. I went to the door and opened it,
and there he stood.

Victor.

“You took your time,” I said.

“My appointments calendar is full,” he said. “I had to tell them all I’d been called away. They will have to wait until I
return.”

“If you return,” I said, and I stood back to let him in.

He smiled. “Oh, I’ll return,” he said. “And you will too. Someday.” He reached for me, and I went into his arms, feeling that
pull tighten and hold when he put his hand in my hair and kissed me and whispered, “I told you it would work, Lucy, didn’t
I? What a remarkable creature you are.”

“Yes,” I murmured back. “We are so clever.”

“I love you, Lucy,” he said. “Just think of how we will be together,” and I smiled. He was so confident. He still thought
he could control me, and I wanted him enough to let him believe it. For now. Yes, we would be together for now.

Until the day I cut the thread that bound us.