An Inconvenient Wife Part 34

"-is for winning," I finished. "He's the one I want."

Papa's face was thunderous. "Absolutely not. By G.o.d, I'll call Sullivan and-"

"I will refuse him," I said. "I don't want him. Papa, you go to William Howe. If you don't, I'll find someone who will. It would be best, don't you think, if you were the one who hired him? You could control him that way. After all, who knows what he might say or what he might discover?"

My father stiffened. I saw a dawning surprise in his eyes.

"It's quite late now, I think. Perhaps you should try to rouse him from his bed. I'm sure a visit from the esteemed DeLancey Van Berckel will be enough to do so."

He was studying me. His voice was quiet when he said, "What has happened to you, Lucy?"

"It's growing late, Papa. Unless you want to see the Van Berckel name further marred by the scandal of a daughter in Sing Sing, I suggest you contact Mr. Howe."

He said, "I don't think you completely understand. He's a showman. He'll drag your name through the mud."

"As if it hasn't been there already."

"This will be worse, Lucy."

"How many reporters are in Hummel and Howe's pockets, Papa?"

He looked startled. "My G.o.d, how do you know of this?"

"It doesn't matter." I lowered my voice. "What matters is that he understands this city as no one else does. That's what I need, Papa, you know this as well as I."

He was quiet. Then he said, "How did you get to be so clever, girl?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Very well. I'll see if Mr. Howe's services can be engaged."

"Thank you."

"Just tell me, Lucy, when you shot William-"

"I didn't know what I was doing," I lied to him. "I can hardly remember doing it."

"Yes," he whispered. "Yes indeed. I understand."

I let him believe he did.

The rest of the night pa.s.sed restlessly. I was aware of the constant motion downstairs. The police wagon did not move from the drive, but in the early morning another carriage came. When I saw it was the morgue wagon, I drew my curtains. In place of my numbness was anxiety. I wondered if my father had engaged William Howe. I wondered when they would take me to court. I wondered even what they would do with William's body, whether his parents might come to his funeral, whether I would meet them at last.

There was only one person of whom I dared not think. I would not allow myself even to think his name.

William Howe did not make an appearance. As the hours dragged on, I began to believe my father had failed, and desperation and fear joined my nervousness. I began to imagine terrible things, my future behind bars, crowded with other women, listening to their snores, breathing their breath, and I grew panicked-was I destined to spend the whole of my life in a cage?

"No," I whispered, calming myself, and then "No." I thought of William Howe and prayed Papa had hired him.

As if I had conjured him, I heard a knock on the door and an officer say, "Mrs. Carelton, you've a visitor." He opened the bedroom door-it was the same officer who had held me last night. Now he was formal, almost stern. "You've a visitor in the parlor, ma'am." When I stood there, unmoving, he frowned. "Ma'am?"

"I don't know where the parlor is," I whispered.

If he found it surprising, he showed no sign. He only nodded curtly and motioned for me to follow. I had no awareness of this house, of my house, as he took me down some stairs to a closed door. I found myself glancing down the hallway, involuntarily, wondering if they had cleaned the dining room, if I would ever have to see it again. Then the officer opened the parlor door, and I was face-to-face with William Howe.

Howe was unmistakable; no one who had lived in New York for long could fail to know him. In the papers they called him "Big Bill," and it was not just his size-he was a man who obviously enjoyed a good meal-that dictated his nickname. He was larger than life, flamboyant, a man who'd bought life from nearly certain death sentences with his rhetoric and his crocodile tears. Today he wore a bright green vest with sparkling b.u.t.tons that vied for attention with the diamond stickpin in his lapel and a large, cl.u.s.tered diamond ring. Behind him was a small, thin man with spa.r.s.e brown hair, wearing an ordinary brown suit, carrying a leather-bound journal and a pocketful of pencils.

Howe said, "Mrs. Carelton, I am William Howe, and this is my a.s.sistant, Mr. Blake. He is the soul of discretion, I a.s.sure you."

The little man nodded, murmuring a h.e.l.lo in a reedy voice. Howe gave the police officer an impatient glance, and the man drew back, stopping only when I said, "When we're finished, I'll call you. Will you escort me back?"

"Of course, Mrs. Carelton," he said. He left, closing the door behind him. Mr. Blake opened the journal and took a pencil from his pocket.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. So much depended on this visit. "Please, Mr. Howe, do sit down," I said, as if this were a social call. "Shall I ring for tea?"

"No, thank you," Howe said. He perched on the very edge of the nearest chair like a fat robin upon a fence rail. Mr. Blake leaned against the wall as if accustomed to never sitting. He didn't stop writing as Howe said, "There will be a bail hearing soon, within the next few days. I expect you'll be free then to go about the city as you please. For now you should know that there are reporters clamoring to talk to you, to hear 'your side' of the story."

"I don't want to talk to anyone," I said hastily.

"Oh, but you will," he said. "And soon. I've handpicked one of them, a woman by the name of Elizabeth Adler. She writes for the World."

"The World?" I asked, horrified.

"My dear Mrs. Carelton, the readers of the World will be ready to vilify you simply because you're a member of the moneyed cla.s.s, unless we have someone there to raise their sympathy. Believe me, in a case such as this, we need all the public support we can rally. I think you'll find Elizabeth to be quite sympathetic to your plight-you will have paid her a fortune to be so. When she visits, you will be contrite and regretful. You will say you remember nothing of what happened. You will tell her that your husband was a monster."

"But William was-"

"I don't care what he was," Howe said. "For the purposes of the World, he was intolerable. Do you understand, Mrs. Carelton? You've hired me to make sure you don't spend the rest of your life at Sing Sing. I will require that you follow my directions to the letter."

I nodded. "I understand."

"Excellent." He glanced at Blake, who nodded and turned a page. "Now, then, let me tell you what the district attorney has said. At your arraignment, which I expect to take place in about a week's time, they will charge you with murder in the shooting death of your husband, which is a very serious crime. Unfortunately, there can be no doubt that you did it, as there were several witnesses. There is much that can be done with the testimony of witnesses-I a.s.sure you, no one sees exactly the same thing-but there were several, and though I can shake their credibility in the eyes of the jurors, I can't make the entire scene disappear. I must tell you, Mrs. Carelton, that if you were going to shoot your husband, I wish you'd chosen a more private place." His voice softened. "Why don't you tell me what happened last night?"

"I don't remember much. It comes to me in bits and pieces." The lie was easy to say. "I remember being nervous. It was our first party in this house-it's just been finished, you know, and I am not accustomed- Then I was in the dining room, and he looked up. He had . . . bourbon. And when I shot him, it went everywhere."

"Bourbon," said Howe thoughtfully. "Yes."

"He was anxious that I do well. I'd only just got back-"

"Yes, I'd heard. From the continent."

"No. From Beechwood Grove."

Howe frowned. "Beechwood Grove?"

"A private asylum. On the Hudson River. William had me committed there in July."

"Good G.o.d." Howe's whole body seemed to become sharp and angular. Blake paused in his writing. "He had you committed to an asylum?"

"I was there for nearly three months."

"Who knows of your confinement there?"

"My father," I said. "My doctors."

"No one else?"

"Only the men William hired to take me there. I don't know their names."

"Your husband told your friends that you were visiting the continent. An extended visit, no doubt."

"Of course."

"And did none of them suspect anything different?"

"I don't know. I couldn't say."

"Just when did you return, Mrs. Carelton?"

"The night before the party," I told him. "The fifth of October."

"I a.s.sume we're talking of a lunatic asylum. Beechwood Grove is a lunatic asylum?"

I nodded.

Howe was avid. "Did he commit you there with your full consent?"

"Hardly," I said bitterly. "He drugged me with laudanum. I had no idea. I would have fought him."

"Why would he do such a thing?"

"I had grown . . . inconvenient," I said. "I'm sure you'll discover that I've been treated by many doctors over the last three years."

"For?"

"Hysteria. What they call uterine monomania."

"We'll need the names of those doctors," Howe said. He said to Blake, "Did you get all that?"

"Yes sir."

"What did these treatments consist of?"

I took a deep breath. "I took the water cure at Elmira. I was given morphia of all kinds. There were various other tortures."

"Did none work?"

"Only one," I said. I crumpled the silk of my gown between my fingers. "This is why I became inconvenient."

"How so?"

"My last doctor was somewhat of a visionary. He began treating me with hypnosis and electrotherapy. There were . . . surprising results. I began to feel much better. I was so much improved, in fact, that I think William began to believe I wasn't the wife he'd married. He had wanted me well, but once I became well, it had consequences he didn't like."

Howe appeared fascinated. "Such as?"

"I began drawing. He didn't care for that. Nor for the fact that I began to do things on my own, that I no longer cared so much for social niceties. I stopped holding a calling day. I much preferred to be outside."

"Inconvenient," Howe murmured.

"Yes. And there was more. At the beginning of my treatment, William insisted that my doctor accompany us everywhere-under the guise of a friend, you understand. It was when we removed to Newport for the summer . . . Well, William was so busy, and I required my doctor, and William began to believe . . ." I shrugged. "You see?"

"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "I think I do begin to see."

"There was . . . an incident," I went on. "William took badly to it. He banished the doctor from the house and imprisoned me in my room. He gave me laudanum. It was truly as if I had gone insane. I no longer knew what was real, Mr. Howe, nor what was illusion. Without the doctor I'd grown to rely on-at William's insistence-I was quite undone."

"That's a remarkable story."

"A true one, I fear."

"Did anyone but your husband witness this . . . incident?"

I shook my head. "No."

"And this doctor of yours, will he corroborate this?"

"I believe so."

"What is his name? Do you know where I can locate him?"

"Oh yes," I said. "His office is on Lower Broadway. On the corner of White Street. There's a little shop below. I believe it's called Jenson's."

"I've got it, sir," Blake said.

"And his name? Is it Jenson as well?"

"No," I said. I met William Howe's gaze. "His name is Victor Seth."

Howe rose, smiling, his eyes sparkling. "Well, well. I will contact him immediately. I must tell you, Mrs. Carelton, that until today I had little hope for this case."

"And now?" I asked him.

"Now? Now I think our chances are considerably improved." He chuckled, shaking his head. "An asylum. Can you believe it, Blake? An asylum?" He and his a.s.sociate went to the door. He turned back to me. "I'll be visiting you again soon. In the meantime, there's that reporter-"

"Elizabeth Adler," I said.

"You are the sympathetic victim in all this, Mrs. Carelton," he said. "Don't forget that."

"I'm not likely to, Mr. Howe," I said.

His expression went blank. "No," he said. "I don't expect you will."

THE WORLD.