An Inconvenient Wife Part 6

"A new science? How do you know this?"

"Dr. Seth has said-"

"Ha!" Papa jabbed his finger in the air. "This doctor told you. This fraud."

"He's not a fraud, Papa."

"And how would you know this, Lucy? Have you studied science and medicine?"

"No-"

He started to rise. "Where is this man? I'll go talk to him myself. I can spot a charlatan in any guise."

I went still. The thought of it was horrifying. "No," I whispered.

Papa sat back down, thunderous, threatening. I knew why his business partners had always yielded to him. I had understood it for some time and never better than today. "I hardly need your permission," he said acidly. "I forbid you to see him."

"Please, Papa," I said. "Please. Don't do this."

"If William won't protect you, I shall."

"No, you mustn't. . . ." I struggled for the words. My faith in Dr. Seth grew in direct proportion to my father's outrage. "Please, Papa, I want to do this. He thinks it could help. William thinks it will help. And I want to be well. Please. I want it so very badly, and we've tried everything else. Everything."

I was trembling when I finished. Papa was stone-faced. My words had never silenced him before, and I had no idea what to do now that they had.

"Well now," he said slowly. "Perhaps I've been too hasty."

I wanted to cry with relief. "Oh, Papa, thank you. Thank you."

"Come now, girl, you know I dislike these maudlin displays."

I nodded, trying to gain control. "Yes, of course."

"You go to your doctor. But I warn you, I won't tolerate any strange goings-on."

"Yes. I understand."

"Good. Then for now I'll say no more about it." My father pushed back his chair and rose abruptly. When he came over to me and set his hand on my shoulder, I clasped it gratefully. He squeezed my fingers. "I don't hold with much of this nonsense, my dear, you know that," he said. "In the end it all comes down to accepting that you're a wife. Only then will you be truly satisfied. Find your duty. Happiness will follow."

I spent the next days in anxious antic.i.p.ation. I had never experienced anything like hypnotism before. I had never even partic.i.p.ated in the mesmerism parlor games that had been the preferred trick at parties only a few years before. To give oneself over so completely to someone else-I would have said it was not in my nature, though now I realized how often I had given myself over to my doctors over the years, how thoroughly I had thrown myself into their treatments and cures.

But that had been medicine; this suggested course of Dr. Seth's was unfamiliar to me. I hardly knew what to expect, so my apprehension grew even as did my eagerness.

The servants seemed to relish my tension. I was certain they deliberately worked to agitate me: Cook spoiled two sauces; Moira was unable to dust a single item adequately. Even Harris, whom I'd always trusted implicitly, lost an invitation to a late supper.

Truthfully, the last was a relief. I did not go out-to think of concentrating long enough to have a conversation put me in a desperate mood. I longed for my cordial, but William had taken to hiding it from me until bedtime, when he would magically produce it. I searched his bedchamber to no avail; I could not find it, and all I managed to achieve was his censure when he arrived home to find his drawers askew. He threatened then to throw it away, and though I could procure another prescription easily enough, I did not think I could face Dr. Moore again so soon. It had been only a week since I'd last asked him.

I behaved as well as I could. I embroidered. I tried to read. I attempted to write letters. When the twentieth came, I could hardly stand myself. By ten o'clock that morning, I was dressed and ready to go, and then I sat idly in my bedroom, alternately dreading the appointment and longing for the time to go more quickly. Finally it was time to call for the carriage, and I set off for Dr. Seth's alone.

When I pushed open the door to the little shop, the bell rang. Again there was no one behind the counter, no one in any part of the shop, not even a woman searching for knickknacks-but then this was too far from the respectable shopping district for that. Those who came to this building no doubt came for only one purpose.

I hesitated, then went through the back door up those mean, dim, and narrow stairs. My footsteps echoed against the smoky ceiling, the unpatched, stained walls. Before I was ready, I was there, staring at his door. VICTOR SETH.

The door opened, and Irene stood there smiling. "I thought I heard you, ma'am. Please come in. The doctor's waiting for you."

I followed her inside, and the door clicked shut behind me with a sharp little sound that made me jump.

"May I take your cloak?" the girl asked. She was lifting it from me before I had a chance to respond. She hung it on an iron coat- rack and went to knock on the door leading to the doctor's office. "Doctor?" she called. "She's here."

There was a noise behind the door, a clatter, then papers shuffling, and I stepped back against the wall just as he opened the door.

I had forgotten how commanding he was. I was stunned for a moment, paralyzed until he stood back and ushered me inside his office.

"You did not change your mind," he said to me once the door was closed.

"No," I said. "Why should I?"

"More than one patient has been dissuaded by the gossip," he said. He regarded me carefully. "You are not?"

"No." My gaze fell to the floor. The wood was stained and worn. "I yearn for a cure, Doctor. I want to be well."

"Then we shall make you well. Won't you sit down? Or would you prefer the settee?"

I sat in the nearest chair. He went to the matching one and pulled it around soundlessly, facing mine but nearly beside it, so the arms were almost touching. It was as if we were lovers embarking on an intimate conversation. I flinched, and though I knew he saw it, he ignored it and sat with a slow, elegant motion, folding himself into the chair.

"You say you want to be well, Mrs. Carelton," he said. "I know what that means to your husband; now I would like to know what it means to you."

"What it means to me?" I said, nonplussed. "Why, I should think that's clear enough."

"Really?" He stroked his small beard. His gaze was so solid and penetrating, I felt as if he could see my very bones, and I squirmed, unable to sit still beneath such scrutiny. "Let's say it's not clear to me. What do you want from me, Mrs. Carelton?"

"My husband is building a grand house," I told him honestly. "He expects me to spend a fortune decorating it."

"Most women would delight in such a thing."

"Yes." I nodded. "And that is the problem, Doctor. The things that most women delight in leave me feeling exhausted. I cannot muster the strength to face a calling day or another party." The words came spilling from me then, things I had never been able to articulate, things I was surprised to find I even felt. "What I want . . . what I want most of all is to be like everyone else. I want to take pleasure in decorating the house. I want to enjoy a calling day. I want to be satisfied with what I have."

"I see," he said softly.

"My husband believes that having a child will cure me," I told him simply. "I don't know if that's true. It seems certain that I will never know. And so I want your help in finding the joy in life that everyone else seems to know how to find. I confess it is inconceivable to me that I will ever know it. I- I want you to save me, Doctor. I feel as if I am slowly drowning."

He said nothing when I was finished, merely continued that d.a.m.ning gaze. I fumbled with my bag, embarra.s.sed to have revealed so much. "How foolish it must seem to you," I blurted. "Hardly a medical concern, I know. My fits are what trouble William the most-"

"Lay your arm on the rest," Dr. Seth instructed.

Taken aback, I said, "What?"

"Lay your arm on the rest."

"Why?"

He smiled. "I promise I won't hurt you, Mrs. Carelton. Can you believe me?"

"I suppose. My husband would see you ruined if you did," I said.

"Yes."

I took a deep breath and laid out my arm, gripping the end of the armrest, feeling the purse of fabric beneath my fingers.

The doctor touched my wrist. I had not expected that he would touch me, and I jumped.

"Never fear, Mrs. Carelton," he said softly. "I only mean to turn your hand . . . like so." Gently, he lifted my arm and laid it down again so that my palm was up, so that the thin burgundy silk of my sleeve tightened around my forearm like the skin of a sausage.

His finger began to move on the underside of my forearm, soft and slow, back and forth. When I opened my mouth to protest, I could not make a sound.

"I'm going to put you into a little sleep," he said in a soothing, quiet voice, almost like a chant. "It will be as natural as if you were at home. Your eyes will grow heavy, your limbs have become limp. Sleep is coming. Let yourself go. Sleep."

I was tired. I had not slept well last night, even with the cordial, and it seemed my eyes had a will of their own. His finger kept moving, his voice droned on and on, and then I felt his hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes, and he was sitting back in his chair, not touching me at all, rubbing his small beard, his dark eyes thoughtful and intense.

I felt as if I had come out of a deep and refreshing sleep, but I knew I had not. Only seconds had pa.s.sed. Not long at all. Yet I felt disoriented and strange.

"You've just awakened from a rather deep sleep, Mrs. Carelton," he explained.

"But I- I have not slept at all."

"For nearly an hour," he told me. "Do you remember any of it?"

"No," I said, with rising panic. "No, no. I remember you touching me and saying I would sleep-"

"Nothing more?"

I shook my head.

"I've rarely encountered a patient who experiences such a profound trance," he said, rising. He went to the wooden cabinet at the end of the room and opened the top.

"But what happened?"

"I have established the beginnings of a cure. I believe you will feel much better quite soon."

I wanted to laugh. "A cure? But that's absurd."

He looked at me over his shoulder. "I a.s.sure you it's true. But there are one or two other things we can do to hurry things along, I think. I'm sure you'll find the results more tangible."

"What have you done to me?"

He sighed and turned completely to face me. "Mrs. Carelton, all I have done is to suggest to your unconscious mind that you will feel better. I've imposed no will upon you. I am not a magician; this is not an entertainment. If you cannot trust me, I fear there's no point in going further."

"No, no, I didn't mean to suggest-"

"Of course you did," he said. "But I believe that if you can bring yourself to overcome your objections and your fears, we can make great strides against your illness."

"Then it is an illness," I said eagerly. "It's not simply my imagination."

His gaze was arresting. "You are quite ill, Mrs. Carelton. Fortunately, you are treatable." He went and called Irene, then motioned toward the screen. "Now, please, Mrs. Carelton, if you will undress, we can continue."

I'd had no confidence when I walked into this office, but at once I was imbued with it. I could not explain it. Already I felt better.

When Irene and I came from behind the screen, Dr. Seth stood by that large wooden cabinet. It was opened from all sides, drawers slid out to reveal a ma.s.s of coils and wires and dials. He told Irene to go as I stared at it in repulsed fascination, my ner-vousness returning until he motioned to the chair he'd placed beside it.

"Sit down, please, Mrs. Carelton. I a.s.sure you, you won't find this unpleasant."

I did as he asked without question. I sat in the chair and put my bare feet on the metal floor plate and watched in absurd calm as he moved wires and adjusted dials. When he asked me to hold a hollow metal cylinder connected to a wire, I did not balk. Then I heard a hum. He held what resembled a wand, thicker where he held it, narrowing to a metal ball.

"This will feel strange," he told me. "But it won't hurt."

As he spoke, he went behind me, touching the base of my neck with the wand, and I felt an odd heat, a buzz, a motion that leaped through my skin and moved with him down my back, lingering at two spots near the bottom of my spine before he moved again in front of me, pulling a stool around between my knees, pushing up my chemise, parting my thighs with a.s.sured indifference. I said nothing-I felt paralyzed with shock and a faint horror-but when the wand touched me, I jerked. The doctor put his hand on my arm, and I was still again as the current pulsed through me, stronger and stronger. I felt a stranger take over my body, crying out, convulsing until finally he took the thing away, and I was left breathless and dimly aware that through it all, he had told me the truth: I'd felt no pain.

The hum stopped. He had turned off the machine; he set the wand on the cabinet. "You may dress now, Mrs. Carelton," he said, and I realized that my chemise was still rumpled above my knees, that my body was still pulsing, that I was flushed and bewildered. Quickly, hiding my face from him, I raced to the dressing screen. I could not look at Irene as she came to help me dress, but when my bustle was buckled on, my petticoats fastened, I felt myself again. I heard a door open and close, and I prayed he was gone and I would not have to meet his eyes.

But when I came out again, he was standing by his desk, bent over a notebook.

"I've written you down for Thursday," he said. "We'll a.s.sess the treatment then. I think it best if you return soon and often to begin with. There will be less chance for interference."

Thursday was my calling day. It would be nearly impossible for me to avoid it. William would be furious if I did not see callers for a second week.

Dr. Seth put down the notebook. "Will two o'clock be satisfactory?" he asked as he came toward me, and before I could say No, Thursday will never do, he looked at me, and I immediately felt better: calm and rea.s.sured, as if some part of me-the tense, knotted part of me-had fled.

"Thursday," I said. "Two o'clock."

"You'll feel better immediately," he told me. "I'm sure of it."

The odd thing was, I did feel better. Much better. I could not keep from smiling as I left his office, and when I met Jimson waiting with cold hands and a pinched face at the curb, I suggested he drive me to a nearby restaurant, where I bought him a few small cakes and a cup of strong tea to warm himself. He was startled but obviously pleased, and the ride home was less b.u.mpy than it had ever been before.

William was waiting anxiously when I arrived.

"I came home early," he told me when I stepped through the door and handed Harris my gloves and cloak. "Come to the study, darling. I want to hear how things went."

"Why, I feel rested," I said as I followed him into the study. "Wonderfully rested. I bought Jimson a cake on the way home. He deserved it for waiting so long in the cold."

"You bought Jimson a cake?"

"Yes, he was out there nearly two hours."

"I . . . see. And the appointment?"

"I think you might be right about this doctor, William," I said. "Dr. Seth is . . . quite unusual."

William frowned. "Did he hypnotize you?"