Part 3 (1/2)

”Not good for me?”

”Yes,” William said thoughtfully. ”It's time you stopped being a daughter.”

My head was pounding again. ”Don't be absurd.”

”I've thought it for some time, Lucy,” he went on. ”I think it's time you were mistress of your own house. One where your father can't come in whenever he wants and reduce you to a blathering girl. It's time we made our own life away from him.”

I stared at him, bewildered. ”I thought . . . you and Papa . . . you're like his own son.”

”I'm not speaking of me, Lucy, but of you,” William said impatiently. ”You even think of yourself as DeLancey Van Berckel's daughter, not as my wife.”

”Oh, good heavens, William. I do not. I'm Mrs. William Carelton. I know that.”

He studied me so searchingly that I had to turn away. ”Do you?” he asked. ”I've wondered for some time if that house isn't the reason we haven't had a child.”

”The house,” I said, meaning to be light, to joke. ”Yes indeed, it must be the house that holds such power.”

William did not laugh. ”We've seen so many doctors. None has found a reason. What else am I to think?”

I gazed out the window, at the bright lights of the hotels, the theaters. ”That we aren't meant to have a child.”

”I won't believe that.”

”And you think a mansion on Fifth Avenue will change everything.”

”I think it must,” he told me.

”And if it doesn't?”

I refused to meet his gaze. ”It must,” he said, and I heard his certainty and his will and the words he left unsaid, the threat of Dr. Little's asylum.

Chapter 3.

I used to dream of Rome. When I was a girl, I read everything I could about the city. I had dreams of wandering through the Piazza, of suppers eaten in warm, sultry air scented with olives and oregano. I formed an attachment to Italian poets, hiding their books from my father, sneaking them into bed to read by candlelight late into the night. I dreamed briefly of painting there-the landscapes here were too muted, too familiar. My brush longed to depict Italian hills and golden sunsets, Italian flowers and swarthy Italian peasants. Rome. The word was magical to me, as if just its conjuring could enable my soul to fly.

But I did not see Rome until William and I honeymooned there. It was only one stop on a European Grand Tour, before Paris-William had insisted that I be fitted by Worth for next season's gowns-but it was the place I longed to be every moment I was somewhere else. I wanted to see it through the eyes of the poets I revered, through the misty, earthy colors of the artists. Rome. Surely there could be nothing bad in a world that harbored such a place.

I did not see Rome through my poets' eyes. Nor did I see it through the brushstrokes of any artist. When I finally saw Rome, it was through William's impatience, his longing to be farther on, in Paris and London, to finish business there, to have my hands modeled in clay, to see me dressed in Worth finery, to live up to my social obligations, which decreed that we should spend two months on our tour, and that it should include the places everyone went. There was no lingering at outdoor tables, breathing the scents of olives and oregano. There was no time to walk through the Piazza. The days were spent calling on friends of my father's, the nights dining at their tables. For me, Rome was just New York with different accents.

As William led me up the stairs to the Baldwins', I thought of Rome again, the Rome of my dreams, and how it had turned out nothing at all like I had imagined or wanted. It was impossible to believe that this life-the life of a wife, of a woman-had once been as intriguing to me as Rome.

The door was opened by a solemn-faced butler, and we went inside.

James Baldwin was a man who loved trees and forests, and the entrance hall was covered with pictures of landscapes, some by old masters and one by Millet that was greatly admired. Much was said of Ella Baldwin's decor, which was styled to match her naturalist husband's tastes, with pressed leaves imprisoned in gla.s.s, forever gold and red, and botanical studies kept immutable in tapestry and upholstery. I found it oppressive-nature forever inside, crushed by the ma.s.sive weight of feathers and sh.e.l.ls, stuffed birds preening on peeling branches beneath gla.s.s domes, wax flowers and paintings that echoed of what these things had forever left behind: the blessed course of life and death, nature at its cruelest and most sublime.

Dutifully, I admired a new painting, a landscape in the golds and browns of the Hudson River School, though to me it looked as if everything in the scene were dying.

”It is Father's new favorite,” said Antoinette Baldwin-the pretty eighteen-year-old daughter-as she led us to the dining room, which was laid end to end with china and gla.s.sware that sparkled and twinkled in the light from a lily-globed gasolier. Candles had been lit as well, and the scents of wax and smoke and gas were heavy in the small room.

”There you are, Antoinette, darling!” Daisy Hadden was coming toward us, fluttering in deep rose lace, her new diamonds glittering blindingly in the candlelight. She touched Antoinette's arm and said in a low voice, ”Your mama's asking for you, my dear.”

Antoinette gave us a pretty smile and hurried off. When she was gone, Daisy said to William and me, ”How nice to see you both. Lucy, how deliciously pale you look this evening. That gown is so bold against your skin.”

William gripped my arm. ”She has the headache. The opera was a trial.”

”Well, yes. This season . . .” Daisy waved her hand languidly and lowered her voice. ”This dinner should be just as wretched, of course. A pity Ella has such a lamentable cook. Although I suppose the good doctor might save us. Did you know he was here tonight? I thought Harry Everett might call him out last week. I quite imagined pistols at dawn.”

”Doctor?” William asked. ”What are you talking about? What doctor?”

Daisy looked surprised. ”Why, Dr. Victor Seth. Don't tell me you haven't heard of him? I would have thought after all dear Lucy's trials . . .”

”I'm afraid not,” William said.

”Oh.” She seemed nonplussed. ”But then I suppose the two of you have been in the country these last few months. Seth has become quite notorious recently. The guest du jour.” She laughed. ”They say he's a Jew, but you would hardly know it to look at him. He's very controversial, you know. He quite gives one the chills. Something about his eyes. But Ella swears by him. He's just over there.”

I had barely heard her words, but there was something about Daisy's surrept.i.tious curiosity that made me follow her gaze through the crowd to a man who stood near the back of the room, surrounded by Ella Baldwin and a group of our friends.

I had never seen him before. He was nearly as tall as William and of a similar age. His dark hair was thick and brushed into smooth submission. He wore a thin mustache and a Vand.y.k.e beard. Even from this distance, I felt how commanding he was. It surprised me not to have sensed his presence the moment we'd stepped into the room.

”He's a doctor, you say?” William asked thoughtfully.

”A nerve specialist,” Daisy said.

”A nerve specialist?”

Daisy nodded. ”Or something of the sort. I understand he wrote some brilliant paper, though there are some-Harry, for one-who say he's a charlatan. He has some new theory-Ella explained it all to me, but you know how I am, I can hardly grasp these things. Mesmerism or phrenology or something.”

”Those are hardly new,” William said.

”Well, then something like them.” Daisy glanced back at the doctor. ”He does seem to work miracles, though. And I suppose he's very charming. Why, look what he's done for Ella Baldwin-she was an invalid the entire summer, but you'd hardly know it now.”

I hadn't known that Ella was ailing, but it was certain she was no longer. She was smiling brightly at the doctor, hanging on his every word, and with dismay I felt William's sharp interest in this man.

I touched his arm. ”Darling,” I said softly. ”I'm quite parched.”

”Yes, yes, of course,” he said, forcing his eyes away from Dr. Seth, patting my hand. ”Let's find you something to drink.”

We left Daisy, and William's fascination with the doctor waned and disappeared as we made our way to the buffet. He was cornered by Richard Martin, who involved him in a conversation about bonds, and I was relieved.

We sat down to dinner so late that my head was spinning. It was the first time since we'd arrived that William and I were separated from each other, and even then there was only the width of the table between us. He had been seated next to Daisy Hadden, while I had to suffer the cruelly dull Hiram Grace, with his overgrown graying mustache and his ceaseless talk of Western Union, where he spent his days making so much money that his four daughters were perpetually dressed in Worth gowns. Dr. Victor Seth sat a good distance down the long table, involved in conversation. Far away from William, I was glad to see.

There was wine. I sipped until I no longer felt the pressure in my chest, despite William's warning glances.

”I hear you're about to join the others on Fifth Avenue,” Hiram Grace said to me between the lobster bisque and the roasted partridge.

I reached again for my gla.s.s. ”Ah yes. How quickly word spreads. William has decided to build. We've a plat on East Sixty-third.”