by Megan Chance
I turned when the audience did, as the doors at the back of the courtroom opened. A woman clothed in black came inside. She wore a small hat with a dark veil that hid her face. She was compact—an older woman, I thought, though she walked with steady purpose. I watched curiously as Howe helped her into the witness chair. I sent him a questioning glance, but he only smiled. He leaned down, whispering something to the witness, and she reached up and lifted her veil.
I gasped.
I was looking at a woman with William’s face.
Chapter 33
She stared at me as if trying to memorize me. I felt the jury’s gazes riveted to us.
Howe was still smiling. “Mrs. Brock, do you recognize the defendant?”
Mrs. Brock shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Do you know who she is?”
“I’ve heard of her,” she said. Her voice was light and melodious. “She’s Mrs. William Carelton.”
“How do you know this?”
“You told me who she was,” she said. “And I’ve read the papers.”
“What relationship do you have with Mrs. Carelton, Mrs. Brock?”
She hesitated. I did not know what she would say, or who she was, and I was angry at Howe for surprising me this way.
She looked right at me when she said, “I’m her mother-in-law.”
I felt the blood leave my face. The audience broke into surprised whispers; there was a whoop from a reporter; even the jury began talking among themselves. Mr. Scott rose from the prosecution table, calling, “Your Honor, please.”
Judge Hammond slammed his gavel. “I will have silence in this courtroom. Mr. Scott, sit down. Mr. Howe, proceed.”
The murmurings died down, though they didn’t completely disappear. Howe was smiling so broadly it seemed his skin stretched to his ears. I saw him try to rein it in. He bent back to Mrs. Brock, who was still watching me with eyes that were as blue as William’s.
Howe said, “William Carelton was your son?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “He was my son.”
“You have a different surname, ma’am. Did you remarry?”
“No sir. My son changed his name.” Her eyes watered as she spoke, as if it was still painful for her. “When he was born, we named him William Guilden Brock. The only thing he kept was the William.”
Howe’s voice became soft, cajoling. “When did he do this, Mrs. Brock?”
“When he was fifteen. Just before he left town.”
“Which town is that, ma’am?”
“Newport, Rhode Island,” she said.
Again I heard the echo of the bail hearing, the oddity of the thing I had not known. William Stephen Carelton . . . originally of Newport, Rhode Island.
“Why did your son change his name, Mrs. Brock?”
Her tone was resigned. “Because he was ashamed of us. Ashamed of his own father and mother. He was afraid someone might find out where he came from.”
“Why do you think that was?”
“Because he never wanted anything but to belong to them.” She emphasized the audience, me, with a jerk of her chin. “His own father was a lawyer, but that wasn’t good enough.”
“When did you last see your son, Mrs. Brock?”
“I saw him just the other day. In his grave.” Her voice broke again, in sorrow or anger, though I was unsure where it was directed.
“Before that?”
“About five years ago,” she said. “Before he got married.”
“To Mrs. Carelton?”
“Yes.”
“It was a big society wedding, I understand?”
“Four hundred people,” she said, looking up. “At Saint Thomas. There were tea roses and lilies. The bride wore a Worth gown in white satin, with appliqués of lilies and a bodice beaded with seed pearls.” She recited it with a sad pride. “I read it in the paper.”
“You didn’t attend?”
“We weren’t invited. William said he would tell them about us eventually, but he was afraid the great DeLancey Van Berckel might cancel the wedding if he found out who William really was. He said that these people trusted him, that he had made his way into high society. He was marrying a society girl, you see—the same girl he’d wanted for years and years. Oh, he used to watch the Van Berckels, you know, when they came to Seaward. He used to talk about her. Lucy Van Berckel, how she was the prettiest thing. How one day he was going to marry her.”
I began to feel ill.
“And you accepted that?”
“We had to.” She began to cry. When Howe handed her a handkerchief, she dabbed gracefully at her eyes. “We loved our son, and William loved his wife. He was afraid he would lose her. I wanted him to be happy.”
“You were his parents,” Howe said gently. “Surely Mrs. Carelton would have accepted you if she truly loved her husband.”
“William wouldn’t allow it.” She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were full of pain. “I loved my son, Mr. Howe, and I am sorry he’s dead, but I knew what he was. The truth is, as much as William might have loved her, he was ambitious too. Maybe what William really loved was the thought of her and the things she could bring him. He wanted to be rich and respected. When I think about it now, I wish we’d left Newport. It would have been easier for William to understand his place. But with all those cottagers there every summer, having parties, driving their carriages around like they were lords of the town . . . it changed him. Nothing was ever enough for him.”
“Does it surprise you, ma’am, how your son ended up?”
She shook her head sorrowfully. “I wish I could say it does. But he was too ambitious. He was never going to be happy with his place. More, more, more, that’s all I heard from him.”
She came up to me later, as I was climbing into the carriage to go home. It was Papa who saw her first, and his hand tightened on my elbow, stopping my ascent. I turned to see her standing there, looking like an angel in the light snowfall, her small form haloed by a streetlamp. She was looking at me with hungry eyes. “My, aren’t you pretty,” she said. “Prettier even than he said you were.”
I straightened and pulled away from my father, who stood back, suddenly perceptive when I wanted him not to be. I was afraid of her. I spoke quickly, hoping she would understand. “I didn’t know about you. I hope you know that. He wouldn’t talk about his parents. I thought . . . I thought you were dead.”
She nodded. “I won’t bother you after today. I just wanted to see you one time. To talk to you one time. It always seemed strange to have a daughter-in-law I didn’t know.”
I said again, because I could think of nothing else, “I never knew.”
“I just want you to tell me,” she said, “why you killed my son.”
“Because I wanted to be free,” I whispered, because she was his mother and she deserved to know, and to despise me for it. It was the only thing I could give her.
She sighed, and then she smiled weakly and took my hand. “It was nice to meet you,” she said, then released me, turning away as if I were a stranger she never expected to see again. But of course, that was what I was.
Chapter 34
I woke long before the sun rose and lay nervous and still. There had been a sound from somewhere, a crash, the dismay of a servant, but that was not what had awakened me. It was the knowledge of what would happen today that had me tossing and turning and staring blankly into the darkness. Today was the day Howe would call Victor to the stand.
The courtroom was as full as any other day, and the whispers when I came in and sat down were the same, the scribbling of the reporters no different. Howe was smiling when he saw me and leaned down to whisper, “Word is we’re winning.” Before I could ask him how he knew, the judge was sitting, and Howe went to the front of the courtroom and called out in a large, expansive voice: “Please bring Dr. Victor Seth to the stand.”
I froze in my seat, afraid to look when I heard the doors open, the sudden rush of talk, and his st
ep. I had never been aware of hearing it before, I had always thought he moved too quietly to hear, but I realized now that I knew it. His stride was self- assured, almost too confident. I heard the talk die to whispers as he came down the hall, and I knew they were struck—as I had been, as William had been—by his bearing.
It was not until they swore him in and he took his seat that I looked up.
He had changed little since the last time I’d seen him. He was still beardless, but his hair was longer, just brushing his collar, which was stiff and white, and he wore a suit I’d never seen, of a fine dark wool with a matching vest. His watch chain was gold, but those charms still hung from it, and I had the panicked thought that I had never found out what those charms were. It seemed absurd that I had not. Perhaps I didn’t know him as well as I’d thought.
He glanced at me, and I calmed, and then Howe was speaking.
“Dr. Seth, could you state your qualifications, please.”
Victor said, “I’m a neurologist. I studied at the University of Leipzig, and then with Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière until I went to Nancy. There I studied with Hippolyte Bernheim.”
“A neurologist,” Howe said. “I’m not familiar with that term, sir.”
“Neurologists study the brain and the nervous system,” Victor said easily. “We specialize in organic disorders, especially as they apply to illnesses that most people think of as nervous conditions.”
“Such as insanity?”
Victor nodded. “Among other things. Neurologists tend to treat those who are still functioning outside of institutions.”
“I see. So you are a physician?”
Contemptuously, Victor said, “I am a physician, but I hardly assume ancient medical knowledge has validity. I’m a scientist first and foremost. Medical knowledge is increasing day by day. The brain and nervous system have been unknown continents before now. In time science will solve every puzzle of human behavior. We will be able to cure anything.”
Howe raised a brow. “Even madness?”
“Especially madness,” Victor said.
“How truly extraordinary,” Howe said. “How then, sir, would you characterize insanity?”
“Insanity can be measured only by comparison with a person’s normal behavior.”
“So if one day someone’s behavior changed dramatically, that could be seen as insanity?”
Victor nodded. His eyes were so dark it was hard to read his expression. “Possibly.”
“Would you say that, oh, a carpenter, for example, who one day was calmly making cabinets, and who had always been of an even temperament, and then the next day violently decapitated his wife with an ax might be insane?”
Victor allowed a small smile. “That could be one possibility. I would need to know more about the circumstances of the particular case.”
“But you do believe that someone might be so overtaken by some emotion, some irresistible impulse, that he might temporarily lose control of his actions?”
“Certainly. I’ve seen it for myself.”
“What generally triggers such a thing?”
“Great distress,” Victor said. “Physical or emotional.”
“I see. Where is your practice, Dr. Seth?”
“Here in the city.”
“And what is your specialty?”
“I specialize in nervous disorders—hysteria, neurasthenia, morbid fears, and the like—especially in women.”
“Is that how you came to know Mrs. Carelton?”
Victor glanced at me. He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Yes. She came to me in January of this year. She desired treatment for hysteria. At the time her husband said they were quite desperate. Apparently she’d seen many doctors throughout the years. None had been able to help her. Mr. Carelton intimated that I was their last hope.”
“Other doctors diagnosed her with uterine monomania.”
“They were wrong,” Victor said flatly. “There was no irregularity with her uterus, nothing to indicate monomania at all.”
“How did you ascertain this?”
“With a simple examination,” Victor said. He exhaled in disgust. “This is the problem with most physicians today. They’re too quick to find fault with the reproductive system. Mrs. Carelton was quite normal, although she had been unable to conceive.”
“Wouldn’t one assume that this was because she was not normal?”
Victor’s smile grew faintly patronizing. “One could assume this, but one would be wrong. Mrs. Carelton had no abnormality in her uterus or her ovaries. She did indeed suffer from hysteria and sexual neurasthenia, but I attributed those things not to her womb but to her husband.”
“Her husband?”
“Yes. Mr. Carelton declined to do his part to relieve his wife’s systems. He said he was afraid of defiling her. What he meant was that he didn’t want to be of the class of man who might have a passionate woman as a wife. In her desire to please him, she followed his instruction in everything. Because of that, her own desires were thwarted, and she took refuge in hysteria.”
Howe nodded. “Did you believe you could cure her of this hysteria and—what else did you call it?”
“Sexual neurasthenia,” Victor said. “Yes. I did believe I could cure her.”
“How long did your treatment of Mrs. Carelton last?”
Victor looked pained. “Until her husband committed her to an asylum.”
“Because she was insane?”
“No, Mr. Howe. Because she was well.”
There was a stirring in the audience. Judge Hammond looked up sternly.
Howe’s thick brows rose in surprise. “She was well, and he had her committed? Why was that?”
“In my conversations with him, I discovered that Mr. Carelton preferred his wife to be helpless and dependent upon him. He preferred her ill. When she began to deny him, he was angry.”
“What did she deny him, Dr. Seth?”
“The opportunity to dictate her every action.”
“But isn’t that what husbands are supposed to do? To lead their wives gently in the proper direction?”
Victor said firmly, “It is certainly a husband’s prerogative to direct his wife in proper behavior, but I believe Mr. Carelton’s ambition made him unduly harsh. I ask you, Mr. Howe, who would have been the most cognizant of proper behavior: Mrs. Carelton, who is descended from the Knickerbockers, or Mr. Carelton, who was not?”
“A good question, Dr. Seth,” Howe said, looking pointedly at the jury. “A very good question indeed. Now, Doctor, you are of the opinion that Mrs. Carelton was well when her husband had her committed to Beechwood Grove. Why do you say that?”
“I was directing her treatment. She was making great strides.”
“Would you say your relationship with Mrs. Carelton was intimate, Doctor?”
“I would say any doctor-patient relationship is.”
“Yes, of course. However, Mrs. Breckenwood claimed earlier that Mrs. Carelton was having an affair with you. Is this true?”
Victor didn’t look at me. “No. It is not true.” His lie was so smooth and confident even I nearly believed it.
“You were not having a personal relationship with Mrs. Carelton?”
Again Victor sighed with exasperation. “Part of Mrs. Carelton’s treatment required some exploration of her physical symptoms, yes. This is a usual medical procedure. Mr. Carelton knew this. We discussed it. He did not seem to find it unreasonable.”
“What else did her treatment consist of?”
“Electrotherapy, to treat the sexual neurasthenia. Hypnosis for the hysteria.”
“Hypnosis?” Howe turned his gaze to the jury as if he might find understanding there. “What exactly is hypnosis? A kind of mesmerism?”
“No. Mesmerism is a parlor trick. Hypnosis is a medical procedure that uses suggestion to change behavior.”
“Suggestion? How does that work?”
“A person is put into a trance state,” Victor
explained patiently. “During the trance, the conscious mind is inactive—asleep, if you will—and the unconscious mind is then receptive to suggestion.”
“Objection,” Scott called. “What relevance does any of this have?”
“We have a right to raise a defense,” Howe said. “And the state has already mentioned Dr. Seth’s unique ability—”
“Yes, yes,” said the judge. “Continue, please, Doctor.”
Howe smiled and turned back to Victor. “Now, Mrs. Breckenwood testified earlier that you performed this ‘hypnotism’ at parties.”
“Yes.”
“She said that you could make anyone do anything. Is this true?”
Victor shook his head and smiled slightly. “Hardly. Not everyone can be put in a trance state, nor does everyone respond to suggestion to the same degree.”
“So there are some for whom hypnotism doesn’t work?”
“Yes.”
“And what about Mrs. Carelton? How did she respond to hypnotism?”
“I found during my first examination of Mrs. Carelton that she was extraordinarily suggestible.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“She responded quite well to suggestion,” Victor said. “To a degree I’d never seen. For example, if I told her she would be numb, she became so.”
“I see.” Howe turned from Victor and faced the jury. He seemed about to deliver a cautionary tale. I found myself leaning forward, waiting to hear.
“You said earlier that you could not make anyone do anything, as Mrs. Breckenwood testified. But in fact you did have the skill to put everyone into a trance when you were entertaining at Newport, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Victor said. “But that was only because I chose my subjects well. Experience has taught me who will go into a trance and who will not. There is a certain indolence about the eye, a willingness to be led.” He shrugged. “It was not so difficult to choose those who could be hypnotized.”
“And you say that Mrs. Carelton was especially susceptible to hypnotism?”