Without looking at me, Doctor Paul detached himself from the wall and picked up his jacket from my bedroom floor. He shrugged it over his shoulders and shook out his cuffs. I stared at him: handsome of face, straightforward of shoulders, sunshine of hair.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. The entry bulb shone on the back of his neck. “One more thing. As a practical matter, after what happened Saturday night. Do you mind telling me the date of your last menstruation?”
“You sound like a doctor.”
“Imagine that.”
I fingered the wrapper on the pastrami sandwich. “Three weeks ago. We should be safe.”
“You’re never safe. So will you let me know? If we’re not.”
“Of course. But I’m not worried. I wouldn’t have . . . I mean, I would have made you . . . I’m not that reckless.”
He opened the door. “I’m not giving up, Vivian. I’m as stubborn as you are. If I have to wait until we’re sixty.”
“Trust me, Doctor. I’m not worth it.”
The back of his head swung back and forth in the doorway.
“Trust me, Vivian. You are.”
Violet
The day after Violet’s visit to Dr. Winslow, she dressed and walked to the institute, and no one stopped her, no one told her she was no longer welcome. She did not see Walter all day, in fact.
She spoke with the other fellows, she sat and worked on the equations from her latest round of experiments. At five o’clock she left and picked up dinner from a cookshop and took it home, though the smell made her queasy, and as she forced it down she thought she had better humble herself and write to Christina. Perhaps something could be worked out. She would not return to New York in shame—pregnant! of all the sordid and predictable female defeats!—no, she could never do that, but Christina had always supported her. Christina had a streak of adventure, had secretly longed to commit some grievous impropriety and live in freedom thereafter. Perhaps Christina would come and help her with the baby, and they could live a wonderful bohemian existence, the three of them. Like a modern novel, like something Olive Schreiner might write.
Except that Christina now had a husband and a brand-new baby of her own, a respectable existence, stamped and approved with the Schuyler seal.
She washed her plate and cup and changed into her nightgown and her soft cashmere-lined dressing gown, a relic from her brief young-ladyhood. She added coals to her little fire and settled herself in the nearby chair with the latest Proceedings.
She must have dozed off, because a gentle knock startled her into alertness. “Come in,” she said.
The door cracked open. “Miss Schuyler, Dr. Grant is waiting downstairs for you. Shall I allow him up?” said her landlady. On her face was an expression of compassion that made Violet want to weep with gratitude.
“Yes, thank you.” She stood up and straightened her robe, straightened her hair. She wished she had a sword to buckle to her waist, a set of chain mail to cover her body.
Walter swept into the room with his usual assurance. He took off his hat and placed it on the table and turned to her, smiling. “Good evening, Violet. I’ve come to apologize.”
“Indeed.”
He walked up fearlessly and took her hands. His eyes were warm and blue. “How are you, child? Are you well?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I was wrong, I was quite wrong. You have every right to be angry.” He took up her hands and kissed them, and his beard scratched its familiar scratch against her skin. “I’m sorry, Violet.”
“Very well. You’re sorry. I accept your apology.”
“Sit down, child.” He drew on her hands.
Violet paused, resisting, and then allowed herself to be lowered into the armchair she had just left. “What is it?” she asked, placing her hands in her lap.
Walter sat down on the stool next to the fire. “I think we should marry, Violet.”
“What?”
“We should marry. It’s the sensible thing, the obvious solution to our little dilemma. We suit each other in every way.”
His words whirled past her ears. Marry. “You, Walter? But I thought . . . I never thought . . . You don’t believe in it. You told me so. Marriage is an artificial institution, it denies the essential independence of . . . of . . .” She could not remember the exact words, but their meaning was etched in her brain. After all, she hadn’t disagreed with it. She had believed it, too, with all her heart.
He shook his head and took her hands again. “Ordinary marriage, child, between ordinary people. But ours will be a different sort of marriage, won’t it? We’ll have a new model, a marriage of equals, of like minds united in respect for the fundamental independence of the other. We won’t be constrained by the rigid and hypocritical morality of the previous age. We shall place no restrictions on the freedom of the other person to pursue whatever interests give him or her happiness and pleasure.”