A Well-Behaved Woman

by Therese Anne Fowler

  Alva gestured for her to come over. “It was a coughing fit. Let’s see it.”

  “It’s for the bodice of Miss Consuelo’s yellow dress. I thought she might like it done this way for Easter.”

  Alva took the embroidered fabric and straightened it over her lap. Mary had done an array of daffodil-and-violet sprays, with the tiniest knots for baby’s breath.

  “This is wonderful,” Alva told her.

  “I thought I’d do leaves for a border here, where the waist will be. And a little yellow bird at the breast.”

  “She’ll adore it.”

  “I hope she will. It was Louise, Mrs. Belmont’s maid, who gave me the idea for the bird. We got to talking while the ball was going on. That’s all there is to do, you know. Chatter. About how it is to work for a lady or a family, or how it is with the other servants. She had a lot to say about Mr. and Mrs. Belmont. You know I’m not one to gossip, but…”

  Alva said, “But?”

  “But, well, Louise, she traveled with Mr. and Mrs. Belmont for their honeymoon, and she said—well, I’ll just tell it how she told it: Mr. Belmont was resentful of how Mrs. Whiting and the sisters were always carping or demanding things. And Mrs. Belmont kept insisting that her husband let them buy every single thing they desired at Le Bon Marché and the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville and Worth and Doucet. All those places.”

  “I could tell right away she was a frivolous type.”

  “And Louise says that after the wedding night Mrs. Belmont wouldn’t even let Mr. Belmont near her. That’s how he’s so certain the baby can’t be his. And his wife says she is so insulted by him accusing her that she can never spend another night in his house. So that’s it. She’s back home with her mama and he’s suing on account of desertion.”

  “They’re divorcing?”

  Mary nodded. “I wondered if you knew it or not.”

  “I knew there was conflict. He didn’t say it had gone that far.”

  “They only came to the ball so as to keep the whole thing quiet, as Mrs. Belmont—that is, Mr. Oliver’s mother—hopes he won’t go through with it. Still, the Belmont brothers aren’t speaking to the Whitings, and seeing as Miss Carrie Astor is Miss Whiting’s—that is, Sallie Belmont’s—close friend, none of the Astors are speaking to any of the Belmonts.” She took the fabric back from Alva, adding, “I thought that with Mr. Oliver being such a good friend to you and Mr. William, you should know what the facts are, before the story gets twisted who knows how many ways.”

  “As such stories often do.”

  “It’s too bad, isn’t it? I like Mr. Oliver.”

  “It is too bad.”

  When Alva was alone again, she had a moment in which her mind attempted to lose itself thinking, If he’s going to be free soon, might we … until she stopped it cold.

  No. She respected her husband, and she respected herself.

  She and Oliver could be friends, nothing more. He was, of course, free to admire her in whatever measure suited him; she couldn’t control such a thing—the heart will want what it will want.

  One did not have to give in to unwise desires.

  She wrote her reply.

  My friend, you gave no offense. I am so honored by your regard, and under different circumstances might return it. That is not, however, the path my life has taken. I don’t want to presume your ultimate intention, but in case this needs said: no matter your situation, my sentiments cannot change. Much as I may wish to indulge your regard, there is no scenario in which I can rightly do so; my gains over these many years are much too hard-won to sacrifice. Unlike you, I’ve had to battle for my place, and would lose everything if I failed to hold the line.

  Reading this over, she wondered if it was firm enough. She did not wish to give him any room for hope. She was being honest is all, and “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom” according to President Jefferson. He had been wise about so many things; it could not be wrong to emulate him.

  After dispatching her note to Oliver, Alva refolded his and put it, along with one of the fragrant gardenias, inside a book that she then placed high on her shelf, out of easy reach.

  * * *

  William came to her room that night. There in the dark, both of them were silent as he lifted her nightdress the way he always did, and climbed atop her in his usual manner. As she’d long accustomed herself to doing, she kept her head turned away, eyes open. While William moved against her, she thought of Lady C.’s remarks about taking a lover. She thought of Sallie Belmont having done so. This act, which for her was so demeaning and unpleasant, must be different for those who felt passion for each other, or why would any woman pursue it?

  William finished, but didn’t climb off her right away. He lay against her, not moving, not speaking. Alva, too, did not move. If not for being able to feel and hear him breathing, she would have thought he’d expired.

  Finally he lifted himself off. She waited while he righted his clothing—a moment’s task, usually. Tonight he took his time. Sensing he wanted to say something, she waited for him to speak. After another moment, though, he moved away from the bed and then left the room, having said not a word since he’d arrived.

  This act was repeated three times over the following week, until finally Alva had to ask: “Do you have something on your mind?”

  She put her nightdress back in place and sat up in bed, though the room was still dark.

  William said, “Oh. Yes, well, I wanted to say thank you. For what you did, getting the Astor ladies here. The ball. All of that.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re being celebrated widely. The wives—they’re all telling their husbands how much they admire you.”

  “That’s lovely,” she said.

  “Isn’t it. Well. Good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  How nice of him to tell her this. How funny that he’d needed so long to do it. What a strange and unnatural thing marriage was. Though theirs did appear to be improving.

  * * *

  William’s increased interest in her continued throughout the summer and into the fall. Thus she wasn’t surprised when, in December, her monthly failed to arrive. In fact she was surprised conception had taken this long. The fact that she’d turned thirty the previous January might account for the delay, or so the doctor said when confirming her condition. “You are getting old,” he added, delivering the insult almost with pleasure; apparently he had still not forgotten the trouble she’d given him during Consuelo’s delivery.

  On New Year’s Day Alva wrote to Lady C.:

  From the ashes arises the phoenix, so the story goes. I’m not only recast as society’s most popular lady, I’ve also been given the blessing of expecting a new baby, who’s supposed to arrive next July. After I gave William the news, he bought me a Russian sable coat. I wore it today when I called on Caroline Astor—a perhaps-unsubtle reminder that her husband’s family money originally derived from the fur trade.

  I’ve been reading in the papers about your Sir Francis Galton, the scientist who advocates purposeful breeding. Not one of us is inherently better than the next person, I don’t care what Galton supposes is true. I might as easily have ended up being the fur puller as one who wears the fur.

  VII

  NEARLY TWO YEARS had passed when Alva found herself in Alice’s rose-colored salon at 1 West Fifty-seventh Street trying to bear up under an unthinkable loss. Two days earlier Mr. Vanderbilt had, without warning, pitched forward out of an armchair in his own salon and was dead when he hit the floor. How stable her life had seemed in those intervening years. But stability was an illusion. Comforting. False.

  Alva hated this salon. The room was so overdone with French panels and furniture and fabrics and rugs that it was as if Louis XVI himself were expected to arrive and stay awhile—which she supposed was exactly the point. What did any of it matter when death might at any moment come snatch away a beloved father or, God forbid, a child? Her new baby, Harold,
her sunshiny little boy—he was as vulnerable as any. Willie. Consuelo. How contented she’d felt not long before, watching them play in the autumn sunshine, Willie “teaching” Harold how to sail their tethered skiff while Consuelo sat in the bow with a book in her lap, having been dubbed the queen—though she had protested the title. Willie said, “Who do you want to be, then?” and Consuelo replied, “A poet.” “How about the poet queen?” Consuelo, thoughtful, considered it and replied, “All right, that sounds worthwhile.” An idyllic day. By all accounts, the day Mr. Vanderbilt died had been idyllic for him—right up until the moment his heart seized and quit. It made no difference how good a person was. Nothing could be counted on to stay.

  Alva, seated near Alice on a stiff brocaded settee, said, “I don’t know how I am going to get over this. He was such a lovely man.”

  “You’ll see him again in heaven, God willing.”

  “I’m no more comforted by that sentiment than Mrs. Vanderbilt was when you tried it on her the other night.”

  Mrs. Vanderbilt was currently upstairs in a guest bedroom with Florence and Lila, still shocked and inconsolable. Her husband had been portly, yes, and he hadn’t taken to the new craze of walking for health. (One perspired so much in the doing of it, and then there was the problem of having a sufficiently comfortable shoe.) Still, he was just sixty-four years old and had given no sign of illness. Mrs. Vanderbilt had been robbed of her dearest companion, and no amount of “God’s will” assurances had yet persuaded or comforted her.

  Alice said, “I’m certain it’s merely a matter of time.”

  The two of them and their daughters were waiting for the Vanderbilt men, young and less young, to finish conferring with the attorneys who were presenting Mr. Vanderbilt’s last will and testament. Alva imagined the group—William and Corneil and Frederick and George and Corneil’s son Bill (now fifteen)—as a somber-faced, dark-suited circle ringing the ever-faithful Chauncey Depew, each of them grieving, yes, yet also contemplating this turn in their literal fortunes. How much? In what form? Get to the point.

  On the far side of the salon, Consuelo and Gertrude sat at a table practicing German conversation. At eight and ten years old, the pair were much alike in size and form, both of them willowy, dark-haired, pert-nosed, long-necked, well-dressed girls of best society. Consuelo was prettier, doelike. Gertrude was more of a hawk—a beautiful bird, the hawk, but with a sharpness to it, a watchfulness, ever on the lookout for prey. Also, Gertrude had excellent posture, while Alva’s daughter sat sloped, curved, almost folded into herself.

  “Consuelo,” said Alva, “sit up straight. You’ll turn into a camel.”

  Alice asked, “How are you getting on with your new governess?”

  “She’s a fine person,” Alva said, “but I’ve discovered she knows almost nothing of German history. What use is it for the girls to know the language if all that’s being discussed is how to make a strudel? They should learn about the culture. This new German empire may figure prominently in their futures.” She gestured toward the girls.

  “Oh, I hardly think so; I don’t intend to marry Gertrude to a foreigner.”

  “No? Then you’re limiting her options severely.”

  “You would send your daughter so far away?”

  “I intend for Consuelo to make the best marriage she can. Unlike you and me, our girls have the whole world as their stage.”

  “I made an excellent marriage. Are you intimating that you feel you did not? I grant you, William is not as industrious as he might be—”

  “And Corneil never seems to enjoy himself. It seems both of them could improve their habits.”

  “Why, he enjoys all sorts of things. He’s a vestryman, and he serves on the YMCA board and numerous other boards. His directorship at the American Museum of Natural History keeps him well occupied, as does the Botanical Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and—”

  “My word,” Alva said, “he works every moment he’s not sleeping! I wonder does he sleep at all.”

  “Helping others gives him pleasure,” Alice said primly.

  “Well, good for him, then.”

  “I believe it is good for him. His habits should serve him better than Mr. Vanderbilt’s did, God rest his soul—”

  “Mr. Vanderbilt enjoyed himself, as he should have.”

  “He earned his leisure, of course,” Alice said. “But he might have been better to abstain from—well, this will sound ungenerous, but … gluttony.”

  Alice lowered her voice and went on, “In any event, what’s done is done. Now we all must manage the outcome.”

  “Yes, the outcome. How much does Corneil expect to inherit?”

  “That’s the least of his concerns!”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “He certainly hasn’t spoken of it to me.”

  “No, I don’t suppose he would have. You have plenty to think of as it is,” Alva said.

  Alice’s household now included four vigorous sons along with Gertrude. And certainly Corneil was no more of a director in his children’s lives than William was in his own; they were far too busy with their other employments. In this, at least, the brothers were alike.

  Alice said, “I am well occupied, yes. There is always room for more joy, though, even in sad times such as this. I may as well tell you now: I’ve just learned I am expecting again, after all this time.”

  “Again! And you’d thought little Reggie was your last. My. The two of you do take the rules to heart, don’t you?”

  “The rules?”

  Alva quoted, “‘And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply.’”

  “Oh. Well, yes,” said Alice, “we do. ‘Children are a heritage from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.’ That’s in Psalms,” she informed Alva. “What better service is there than to receive His blessing and rejoice in it?”

  Alva was fascinated. Was that what Alice—and Corneil—believed they were doing each time he came to her in bed? Serving God Himself? Was it an every-Sunday endeavor? When Corneil was striving above her, was Alice lying there feeling virtuous? Did she encourage him? Did she enjoy his actions? Might it feel … good?

  Suppose Alva asked her straight out: Do you enjoy the marital act? Suppose she asked, Is my impiety the reason I don’t? Only three children in ten years of marriage. Alva was not doing her full Christian duty. She was evidently not serving her husband and therefore she was not serving the Lord, so what other conclusion could be drawn except to say she was serving herself? Better to spare herself that judgment.

  She said, “I wonder if one day your sons—whatever number you end up with—will sit at Corneil’s deathbed resenting each other because the money had to be divided into so many portions.”

  Alice frowned at her. “What a strange way you have of seeing things! You might offer congratulations.”

  “I’m very pleased for you. But don’t you think that’s what’s going on in there right now?” She pointed to the closed door. “Not that any one of them is going to come away like Uncle C.J. did. But it’s human nature, you know—for the male of the species especially—to want to get the most, to come out on top.”

  “Corneil isn’t like that.”

  “Come now. This house exists on this spot because he had to have the most prominent position on Fifth Avenue that he could get.”

  “Mrs. Jones’s house is in a more prominent spot.” She gestured toward the northwest corner of Fifty-eighth.

  “Mrs. Jones’s house wasn’t available to wreck. Mrs. Jones’s house is a good bit smaller and nowhere near as opulent. She rents out her extra apartments, and has not, to my knowledge, complained that her house isn’t large enough.”

  Without realizing it, Alva had raised her voice. The girls were watching them. Alice smiled serenely and said, “Please don’t upset yourself about this. You have nothing to be ashamed of with your house down on Fifty-second.”

  Gertrude said, “Yes, Aunt Alva, your house is perfectly lovely.
I like it very much.”

  “Why are the men taking so long?” said Consuelo. “I’m hungry.”

  “And why aren’t we permitted to be in there?” asked Gertrude. “Why is it that men control all the money?”

  “Why indeed?” Alva said. “Though it’s not all, always. I expect your grandfather will have bequeathed a good deal to his daughters.”

  “Then why aren’t they also in there?”

  Alice said, “Gertrude, there are ways things are done—”

  “The men are the ones who manage everything,” Gertrude said. “And the boys will be able to work with Father, but I won’t, not even if I really, really wish to and would be good at it. It isn’t fair.”

  Alice said, “We have our work, too; it’s different, that’s all, more suited to our feminine sensibilities. Gertrude, I’d like you to recite that Goethe poem from this week’s lesson. Stand up.”

  Gertrude, scowling, stood and recited the poem in German. Alice said, “Very nice. Now, Consuelo, you give it in English.”

  Consuelo looked at her mother, unsure what to do. Alva said, “Go ahead.”

  Her daughter remained seated. “I don’t remember all of it,” she said softly.

  “No?” said Alva. “You translated it last week.”

  “It was written down.”

  Gertrude took Consuelo by the hand and said, “Let’s go up to my bedroom and practice, shall we?”

  “Do that,” Alva announced before Alice had time to voice the protest she was about to make. “Go on. We’ll send up for you when the men are finished, and then we’ll all eat together.”

  When the girls were out of the room, Alva said, “I hope you have an easy delivery and a healthy, good-natured child, son or daughter, who is untroubled by whatever the results of this conference may be.”

  And then they waited for the men to reemerge, pretending to be occupied with their books. But Alva didn’t believe for a moment that Alice was able to concentrate any better than she. The words on the page before her were rows of meaningless marks. In her mind were meaningless figures as well. She’d done calculations eight years earlier, when the figure was smaller than would now be the case, and those results had been hard to fathom. They could only be more so now.