A Well-Behaved Woman

by Therese Anne Fowler

  “This never made any difference to you before.”

  “I’ve been made aware of the problem only recently.”

  “By whom?”

  “Others in society. My brother—”

  “Corneil.”

  “He has mentioned it, yes,” William said, his tone as friendly and even as ever. “But it makes no difference who said it. It is a fact. As is the family reputation being diminished by your having had that girl on staff. Apparently Alice brought this to your attention several times in the past and you refused to take action, giving me no choice but to remedy the matter myself.”

  “There have been small-minded ladies taking this position since ’75, and it has made no difference whatsoever.”

  He made no reply to this, instead taking another bite of rabbit.

  Alva said, “Suppose she had permitted your advances.”

  He set down his fork. “I beg your pardon?”

  “If Mary had encouraged you, would you have been so troubled by ‘society’s’ concern?”

  “I can’t think what it is you’re talking about. A problem was brought to my attention, and I remedied it.”

  “By pretending the order came from me,” Alva said.

  “A man uses the most effective means for the task at hand.”

  “You wanted her to believe I wanted her gone.”

  “Alva, she was no asset to my household and therefore she has been removed from it. I believe that’s all that needs to be said on the matter.”

  Alva turned to the butler stationed behind her and told him, “Please have my meal sent to my bedroom. I’d much prefer to dine alone.”

  In her room, though, she left the food untouched. She left her food untouched!

  * * *

  The following day, William was as sunny as ever when he stopped in the parlor on his way in from wherever he’d been. Riding, by the looks of it; he wore jodhpurs and carried a pair of cowhide gloves. His hair was in wild disarray.

  “Fancy this,” he said. “I was at the Union earlier—do you remember the Astor girl, Charlotte, who married James Drayton?”

  Alva set down her pen. On the desk before her was her list of the qualifications she was seeking in a new lady’s maid, which Mrs. Evelyn would take to the agency while the family went to Paris for their annual spring trip. Alva had conscripted one of the housemaids in Mary’s place, with low expectations. For now it would be enough to have someone to pack and unpack and pack again, to fetch and steam and iron. The rest she could do for herself.

  She said, “Of course I remember Charlotte Drayton. She only went to New Jersey.”

  William took an apple from a bowl on the desk. Polishing it against his lapel, he said, “Well, she’s been having a flaming love affair with Hallet Borrowe. Drayton threw her out, her father won’t see her, and now Drayton has challenged Borrowe to a duel. Marvelous, isn’t it? We can’t get theater like this at the theater!”

  “Where is she living?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Are her children with her?”

  “I’m certain Drayton has them, don’t worry.”

  “And now he proposes to put himself in front of a bullet? That hardly seems responsible for a man who would be his children’s sole parent.”

  “I can’t see why this should make you angry.”

  “It doesn’t. No—it does, but I was angry already. What you did yesterday—”

  “Now wait,” he said, coming to sit in a chair near hers. “Have we not spent God only knows how much money and a great deal of effort to put ourselves at the top of society?”

  “We have. But—”

  “You are one of the most admired ladies in this country, Alva, but where that maid was concerned, you were blind. I only wish I’d realized the problem sooner. If Alice couldn’t reason with you, I certainly had no hope of doing so. My duty is to protect you, to protect your reputation and that of our children—just the way Drayton is doing by facing off with that fop, Borrowe.” He reached for her hand. “Understand, you are … well, you’re just what they say: an angel in the home. And you’re an angel to me. You’re clever and determined, and you have made all the difference for the family socially. If I have to stand in front of a bullet to protect you, I will. If I have to risk insulting you to protect you from your own soft heart, so be it.”

  He let go of her hand and stood up. “Paris-bound tomorrow,” he said, moving for the hall. “I’d better make sure Maxwell got my new togs packed…”

  Alva sat in stunned silence while he bounded up the stairs. He’d managed to talk his way around her bringing up again his advances to Mary. And he had just called her an angel. His angel.

  Was it all an act?

  London, April 27th, 1891

  Alva, dearest—

  I’m afraid I was correct all along about how little value I would find in becoming the Duchess of Manchester when the time actually arrived. It isn’t the crown that gives me headaches, though. It’s my husband’s poverty of both spirit and purse. He’s sold off almost everything to pay his debts and gives his time to the habitués of places no lady would be found.

  Therefore, I’ve taken a somewhat shabby but pleasant home in Great Cumberland Street. The situation with His Grace has become untenable and our parting is for good and all. Perhaps I might have held out a little longer; he is dying of consumption, it’s confirmed, and I could have spared myself the attention this separation has produced. My sympathy wore out long ago, however—timed, I suppose, with my father’s loss of fortune and my husband’s subsequent complete disinterest in me. Yet Bertie still considers me a prize and has said he wished I could have been a real prospect for him! The irony of being adored by the man who will be king and discarded by a bankrupt duke is quite terrible and quite funny, at once.

  It is difficult to keep one’s chin up at such times. But I must do so for the children’s sake if not my own. You should see them, Alva. They are so beautiful and so good. I do worry that Kim is at risk of becoming like his father—who now takes him about and shows him off and God only knows what else; he’s fourteen, you know. And he loves the attention and admiration he gets from the twins’ friends whenever he’s home from school, so it’s likely his father is initiating him into that wonderful wide world of easy companionship that comes with having a title of note (or from money, though not in this case, la!). Such companions don’t know that the Duke’s wife and daughters are destitute and dependent on a meager allowance and the generosity of friends. Or perhaps they do, but don’t care so long as they get to make a duke-shaped notch on their belts.

  Forgive my tone. When you sail next, put a London stop on your tour.

  _____C.

  II

  ON AN EARLY July afternoon in their leased Newport cottage, William called Alva into the parlor, where he’d spread a plat map on the table.

  “For some time now I’ve been thinking we should have our own place here, and you have a significant birthday coming up, so I’ve acquired this parcel of land”—he pointed—“on Bellevue. It goes all the way to the sea. This one next to it on the north side is Astor’s. We’ll be about halfway between Corneil’s, here, and Fred’s, here.” He pointed to the locations of the Breakers and Rough Point, about a crow’s mile apart.

  The significant birthday on the horizon was Alva’s fortieth. Though still two years out, it blinked at her as steadily as a beacon at the shoals. For-ty. For-ty. Not that there was any way to steer clear of it except to die first, and that hardly seemed a reasonable response to middle age.

  William said, “What do you think? It’s a prime location. You and Hunt can do another showplace.”

  “I can build anything I like?”

  “It’s only four acres, so you can’t fit something like George’s folly. But yes, generally, you can build whatever you like.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? I told you.”

  “Why now?”

  “I told you that, as wel
l.”

  His expression gave nothing away, yet she sensed there was more to this offer than what he claimed. He had, in fact, become increasingly opaque in general. In her most generous thoughts, she attributed this change as a natural result of his altered circumstances and not evidence for Mary’s theory, a theory she preferred to believe was well meaning but not sufficiently informed. In her dark moments, of which there were blessedly few, she regretted her choices, resented the circumstances that had led to them, and worried that William was playing her for some kind of fool.

  He continued, “I thought, if I don’t acquire this property, some rich upstart’s going to get it, and who’s more deserving of a new cottage here than my wife?”

  “I’ve been content with this house—but I would very much enjoy building again.” The intensive occupation would only do her good.

  “It’s too bad Mandeville isn’t as good to his wife,” William said, rolling up the map. “What do you hear from our friend the duchess? Aren’t the two of you due for a visit?”

  “I had a letter from her right as we were leaving the city. She and Mandeville are on the outs, but she’s spending a lot of time at court. She’s one of the prince’s pets, you know.”

  “Is she?”

  “Nothing gossip-worthy about it, if that’s what you’re imagining.”

  “I’m not imagining a thing. It’s only as I say: that it’s unfortunate she didn’t do better than Mandeville.”

  “She always lands on her feet,” Alva said. As William prepared to leave the room, she added, “Does Corneil have something in the works? Are they expanding the Breakers, or—”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Have you heard something?”

  She shook her head.

  “Their place is good, certainly, for what it is,” he said. “You’ll come up with something far more impressive, though, I’ve no doubt. If you want to work with Hunt again, you should secure him as soon as possible. Between George’s place and now Belmont’s, he’s already well employed.”

  “Perry’s hired Richard? Or do you mean August has?”

  “Neither. It’s Oliver who’s at it. He’s getting ready to build down near the end of Bellevue, on the west side.”

  “When did this arise? I haven’t heard a thing.”

  William shrugged. “I saw him at my club the other day and he told me he was arranging it.”

  So Oliver was here in Newport, to stay—a dismaying development. It had been much easier to not think of him when he was thousands of miles away. This did, however, explain William’s sudden desire to build here. If Oliver Belmont was going to have his own Newport cottage on Bellevue, William had better get one, too.

  She said, “I thought he was determined to stay abroad. Has he eloped with a local girl?”

  William laughed. “It does seem the sort of thing he’d do, doesn’t it? No, it’s nothing as dramatic or entertaining as that. He’s decided he should put himself back into American society, is all. Resume his place—and with old Belmont dead, now he’s got money to spend. He was away for almost seven years; it’s about time, wouldn’t you say?”

  Alva would not say. Better that he had remained anywhere else.

  William said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, he and I are meeting some of the other chaps at the Casino for doubles.” He pretended to swing a racquet. “You might come down and watch us.”

  She considered the scene and rejected it immediately. Watching Oliver play lawn tennis, or for that matter, stand still and breathe, held more appeal than she wanted to admit, let alone indulge.

  This ongoing attraction: Why did it persist? What did it say about her that she had not been able to put it to rest? Perhaps it was only a matter of—what did they call it? Animal chemistry? Or something of the sort. A physiological response to specific stimuli. Nothing at all to do with an individual’s character or will. She’d learned about it at a lecture by a noted naturalist last January. Many speakers came through New York in wintertime, knowing that people who could pay three dollars apiece to relieve their boredom would gladly do so. And then in April she’d gone to hear the author Mark Twain. Most of society snubbed him, having found in his book The Gilded Age a displeasing mirror. Well, she supposed any bug caught so securely would hate being pinned that way, but there it was, sometimes people had to face facts.

  She took a book of European architecture from a nearby shelf and held it up so William could see the title. “I’ve got to get to work if I’m going to have my present on that birthday. Have a lovely time.”

  * * *

  Having brought the children into town to see a magic show, Alva was helping Harold out of the carriage when Richard Hunt emerged from a shop before them.

  “Ah, Richard! Just the man I need to see. Say hello to Mr. Hunt,” she directed the children.

  As she spoke, another man rounded the corner. “There you are,” Hunt said to Oliver Belmont, who stopped beside him. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “I was waylaid. Why, Alva Vanderbilt, hello!”

  The sensations hit her all at once: happiness; excitement; annoyance at feeling happy and excited. Really, it had been so much more convenient for her to have him elsewhere. Out of sight, out of mind—she had taken this adage to heart. One couldn’t suffer the effects of animal chemistry so long as the offending animal was out of range.

  But oh, just look at him. He really did not offend.

  He appeared not older so much as more mature, more confident, at ease with himself and his situation. Impish. Handsome. Intelligent. Happy. Perhaps there was a lady involved. If so, good for him. Yes, good for him; he deserved happiness if he could find it.

  And good for herself that she and William would be spending a piece of the summer taking the children to Lisbon.

  “You remember Mr. Belmont,” she told the children.

  “I don’t,” said Harold.

  “In fact, we’ve never met.” Oliver bent down so that he was at Harold’s level. “Oliver Belmont at your service.” He put out his hand, and Harold, giggling, shook it. Then Oliver stood and faced Alva. “The boy is as handsome as his mother is lovely,” he said cheerfully. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

  There was nothing in his manner to indicate there’d ever been an awkward moment between them. He was past it, then. All right. She would endeavor to be past it, too.

  She said, “William tells me you and Richard have a project under way.”

  “We do indeed,” Richard said just as a very tall, dark-skinned man joined the group. He was dressed exotically in a Zouave jacket and had a fez for a hat. Neither Oliver nor Richard paid him any notice as Richard went on, “And it turns out that Mr. Belmont is very much a man of stubborn ideas, as with some other client who shall remain nameless.”

  Alva smiled. “Is that so?”

  “Hunt was at odds with my desire to integrate the stables into the ground floor of the house. They’ve done it all over Europe.”

  “When economy made it necessary,” Richard said. “You’ve got the space and the budget to build them separately—but,” he said, holding off Oliver’s retort, “as I learned when working for Mrs. Vanderbilt, not to mention her brother-in-law, the client’s wishes are paramount. My task is to accommodate those wishes with style.”

  Pretending Richard couldn’t hear him, Oliver said, “This is how he gets so many rich clients.”

  “I’d like to believe the quality of my work is what recommends me.”

  “If all one wants is quality,” Oliver said, “one can hire Post or Codman, or White and his fellows. You, Mr. Hunt, have an artist’s soul. Either that or you have an exceptional tolerance for eccentric clients and their vanities. At any rate,” he said to Alva, “I will have horseflesh under my quarters—”

  “Just as when you ride,” Willie joked, reminding Alva of that night on Long Island when she and Oliver had made their own horse jokes. Youth and summertime had laid soft hands upon all of them. How long ago it was, and yet the memory
felt freshly made.

  Harold tugged on Alva’s sleeve. She turned to him. “What is it, dearest?”

  He was staring at the strange man, who had stationed himself far enough away to be respectful but close enough that it was clear he intended attachment. Harold stood on tiptoe to be nearer her ear and whispered loudly, as children do, “Why is that man watching us?”

  Oliver spoke up. “That giant fellow is my manservant. Come,” he said, beckoning the children over. “This is Azar. He’s Egypt-born. We had some adventures together while I was away exploring, and he decided to return with me.”

  Azar bowed. “Greetings, children,” he said in a deep and accented voice.

  Harold bowed and said, “Greetings, sir.”

  “Did anyone else return with you?” Alva asked Oliver lightly. “William alluded to the possibility of your having made a new attachment.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing like that.”

  Richard said, “Unfortunately. As I’ve told him, a lady’s influence would benefit the cottage.”

  “Well. In due time,” Alva said. “Come along, my chicks. I’m afraid we have to be about our business. But, Mr. Hunt, if you have space in your schedule tomorrow, I’ve a new project to discuss with—”

  “Meet us at the site,” Oliver said. “Nine o’clock? We’re getting ready to break ground and I would love to have the benefit of your eye in case we’ve made some grave error. While there’s still time to remedy it, you know.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Richard said.

  “Nothing against you, Hunt. Measure twice, cut once—isn’t that the saying?”

  “My morning is full,” Alva lied. “Nor would I want to jeopardize getting Mr. Hunt’s cooperation in building my own cottage by insulting his judgment on yours.”

  Richard said, “I’m not at all sure whether I should attend to Mr. Belmont’s doubt or Mrs. Vanderbilt’s praise.”

  “You should come see the magic show,” said Willie.

  Richard patted his shoulder. “One has to admire how he sees straight through to a situation’s best merits. It wasn’t so long ago that I was bringing my daughter. She thinks she’s too grown-up for it now.”