A Well-Behaved Woman

by Therese Anne Fowler

  The story, though it identified the yacht as belonging to William K. Vanderbilt, made no mention of whether he or any Vanderbilt was traveling on board.

  Alva was sickened by the subterfuge.

  Alva was grateful for the subterfuge.

  * * *

  She could not reconcile her outrage and her gratitude, so she threw herself into arranging the details of Marble House. The precise positioning of every rug, each piece of furniture, the tapestries, the paintings, the sculptures, the lamps, the planters, every little bibelot, the folds of the draperies, the height of the grass on the lawn that ran from the rear veranda’s steps to the blue, blue, blue water (no, don’t think about water). She gave a great deal of thought to the green lawn, the trees, the flowers—all of it so bucolic in the summertime sunshine. She scrutinized the children—Harold, always a love, eight years old and quick with a silly joke; Willie, almost fourteen, sprouting dark blond hairs on his upper lip, a horse lover, keeper of two fillies he liked to race; Consuelo, fifteen, slim as a reed, hair like a cascade, her lithe self ever curled into a sofa with a book open on her lap. Sloping shoulders and spine, even when she walked—

  Must tend to that …

  The doctor prescribed a rod and straps: one strap at the waist, one at the head, two hours’ use every day to strengthen the abdomen and encourage a permanent habit. “I know it feels uncomfortable,” Alva told her as she buckled the forehead strap. “It’s only for a month or so. You’ll thank me one day.” Her daughter’s answering expression bespoke betrayal and hatred. Oh, her tender firstborn … How would such a girl survive in the world? She needed to be toughened up for her own good.

  Their days in Newport had a comforting rigidity; when one doesn’t have to think of what to do with one’s time, one doesn’t have to think. Up for breakfast; dress for breakfast; eat breakfast. Dress for riding; ride. Change for a trip to the Casino to watch tennis; watch tennis; have a look in the boutiques. Take luncheon with friends in one’s own home or theirs. Change to bathing costumes for ladies’ time at the beach; take ladies’ time at the beach; change again and go see the gentlemen play polo. Take the phaeton out to pay calls; home for tea, then nap, then dress again for whichever event was occurring that night—mourning a nephew allowed for attendance at small birthday dinners, engagement parties, receptions for visiting dignitaries. No time for reflection, for introspection, for questioning the sense of it all. They had killed two innocent people. Lovers, probably, taking a boat out for a day of sunshine and sandwiches and poetry. Maybe she liked to sing. He might have had a guitar. And then came a great yellow yacht, bearing down on them—

  Alva simply could not allow herself to dwell, or else she would conclude she was a monster, and she was not a monster. Was William? He might be. Or not. He’d made a practical decision, a choice that protected himself, yes, but also her and the children. Besides, what else could have been done? Bad luck. Bad timing. God’s will? But they hadn’t even attempted to go back. In her pew at St. Mark’s, the church she had designed and built, a space she had made for herself and God, Alva bowed her head and did as she had bade her children do, and then added a prayer for herself.

  * * *

  What William did: came and went throughout the summer while developing (with Oliver, God help her) a plan to create an exotic animal park a few miles from Bellevue Avenue, in Middletown. They incorporated their company as Grey Crag, ordered their livestock, and took the boys out to the property daily to watch the carpenters build stables and pens and fences. Then Alva and Consuelo joined them to see the delivery and release of emus, camels, an elephant, peacocks, gazelles, a pair of giraffes.

  Harold especially was beside himself with delight. “My own elephant!” he beamed. “No one else has an elephant.” No, probably not just yet, Alva thought. But give it time.

  Try as she might, she could not be easy in William’s company, which he must have noticed though he made no remark. But when the family picnicked at Grey Crag Park on Independence Day, Oliver was there, too, as if William was attempting to use him to influence Alva’s opinion. As if he were saying that since Oliver knew about the accident and Oliver was still his friend, could she now cease her silent judgment of him and put the trouble behind her?

  The children took camel rides and fed peanuts to the elephant and climbed those gray crags to get eye to eye with the giraffes, while the peacocks strutted and screeched and, as night began to fall, flapped into the trees.

  Thinking she was alone while the others were off building a fire to bake clams as evening fell, Alva stood watching a peacock situate itself on a branch with enviable grace and contentment, its feathered train trailing behind it. Imagine, she thought, after a day of preening and strutting one could just find a quiet limb and settle there, not a care in the world. “I envy you,” she said.

  Then she heard a step and Oliver came up beside her. He said nothing, just caressed the back of her neck briefly and then continued along the path to the fire site.

  Alva stood very still, facing the peacock but not really seeing it. What had Oliver meant by touching her that way? Had he meant anything at all? Was it merely a friendly stroke, such as he might give a favored sister? Was it meant to assuage the loneliness he’d perceived? Did he know how she had struggled all summer to be good, to be mindful of her children and friends and duties, to believe that there was no way they could have prevented that tragic accident? None of them had spoken of it, not once. But it had happened. And William was indifferent. And Oliver was around all the time. And she had not had a moment’s peace in her mind or heart all summer long.

  Her throat tightened. She should not feel confused and lonely and sad; she should feel coddled, spoiled, admired. She should definitely not succumb to the yearning that Oliver’s touch provoked.

  Here, alone in the fading light, with the sensation of his touch lingering, she succumbed to that yearning. For a minute only. Perhaps three minutes. All right, five, but that was all.

  She stayed there envying the peacock until her tears had dried, and then she joined the others. In the twilight, with the fire crackling before them, no one in the party noticed her red-rimmed eyes. She could go on pretending that all was well. She must go on pretending that all was well.

  * * *

  With her husband and his brother Fred off with friends on the Alva to visit George in Bar Harbor, Alva invited Mamie Fish for luncheon at Marble House with her and Armide. Mamie, whose husband Stuyvesant Fish made his fortune in banking and Midwestern railroads, was a forthright woman unafraid to say what she thought. They’d been loosely acquainted for years but hadn’t made friends until this past spring, when Mamie asked Alva to work with her on the Friends of Chinese Orphans Ball. “Nobody else would do it,” Mamie had told her after she accepted. “They don’t want to think about malnourished Chinese babies—but they’ll go to a benefit ball for anyone or anything if the guest list is good. So I thought, Alva Vanderbilt’s got what I need for this: gumption and pull. Are you offended?”

  Alva had laughed. “I should be.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Today’s meal would begin with bouillabaisse, made with fresh seafood brought in that morning, accompanied by a boule made from imported French flour—all the more authentique, oui? And champagne, which Alva had discovered was a good medicine for her symptoms.

  The three ladies had shared two bottles on the veranda before being seated in the dining room. As the first course came out, Mamie said, “Alva, I have to tell you, the house is marvelous, but I am unnerved to have your King Louis, there”—she pointed at the portrait that hung at the table’s head—“watching me eat my soup. He looks as if he might invade at any moment, and this soup is simply too good to give over or leave behind. I’ll have to defend myself.” She called out: “Can someone bring me a sharp knife?”

  “I find him fascinating,” said Alva. “Let the Sun King live!”

  “He had as many mi
stresses as Versailles has rooms,” Armide remarked.

  Mamie said, “Speaking of: Alva, I must say I respect the restraint you’ve shown—” She stopped midsentence.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I’m only saying that if Stuyvie brought one of those harlots into my home—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Mamie looked at Alva, then went back to her soup. “Oh, never mind me. I misremembered. It was someone else’s husband. Gossip! Manna to idle minds.”

  Armide said, “Someone’s husband brought a loose woman to their home?”

  “It’s only a rumor,” Mamie replied. “Maybe it didn’t even happen.”

  Alva would not let it go. “Where? Whose husband?”

  “No, no, I won’t credit it by repeating details no one has verified. What I do want to say is that I respect how you chose to imitate the Petit Trianon when you might rather have gone for Versailles.”

  Alva drained her glass and signaled for more champagne. “On four acres? I couldn’t have, even had I wanted to.”

  “Did you want to?” asked Mamie.

  “I try not to want what I can’t possibly have.”

  As Alva spoke, the butler brought a telegram. She read it, then laid it on the table. “Good lord,” she said.

  Her companions looked at her inquisitively.

  “My husband has sunk his yacht.”

  * * *

  On the veranda that night, torchlight dancing over the wide, sun-warmed stone, stars above, tide high, surf shushing against the rocks, William told the story of his sinking to an eager crowd that included his travel mates, along with Armide, the Oelrichs, and the Fishes—but not Oliver, who might have been out at Grey Crag watching the peacocks while her husband was holding court as if he were the Sun King, untouchable and untouched.

  Alva was not so unaffected. The yacht had been rammed by a freighter. It was a wonder that no one was killed.

  “We were still asleep,” William was saying. “Last night was a late one, you know, all of us sitting out on the foredeck under the stars, Fred passing around some excellent Scotch that George’d brought home from Scotland. The boy knows his whiskeys!”

  “That boy knows his brothers,” Fred quipped.

  Hermann Oelrichs asked, “When’s his North Carolina mountain castle going to be finished?”

  “Half past eventually,” William said. “George has got Hunt and Olmsted turning somersaults to get every detail just so.”

  “We might hire Hunt to build us a cottage here on Bellevue—Tessie has gotten quite fond of you lot, and I wouldn’t deny her a thing.”

  “Excellent,” William said. “I’ll write your letter of introduction—”

  “Or Stanford White,” said Mrs. Oelrichs. “He’s quite good, and, well, I don’t want anyone to feel we’re being imitative.”

  William said, “Yes, White’s a fine choice. Now do you want to hear this, or don’t you?”

  Stuyvesant Fish said, “Carry on!”

  “Carry on!” said Mrs. Oelrichs.

  Carry on.

  Alva watched her husband with detached fascination as he continued telling his tale. He was so cheerful! Did nothing ever affect him?

  “Morrison had put out anchor very early this morning to wait out a pea-soup fog, and then next thing we knew, we were all jolted from our beds. The noise was absolutely terrifying—I thought we were done for on the spot. It was only luck that the Dimock missed the staterooms when she rammed us.”

  Fred added, “Another ten feet toward the bow, and…” His wife reached for his hand.

  William said, “We all rushed on deck. The crew got the lifeboats rigged and we were safely off in a matter of, I don’t know, fifteen minutes, and on board the Dimock shortly after. Alva listed a bit, then started going down. I guess she’s underwater a good ten feet, now. Morrison cabled to say all that’s in sight are her masts.”

  “She just stays there like that?” said Armide. “I thought that if a boat sank, it, well, sank.”

  “Would that it did! It’d save me the expense of attempting to salvage the thing!”

  “I guess insurance will pay,” said Hermann.

  “Ten percent was all they’d insure, for a premium that was nearly that much! I didn’t bother. We’ll get a crew out next week to try to raise her, but I don’t hold out much hope.”

  “Will you replace her, then?”

  “I can’t think why I wouldn’t.”

  * * *

  Later, when they’d all retired, Alva knocked on William’s bedroom door.

  “Entrez,” he called.

  He was in pajamas, sitting in an armchair with his feet up on the windowsill and a glass of scotch resting on his stomach. The window was open to the night breeze. If he was the least bit traumatized by the morning’s events, he was disguising it beautifully.

  She said, “Forgive the intrusion, but there’s something I wanted to ask you. About the house.”

  “Don’t tell me: You want to add a wing.”

  “Something simpler, fortunately. Remember how you said this house was your birthday gift to me? I’d like you to turn over its title. If it’s mine, it should be truly mine.”

  “What’s mine is yours.”

  “But it isn’t. Imagine that everything in your life, from your shirt cuffs to the blocks of stone around you, was yours to use but belonged to someone else. It could all be taken away from you at any time.”

  “My dear. I was not brought up to cast aside a wife and leave her to perish. You can’t think I would ever treat you in such a way.”

  “Yes, all right, but suppose you’d been killed—”

  “Alva, I wasn’t even bruised—”

  “This time. Put yourself in my place. I’m not like your sisters, with their inheritances. No matter what happens to them, they’ve got the means to carry them through life comfortably. I am at the mercy of circumstances I can’t affect. I feel—well, as vulnerable as you were this morning anchored there in the fog.”

  “You needn’t worry so much. But I’ll prove my word is as good as my checks. I’ll have Depew get the papers drawn up and Marble House will be yours.”

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Do you doubt me?” he said, standing up and going to his writing desk. “I’ll write to him this minute. I won’t have you thinking I’m anything less than I say.” He penned a note, folded it, and handed it to her. “Here—see that it’s sent, so you’ll know without question that I’ve ordered it.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I desire it. This house is yours, Alva. You put your soul into its planning; you deserve to own it outright.”

  “Thank you.”

  They faced each other. Their eyes met. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. She held as still as she could manage and kept her eyes on his.

  William squeezed her shoulder, then let go and reached for his scotch. “It’s been a hard summer, but things are looking up. Say, I’ll bet Maxwell can get that message cabled yet tonight, if you catch him before he turns in.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He sat down again in the armchair. “Sleep well, dear.”

  “You, too.”

  After giving the note and instructions to Maxwell, Alva rang for a bottle of brandy and two glasses, then went up to Armide’s room.

  Oliver’s hand on her neck. William’s on her shoulder. Mere moments of intimacy, sharp reminders of what she wanted and shouldn’t want, couldn’t have and didn’t deserve, would never have and would always wish for, reminders of what she shouldn’t even desire if she were a decent woman.

  What exactly did she desire, anyway?

  Not the sex act, or at least not as she knew it. Might it be simple affection she longed for, the uncomplicated pleasure of being held in a loving person’s arms? When had she last been embraced that way? William had never been one for such displays. Willie and then Harold had outgrown their urges to wrap their arms around her when kis
sing her good night. And now Harold was beyond even allowing her to hold his hand. Occasionally Consuelo would put her arm around Alva’s waist if the two were standing together and she was particularly contented (less and less often now). Willie was at the handshake stage—a curious development Alva hadn’t anticipated, but Mrs. Vanderbilt said all the boys got that way, and Alice had concurred.

  Alva knocked on Armide’s door. “It’s Alva,” she said, and waited for her sister to let her in.

  “You’re still dressed! I thought you’d gone to bed.” Armide closed the door behind them.

  “I might have been widowed today.”

  “But you weren’t, so all is well.”

  “That is what I tell myself.” Alva poured brandy for both of them and handed Armide a glass. “I don’t like leaving so much to chance, though, so I took some action to protect myself and the children. I’ve persuaded William to give me this house outright.”

  “Good for you!” Armide said. She pointed to a magazine lying on the bedcover. “I’ve been reading the most startling story,” she said, getting back into bed. “‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ it’s called. An anxious new mother has a rest cure forced upon her, and the lack of stimulation is driving her mad. Actually mad. Her husband thinks he’s so solicitous, but in fact he’s imprisoned her. You should read it, really. I’m so glad I never married.”

  “Marriage has its benefits,” Alva said.

  “But at what cost?”

  Alva drained her glass in one long go, then put it aside and climbed into bed beside her sister. “I don’t want to talk about the costs. You weren’t concerned about them when I married William.”

  “I didn’t press you into it. There were alternatives, but you wouldn’t hear them.”

  “I had to marry him—or someone with means. We’d have starved! I only wish…”