A Well-Behaved Woman

by Therese Anne Fowler

  There was nothing to be gained by confronting William about why he’d stayed away so long, leaving his children (not to mention his wife) to attach themselves to a different clean-shaven man. He would be home and they would resume their usual routine, and perhaps Oliver would grow his mustache again. She could not right the nation’s troubles. So she would drink julep and let the breeze cool her and eat her peas with a knife and honey if she pleased.

  The sun was low now in the western sky. The house threw a wide, square shadow over the lawn. Beyond the lawn, the ocean heaved and sighed, heaved and sighed. From the house came the faint sound of voices. She’d instructed the footman to tell Mr. Vanderbilt where he could find her upon arrival, and it seemed he’d done just that—

  She heard William’s step, but didn’t turn. “Welcome home,” she said.

  He came to face her, holding Town Topics in front of her and pointing at a circled passage. “Explain this.” It was the article about Oliver.

  “Oh, that’s old business,” Alva replied, pushing the paper aside. “How was the journey? Is Valiant more seaworthy than her predecessor? You look well.”

  He was prettier than ever. Middle age had given his face a degree of character he’d lacked in youth. Someone ought to drape him in ermine and crown him, she thought.

  “Depew says people are talking.”

  “You were gone a long time. Of course people are talking. That’s what they do when a lady’s husband goes abroad indefinitely.”

  “Clearly talking’s not all some people do.”

  “Quit being so dramatic. Anyway, Oliver looks nothing like you.”

  “Do you deny that he drives with you frequently?”

  “Often would be more accurate,” she said, refreshing her drink. “Would you like to join me?”

  “You’re my wife, Alva. I won’t have it.”

  “You told him expressly to stand in for you, and so he did. Socially.”

  William sat down in a chair adjacent to her. “Are you saying you’re not in love with him? The two of you aren’t involved?”

  He was jealous! How marvelous.

  She said, “My goodness, William. Oliver and I are not involved. He’s good company, just as he always has been.” She tapped the paper and said, “I told Colonel Mann that this nonsense must cease or you will bring him up for libel.”

  William reached for her julep and downed it quickly, then refilled the glass and downed that, too. “All right,” he said, exhaling heavily. He returned the glass, then pressed his palms to his thighs. “Very good. I should have known you wouldn’t—”

  “Yes, you should have known,” she said calmly. The liquor was doing a fine job of keeping her keel even.

  “I apologize. You’ve been nothing but a credit to me all these years.”

  “We are in agreement there.”

  “I do appreciate that Belmont is a true and steady friend.”

  “As you should.”

  They sat peacefully for a few minutes, listening to the shush of the surf. Then Alva said, “Tell me about the Valiant. Is she worthy of your effort and expense?”

  William smiled. “She’s unbelievable. There’s nothing like having a fresh beginning, you know?”

  “It’s too bad it’s not so easy to fix everything else that’s sinking or sunken. The situation here in the New World has gotten rather grim during your absence.”

  “Then let me take you away from it for a while. A real first-rate trip—someplace new and fascinating. Further the children’s cultural education. I’ve got some connections to Viscount Lansdowne in Calcutta. I’m sure he and his wife would be delighted to have us. I’ll write him tonight and get it all under way.”

  “What, India?”

  “He’s the governor general. They have a palace—it wouldn’t be any hardship. We can start in northern Africa, cruise the Mediterranean, use the Suez passage to the Red Sea and then out to the Arabian. I’ll have Valiant fitted up for it, we’ll set an itinerary, and we can sail in November or December, when the climate is favorable there.”

  “William, you just got home.”

  “No matter.” He waved off her concern. “You merit a great adventure. We could end the trip on the Continent, spend next summer in Paris—you’d enjoy that. It’ll be good for you, Alva. Good for us.”

  “Us.”

  “We should get reacquainted. We aren’t the children we were twenty years ago. To think—our own daughter is nearly old enough to be brought out.” He sat forward in his chair and reached for her hand. “A fresh start, all right?”

  “William—”

  “I’m forty-three years old.”

  “So?”

  “So…” He studied their hands. “I don’t know. Something. This can’t be all there is.”

  She considered his statement for a few moments and then said, “All right.”

  He looked up at her. “Yes? You want to do it?”

  “I do want to. A fresh start, yes.”

  She would get away from the familiar, away from society, from the unpleasant conjoining of her friendship with Oliver and marriage to William—because although her body had been faithful, her sentiments had not, and those sentiments were wrong, and she would be far happier if she was rid of them.

  In her eagerness, Alva did not think to wonder about William’s motivations. Nor did she reexamine his selfish acts. Going abroad for the better part of a year with this apparently devoted, ever-prettier version of him could, she hoped, aid her in building a new regard for him and, even better, cure her of Oliver for good.

  V

  ON THE OCTOBER morning the William K. Vanderbilts were to begin their world cruise, Consuelo and Harold trailed their father up the gangway like sullen prisoners, their sullenness deepened by Willie’s having been spared the journey because he was at St. Mark’s School in Massachusetts. Another yacht, another voyage, another trip “to see the world,” another absence—nine months or more, this time—from their friends, from Idle Hour, where they’d grown accustomed to spending the still-warm autumn days, from their schools in the city. This time they would see Egypt and India. They would escape a simmering cauldron of unemployed men, of hungry women and children, people sitting on their steps hoping for handouts. They would have their whole existence upended, though none of them knew that yet.

  Alva followed her daughter over the gangway. Consuelo’s slender shoulders, her graceful neck, the narrowness of her waist: she was grown now, there was no denying it, no discounting her as merely a child. Which was not to say the girl had any wisdom about her. She was still as naive as a first-day fawn.

  After getting the children settled in their staterooms, Alva gave them leave to roam and went to the salon to read a Henry James novel while awaiting the launch. George had recommended she read James, who was a good friend of his. She’d chosen The Portrait of a Lady, being sympathetic to its premise of a young woman of small means having her life changed by an unexpected windfall—an anti-marriage plot, it was. Already, though, Alva was impatient with the young Miss Archer’s inability to see what was going on around her, the ways she was being deceived. However, that did make for good drama: When would the girl get wise?

  Before long, the sound of men’s voices coming from the saloon assured Alva that William’s companions were aboard now as well. He’d invited several gentlemen who either had no wife or were bringing none. Alva had invited Armide, but Armide was inclined to spend her holidays with Miss Crane in Boston. Alva’s companions would be Consuelo, Harold, and Miss Harper, the governess. Mary would have been a welcome addition, and Alva might have invited her, had William not put Mary off him for good.

  When Alva had been shopping in the flower district with Mary and Armide the previous week, she told the two of them, “Being away changed William. He’s more considerate now. I believe he regrets his poor behavior of the past.”

  “Did he say so?” Armide asked.

  “He said he wants to make a fresh start.”

/>   Mary pursed her lips.

  “What?” Alva asked. “Tell me whatever it is you aren’t saying.”

  “What I’m thinking is, a leopard can’t change its spots.”

  “A man is not a leopard.”

  Neither woman replied.

  “Do you think he’s beyond rehabilitation?”

  “Miss Alva,” said Mary, “that man always has done and always will do whatever it is he thinks suits him best.”

  “You don’t know him,” Alva insisted.

  Armide glanced at Mary. “We want whatever is best for you.”

  “Then we’re in agreement,” Alva said. “I’ll write you with news of how mistaken you are.”

  Now Harold appeared in the Valiant salon’s doorway. “Come on deck, Mama. It’s time.” Sweet child. Once aboard, he was as excited to sail as ever.

  “I may need your assistance,” Alva said, extending her hand. He came and took it, and she let him pull her up.

  “Will we see any whales, do you suppose?”

  “Humpbacks and blues, if we’re lucky.”

  “I’m feeling quite lucky,” he said.

  He opened the door to the deck and as they went outside, Alva saw the party gathered at the bow. The gentleman Alva didn’t yet know she should worry about was thirty-one-year-old playboy Winthrop Rutherfurd. And then there was Oliver Belmont.

  * * *

  Gibraltar and Tunis and Alexandria. A side trip up the Nile in a flatboat. Through the Suez Canal. Into the gulf, then the Red Sea.

  “Isn’t it wondrous?” William asked, standing at Valiant’s bow with his arm crooked through Alva’s. Before them were Egypt’s dry, dun-colored hills and mountains so barren and stark that it seemed nothing could live in such a place, making a sharp contrast to water so luminous and blue.

  Oliver, standing on Alva’s other side, said, “One can see why Moses needed God’s help here.”

  Alva wondered whether if she went overboard the sea would part or swallow her up.

  Onward they went. Cities explored. Sights seen. How could Alva concentrate on what she was seeing, appreciate its significance or beauty, when she was so vexed by her situation? Once, when she was a child, she’d had a delirium that made her feel as though she were swimming through a haze of heat and light and sound. This was something like that. At each day’s end, when she retired to her cabin the first moment she felt she could politely go, she sat on her padded vanity stool and leaned in close to the glass, looked into her eyes, and cursed herself, cursed God, cursed fate, cursed Oliver for coming, and of course cursed William for blithely adding Oliver to the manifest without having said he was doing so.

  —Not that she could have protested either man’s action without giving herself away. She might have been able to prepare herself, though.

  —No, she would not have been able to. The way Oliver affected her was unalterable, because she was flawed. She was the very sort of woman her mother had warned her about becoming, a woman driven by selfish, shameful desires. An animal.

  “You deserve this twist of fate’s knife,” she said to her reflection, embracing the melodrama of her situation. She blamed Henry James for exciting her imagination. If only his titular lady could free herself from her injudicious heart! If only Alva could be kidnapped by pirates!

  —No, they would just hold her for ransom and William, devoted as he was, would pay for her safe return.

  So wealthy, such a social success, yet so discontent. Married to one man but in love with another. Trapped by circumstances she should have known better than to accept. How terribly tragic! What would she do next?

  The woman in the glass had creases in her forehead. Her lips were downturned.

  Stop frowning!

  How very long ago it was, that day at the Greenbrier. What would the duchess think if she knew Alva had gotten herself into such a state?

  “My God,” Alva told her reflection. “She would laugh you out of town. Now hitch up your stockings, girl, and forget all of this nonsense before you embarrass us both.”

  * * *

  Heading to India, they sailed into an unfriendly Arabian Sea, the yacht rolling over the swells beneath low gray skies. Alva had seated herself at the deck lounge and was finishing the novel. The ending left her somewhat perplexed. Was this Mr. James’s intent? Isabel Archer’s willful ignorance, her rigid morality, her inability to see her way clear of a situation that only made her miserable in the end—had he meant for all of that to be redeemed or not?

  Consuelo sat nearby, a volume of Wordsworth at hand. How lovely she was! How vulnerable, just the way Miss Archer had been.

  Alva was still unused to her daughter being so grown up. Consuelo’s skirts were long, her hair was coiffed, her posture was perfect, she enjoyed her studies—if the girl had a flaw, it was her gentleness. Who, though, could truly consider this a fault? Yet it endangered her: she would not be able to live in her safe cocoon of poems and ideals forever.

  Consuelo was giving more attention to the sea than she was to the pages in front of her. She put the book aside. “I think I’ll have a stroll.”

  “A stroll?”

  “Yes. I’m tired of sitting still.”

  “I’d hardly call this sitting still,” Alva said, meaning to make a joke.

  “No, I suppose you’re right,” said Consuelo, taking her mother seriously. Yet she remained in her chair, indecision plain on her face.

  “Ahoy,” called Winthrop Rutherfurd as he and Oliver approached. “Fine sailing, eh?”

  Consuelo laid her book aside and stood up. “I will have that stroll,” she said, and left as the men arrived.

  Alva wished she were free to disappear as well. She made herself sound cheerful, saying, “One last week of this, and then we’re in Bombay. I think my daughter is ready to stay on land for a while.”

  Oliver dropped into the chaise beside her. “I know I am.”

  Winthrop Rutherfurd—who liked to be called Winty—said, “Yes, the sea gets tiresome after a while. That’s why I haven’t bought my own vessel. Put me on the back of a horse, that’s where I like to be! Running up the turf, you know, mallet in my hand. Yes, land is best. Remarkable vistas at sea, though.” He went to the rail and stood there for a moment, then, after glancing in the direction Consuelo had gone, went off the opposite way.

  Oliver said, “Not so subtle, is he?”

  “No, but he imagines he is.” She kept her gaze outward. The horizon dipped and rose beyond the railing. “I don’t know what William was thinking when he asked him along—he’s known for being ‘fond’ of heiresses. But sixteen is much too young in general, and certainly too young for our Winty here, even if I didn’t already know about his other special affection.”

  “Oh? I’m afraid I’m not current on Rutherfurd’s tastes.”

  “Rich married women who’ve found themselves possessing the time, desire, and opportunity to enjoy his company.” She’d heard that he liked to keep several on a string at once, the better to play one off another, the goal being to gain a new suit or a new horse or passage to some playground or other. His familial allowance never seemed to stretch quite far enough.

  Oliver said, “Shall I go put him overboard?”

  Alva laughed. She wanted to resist her enjoyment, but she enjoyed him too much to resist. She said, “‘Mr. Rutherfurd suffered an unfortunate accident while at sea on W. K. Vanderbilt’s astonishing new yacht.’ You’d be a hero, even if known only to me.”

  “It’s a difficult thing, isn’t it, figuring out who to marry a daughter off to.”

  “Especially when that daughter is an heiress. She hopes his attention might indicate true love—you can see it in the way she looks at him. Those wide, admiring doe eyes.”

  “We can’t fault her,” Oliver said. “She’s completely naive.”

  Alva warmed to the conversation. It was always lovely to talk with him. “Even supposing his attentions were genuine,” she said, “what sort of life would a man like him of
fer her? She’d be a very pretty, very useless doll, bored senseless, her quick mind and innate curiosities shriveled from disuse while he spent all his time riding and dining out and having new suits made on William’s dime. I intend to spare her that, at least.”

  “I fear you describe too many of our friends,” Oliver said.

  “Yes, I do. Consuelo is too soft to battle with a husband, too unsure of her opinions and talents. He’d squash her as surely as Miss Archer here”—she pointed at her book—“was squashed by Gilbert Osmond. One has no idea, in youth, how false an appearance can be.”

  “And then in maturity one knows, but often can do nothing about it. Naiveté is better, it seems to me.”

  Alva said, “Willful ignorance can sometimes suffice, I’ve learned.”

  Consuelo’s and Rutherfurd’s paths had crossed somewhere out of Alva’s sight, as she’d suspected they would, and now the two unsubtle lovers were making a slow and unsteady promenade along the rail. He’d offered Consuelo his arm, and she held on to it tightly. Alva watched them as Oliver said, “You seem to have constructed an ideal existence.”

  Something in his tone put Alva suddenly on her guard. Cautious, she said, “I’ve been fortunate.”

  “You live by deliberation, by design.”

  “Yes, well, the effort has been worthwhile.”

  “Oh, certainly you’ve got every material thing and an elevated standing in the world. But what about happiness?”

  This made her even more wary. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “Because I know you,” he said.

  Now she was uncomfortable. His remarks probed a wound she’d believed no one could see. “Perhaps I’m not who you think I am,” she said, an attempt to reinforce her defenses.

  “Forgive me, but I would submit that you’re not who you think you are. Or at least not who you’d have everyone believe. I know what you keep hidden behind that faultless façade.”