A Well-Behaved Woman

by Therese Anne Fowler

  “I’m not on that committee.”

  “I just put you on it.”

  * * *

  On Tuesday, Alva arrived for the meeting wearing a modest green suit and one of her simplest hats. Her jewelry was equally modest. She would behave just as modestly: listen actively; speak only if her opinion was invited; offer her time or money, whichever was requested. In other words, she would be a drone. A polite, smiling, appreciative drone. Not forever, just as a way to demonstrate that she was as considerate and cooperative as any of them. Observing this, they would be reminded that she was a reasonable person and, as such, must be justified in her actions regarding divorce. They needed to see her being the example they could follow if need be. They would thank her for her leadership. She would be respected not for being Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt but for being herself.

  A maid answered the door and took her coat, then ushered her into the parlor. After a moment, as her presence was noticed, the buzz of conversation from the gathered ladies ceased. Ten powdered faces turned toward her in surprise.

  Mamie, she noticed, hadn’t yet arrived. Still, she knew every one of these women, had known them for much of her life. Those who’d given themselves the chance to think about it must be grateful that she had hacked a path into the jungle for them to follow; none of them was obliged to stay locked in a gilded cage any longer. Each of them could and should claim the respect they deserved. Perhaps they all could discuss the matter once the business of the meeting had concluded.

  “Good afternoon,” Alva said, aiming herself toward the hostess.

  Laura Davies turned her back to Alva.

  The others stared and then, after a moment, turned away from her as well.

  “Come now,” she said to this sea of collars and shoulders and hair, though her voice was not as robust as she’d intended.

  She tried again. “Surely—” she began, her face growing hot. Not one of them moved, nor, she now understood, would they move, nor would they speak. Today’s queen bee had issued the directive and no drone would risk her ire.

  “You are all making a mistake,” she said. “I’m not the one who’s in the wrong. I’m helping your cause, every one of you.”

  Nothing.

  Alva returned to the hall and asked the maid for her coat, keeping her back to the parlor as she waited. The murmuring had begun already. She had betrayed her children and destroyed her family. She was greedy, selfish, immoral, low. All she had ever wanted was Vanderbilt cash, and it was a shame that William had gotten hooked by her. Why on earth would she leave him? She must be unbalanced—after all, even her own attorney, Mr. Choate, had discouraged the action; he’d told their husbands all about it.

  My God, Alva thought, women can be hateful creatures. She knew what Mamie would say: she had hoped for too much, too soon, just as on the night she and William attended their first Patriarch Ball; had she learned nothing in the intervening years?

  Ah, thank God, here was the maid.

  Alva put on her coat, left the house, and got situated in her carriage before she allowed herself to cry.

  * * *

  Snow was falling on Christmas Eve, great fat flakes that coated the ground quickly, with no sign of letting up. Alva, dressed in galoshes and fur, was just going down her steps en route to the park when a carriage pulled to her curb and a man called out, “Hello, hold up!”

  In the darkness, she couldn’t make out the man’s features in the carriage window. His voice, though, was familiar, and unwelcome. Oliver. As the carriage door opened, she continued past, calling out, “No, thank you, I prefer my own company.”

  He was beside her in a moment. “Holiday blues? I’ve had them myself.”

  She stopped and turned toward him. In the lamplight, with his fur-collared coat and glossy beaver top hat, he was a Dickensian image of the ideal gentleman. She said, “I’m quite all right, thank you.”

  “I won’t have you spending this evening alone. Are you off to the park?” He gestured ahead of them, across the street. “It’s a marvelous scene, isn’t it?”

  “It is, and you’re spoiling it. Do go away.”

  He was taken aback. “You’re serious in your rejection of me.”

  “You can’t really be surprised. I’d counted you among my true friends! Your betrayal was almost as terrible as theirs.”

  “Do you mean because I haven’t lent you my support before now? I’ve been away and the news didn’t reach me until—”

  “Please, don’t pretend ignorance. Give me that much respect.”

  Now he appeared confused. “I am in fact ignorant. How did I betray you?”

  “By withholding your knowledge! A true friend wouldn’t have let me go on unenlightened, more a dupe with every passing day. The entire time you were standing in for him—”

  Disgusted, she turned and continued westward, hardly pausing at the corner of Park Avenue before striding across. Oliver followed, matching her stride but not speaking. When they’d gone another fifty feet, Alva stopped and faced him.

  “Go away. I want to have a walk on what is an otherwise wonderful evening, yet you persist in spoiling it for me. Will you please leave me to it?”

  “I’m trying to understand you, but you’re not making sense. He didn’t take up with that Neustretter woman until last summer.”

  “I refer to the Duchess of Manchester.”

  Oliver said, “William and the duchess?”

  His expression was guileless. She said, “If you’re pretending innocence—”

  “This is no act.”

  “You honestly didn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “When—?”

  “While Valiant was being built,” she said as this new information settled into her mind. He had not betrayed her?

  He had not betrayed her.

  She said, “Before that, too, on occasion. For years. Tell me you didn’t know about any of it.”

  “Not of your friend. But there were others—and I did attempt to tell you, once. You had no desire to hear it.”

  “I was stubborn.”

  “You were honorable. He, however, is a low-down son of a … How did you learn of this, the two of them?”

  “She confessed it in a letter that awaited me in Nice, when we were on the trip to India.”

  “My God. So that’s what had you so upset.”

  She said, “Do you remember our conversation on Valiant when you asked whether I valued being happy?”

  “I do.”

  “If you didn’t know about them and therefore hadn’t concluded that I must know, why did you ask?”

  “Because I knew you weren’t. You’d been out of sorts for the entire cruise. I was concerned about you.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all. But you’re saying you didn’t learn of the affair until Nice?”

  “I read her letter on the train.”

  “Yet you were discontent before then.”

  Because you were there. Because you have always been there and always out of reach.

  She shrugged. “I may have sensed the trouble before I knew its cause.”

  Oliver walked to a nearby bench and sat down. “I can hardly believe what I’m hearing.” He looked up at her. “He admitted it to you?”

  “She did not invent it,” Alva said. “Though I don’t know why I should sound as if I’m defending her. Yes, he admitted it.”

  She sat down next to him. He smelled of the shaving balm he’d always used. He smelled of Oliver. Her friend who had known she was unhappy and had cared enough to challenge her about it.

  She said, “I assumed you knew everything and that was why you disappeared. We didn’t see you once here in New York or Newport.”

  “I’ve been traveling, as I said. Political endeavors. I’m still trying to comprehend all of this: he then went and insulted you further with that Neustretter woman?”

  “Only for show. I made him do it.” She explained the situation, and then said, “No one
but Corneil knows any of this. William may have informed the duchess; I can’t say.”

  “Then you haven’t seen her?”

  “Nor written,” Alva said. “I can’t bring myself to do it. And listen, for the girls’ sake you must keep all this information to yourself.”

  “You can count on me.” He leaned so that his face was before her. “Do you hear me? I mean it: you can—I want you to—count on me.”

  Her heart, in its old habit, rose in hopeful response to his words. She pushed it down.

  “Thank you. I’ve been quite low, I confess. Righteousness has brought me only cold comfort these past few days when the house has been empty and what few friends I’ve kept are busy with their lives. I have my sisters’ support as well, but only Armide is nearby, and I don’t like to be a bother.” She stood up. “Let’s walk, shall we? I want you to tell me how you’ve been.”

  As they went, they encountered other couples, old and young, along the park’s snowy paths. Pairs of ladies. Men remarking on the ongoing depression and its effect on their wealth. Children chasing one another, throwing snowballs, making snow angels and snowmen on the open lawn.

  Oliver told her he had recently founded and made himself publisher, editor, and writer of a progressive weekly paper he named The Verdict. It was a way to promote his beliefs and desires for the direction of the country, he said. In it, he pilloried business leaders and politicians, taking on corruption, imperialism, corporate greed—the ills that sickened society for the common man. No one was spared the point of his pen.

  “I used to play tennis with these gentlemen. They used to have me to their homes. Do you know Andrew Carnegie? He’s come around to my side, at least. More than I can say for my own brother, August. He won’t speak to me.”

  “I’m spurned by all the Vanderbilts. We have to draw strength from our convictions.”

  “While they are all doing the same.”

  “Yes, but we’re right.” She laughed.

  They’d reached Cleopatra’s Needle, the obelisk behind the Met. Alva said, “William’s father paid to have this installed here after the Egyptian government offered it, did you know? One hundred thousand dollars, just so that all the people of the city could be exposed to a glimpse of ancient Egypt. He was a good man. He would not be pleased with his son.”

  “I remember that he admired you very much. As do I. ‘Though she be but little, she is fierce.’ That’s Shakespeare.”

  “Fierce. I like that.”

  “Joan of Arc.”

  “Now there is someone truly fierce,” Alva said.

  “I’d rather not see you burned to death, however.”

  “I am a social heretic. It could yet be my fate.”

  Having returned to her street, Alva asked, “Will you be seeing your family tonight?”

  “Yes, I’m driving up to Perry’s next—though I may need the sleigh to get there. Will you join us?”

  “Thank you, no. Armide and her friend Miss Crane are coming for mass, then we’ll dine here at my house. My house,” she repeated. “How good that sounds. Mine.”

  “You earned it.”

  “I believe I did.”

  He extended his hand to her. “So then, friends?”

  She shook it and said, “Friends.”

  Though his presence tonight had not proved to be any kind of Christmas miracle, it was without question a gift.

  * * *

  Outside the church in the lamplight, snow still drifting down, Alva saw a familiar form among the stream of people climbing the steps. She told her companions, “You go ahead; there’s someone I need to speak to.”

  She made her way over to the man who had caught her eye. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  Ward McAllister turned his head, then stopped in place. His expression was wary, but he was as finely turned out as ever. “Why, Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt, as I live and breathe. I daresay. Is it a good Christmas for you?”

  “It has improved greatly, and is, I hope, still improving—or it will do so if you’ll permit me to apologize to you.”

  “Ah, the spirit of Christ has overtaken you this evening!” His tone edged on sarcastic but didn’t tip over—saved, perhaps, by the hopefulness she was herself attempting to convey.

  He went on, “Well, never let it be said that Ward McAllister was unable to rise to such an occasion! No, indeed, seeing this unexpected olive branch quite inspires my charity.”

  “I’m glad to know it. You’ll have heard that I’ve had some difficulties—”

  “Please,” he said, holding up a hand. “If you’re coming to me for aid, I am not at all certain my goodwill is prepared to extend that far.”

  She shook her head. “No, nothing of the kind. I just wanted to tell you, I regret the way I treated you. I had been going to come to your party despite the bad press. Honestly, I was all set to go—I still remember it, I wore bright yellow on your behalf. I was actually out the door when my husband prevented my leaving.

  “But after that, I had no excuse. I was thinking only of myself. I put far too much store in society’s good opinion of me when the good opinion of good people is what I should have cultivated most.”

  Ward smiled. “Well. You have always been accomplished with a speech.”

  “I am sincere!”

  “Oh, indeed, I can see that you are, yes, I can see that very well. And I, too, failed; my pride prevented me from calling after I received your note. Though I do still say yours was the greater offense. I wish to be big enough to overcome small-minded behavior; therefore, apology accepted. We have both been humbled by troubles we didn’t deserve. This is the danger of excellence, don’t you know: it invites scorn. Yet we must not permit ourselves to be any less than we are.”

  They had by this time drawn an audience. He held out his arm. “Walk in with me, won’t you?”

  Alva said, “Yes, I will.”

  VIII

  ALVA JOINED THE small group that had assembled, on this March day, in her drawing room, where every surface held a vase (or two or more) of roses that had been arriving at the house throughout the morning in honor of her daughter’s eighteenth birthday. Consuelo’s friends were showing their affection for her in the manner that had become the fashion (and quite a boon for florists). Alva was pleased to see it, as it showed that the children of those who yet shunned her were not shunning her daughter. The boys’ social lives seemed similarly vigorous. But for the formal hearing to grant Alva’s divorce, everything was in its new order and all of them were adjusting well.

  Harold, who waited with Consuelo and Armide to go bicycling, said, “What took so long?”

  “I had to change my dress for these.” Alva referred to her bloomers, a remarkable invention she’d discovered at last week’s Madison Square Garden Flower Show, where two women had a booth and a bicycle and were demonstrating the comfort and ease of the silly looking garment.

  “I have never seen a lady in pants.”

  “This will be merely the first time,” Armide told him. “I plan to buy some, too. Before you know it, all the ladies will be as sensible about their clothing as your mother here.”

  Consuelo said, “I wouldn’t wear them, ever.”

  Alva laughed. “You didn’t see the demonstration! If they turn out to be as ideal as the ladies who sold these made them out to be, I might burn all our skirts.”

  As the group descended to the entry hall, the doorbell rang. Alva anticipated another flower delivery, but no: when her footman swung the door open, there stood Winthrop Rutherfurd whom Alva had not seen in some time, with an armful of red roses.

  “Good afternoon! I’ve come to convey my regards to Miss Vanderbilt,” he said. Looking past Alva at her daughter, he added, “Happy birthday to you!”

  All the other friends and admirers had let the flowers be the extent of their involvement in the day; they knew that the family would be sailing tomorrow for France and there was no time for a formal birthday celebration. How interesting, then, that
Rutherfurd felt he should act differently from the others.

  Consuelo, delighted, stepped into the doorway and accepted the roses. “Thank you! We’re just about to go out riding bicycles.” She gestured to where theirs waited on the sidewalk.

  “Are you? How lucky, then, that I’ve been wheeling about on my own.”

  And indeed, after Consuelo gave the flowers over to a maid and the group went outside, Alva saw that there to the left of the door was one more bicycle. What an astonishing coincidence.

  Consuelo said, “Won’t you ride along with us?”

  “It would be a privilege.”

  “Is it all right, Mother?”

  According to the newspapers, Rutherfurd had been in regular attendance at the same events Consuelo attended over the winter. This bit of trivia had meant little to Alva when she read it. Consuelo had given no indication that she was yet under his spell. Now, though, it was obvious that a secret romance was afoot. The child was cagier than she would have guessed.

  So that she might see the extent of the romance for herself, Alva told the cagey child, “By all means.”

  Across Central Park and over to Riverside Drive they pedaled. Though the scenery was still winter-barren, the day was mild and windless and smelled of damp earth. Alva spoke with Armide and Harold of inconsequential matters while keeping an eye on the pair of sweethearts, whose distance from Alva, Harold, and Armide increased bit by bit until they were well out of earshot. Alva watched with interest when the pair stopped well ahead of them. Rutherfurd was obviously making some kind of speech or plea; Consuelo glanced back toward Alva and then spoke in turn. Eager happiness radiated from the child.

  Armide said, “You do see what’s going on there.”

  “William made it clear to him that she was off-limits.”

  “Clearly he’s a poor listener.”

  “Yes. And I doubt that his appearance on her eighteenth birthday is coincidental.”

  “Do you think he’s asked her to marry him?”

  “Look at her.”

  Armide said, “What will you do?”

  “For now? Take her to Europe. And watch the mail.”