A Good Woman

by Danielle Steel

  “Yes. He understood that I wanted to marry you, and have children with you. I genuinely loved you, and I felt so sorry for you when your father died. I wanted to be everything to you. Father, brother, friend. The one thing I found I couldn’t do, and wanted to, was be your husband. I couldn’t bring myself to take the lie any further. And I couldn’t lie to my own nature. Everything in me refused.” She was nodding quietly, trying to absorb what he had said. It was a lot to take in all at once. Everything about their marriage to each other, their vows, their honeymoon, the promises they had made each other, the two years since, had been a fraud. “I thought that I could force myself to lead a double life, but I can’t. And I can’t keep doing this to you, while you gently try to ask me why nothing has ever happened between us, and now it can’t. I discovered something six months ago that changed everything, and now I’m grateful that I was never able to overcome my reservations. I discovered in December that I have syphilis. Under no circumstances would I lay a hand on you now, or try to give you the babies I know you want so much. I wouldn’t risk your life. I love you too much for that.” Two lone tears streamed down his cheeks as he spoke, and she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, sobbing hysterically. It was the worst news she’d had from him so far, even worse than the other.

  “Josiah…it can’t be…” She raised her tearstained face then to look at him. He looked the same to her, but she didn’t know the signs. And for now, there were none. But in time, there would be. Eventually, he would go blind, and even die. His fate was sealed, and Henry’s as well. They had discovered it together, and at least had the comfort of knowing that neither would have to survive the other. Theirs had been a powerful love for twenty years, for all of their adult lives, and it would follow them now to the grave. “Are you sure?”

  “Entirely. And as soon as I found out, I knew I had to be honest with you, but then your mother got sick …I just didn’t have the heart to add to that. But we have to do something about it now. I can’t let this go on forever.”

  “I don’t want to do anything,” she said staunchly, letting go of his hands and wiping away her tears with both of hers. “I want to stay married to you till the end.”

  “I won’t let you do that. That’s not fair to you. Henry and I want to go away with each other, and enjoy whatever time we have.” She was shocked to realize that he didn’t want to spend his last days with her, he wanted to be with the man he loved. It was the cruelest rejection she would ever know. Josiah took another breath then, to tell her the rest. “I have spoken to my attorney in confidence. He has already arranged for us to be divorced. We’ll do it as quietly as possible. If anyone asks, you can say I was a dreadful husband, and you’re well rid of me.”

  “But I don’t want to be rid of you,” she sobbed, clinging to him again. And they both knew that adultery was the only grounds for divorce and if he divorced her, people would imagine she’d been unfaithful and she didn’t want to divorce him, and wouldn’t. He knew that too. If he wanted to free her, for her own sake, he would have to divorce her, so she couldn’t refuse. “Can’t we just stay married?” she asked, sounding panicked, as he shook his head. He was determined, and nothing would sway him from his decision. She knew how he was when he got like that. He was an easy man to live with much of the time, except for the occasional melancholy mood, and his stubbornness, which he said he got from his father.

  “We can’t stay married, Annabelle,” he said gently. “We could try to have our marriage annulled, but not without saying why, which would be embarrassing for both of us. And after two years, I’m not even sure we could. It’s far simpler and quicker if we get divorced. I want you to be free to move on with your life as soon as possible. At least I owe you that. You need to find another man, get married, and have the married life you deserve. You need a real husband and a real marriage. Not this fraud.”

  “But I don’t want to move on, and be married to someone else,” she said, sobbing.

  “You want children, and I could be sick and linger for years. I don’t want you tied to me, wasting your life for all those years.” He was forcing her to give him up, so he could go away, which was everything she didn’t want. All she wanted was him. She loved him just as she had from the beginning. She wasn’t angry at him, she was heartbroken by what he had said. And the last thing she wanted was a divorce.

  “You must listen to me,” Josiah insisted. “I know what’s right. I made a terrible mistake, and we must correct it now. We could get divorced in Kentucky, which seems stupid and sneaky. It makes more sense to do it in New York, since we live there. No one will know the details. We’ll get a private hearing, and be discreet about it.” He took a sharp breath then. “I’m going back to the city tomorrow, to see my attorney again. And then Henry and I will go away. We’re going to Mexico for a while.” They would have preferred to go to Europe, but it was no longer reasonable or practical to do so, so they had chosen Mexico instead. There, they wouldn’t see anyone they knew and could quietly disappear, which was all they wanted now, for the time they had left.

  “When will you come back?” Annabelle asked weakly. After losing everyone else, now she was losing him.

  “Not for a long time,” he said, sounding harsher than he meant to, and not wanting to say “Never.” But he wanted her to accept that it was over for them. It should never have started in the first place, but now he wanted the end to be quick. It seemed kinder to him. But the look on Annabelle’s face said he was wrong. She looked completely undone by everything he had said, particularly that he was leaving her the next day.

  She couldn’t imagine how she would survive without him. She would be completely alone in the world when he left. He had Henry, and always had as it turned out, and she had no one. Neither parents, nor brother, and now not him.

  “Why can’t we stay married?” she asked plaintively, sounding almost like a child. “It’s no different than it was before.”

  “Yes, it is. You know the truth now, and so do I. I need to free you, Annabelle. I owe you at least that. I’ve wasted two years of your life.” Worse than that, he had destroyed it. She had nothing now, except her inheritance. She no longer even had a house in town. She’d have to stay in a hotel. She couldn’t even stay at his apartment if they were divorcing. But he had thought of it as well. “You can stay at the apartment until you get your bearings, until you decide what you want to do. I’ll be gone in a few days.” He and Henry had already made their plans.

  “I wish I hadn’t sold the house,” she said weakly, but they both knew it had been the right thing to do. It was too much house for her, and she couldn’t stay there all alone, particularly not as an unmarried woman. She needed a more manageable establishment of her own. And he felt certain that she would remarry in a short time. She was a beautiful girl and only twenty-two years old. And she had all the innocence and freshness of youth. At least he hadn’t spoiled that, although she felt as though she had aged a dozen years in the past hour. He stood up then and put his arms around her. He hugged her, but did not kiss her. The fraud he had perpetrated on her was over. He no longer belonged to her, and never had. He had been Henry’s all along, and they were about to pay a high price for his trying to be something he wasn’t. He loved her but not in the ways he needed to in order to be her husband. It had been a sad discovery for him too. And even worse now for her. He held out no hope. He was relieved now that he had never made love to her. He would never have forgiven himself if he had infected her as well. What he had done was bad enough. He felt terrible about lying to her for all this time. Worse than that, he had lied to himself. He loved her, but his wedding vows had been empty and meant nothing.

  He walked her up to her room, but refused to stay with her that night. He said it was no longer proper. He slept in the guest room downstairs, and she lay in her bed and sobbed all night. Eventually, she crept downstairs and tried to get into bed with him, just so they could hold each other, but he wouldn’t let her.
He sent her back upstairs to her own room, feeling like a monster, and after she was gone, he lay in his own bed and cried. He truly loved her and it broke his heart to leave her, but he felt he had no other choice. He knew how troubled she had been by what had never happened between them, and he didn’t want her with him now as he deteriorated slowly or rapidly, and ultimately died. He had no right to do that to her, and he planned to stay away until the end. The disease was already advancing at a rapid rate, and Henry was starting to show signs of it as well. They had both taken arsenic treatments, and it hadn’t helped at all. They wanted to be away from New York now, and all those they knew, for what came next. It was time to leave Annabelle and let her begin a new life. He knew that in time, when she adjusted to it, she would understand that it was right.

  She stood sobbing on the front steps when he left the next day. She was wearing black for her mother, and looked tragic as he drove away. Leaving her was the hardest thing he had ever done, and he felt ill and cried intermittently all the way back to New York. If he had killed her with his bare hands, it would have been no harder than this, and he wouldn’t have felt worse.

  Chapter 12

  Annabelle saw no one after Josiah left. Blanche knew something terrible had happened, but she didn’t dare ask what. Annabelle stayed in her room, and took meals on a tray, which she hardly touched. Once a day, she went out for a walk along the sea, but she saw no one and spoke to nobody. Hortie came by one afternoon, and Annabelle refused to see her. She had Blanche tell her that she was ill. Annabelle was too heartbroken to see even her best friend, and too ashamed to tell her she was getting divorced, even if through no fault of her own, and she couldn’t tell her why. The truth was unthinkable and she wanted to protect Josiah. She panicked every time she thought of never seeing him again.

  She knew that once people heard of the divorce, no one would believe her, and that everyone in New York and Newport would be shocked. She wondered how long it would take for news of it to get around. In mourning for her mother, she wasn’t expected to go out, but people would find it strange that they never saw Josiah. Blanche already suspected what had happened, although she thought it was a lovers’ quarrel, and had no idea it would end in divorce. She and the butler whispered that he must be having an affair, but no one could possibly have suspected it was with Henry, or that his and Annabelle’s marriage was over. Blanche tried to tell her that everything would be all right, and all Annabelle could do was cry and shake her head. Nothing would ever be all right again.

  Josiah’s attorney came up to see her in July. Josiah had resigned his position at the bank and left for Mexico by then. Two weeks before, Henry had claimed illness in his family and resigned as well. It had never occurred to anyone to link the two events, but the departures of both men were a loss to the bank.

  Josiah had sent her a letter before he left, apologizing to her again for his terrible perfidy and betrayal. He said he would bear the guilt of it all his life, and assured her that his love for her had been sincere. The divorce had already been filed in New York, and the attorney brought her a copy of the papers. The only grounds that he had been able to file them under was infidelity, which rocked her to the core when she read it. She had known it, but seeing it was worse. She had told Josiah she wouldn’t file a divorce, so Josiah had no choice but to do it himself.

  “Everyone will think I cheated on him,” she said with an anguished look at the attorney, and he shook his head. She had hoped Josiah wouldn’t file it, but he had, on the only grounds that existed.

  “No one will ever see these papers,” the attorney assured her. “There was no other choice, since you wouldn’t agree to file a divorce.” She would have died first. She loved him.

  As it turned out, Josiah and his attorney’s confidence in the system was gravely misplaced. A clerk at the court sold a copy of the divorce papers to the newspapers, and in August it was published that Josiah had filed for divorce for adultery. In a single stroke, Annabelle’s life and reputation were ruined. Overnight, she became a pariah.

  She was still in Newport when she heard of it from her father’s bank, and news of it spread like wildfire. Everyone in Newport was talking about Josiah and Annabelle’s divorce. It took her a full two weeks to have the courage to visit Hortie to talk to her about it, and when she did, she was in for another shock. Instead of allowing her to run straight upstairs to Hortie’s room, where she was languishing on her bed as usual, the butler ushered her into the drawing room, as Hortie’s mother swept out of the room and brushed past her with a disapproving scowl. She said not a word to Annabelle, and it was another ten minutes before Hortie appeared, looking considerably larger than the last time Annabelle had seen her. She looked extremely nervous and didn’t sit down. Instead, she stood looking at Annabelle uncomfortably as tears rushed to Annabelle’s eyes, and Hortie turned away and pretended not to see it.

  “I suppose you’ve heard the news. Everybody has,” Annabelle said miserably, and blew her nose discreetly on a lace handkerchief that had been her mother’s. She was carrying her parasol too, as she had walked over from the house on an unusually hot day.

  “I had no idea that there was someone else,” Hortie said in a choked voice, and she made no move toward her friend, nor said anything to comfort her. She stood like a statue across the room from Annabelle, her arms firmly at her sides.

  “There isn’t, and never was,” Annabelle said clearly. “Adultery was the only grounds they allowed. Josiah wanted the divorce, I didn’t. He thought it was best … he couldn’t … he didn’t want …” Her words trailed into a choked sob. She had no idea how to explain it, because none of what had really happened made sense, and she couldn’t say it, even to her best friend. She didn’t want to betray him, no matter how great his betrayal of her had been. She couldn’t do that to him. He would be ruined forever if she said he had left her for a man, and she didn’t have the courage to tell Hortie she was still a virgin, so she just sat in the chair and cried. And there was no way she could tell her of his shocking illness. “I don’t know what to do,” Annabelle said miserably. “I want to die.” Hortie mistook her agony for guilt. Her mother had said that she deserved everything Josiah did to her now, that a man of Josiah’s moral stature would never divorce a woman for no reason, and that Hortie could rest assured that whatever Annabelle had done had been unforgivable. Otherwise he’d have stayed married to her. And if he had divorced her as an adulteress, then she was. She said she felt extremely sorry for Josiah, and not at all for Annabelle, who got just what she deserved. And James had told Hortie in no uncertain terms that she was strictly forbidden to ever see Annabelle again. He didn’t want her evil influence on his wife.

  “I’m very sorry this happened,” Hortie said uncomfortably. “You must have made a terrible mistake.” She tried to be charitable with her, but she actually thought her mother was right. Josiah was too kind a man to do this lightly. For him to divorce Annabelle, quit his job, and leave town, she must have behaved abominably. She had never thought Annabelle capable of it before, but it only proved that you never knew even your best friends. She was severely disappointed in her, and from the flood of tears Annabelle was shedding, she could see just how guilty she felt. Her mother and James were right.

  “I didn’t make a mistake,” Annabelle hiccuped as she sobbed. She looked and felt like an abandoned child, and she was shocked that Hortie wasn’t being nicer, after all they’d been through together since they were children. Hortie was looking very distant and sounding very cold.

  “I don’t think I want to know what happened,” Hortie said, reaching for the door. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go. James said I can’t see you again. Good-bye, Annabelle, I have to go upstairs and lie down, I’m not feeling well.” And with that, she walked out of the room and closed the door behind her, without another word. Annabelle sat staring after her, unable to believe what had just happened. She was shaking violently when she stood up, ran out of the house, and all the w
ay home. She thought of throwing herself into the sea and killing herself, but she didn’t have the courage to do it. She would have liked to, because then she would see her parents and Robert again, she was sure of it. She couldn’t believe that Hortie had abandoned her too, and said she would never see her again. And then she realized that everyone she knew would do the same. Every door in Newport and New York would be closed in her face, once she could go out again.

  Annabelle slammed the door behind her as she ran into her own house and up the stairs to her room. She threw herself on the bed, too shocked to even cry. She was still lying there when Blanche let herself into the room and spoke softly to the woman she had known as a child.

  “I know you didn’t do what they say, Miss Annabelle. I’ve seen you almost every day, all your life. I know you were a good wife to him. I don’t know what happened between you two, but I know it has nothing to do with you.” And with that, she moved forward and put her arms around Annabelle and they cried together. Annabelle couldn’t tell her what had really caused the divorce, but at least Blanche knew she wasn’t capable of what she was accused of. And as they cried and hugged, Annabelle missed her mother more than ever. She couldn’t even imagine what her life would be like now. She had refused to divorce him, and thinking he was saving her from a worse fate, he had branded her as an adulteress forever.

  She got a taste of what it meant in the last weeks of August, as the summer season drew to a close. She went to the store a few times, and the post office, and each time she did, the people she saw on the way turned away and refused to speak to her. Men glared at her in disapproval, and women looked right through her. She had in fact become the pariah she had warned Josiah she would be. He had thought this would be best for her, and had freed her out of love and remorse, and in so doing he had condemned her to a life sentence of disapproval and contempt. She had been banished by her own from her own world. She knew then that her life was over in Newport and New York, and she would never again be admitted into proper homes, or into polite circles. She would forever be the adulteress whom Josiah Millbank had divorced. He might as well have taken her out and hanged her. The decent woman she had always been was as good as dead.