A Well-Behaved Woman

by Therese Anne Fowler

  Alva said, “If we delay further, my daughter will be old enough to protest, too. Will you come for luncheon tomorrow, Mr. Hunt?”

  He nodded. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Glancing at Oliver, Alva said, “Good day then, gentlemen,” and herded her children into the theater.

  After getting them seated for the show, Alva excused herself to the ladies’ lounge and there found Alice, who said, “Oh, hello. I didn’t realize your children were coming. I’d have offered to bring them with Reggie and Gladys.”

  “No Gertrude?”

  “She’s gone driving with the Hunt girl.”

  “You say that with distaste.”

  “I’m sure Miss Hunt is perfectly fine in her own circle. But I don’t like her latching on to Gertrude the way she’s done. I’ve said as much, but Gertrude won’t hear me. ‘I ought to be able to choose my own friends, Mother.’ Her tone! Esther Hunt is only attracted to my daughter’s position—”

  “Her position? She’s not a princess.”

  “She’s the wealthiest heiress in the country, possibly the world. You should be mindful that Consuelo might be used similarly—though she’s probably safe as long as Gertrude’s encouraging all the leeches herself.”

  “My, you’re in rare temper.”

  “That girl is at the Breakers constantly, and I can’t very well forbid it; Mr. Hunt was a pleasure to work with when we expanded the house in New York, and of course George has him now. I like Mr. Hunt well enough. I’ll suppose it’s Mrs. Hunt who’s to blame for not teaching her daughter better.”

  “Does Gertrude enjoy her company?”

  “They’re thick as thieves! This is what I have been saying.”

  “Then I don’t see the harm. The Hunts are a perfectly respectable family—”

  “He’s only well off because he’s made so much money from his rich clients.”

  “And we’re only well off because we have a monopoly on all the rail lines going to and from the shipyards, and because investors are willing to pay so much for New York Central stock.”

  Alice adjusted her hat. “I’d better get back. I can’t leave Reggie untended too long.”

  Alva watched her go, glad to have had a few minutes of Alice’s discomfiture to distract her from her own. In sight, in mind.

  July 28th, 1891

  My dear Duchess,

  Apologies for my lapse in correspondence. It’s been a full summer. I write you from the “Alva” somewhere on the Atlantic, where I’ve been entertaining myself by sketching plans for our own Newport cottage. I have in mind something like the Petit Trianon at Versailles, Louis XV’s intended gift to his mistress Madame de Pompadour. She didn’t live to see it finished. I do hope I fare better.

  We’ve just spent a week in Lisbon. It’s a marvelous city, even the children thought so. Wm. already plans for us to ship out again in October—to Italy and the Mediterranean for the winter, returning home in May. I want to visit the great auction houses—the cottage will have themed rooms (Renaissance, Gothic, etc.), and as you know, all the best, authentic things are in the Old World.

  Some society news to amuse you: my current Newport neighbor is Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs—the former Miss Theresa Fair. Yes, our red-haired Greenbrier maiden, the one I thought Wm. might choose. She is so besotted with Hermann that one can’t help but adore her.

  Hermann, being such a terrific athlete, has provided great amusement for the ladies this summer as he challenges all the fellows to contests of swimming and riding and wrestling. He absolutely insists that the man-eating sharks of Jules Verne’s imagination are entirely that: imaginary. And to prove it, he had us, his wife, newlyweds Alice and Teddy Roosevelt, Oliver Belmont, the Fishes, the Goelets, and several others out on “Hildegard” for a cruise when he announced he was going for a swim. “Definitive proof that sharks will not attack man!” he proclaimed before descending the ladder and then diving into the depths. Everyone crowded the rail—I thought his wife was going to faint. The men were making wagers (Wm. bet against him) and yelling out to Hermann, but then we saw shark fins and everyone went mute. Imagine it: there we were, anchored miles offshore, the boat rolling on five-foot swells, a stiff breeze whipping the ladies’ skirts about their legs, all of us with our hearts in our throats—well, some of the ladies turned away, thinking a scene of horror was imminent, but I kept my eyes on the water. I actually believed he would succeed. And he did! He thrashed about as if he were Poseidon himself, and the sharks swam away!

  I don’t mean to leave your last letter unremarked upon … When I began this reply, I thought, “I’ll cheer her with cottage details and amusing stories”—and perhaps I have. Yet all along I sit here thinking of you in that shabby London house, and of how much I admire you for telling the truth about your circumstances. It seems truth-telling has gone well out of fashion here, if in fact anyone ever did it.

  What is it that drives some men to such poor behavior? Mandeville never deserved you. And Pierpont Morgan—he has built his mistress a house near his own and goes there with impunity. Mrs. Morgan is forced to act as if none of us knows and she doesn’t either. These men must believe themselves completely beyond reproach! And, well, why wouldn’t they? Wives permit all of it. Because of course if we’re to believe what we read in the Lady’s Book, the True Woman is completely fulfilled by her domestic duties—her home, her children, her charity functions. The True Woman understands that men have needs of a different kind.

  But I don’t believe a word of it. We accept their behavior because of what would happen if we didn’t.

  Here is one of my truths:

  Many years ago, on the day after our ’83 ball, you asked me if I had a secret. I didn’t. Not exactly. But I was keeping something to myself. There was a gentleman who was in love with me. I rejected him completely that night, and that put an end to it. We didn’t see each other for a time. He was abroad, and our paths never crossed. I heard about him from time to time, of course. Enough to know he was in good form, and to know that although he was well occupied, he hadn’t taken a wife, nor did he seem inclined to. Now this man is again in circulation and I see him with some frequency. Despite my rejection of him, I was powerfully attracted to him then and remain as attracted as before. It’s maddening.

  I have never acted on this attraction, and I’m so glad of that, as it is clear that he did as I requested and put his feelings for me behind him. But to you I confess it with chagrin: I dream of him sometimes, and in my dreams we have a passion that I have never experienced in my waking life. And when I wake, I carry with me a yearning that is heightened whenever he is nearby. It’s ridiculous for a woman nearing forty years old to feel this way, and in no way appropriate for any lady. That’s what I tell myself. Pathetic is what it really is, as there is nothing to be done about it. Oh, the gods are laughing at me now.

  I will close and address this to you before I lose my nerve. We are a pitiable pair, are we not?

  —Alva

  London, Sept. 12, 1891

  Alva, my brave and honest friend: for all that I should be mourning my circumstances and yours, I am actually laughing. Think of the way the two of us used to be so certain of ourselves, so convinced that we knew exactly what we were doing and that what we were doing was going to absolutely lead us to contentment for the rest of our lives. Is this the curse of youth, or the blessing of it?

  I am sorry for your situation. Not as sorry as I am for my own, though, because you have a cloak of cash to protect you somewhat from life’s storms. Whereas I get soaked through to the skin.

  Or is that overly dramatic? Yes. Yes, it is. I’m comfortable enough. I do, after all, benefit from my friends in high places.

  You might consider making new friends. Or making more of old ones.

  Send your agenda for the winter trip when you know it, and we’ll meet up somewhere along the way. Would you like another invitation to court? On second thought, I’d rather have you to myself. Come to Tandragee. We can
sit before one of the great hearths and drink hot wine in quantities sufficient to both warm us and make us forget that we aren’t still those headstrong, self-sure girls smugly plotting advantageous matrimonies and everlasting satisfaction.

  Until then, I remain yours truly,

  Lady C.

  III

  AFTER WINTERING IN Italy, Alva and the family returned to New York to find their coachman waiting at the dock with the news that Corneil and Alice’s oldest son, Bill, had died a week earlier. For a moment, the family stood in shocked silence. Then William said, “What are you talking about?”

  “The typhoid, sir.”

  Consuelo began to cry.

  “Typhoid? Are any of the others ill?” Alva asked.

  “No, ma’am. He came from Yale already quite sick.”

  William said, “But … how can he have died from it, for God’s sake? Typhoid is curable.”

  Eric had no answer.

  Alva said, “Have we missed the funeral?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  William said, “Take us straight to my brother’s home.”

  In the coach, Alva sat between Willie and Harold with her arms around them, her eyes on her daughter—as if her fierceness and attention could protect them from harm any better than Alice’s had done for Bill or for little Alice.

  Alva’s pleasure over the stimulating and enjoyable things they’d done during the trip withered in sympathy. While she had been watching her elder son run across the Champ de Mars to the Eiffel Tower and stand beneath it with his arms stretched overhead in joy, Alice must have been begging the doctor to please do something to bring down her son’s fever, to reduce his pain, to stop the vomiting and hemorrhages of the bowel, to cure him, damn it! Why wasn’t he recovering? Most people didn’t die from typhoid anymore, and certainly not when they were receiving the best treatment! Certainly not when they were young and strong. Certainly not when they were poised to be among the most influential and important men in the world. His parents were God-fearing and devout.

  While Alva had been at Tandragee with her dear friend, the two of them alone in a cavernous room seated in wing chairs before a roaring fire, drunk on laughter and mulled wine, Alice was likely sitting on a chair beside her unconscious son’s bed looking upon his fever-pink face, certain that if she lost him as she’d lost her sweet daughter, she would never have cause nor energy to smile again.

  Corneil and Alice, who through extraordinary good luck possessed every advantage life on this earth could bring, had for the second time buried one of their children. Alva would not insult them by asking how it was they put so much store in a God who would treat them—treat their children—thusly. She would not openly question their faith. But she did wonder why and how it was that they did not.

  * * *

  For weeks, the papers ran lengthy and lavish accounts of kind young Bill’s promising life and remarkable funeral, and of the Vanderbilt men and their money. As a result of the attention, Alva and William received letters like this:

  Mr. William Vanderbilt,

  I hear you are a good man. My family is hungry. With your sons death there is now more money to share with others. Please 10 dollars will be fine or more if you as a Christian sees fit.

  —though it was not their son who’d died.

  And this:

  Mrs. William Vanderbilt,

  I suppose you are now heiress to many many millions and can help out a poor soul like me. Send whatever you can afford. My husband is out of work and we have six to feed plus my father and my husband’s two brothers who are lame from the war.

  —though it was not anyone’s father who’d died.

  The facts of who had died and what relation he was to the rest of them were of no matter; they were Vanderbilts, and there was money to go around. All of them received these begging letters by the scores. Alice and Corneil, bereft, would read none of them. William read a few and then instructed the butler to burn any more that arrived. The heartlessness, the presumption, of all these strangers—where was their compassion? A precious, beloved young man was dead and his family was grieving! The Vanderbilts were more than newspaper tales and cartoons meant to inflame or entertain the public. They were human, and they were hurting.

  Still, knowing how it was to feel desperate and hungry, knowing that she and the children needed to do things to help assuage their grief, Alva ordered an assortment of dry goods and food, then took the children over to St. Bart’s to help assemble packages the church would distribute to the needy.

  When they returned home in the carriage that day, they saw several people waiting on the stoop outside the front door. Two were women holding babies. All the people looked careworn and exhausted.

  The coachman yelled, “You lot! Out of the way, now!” They moved, but not far. As he climbed from his bench, the people called to Alva, visible in the carriage window:

  “Help us out, ma’am, won’t you?”

  “Please, we’ve no work. Surely you can spare a few dollars?”

  “There’s no jobs. How am I going to feed my baby?”

  “My baby has the croup. We need money for a doctor.”

  A well-dressed gentleman unfamiliar to Alva was walking past. “Get out of here!” he scolded the group. “You’ve no cause to trouble this lady with your complaints. You want help, go to city hall.”

  A hatless young man with dirty hair said, “That one horse there costs more to feed than my whole family.” He pointed to the coachman. “If they can put their servants in velvet jackets, sure they can throw some cash our way—bet you can, too. All of you up here, I bet you wipe your asses with dollar bills.”

  While the men continued to argue, Consuelo said, “Mother, we have to help. I have a few dollars here.” She indicated the small purse she carried with her now that she was receiving a regular allowance.

  “Your impulse is good, but we can’t give handouts this way or we’ll have every poor person in the city lining up at our door.”

  Harold peeked past his sister to see better, then sat back again. “I don’t like those people.”

  Willie said, “Don’t be scared. They’re … well, they’re sort of like pirates who’ve gone off duty.”

  “I’m scared of pirates.”

  Consuelo took Harold’s hand. “They’re all perfectly nice people, they’re just hungry. You know how you get cross sometimes when you’re hungry.”

  “That’s right,” Alva said, and knowing there was nothing for it but to get on with her day, she climbed out to the sidewalk. Turning to the children, she said, “Come on, now. Just keep your eyes on Eric, he’s holding the front door for us. Straight in,” she warned Consuelo. “I know it’s hard, but there you go, sometimes life is hard.”

  “Please, Mother? I’ll tell them it’s just this once.”

  Alva looked at her daughter. She looked again at the people on the stoop, reduced by circumstances to being beggars.

  “Yes, all right, just this once,” she said, opening her own purse.

  * * *

  They decided to leave for Newport as soon as the Alva could be refitted for the trip. The children needed a release from their sadness at losing a most-admired cousin, time to roam the fields and climb the cliffs and swim and sail and run and ride. The new house there—which while it was being built had been dubbed the marble house for its liberal use of the material, and then simply Marble House—was done but for some of the small touches, and ready enough for their summer stay. Alva would turn her attention to that.

  As they motored down the North River, they waved to the people on the Manhattan shore and to the passengers of other boats. It was a fine June day, hardly a cloud to be seen—a perfect day to be out on the water. Alva’s heart lifted for the first time in weeks.

  Was Captain Morrison preoccupied when he steered them toward a cruiser in the water ahead? Was he reading a magazine? Chatting up the children’s governess, perhaps, who liked to visit the bridge and talk with the engineer
? Whatever it was, he had them on a collision course if something wasn’t done—

  “Morrison!” William yelled as he ran for the pilothouse.

  “Move!” Alva said, pulling the children away from the rail to the center of the deck. They instinctively crouched and grabbed the nearest line.

  In another moment the yacht was veering sharply, barely missing the cruiser’s port side—then came a thump and the sound of splitting wood and someone screaming.

  “Stay put,” Alva said, moving to the rail to look behind the yacht. As she did, she felt the yacht slowing, while, in their wake, the flotsam of what looked to be a rowboat held a struggling half-submerged woman. Some yards away from the woman was another figure who was going under.

  “Stop!” Alva yelled to Morrison. “Turn around!” The crewmen were at the rail now, too. Everyone was yelling. Still, though they were slowed, Morrison didn’t attempt to turn. The woman disappeared beneath the water. The other person was gone.

  Alva rushed to the pilothouse. “For God’s sake, why don’t you turn us?”

  “There’s no use,” Morrison said. “By the time we manage it, they’ll have either swum to shore or gone down.”

  “They’re down already,” said one of the mates from the doorway. “No sign at all.”

  William and the captain looked at each other. For a long moment, the only sound was the engine’s low rumble. Then Captain Morrison said, “Carry on.” William made no reply. Morrison said, “Believe me.”

  “Yes,” said William. “All right. Carry on.”

  “I’ll cable Depew as soon as we put in at Newport.”

  Alva said, “William, we can’t—”

  “This is none of your concern,” he said. “Tend to the children.”

  Fortunately, the children had seen nothing. Taking Consuelo’s hand, Alva told them, “We hit a rowboat with two people on board. Pray for them.”

  The next day’s newspaper story about the incident told every detail about the man who had rented the rowboat for an outing on the river, and about his companion, who was his housekeeper. It told how the rowboat was “cut in two,” and how the man had tried and failed to catch hold of the Alva’s bobstays, and how the woman had been thrown aside, then had found and clung to a piece of wood, then lost her hold. Both had drowned. It accused the Alva’s crew of failing to throw out life buoys—which may have been true; Alva couldn’t say.