A Well-Behaved Woman

by Therese Anne Fowler

  “I don’t like this.”

  “I like it even less, but it’s nothing to worry over.”

  But when the night and then the next day and then another night passed and his pain and nausea would not abate, he agreed it was time to seek help.

  After consulting his local physician, he told Alva, “Mystery solved: It’s a liver irritation. I’m to eat only mild foods, no imbibing at all, and he’s given me some pills. So you see? Nothing that won’t be remedied in short order.”

  “We can change our tickets, if you need a little more time—”

  “I’ll be in fighting form in a day or two. Don’t think twice about it.”

  But on June 1, when he couldn’t rise or even move without wincing, when his color was terrible and he said he felt feverish, Alva said, “I’m cabling our New York doctors.”

  Drs. Bull and McCosh arrived on the afternoon train. After examining Oliver and consulting with Dr. Lanehart, the trio brought Alva into Oliver’s room and delivered the bad news to them together:

  “While the liver may well be implicated as Dr. Lanehart observed,” said Dr. McCosh, “it now appears to be trouble with the appendix, which we hope may yet resolve with treatment. Mr. Belmont will take morphine for the pain, calomel as a purgative, Ichthyol for nausea. We’ll bring a nurse in to tend to him and apply poultices to his abdomen for further relief.”

  Oliver looked at Alva. “It appears we may need to rearrange our trip after all.” His tone was confident, but his expression was anxious and he was breathless as he spoke. Alva remembered sounding something like that when she was in the midst of childbirth.

  She sat at Oliver’s bedside throughout the evening, reading while he dozed. The poultices and morphine had eased his pain. When the nurse came to check on him, she told Alva, “The doctors are hopeful that rest will allow the organ to repair itself.”

  “Is that usually the way of it?”

  “Well.” The nurse paused. “I have seen it happen.”

  Alva went to Mrs. Evelyn and asked, “How many saltcellars do we have?”

  “Two, I believe.”

  “Send someone into town to get two more. No, four more. Fill them all and bring them to the room Mr. Belmont’s in.”

  “Ma’am?” said Mrs. Evelyn.

  “They go beneath the bed—to harbor healing spirits or some such. We have to try everything, don’t we?”

  Mrs. Evelyn drew Alva to her for a hug.

  When after another two days of all these treatments Oliver hadn’t improved further, the doctor sat beside his bed and told them there was no longer any question: he must undergo surgery.

  “And if I don’t?” Oliver asked. “Not that I fear it,” he added. “I’m certain you gents are as skillful as they come. It’s the recovery time I’m thinking of. We’re supposed to sail next week.”

  Alva told him, “My love, that’s hardly a concern. England will be there.”

  “You’ve been waiting months to see Consuelo and the boys as it is.”

  He asked Dr. McCosh, “We could give it a little more time, don’t you think? Just to be certain?”

  The doctor said, “I understand your reluctance. But let me be quite clear: If the appendix is not removed, it’s likely to become increasingly swollen with infection, which would then cause it to rupture. The resulting illness and pain will frankly be more horrible than you can conceive, and you will certainly die. I’ve sent for my assistants and supplies, and we’ll undertake the surgery in the morning, first thing.”

  He left them, and Oliver told Alva, “Humorless bastard, isn’t he?”

  “It is a rather serious matter.”

  Oliver reached for her hand. “I’m very sorry about this.”

  “Please shut up,” Alva said, fighting to keep her voice steady.

  “Well, at least this will resolve the trouble so that when we do go abroad, I’ll be fitter than ever.”

  “Maybe I should have my appendix out as well, prevention being the best cure.”

  “Solidarity,” he said, smiling wanly.

  In the morning, Willie, Birdie, and Harold came to sit with Alva during what felt like the longest day of her life—though she was unable to sit. She paced the hall outside the guest room McCosh had selected for the surgery, favored for its southeastern-facing windows. A glimpse into the room as nurses came and went with buckets of hot water showed a scene of bloodied linens beneath and around Oliver as he lay unconscious on a table. The odor took her back to 1874, to that day at the tenement where she and Armide discovered the dead girl. This odor, though, was worse. Blood, and a putrid scent like spoilt, rotting meat.

  “The organ is septic,” a nurse explained. “That’s why it smells that way. Try not to worry. They’re cleaning him out.”

  Alva turned toward the children. “They’re ‘cleaning him out.’ Good lord.”

  In late evening, Dr. McCosh finally emerged from the bedroom. “We’ve completed the surgery and Mr. Belmont is stable—a remarkable testament to his fortitude; we discovered upon opening his abdomen that the appendix had already ruptured.”

  He shook his head in wonder, then went on, “Bacteria had infiltrated the abdominal muscles. The peritoneum—that is, the interior of the abdomen—was itself filled with it. We excised the diseased appendix and scraped the peritoneum, douching with warm water to cleanse the walls thoroughly. This is all we can do.”

  Alva said, “Is he conscious?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “Ether’s effects can be slow to diminish. We’ll know more in a little while.”

  “I want to see him.”

  The room smelled now of cleanser and gauze. The bloody surgical field was gone, and Oliver had been moved onto the bed. His face was ashen. Had Alva not been assured otherwise, she would have mistaken him for a man lying in state.

  “My brave darling,” she said, kissing his cheek. “You were splendid. The doctors anticipate a full recovery.” She had no idea whether or not this was true.

  Hours passed. Alva sent the children to bed and stayed with Oliver so that she would be there when he awakened. Periodically the nurse would attempt to rouse him, getting nothing better than a murmur in response.

  At dawn, Dr. Lanehart came to check on him, asking Alva to wait outside the room. “I need to examine his incision.” When he let her back in a short time later, he said, “The wound looks good, but Mr. Belmont’s vital signs are weak. It’s incumbent upon me to warn you that if he doesn’t revive soon, his condition may be terminal.”

  “Do you hear this, Oliver? Open your eyes, dearest. Prove the doctor wrong.”

  Oliver stirred, and then his eyes opened slightly. “First…”

  “Yes?”

  “First,” he said again, and winced.

  “What do you want first?”

  “First time I’ve had sympathy for McKinley,” he finished, attempting a smile.

  Alva laughed. “That’s my Oliver.”

  He closed his eyes again. “Stay,” he said, lifting his hand to invite hers.

  “Always.”

  The newspapers followed the course of Oliver’s crisis closely. Having first reported that the situation was dire, the next day they reported his rally and declared that he was now expected to live. Their next reports said he’d taken another turn. Later: a rally. Four long days this went on. Four long days Alva held Oliver’s hand, spoke softly to him, saw her hopes rise and resisted their fall. She ate little, slept less; there would be time for that when he was in the clear—and it wouldn’t hurt her a bit to be slimmer, as Oliver certainly would be. And they would stay here at Brookholt until fall, when he was strong again, spend their days sitting in the sunshine reading to each other, eating jam made from their raspberry bushes atop shortbread she’d bake herself.

  On the fifth day following his surgery, Alva, who’d been dozing at Oliver’s bedside, woke with a start. The sun was just up. Wrens and cardinals chattered outside. No one w
as in the room but Oliver and her. Perhaps the nurse had gone out just then and that’s what awakened her? Turning toward Oliver, she heard him draw a short, shallow breath.

  Then … nothing.

  * * *

  Outside, the sun rose higher. Birdsong went on unabated.

  * * *

  Alva refused to be one of those widows who keened piteously. Yes, her eyes and nose were raw behind her black veil; she had cried a lot over the past few days, sometimes when she wasn’t aware, at first, that she was doing it. But Oliver wouldn’t approve of hysterics, even were she inclined toward such behavior.

  Quiet, vigorous grief he would approve of heartily. If at the funeral’s conclusion she stood there in the church with her hands on the edge of the open casket fighting the impulse to climb inside and close the lid, no one around her could tell. If while sailing to England to stay with Consuelo she stood at the ship’s rail in a similar state, she didn’t give that state away. But perhaps Oliver knew she was lost. Perhaps he knew she was quietly frantic at the permanence of the situation. She hoped he knew. She wished she could tell if he did.

  II

  “WHAT’S ALL OF this?” Alva asked her daughter. “I’ve never seen it so crowded, even on a Saturday.”

  London’s streets were nearly impossible to navigate going from the docks to Consuelo’s current home, Sunderland House in Mayfair. Carts and automobiles of every size and condition packed the roadways in all directions. Consuelo had retrieved her in a new chauffeured Siddeley, an auto that was capable of going at a pace of something like a hundred miles an hour, yet they hardly moved faster than an infant could crawl.

  “I’m so sorry, Mother. This is why I made the boys wait at home. I had no idea it would be so bad or I’d have suggested you wait for the next crossing.”

  “Don’t distress yourself. I have nothing now but time.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Listen to me. My God, I’m maudlin.”

  “You’re entitled to be maudlin.”

  “He would scold me for it.” Alva turned her gaze back out the window. “Is there some event?”

  “Do you recall the paper I sent you about woman suffrage here, Votes for Women? Its publisher and the WSPU organized a ‘monster meeting,’ they’re calling it, for tomorrow in Hyde Park. Today’s Times said hundreds of thousands will attend. I’d been going to speak, but then Oliver … Well, I thought it best to beg off, under the circumstances.”

  Alva hadn’t seen Consuelo since right after her separation from Marlborough two years earlier. The couple had tried their best. They had two sons, a much-improved palace, and tremendous popularity amongst both the public and the peerage. The trouble was that as Marlborough had grown in importance, serving as paymaster general and then undersecretary of state for the colonies, he’d gotten stiff and pompous, while Consuelo, recognizing the pageantry of their world as an elaborate game of dress-up, became less serious. Oh, she was as sincere as ever about the responsibilities of her station and her efforts to improve the lives of working-class women and children. She followed the intricate rules of the court and observed all the forms and customs. But to do the latter required she keep a sense of humor about it all.

  Consuelo found Marlborough’s attitude grating. He found hers American. They both found “amusements” outside the marriage, if one could credit the gossip. Divorce for two such as they was all but impossible: Marlborough would have to prove adultery or Consuelo would have to prove physical cruelty or desertion. So they’d worked out an agreement to separate. Alva had come here to lend Consuelo an extra bit of strength to pull against the tide. And now here she was again, allowing Consuelo to do that for her.

  This tide, oh, it was like nothing Alva had felt before. This tide swirled and wrapped and dragged. It brought the unmitigated black of helpless anger and faithless grief, a darkness so black that it blocked out all light. Mausoleum black.

  “We should go to the meeting,” Alva said, shaking her head to clear it. “They might fit you back into the schedule.”

  “Please, don’t give it a thought.”

  “What I mean to say is that going would occupy me. I need to be occupied.”

  Consuelo nodded. “All right, then. I’ll see that we get reserved seating. Emmeline Pankhurst will be—”

  Alva knocked on the window that separated them from the driver. “Stop!”

  “What, here?” said Consuelo.

  “We can walk faster.” Alva reached for the door.

  “Mother, wait. I’d like to, but— Well, we’d be waylaid constantly. Everyone recognizes me here.”

  Alva sat back. She looked down at her daughter’s shoes—blue silk pumps with silver buckles—and said, “Those aren’t the shoes for it, anyway.” She thumped the window again. “Continue on!” she called.

  “Tell me,” she said as the car resumed its slow progress, “would you do it differently? Would you trade all of this for some other life if you could?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “You didn’t even think about it before you answered!”

  “That’s because I already have thought about it, a great deal. Oh, I know I behaved as if you’d ruined everything I cared about, and I was entirely sincere. To my inexperienced heart, Mr. Rutherfurd was the most gallant, marvelous figure. I did believe myself in love with him. But becoming the Duchess of Marlborough opened the world up to me. I’ve found great satisfaction in civic service, in addressing children and women’s needs in particular. I would not change anything, truly, except Marlborough’s personality. If he wasn’t such a prig—” She laughed. “I love that word. Prig. Having that word in my vocabulary is benefit enough.”

  “I am rather impressed with us,” Alva said. “Two independent women of the world.”

  * * *

  On Sunday, Alva woke early to the sound of an insistent wren outside her bedroom window. The sky was only beginning to lighten. There would be no more sleep, she knew this from recent experience. A few hours a night was all she managed lately anyway. Enough to keep exhaustion at bay. Not enough to feel well rested. Her mind, once stimulated into wakefulness, then went roaming with impunity into every recess of her memory while sleep sidled away, a reluctant but obedient slave to the power of the past.

  A wound could not heal if one kept touching it. So if she did not want to dwell—and most often she did not—she got out of bed and found distracting occupation. Doing this in her daughter’s house at five A.M., however, was not good form, so although the first thoughts that came to mind this too-early morning were of her former friend the Duchess of Manchester, she remained where she was. Perhaps the wren would distract her sufficiently. Perhaps her mind would then find a new tack.

  It was to be expected that the London environment would prod her memory in certain directions. In fact it happened every time she was in the city. Her old friend the duchess was here, somewhere. She’d stayed on even after losing her other daughter, Lady May, to tuberculosis eight years ago, now.

  Alva always thought she might happen upon her by chance and was ever on the lookout, anxious about how she might behave if their paths were to cross. It was a festering wound but a small one, and not in plain sight, so she had left it untended. Oliver had supported her choice to leave things lie. When he had presented her with a statue of Joan of Arc, a marble likeness five feet tall that they’d given pride of place in Belcourt’s Great Hall, he said, “Like Joan, you’ve always known how to choose your battles.”

  The wren’s call sounded farther from the window, and then farther again, and then Alva couldn’t hear it anymore.

  She and the duchess were both widows now. Both firmly in their middle age (unfirm as it increasingly was). Neither was likely to find new love, nor could Alva imagine wanting it; she’d been spoiled irreparably. And so they had in common the potential of a long stretch of years ahead, years that wanted to be filled with meaning.

  Perhaps she’d been wrong to leave things lie. Perhaps she had been wrong to believe there was n
othing to be gained by facing whatever might arise. She had loved Consuelo Yznaga. She might love her again.

  Alva sat up in the bed. The sky was lighter now. Another bird’s song was audible—a pigeon this time, cooing companionably from a windowsill nearby. Her day ahead would be full, but after that? She would inquire into the current whereabouts of the Duchess of Manchester, who along with Alva had once been a hopeful, willful young lady with great adventures in mind. She would send her old friend a note. Perhaps they could find a restaurant with a pleasing view and Devonshire tea.

  * * *

  Alva and her daughter joined a procession that would march to Hyde Park from the Victoria Embankment. Six other processions had formed at other locations. In all of them, women from every part of England carried placards and banners naming their districts or declaring their views. The women were in almost every case dressed in white, some with accents of purple and green in their hats or on sashes. There had been so much demand for white clothing that the city’s shops were stripped of white fabric as thoroughly as a forest could be stripped of its leaves by a multitude of locusts.

  Consuelo said, “As you can see, the WSPU has declared its colors: purple for royalty, which Mrs. Pankhurst claims is in every right-thinking woman’s veins. The white is for purity of heart and purpose. Green is emblematic of hope, renewal, springtime.”

  “Good for them,” Alva said. “No army should go into battle without colors to fly.”

  “I don’t like thinking of it as a battle. Rather, it’s an ongoing negotiation, don’t you agree?”

  “A negotiation requires negotiating. There’s no evidence of that from the government side. I think Mrs. Pankhurst is right to invoke customs of battle; she knows what she’s about.”

  Consuelo said, “Then you approve of her daughter’s having been arrested for disruption and provocation while promoting the cause? Never mind—your expression gives me your answer. And yet you insisted we children behave so well!”