The Social Graces

by Renée Rosen

  Before she was Alva Vanderbilt, she’d been Alva Smith from Mobile, Alabama. After the War Between the States, when she was sixteen, her mother died, and within a year, her father had squandered the family’s fortune, which had been considerable by non-Vanderbilt standards. Suddenly poverty-stricken, the Smiths found that the world had turned on them. People who used to be their friends openly shunned them, crossed their names off their guest lists for barbecues and other entertainments, too. Alva’s sisters, Armide, Jennie and Julia, quietly accepted the rejection. But not Alva. Alva fought back, pushing a girl in the park who’d made a snide remark about her out-of-date dress. When someone ignored her on the street, she’d call out their name—Oh, Mary Lou, I see you—hell-low! Well, hell-low there, Mary Lou. Adversity had always fueled Alva, and she vowed that the Smiths would be walking in high cotton once again. She owed her mother that much.

  Alva heard someone coming. It wasn’t the porch door this time, and she dropped her feet to the ground, shoved aside the newspaper and sat up straight. Willie and James Van Alen were back, their bows and quivers in hand. Willie’s dark hair was windblown and tousled, a hint of his cowlick poking up, his cheeks tinged pink from the sun. He was squinting, his pale blue eyes adjusting to the light inside the room. Though his lips remained downturned, she could tell he was smiling at something Van Alen had just said.

  “. . . I beat you fair and square, mate,” he said to Willie.

  “If you say so.” Willie laughed.

  “Oh, don’t be such a Podsnap,” he said, adjusting his monocle. “You’re always so bloody chipper.”

  Alva smiled, recalling how she’d initially been charmed by James Van Alen’s accent before discovering it wasn’t real. Neither was the eyepiece. Nothing but a circle of glass. He’d spent a year in England and had returned home a myopic Brit. But she didn’t hold it against him. Not like the others, who themselves all spoke with a heavy stilted inflection that didn’t sound quite American or British—but rather something unnatural in between. Even Alva had been known to play the role of a Southern belle when it suited her or, conversely, a worldly sophisticate, peppering her sentences with French.

  “I suppose you heard about the fish fry being scratched,” said Van Alen.

  Alva reached for Mamie’s card and held it up.

  “Pity you won’t be joining us for Mrs. Astor’s clambake.”

  “You were invited?” She plunked the card down, hoping she hadn’t sounded rude, though judging by the way Willie’s eyebrows arched, she guessed she didn’t pull it off. At least Van Alen hadn’t seemed to notice.

  “Indeed,” he said. “Emily’s parents are warming to the idea of me. With any luck, I’ll be seated at the family table. It’s going to be marvelous.”

  “Oh, cheer up, darling.” Willie leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You don’t even like clams.”

  Alva stood up, perhaps too abruptly. “If you boys will excuse me,” she said, forcing a smile, “I think I’ll go for a swim.”

  As she rushed up the stairs to change, she overheard Willie saying, “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She always says clams are too chewy.”

  Up in Alva’s room, her maid set out three flannel swimming outfits to choose from, each with woolen stockings along with outdoor slippers. She had a dozen or more hanging in her closet. There was a time she didn’t even have a dozen dresses, let alone swimming costumes. She settled on a black-and-gray-striped suit, knowing that any of them would weigh her down once they got wet, making swimming too far out nearly impossible. This frustrated her to no end. Men didn’t need to cover every inch of flesh. They could swim freely whereas she could only go wading at best.

  After saying goodbye to Willie and Van Alen, she set out for the beach. Wandering down the tree-lined street, she passed a cluster of women, chatting away as they strolled leisurely in their best day dresses, their parasols hoisted above their shoulders. Alva felt a stab of envy. A simple afternoon walk with friends. They make it look so easy. Sometimes she tagged along with the other Vanderbilt women on their walks, listening to them wax on about their children and relations she’d never met, and family lore about the Commodore. There wasn’t an opening or even a crack for her to enter the conversation, and she found herself lonelier in their company than when she was by herself.

  When Alva reached Ruggles and Bellevue Avenues, she decided to take a detour and turned down the dirt pathway that led to the cliffs. Cliff Walk was a much prettier route, and as she hiked along, the trail grew more winding, even a bit treacherous in places, requiring a steady foot to navigate. The tomboy in Alva that fished, golfed and performed calisthenics every morning with Indian pins loved the challenge. She placed her slippered feet with nimble grace from one rock to the next while holding on to her bonnet. The pulse of the ocean, steady as a heartbeat, whooshed in her ears. Up ahead, around the bend she could see the rocks in the distance, those massive slabs of black shale and sandstone. She watched as a gull walked about with a clam in its mouth, dropping the shell against the rocks until it cracked open, before reaching inside to pull the fleshy meat out with its beak. Willie K. was right; she didn’t like clams. She had to look away, and when she did, she saw a young woman sitting on the ledge of a cliff, elbows to knees, head in hands. The wide lavender ribbons on her hat were fluttering in the breeze. She appeared to be crying.

  “Are you all right up there?”

  The woman lifted her face, and Alva saw that it was Emily Astor. Even from a distance and even while Emily was sobbing, Alva thought what she always thought when she saw her: Good lord, what a beautiful girl. How was it possible that anyone could have such enormous dark eyes, such a straight, perfect nose and a flower bud of a mouth?

  “Please, just let me be.” Emily buried her head in the folds of her arms, shoulders shaking.

  Alva squinted, trying to block the sun. “Be careful getting down from there.”

  “Just please—please, just go.”

  “Okay, fine. Fine.” Alva slapped her hands to her thighs and walked on, wondering why she’d even bothered. James Van Alen had introduced Alva and Emily on three separate occasions, and each time, Emily had said, How do you do? discounting their previous meetings. And Alva knew where she got that from, too. Her mother, the great Mrs. Astor, always looked through Alva, as though she weren’t there or wasn’t worth the time it would take to acknowledge her presence.

  It seemed that everywhere Alva turned she was met with some form of slight. The world had been trying to rein her in from as far back as she could remember. When Alva was four, her brother died of consumption. He was just thirteen. Alva remembered her father sitting in the church pew, shoulders shaking as he wept into the crook of his arm, asking God out loud why he’d taken his son and not one of his daughters. Alva had been crushed and ran out of the church. She hid in the cotton field until Armide found her and practically dragged her back inside the house. Alva couldn’t look at her father, knowing that he’d loved his son more than her or her sisters. But Alva couldn’t accept that. She was just as good as a son, and she vowed to prove that to her father, to everyone. She wouldn’t be kept down, wouldn’t be rendered second-rate. But the world wasn’t quite ready for Alva. Her own mother punished her for playing town ball and climbing trees. As a young woman, she couldn’t attend debutante balls because she was poor. Later, she wasn’t allowed to go to college or study subjects like politics and architecture just because she was a girl. Now she couldn’t go to Mrs. Astor’s clambake, and not because she was a woman, and not because she wasn’t rich enough, but because she wasn’t good enough. Not being good enough—it all boiled down to that simple truth.

  At times like this Alva questioned why she wanted to be part of society in the first place. But she knew why. Society was the only arena where women didn’t have to answer to men. They had created their own little world, governed by their own rules, set in place by their own rul
ers. It was the only realm where she could hope to have any say about anything at all. If she wanted respect, if she wanted power, she had to make her way in society.

  A seagull squawked overhead, strident to her ears. Alva kicked a loose pebble out of her way and had just reached a bend in the path when she saw a hat being carried away over the cliff. She saw the lavender ribbon flapping in the breeze and realized it was Emily’s. A second later she heard an ear-piercing shriek that sounded more animal-like than human. There came another shriek and Alva rushed back to see that Emily had slid down a five-foot drop, her fall broken only by another ledge jutting out. There was no way to hoist herself back up.

  “It’s okay—you’re all right,” Alva called out. “Just stay right there. Don’t move. I’m coming.” Alva’s heart was racing as she advanced from one rock to the next, keeping her eye on Emily as she struggled, gripping the jagged ledge for support.

  When Alva got close enough, she reached for Emily’s hand. “Just grab hold of me.”

  But as she groped for Alva, Emily stumbled again and skidded off the rock, clinging onto another serrated section of stone overlooking a twelve-foot drop. Alva cried out even before Emily did. She tried reaching for Emily, their fingertips straining but not connecting. Alva leaped forward to the next rock, her heart hammering when she grabbed hold of Emily’s forearm. Emily’s cheeks were puffing in and out, every part of her laboring to hang on. Alva still had hold of Emily, even as her own feet were slipping.

  “Help,” Alva shouted out, panic rising in the back of her throat. “Somebody, please, come help us!”

  But there was no one around. Alva was on her own. She slid closer still toward the drop-off, managing to wedge her foot between two overlapping rocks. Using that as her anchor, Alva got hold of Emily’s other arm. With all her might, Alva drew a deep breath, her limbs aching as inch by inch she dragged Emily back onto a flat rock. The two women collapsed side by side, panting, sweating. Emily was shaking, her face streaked with blood and dirt, her kid gloves shredded. Her dress was torn along the bottom and sides. Blood oozed from the cuts and gashes along her forehead, arms and legs. Alva herself became aware of a salty, metallic taste in her mouth. She must have cut her lip. When she wiped the sweat from her brow, her fingers came away tinged with blood, and the palms of her hands were deeply pitted with gravel and grit.

  She had no idea how long they stayed there, breathing hard, unable to move. Though she’d gotten them both this far to safety, she was still expecting someone to help them. It took a moment before she realized the rest was up to her.

  After she’d gotten Emily on her feet and made sure nothing was broken, she asked what she’d been doing up there to begin with. “Don’t you know that people have fallen to their deaths on Cliff Walk?”

  Emily didn’t answer. Alva didn’t ask again.

  Together they slowly inched along from one jagged rock to another with Emily leaning on Alva. Every few steps she had to stop and shift Emily’s weight, pressing into her hip and shoulder. It seemed to take forever before they came to the paved pathway. By then Emily had begun talking—chattering really—going on and on about her mother’s clambake, about James Van Alen and then back to the clambake. Alva paused and looked at her in such a way that made Emily stop, her eyes wide, her mouth open.

  “What is it?” asked Emily. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing.” Alva shook her head, smiling.

  “No, tell me. What is it?”

  “You.” She pointed, her amusement building.

  “Me? What did I do? Tell me. Oh, please tell me. Did I say something funny? Did I do something wrong? Oh, what is it?”

  “It’s that—what you’re doing right now!” Alva covered her mouth, laughing out loud. “You’re—you’re babbling.”

  Emily looked affronted. “I do not babble.”

  “Oh, yes you do,” said Alva, howling. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry,” she said, trying to catch her breath, “it’s just that I never thought you Astors babbled. It makes you seem almost human.”

  Emily pressed her fingertips to her mouth, and Alva was sure she’d offended the prim and proper Miss Astor, when suddenly Emily’s shoulders began to shake as she let out a high-pitched giggle.

  “I suppose you hiccup and snore and do all kinds of other graceless things, too.”

  With that, Emily burst into a fit of chortling. Both of them were now laughing so hard that Alva was doubled over, unable to speak, holding her midsection while still propping Emily up.

  “Oh God, stop,” said Emily, trying to recover, sopping the tears from her eyes. “Oh, it hurts—don’t make me start laughing again.”

  When they were both finally able to compose themselves, the pendulum swung the other way and Emily grew serious, somber. “I could have died today, couldn’t I have?”

  “But you didn’t.” Alva pushed the words past the lump in her throat.

  “You saved my life. And you could have died, too,” she said, as if this just dawned on her. Reaching for Alva’s hands, she said, “I won’t ever forget this. I mean it. Thank you.”

  Alva never knew what to do when someone turned soft and emotional. Usually she cracked jokes or changed the subject. Her sisters and Consuelo always accused her of that. So did Willie. This time she said nothing.

  In silence, she helped Emily along the pathway, concentrating on not buckling or letting Emily fall. Meanwhile Emily went back to chattering about James and how much she wanted to marry him, how funny Alva was and how she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like that.

  Alva was only half listening because now something quite splendid was taking root in her mind. About fifty yards back, it had dawned on her that a golden opportunity had just presented itself. This was Alva’s chance to meet Mrs. Astor—and under the most advantageous circumstances. Alva would walk Emily home and return her safely to her mother. Mrs. Astor would be so grateful—so indebted to Alva for rescuing Emily—that her frosty veneer would melt away and she would insist that her daughter’s savior attend the clambake, and welcome her into society.

  They’d made it to where Victoria Avenue intersected with Bellevue, when Emily turned to Alva and said, “Thank you. For everything.” She let go of Alva, wincing as she attempted to hobble away.

  “Wait—” Alva grabbed Emily just before she stumbled. “You can’t walk on that ankle. I’ll help you the rest of the way.”

  “No.” Emily shook her head. “I’m all right. It’s best that I go alone. I can make it.”

  “Don’t be silly. You can hardly put any weight on that foot. I’ll help you back home and we’ll explain what happened to your mother and—”

  “No!” Emily blurted out. “Mother can’t know I was on Cliff Walk. She’s always forbidden me to go there.”

  “But . . .” Alva’s voice trailed off, her mind scrambling, trying to salvage her plan, find another way in. She needed Emily’s help in this. Alva couldn’t just knock on Mrs. Astor’s door later on and say, By the way, I saved your daughter’s life, now invite me to your clambake and let me into society. Alva supposed somewhere down the line she could ask Emily for an introduction, but that wouldn’t be enough. That could be easily dismissed. No, she needed more leverage than a simple how do you do. Alva was still thinking when Emily attempted another step forward and nearly collapsed.

  “Come on now.” Alva had hold of her again. “You can’t walk the rest of the way by yourself.”

  Emily lowered her eyes and nodded, surrendering to Alva for help. “You just can’t say anything about this to Mother. Please? Promise?” Emily gripped Alva’s free hand. “I’m asking. As a friend.”

  A friend? Alva hesitated, her chest growing warm. She was desperately lonely and so in need of a friend. She never would have assumed that Emily considered her a peer. Much to her surprise, Alva did like Emily, and not because she was Mrs. Ast
or’s daughter. She was different one-on-one, nothing like the times they’d met before. There was a sweetness and an innocence to her that Alva found endearing. And her laughter was infectious.

  “Please?” Emily’s eyes were big and pleading.

  Alva had a decision to make. She could use this as a means to enter society, or she could have a new friend. She looked at Emily and nodded. “This will be our secret. I won’t say a word.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Society

  Faint traces of sea spray waft in the air all around us. Those invisible salt crystals cover every surface of this town just like the gilding so favored by Newport’s elite, most of whom—including us—are oblivious to the slow rot underneath.

  Still, there is no place like Newport in the summertime. Six weeks filled with six-course dinners, lawn parties, teas and luncheons each day and balls that last till dawn every night. Most of us have ninety or so gowns on hand just to get us through the season.

  In the afternoons, while the men are off sailing their yachts or playing lawn tennis, we ladies seek our exercise and a chance to show off our best day dresses and gems by taking daily strolls down Bellevue Avenue. We keep our parasols open to block the sun, as freckles and suntans are regarded as common and must be avoided at all costs.

  The Knickerbocker matrons make their own daily parade in a string of horse-drawn carriages led, of course, by Mrs. Astor. Just now as she passes by, we practically stand at attention, not that she even notices us here, in the heat of the day, our corsets and petticoats a heavy second skin, our coiffures wilting beneath our wide-brimmed hats.