A Well-Behaved Woman Page 10

New York, July 1, ’75

  Dear Consuelo,

  This Viscount Mandeville—Lord Kimbolton—George Montagu—eventual Duke of Manchester fellow who has won your hand—does he know what a gem he’s getting by choosing you? I admit to some envy … Remember how in Paris we girls played “Duchess,” making up the names and confusing all the titles?

  One day I will be addressing you as “Your Grace”—try not to let it go to your head, and I will try not to think about how much I’m going to miss you, as I’m certain you’ll be in England perpetually, New York all but forgotten.

  You needn’t apologize for tardiness in replying to my last note; why shouldn’t you think more of enjoying yourself than of your old married friends? I wish I, too, were there in Saratoga Springs, dancing every night until dawn. It will be some time before I’m able to attend dances at all. I loved my father, but I do not love the rules of mourning. Why must it last so long? The dresses I ordered in May will now sit boxed until next spring. And suppose I find myself with child and can’t wear them then, either? It’s wasteful, and who does it benefit, save the dressmakers? Daddy would not object to my wearing green or blue or yellow instead of black. I wouldn’t miss him any less were I to wear scarlet.

  Thank you for including the note from our dear Lady Churchill. It sounds as though she’s besotted with her new son, if not with her Lord and keeper—or perhaps I am misinterpreting what she says about Churchill’s absence and the reasons for it?

  My days are occupied with paying calls and the tasks of running a household—it’s such a comfort to finally have a predictable routine. Evenings, we entertain a great deal. The young-heirs set reveres William, with his knowledge of racing trotters and his coach-and-four skill; he says Oliver Belmont, whose father partnered with Lady Churchill’s father in the Jerome Park Racetrack, has become virtually his shadow. I heard a rumor that the Belmonts are Jews—but, as old Mr. Belmont married Commodore Perry’s daughter, I really can’t credit it; the Perrys are as solidly Christian as they come.

  William and I leave for his grandfather’s Staten Island house tomorrow morning—he’s lent it to us and Corneil and Alice for the rest of the summer, being himself too unwell to use it. What a pleasure it will be to get out of the city!

  Do write soon—and tell me you’ll be married here in New York where all your friends can revel in your reflected glory.

  Utmost affection—

  Alva

  VII

  THE GEORGE MONTAGU–Consuelo Yznaga wedding did in fact take place in New York that next spring, and was written up in the press with great enthusiasm, though for the most part the reporters gave their energies to lauding the future duke and said little about the lady he had taken as his wife.

  “But whatever they do or don’t write,” Consuelo told Alva, paying one last call before leaving for England, “I am in fact Lady Mandeville.”

  “Future Duchess of Manchester. You’ve gotten everything you wanted.”

  “Yes, indeed. We’re having a marvelous time,” said Consuelo, grinning slyly while she put a cigarette into a silver holder and then lit it.

  Consuelo hadn’t smoked before her association with Mandeville. Was she trying on sophistication, Alva wondered, practicing it before she was presented to the English court? American women didn’t smoke in public, but perhaps Englishwomen did. If Alva’s father had sent the family from Paris to London, she would know with authority what Englishwomen did. She might have become one herself. She might this moment be the one who was a future duchess.

  Not that she prized Mandeville himself. He was a glib greyhound, an insincere dandy with an edge to him, a coarseness she found off-putting—though if she were to acknowledge the truth, she found him exciting, too. As if he might encourage a lady to do something against her will. As if the lady might like it if he did.

  Alva tried not to think about this.

  “I’m very happy for you,” she told her friend.

  “And yet you sound the opposite.”

  “Well, I’d like to be having a marvelous time. That is to say, my material needs are well met, and I’m embraced by William’s family—”

  “You’re bored.”

  “Not at all,” Alva said. “Even with my activities limited by mourning, I hardly have a free moment in my day! But … it isn’t a matter of how I go about my days…”

  “Quit being cryptic and just say what the trouble is.”

  “The marital act. It’s awful,” Alva blurted. “Painful. Humiliating. Am I meant to endure it forever?”

  Consuelo blinked in surprise, then said, “Certainly not. You could keep him out, if it’s truly as bad as all that.”

  “What, post a servant outside my door every night?”

  “That’s not necessary. You simply tell him.”

  “Tell him?” Alva said, unable to imagine it.

  “The same way you’d say, ‘We’re dining with my sister tonight,’ or any such thing.”

  “But then I might never conceive,” Alva said. “You and Mandeville—do you enjoy it?”

  The mantel clock chimed the hour. “The time!” Consuelo said. “My carriage will be waiting.” She rose and Alva stood, too. “Do I enjoy it?” she continued as they went to the entry hall. “I did say I was having a marvelous time, did I not? Your situation will improve if you tell William what you like and what you don’t. I’ve never known you to be reluctant to speak your mind.”

  “No, of course,” Alva said, embarrassed to admit that reluctance. She’d read Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, with its exhortations for feminine independence (not to mention free love). She ought to be as modern and advanced as her friend.

  She said, “I’ve been accommodating him, is all—”

  “A proper lady.”

  “A plank,” Alva pretended to joke.

  “What terrible advice that was!” said Consuelo, laughing. “It’s little wonder so many men see whores.” She reached for Alva and embraced her. “I do hate to have to leave you now. But I’ll write you endlessly—so often that you’ll get sick of hearing from me and start burning my letters on arrival.”

  “And I’ll write you not at all, to punish you for abandoning me.”

  Consuelo hugged her once more, tightly. “Au revoir,” she said. She had tears in her eyes.

  “Au revoir,” said Alva, and watched her go.

  Alva thought about their conversation throughout the afternoon and evening, about Consuelo’s easy use of the word whore, which she’d never before heard from her friend’s lips. Evidently, Mandeville’s coarseness had contaminated Consuelo, infected her. Her advice on this matter could not be trusted. Alva should not desire the Mandeville version of “marvelous.” She did not wish to be disrespected—for surely Mandeville did not respect his wife or any woman. She was sorry she’d raised the subject.

  That night, William came to her bed. As he worked himself against her, she made herself think of Provence in summer, the lavender, the sunflowers … A few more thrusts, then his small groan and shudder.

  —It was terribly undignified, even for him, she realized with sudden sympathy.

  He un-mounted her, said good night, and left the room.

  * * *

  Three weeks later, when her monthly failed to arrive, Alva summoned the doctor to tell her whether the one thing she most wished for and most feared had occurred. Seated across from her in the parlor, the doctor inquired as to the state of her appetite (vigorous), her moods (variable), and how long it had been (he asked delicately) since she’d last experienced “her unwell period of time.” He then examined her eyes, her neck, and the skin of her hands, and said, “It’s highly probable that you are in fact in the delicate condition. You can expect to experience nausea, often upon waking each day, but it will pass.” He took a small notebook from his coat and jotted something. “I’ll be by to see you again in a few weeks,” he said, “though you should of course send for me sooner, if need be. I anticipate a birthdate in late February, perhaps
early March. Is your husband about?”

  “I believe he’s at his office in Grand Central,” she said. “Or he might be at his club.”

  “The Union?” asked the doctor, and when Alva affirmed this, he said, “I’ll inquire at both places if need be, and inform him of your status.”

  “Do you think I’m incapable of giving him the news?”

  “Incapable? Not at all. The matter is one of authority. I am a physician.”

  “I’m the one who will gestate the child.”

  “Mrs. Vanderbilt,” he said, patting her arm, “I’m saving you time, not to mention the distress of being doubted by your husband, who would only send for me to confirm your statement, possibly while I am in the middle of my supper. This way he’s certain to come home later with excellent wine and a bouquet. Leave it to me.”

  The doctor was correct: William arrived at day’s end with both of those items, as well as a porcelain music box on which was painted a delicate spray of roses and greenery. “Look inside,” he said so eagerly that he was practically wagging his tail.

  She lifted the lid. On a bed of black velvet lay an elaborate filigree diamond pendant, the stone nearly as large as her fingernail.

  “A gem dealer of my acquaintance lost to me in cards, so I got a discount. Even so, I had to borrow from Father to pay for it,” he said, taking it from the box. He reached to hook the chain behind her neck. “Though I doubt he’ll ask for the money back. He’s quite partial to you.”

  “My word, William,” Alva said. She lifted the pendant from her breastbone. It was heavy and cold and ridiculous and she loved it.

  “This is only the beginning,” he said. “Think how decorated you’ll be when our home is overrun with children.”

  Procreation ensures salvation. And apparently decoration.

  She said, “I’ll treasure this. Thank you.”

  “A lady ought to have something for her troubles.”

  VIII

  ALVA, IN A sweeping red gown, her neck weighted with her pearls, waltzes with Louis-Napoléon by the fountain at Luxembourg Garden while Empress Eugénie applauds from atop a tall marble pedestal. The sound Eugénie’s hands make grows louder, like thumping, pounding, and her cheers become rapid barks—

  William’s bedroom door opened and the dogs spilled down the stairs, still baying their alarm as he hurried after them. Alva fumbled for matches to light the lamp.

  His voice carried from the hallway, louder than the barking: “What in God’s name—”

  “The Commodore, sir,” a man yelled. “He’s dying.”

  “Who sent you?” her husband said, quieting the dogs.

  “Your father, sir.”

  “And he’s convinced this time, is he?”

  “It seems so,” the man replied.

  Finally. The poor Commodore had been suffering for months, while reporters from the Times and World and Tribune and Sun and the lesser papers, too, milled in front of his house, waiting for him to die. Since spring they’d been there, hoping to be first with the report, sometimes jumping the gun and exciting the stock market with false headlines. In July, they’d missed out on centennial celebrations because the Commodore was supposedly a mere step from the crypt. No one had anticipated that he would enact dying with the same tenacity with which he’d lived. Why, only a few weeks earlier he’d gone to the window of his second-floor bedroom, pushed up the sash, and shouted “All you dirty vultures be damned! I ain’t gone yet!”

  William knocked on Alva’s door, then opened it. In his nightshirt, with his bare feet and tousled hair, he resembled George. But bookish, quiet, thoughtful George was in temperament the opposite of William. Nor was George like stern, humorless Corneil or steadfast Frederick. “We hardly know what to make of him,” William had said.

  Alva replied, “He’s exactly himself. How is that troubling?”

  “There are only a few ways to be a man in society, and George is none of them.”

  The hounds bounded into Alva’s bedroom. William whistled them to his side. “I gather you heard. Grandfather’s very ill. I’ve got to go.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  “You needn’t trouble yourself—especially in your condition.”

  “I wish to,” she lied. Watching yet another person die was the last thing she wished to do. “Alice will be there with your brother.”

  He nodded. “No doubt.”

  “Then I have to be there as well.” She pushed the covers aside and got up to stir the fire.

  “You’ve become so—”

  “Round?” She placed a hand on her stomach as she straightened.

  He averted his eyes and turned toward the door. “I’ll send your girl in. Let’s be quick.”

  Mary was there moments later, looking sleepy but moving briskly. She took over building up the fire, then helped Alva dress. Chemise. Drawers. Stockings. Petticoat. (No corset—perhaps the best feature of her condition.) Bodice. Crinoline. Skirt. So much effort! “What do you suppose would happen if I went in my nightclothes?”

  Mary smiled. “I suppose Mrs. V. would tell you to let your maid go.”

  “I’d almost sacrifice you for that pleasure,” Alva said.

  Mary twisted Alva’s hair into a quick chignon. “It’s a temporary condition. And a blessing, don’t forget.”

  Alva had not forgotten. In fact she had savored these months. They’d been the happiest of her marriage—in large part because William no longer visited her bed. She told Mary, “A blessing, yes. Though I’m beginning to wonder if I will ever see my toes again. Would you listen to me? An excellent man is dying while I stand here complaining like a spoiled child. Thank you for your help. Go back to bed.”

  * * *

  A soft snowfall was coating the lintels and steps of the quiet brownstones on Washington Place as the driver coaxed the horses through a crowd of grateful reporters and curious citizens, then stopped at the curb of No. 10. Alva was grateful, too; the Commodore had made a terrible invalid. Such a man ought not wither like a blighted poplar; he should be felled all at once, mercifully, like a mighty hickory in a hurricane. He was stubborn, though—of course he was; an easier, amiable, pliant man would never have accomplished what he had done in his eighty-three years.

  The sum of those accomplishments—the literal sum—was the preoccupation of stockbrokers, stockholders, newspaper editors, and envious citizens not only in New York City but across the country. How much was the old codger worth, they asked, and who would get the money? His last will and testament had been kept secret, its content unknown even to Alva’s father-in-law. The Vanderbilt men were nervous. The Commodore was just stubborn enough, just crazy enough, just unpredictable enough to do something outrageous, like leave all the money to his team of six. He loved those horses in a way he loved hardly anything or anyone else. And why wouldn’t he love them? They pleased him. They were gorgeous and obedient. They never asked for anything, and they never let him down. Alva would not be surprised if he left his two sons only enough money to sustain them while compelling them to work as hard as he had done if they wanted to achieve as much.

  “Mr. Vanderbilt!” a reporter called as William alighted from the carriage. “What have you heard about the will? How much has he got?”

  William handed Alva out to the sidewalk without replying.

  “Mrs. V! How much do you hope to inherit?”

  William said, “They really are vultures.”

  “Hyenas,” Alva said. “They don’t even wait for their prey to die.”

  The Commodore’s bedchamber was a large room with high ceilings, carved crown moldings, lush velvet curtains, a substantial hearth in which a fire now roared, and few furnishings: a four-poster, an armoire, a pair of upholstered side chairs, and, as of two weeks earlier, a polished oak harmonium upon which his second wife, Frank, played hymns at his request. However, the present occasion demanded the addition of numerous settees and chairs, and so the room was now arranged as if the bed were a stage, with the
furniture around it placed in successive rows for an audience currently gathered to witness what they all hoped would be a simple one-act drama of short duration.

  The star of this drama lay in the bed’s center beneath a fine wool sheet and blanket and a brocaded blue silk coverlet, sometimes mumbling, sometimes dozing, sometimes groaning. By his vehement direction, the four saltcellars placed beneath his bed as advised by his friend Mrs. Tufts, a Spiritualist who’d touted them as “health conductors,” remained in place. Yet he had also sent for his longtime friend, the Reverend Dr. Deems, who now stood in a corner consulting with Dr. Linsly and Alva’s father-in-law. Evidently the Commodore was even now hedging his bets.

  Along with Frank and her mother, the Commodore’s siblings and children and the various spouses constituted the first row around the bed. Behind them were the grandchildren with their spouses, as well as some of the great-grandchildren—so many people in all that there was not room for everyone to sit; several of the younger men stood in the back. The audience members were overwarm and overtired and, as was unavoidable under the circumstances, overfragrant.

  “Might we open a window?” Alva said.

  One of the old aunties in the row ahead of her turned around. “And risk vapors giving me consumption?”

  “Or grippe!” said another. She gave Alva a severe look. “What can you be thinking? Isn’t your time near upon you?”

  Indeed, she had perhaps six or eight weeks remaining, all the more reason she would like to be made comfortable so that the restless babe would not revolt and upstage the Commodore’s final act by arriving on the spot. Or worse.

  Until recently, Alva had known little about childbirth. A woman somehow conceived through the coupling act, she knew that—but precisely how the baby was expelled was a mystery. Gathering her nerve, she’d asked Mrs. Vanderbilt to explain. After all, the woman had been through the whole process eight times. They’d been in Mrs. Vanderbilt’s parlor. Neither of them looked the other in the eye. Mrs. Vanderbilt said, “I do wish your mother were here,” before going on to say: “When the baby’s time comes, you will expel it through—well, it’s very much the way you have your monthly.” Red-faced, she went on, “God has made us so that we can … temporarily accommodate the passage.” Alva, envisioning this, could say only, “Oh.” Mrs. Vanderbilt said, “The doctor will attend you. Trust in God,” and left it at that.