A Well-Behaved Woman Page 12

  “Yes,” said Miss Beekman. “That’s correct.”

  “How many of the workplaces have you seen in person? That is to say, do you visit the factories? And what about the hospitals or the homes where the maimed children convalesce? This is not to malign any particular agency—but how do you know how the money is being spent?”

  Miss Roosevelt said, “Have you forgotten our visit to that horrible tenement? I told these ladies all about it. None of us is interested in going to those places.”

  “She said it was quite horrible,” Miss Beekman reiterated. “Seeing a dead girl—”

  “Miss Roosevelt did not see the girl, she—”

  “We prefer not to risk exposure,” Miss Roosevelt pressed on. “We send money.”

  Alva smiled. “Well, this is of course commendable. But it risks ineffectiveness,” she said, addressing the group. “I believe we should see for ourselves what the real needs are, and then direct the money specifically and confirm its uses. Certainly you read the newspapers; too often the money ends up in the pockets of crooks. I’d like to propose an outing for midmorning tomorrow. We’ll visit the hospitals and inquire as to what materials these children most need.”

  “That is a fine idea,” Miss Crane said. “We should have specifics, and give money directly.”

  Miss Roosevelt sat forward in her chair. “Miss Beekman, it is apparent to me that there is a tremendous chasm between our approach and that of our prospective new members. Rather than see an eruption of conflict, which might delay our charitable efforts unduly, I move to invite those prospective new members to form their own society, separate from this one.”

  Alva said, “You’re denying my membership?”

  “Yours and Miss Crane’s, and any others who prefer your approach. All in favor?”

  The secretary said, “You need someone to second your motion.”

  “I second it,” said one of the other ladies.

  “All in favor?” Lydia said, looking straight at Alva while she raised her hand.

  Alva stood up, her own hand raised. “I could not approve more heartily.”

  * * *

  The next morning found Alva, Armide, Miss Crane, and Alva’s younger sisters at Charity Hospital on Blackwell’s Island, their first stop on a tour of welfare facilities throughout New York City. Avoiding the wards housing prisoners or anyone with contagions, they met children missing limbs and eyes, children who cried about being unable to work again, children who stared blankly at dingy walls and did not respond to conversation. They questioned nurses and doctors about how best to help and made lists of needed supplies.

  In Alva’s parlor that evening, Jenny made tallies while Alva poured wine for everyone. She handed around the glasses. All of them were weary and overwhelmed by what they’d seen.

  Julia said, “I didn’t wish to go this morning, but I suppose I’m glad I did. We almost ended up like those people. I mean, not injured, but so poor! If Alva hadn’t married William…”

  Miss Crane said, “Before my daddy found himself a little bit of gold and started building hotels, we lived in a two-room shack that didn’t even have water. I had a job digging rocks out of wherever the city was putting sidewalks in.”

  Jenny drank her wine all in one go, then handed back the glass to Alva for refill. “I’ll go slower this time, don’t worry.”

  Armide said, “One can see why Miss Roosevelt and the others prefer their approach.”

  “Yes, it is easy to see,” Alva replied. “In the morning, I’ll make a list of the factories we should visit next week.”

  IX

  IN THE IMPROVING economy, William’s two million grew to three in short order. With so much money looking for purpose, William, who until the Commodore’s death had lived on what he called a salary but which was more accurately an allowance, made some charitable gestures that were highlighted in the papers alongside his brother’s—but mainly, he bought things. Alva observed him with fascination as he ordered new crystal glassware from a glassworks he knew of in Geneva, went to Matthew Rock and bought a dozen new suits, three topcoats, two capes, every style of hat, butter-soft gloves in kid and peccary, numerous shirts, shirt studs and cuff links in every style and finish. He met with a furrier and returned home with beaver lap robes, chinchilla bed coverlets, a fox coat for himself, a mink wrap and muff for Alva, and an exquisite white blanket in rabbit for the baby to come. Remembering that he’d slept on some exquisitely smooth bedding in some French inn or other, he asked Alva to track down its origin and acquire several sets for his bed and hers, too. While she inquired among friends and wrote letters to hoteliers, he spent most of February away with his friend Oliver Belmont visiting horse farms in the South, having promised to be home for the birth of their child. And if he bought horses, he would need land, too, for a hunting estate and maybe a track. He might like a yacht as well. He was a very busy man.

  One night when Alva lay in her pink-striped bedroom, hands on her domed belly, unable to sleep, she got up and went to her desk to calculate how far three million dollars (and then some) could go:

  • Her sisters’ allowance, at three hundred dollars a month: ten thousand months. Eight hundred thirty-three years. Not that all the money could go to them. Not that they would live for hundreds of years.

  • Mary’s salary, which she’d raised to thirteen dollars a week: more than two hundred and thirty thousand weeks (though of course she’d deserve a raise before then).

  • One million five hundred thousand pairs of two-dollar-a-pair shoes: a new pair every day for four thousand, one hundred, and nine years. Not that Alva cared much about shoes, with her swollen feet and lack of desire to walk—or even, for that matter, to stand.

  • Any dress she desired, any object, any carriage, any horse or bird or dog or giraffe—or hippopotamus (though of course she’d forbidden those).

  She could fund a new, clean, safe barracks for young unmarried women in the city. Do more for children. Look into ways to improve the everyday lives of those who had no prospects of ever being rescued from their poverty by millionaire husbands. This was the thought that truly animated her.

  This baby inside her, this future child, would live his or her whole life in comfort. No material need would ever go unmet. The child would never be hungry. This was the thought that soothed her.

  In bed again, Alva considered what the inheritance could mean for them socially. Lydia Roosevelt had said Alva could not buy her way into best society. Well, if Lydia Roosevelt and her sort were representative of that society, Alva did not care to be a part of it whether she could buy her way in or not. Except that not to be in it was to see her family excluded unfairly from certain opportunities and events for no reason save the desire of people such as Lydia Roosevelt and Caroline Astor to feel themselves superior.

  Alva quite liked the idea of disabusing them of that sensation, and that alone was reason to find a way in.

  * * *

  She was not thinking about society on March 2 as she labored in her pink-striped bedroom, in fits of loudly expressed agony, to deliver her child while William waited downstairs at first, and then, she was told, escaped to his club to await word in peace. She was imagining death—hers or the baby’s or both.

  “Is it supposed to be so painful?” she moaned to the doctor, or rather at the doctor. The severe-looking man in shirtsleeves and a heavy white apron annoyed her. She didn’t like the hair in his ears. She didn’t like his patrician nose. His eyes were beady. He wore a large gold signet ring on his right middle finger. “I’m not certain I can do this.”

  “Mrs. Vanderbilt, women have been giving birth for centuries. I assure you, you’ll be all right.”

  “Women have been dying in childbirth for centuries,” she said as another wave of pain began to overtake her. “What use is that hundred million dollars if it can’t help this?”

  The doctor said, “I believe it’s time for the chloroform.”

  “No! I told you, I won’t have it
.”

  “Queen Victoria was anesthetized in her deliveries. Don’t you think yourself deserving, too?”

  Deserving or not, Alva couldn’t abide the idea of being unconscious and manhandled. The very thought of lying prostrate and limp while this man, this stranger, had his eyes and hands on her most intimate parts … This was not to mention the gleaming steel forceps he’d placed on the bedside table. They could have only one purpose. She would not have her child extracted from her with that torturous-looking device. And suppose she went under and never came back up?

  “Here now,” the doctor said, laying a mask over her mouth and nose. She pulled it aside. He directed his nurse to hold her wrists and laid the mask in place again, saying, “You wouldn’t want me to report this uncooperativeness to your husband. Be still for a moment, and when you come to, all the difficulty will be done.”

  Lying prostrate as she was, with her arms pulled up above her head, her effort to free herself was pathetic and short-lived. As the doctor raised a dropper before her eyes to squeeze chloroform onto the mask, she held her breath.

  He applied the drug, saying, “This is childish. You must breathe, or you’ll endanger the infant.”

  She continued her effort, counting silently and slowly, as she had learned to do as a child. She had once gotten to 137.

  “You’ll have to breathe before long,” the doctor said, but his expression was anxious. Perhaps he was imagining what he’d hear from her husband if, due to his own stubbornness, something went wrong.

  The clock on the mantel ticked, loud in the silent room.

  The nurse said, “Doctor, perhaps since she doesn’t wish it…”

  The clock ticked on. Finally he pulled the mask away, saying, “All right, suffer if that’s your wish.”

  Alva did suffer when the next wave came, and again and again and again, but a short while later she brought into the Vanderbilt family a girl with tufts of dark hair and wide eyes and the sweetest little bow of a mouth. This infant was perfect. Pain? What pain? Look at this child!

  In her besotted enthusiasm over the baby and gratitude over their mutual survival, when William returned she told him she wanted to name the baby after the friend whose efforts had indirectly caused this blessed event.

  “Consuelo, eh? It’s a beautiful name,” William said as he stood at Alva’s bedside, mere inches from where he had planted the seed that resulted in this swaddled daughter in his wife’s arms. “What a fine gesture.”

  Then he said, “And speaking of fine gestures—” He took a ring box from his pocket and gave the box to Alva, who opened it to find a wide band of diamonds. “A little reward for your troubles,” he said.

  “It’s beautiful! I’ll wear it with my pendant.”

  “I hope you will. I was thinking of emerald for the next one. Do you like emeralds?”

  “I do—but let’s not be in a rush.”

  “No, of course. I didn’t mean…”

  He touched one of the infant’s tiny curled fingers. “She’ll need her own pony,” he said, then continued to stand there awkwardly, looking around the pink-striped room. “You know, William Whitney’s got a fine breeding operation under way at his Stony Ford farm. I’ve been meaning to pay a visit, get some advice on starting my own farm. Maybe I’ll drive out today.”

  “Today?” Alva said.

  “Why not?” He gestured toward the baby. “I took the day off for this. I’ve nothing better to do.”

  Tandragee Castle, Ireland, 8 March ’77

  Dearest Alva,

  I hope this letter will find you in a similar condition to myself. That is, recuperating from delivery of a babe—the future 9th Duke of Manchester, in my case, born five days ago in London, where my care was first-rate. (I refused to deliver here at the castle, I don’t care how many Montagus were born here.) You cannot overestimate Mandeville’s satisfaction upon laying eyes on his son and heir (whose given name is William, after the Duke, though tradition has it to call him “Kim”). “The title was well trusted with you,” he said, to which I replied, “I’m sure Papa will say his money was well spent.”

  Quick though my labor went, giving birth to this frightening little creature whose wails reach every stony crevice of this place terrified me. I do hope it goes (or did go) easier for you.

  Have you heard anything at all from Lady Churchill? She’s gone from London without sending word to me or anyone, apparently. Rumor says her Lord is syphilitic and she’s taken Winston to a house in the country to protect his health. I don’t know why the British don’t follow the French example of examining whores and arresting the sick ones. You do know to look out for sign of sores or rashes, yes? Not to say that our fine W.K. is the type, necessarily. But he is a man.

  What of the battle over the Commodore’s will? Mandeville is still stunned by the size of the fortune! Meantime, what is your husband doing with his millions? Tell me, so I can make Mandeville seethe with envy.

  Do write me with all of your news.

  Ever yours,

  Lady C.

  (as I am now known here, and I rather hope it sticks)

  New York, 20 April ’77

  Dearest Lady C.,

  (as you like it…)

  Many congratulations to you and Mandeville! You’ll have received our official announcement by now, I hope. I was glad to get your letter and learn that you, too, delivered without crisis. We’re fortunate to live in such modern times.

  How remarkable that our babies are a mere day apart in age. Your namesake is proving to be a quiet, observant infant, and so precious. I am nearly over the horror of giving birth, and surprised by how gratified I feel when I nurse her (against Alice’s advice—“Only common women do that.” Isn’t she a dear?). It’s a profound feeling—and having the baby at my breast affords me time to examine her every tiny feature without provoking distress. They do howl when they’re displeased! She’s rarely given any chance for it, though; with the girls and my mother-in-law here so often, the baby is almost never laid down.

  Regarding the lawsuit, I would rather avoid that distasteful topic. As to what William is doing with his inheritance: he’s going to create an entertainment arena—there will be boxing matches, he says, and shows for breeders to compete over the finest dogs or horses, among other things. Also, he’s looking into land for a hunting estate near the Connetquot in Oakdale, L.I., and for a racetrack near Coney Island. Further, he has in mind to commission himself a steam yacht like the one the Commodore owned. Corneil asked at dinner recently whether he meant to spend any time at his office. “I’m certain you have it all under control,” Wm. told him. They could not be less alike.

  For my part, I am again taking up the yoke of Doing Good Deeds: I have arranged for my sisters and sisters-in-law to join my new committee to raise funds for a poor children’s holiday home, to be constructed somewhere outside the city—at the seaside, if I can manage it. They need fresh air and sunshine! To that end, I’ll be hosting a Spring Subscription Tea at church and have invited the young Knickerbocker ladies, along with every other decent girl in town. Ticket sales are quite robust, and there is much talk of it socially. No one can resist helping children.

  Your candid remark about signs of disease gave me pause. I appreciate the ways you did and still do try to take care of me. But Wm. would never consort with such women, even if he desired more frequent relations than we have, which I am certain he doesn’t. American gentlemen have learned to master their impulses in ways foreign men have never been made to do.—Which isn’t meant to imply that your husband behaves as Lord Churchill does. And it isn’t to say that all American men of prominence are gentlemen, either.

  We’re taking a waterfront house in the aforementioned Oakdale for the month of September. Will you join us? I want you to tell me all about living as a Duchess-to-be. You’re among the rarest of objects, you know, given there are only 27 dukedoms altogether in the peerage—and you’re probably the only Lady who plays banjo.

  I mu
st close. I’m seeing a new milliner, and my sisters are coming for luncheon. I remain—

  —yours truly,

  Alva

  X

  “IT OCCURS TO me,” said Lady C., recently arrived in New York from Europe, “that if little Consuelo takes a shine to Kim and he to her, you might marry her to a duke. An eventual duke, that is.”

  “Matchmaking already!” Alva said.

  “God knows that at the rate his father spends, he’ll need an heiress.”

  Alva was showing her friend around her home, which had undergone some improvements. Using a decorator Ward McAllister had praised as if the man hung not only draperies and wallpaper but also the moon, Alva had brought the quality of furnishings up to “millionaire” level, using—as with her wedding gown—a sublimely understated approach. This meant avoiding the garish overcrowding of tables and shelves with bibelots (no matter how valuable) that was becoming fashionable with the nouveaux riches, and refraining from overstuffing her rooms with French furniture (no matter how much en vogue) in favor of a curated assortment of objects and furnishings made of fine materials with fine artisanship. Not the finest—she hadn’t the budget for that. Finer, though, than anyone else in her set, save for Alice, had. Alice—in confinement once again but still directing everyone and everything—had both the space and the means to do it all one better than Alva. “Do one better than Alva” seemed, in fact, to be Alice’s raison d’être, second only to producing more Vanderbilt heiresses and heirs.

  Observing her friend, Alva noticed Lady C. was further changed from the last time they’d been together. She was as perfect in her physical presentation as ever—hair lustrous, face smooth and powdered, form slender. Her attitude, though, was stiffer, and her Cuban-accented American English was shaded British. She smoked endlessly. Her eyes were flinty. Her tone when speaking of Mandeville was critical. Perhaps their relations were no longer as “marvelous” as they’d once been.