A Good Woman (14 page)

Blanche found her there a little while later, and started to cry herself. She gently stroked Consuelo’s hair, and then led Annabelle away, and sent Thomas to get Josiah. He was at the house moments later, and did all he could to comfort his wife. He knew all too well how great the loss would be to her, and how much she had loved her mother.

The doctor came that night to sign the death certificate, and in the morning the mortician came to prepare her. They laid Consuelo in state in the ballroom with flowers everywhere, as Annabelle stood by, looking devastated, with Josiah holding her hand.

Friends came to visit all the next day, after seeing the shocking announcement in the paper that Consuelo Worthington had died. Their home was plunged into deep mourning yet again, so soon after their double loss nearly three years before. Annabelle realized that she was an orphan now, and as her mother had said to him, Josiah was all she had in the world. She clung to him through the next days like a drowning person, and at her mother’s funeral at St. Thomas Episcopal Church. His arm was ever around her shoulders, and he was true to his word. Josiah never left her side, and even slept with her in her narrow bed in her childhood room in her parents’ house. She didn’t want to go back to their apartment, and insisted on staying at her house with him. She talked about their moving into the house, which was stately to be sure, but he felt it would be grim, and too hard for her. But for now he let her do as she wished. It was a nearly intolerable loss for Annabelle. Henry was often with them, and was a great comfort to her too. He came to visit frequently and he and Josiah talked quietly in the library late at night or played cards, while Annabelle lay upstairs on her bed, in a state of shock and grief.

It was a full month before she left the house. She had touched nothing in her mother’s bedroom. All Consuelo’s clothes were still there. Josiah was handling the estate at the bank. Her parents’ entire fortune was hers now, including the portion that would have gone to Robert. She was a very rich woman, but it was of no consolation to her. She didn’t care. And although it pained him to do so, in March, Josiah had to relay to her an offer to buy the house, from a family that knew hers. Annabelle was horrified and didn’t want to hear it, but Josiah told her gently that he didn’t think she’d ever be happy there. She had lost all the people she had loved in that house, and the house was filled with ghosts for her. And the offer was a good one, probably better than any they’d get if she decided later to sell it. He knew it would be painful for her to do, but he thought she should.

“But where will we live?” she asked with a look of anguish. “Your apartment will be too small for us once we have a family, and I don’t want another house.” She was strongly inclined to decline the offer, but she also knew the truth of what he said. She and Josiah still needed a house, but had done nothing about it since Josiah wasn’t ready to have children, and all she would ever see in that house were the visions of her parents and brother, all gone now. Even if they filled it with children, it would never fully balance the sadness she felt there, and the memories of those she’d lost.

She talked about it with Hortie, who was pregnant with her third child and sick again. She complained that James had turned her into a baby factory, but her own problems seemed minimal now compared to Annabelle’s, and she tried to advise her as sensibly as she could. She thought Josiah was right, and that he and Annabelle should sell the Worthington mansion, and buy a new house for themselves, that had no bad memories for her, or sad ones.

It broke Annabelle’s heart to do it, but within two weeks she agreed. She couldn’t even imagine giving up the house where she had been so happy as a child, but now it was filled with loss and grief. Josiah promised to handle everything for her, and assured her that they would find a new one, or even build one, which would be a happy project for them. And whatever issues they had between them had gone unaddressed during her period of mourning. She was no longer worried about the family they hadn’t started yet. She was in no mood to think of anything but her grief.

She spent all of April packing up the house, and sending everything to storage. And whatever was of no interest or value to her went to auction to be sold. The servants, Josiah, and Henry were tireless in their efforts to help her, and she spent hours crying every day. She hadn’t been to Ellis Island since her mother’s death. She missed it terribly but was too busy now closing her parents’ house. The last of it went to storage in May, the anniversary of the day she and Josiah had gotten engaged two years before. She was relinquishing the house in June, and going to stay at the cottage in Newport, which she insisted she would keep. She and Josiah were going to spend the summer there.

Six days after she closed the house in New York, the Germans sank the
Lusitania,
killing 1,198 people, in a terrible tragedy at sea, which revived all her memories of the
Titanic,
and once again rocked the world and yet another of her mother’s cousins died, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, who stayed back to help others into lifeboats as her father and brother had on the
Titanic.
And like them, Alfred lost his life, when the ship exploded and sank in less than twenty minutes. Two weeks later, Italy entered the war and joined the Allies. And there were terrible stories in the news of nerve gas being used at the front and untold damage to the men it affected. All of Europe was in a state of turmoil, which seemed to mirror the despair and anguish that Annabelle felt.

She spent the rest of May in Josiah’s apartment before she left for Newport in June. She took Blanche and those of her mother’s servants who still remained to Newport with her. At the end of the summer, most of them would be moving on to other jobs, and life as she had known it would be forever changed. Blanche and William the butler would be staying in Newport with a few of the others.

Josiah had promised to come to Newport in mid-June, he was planning to take a longer vacation than usual that year, as he knew that Annabelle needed him with her. She looked heartbroken when she left town. The city home she had loved so much was already in other hands.

Once in Newport, Annabelle spent some time with Hortie, who had come up early with her children, their nanny, and her mother. Although only six months pregnant, she was huge again, and Annabelle was too restless to spend much time with her. She had felt sad and anxious since her mother’s death, and it was hard being in Newport without her. In some ways, it felt to her like a replay of the summer after the
Titanic,
and she was relieved when Josiah arrived.

They would be staying at her mother’s house and not Josiah’s, and living in Annabelle’s girlhood room. They went on long quiet walks near the sea. He was almost as pensive and silent as she was, but she didn’t press him about it. He got that way sometimes, moody and even despondent. Neither of them was in great spirits. She asked him when Henry was coming up to see them, hoping it would cheer him, and he was vague about it and said he wasn’t sure.

Josiah had been there for nearly a week when he finally turned to her one night as they sat by the fire and said he had to talk to her. She smiled, wondering what he was about to say. Most of the time now they talked about the war. But this time he sighed deeply, and she saw that there were tears in his eyes when he turned toward her.

“Are you all right?” she asked, looking suddenly worried, and all he did was shake his head slowly, and her heart sank like a stone at his words.

“No, I’m not.”

Chapter 11

N
othing in Annabelle’s life prepared her for what Josiah had to say. The impact of his words on her was as powerful as the morning she had seen the headlines about the
Titanic.
Everything he said to her hit her like a bomb. At first, he didn’t know where to start. She reached out to him, and took his hand in her own.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him kindly. She couldn’t imagine a problem that would reduce him to the despair she was seeing. He looked devastated. He took a breath then, and began.

“I don’t know how to say this to you, Annabelle,” he said, squeezing her hand. He knew how innocent she still was, and how hard this would be for her to understand. He had wanted to say it to her six months before but thought it would be best to wait until after the holidays, and then her mother had gotten so sick. And he couldn’t tell her after Consuelo died. Annabelle had been too devastated by her mother’s death to sustain yet another blow, and worse yet at his hands. It had been almost six months since Consuelo’s death, and selling the house had been a shock as well. But he just couldn’t wait any longer. She had to know. He couldn’t live a charade anymore, it was driving him insane.

“I don’t understand what’s wrong,” she said, tears filling her eyes now too, before she even knew. “Have I done something to upset you?” He shook his head vehemently.

“Of course not. You’ve been nothing but wonderful to me. You’re a perfect, devoted wife. It’s not you who’s done something wrong, Annabelle, it’s me…right from the beginning. I truly thought I could be a good husband to you, that I could give you a good life. I wanted to—” He started to say more, but she instantly cut him off, hoping to stem the tide. But it was a tidal wave now, which even he couldn’t stop. It had to be faced.

“But you are a good husband, and you do give me a good life.” There was the sound of pleading in her voice, which broke his heart to hear.

“No, I don’t. You deserve so much more. So much more than I can give you. I thought I could, I was certain of it at first, or I would never have done this to you. But I can’t. You deserve a man who can give you everything you want, all your heart’s desires, and who can give you children.”

“We’re in no hurry, Josiah. You always say that we have time.”

“No, we don’t,” he said, looking resolute, his mouth hardening into a firm line. This was much harder to do than he had feared. The worst part of it was that he loved her, but knew he had no right to that now, he never did. And he felt guilty too for breaking his promise to her mother to take care of her, but the situation was far more complicated than Consuelo could have imagined. “We’ve been married for almost two years. I’ve never made love to you. I’ve given you a thousand excuses and fobbed you off.” She had wondered once or twice before if he had a physical problem he’d been too embarrassed to tell her about. But she had always had the feeling that it was emotional and a matter of adjustment, which she hoped he would resolve over time, and never had. They both knew that after nearly two years of marriage, she was still a virgin. She had never admitted it to anyone, not even Hortie or her mother. She had been too ashamed, and feared it was because of something she was doing wrong, or that Josiah didn’t find her attractive. She had tried everything imaginable, from new hairdos to different clothes, and ever more seductive nightgowns, until she’d finally given up on those as well, and decided that he was anxious and it would happen when it was meant to, and he was ready. But she had worried about it a great deal, although she tried to make light of it now to him. “I truly thought when I married you, that I was capable of being a man to you. I’m not. Every time I thought about it, I knew it was wrong, and I could not trade your virtue for a lie.”

“It’s not a lie,” she said valiantly, fighting for her life, and that of their marriage. But she had lost before she began. She never had a chance. “We love each other. I don’t care if you never make love to me. There are more important things in life than that.” He smiled at how innocent she still was. There were many of both sexes who wouldn’t have agreed with her, and he didn’t himself. She just didn’t know any better, and if she stayed with him, she never would.

“You deserve better than I can give you. Annabelle, you must listen to me. It may be hard for you to understand, but I want to be honest with you.” He knew he should have been from the beginning, but he had to be now. He was about to take all her innocence from her in a single night, and perhaps destroy her faith in men forever. But he had no other choice. He had thought about this for a long time, and waited longer than he should have, for both their sakes. He couldn’t do this anymore. He loved her. But everything about their marriage was wrong.

Her eyes were wide as she watched him, and her fingers shook in his hand as she tightened her grip, bracing herself for what he was about to say. Her whole body was shaking, although she wasn’t aware of it. He could see her shoulders tremble as she waited. “It’s not women that I want to make love with,” he said in a hoarse voice of confession. “It’s men. I thought I could be a decent husband to you, that I could go counter to my own nature, but I can’t. That’s not who I am. It’s why I never married before. I love you deeply, I love everything about you, but not in that way.” And then he added what seemed like the final blow. “Henry and I have been in love with each other since we were boys.” Her eyes were so wide as she stared at him that for a moment he thought she would faint. But she was braver than that, and she refused to give in to the dizziness and nausea that engulfed her.

“Henry?” Her voice was barely more than a squeak. Henry, who had been their constant companion, and who she thought was their dearest friend? He had betrayed her totally, and had the part of her husband that she would never have. And Josiah had betrayed her as well.

“Yes. He understood that I wanted to marry you, and have children with you. I genuinely loved you, and I felt so sorry for you when your father died. I wanted to be everything to you. Father, brother, friend. The one thing I found I couldn’t do, and wanted to, was be your husband. I couldn’t bring myself to take the lie any further. And I couldn’t lie to my own nature. Everything in me refused.” She was nodding quietly, trying to absorb what he had said. It was a lot to take in all at once. Everything about their marriage to each other, their vows, their honeymoon, the promises they had made each other, the two years since, had been a fraud. “I thought that I could force myself to lead a double life, but I can’t. And I can’t keep doing this to you, while you gently try to ask me why nothing has ever happened between us, and now it can’t. I discovered something six months ago that changed everything, and now I’m grateful that I was never able to overcome my reservations. I discovered in December that I have syphilis. Under no circumstances would I lay a hand on you now, or try to give you the babies I know you want so much. I wouldn’t risk your life. I love you too much for that.” Two lone tears streamed down his cheeks as he spoke, and she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, sobbing hysterically. It was the worst news she’d had from him so far, even worse than the other.