54 pages • 1-hour read
A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts
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Part 2, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of antisemitism, antigay bias, death by suicide, and sexual content.
Part 2: “Her Second Act”
Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary
Two years after beginning her work on the church and home in Oakdale, the work is finished. Alva is very proud of what she has accomplished with her architect, Richard Hunt. She has thrown herself into the work to stop herself from thinking about her attraction toward Oliver Belmont. She also finds she has a natural affinity for architecture. She is pregnant with her second child, a boy. While surveying the church, Richard tells her about the mansions the other wealthy New York families, like the Rockefellers, are building in Uptown Manhattan. This inspires Alva to embark on a new project to give the city “a fresh view of who the Vanderbilts are” (183).
That spring, Alva attends a dinner party at her in-laws’ home to celebrate the resolution of the litigation over Commodore Vanderbilt’s estate. She surprises everyone there, including her husband, with a proposal to build an enormous Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Avenue, modeled after Catherine de’ Medici’s château. Although William initially objects, he changes his mind when he sees how taken his father is with the idea.
Later that evening, William comes to her room and praises her for her ideas. She tells him that she, like many women, is capable of thinking of business and architecture just as much as any man. He is skeptical. He has sex with her, and she feels enduring this is “worth it” because “at least she was gaining status” (194).
In a letter to Alva, Lady C. writes that she has given birth to twin girls. Alva replies with a letter informing her friend that she intends to visit London with Richard Hunt to purchase things for the new mansion, and she hopes they will see each other then.
Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary
That September, Lady C. and Alva attend a furniture auction in London. Lady C. tells Alva that her husband is often absent and that he does not manage his estate. Lady C. asks Alva if she is in love with anyone or having any affairs, and Alva responds with impatience and annoyance. Alva tells Lady C. that she has become “boorish.” After the auction, Alva decides not to go to tea with her friend.
The next morning, Alva regrets her brusqueness. She realizes perhaps she was so sharp with her friend because Lady C. recognized a feeling in Alva that she herself did not wish to acknowledge: She desires to love and be loved. She writes her friend a note of apology.
About two years later, Alva celebrates the completion of her Fifth Avenue mansion. She has personally supervised every detail. The rest of the Vanderbilt family has nearly finished with their own mansions elsewhere on Fifth Avenue. That night, after she has moved in, Alva takes a moment to enjoy her enormous new home. She tells her maid, Mary, that she is frustrated that Mrs. Astor has yet to accept the Vanderbilts into society. She decides she is going to “beat society at its own game” (210).
Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary
Alva hosts a dinner party for their friends in her new home. Alva has invited Miss Sallie Whiting, the high-spirited and flirtatious daughter of a wealthy merchant. Alva introduces Miss Whiting to Oliver Belmont. They seem to have an instant connection.
In the midst of their dinner party, William’s brother Corneil arrives with urgent news. While William is away talking with Corneil, Oliver attempts to tell Alva that her husband has been having affairs and intimates that they should have one as well. Alva tells him to “please stop […] slander[ing]” her husband (216). She does not wish to risk his reputation or hers by having an affair of her own, despite her attraction to Oliver. Oliver is taken aback. Corneil and William return and announce to the party that their uncle C. J. has died, and the guests will have to leave.
That evening, Alva’s maid Mary tells her that their Uncle C. J. died by suicide. Alva is primarily worried about how it will reflect poorly on the family’s standing in society. The papers print innuendo suggesting that C. J. was gay. She is troubled by how the speculations might impact their reputation.
After C.J.’s funeral, Alva talks to Ward McAllister. He tells her that Oliver Belmont is engaged to Miss Sallie Whiting. Alva is shocked.
Alva decides to take a bold stance in order to set an example in society and win Mrs. Astor’s approval.
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary
Alva decides to hold an extravagant costumed ball. She will invite everyone from society except Mrs. Astor. She hopes that when Mrs. Astor’s teenage daughter, Carrie, learns that she is not invited to the best ball of the season, she will force Mrs. Astor’s hand. Mrs. Astor will have to accept the Vanderbilts into society so as to get an invitation for her daughter to the ball. Alva and Ward throw themselves into planning the ball for March 26.
A few weeks before the ball, Alva finally receives an invitation from Mrs. Astor to visit. She has won an entrance into New York society.
Part 2, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
In Part 2, titled “Her Second Act,” Alva settles into her married life and turns her attention to improving the Vanderbilts’ station in society. A key theme of these chapters is Gatekeeping and the Policing of Respectability. Despite their wealth, the Vanderbilts are not accepted into New York high society because they are seen as “nouveau riche.” Alva’s strategy for providing an entrée into this society is portrayed as having two main steps. First, she encourages the family to embark on an ambitious scheme to build mansions in New York City. Many of these homes, including Alva’s “Petit Château” on Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street, have since been demolished, but at the time, these mansions were seen as a way for the family to make their mark as an important family in New York society. Second, Alva decides to hold an extravagant costume ball as “a grand celebration of everything that’s good” in culture (225), like the Met Ball in the modern day. She deploys a manipulative scheme to ensure Mrs. Astor’s presence at the ball, which will ensure the Vanderbilt family’s acceptance into high society, and it illustrates her deep understanding of New York high society through her strategic approach to overcoming its gatekeeping tendencies.
These chapters illustrate how access to this high society is very rigidly gatekept by women like Mrs. Astor and her peers. Women are expected to follow baroque rules of fashion and style, as Alva notes when she only wears a statement piece like her peacock brooch once because “a second display would be considered common” (233). Further, if one is Jewish, gay, Black, or otherwise deviates from the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant norms of high society, one is not accepted or conditionally accepted but constantly at risk of being shunned. In these chapters, Alva illustrates her early adherence to these strictures when she dismisses claims that the Belmonts are Jewish because to believe otherwise would mean she would have to shun Oliver Belmont. (In fact, Oliver Belmont’s father, August, was Jewish.) Similarly, Alva is troubled by claims that “Uncle C. J.,” the novel’s name for Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt, was gay, as a family association with a gay man would result in the Vanderbilts as a whole being shunned by high society.
These concerns about societal acceptance guide Alva’s reaction to Oliver’s attempts to warn her about her husband’s affairs and his tacit proposal that they have an affair. As she reflects to herself, “No matter how much she might desire the thrill of a love affair, indulging that desire would be social suicide” (216). This self-abnegation of pleasure and happiness thus defines Alva’s marriage to William, revealing The Hollowness of Marriage as an Economic Contract, and her entire approach to maintaining her position in society as a young woman. It is not until she is older that Alva begins to reconsider whether the cost of high society’s acceptance is worth the rewards.
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