Danielle Steel - A Good Woman

She stood on the front steps waving as they drove away, and Consuelo played with the puppy all the way back to Paris. She told her mother it was the best birthday she had ever had, and it had been good for Annabelle too.

The day after they got home, Annabelle wrote to the attorneys and told them not to sell the cottage in Newport. And in her office the next morning, she asked Hélène to book passage on a ship to New York in June, with a return to Paris in July. She had taken all of Lady Winshire’s advice to heart.

In the third week of June, Annabelle, Consuelo, and Brigitte set sail on the Mauretania. It was the same ship her parents and Robert had sailed on, going to Europe, on their final, fateful voyage. Knowing that was poignant for Annabelle. They left Le Havre on a brilliantly sunny warm day, and had two beautiful staterooms side by side on an upper deck.

The Mauretania was one of the largest, fastest, most luxurious ships afloat. Annabelle had also sailed on her sixteen years before with her parents. And she had reserved two of the magnificent ship’s largest staterooms. Frequent travelers loved her for her spacious cabins, even in second class, which was rare, and particularly in first.

Consuelo was beside herself with excitement. Brigitte was nervous about the crossing. She had had a distant relative in steerage on the Titanic, who didn’t survive. And she started crying and crossing herself almost the moment they came on board, talking about the earlier disaster, which annoyed her employer. Annabelle didn’t want her frightening Consuelo, and reminding her of how her grandfather and uncle had died. Brigitte was sparing them no details, of all she’d heard and read about at the time, including the screams from dying people in the water.

“Is that true, Mama?” The child looked up at her with wide eyes. She couldn’t even imagine a ship this big going down. Consuelo knew the story, but not the details.

“Some of it,” Annabelle said honestly. “Sometimes bad things happen, but not very often. That was a long, long time ago, and many, many, many ships have gone back and forth across the ocean since then without a problem. This one has been traveling safely for eighteen years, and there won’t be icebergs in our path on this trip. Look how beautiful and sunny it is, and how big the ship is. I promise you, we will be fine,” she said gently, and flashed a warning look at Brigitte over the child’s head.

“The Titanic was bigger… and what about the Lusitania?” Brigitte insisted, and Annabelle wanted to strangle her for frightening her child.

“What’s the loofamania?” Consuelo asked, getting the name garbled.

“Brigitte is just scared and being silly. I promise you, we’re going to have a fantastic trip. And we’re going to do lots of fun things in New York, and see my old house in Newport.” For different reasons, she was as nervous as Brigitte. She wasn’t worried about the ship sinking this time, particularly in peacetime, but it was going to be her first time back in New York in ten years, and she was anxious about what it would feel like, and about facing the ghosts and traumas she had left there. But she agreed with Lady Winshire. It was all part of Consuelo’s ancestry, and she had a right to see it, and learn more about it, just as she did about the Winshire side. And Annabelle couldn’t hide from it forever. It had taken her a long time to go back. The war had been a good excuse not to for a long time, and medical school later. But the war had been over for nearly seven years, Consuelo’s entire lifetime. It was long enough. But she didn’t need to hear the details of the sinking of the Titanic, courtesy of Brigitte, complete with dying screams from the water, thank you very much. And she told her so in no uncertain terms when Consuelo stepped away to pet someone’s dog. There were many traveling on the ship. And children for Consuelo to play with.

She asked Brigitte to start unpacking, to keep her busy, and Annabelle took Consuelo to see the swimming pool, the spectacular dining room, the game rooms, and the dog kennels on another deck. They had left her pug at home with Hélène, who adored her. Consuelo had named her Coco.

As the ship pulled out of the harbor, all three women stood on deck and watched France disappear slowly behind them. Consuelo was begging to go play shuffleboard, and Annabelle had promised her they would that afternoon. And that night, she and her mother dined in the stately dining room. This was a very different trip from the one Annabelle had made coming to Europe ten years before, when she had rarely left her stateroom, and she had no idea what lay in store for her when she reached her destination. All Annabelle had wanted then was to flee the people who had blackballed her in New York. And now, at last, ten years later, she was going back.

Everything went pleasantly, until on the third day out, Annabelle saw an older couple standing near the shuffleboard game, with a younger couple who were obviously their married children. They were staring at her, but she pretended not to recognize them, as she and Consuelo drifted past. Annabelle instantly began an animated conversation with her daughter, so she didn’t have to acknowledge the people she had recognized at once. They had been acquaintances of her parents. As she and Consuelo walked past them, she heard the older woman speak to her husband in an undervoice that carried clearly across the deck.

“… married to Josiah Millbank…don’t you remember…Arthur Worthington’s daughter… some dreadful scandal… she had an affair and he divorced her… she ran off with the other man to France…” So that was what they thought, Annabelle realized with a shudder. And they still remembered. She wondered if they all did. It had truly been a life sentence, and she was never to be paroled or pardoned. She was an adulteress forever.

It shocked her to realize that some people thought she had gone to France with a man. Just hearing it made her want to run to her room and hide. And then she thought of Lady Winshire’s words to her. “Hold your head high, Annabelle. You’re a good woman. You don’t care about them.” And as she listened to her words echo in her head, she realized that Lady Winshire was right, to some extent. She did care, she didn’t want to be a pariah, she hated the labels they used on her… adulteress being the worst of all… but she wasn’t an adulteress and never had been. She had been faithful to her husband, she had been a good woman then, and still was now. Nothing had changed, divorced or not. And after all these years, what did they care about why she had gone to Europe, or with whom? None of them had been there for her, to support her, console her, or embrace her in the losses she had sustained. Her life might have been different if they had. But if so, she would never have gone to Europe, become a doctor, or had Consuelo at her side. So she was the winner in the end.

On their way back from another visit to the dog kennels, to visit with a sweet black pug, Annabelle strolled past them again, holding Consuelo’s hand. And this time she looked the woman in the eye, and acknowledged her with a nod. Annabelle was wearing a chic cloche hat that matched the gray silk suit she had purchased for the trip, and she looked very stylish, and no longer American, but French. The moment Annabelle nodded at her, the woman rushed forward with a broad, false smile, gushing words of greeting.

“My goodness, Annabelle, is that you? After all these years! How are you, and what a beautiful little girl. She must be yours, she looks just like you…is your husband on board?”

“No,” Annabelle said, shaking hands politely with both of them, “I’m a widow. And this is my daughter, Consuelo WorthingtonWinshire.” Consuelo curtsied politely in the pretty dress she’d chosen to wear that day, with white gloves and a hat.

“Ahh…how dear…you’ve named her for your mother. Such a wonderful woman. Are you still living in France?”

“Yes, in Paris,” Annabelle said coolly.

“Do you never come to New York? We haven’t seen you there in dogs’ years.”

“This is my first time back, since I left,” because of two-faced people like you, she wanted to say, who kept the rumors going forever and ever, had slapped the labels on her, and would never let anyone forget.

“That’s hard to believe. And the cottage in Newport?”

“We’re going up in a few weeks. I want Consuelo to see it.” The child spoke English with just a hint of a French accent, which was very sweet. “And we have lots to see in New York,” she said, smiling at her daughter, as they were about to walk away. At least the woman had talked to her. That was something of an improvement. Ten years before, she wouldn’t have. She would simply have turned her back, and not spoken to her at all. At least now she pretended to be pleasant, no matter what she thought of her or said behind her back.

“Perhaps we’ll see you in Newport,” the older woman said, still curious about her, as she looked at Annabelle’s expensive suit and hat and Consuelo’s pretty dress. “What do you do to keep busy in Paris?” she asked nosily, clearly wanting more details about Annabelle’s life, so she could gossip about her when she went back. It was written all over her. She had also noticed Lady Winshire’s handsome emerald along with the wedding band Annabelle still wore. It was the one she had bought herself, before Consuelo was born, and never taken off, just a narrow gold band.

“I’m a physician,” Annabelle said, smiling at her, remembering Lady Winshire’s words again, and this time she almost laughed. These people were so small and unimportant, so petty, like scavengers, looking for things that sparkled in the rubbish so they could carry them to others, or trade them for the reputations of good people, who were worth ten of them.