The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

  Those ordinary workers who circulated their way through the estate each and every day and night . . . I have no doubt they also understood that we were not all equal. Far from it.

  That golden-limned summer of 1910, the cottage—indeed, maybe even all of Bar Harbor society itself, so giddy in love with the colonel—seemed to exist only to serve your father, Jack Astor.

  August 1910

  Bar Harbor

  Sunday morning arrived with cerulean skies and a salty wind skating in off the Atlantic that stung her eyes. Madeleine squinted against it, then turned her shoulder to it, keeping a careful hand on her hat. From this distance, the vessels dotting the disk of the harbor moved in sluggish lines, breaking the navy waves into arrows of white.

  It was the same harbor, the same ships and boats as could be glimpsed from practically anywhere in town. Yet it felt different here, in this uncommon and enviable space. The slant of the sunlight struck her skin a warmer tone; the clouds soared higher, plumper, a Renaissance painting hanging just above her head. Even the sea looked different, sheer as a sheet of colored glass. If Madeleine could take wing with the host of sparrows fluttering above the bay, she might peer all the way down into blue infinity.

  Katherine stood beside her on the colonel’s back lawn. With their arms linked and their skirts whipping, they watched the yachts slowly maneuver into their starting positions.

  “What do you plan to do with him?” Katherine asked, not taking her gaze from the ships.

  “I plan,” Madeleine said, “to watch this race with him. And then eat lunch. And then attend the dance he is hosting tonight.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You know what I mean. Will you marry him?”

  “Katherine!”

  Her sister unlinked their arms. She wasn’t smiling. “Will you, Maddy? You’d better figure it out sooner rather than later, because that’s what all this means. Don’t imagine you’re not on trial here. So is he.”

  The colonel’s weekend guests stood in clusters along the rolling lawn, some watching the yachts tracing their desultory paths, others chatting. Colonel Astor himself lingered on the terrace in deep conversation with a trim, sallow man he’d introduced as William Dobbyn, his private secretary.

  The colonel spoke quickly, gestured calmly, and occasionally took out his pocket watch to check the time. Mr. Dobbyn would only nod, repeatedly nod. It was hard to imagine Jack Astor receiving a no from his secretary very often. Or from anyone else, for that matter.

  The sun gleamed razor sharp; whenever the wind stilled, the air sank into a briny, humid heat. The curious slanted light picked out in detail the threads composing Madeleine’s lace gloves, showing every tiny twist and knot. Despite her best efforts, tomorrow she was likely to wake with its pattern outlined on the backs of her hands.

  “Look around you,” Katherine murmured. “Look at everyone. There are—what? Perhaps fifteen, twenty guests staying over? Maybe more coming in tonight. Newport cottagers, mostly, plus a few of our own. But none of your friends or mine. The only one here our age is the charming Vincent. This is all for you.”

  “Us,” Madeleine countered.

  “I am merely a necessary bystander.”

  At the southern end of the docks, a pair of lobster boats began to ring their bells, sending seagulls whirling up and away. They gazed at that for a moment, the lofting, the dispersal, before Madeleine admitted, very quietly, “He found me in the library yesterday, after luncheon. He told me I was lovely.”

  Katherine only sighed. “And you still think we’re not here because of you?”

  Madeleine threw up her hands. “Had he come across you yesterday instead, sitting there with a book in your lap, he likely would have said the same thing.”

  “You can’t possibly believe that.”

  “I have no reason not to believe it. You’re—you’re better than I am in every way. You’re smarter and prettier and more stylish—”

  “Better,” Katherine interrupted, her eyes narrowed. “You mean, better for him.”

  “Yes! Better for him. And if I can see that, surely he can, too.”

  “I wonder about you sometimes. I truly do.”

  “You know I’m right.”

  “What I know,” said Katherine coolly, “is that when we are standing side by side before the colonel, I become your shadow. I become smoke, a foxed mirror. I’m invisible, because that man cannot tear his gaze from you.”

  The wind picked up, sticky with salt. Katherine lifted her face to it, closing her eyes and holding back her hair from her cheeks with both hands.

  “If you won’t believe in your own worth, Madeleine, at least have the sense to allow other people to believe in it.”

  “Good day, Miss Force, and Miss Force.”

  They both turned. Mrs. James Cardeza and Mrs. August Heckscher approached, clad in sturdy beige and diamond-link chains, and enormous straw hats that left their faces speckled with sunlight. Fearsome dragons, both: Madeleine had met them only once, and only briefly. They had attended a charity tea for the Traveler’s Aid Society in Manhattan months past, had made a single pass among the tables to assess the stature of the chamber’s occupants—and left as soon as they could.

  Mrs. Cardeza dabbed at her temples with a handkerchief. “How very unexpected to find you here. I didn’t realize your parents were acquainted with the colonel. I don’t believe I’ve seen either of them in Newport in years.” She looked to her companion as if to confirm it, and the other woman nodded thoughtfully.

  “Nor Rhinebeck,” Mrs. Heckscher said.

  Katherine glanced at Madeleine, who stood mute, then took the lead. “No, ma’am. We’ve summered here for ages.”

  “Of course. Your family summers in Bar Harbor,” Mrs. Heckscher said, with just enough delicate venom flavoring the words Bar Harbor to make her meaning clear.

  “We find it delectable.” Katherine lifted a hand to take it all in, the grounds, the Renaissance sky, the huge mansion. “Don’t you think?”

  Mrs. Cardeza cocked her head, birdlike, and the sun-speckles jerked bright and dark down the folds of her neck. “Tell me. How do your father and Colonel Astor know each other? Do they have business dealings together?”

  “Oh, no,” Madeleine heard herself say, “I introduced them.” And then made herself smile as the silence ballooned.

  “I see,” Mrs. Cardeza said slowly, trailing the handkerchief down her temple, her cheek, her chin.

  A hot sense of recklessness took hold of Madeleine, a clenching in her chest that felt like anger and release entangled. If Katherine was right, if this was indeed a trial, she had no doubt it was going to be one of fire. Might as well burn.

  “Colonel Astor saw me dancing on the stage, you see, and sought me out after.”

  “Hamlet,” clarified Katherine. “A truly superior production put on by the Junior League last month, right here at the Bar Harbor Casino.” Katherine tapped her chin with one finger. “I forget. Was that when the colonel began sending you flowers?”

  Madeleine flushed and did not answer.

  “Flowers,” Mrs. Cardeza said. “How . . . extraordinary.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s when it began,” Katherine continued. “Maddy played Ophelia, and I must say, she did a bang-up job. Colonel Astor thought so, too. Did either of you manage to catch it?”

  Mrs. Cardeza’s nostrils flared as her mouth formed a downward curve, lending her the aspect of a disapproving sheep. “I’m afraid we did not.”

  The pair of them swept off, pushed eastward by a fresh gust of wind.

  Katherine shook her head. “A damned shame they missed the performance. I bet it’s about to become the talk of the town.”

  Madeleine couldn’t even act shocked over the swear word. She could only watch the women leave, their shadows swaying long and righteous along the shorn grass. The clenching in her chest abruptly loosened, giving way to a dismal heaviness, and then nausea.

  What had she done? Once Mother found out . . . O
r—worse—Colonel Astor . . .

  Her sister linked their arms once more, drawing her close, and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Cheer up. You’ll dance again tonight, love, this time with him, in front of all of them. Let them look down their noses at that.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t a ball, it was only a dance. And it wasn’t in any sort of official ballroom, like the one at the Swimming Club or the Casino or even the auditorium at the Building of Arts. It was held inside the cottage itself, in a parqueted chamber that might have managed concerts, or theatrical productions, but tonight contained a small orchestra and tables of pastries and punch and garlands of crimson roses—dozens of them—draped along the ceiling and beveled glass doors, even around the brass chandeliers.

  The other guests moved past the garlands as if they did not exist, those hefty red chains, as if they didn’t notice at all that they walked through clouds of perfume, a scent that seemed to diffuse from the opened blooms and then simply hang in the air, weighted and weightless at once, sweetening all that it touched.

  Madeleine noticed. She stood by the champagne table as the colonel’s guests mingled and stared; she took deep, deliberate breaths of that perfume, and let her fingers drift along the petals of a particularly extravagant blossom.

  She wished she wasn’t wearing gloves. She wished she could feel the texture of it against her uncovered skin.

  The colonel and his son had greeted the Force family as they’d entered, so that was done. She hadn’t caught sight of him after that, and the orchestra was already on its fourth piece. Father was caught in a tangle of gentlemen lingering in one of the corners, sharing stock tips and snifters of brandy. Katherine had been twirled away early on at the behest of a strawberry tycoon from California (Thousands of acres, Mother had whispered happily, right along the coast!), and Madeleine was on her second glass of punch. She had not danced once, not even with the naval cadet across the room who kept throwing her flagrant glances. It was as if she wore some sort of sign, a placard yoked around her neck, unseen by her but read by everyone else: DO NOT TOUCH.

  “Here he comes,” Mother warned. Madeleine lifted her head.

  The colonel was a few paces away, shaking hands with a rust-bearded man in an admiral’s uniform . . . but his eyes were on her. He spoke a few final words to the admiral and then broke away, closing the space between them in rapid steps.

  “A capital night,” enthused Mother, as soon as he was near. “Dinner was so delightful, and now this!”

  “Thank you. I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

  “Maddy,” said Mother, “don’t you think it’s a capital night?”

  “Most capital,” Madeleine said, stroking her hand along the garland by her hip. “And what lovely flowers.”

  Colonel Astor frowned at one of the garlands. His shirt was ivory linen, immaculately ironed and starched; beneath the chandeliers, the ruby studs tracing a path down his chest flashed all the colors of the roses. “Do you like them, then? I feared they might be too much. I had Dobbyn arrange things somewhat on the spot, poor fellow, so I can’t blame him for the excess.”

  “Everything is perfect. American Beauties are my favorite.”

  “Are they really? They were my mother’s favorite, as well.”

  Which, of course, Madeleine already knew. It had been mentioned in the papers more than once. She was not entirely without wiles.

  “What excellent taste your mother had.”

  The colonel opened his hand. “Will you dance with me, Miss Force?”

  “I would be so happy to,” she answered, sincere. She passed her punch glass to her mother and accepted his hand.

  She was wearing a Fortuny gown of dove silk with glass beading along the shoulders (brand new, perhaps a little much for the evening, but Katherine had declared it perfect), and the long, tiered folds of the overskirt floated above the floor as they walked, rippling and falling like the wings of a slow-skimming moth.

  They turned to each other. She had the sense of eyes watching them, of conversations broken off, but it didn’t matter. He lifted his chin, lifted her hand. Then, with a dip of his shoulder, he led her into the next measure of a waltz.

  She was a good dancer; she knew that. But he was equally as good. Madeleine couldn’t count the number of times her toes had been mashed by some awkward partner, boys who’d blushed bright as beets at having to go so far as to place a hand at her waist. But she and the colonel glided across the polished wooden floor as if they’d rehearsed together for years, their steps at once perfectly matched, their timing synchronous. She felt a flash of understanding of that old chestnut they moved as one, and in her mind the phrase transformed a little, became even better: they moved as one beneath his lacework of roses.

  Madeleine couldn’t help grinning up at him. Colonel Astor grinned back, and the room was crimson and gilt and teal plastered walls, and it was fine that they sailed practically alone across the elaborate parquet as everyone watched. It was fine, because they were touching, they were dancing, they were together.

  * * *

  He handed her a fresh glass of punch. It tasted more of champagne than of the fruit it had an hour before, and that, as it happened, was also fine with her. The music played on, and the people danced on, but Madeleine and the colonel had retreated past an open set of French doors to a balcony silvered in moonlight, where the breeze felt cooling now instead of chilly, and the soft, persistent scent of roses was washed away clean.

  They weren’t really ever alone. There were people wandering in and out, spying the balcony, admiring the view, going back. There was a pair of servants, footmen in black jackets and crisp ties, who stood unobtrusively at either side of the doors, awaiting the colonel’s next instruction.

  The balcony jutted out over a bluff. Thick cedar braces dug into the rock face beneath them, rugged pink granite that crumbled gently down into the woods. Looking out straight ahead showed her only more forest, mysterious and dense. Golden, flickering lights occasionally glinted past the trees—torchlights or cabins or lost spirits, Madeleine couldn’t say.

  They stood in silence. She tried the punch again, savoring the bubbles popping along her tongue.

  “Might I ask a favor of you, Miss Force? Would you call me Jack?”

  “Yes,” she said, “if you will call me Madeleine.”

  “Not Maddy? I’ve heard your mother and sister calling you that.”

  She laughed, feeling warm and bold. “No, please. I’ve tried for years to get them to stop. It’s so undignified. Maddy. I’m not a child anymore.”

  “It is a lovely name. Madeleine.” He said it again, under his breath. “Madeleine.”

  “Thank you. At least I am grown to someone.”

  He smiled at the trees, a wistful smile, one that tugged at her unexpectedly, that lodged itself in a tender place somewhere near her heart.

  “It can be difficult sometimes for our families to accept us as people separate from who they are. As separate souls. When we’re young, we’re taught to behave as our parents do—to cherish what they cherish and believe what they believe. And for a while, that’s as it should be. But as adults, sometimes we have our own desires, our own hopes, that are at odds with how our parents view the world.”

  “Is that how it was for you? You grew to be at odds with your parents?”

  His jaw tightened; he took a longer breath. “Oh, for a while, yes. It was inevitable, I think. My father and I used to lock horns on so many things. Where I would attend school. What I would study. My companions, my ambitions . . . He was so determined that he knew the best path for me. And I, of course, was determined that he was wrong.” He shook his head. “All these years later, I see that we were both right, and both wrong. I wish I could tell him so now.”

  An owl began to call from below them, earnest and deep. Another answered, closer to the sea. The golden lights in the woods winked and glowed.

  “But your father must have been so proud of you,�
�� she said. “No matter how you locked horns. Look at you. Look at all you’ve done.”

  “What have I done, do you imagine?”

  “Why,” she said, astonished, “you’re John Jacob Astor. You’re—you’re incomparable, really. Everyone in the world has heard of you. Every man and woman in the world admires you.”

  “My money, do you mean?”

  He said it mildly, and without looking at her, but she felt the nick of it anyway.

  “Not just that. Certainly that, but not just. You’ve invented things, useful things. I’ve read about them, the road improver—the—that special brake, for stopping bicycles. You volunteered to go to war when you didn’t even have to. You’ve funded all sorts of charities, for people and places that need things so desperately—”

  “Stop,” he said, now on a laugh. “I beg you. You’re making my head swell.”

  “You’ve written a book,” she went on. “An entire book.”

  “A passing fancy.”

  “A book of fiction about exploring the solar system. Men in spaceships, landing on Saturn and Jupiter. Finding new life. Only someone tremendously clever would think of that.”

  He leaned forward, braced both hands against the balcony railing as if to assess its strength, then shook his head. “It was a while ago. A lifetime ago, it seems.”

  She tasted the punch again—it really was delicious!—then lowered the glass. “May I read it? Would you mind?”

  “Oh, it’s not very good, I’m afraid. Just a clutter of ideas I had when I was younger.”

  “But I want to know your ideas. I want to read your words, your book, because I might find a part of you inside those pages. A part I won’t have a chance to know any other way. And I would love to know every aspect of you, Jack Astor. Do they have it here at the library in town?”

  “No,” he said, after a long, dumbfounded moment. And then, “Yes, I suppose they might. But I’ll give you a copy. You needn’t borrow it.”

  “Thank you.”

  He looked at her then with those winter gray eyes, and she looked back without shrinking. Around them rose the warm spill of light, of music, of every splendid fantasy she’d ever nurtured about him suddenly, wildly possible.