The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

  As quickly as it had washed over her, her anger evaporated. “Then we’re a pair, I guess.”

  “I guess we are.”

  With Lina looking coldly on, Jack took a step toward her, reached for her hand, and she let him, unmoving, barely breathing, feeling the scrutiny of two hundred of New York’s elite gather and center on them both.

  “It’s going to be this way, you know. Forever and a day, we’ll be watched and followed, studied and analyzed. I fear you’ll know no peace with me.”

  “Peace,” she scoffed, light—but her heart was pounding, fierce and strong. “What a tedious notion. Who requires peace, when one may have Colonel Jack Astor?”

  He smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that way she admired. And then, even though everyone around them was now blatantly watching, he touched her on the shoulder, running his hand down the cap of her sleeve, lingering on the exposed skin of her arm just above her glove. He did not look up into her eyes again, but kept his attention fixed there—his hand, her arm, the satin of her glove. The skin of his palm burned against her.

  His next words were spoken so softly she had to strain to hear him.

  “I’ll talk to your father tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Madeleine said, and meant it.

  CHAPTER 9

  We kept our engagement private. It was important to your father that it not be publicly announced until after I turned eighteen, which by then was only four months away.

  Four eternal months.

  I understood his reticence, I did, but the burden of holding that secret inside me was like enduring a lump of hot lava burning behind my breastbone every day and night. My parents knew, naturally, and there was never any hope of hiding it from your Aunt Katherine. But your father didn’t even tell Vincent, not for the longest while, for fear it might end up reaching the ears of his former wife. And I know he definitely didn’t mention it to anyone else, because believe me, if he had, the papers would have exploded with the news.

  As, of course, they eventually did.

  July 1911

  Newport, Rhode Island

  Accounts of that February night had trickled out to the tabloids in dribs and drabs, but as there was no announcement from Colonel Astor regarding a betrothal, it wasn’t the juiciest of tales. Just the usual tattle, who had attended, what they ate, what they wore, how expensive were the favors. Most of the press still took care to refer to Madeleine as fair, or accomplished, or (especially) youthful.

  A handful were starting to call her determined. Ambitious.

  She wondered if they weren’t running out of even remotely polite adjectives. If they might not soon move on to oblivious, or obstinate, or desperate.

  The Forces still summered at Bar Harbor, at least officially. The house was opened, aired, and occasionally they did stay there, a few weeks at a time. Jack would come to visit on the Noma, living aboard the yacht instead of leasing another cottage, and whenever he was in town, they would carry on as they had the summer before, tennis at the Swimming Club, picnics, dances at the Malvern or the Casino. But Madeleine (always accompanied by at least Mother or Father or both; appearances were strictly maintained) began to slip away, more and more, to Newport with him.

  To Beechwood, Jack’s red-brick mansion overlooking the sea.

  Lina Astor’s hand was visible there, as well. She had not commissioned the original cottage but she had erased the soul of it, that blocky, commonsense New England retreat, and subsequently replaced it with a fairy-tale translation: cream-and-butter chambers of rococo gilt filigree and larger-than-life mirrors, floors so thickly varnished it was as if one walked on water. Crystal chandeliers with curling branches and beads that dangled from the ceilings like prismatic, upside-down flowers. Frescoes of Poseidon brandishing his trident, bare-breasted Nereids, mythical creatures frolicking in waves. Marble statues posed in nooks. Palm trees grew in Satsuma pots, their fronds sharp as knives against the turquoise view.

  Everywhere Madeleine looked was some fresh wonder, some astonishing new sight to take in. Beechwood was a waking dream, one that she wafted through in these warm summer days with her eyes wide open and her heart bursting full.

  She took breakfast on the pillared back patio whenever she could, to let the sun and sea tease her with the promise of the day to come. The painted iron benches and chairs were not as comfortable as the furniture inside, even with cushions, and her hair always ended up tearing loose, but that was fine. It was worth it to watch the waves fold into their long, slippery lines in the distance, and to listen to the wind clatter through the copper beeches, and to drink coffee that was never allowed to grow cold.

  A ginger tabby was slinking its way across the lawn, intent on the bed of hydrangeas that traced the border of the patio. Madeleine took a bite of toast and watched it creep toward the plants, fragrant globes of azure and amethyst, the tip of its tail twitching.

  She hoped there wasn’t a bird in there. She hoped the cat hunted only shadows.

  Footsteps clipped behind her, too firm and fast to belong to the footman keeping an eye on her meal.

  Vincent emerged from the house, pausing near the open doors to eye her up and down. He hadn’t slept at the cottage last night, so he must have only just arrived, still dressed in his traveling suit and a rumpled maroon necktie.

  “Oh,” he said, unenthusiastic. “Miss Force. You’re here. Again.”

  “I am.” She took a sip of coffee, her demeanor as bland as those Knickerbockers back in Jack’s New York reception room. “If you’re looking for your father, he’s gone into town for a while. He said he’d be back in a few hours.”

  “All right.” Vincent noticed the cat, still hunting, and for about half a minute they watched it together, a pocket-sized tiger stealing closer to the mass of swaying flowers. A trio of sailboats crossed the waters beyond it, triangles of white slicing lazily through the blue.

  There was a bird, Madeleine realized, squinting. A bird or a leaf shaped like a bird, a smudge of brown amid the branches.

  She placed her napkin on the table, tucking a corner beneath her plate so it wouldn’t blow away, prepared to intervene.

  “Only a few years past,” Vincent said quietly, “my grandmother wouldn’t have even acknowledged your existence. And why should she? She’d be rolling in her grave if she knew you were here now.”

  The blood drained from her cheeks. She managed to pick up her cup again without spilling it, forming her reply just above the rim. “How fortunate for me, then, that we live today, when your grandmother is gone, and her son finds me wholly acknowledgeable.”

  “It’s laughable that you think you’re on par with us. With my mother. Believe me, you’re just another girl to him, and he’s had a great many girls.”

  The coffee went sour on her tongue, but she remained so bland, so brutally neutral. “But they’re not around anymore, are they?” She turned in her chair and looked up at him, dark and sneering, a patch of stubble on his chin that he’d missed on his morning shave, whenever that had been. He’d nicked his neck, too, right above his winged collar. A rusty red stain blossomed down from the brim.

  “Exactly my point. They didn’t last, and neither will you. You’re cheap tinsel, Miss Force, and tinsel always tarnishes.”

  Madeleine pushed out of the chair, moving to face him. The wind lashed by, and the edges of her napkin fluttered, and her lips curved into a smile that was not a smile. “We’ll just have to see what happens then, won’t we?”

  “Mr. Vincent Astor! What a happy surprise! Whenever did you get in?”

  It was Mother, chirpy, walking out to the patio in a rustle of steel organza and a chilly gaze.

  Vincent gave Mother a curt nod. “Mrs. Force. Excuse me, I must get on.”

  Some demon made Madeleine call out to his retreating back, “So pleasant to chat with you again, Mr. Astor.”

  Mother took a seat at the wrought-iron table, smoothing her skirts. She accepted the cup of coffee Madeleine po
ured for her, adding cream and a measure of sugar so meager that Madeleine always wondered why she bothered with it at all. The silver spoon clinked, clinked against the china as she stirred, a little harder, Madeleine thought, than she usually did.

  “It won’t do you any good to antagonize him.”

  Madeleine plopped back into her chair. “As my very being seems to antagonize him, I don’t see what difference it makes.”

  “Pouring salt over the wound, my dear.” Mother finally stopped stirring. “I have heard, from various sources, that the consequences of divorce can be even more devastating for the children than for the parents themselves.” She gazed out at the sailboats, still making their way along. “As difficult as that may be to believe.”

  It was the first time Madeleine had ever heard her mother say the word divorce.

  “So, I should just ignore Vincent’s jibes? Offer him kindness for rudeness, all because his parents didn’t get along, even though I had nothing to do with it?”

  “Offer him compassion,” Mother said, “even though you had nothing to do with it.”

  Madeleine huffed a sigh, thrust out of the chair again to check on the cat. It had vanished entirely, not a hint of tiger stripes crouched anywhere beneath the hydrangeas that she could see.

  “I would not want the world to be cruel to you because of anything your father or I had done. I would not want you to suffer for our transgressions, be they real or imagined. For the past few years, that boy has endured a very public humiliation, one that should have been very much private. On top of that, you and he are of the same age, and now you’re going to be his stepmother. Think on it. On how difficult the mere possibility of that must be for him.”

  “It really has nothing to do with him.”

  “From his perspective, it has everything to do with him. How could it not? His family, the foundation of his life, has been rent. And it is about to be transformed yet again.”

  Madeleine shoved her hair from her eyes. “What of Jack? Or even Ava? Don’t we all deserve a chance at happiness, no matter the mistakes made before?”

  “A question for the ages, I think. Oh, I do want you to be happy, Maddy. I want you to enjoy fine health, a good marriage, a safe home. A superior man for your husband and gay children of your own. And you have those things now, or soon will, which—” She paused; for an instant, Madeleine caught a hint of her fragrance, delicate vanilla, before the breeze stole it away again. “Sometimes I wake up at night and think it’s all just a fantasy, a reverie in my head I invented for you, drawn from the depths of my fears. All my fears. My terrible nerves. I swear to you, when I awaken like that, it leaves me shaking.”

  “No,” Madeleine murmured, and found her hand.

  “I would not have the world be cruel to you,” she emphasized. “I would not have Vincent Astor be cruel to you. But if—when—those things happen, I would not have you be cruel in return. Kinder hearts are stronger, I think.”

  She squeezed her daughter’s fingers and pulled her hand free; they sat without speaking. Madeleine pushed at her loosened hair again; no matter how many hairpins she added, none held up for long out here. She buttered another slice of toast, added jam—a dense, tangy apricot—then placed it on her mother’s plate.

  A hummingbird darted up to them, examined the red-painted anemone on the glazed coffeepot. Flew off.

  “Do you think it’s true?” she asked finally, concentrating on the toast. “That he’s had a great many girls?”

  Mother frowned. “I think you shouldn’t listen to bitter young men who try to stir up trouble just because they can. Colonel Astor will always be the flame that captures the fascination of all the moths, of all sorts. He was born to be both famous and infamous, poor creature, and those are facts he will never be able to escape, try as he might.”

  Poor creature. Her mother might be the only person on earth to look upon John Jacob Astor with pity.

  “But, Maddy, here is something that I do not think, but that I know. In all my life, I’ve never seen a man look at a woman the way he looks at you.”

  Madeleine stilled.

  “Such devotion. Such—relief, I would say. As if you are his own secret sun, warming his innermost soul.”

  Madeleine dabbed a clot of jam onto her plate, smearing it around in slow circles with the bowl of the spoon even though she had no more toast. “I hope that’s true. I want it to be true, so, so badly. There have been times I’ve thought—you know, like you—that maybe this is just a dream.” She glanced up, worried. “How can it be real? How can he be real?”

  Mother tilted her head, considering it. “Very well. If this is a dream, then I say let us allow it to be a dream, for as long as good dreams may ever last. A forever dream, filled with beauty and joy and light. Just like you, my sweet child.”

  * * *

  The sun climbed higher. The sailboats slipped from view, and breakfast became crumbs. On their way back to their rooms, they passed the mirrored doors that led to the ballroom. Madeleine stopped, retraced her steps. She touched a hand to one of the latches; the door swung open on soundless hinges and she gazed inside, silent, drowning in the gold and cream and white of it all, the serene vista in the windows beyond that showed only more light, more ocean, more colors.

  It was her favorite chamber in the Newport cottage, even more so than the guest bedroom she’d been given, which was lovely in aubergine and lilac, and fairy tale enough by itself.

  Mother gestured toward the windows. “There is the colonel back from town, out there on the lawn. He’s looking for you, I presume. Don’t keep him waiting, love. Go on. Go be his sun.”

  Madeleine crossed the herringbone floor of the ballroom and opened another set of doors, the ones leading to the outside world, letting in the salt air with the light.

  As if he’d expected her to emerge from the ballroom instead of anywhere else, Jack turned. Saw her there paused, framed in all that sunny rococo elegance. He did not smile at her. He only watched her come to him, her steps sinking one by one into the prickly lush grass.

  The wind took her dress and molded it against her body, turning the chiffon tail of it into a primrose flag that snapped along behind her. Sheep Point Cove, indigo and foam, pitched ahead, the source of the wind and the salt, and when the last of her hairpins surrendered, she only let it happen, feeling the weight of her chignon give way, unscrolling down her spine. Feeling the freedom of that.

  Since he didn’t smile, neither did she, but only approached him like one of the painted nymphs in the ballroom, a mythical being unbound by rules.

  This was, after all, still a dream.

  When they were near enough to touch, she stopped, her hair blowing into heavy dark tangles between them. A bent hairpin tumbled to the grass.

  “You’ve come undone,” he said, still serious.

  “So I have.”

  “It suits you.”

  “Does it?” She shook her head and lifted her arms to the sky, then let them fall again, her hands reaching for his.

  Their fingers met, slipped together and then apart.

  She took a step closer. Placed her palms upon his forearms.

  “Did you have a fruitful trip into town?” she asked, and without answering he took her into his arms and kissed her, right there on the vast lawn that opened up to the cove with anyone in the world to see, the Vanderbilts in their mansion on one side, the Oelrichses on the other, and all the servants, and all the fishermen, and all the angels in heaven up above them.

  Vincent, the dog, the cat.

  Their second kiss.

  From somewhere back inside the cottage, Kitty let out a piercing bark.

  He put her away from him almost hastily, and the look on his face let her know she was no longer trapped in a dream: he looked baffled and hungry, his breath tugging uneven. Just like hers.

  He smoothed a hand along his hair—also windblown—and then his moustache. There was a hint of color staining his cheekbones that wasn’t there b
efore.

  “I’ve brought you something. I hope you like it.”

  She said nothing, still ragged around her edges, uncertain of her voice.

  Jack unbuttoned his jacket and reached inside, pulling out a small black leather box stamped with silver. He gazed down at it a moment, a line between his brows, then handed it to her.

  “I thought—something simple. Sophisticated. Peerless, like you.”

  She accepted the box, opened the lid.

  It was a ring, a white oval diamond the size of a filbert catching the sun, instantly smarting her eyesight. She had to look away from it to see clearly again, just as she did for the camera flash explosions that followed her now.

  He waited. She blinked a few times, loosened the band from the slot that kept it fixed in place.

  “Would you put it on my finger, please?”

  He took it from her, the platinum band bright, the diamond utterly blinding, and Madeleine lifted her left hand and opened her fingers. The metal pushed cool against her knuckle, smooth and heavier than she’d expected.

  “There were others,” he said, hesitant. “I know the fashion now is nothing so plain. I could exchange it for something more embellished. Or a ruby, if you like. An emerald. Perhaps a diamond stack—”

  “No,” she said. “This is the one. This one is mine.”

  She held out her hand between them and they admired it together, rainbow fire and white sparks dancing along her dress and skin.

  The hummingbird darted by again, a jeweled trilling song traced across the sky.

  Someone let Kitty out of the cottage. She bounded across the lawn in enormous loping strides, barreling toward them with her tongue flipped sideways and her paws a blur.

  * * *

  Madeleine wore his ring to sleep. She could not wear it out in public yet—not yet—but she could do this, at least. All night long she felt the weight of it against her finger, a sensation both alien and comforting. Twice the prongs holding the diamond caught in the lace of her nightgown, and she’d rouse enough to free it, then sink back into her slumber.