by gail maccoll
In Paris a distinction was made between the bal blanc, where the only ladies present were débutantes and their chaperones, and the infinitesimally racier bal rose, to which the young married ladies were invited.
In Minnie Paget’s Mayfair boudoir, the young Consuelo got the first inkling of her fate.
COMME IL FAUT
Gentlemen do not wear gloves to a dinner. Gentlemen do wear gloves to a dance.
Sunny (so called for his childhood title, Lord Sunderland) needed to marry an heiress. His late father’s efforts in heiress-hunting had made a small dent in the grim Blenheim financial situation; Lily Hammersley’s money got the place reroofed and built a laboratory for her husband’s electrical experiments. But there was more to do, and Sunny burned to do it. Proud, shy, fastidious, he had been deeply wounded by his parents’ divorce. Blenheim alone seemed to offer consolation. No sacrifice would be too great if he could restore some of its baroque glories and ensure a more stable future.
As Sunny’s fiscal burden was oversize, so was his pride. If a mere younger son like Moreton Frewen couldn’t work for a living, even less could a duke who bore one of the most glorious names in English history. His statement years later, informing a visitor to the chapel at Blenheim (where the first Duke’s tomb far outshines the altar) that “The Marlboroughs are worshipped here,” wasn’t in the least bit facetious. Family pride was the cornerstone of Sunny’s faith. To do justice to Blenheim and the Marlborough name was his absorbing goal, and his task, in 1894, was to find a suitable wife. She would have to be enormously rich. She must also be worthy of the title Duchess of Marlborough.
ALVA A VANDERBILT NO MORE
Consuelo and the Duke (whom she found “good-looking and intelligent”) saw each other only once that season. In August, Alva withdrew from London to a rented house on the Thames and concentrated on her divorce. Her counsel was Joseph Choate, the attorney who would later be America’s first ambassador to the Court of St. James. He advised her against taking legal action, as did all her friends, but Alva’s mind was made up. She would divorce her husband, and she would do it in New York State, where the only ground for divorce was adultery.
In Paris, where she made her début, Consuelo was known as “la belle Mlle. Vanderbilt au long cou” for her swanlike neck.
She and Consuelo were back at 660 Fifth Avenue for the winter season, and though Willie K. was not allowed in the house, Alva’s social standing was sufficiently strong for Consuelo’s New York début to be successful. She chaperoned Consuelo very carefully all that winter; then on March 6, 1895, the Vanderbilt divorce was announced as a fait accompli.
* * *
At Newport’s fashionable Trinity Church, the prominent families had their boxes upholstered in the same color as their servants’ livery.
* * *
Oliver Belmont was always considered feckless by his family, particularly after his disastrous four-month marriage to Sarah Swan Whiting of Newport. A dozen years later, he seemed ready to give matrimony another try.
The Valiant replaced the Alva, which sank after a collision off Martha’s Vineyard. Built in England, she crossed the Atlantic in a mere seven and a half days. Monthly salaries for her crew of seventy-two (including a French chef) came to $10,000.
Choate had done a very good job. The case was heard in camera, and the records were sealed. The necessary witnesses to Willie K.’s adultery (carried out pro forma with one Nellie Neustretter of Nevada) had been whisked over from Paris and whisked back. Alva got sole custody of the children, $100,000 a year and the Newport mansion, as well as a capital sum rumored to be as much as $10 million. Willie K. had offered her 660 Fifth Avenue, but she declined it because the upkeep was too expensive.
Shortly after the divorce was announced, Alva and Consuelo sailed for Europe and so escaped the inevitable rumors. Would Willie K. now marry the widowed Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester? Was Alva planning to marry Willie’s best friend, Oliver Belmont? Alva, however, was willing to shelve her relationship with Oliver until Consuelo had been properly married off. The difficulty was that Consuelo, the most biddable of girls, was proving stubborn about her nuptial fate.
CONSUELO BALKS
The trouble dated back to the cruise on the Valiant, when Consuelo had fallen madly in love with Winthrop Rutherfurd. It was easy to see why. Not only was he a dashing sportsman like her father; he was also handsome, with “really breathtaking good looks,” as a lady later said of him. But, at twenty-nine, his age was against him. Consuelo was a very sheltered sixteen, and Alva had seen enough of life to consider a youthful crush on a glamorous older man a poor foundation for a lifelong relationship.
The careful chaperoning of the previous winter had been aimed at keeping Consuelo and Win apart, but they had snatched a few moments together in March just after the divorce was announced. While bicycling (the new rage of society) on Riverside Drive, they had escaped their party of friends. Win had proposed marriage. Consuelo had accepted. Then Alva, pedaling furiously, had caught up with them. The next day, the Vanderbilt ladies left for Europe.
They stayed abroad for five months. Rutherfurd followed them to Paris, but Alva was ruthless. He was never allowed to see Consuelo, and his letters to her were confiscated. Consuelo went to balls, went to the Louvre, went to Worth, always chaperoned. Alva went to Worth as well, for a little private business of her own. June saw them in London, where they went to a ball at Stafford House, home of the Duke of Sutherland. Sunny was there, and he danced with Consuelo several times, still trying to assess her duchess potential. She must have appeared promising, for he invited Alva and Consuelo to Blenheim. He would have to see her in the actual setting.
* * *
In July of 1895, Marble House was known in Newport as “Marble Heart,” for Alva’s treatment of Consuelo.
* * *
The setting impressed Consuelo with its grandeur, though no doubt Alva rejoiced to find that the aristocratic splendors of Blenheim were more than matched by those of Marble House. The dining room at Blenheim, after all, was only trompe l’oeil marble; her dining room was paneled with genuine deep-pink Numidian marble, the most expensive variety in the world. On Saturday night, Marlborough and his guests sat in the Long Library and listened to a conceit on the organ that heiress Lily Hammersley had paid for. On Sunday, Sunny took Consuelo for a drive around the estate. When Alva invited him to visit them at Newport in August, he accepted. It could only mean one thing. If he went to Newport, he knew what was expected of him.
Left: Louis Laguerre’s inventive trompe l’oeil frescoes in Blenheim’s dining room.
Right: Marble House’s marble dining room.
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
The Marlboroughs were not the only father-son pair of dukes to seek American wives. The son of the 8th Duke of Manchester and Consuelo Yznaga had succeeded to his title in 1892, at the age of fifteen. Finances were already an issue: his father had declared bankruptcy three years earlier. The Yznaga dollars hadn’t offset the results of the agricultural depression on the Manchester estates. But, whereas his father had married his helpful dollars by chance, “Kim” (for his childhood title, Lord Kimbolton) set out methodically to find himself an heiress. By the time he was twenty, he was an acknowledged fortune hunter, and reporters quoted him as saying that he needed an Astor or Vanderbilt to save him. In 1897, in a bold attempt to stave off his creditors, he announced publicly that he had become engaged to the American heiress of the moment, May Goelet. Worse, he didn’t even allow her family time to deny his statement but retracted it himself.
Kim’s fondness for newspapermen and his need for an American heiress may have been behind his next outlandish move: in 1899 Randolph Hearst paid him $1,000 in advance, in a single banknote, to join the staff of the New York Journal as a reporter. He spent more time giving interviews than seeking them, however, and the Journal dispensed with his services.
Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, upon learning of her son’s secret marriage to Helena
Zimmerman, was appalled that he‘d chosen an American nobody—perhaps foregetting her own past status.
Returning to London, he was lucky enough to find and charm the aunt (and guardian) of an innocent American heiress named Helena Zimmerman, daughter of a Cincinnati millionaire. He then won over the niece as well, and on November 14, 1900, shortly after being declared bankrupt with debts amounting to $135,000, he put his financial problems to rest with a secret wedding ceremony at Marylebone Parish Church. Dignity, once again, was conspicuously absent from the proceedings. A newspaper photo showed Kim surrounded by portraits of the twenty-two women to whom he had supposedly been engaged, and Helena’s maid was bribed into providing Kim’s underclothes to be photographed for the papers and captioned “Wedding Trousseau of a Duke.”
ANOTHER SHOWDOWN FOR ALVA
Throughout the summer of 1895, the little town by the sea was convulsed with Vanderbilt gossip. Alva was planning a big ball for August, but who would go to it? Certainly not the Vanderbilts or their friends. Town Topics ran weekly bulletins about Alva’s plans, Willie’s plans, the reaction of the Cornelius Vanderbilts, whose new house, The Breakers, was opened in July.
In the event, everyone behaved disappointingly well. Willie K. was in Newport, living on the Valiant, when Alva and Consuelo arrived. He took a party to watch the America’s Cup trials, took Consuelo driving, then went off to Bar Harbor. Oliver Belmont stayed out of sight, busy with his horses. The one moment of drama the situation offered was the spectacle of Alva and Cornelius Vanderbilt coming face to face at the door of the Country Club. Nothing happened. Clearly the Great Vanderbilt Wars were a wash.
The Cornelius Vanderbilts’ Newport “cottage,” designed by Richard Morris Hunt and called The Breakers, was completed in the summer of 1895—in time for daughter Gertrude’s début.
Society, however, managed to keep its best stories to itself that summer. No reporter saw Consuelo snatch a dance with Win Rutherfurd at a ball. Certainly no reporter saw the great showdown between Alva and Consuelo immediately afterward, when the halls of Marble House echoed late into the night. Alva shouted and raged, Consuelo later wrote, and told her that Win was in love with a married woman and wanted her only for her money. She even threatened to kill him.
THE NEWPORT SCHEDULE
A group of Newport residents, photographed in 1892 in all their summer finery.
THE TIME: July and August
THE PLACE: Newport, Rhode Island
BASIC REQUIREMENTS
AMERICAN HEIRESS:
80-90 new dresses; entertaining budget for mother of $150,000 to $300,000; substantial mansion, preferably designed by Richard Morris Hunt, on Bellevue Avenue or the cliffs; Casino membership; cabana at Bailey’s Beach.
HEIRESS-HUNTING
ENGLISHMAN:
A title; a few introductions; stamina.
THE DAILY ROUTINE
A.M.
8:00-9:00
Large breakfast à l’anglaise (eggs, sausage, oatmeal, kidneys); change into riding habit.
9:00-11:00
Morning ride; change to day dress and drive in phaeton (preferred carriage because low sides allow maximum exposure of costume) behind matched pair to Casino to visit Worth boutique, watch tennis, discuss last night’s party; return home, change for trip to the beach.
11:00-12:00
Ladies’ “swimming” at Bailey’s Beach (widely considered the worst beach on the eastern seaboard owing to rocks and red algae). Swimming means bobbing in chest-deep water, fully clad, with big hat for protection from sun. At noon, a flag is run up to announce the gentlemen’s turn; the ladies disappear.
Newport’s beaches were not its real attraction.
P.M.
12:00-2:00
Luncheon on steam yacht in harbor, (jewels permitted for matrons: “At noon they will have at their waists turquoises as big as almonds, pearls as large as filberts at their throats, rubies and diamonds as large as their fingernails.”—Paul Bourget) Or fête cham-pêtre on local farm, complete with tent, linen, crystal, silver, footmen, champagne, and rented sheep to add rustic touch.
Tea, tennis and gossip were the principal activities at the Casino.
2:00-3:00
Drive to Polo Field to watch a few chukkers of polo match from carriage.
3:00-5:00
Afternoon promenade begins as every gate on Bellevue opens to release the family carriage, with all female members inside and footman behind; cards left at friends’ houses by footman. Protocol: Never overtake the carriage of a social superior; nod when passing the carriage of an acquaintance for the first time, smile the second time, look away the third.
Where the rich vacation, they also shop. Even Worth had a boutique on Bellevue Avenue.
5:00-8:00
Tea on the lawn or terrace; change for dinner.
8:00-10:00
Dinner on steam yacht, similar to luncheon though dresses are more décolleté. Or “light” (five-course?) supper before weekly Casino dance, to which $1 tickets are sold to spectators. Or formal dinner, 8-12 courses, 20-200 guests; cadets recruited from local navy post on Sunday nights to fill in for businessmen.
10:00-DAWN
Housewarming or débutante dances; cultural offerings, including performances by theatrical troupes hired away from Broadway for the night; theme balls, with a second supper at midnight, strolling on well-lit grounds, and breakfast as dawn breaks over Sakonnet Point.
Balls were so commonplace in Newport that often themes were chosen for decorations and attire.
Win Rutherfurd, the year before the Valiant cruise. In her desperation to keep Consuelo apart from him, Alva told her there was madness in his family and that he couldn’t have children.
The next morning, the house was unnaturally quiet. Nobody came to Consuelo’s room. The telephone didn’t ring. The governess seemed nervous. Finally Alva’s great friend Mrs. Jay informed Consuelo that her mother had had a heart attack and that the sight of her refractory daughter could kill her. Consuelo relented. She had held out as long as Lcircumstances let her. Finally, she had to let Win go.
THE WAITING GAME
The last two weeks in August were the height of the season in Newport. Sunny arrived on the twenty-third, and now even Consuelo, who had been watched very carefully after the showdown with her mother, was allowed to take part in the whirl. The Vanderbilts and their noble guest went to a “Calico Ball” given by the R.T. Wilsons at the Country Club, where Sunny was amused by the quaint calico favors. They had dinner on John Jacob Astor’s yacht. They drove to the Casino, and saw the polo, and did all the things one did in Newport. Alva watched Consuelo like a hawk and waited for a little announcement.
It had to come. Sunny had understood (hadn’t he?) that his presence in Newport amounted to a declaration of intent. The English were rather unromantic about these things—he could hardly be waiting to fall in love—and certainly he had seen enough of Consuelo to be sure. Staying at Marble House, he would know from its grandeurs that Blenheim would pose no difficulties. Consuelo was used to formality, accustomed to a footman behind her chair and six forks at dinner. Her deportment never, under any circumstance, left anything to be desired. She would be the perfect wife for Sunny; she would make a marvelous duchess. So why didn’t he propose?
The days crept on. More gorgeous sun and breezes. More drives under the elms and people whispering, as soon as the Vanderbilt carriage passed, how lovely Consuelo looked and what a lucky man Marlborough was. Would be. The night of Alva’s party drew near. It was to be a Louis XIV ball, in Sunny’s honor. If Alva’s divorce had made her enemies, it didn’t show, for Newport’s Anglomaniacs couldn’t pass up the chance to socialize with a duke. And there would probably be a significant announcement. One wouldn’t want to miss that.
DOING THE CONTINENTAL
Though British aristocrats were the husbands of choice, some American heiresses found Continental titles equally alluring. Florence Garner’s two sisters married, resp
ectively, a French marquis and a Danish count. Mrs. McKay’s daughter won the Italian Prince Colonna. Winnaretta Singer, of the sewing-machine fortune, became, successively, Princesse de Scey-Montbéliard and Princesse de Polignac. And, in a well-publicized union that would ultimately contribute to American distrust of European husbands, Anna Gould wed Count Boni de Castellane.
A figure, literally, out of Proust (he is thought to be the model for the dandy Saint-Loup), De Castellane had been brought up at the Loire château of Rochecotte. His tastes were exquisite and expensive; his income, insufficient. Anna, daughter of the robber baron Jay Gould and orphaned by the time of her début, had been placed in the charge of her brother and his erstwhile-showgirl wife. They sent her off to Paris, where Boni fluttered round and succeeded in winning her hand.
His scheme was to transform his rather plain wife into a being acceptable to his tastes, and with the help of M. Worth he nearly succeeded. Other projects included building a pink marble house in the Bois de Boulogne, collecting art, and giving a fête on Anna’s birthday for which he had 80,000 Venetian lamps hung in the trees. He ran through $1 million in less than a year.
Unfortunately, Boni could not bring himself to abandon his interest in other women, among them the notorious “belle Otero.” Prudently, Anna had refused to become a Catholic upon their marriage, and in 1906 she divorced him. Three years later, Boni was dangling (unsuccessfully) after J.P Morgan’s daughter Anne. As for Anna, she married Boni’s cousin, the Prince de Sagan, in the end acquiring both a better husband and a better title.
