American Duchess

by Karen Harper

  “I am glad you appreciate the past. History helps make the present,” he told me as he adroitly handled the reins of our carriage pulled by two matched grays. Though I had much rather be on a bicycle with Win, I valued that compliment.

  “It is living history here,” I observed as we neared a field where folk strolled the street of the tiny village of Bladon. I then saw how true that was as, at the mere sight of us, men snatched off their Sunday caps and called out almost in unison with a little bow, “Good day, Your Grace.” Women and little girls dropped a curtsy as we passed, and Sunny nodded their way. Some stood standing long after we had rolled by, gazing at us and pointing to others, as if they’d seen a saint pass.

  “Living history indeed,” I added. “It seems as if, well, somehow like feudal times.”

  “Not a bit of it,” he said with a little smile, evidently at my naivety. “Tradition, indeed, but the present is built on the past. We provide for the working class and the poor, always have. Food is taken daily from the table at the palace to send to those in need, and, if they are ill and alone, they are cared for. They are rightly grateful to their lord.”

  “Lord with a small letter l you mean and not the Lord God. Things seem so . . . untouched here. In Americ—”

  “This is not America, Consuelo. Things are as they should be. I show special concern, care, and charity for the estate workers as we Marlboroughs have since the first duke John.”

  “Maybe that’s why some say the first duchess still walks the halls. Maybe she thinks the people’s station could be better.”

  He did not frown but only shook his head as he snapped the reins to move the carriage even faster. “Such strange democratic ideas, my dear. You will see the old ways are best for all here.”

  I wished his tone had been angry instead of condescending, even amused. My friends and family had always said I had a good sense of humor, but I could not summon one smidgen of it, however silly some of this seemed. I bit my tongue. We were leaving for London soon and home thereafter. The beauty here was luring but deceptive. I felt suddenly so relieved to be departing that I blurted, “I do thank you for your time to show me the natural beauty of Blenheim.”

  He turned to look at me and leaned closer. For one moment I thought he might actually embrace or kiss me.

  “Natural beauty is something that would suit you here,” he whispered. He almost said something more, but hesitated. My stomach went into free fall. I sensed that he had almost proposed. “Best we head back since your mother has a headache,” he added, sitting straight again.

  No doubt she’d lied about that if he had asked her to come along. My mother never had a headache, never seemed to be ill. The fact she had maneuvered to get us alone together set off alarm bells in my own aching head again. She had not given up on pairing me with this feudal lord of all he surveyed. I vowed I would never be here again, certainly never live here, but I did have some vague ideas of what I would change if I had one bit of Marlborough power.

  IT WAS OVER wine and strawberries that night after dinner—just Sunny, Mama, and I, though a wigged footman hovered behind each of our chairs—that I had another glimpse that I might be doomed.

  “Dear Sunny,” Mama said to him, after a discussion on how he hoped to terrace the land above the ornamental lake and embellish some of the rooms of the palace, “how Consuelo and I would like to return your generous hospitality. I believe you said you were considering a tour of eastern America. We would love to entertain you at our home in Newport during the season in August and to invite you to a ball I am planning. You would be our honored guest, of course.”

  He put his crystal goblet down onto the damask tablecloth slowly, as if he were pondering that. “How lovely and tempting,” he said, looking at me and then at her. “I could include it in my tour. I have never been to the States and feel I should understand its people better.”

  “Then we would be honored,” she said and subtly elbowed me, a clear message to chime in, to say something.

  Absolutely refusing to play her game, I said, “You will enjoy the sunny days cooled by the wind off the sea. I hope you like yachts. My father has a fine one.”

  Mama narrowed her eyes at that, but I told myself to keep calm. I planned to be publicly promised to Winthrop Rutherfurd by the time Sunny arrived. Perhaps then, the 9th Duke of Marlborough could find another heiress—a willing one—in America.

  “Then I accept with pleasure,” he announced, clinking his goblet to hers in a kind of toast—or to celebrate a business deal.

  HIS AND MAMA’S plans were made. It was not until the next morning, when Sunny saw us off at the train, and it chugged away, that I dared to whisper, “Mama, if you are still thinking of matching me with him, it will not work. I am not suited to be his wife and live here.”

  She shrugged and did not answer, which frightened me more than if she had given me a chance to protest further or argue. The sway and jerk of the train seemed instantly to upset my stomach.

  I turned away to look out the window at the blur of the passing scene. I did not need to set off one of Mama’s fierce explosions with Minnie Paget just across the aisle. I would get Papa and Win’s family on my side, then we would all plead our case to win her over. This was not feudal times, even though Sunny and his “serfs” acted that way. Mama could not force me to leave home and marry where I would be so alone and desperately unhappy.

  Could she?

  Chapter Five

  My nightmare had only begun. Once we were home, I wondered if Mama had read my mind about Win. I became a virtual prisoner in Marble House, even in my room. She turned down invitations for me. Miss Harper said they were scarce anyway, because of the finalized divorce. Footmen were always at my door, if I chose to stay in my room, claiming I did not feel well—which was true. If I went for a brief walk outside, I had Mama, Miss Harper, sometimes my maid trailing behind.

  In the house, everything swirled around the coming September ball with its special guest, the Duke of Marlborough. As bitter as I was, I saw that elegant, expensive affair was not only to get the duke here, hoping he would propose to me, but to ensure, even elevate Mama’s social position here in Newport, and thus in New York, too. People who had shunned her over the divorce would never turn down the opportunity to meet British nobility. And if the Vanderbilt name was to be linked in wedlock to the Marlboroughs, that would be a famous victory, one to outdo the battle that had earned the dukes their beloved Blenheim.

  “Brooks,” I pled with my maid, “just get this letter into the post somehow.” I extended a missive I had written to Win to tell him Mama was finally taking me to a ball on Saturday and could he be there? Her social invitations had suddenly gone sky high from people hoping to receive an invitation to the Marble House ball in return.

  “Please, Miss Consuelo, not to ask me. She—you-know-who—asks me every day, me and Miss Harper, if we send a note for you, and we don’t want to be dismissed. You would miss us too, yes?”

  “Yes, I understand,” I said and turned away to look out the window toward the sea. There had to be a way. I prayed that Win did not think I was snubbing him. Papa was at the Vanderbilt house on Long Island. Whatever happened, even if I did not have Papa and Win to help me, I vowed I was going to stand up to Mama one way or another. I was not going to wed the Duke of Marlborough and live in that massive museum in an estate run like one in the Middle Ages.

  WITH THE DUKE’S visit barely a month away, I was deeply despondent. Each time I looked in a mirror, I thought no one, even someone off the streets, would want me with the shadows under my eyes and my moping about, listless, hardly speaking.

  “Look, my dear Consuelo,” Miss Harper said to me, “you must care for yourself better. You must cast off this gloom. You are going to a ball tonight at last, see your friends, enjoy yourself.”

  “I feel as if I’m on a leash with Mama holding the other end. I do not want to marry away from my home and family—except from my mother,” I muttered. I wa
s sitting in a tall chair, looking out a second-floor window, my favorite pastime, watching the sails of boats on the vast blue sea. They looked so free, turning, tacking, bending into the wind.

  My dear, longtime governess pulled over an ottoman and sat by my chair. She took my cold hand in her warm ones.

  “You must always look on the bright side,” she said. “You are strong, Consuelo, with a charming personality and good sense of humor. You have always looked at the glass as half full, and I have admired that. Perhaps, as hard as this is, it is part of God’s plan for you to become a duchess, the mistress of a great estate.”

  “Part of God’s plan only if my mother is indeed God, and I am starting to wonder. Please do not take her side, or I will be completely bereft.”

  “Now you don’t mean that! Whatever our position in life, we can make the best of it. I know the status of the Blenheim estate workers and commoners bothered you. Perhaps you could change things, carefully, slowly, do good. Bring some fresh American ideas to the duke’s stuffy ways.”

  “Perhaps. But I cannot see that—cannot see myself—there, with him. I want someone else, my own life to live.”

  Miss Harper sat up straighter. I turned my head to look at her, really look at her. She always had her brown hair parted in the middle and pulled back into a stiff bun. The lines around her mouth had deepened, and her frown lines showed. Her lips thinned now to become almost white before she spoke again.

  “Do you think this is the life I would have chosen for myself?” she demanded, her well-tempered voice more harsh than I had ever heard it. “Of course I have an excellent position and place, but do you never note or think I might prefer—desperately desire—another situation in this one life I have to live? A home and family, a husband of my choosing? But here I am, governess, and I hope friend to a promising young woman who can do great things someday because, not only for her name and position in life, but because of her character and strength and good heart, which I have poured my life into these last ten years.”

  Tears burned my eyes to match the single one that tracked down her cheek. “You have been and are more to me than a governess,” I told her, my voice breaking. “You have indeed been my dear friend. And, the Lord knows, I have needed that, needed you.”

  “Yes,” she said as we now gripped both our hands together and leaned our shoulders close. “But there may come a time when you must go on, be strong without a friend until you can make new ones, stand on your own. My dear, I hear that your friend you are missing so deeply here in America will be at the ball your mother is taking you to tonight, but I warn you not to do something foolish. I repeat, be strong and stand on your own, but do nothing rash, only what is necessary.”

  Win would be there! So she still was on my side to tell me that! “What would I ever do without you? Thank you, dear friend,” I cried, squeezing both her hands in mine as I started to stand.

  “Consuelo,” she said, snatching me back to sit again, “I mean you must bid him farewell and face your fate with the duke if it comes to that. Think of all the great things you can do, people you can sway, all—”

  “Did my mother ask you to convince me of this?”

  “No, I swear it. It is just I see that what she believes of your friend is true.”

  “What? What has she told you, tried to convince you to convince me? What is she saying against Win?”

  “Think of this. I, too, have eyes and ears. I hear talk other than from your mother. Mr. Winthrop Rutherfurd is a trained lawyer who does not practice, and who would rather spend his time at polo, golf, horses instead of at work. Ask yourself, why has he not wed yet, when he is nearly thirty?”

  “Because he is waiting for me, and don’t you dare tell her that. I am sorry you are caught between us, and you must, of course, listen to her. But the fact you told me he is to be at the ball tonight means to me you are really on my side. Do not look at me that way,” I scolded her for once as I finally dropped her hands and stood. “I will not run off with him—and how could I with my mother probably dancing with Win and me.”

  But even at that silly, dreadful picture, I felt better already. I could finally breathe. All I needed was a moment with Win to be certain he still felt as I do. And then I would stand up to Mama, end her plans for me with the duke, plan my own life. Yes. Yes, I would.

  WIN AND I managed one short dance that night. “Yes, darling, yes, I still feel the same!” he told me. “We are engaged, betrothed, to be wed, whatever you may call it.”

  “Then I will tell her.”

  “But is it true about you and the duke?”

  “She will try to force me, but I am done with that. He has not asked for me. You have, and I said yes. Papa thinks the world of you at least, so you must go to him soon and ask that he give us his blessing. One thing I have learned from Mama is to fight for what I want, and I want to be your wife.”

  “Oh, my dearest. I shall call upon you tomorrow, so she cannot stop our messages again, then see your father thereafter. Just after noon?”

  “I will tell her tonight, settle things once and for all. She can still flaunt the duke as her guest. She can strengthen the position in society she fought so hard to build years ago, even this time without Papa.”

  “The music is ending, but our dance is only beginning . . .”

  Over Win’s shoulder, I saw Mama coming, like a steamship through a crowd of other vessels. Twice people tried to stop her to comment or chat, but she kept coming.

  “Should we face her here?” Win asked.

  “I will tell her alone tonight.”

  “I will always love and adore you, my Consuelo,” he whispered as the next waltz began, and he beat a retreat into the crowd.

  “Everything is settled then?” Mama asked.

  “It is.”

  “Then let’s head home. It is all for the best. You will see. Tomorrow is another day to talk and plan.”

  BUT I COULD not keep still. She seemed too calm to have understood what I meant by things being settled. A warning bell clanged in my head, but I could not go back to being kept in a cage only to be forced into another, foreign one, however gilded the walls and locked door.

  “Mother, you reared me to be strong,” I said back at Marble House the moment she told me to follow her to her room and we closed the door behind us. “So we need to be clear that I am not your prisoner or your slave. I know you had slaves to order about once years ago, but that was wrong and so is this.”

  She turned to face me, leaning back against her high bed, for the four-poster sat on an elevated dais. And, overhead in glorious painted array, Athena, goddess of wisdom and victory, stared down at us.

  “Ungrateful, foolish girl, however bright you are! I know what is best for you and your future! Your father and I are willing to pay the price for it and you must, too! Did not Miss Harper make herself clear to you?”

  “That I should break off my betrothal to Win?”

  “Betrothal! Utter rubbish!” her voice rose sharp and shrill. Her face reddened, and a tiny vein beat at the side of her forehead. “I told the duke you were free and clear to wed him and that—”

  “You told him! Why did you not ask me? That is not true! You dragged me there and into all that. I am going to marry Winthrop Rutherfurd! I demand the right to choose a husband, the father of my children, the man of my heart like you did with father!”

  “Oh, I chose, all right. But was he the man of my heart? No, he was the man my family needed then. My mother was dead, my father’s cotton empire devastated. We were almost homeless, and there stood William Kissam Vanderbilt, handsome and easygoing, the son and grandson of King Midas, lord of all he surveyed!”

  That outburst stunned me even more than the first. “I repeat,” I said, trying to keep my voice and emotions controlled, “be that as it may, I mean to marry Win.”

  She seized my arm and pulled me toward the bed, nearly bouncing me off the side of the high mattress. Though I was taller, she tugged me down
and put her livid face close to mine. “Consuelo, this is all for your good. Insanity runs in Winthrop’s family. Why is he not married already, I ask you? I also have it on good authority that he cannot sire children. You are not going to marry into his family, and that is that. You are going to marry the Duke of Marlborough as soon as he proposes, and I am certain he understands that, so you had best, too.”

  “You are strong and have reared me to be strong, Mama. So I tell you true I will marry only Win.”

  “I shall make certain you do not leave this house until you leave it with the duke, one way or the other.”

  “I will not do what you say. I am eighteen. You cannot stop Win and me from marr—”

  “You—oh—oh, I . . .” She gasped and lay back on the bed, one hand on her chest, the other clutching at the satin spread to keep herself from sliding onto the floor. I helped to steady her, lift her up to lay her on the bed, full skirts and all.

  “What is it?” I demanded as she clutched her chest and gasped, screwing her face in agony.

  “My heart. Oh, the pain. Listen to me, daughter. If you go to Win, I swear to you I shall shoot him. I will kill him so he will not ruin you and your life. I . . . ah . . . They will arrest me and hang me and my death—which may come right now—oh, my heart pain—will be on your head!”

  I ran for her maid, and a footman went for the doctor. Surely, she did not mean any of that, I thought, all that hate and passion. And had she truly suffered a heart attack or had her own bile sickened her?

  FINALLY, LATER, MISS Harper came to my room where I waited, pacing, still in my ball gown while the doctor was with Mama. “How is she?” I blurted. “She has always seemed so steady before, even if she lost her temper.”

  “I warrant she has never lost her daughter before. Her message for you is that she has had a heart attack and you are responsible. She meant, she says, what she vowed earlier. The doctor concurs with the medical diagnosis. He is giving her laudanum to rest, but she asked me for your response before she tries to sleep.”