The Social Graces

by Renée Rosen

A breeze stirred the curtains in her bedroom, and Caroline felt herself beginning to drift again. The claws of confusion were grabbing for her once again. She shook her head as if that would keep it at bay and called for her maid to help with her morning toilette.

  Gazing in the mirror, she didn’t feel nearly as old as she looked. What little hair she had left had long since turned white as snow, and the lines in her face had never been deeper, the circles beneath her eyes never darker. It wasn’t until her wig was in place that she recognized herself at all. When it came time for her jewelry, she glanced at the backs of her hands, fingers gnarled, joints so swollen that she couldn’t get her favorite diamond rings past her knuckles. She sighed, reaching for her leather Boucicaut gloves to hide them from herself.

  After she was dressed, Thomas appeared in the doorway, asking if she’d like to go for her carriage ride.

  “Oh, I haven’t time for that, Hade. Not today. The ball is tonight.”

  “Of course.” He bowed ceremoniously and led her to the drawing room, where she checked her engagement book, her twisted fingers struggling to cooperate. When she did get the book open and was able to turn to the correct date, she saw a blank page. “Hade?” she called out. “Hade—come here!”

  He rushed into the room. “Mrs. Astor?”

  “What’s happened to my engagement book? I had a luncheon today.”

  “I’m afraid not today, Mrs. Astor.”

  “And the ball is this evening. Why isn’t that in here? There was definitely a luncheon today. I’m certain of it.” She closed the engagement book and shoved it across her desk.

  Setting a teacup down before her, Thomas said, “I brought you some extra chocolate biscuits.”

  She reached for one, when he stopped her. “Allow me, Mrs. Astor.” Without another word, he helped her off with her gloves. “There. Now that’s much better, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, and as she sipped her tea, she overheard Hade speaking to someone out in the hallway, mumbling . . . She’s not having a good day.

  She wondered who he was talking to—Jack? Carrie? Had Charlotte come back from Europe to see her? Charlotte was remarried now, happily so, and she’d been trying to reestablish ties with her children, especially her daughter. Time, Caroline had said to Charlotte, give it time, but Caroline feared she didn’t have much time left, and she didn’t want to miss a thing. For now, at least, she was still the matriarch, the guiding force over this family. Just as she’d created society, she had, even more importantly, created this family, her legacy: three surviving children, twelve grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. They would carry on the Astor name, the Astor traditions. It was her family that gave her strength and made her want to hold on.

  Thomas was still in the hallway when she called for him. “Thomas?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Astor?”

  She couldn’t remember why she’d wanted him.

  “Perhaps you might enjoy a hand of cooncan?” Thomas suggested, sitting down across from her, reaching for a deck of playing cards.

  “That would be lovely.” She nibbled a biscuit. “Very nice indeed.”

  While he shuffled the cards, Caroline sat silently, thinking. On some level she was all too aware of things getting away from her. She knew her mind was unreliable, failing her. She knew she sounded like a demented old woman, and it terrified her. She was reminded of some of the nonsense her mother would say in later years, calling Caroline by the wrong name, insisting that someone had taken her cane, stolen her jewelry . . .

  Caroline was so terribly confused. She didn’t trust herself to speak—afraid of what might come tumbling out. She was on an emotional ledge, one thought away from pure senility. Her heart began racing, her breathing labored as sweat broke out on her brow and along the back of her neck.

  “Thomas,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Thomas, I’m not done yet. I’m not ready to die.”

  “I should hope not.” He smiled kindly, trying to make light of her comment as he began dealing the cards.

  She dropped her biscuit and brought her hands to her face. “Oh dear lord, what’s happening to me?”

  “You’re tired, Mrs. Astor. You didn’t sleep well last night, but I assure you, you are positively fine.”

  “Oh, Thomas, what would I ever do without you?”

  “You needn’t worry about that.” He set his cards facedown and reached for her hand, gently squeezing her fingers. “I’m here, Mrs. Astor. I’ll always be right here.” He released her fingers, picked up his cards and fanned them out.

  After a moment, she felt her breathing return to normal and felt the walls in her lovely drawing room expanding once again. She reached for her cards, and after a hand of cooncan, she was feeling better, more in control.

  When they’d finished their game, she said she wanted some fresh air. “Bring the carriage around, Thomas. I’d like to go for a ride.”

  Once outside she felt better still. The mild breeze and sunshine did her good as they traveled down Fifth Avenue, Thomas sitting right beside her. She was stunned by the number of automobiles puttering about on the road.

  “I remember Harry predicted ages ago that those machines would replace the horse. I still don’t believe it . . .”

  Soon they turned in to the park where children were roller-skating in the distance, women and men cycling just about everywhere she looked. She must have dozed off because the next thing she knew, church bells were pealing in the distance and they were no longer in Central Park. Her head was resting on Thomas’s shoulder. She looked around, bewildered, and asked for the time.

  “It’s just past four o’clock, Mrs. Astor.”

  “Oh dear. We have to hurry. Guests will be arriving in a matter of hours and there’s so much yet to do.”

  “I assure you, Mrs. Astor, everything is under control.”

  She ordered the coachman to take them back home, and after she was inside and had her afternoon tea, it was time to perform her evening toilette. The purple Worth gown she’d selected was one of her favorites and just perfect for that evening’s ball. She insisted on wearing her diamond tiara, and since her favorite rings wouldn’t fit, she opted for one of her diamond stomachers instead.

  Before leaving her dressing room, she called on Thomas. “Is the orchestra ready?”

  “You look lovely tonight, Mrs. Astor,” he said with a slight ceremonial bow.

  Caroline turned back to the mirror to see what he was seeing—and there she was, young Lina with the future about to unfold before her. And it was going to be grand.

  With that, Caroline left her dressing room, went to the top of her staircase, the very staircase she’d fallen from, and taking a seat beneath her portrait, she waited patiently to receive her guests.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Alva

  NEWPORT, 1908

  The sun was high above, the sky a vivid blue. The orchestra outside had begun playing “We as Women.” Alva grabbed the black chiffon parasol that matched her gown, thinking, How awful having to wear black on such a hot day.

  Making her way down the long hallway, she exited through the French doors, thrown open to let in the ocean breeze and cool the cottage. Police officers were stationed outside of every room, keeping an eye on her priceless art and antiques while thousands of strangers came to view Marble House.

  Long before Oliver passed away, when Alva wasn’t tending to society, she had devoted her spare time to visiting tenement houses, hospitals and orphanages. After his sudden death that June, Alva had pushed back against her grief, not allowing it to swallow her whole. Instead, she’d thrown herself and her financial muscle at the women’s suffrage movement. She’d already secured a lease for the National Suffrage Association at Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue and had given the landlord $5,000 to cover the rent for the entire year.

  She was still living at Belco
urt, Oliver’s cottage, just across the street on Bellevue Avenue. Having never been able to part with Marble House, Alva had kept her prized cottage, using it mostly to house her too many clothes and all her furnishings, artwork and antiques. Today would be the first time she’d done anything at Marble House in years. And for those who criticized her for entertaining while in mourning, well, they didn’t understand that this was not a social event. This was an important occasion, and Oliver would have wholeheartedly approved.

  Knowing that plenty of people were curious to see her cottage, especially the interior, Alva had decided to host that day’s fundraising rally at Marble House. They sold $1 tickets that gave people access to the gardens and all the speeches as well as $5 tickets that included a limited tour inside. More policemen stood guard before the red velvet cords roping off the rooms she deemed private—including her bedroom.

  With the blue and white-star suffrage flags flapping in the breeze outside the massive tent and the orchestra playing rally songs, 1,000 or so women—rich, poor, young and old, white, Negro, American and European—walked the grounds, buying pamphlets and buttons, sashes and banners, anything to support the cause.

  Alva’s friends Puss and Lady Paget were there, along with her sisters. Even Tessie Oelrichs and Mamie Fish put in an appearance.

  “Here we are again,” said Mamie, with a blasé wave of her hands, “older faces and younger clothes.”

  “What a surprise this is,” Alva said in return. “And to think I thought you weren’t in favor of women’s rights.”

  “Oh, I’m not,” said Mamie. “As far as I’m concerned, a good husband is all a woman truly needs.”

  “Well”—Alva gestured about the grounds—“I’m afraid everyone here today would disagree with you.”

  Alva looked at all the women who had come together that day. It nearly broke her heart when she thought about all their talents, their passions and ambitions that hadn’t been realized simply because they were women. And there were so many more out there, struggling to rise up and out of their circumstances. Let them vote, own property, leave their abusive husbands, and pursue their education and their dreams.

  As an ambitious woman herself, Alva had made society her career because there were no other options. She’d once been a daughter of privilege whose family had lost their fortune, forcing her to claw and crawl her way back into society’s good graces. She’d made it, all the way to the top, in fact, but she wasn’t done yet.

  Excusing herself from Mamie and Tessie, Alva twirled her parasol and walked toward the tent, eager to hear the first speaker. Society would carry on without Mrs. Astor and without Alva, too. Society didn’t need Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, but women—ordinary women everywhere—did.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Society

  NEW YORK

  We walk down Peacock Alley, that long lovely corridor that links the Hyphen, which is what everyone calls the newly combined Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Its opulence is immense. The onyx mosaic floors echo our every step as we pass a few couples seated on the plush benches butted up against the Corinthian columns.

  When we enter the hotel café with its beautiful frescoes and elegant crystal and china table settings, we see that Penelope and Ophelia are already there. It’s been ages since we’ve gathered for luncheon. The last time was at Delmonico’s. It had been early summer then, just before we left for Newport. We’d dined outside amid red geraniums and scarlet peonies blooming in the window boxes. It had been a delightful day, and we had all agreed we should lunch together more often, it’s just that we’ve all been so busy as of late.

  Puss now sits on the board for the Central Park Menagerie and has currently been fighting to keep the zoo here in the city. Peggy Cavendish volunteers twice a week to help children with speech impediments. Ophelia also does volunteer work, at an orphanage, and Penelope now sits on the board of the Astor Library, which is in great decline.

  Cornelia Martin sadly won’t be joining us. She and her husband fled New York shortly after their Bradley Martin Ball. When various members of the clergy as well as populists and anarchists criticized them for their extravagance, they started receiving death threats. The last straw was finding their home and carriages vandalized. They’re now in Scotland or England—we’ve lost track.

  Certainly no one has thrown a party on such a grand scale since. Some say the Bradley Martin Ball marked the end of the Gilded Age. And that is true, though judging by the jewelry and fashions on display at our table, not to mention the prices on the menu before us, we’re all still very well-off.

  We feast on such delicacies as mutton stew, fresh tongue of beef, seared lamb with mint, and deviled lamb kidney. Lady Paget, who prides herself on having not touched a piece of flesh food for sixteen years, ordered broiled shad and roe, along with cold lobster tartare.

  She looks at Mamie’s tenderloin steak béarnaise with great disdain. “How can you eat flesh?”

  “Very simply,” says Mamie. “With a fork”—she raises her cutlery—“and a knife.”

  The conversation moves on and we find ourselves discussing Penelope’s divorce and her daughter who is attending college. Lydia tells us about the plot for her next romance novel. Each of us has been sworn to secrecy about her writing under the nom de plume Louis W. Sterling. We laugh, we gossip, we share.

  The last time we were all together was at Mrs. Astor’s funeral in November. She was seventy-eight and had died at home, surrounded by her son, Jack, daughter Carrie and her butler, Thomas Hade. They say that in recent years her butler never left her side, accompanying her on her daily carriage rides through the park. The two had been regularly seen dining at Sherry’s and Delmonico’s. Even here at the Hyphen. Some say she’d never been happier.

  It’s the end of an era now that Mrs. Astor is gone, and while society still exists, it isn’t what it once was.

  There was a time when we blindly followed the protocol as effortlessly as one season follows another. From winter to Newport and back again. The restrictions and limitations of yesterday were largely self-imposed. The very same society we so desperately wanted in on was the same society that told us no diamonds before nightfall, no social visits before two in the afternoon, no denying relations with your husband, no divorcing him, either. It’s sometimes hard to accept that in many ways, we had stepped inside the very cage that held us prisoner.

  Looking back, it’s easy to say that one woman’s monotony is another’s sense of purpose. Now we regard all the etiquette as quaint. Passé. The next generation is much more lenient and society as we’ve known it will never be the same. Isn’t it interesting, though, to note that it now takes three women to do what Mrs. Astor had done by herself for three decades?

  Tessie, Mamie and Alva have now taken over society. It’s no secret, though, that before she died, Mrs. Astor had handed the scepter to Alva. She told Alva that she was the best person to replace her, but by then, Alva didn’t really want the throne. Instead, she shared the honor with two hostesses who would have killed for it. Tessie and Mamie rule their ever-fading empire, and while Alva is still very much the head of society, her attention has shifted to rights for women—all women.

  Looking back, we weren’t always kind to Alva, though she wasn’t always at her best with us, either. We sometimes mocked her, shunned her, gossiped about her ad nauseam. We thought she was too brash, too controversial, too overpowering, and oftentimes, she was. But there were other times—moments—when she was daring and spectacularly brave. We hadn’t always had the foresight back then to see where she was heading, where she was leading us. And as it’s turned out, her courage eventually made us more courageous, too. She cracked the door open, and we’ve been crossing that threshold ever since.

  We are the wives and daughters of wealthy men, but now we are no longer defined by that. And neither are our daughters. Look how far we’ve come, and just you wait and see where
we’ll go from here.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  One of the greatest challenges I faced in writing this book was bringing Caroline Astor and Alva Vanderbilt to life and making them relatable to readers. On paper, they were both obsessed with society and matters that frankly seemed so frivolous and comical. I really needed to dig deeper and deeper to find out what made these people tick and to humanize them.

  In some cases, the material was available, despite a lot of contradictory “facts” in the various source materials. Oftentimes there was no information, so I had to fill in a good many blanks myself, and it is in that spirit that I’ll attempt to separate the fact from the fiction in this novel.

  Caroline’s relationship with her mother was a driving force of Caroline’s development. While it’s true that her mother lost six of her nine children, the dynamics between mother and daughter were those of my own imaginings and not based on any documented events or findings.

  It’s also true that Caroline’s daughters did give her a run for her money. Emily married James Van Alen only after General Van Alen had challenged William Astor to a duel. James Van Alen was a bit of a laughingstock who did indeed speak with a phony British accent and wear a fake monocle. Sadly, Emily did die in childbirth in 1881. Helen was the only daughter with a “respectable” marriage by Caroline’s standards and she, too, died young, in 1893 of unknown causes. Charlotte was a spirited rebel. While her relationship with Duncan Briar is fictional, her scandalous love affair with Hallett Borrowe was real and went viral Gilded Age–style with the publication of her love letters. She did abandon her children and flee to Europe, and William did go to bring her back. What is less clear is whether Caroline accompanied him. For the sake of the narrative, I have opted to place Caroline with him. One thing we know for sure is that William did die while in London trying to rescue his daughter. That brings us to the youngest daughter, Carrie. Caroline’s namesake was used as a pawn for Alva’s famous masquerade ball, and Carrie was instrumental in Caroline’s recognizing the Vanderbilts in society. Also, Carrie did go on a hunger strike when her parents opposed her marriage to Orme Wilson. I do not know that they ever had to induce feeding, but I do know that Caroline gave in and Carrie married him and lived happily ever after.