The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

  Then he straightened, turning away once more. When he spoke again, it was with deliberation, as if he were testing out the words before he said them.

  “We live in a marvelous age, Madeleine. A magnificent age. We are witness to innovations and ideas never before imagined upon this earth. Science, philosophy, the arts. We’re fortunate enough to be cast amid these times, destined to be amazed at man’s ideas and innovations. Destined to be improved by them.”

  “How beautifully you’ve captured it. You’ve rather swept me away.”

  He ran a hand down his hair, then sent her a look she could not read, small and slight and maybe abashed.

  CHAPTER 5

  There are certain people in this world who have the ability to make you feel as if you’re the only person in the universe who matters to them. Whether it’s moment by moment or enough years to count up to a lifetime, they look you in the eyes and smile at you, direct and sincere—and you’re smitten.

  They draw you into their realm, into their rendering of events and ideas and rituals. Everything they say becomes vitally important. Every action of theirs becomes truth. Sometimes these people are innocents—this is a charisma they were born with; they did not earn it; it’s simply their birthright—and sometimes it is a craft they practice, a manipulation. They set out to entice you, to seduce you, simply because they can—or because they want something in return.

  It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.

  Your father had that gift, and I believe it was inherent. He never meant to seduce me or anybody else. To this day, I don’t think he had any nefarious intentions about anything in his whole life. He would simply pin you with his gaze and tilt his head and smile his wry, charming smile . . .

  It wasn’t merely that he was so rich, or so worldly, or so intelligent. It was that when he spoke, his deep voice melted over you like molasses. When he touched your skin, even for just a handshake, you felt important. You felt as if you mattered, whatever your name or fortune or background.

  That was Jack Astor’s talent: his presence. His attention.

  Those canny winter eyes.

  That was one of his talents, at least.

  * * *

  After that weekend, he suggested a picnic.

  I suggested tidepools, the Shore Path, an afternoon at the beach.

  He motored to the house to pick us up, the first time he’d ever come by.

  He brought Vincent. And the dog.

  August 1910

  Bar Harbor

  “There is a strange man outside,” Katherine announced, standing by the parlor window, her pinkie parting, very slightly, the Youghal lace curtains.

  Mother looked up from her embroidery, alert. “The colonel? He’s early.”

  “No. Not him. The colonel would not be strange. This gentleman is lurking across the way, beneath the Pattersons’ old red oak. He is pretending not to notice me noticing him.”

  Madeleine, walking into the room, crossed to the window and opened the curtains wider.

  Mother sent her a frowning look. “My dear, have you finished dressing?”

  “I have.”

  “That’s what you’ve chosen to wear? I think you’ll be too cold in muslin today. Why don’t you go put on the green ocher satin?”

  Madeleine leaned cautiously closer to the panes, searching the tree-dappled shadows lining the lane. “It’s a picnic, Mother, not an evening at the opera. I’d look ridiculous in satin at the beach.”

  Katherine lifted a finger to point. Madeleine found him then, a broad-shouldered man leaning casually against the trunk of a tree. He wore a charcoal-colored suit and bowler and had turned his side to the Force home as if it were of no interest to him. He lifted a cigarillo to his mouth, inhaling slowly, breathing out a long, blue twist of smoke. If he carried a camera, Madeleine couldn’t see it.

  “That’s not Ned Patterson?” she asked.

  “Definitely not. Ned’s shorter. And he dislikes tobacco.”

  Mother stood up, tossing her embroidery to the chair. “I wish your father was here. I do hate it that he is gone on the weekdays.”

  “How did he know?” Madeleine wondered. “How did he realize Jack would be coming by?”

  Mother didn’t hear her, but her sister did; Katherine shot her a covert smile. “Jack now, is it?”

  Madeleine lifted a shoulder.

  “I can think of two possibilities,” Katherine said finally, returning her attention to the lurking man. “Either someone in the colonel’s household shared information they should not have . . .”

  Madeleine waited for her to finish, that sense of heavy tightness in her chest descending upon her once more, almost like drowning.

  “Or else he didn’t know. Doesn’t. And he’s just . . . here. Because you are.”

  “That seems much worse.”

  “Yes,” said Katherine. “It does.”

  “I’ll have Matthews send him off,” Mother said from behind them. “It would be pleasant to offer Colonel Astor a measure of privacy, at least here in our own home.”

  Madeleine and Katherine exchanged a look. Matthews, their butler, was genteel and efficient and about a thousand years old.

  “Too late for any of that.” Katherine released the panel of lace. “The colonel’s here.”

  The sound of an automobile roaring up the lane, powerful and rough, was impossible to miss. The man beneath the oak pushed away from its trunk, flicked his cigarillo to the grass, and crushed it beneath his heel. Madeleine began to pull on her gloves.

  “Maddy,” Mother said sharply. “We are a civilized household. Allow Colonel Astor to come to the door.”

  “No,” Madeleine said. “We’ll meet him outside. Otherwise, the next thing you know that fellow out there will be tapping at the windows to get his story, and soon everyone will be reading about the color of our walls and the arrangement of the furniture. Are you ready, Katherine? Yes? Let’s go.”

  Mother sighed. “Poor Cook has spent half the morning preparing choux à la crème for him. She’ll be so crushed.”

  “Tell her I’m sorry, I really am. We’ll have cream puffs by the ocean, anyway, I imagine. Or sandwiches. Or something. We’ll be back before you know it. ’Bye, Mother.”

  She didn’t even wait for Matthews to reach for the door, didn’t pause to pacify her mother further or to see if her sister followed. Madeleine finished with her gloves, adjusted her hat, opened the front door, and walked outside into the sunlit day as if she had every right to do so.

  Because she did. It was her home, on her street, and she did not have to be intimidated by a stranger beneath an oak. She didn’t. She wasn’t.

  She chanced a swift glance at the man—he had abandoned his nonchalant pose to scrawl something in a notebook—but after that looked only at the colonel, still seated behind the wheel of his touring car in his driving cap and duster, breaking into a smile as he caught sight of her.

  In the high back seat, Kitty was clambering to stand upright on the cushions beside Vincent, her tail tracing a wide, cheerful loop in the air.

  “Great,” Katherine grumbled, hurrying to catch up. “I suppose I’ll have to sit in the back with Sir Surly so you can be next to Jack.”

  “Keep the dog between you. She’ll be better company.”

  * * *

  They followed the coast for miles, with the engine of the shiny yellow Atlas a grinding, uneven roar in Madeleine’s ears as Jack shifted gears and slowed, shifted gears and sped up. Conversation without shouting was impossible. She kept one hand locked around the strap on the door and the other on her hat, watching the shoreline, the surf, the colonel. A distant haze blurred the horizon where the ocean kissed the sky, but closer in, both shone vivid blue. The air rushed by fresh and warm, almost tropical.

  Every now and then, Kitty would poke her head over the front seat, eyes wide and tongue lolling, and Jack would reach over and rub her ears without taking his gaze from the road.

  As far as Madel
eine could tell, they’d left the man with the cigarillo behind; no one raced after them. They passed two plodding buggies and an elderly woman driving a one-horse shay, but that was all.

  He took them to a cove she didn’t know and never would have guessed existed, its entrance half-hidden from the roadway behind a thicket of pine and wild sarsaparilla. A handful of chickadees scattered up to the topmost branches as they rumbled past, and a single brown hare leapt daringly right in front of them across the gravel, clearing the wheels by inches.

  Madeleine watched it melt safely into the shadows of the woods, a fleet, secret life, there and gone.

  The road narrowed, narrowed, until eventually it was little more than a footpath, choked with hobblebush and wintergreen and slabs of rock.

  They left the Atlas parked off the side of the path—in case anyone else came by, although the odds seemed slim—and the colonel carried the heavy wicker hamper of food with both hands, leading the way to the sea. His son, just behind him, carried the blankets.

  Kitty raced ahead, doubled back, raced ahead again.

  Madeleine and Katherine, in their elegant layered skirts and modish heels, moved at a more moderate pace. As the trail grew rapidly more rocky and vertical, they picked their way along; the sound of lapping water made a low, lovely counterpoint to the crunch of stone underfoot and the birds gossiping above them.

  The path curved, the trees opened, and all at once they were at the shore: a secluded wedge of sand framed by rugged pale rocks, glassy ripples of salt water rolling up along the slope of the beach to dissolve in sparkles and foam. More rocks broke the surface of the water farther out, sun-bleached and jagged, a giant strand of shark’s teeth protecting the cove, shattering the strongest of the waves.

  Vincent began to unfold the woolen blankets. Kitty plunged into the water, prancing. She came out, threw herself at the colonel, shook the wet from her coat, then bounced back into the sea.

  Katherine stood with her arms crossed while Madeleine laughed, and John Jacob Astor IV merely brushed the damp sand from his waistcoat before bending down to unpack the hamper.

  * * *

  As predicted, there were sandwiches: shaved ham and cheddar between thick slices of buttered bread, garden pickles on the side. There were also clusters of red grapes and green; cold chicken salad and smoked salmon on wafers. No cream puffs, but an assortment of blackberry tartlets, their crusts golden and crumbly. The hamper also produced two corked jugs of lemonade, still nicely cooled, and one of a very pale ale, which only Vincent drank.

  They sat on the blankets and dined on Limoges porcelain so translucent Madeleine could see the shadows of her fingers through it. Kitty had given up her play in the surf to collapse between Madeleine and the colonel, half on the sand and half off, panting and eyeing the tartlets with interest.

  “Watch out,” advised Jack. He’d shucked off his jacket and now sat with his legs straight out, ankles crossed, leaning back on his hands with his face tipped to the sun. He’d loosened his tie, as well; with his sleeves rolled up and his collar undone, he might have been any country gentleman relaxing beside her, his mouth smiling, the sea light complimenting his tanned face and neck, that tantalizing glimpse of the base of his throat between the open wings of his collar. His hair was mussed from the wind and his driving cap, but she liked that about him right now, that informality that made him more human than myth. It suited him here on this small hidden beach, this fine intimate day.

  He might have been any ordinary gentleman regarding her from beneath those gilded lashes, but he wasn’t.

  He definitely wasn’t.

  Jack tipped his head toward the dog. “Kitty has a sweet tooth, and I regret to say she’s a shameless thief.”

  Madeleine moved the tin of tartlets farther from the Airedale. “It seems unfair that we get all the delicious things to eat, while she has none.”

  Vincent, who had hardly touched any of the food, gave a derisive grunt, then scowled at Madeleine’s glance.

  “It’s only a dog. It can go hungry for a few hours.”

  “But why should she?” Madeleine asked. “When we have so much extra?”

  He smiled, dismissive. Like his father’s, his shirt was wrinkled, and his hair was unkempt, but unlike Jack, it didn’t suit Vincent. He looked hot and uncomfortable, the pomade he wore giving off a heavy, tarry scent.

  “It’s not even your dog,” he said, not looking at her. “I don’t know why you think you should care.”

  Jack warned, soft, “Vincent.”

  His son stared out at the sea.

  Madeleine glanced at Jack, then down at the tin. “I was only thinking—one tartlet. But I don’t want to presume—”

  “You’re not,” Jack said, sitting all the way up. “But we can do better for her than that. Cook boiled her some chicken; I forgot about it. It’s at the bottom of the basket. I should have served her first, I suppose.”

  “It’s not starving.” Vincent turned back to him suddenly, dark-haired, dark-eyed, ferocious; the waves danced into bright confetti behind him. “You coddle it. You spoil it. It eats all the time.”

  “And now,” said the colonel, “she is going to eat chicken.”

  Into the silence that followed, Katherine said tranquilly, “I’ve always thought the best way to get the measure of a man is to observe how he treats his animals.”

  Jack found the tin, unwrapped the waxed paper, and emptied the diced chicken onto his own plate before setting it down in the sand before the dog. Kitty scrambled to her feet. Beads of water dotted her fur, dribbled down to the ground as her tail went around and around. The chicken vanished in seconds.

  Very deliberately, Jack leaned across the blanket to take the lone tartlet—one bite gone—from his son’s plate. Just as deliberately, he presented it to the dog, who stretched out her neck and swallowed it in a gulp.

  Vincent stood, his color rising, slapping at his trousers. “The jam was too sour, anyway.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away from them, climbing back up the trail.

  They watched him go, all of them, until he disappeared behind the spiky green branches of the pines. A fresh batch of teeny birds scattered skyward as he passed. The rolled glass waves behind them stretched and sighed and retreated.

  The colonel studied his lemonade, lifted the tumbler, and gave it a slow swirl in his hand. There was a hardness to his jaw that wasn’t there before, an edge of temper. He raised the tumbler to his lips.

  “I believe,” said Katherine, also rising, “that I glimpsed a tide-pool over yonder, past that knot of chokecherries. I so enjoy tidepools. Nature, starfish, and all that. Please excuse me.”

  “I apologize,” Jack said, as soon as Katherine was out of earshot. He set the tumbler aside but did not look away from it, running a finger along the rim.

  Madeleine waved away a hovering fly. “No need to apologize. It’s such a beautiful day, isn’t it? Maybe he didn’t want to have to spend the afternoon being our chaperone. Who could blame him?”

  “I’m usually more careful with him. He’s had a difficult time.”

  “Has he?” she said, thinking about wealth and privilege and physical beauty, and about how Jack Astor’s son seemed to swim in all those things.

  Jack reached for his jacket, shook it out, refolded it carefully before laying it flat against the blanket once more. “He’s so much like his mother. Clever. Impetuous. Quick to temper and slow to forgive.” He drew a long breath, at last meeting her eyes. “The divorce last year was punishing for him. For all of us. Ava was so unhappy, you see, and that just . . . bled through us. All four of us.”

  He paused. She nearly murmured something banal and appropriate, I’m sorry, or how awful, but the light was brilliant and the ocean was sparkling and the way he was looking at her, both troubled and distracted at once, lost in those bad days, lost in the immutable fact of divorce, stilled her voice. So instead she leaned toward him, silent, laying her hand atop his. His expression didn’t
change, but he turned his palm over to lace his fingers through hers.

  They were holding hands. They were holding hands, and he didn’t even seem to notice, but oh, she did. His warm skin against hers. His long fingers, the slight, bony pressure of them tucked between her own. For a delirious moment, palm to palm felt even more intimate than a kiss. She hardly dared breathe; she felt swooping, silly, and had to force herself back into the moment, to listen to him still speaking, still telling his story, his voice so low and melodious beneath the shuss, shuss of the sea.

  “Alice—my daughter—is only eight. She lives with her mother now, and that was the right decision, I think. Ava wanted her, and Alice wanted to go, so . . . But Vincent.” He sighed. “Vincent noticed all the unpleasantness that Alice was too little to understand. It changed him, I think. Made him . . . bilious. Resentful. He knew there were problems, and he knew he was powerless to fix them, any of them, so I fear he’s still just carrying them all bottled up inside of him.”

  “How painful for him.”

  “I would help him if I could. I’ve tried, I swear I have. But he’s eighteen, with a will of his own. He’s starting school soon, and I have hope that it might steady him, but the truth is he’s too old to coddle, and too young to set free.”

  “A separate soul, you might say.”

  “Indeed he is.”

  The fly returned to flit past him and land on one of the sandwiches. Jack uncoupled their fingers to shoo it off (she leaned back again, feigning serenity), then began to break the bread apart, meticulously dividing the meat from the cheese.

  Kitty, following his movements closely, gave a hard wuff! through her nose.

  “So Vincent is adrift,” Madeleine said. “I’m sure it’s only temporary.”

  His smile was slim. “Are you? I wish I shared your certainty. This distance with him, this unhappiness, seems to drag on and on. I cannot change our history, the divorce, everything that’s happened. I can only try—” He paused. “Try, I suppose, to be a better father to him.” His voice thinned. “And I have been trying, God knows. I have.”