The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

  When she awoke the next morning, her finger had swollen and she had to work to get the ring off, using cold water and lotion and soap. Even so, the red indent from the band remained crushed into her flesh, not fading until well after noon.

  CHAPTER 10

  COLONEL J. J. ASTOR SEEN ABOUT

  —Special to Town Topics

  July 30, 1911

  Newport, Ri.

  Colonel John Jacob Astor is busy this season at Beechwood. He has entertained frequently at his mother’s summer home, with the finest of society’s luminaries passing through his doors. But the young woman now most often in his company is still that fresh Force rose. She, along with, we fear, La Force Majeure, seem entirely unaware of their fine surroundings, so taken are they with the life of the beau monde. There is no better view, we’ve heard, than that to be had from the colonel’s own backyard, where he and the eager Miss Force were recently witnessed having a very intimate tête-à-tête.

  William Force telephoned the colonel the next morning.

  By then, Madeleine and her mother had already returned to their brownstone in New York, their planned visit to Newport concluded, so when the tabloid was published, the entire family, everyone, everyone, read it the same day it was being hawked by the scabby-kneed newsboys shouting from street corners.

  Madeleine read it last, probably, because Katherine had tried to hide it from her, then, red-faced, had offered the paper over with a snap of her arm, looking as steely as Madeleine had ever seen her. Mother was out paying calls; Lord knew what she was hearing.

  Angels and servants had witnessed the kiss, that deep and scandalous thing; they’d missed, however, the ring that had come just after it, the blinding white vindication decorating her left hand.

  Madeleine discovered her father in his study, staring at the Hughes watercolor of a black-haired shepherdess standing atop a knoll, one he’d acquired even before marrying her mother (who had since expanded the collection into far weightier pieces). It had always been one of his favorites, and without even trying to summon the memory from her childhood, Madeleine could still hear him explaining to her why: Acknowledge the lucidity of the air and the clouds. The play of shadows. The light behind her eyes. She is alive, isn’t she, Maddy? Right there on the paper, behind the glass. Caught in this singular moment forever by a great man, she lives on just for us. Isn’t that something?

  “Father.”

  “Madeleine.” He turned his head and looked at her, still distracted. “My girl. You realize I have to act now.”

  “Yes. I don’t think it will be a problem. For him, I mean.”

  “It had damn well better not be,” he said bluntly, abruptly focused, and Madeleine crossed to him, sank to his feet as she’d used to do as a little girl, relying upon his strength and kindness and strong arms. She rested her cheek against his knee. A sunbeam was tracing its way across the hardwood floor, the worn Venetian red rug, splashing light against the far wall.

  “Should I be there when you talk to him?”

  “No,” said Father. “This is a business I must manage alone.”

  * * *

  There is the matter of a young lady’s reputation, Father said into the telephone’s mouthpiece. There is the matter of offensive gossip. Innuendo.

  The household telephone was stationed prominently in the foyer, inside a small alcove (possibly meant for a bust) inset by the front door. The tiled floor and wainscoted corridor made it impossible to converse with any expectation of privacy. Every little sound carried.

  The device itself had been installed three years previous, so Katherine and Madeleine already knew from experience how easy it was to overhear at least half of a conversation. They hovered together in the drawing room a few steps away, just out of view, right behind the cracked door. They held hands as Father spoke.

  You understand, he said, that I will act in my daughter’s best interest. It is my unshakable obligation, one I must and shall fulfill. I will tell you quite frankly, sir, that I will no longer be put off. You have a daughter yourself. You must understand.

  A pause.

  Excellent. It’s good to hear you say so.

  Pause.

  No, I’ll do it. I’ll make the announcement from my office later today. It will be more appropriate, I think, coming from me, at my place of business. To lend it all a more . . . official air. The press will channel their attentions here, on all of us here as a family, rather than on any of your . . . other retreats.

  Pause.

  I shall tell them we have not yet decided the date. I’ll keep it as vague as possible, while still making matters clear.

  Pause.

  We are agreed. I will inform Madeleine. Goodbye, Colonel Astor. I trust I will see you soon.

  Pause.

  If you insist. Jack. Goodbye, sir. Goodbye.

  * * *

  It seemed the gates of hell had swung open and disgorged a mass of tweed-jacketed men at their front steps. Madeleine stopped counting at thirty—thirty! in just the two hours since the announcement!—and stood on the other side of the door, caught between amazement and dismay. The incessant knocking had at least died down, as Matthews had sternly instructed the crowd that Miss Force was not at home at the moment, nor was she likely to be any time soon.

  She felt flushed and hot and disconcerted. She looked at her mother, who looked back with an iron face and ordered the hall boy to stand guard at the top of the steps, a gangly child of no more than fourteen, perspiring and jittery and full of awe at his abruptly elevated position, instructing the rabble that they must respect the house; they must stay back.

  It didn’t deter them, though, those grown men out to hook this shiny fish of a story caught in their net. Neither did the sun, the lack of shade, the airless waves of heat shimmering off the pavements and buildings. August had arrived, gummy and funky with the rot of wilting garbage. It had been so long since Madeleine had spent a summer season anywhere but by the ocean. She’d forgotten how stifling the city could be.

  Mother, attempting to take command of the situation at her door, had already sent the hall boy a glass of iced tea and issued a brief statement from the safety of the entranceway: Yes, her youngest was engaged to Colonel Astor as of a few days past. Yes, the two of them had first met in Bar Harbor a year ago. And yes, the wedding was likely to be small, quiet, and for close family only.

  It wasn’t enough. A couple of the journalists peeled away to file their reports, but a great mass of them remained, sweltering and determined to speak to Madeleine herself.

  “I won’t,” she said now. “I don’t want to. I don’t know what more to say to them that you and Father haven’t already said.”

  Mother settled into the appliqué chair by the telephone, cooling herself with a Chinese fan. Matthews approached with more iced tea. She accepted it with an eloquent, languid hand. “Just let them see you. Give them a smile. Tell them how happy you are.”

  “No. My happiness is none of their business. I have nothing to say to them.”

  “Madeleine—”

  “They pick apart every little thing I do! If I smile at them, they call me insipid. If I don’t smile, they call me aloof. Remember that article in the Caller last month? They said I was brazen just for waltzing with Jack twice at the Olyphant ball.”

  “Twice in a row,” Katherine pointed out. “You harlot.”

  “Kat!” snapped Mother, then closed her eyes, holding the glass to her forehead. She sighed. “Dearest, try to remember what the colonel said. It’s a stratagem of give and take with the press, so you must be prepared to give them something. Anything. They’ll never decamp otherwise.”

  “I’ll wait for Jack. He’s coming by tonight, after all, and he can deal with them then. If I try to talk to them now, they’ll just muddle me, and for what? All they do is print lies about me, anyway.”

  She heard how churlish she sounded even as she said it but she didn’t care, because it was too hot, and everything smelled, and she w
as right. Her happiness belonged to her, to her and Jack, a sweet and fragile thing she wanted to nurture, to hold close, not turn into some cheap public display. Most frustrating of all, she didn’t have better words than the ugly ones she’d already said; she had nothing more sensible or mature or articulate to offer beyond, No, I won’t, I won’t, this fresh joy is all mine, and I won’t let them take it from me.

  Mother lowered her glass of tea, shifting to sit upright. “Madeleine Talmage Force, this is your job now. It is a job for a woman, not a petulant child, and I trust you will remember that. I thought you understood these terms. I thought the colonel himself had made them clear. No doubt he’d say the same to you were he standing here right now, and may I say I am very glad that he isn’t.”

  Madeleine dropped her eyes, shamed and angry, and angry about being ashamed. Her mother rose from the chair, lifted her daughter’s chin with the tip of the fan. She held her gaze a moment, searching, then gave a ghost of a smile.

  “You can do this,” she said, a gentle, forgiving tone: the tone of Madeleine’s youth, of her many mistakes, of her mother’s unshakable faith in her and the universe at large. “You know it, I know it, and certainly Colonel Astor knows it. Show those men out there that you are the lady of grace and poise they hope you will not prove to be.”

  Madeleine wet her dry lips, then nodded. She took the tea from her mother and sucked down a long, heavy swallow.

  “Choose just one to talk to,” suggested her sister, leaning against the cool plastered wall. “The tallest one, the handsomest one. The one closest to the urn of petunias. It doesn’t matter which, I expect.”

  The knocker sounded again, three brisk raps. Matthews, already standing by, waited for Mother to nod her head, then opened the door a fraction.

  “Ah,” he said, and the door swung wider; outside shone ragged crowns of trees against a milky bleached sky. “A delivery of flowers, madam. For Miss Madeleine.”

  He accepted the box in his arms, turning to place it on the chair before moving to close the door again.

  Madeleine spared the box a glance then stepped forward, lifting her hand—her left one, Jack’s ring flashing—to stop him. Matthews looked once more at Mother, then at Madeleine, then bowed his head and moved aside.

  Madeleine handed the tea back to her mother. She approached the doorway, the baking day. All the men below the steps, pink-faced and quiet, jostling closer at the sight of her.

  Cameras began to lift.

  One of the reporters broke apart from the others, climbing all the way up to the entranceway. Not the tallest, not the handsomest, but certainly the boldest.

  The hall boy eyed him edgily.

  “Miss Force, Chicago Tribune, how’d’you do. May I offer my congratulations on your engagement.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you care to make a statement?”

  “I . . . I am greatly happy.”

  “Would you show us the ring, please,” called out a man from the back. “May we see the engagement ring?”

  It felt odd to simply hold her hand out to them, but she did, and the camera shutters began to snap and snap, a host of clicking insects.

  “What did the colonel say when he gave it to you?” called out another fellow.

  “It was a rather private moment,” she said, but made herself smile.

  “When will the wedding take place?”

  “We have not decided yet. This fall, perhaps,” she improvised. “Or later.”

  “Where will it be?” asked the man in front of her, scribbling quickly across a notepad. Sweat ran down his face, collected in drops beneath his chin. “Manhattan? Newport? Rhinebeck-on-the-Hudson?”

  Madeleine laughed and shook her head. “I really don’t know. It’s all—honestly, it’s all happened so quickly.”

  “Are those flowers from Colonel Astor?” He was peering past her, his eyes scanning the entrance hall.

  Madeleine looked back at the box, long and white, precisely balanced across the kingwood arms of the chair. “I don’t know. I haven’t even opened it yet.”

  The reporter gave a scant smile. “It must be overwhelming. You’re seventeen, aren’t you, Miss Force?”

  “Eighteen,” she corrected him, her humor fading.

  “Eighteen,” he repeated, making a show of writing it down. “And tell me, do you feel confident stepping into the role the former Mrs. John Jacob Astor has left for you, as the leader of the society of Newport and New York?”

  “Um, I hadn’t really—”

  “Do you think you can make good on her social record?” cut in another man, who had come to stand beside the first, pushing back his hat. “As Mrs. Astor the second?”

  “I’m sure I will do my best,” she said stiffly.

  “So, in your opinion, divorcés should be allowed to wed again?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The Chicago man leaned closer, reeking of musk. “Isn’t it true that the terms of the colonel’s divorce stipulate that he cannot remarry during Mrs. Ava Astor’s lifetime?”

  “I don’t have any idea what—”

  “How does Colonel Astor plan to void that provision? Will he purchase a remedy to it somehow? With all his money, will he just buy his way out?”

  Madeleine drew back. “Excuse me. The heat. I must return inside.”

  * * *

  The front door was again shut. The reporters were (according to Katherine, stationed at the drawing room window) rapidly scurrying away.

  “Like cockroaches,” she called out cheerfully.

  Madeleine untied the grosgrain bow atop the flower box, allowing the ribbon to fall aside. She lifted off the lid.

  Inside were three dozen blood-red roses, American Beauties, long-stemmed and flawless.

  Jack’s card read:

  For my own beauty. Thank you for being mine,

  today and forever to come.

  CHAPTER 11

  A BUDDING SOCIAL QUEEN?

  —Special to Town Topics

  August 1, 1911

  Manhattan, Ny.

  Col. J. J. Astor’s fiancée, seventeen-year-old Miss Madeleine Force, is convinced she can reign over the cream of society as well as her illustrious predecessors, Mrs. John Jacob Astor the first and Mrs. William Backhouse Astor, esteemed mother of the colonel.

  Standing on the steps of her family’s modest brownstone and sporting a massive diamond engagement ring nearly too large for such a slender hand, Miss Force laughed away the thought that she might be too young, or too inexperienced, for the task. “I will do my best,” she said breezily, “and certainly that will be enough!”

  Miss Force also appeared untroubled by the suggestion that the colonel’s previous divorce might cast an unsavory stain upon her upcoming union. “Nonsense! What’s done is done, and all of that business is firmly in the past. I am greatly happy to be wedding the colonel now. We shall be married as soon as possible.”

  Miss Force has been described as a lithe horsewoman, an adequate pupil, and overall a handsome, jolly girl with an affinity for dancing and other sports. Fine qualities, certainly, for a future Queen of New York and Newport, but it is surely that rarefied society itself which will judge her fit or no.

  Letters and cards began to arrive daily at her home address, which had been published too many times to count. At first it was only a few warm, congratulatory notes from family and friends.

  In no time at all, however, it became a paper avalanche.

  Miss Force,

  Please excuse my presumption in writing you, as we have not met. I wish to congratulate you on your engagement to Colonel Astor. What gladdening news to read in these Troubled Times! Our Lord God has exalted you, among all women, with His Divine Favor. May your loins prove fertile, and may you have a long and satisfactory life together and be gifted with many sons. Best wishes.

  Dear Miss Force,

  My name is Ola Pounds, from Formoso, Kansas. I am writing to tell you what an inspiration you a
re to me and my bosom friends. We are all of us so happy that you are to marry Col. J. J. Astor. Would you please write me back, and thank you.

  Miss Madaline T. Force,

  Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials to Mr. John Jacob Astor the Fourth. Allow me the honor of introducing myself. I am the Rev. Scott V. Lurie, of the First Church of His Name in Reno, Nevada. A lady of your discriminating taste will no doubt be interested in our annual fundraiser . . .

  Dearest Miss Force,

  I am Winnie Yeats aged nine years of age and I wish to correspond with you because i admire you so. Please write me and tell me about you I wish to know every-thyng because you are pretty and my mother says you will be the wife of the President soon so that is important and i would like to be your friend.

  Maddy,

  How long has it been? I hope you can forgive my extended silence since our chummy days at Miss Spence’s School. How tragic we’ve fallen out of touch! But no doubt you are a very busy bee! I’ve just returned from the most tremendous tour, Algiers, Marseilles, Monte Carlo, with my new husband, Claud. You remember Claud, I trust? I believe the three of us did bump into each other once or twice after graduation. It’s the most terrific coincidence, but Claud also dabbles in hotels, just like your fiancé! Anyway, we would absolutely adore the chance to get together so we can tell you all about our trip. Do let me know when you and Colonel Astor might be free . . .

  CHAPTER 12

  Planning a wedding, even a simple one, takes time. Both your father and I were keen to proceed, but there were so many details to consider. Even with the masterly duo of Mr. Dobbyn and my mother helming the thing, matters seemed to be crawling along.

  The thorniest problem to resolve (and really, the only complication that truly irritated Jack) was the difficulty finding a rector willing to preside over our union. The divorce had been that tricky and not even two years done. Episcopalian nerves were soundly rattled.