The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

  A white-hot pressure spiked through her that felt very much like murderous rage. An animal rage, barbarous and untamed, and it felt feral and boiling and good.

  Her fists had raised, all on their own. Who knew what she would have done next, in those flowing, perilous few seconds with that pressman blocking her way; Madeleine had never struck anyone in her life but was certain, certain, that she could, that she should, and that it would feel even better than good if she did.

  The man’s eyes had widened.

  And then, thank heavens, she found herself ushered inside by the store’s burly security guard, who gave the reporter a sharp elbow to the side in the process, one she sincerely hoped broke some ribs.

  Don’t lose your temper, no matter how they goad you.

  And how they did like to goad.

  Father had had worse luck. On his morning walk (the opposite direction Madeleine and Katherine would take a quarter hour later; their lives had become maneuvers within maneuvers), he’d been trapped by a photographer, who ended up getting away with a snapshot of an exasperated William Force shaking his cane at the lens.

  Town Topics published the image with glee.

  * * *

  The Noma floated, lights dimmed, off the coast of Long Island amid gentle swells and a lavender-smudged dusk. Madeleine, her father, and Katherine had slipped aboard that afternoon as the ship remained moored off Eightieth Street; their luggage had been smuggled on first, and then them, and then Jack, and somehow, it had all worked out. By the time the reporters had gathered en masse at the water’s edge, the yacht was already beyond them, steaming rapidly out to sea.

  So far, not one of the papers had dared to charter a boat to follow them.

  So far.

  They would reach Beechwood by dawn. Mother and Vincent and a handful of guests would meet them there.

  The full moon hung behind the drifting clouds, round and pale, encircled with mother-of-pearl mist. The long, slender bow of the Noma sliced through the waves as easily as a sword might a soufflé; on this evening, the deck hardly rocked beneath Madeleine’s feet.

  In the water all around her crested night castles of foam, white-maned horses, sinuous mermaids with splashes of tails and wild flowing hair.

  It was cool out; it felt always cool to her on the ocean after dark, no matter the daytime weather. But the wind skimmed by with that first bite of fall to it, briny still, sometimes pungently fishy from a gust pushed from shore.

  The season had changed yet again, and this time, Madeleine was going to change with it.

  “Penny for them,” said Katherine, standing at her side on the foredeck, gazing out at the broken reflection of that great fat moon.

  “Only that everything is changing.”

  “True enough.” Katherine sent her a wise look. “By this time tomorrow, you’ll be a new woman. I do emphasize woman.”

  “Stop. You’re making me blush.”

  But she wasn’t blushing. When she thought of Jack, of whatever tomorrow would bring, she didn’t feel afraid, or ashamed, or bashful. She felt impatient. Her blood seemed turned to champagne, fizzing and euphoric.

  She cupped her hands around the edge of the railing and thought, What will this moon look like tomorrow night? Will it be different, because I will be?

  “How grown up you are now, little sister.”

  “Am I?” She smiled, dry. “Most of the time I don’t feel so. At least, not lately.”

  “More than I am, I think, because there isn’t a man alive who could drag me to the altar yet. From now on, I shall have to call you missus, and you’ll have to wear your hair in a curly pile on top of your head, along with pounds of pearls around your neck, and when young ladies walk by, you’ll cluck at them and think them saucy just for the sparkle in their eyes.”

  “Good gracious. I sound horrible.”

  Katherine snuck her arm through Madeleine’s. “But I’ll still love you, even though you’ll have become so unbearable. And you’ll let me borrow your pearls.”

  “What’s mine is yours.”

  “How reassuring.”

  They fell quiet again. From back inside the main saloon came the sound of the dinner service being cleared by the stewards, china clattering, the occasional silvery chime of crystal meeting crystal. The last, lingering fragrance of the asparagus hollandaise, the veal cordon bleu, wafting past the door.

  Katherine said, “Do you remember that Easter back when we were fourteen or fifteen, when we went to supper at the Mackays’, and there was that boy staying there, that handsome, handsome boy—”

  “Alasdair something,” Madeleine said, flashing on a set of bright green eyes, a golden mane of hair, a roguish smile.

  “Yes. Alasdair . . . something. A cousin come to visit all the way from Scotland, with that gorgeous accent.”

  Madeleine nodded at the water. “I remember.”

  “I never told you this before—I never told anyone—but he kissed me that night.”

  She turned. “What?”

  “He kissed me in the portrait gallery off the dining room, in the shadows, in the dark. And it was lovely. He kissed me more than once. And then he told me that he wanted to marry me—in retrospect, I’m sure he’d gotten into the Riesling—and for that, I let him kiss me a fifth time.”

  Madeleine’s mouth had dropped open. Katherine smiled, pushed the end of her finger against her sister’s chin to close it up again.

  “Do you know what I said to him, that boy with the soft red lips and the gorgeous accent, who tasted of sweet, forbidden wine?”

  “No.”

  “I told him that I would not marry him, because we were too young, and I didn’t want to fall in love with the idea of love. I wanted actual love, not a looking-glass reflection of it. Not stolen kisses, or sotted promises. I wanted the truth of love, the pure molten core of it, because anything short of that was just a cheat.”

  “My. I had no idea you were so sagacious at fifteen.”

  “Then he asked me how I knew this wasn’t the truth, real love, instant love, and I told him that we had only just met, but even still I knew it wasn’t because my skin didn’t melt from my bones at his touch, and my soul didn’t sting, and I didn’t have butterflies in my tummy, only the shredded ham and egg salad from supper. I let him kiss me one more time, and then I walked away.”

  “You slyboots! All this while!”

  “All this while,” Katherine agreed. “So tell me now, please, just between us, because I love you and you love me, and you’re the one person on earth I’ve entrusted with my confession of those delicious Easter kisses. Is it the truth for you two, Maddy? The truth, or the looking glass?”

  “Oh, the truth,” Madeleine said softly. “After how far we’ve come, how could it be anything but the truth? My soul does sting.”

  They looked at each other, frosted with light, alike and not, a matched pair and not, two halves of a whole as only sisters could be. Two halves about to follow two acutely divergent paths. And even though that hurt a bit, even though it smarted, it was still all right.

  “But that’s a shame about Alasdair.” Madeleine sighed, facing away again. “I seem to recall he was quite rich.”

  “Stinking rich,” Katherine said, laughing. “But I never would have been able to stand the Scottish winters, even if his touch did make me melt.”

  “It’s a lot of snow.”

  “A lot of snow, and a lot of days and nights trapped by the snow. No parties or balls. No dancing with anyone but him.”

  “Did I say sagacious before? I definitely meant wily.”

  “I will accept your compliment, missus.”

  Madeleine linked their arms again, leaning against her sister’s side as the wind brushed by, and the fish smell came and went, and the Noma sliced towards the future.

  After a while, she whispered, “I wish I were as brave as you.”

  Katherine was leaning back; they’d found their careful balance. “Isn’t that queer? I’ve always
wished to be as strong as you.”

  The ocean slid past. The moon beamed down, scattered white fireflies across the water.

  “Perhaps I’ll become a mermaid instead of all that other nonsense,” Madeleine said to the view. “Being a missus, I mean. Having to cluck.”

  Katherine glanced at her.

  “Mermaids still get to wear pearls, so that part’s fine. And they live forever, or very nearly forever, don’t they? Enchanted lives that go on and on. No curly piles of hair, however. I’ll wear it down, with a crown of sea flowers.”

  “Do mermaids have husbands?” asked a new voice, just behind them.

  They both turned, Katherine giving a swift, startled laugh.

  “Colonel Astor! You’re not supposed to see the bride before the wedding! It’s terrible luck, you know!”

  “I just saw her at dinner.” He joined them at the railing. “And you’ve put me in the awkward position of having to point out that the yacht’s not that big.”

  Madeleine smiled up at him, his craggy lavender-and-silver face, and he smiled back. Heat filled her up again, that fine, champagne heat, and her soul did sting.

  Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies.

  No one is going to have to drag me to the altar.

  Her sister hugged her arms over her chest. “Yes, well . . . but there has to be some sort of a bridal time limit. No seeing her after coffee and dessert, I’d say.”

  “After our goodnights,” he countered.

  “Yes,” agreed Madeleine. “Not till then, at least.”

  Katherine paused to take them both in, wise once more. “Hmm. I find I suddenly miss my coat. But I will return soon.”

  Her footsteps faded off.

  Madeleine lifted a hand to the lapel of Jack’s jacket, running her fingers down the sharp woolen crease. He brought up his to capture her palm against his chest and they stood there like that, connected, gazing into each other’s eyes. His were pale as the moon now, just the same soft silver. His heart beat so strong against her.

  “How happy you make me,” he said, unexpected.

  She curled her fingers tighter around his. “Good. Because I’ve decided that mermaids definitely have husbands. At least, this one will. So become accustomed to happiness, Colonel Astor.”

  “I will,” he said, sounding almost bemused. “I plan to. I will.”

  * * *

  They held hands during the ceremony.

  She wore a suit of kingfisher blue with a pencil skirt and a cream hat. Her bouquet was a sweet-smelling mass of deeply scarlet roses.

  Katherine stood to her left as maid of honor; Vincent served as best man. Her father had walked her down their makeshift aisle, a long, snowy runner laid across the shining floor, vases and vases of American Beauties stationed between the poles lining either side.

  A part of her knew that it was cold in the ballroom. That her nose was cold, her cheeks were cold. That the storm brewing beyond the windows, gray and thick and spliced with lightning, might prove to be more than just a little rain. That outside of this chamber, outside of this mansion, waited a phalanx of reporters and photographers, eager for their scraps of fresh news.

  But that was all fine. She let the tranquil tones of the pastor wash over her and barely heard what he was saying, and it was all fine.

  “Colonel and Mrs. Astor,” the pastor said, and Mother and Father and everyone else broke into applause, muffled because they all wore gloves.

  Jack turned her to him and bent his head and kissed her, his hands light against her upper arms. Their third kiss.

  A change of seasons, indeed.

  All of her seasons, from now on, were going to be nothing but splendid.

  She knew it in her mermaid soul.

  CHAPTER 14

  Off we sailed.

  For months we sailed, up and down the coast, the Noma our own sweet personal paradise.

  But every time we went ashore—and we did need to go ashore at times; the yacht ran on coal, not dreams, and frankly, sometimes my joints longed for dry land—they were waiting for us. The journalists. The tourists. The gawkers.

  The Four Hundred, those avid and disgruntled beings.

  Our marriage had not sated them, not a one. The press wanted more and more of us because the public did, and at least that was something I understood. Our names and faces sold their papers; our names and faces paid their salaries; and by devouring even the most mundane details about us, people around the country could imagine themselves, if only for a few moments, living our lives instead of their own.

  But the fashionables! The Newport cottagers, the old Rhinebeck families, with their gnarled ancestral roots sunk deep into a fading Dutch–American history . . . they simultaneously craved us and despised us.

  I suppose that, to them, Jack and I represented the elimination of that last crumbling battlement shielding the Old Guard from the New. The thought of our unholy union must have been both fascinating and horrifying.

  Oh, my Jakey. My poor, beloved boy, who will have to navigate both of these worlds without your father’s guidance.

  How I fear for you.

  In the end, we humans are creatures of marl and earth. We must return to our own soil.

  December 1911

  Manhattan

  Colonel and the second Mrs. Astor spent their days aboard the Noma lazing in the sun or beneath the skating clouds, dazed and suspended between the heavens and the vast heaving ocean. They spent their nights entangled, alone together, learning new ways to dance. Learning the language of each other, rhythm and flesh and scents and kisses, and Madeleine was intoxicated.

  They never said the words to each other. They never said I love you, because everything was still so wild and tender and new, and their souls were still understanding how to fit together. Or perhaps they never said it because they never had to. It was a silence understood by both of them, dark and secret and precious. Their connection, their union, was nothing ordinary, configured from the ordinary world.

  But Madeleine was a bride; she knew what love was. She knew as sure as she knew her own body, her own mind, its measureless, electric thrill. In their sleep, they still touched, her hand on his arm, his arm around her waist.

  He draped her in jewels, even as they basked in their splendid, salty isolation. More ropes of pearls, emerald chains for her hair and neck, sapphire drops for her ears. Belts of hammered silver studded with turquoise or malachite. Gold bangles chased with dragons, with flowers, or shaped as buckles or ruby-eyed snakes. At night, sometimes she dined with a ring on every finger, so that when she sipped her soup or sliced her fish, sparks would scatter in every direction, and in the softly lit saloon of the Noma, she became a minor star.

  Because he liked to see her sparkling, he said.

  He loved to see her glimmer.

  Eventually, however, their constant movement across water began to wear on her, their shifting from place to place like swallows who could never alight home. Madeleine found, after weeks of her glittering life aboard the yacht, that she missed land. She missed riding horses, going to plays, to concerts. She even missed the rattling tumult of the city, automobile horns honking, the stink, the muck. Vendors in the parks calling out about balloons or hot chestnuts or scoops of fruity ice cream.

  What she truly missed, she supposed, considering it, was the stability of solid ground. Which was odd, because she was positive she’d never even noticed before now how mindlessly reassuring it was to have a steady world beneath her feet.

  But with that stability came a cost—their treasured privacy. Their cherished honeymoon bubble, annihilated the moment they set foot ashore.

  The summer season was over, so they might have been safe (safer) holed up in Beechwood or Ferncliff for Christmas, as only the locals tended to confront the merciless winters. But Jack Astor was a businessman. Although his many, many interests were competently managed by a series of clever men, he was not content to abandon his affairs for too long. He needed to go into th
e city.

  “Just for the holidays,” he’d assured her. “Then we’re off again, out into the yonder.”

  And because she was a little tired, and more than a little in love, she agreed.

  * * *

  Breakfast was a ritual at the Fifth Avenue chateau, far more so than it had been aboard the Noma or even back at Beechwood. At sea, with a stoical New England chef installed in the yacht’s galley, they had dined at their leisure, which was whenever the newlywed couple bothered to peel themselves from the bed and crack apart the curtains to find the sun in the sky. At sea there were johnnycakes and jam and syrup, fried bacon and eggs, strong hot tea, strong hot coffee, sausage and oatmeal and fishcakes (a particular favorite of Jack’s which Madeleine never touched, because it was fish, for breakfast).

  Should the sun be dancing far enough above the horizon by the time they bothered to squint at it, they skipped the bacon and oatmeal entirely and moved straight to luncheon, when it was perfectly all right to have fish—so fresh it had been swimming in the blue only hours before—lightly grilled or sautéed or in sauce, or curried chicken from the stores, or plump scallops, or roast beef. At sea, they made their own timetable and followed their own rules.

  But, the chateau.

  On her first morning there as the new Mrs. Astor, Madeleine awoke alone, enrobed in a pale shaft of sunlight, her cheeks chilled, her nightgown twisted, and she sat up and glanced around her, bewildered. The chamber was entirely unfamiliar—gigantic and unfamiliar—with the paisley-patterned curtains along the windows pulled back, and that colorless winter light flooding in, falling, absorbed by the Turkish medallion rug on the floor, the sapphire walls that seemed to stretch for miles above her head. There was a fire sputtering in the hearth across the room, but from here it seemed feeble and underfed; no heat reached her past that black walnut mantel.

  This was one of Jack’s homes, obviously. This was—this was her home now. They had arrived so late the night before, she’d hardly registered any of the chambers or corridors she’d been wondering about for months, all the private, family-only spaces beyond the great hall and reception rooms and salons. She’d been conducted to this bedroom, had undressed and fallen into an exhausted stupor nearly at once in her husband’s arms, but there was no sign of him now, no hint of any other human being anywhere nearby, save for the fact that someone must have crept in earlier to lay that fire.