The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

  “Dad.” She bent down to kiss him, then dropped into the armchair that had been placed beside the bed.

  “How it does me good to see you again. What time is it? You must be so fatigued.”

  “I’m all—yes, I am,” she admitted.

  He held her hand, his gaze roaming her face. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t get rid of the pressmen outside, not even with bribery.”

  “They’re relentless, I know. There were some aboard the Carpathia, too. And back on the pier—well. It’s good you didn’t go and try to wade through it all.”

  Her father shook his head. “It is my duty to protect you.” His forehead furrowed; his fingers tightened over hers. His eyes took on a sheen. “I should have protected you.”

  “You have, Daddy. You have protected me.”

  “No. I failed you in this. The ship, the—those vultures outside. I should have . . .”

  “I have been protected by you my entire life,” she said quietly. “You, and then Jack. I’ve been the most fortunate girl in the world my entire life.”

  He exhaled. His hand trembled. She leaned down to rest her cheek against it, lightly, so that she wouldn’t hurt his joints.

  “Even now,” she whispered. “Even now.”

  * * *

  She had expected to find the chateau empty and spectral, shrouded in shadows; in the corners of her mind, that was how it always lingered, day or night. But as the limousine pulled up to the porte cochère, she saw rows and rows of windows glowing past their scrolled iron grilles, as if there were one of Lina Astor’s famous balls taking place inside, throwing yellow brightness out into the rain and along the throngs of men crammed along the sidewalks.

  “Here we go,” Katherine said. “Don’t try to rush through them. Go only as fast as you can bear.”

  “I can bear rather a lot,” Madeleine said, but as she got out, she kept her gaze level and her pace sedate. Just like before, she didn’t look at the reporters or answer any questions. Vincent led the way, and Katherine remained beside her. Footmen rushed down the steps but then only stood by, making certain everyone else remained back.

  The lights flashed.

  * * *

  A decade later, she would come across a newspaper clipping with an image of the three of them pegged frozen as they walked in, skirts clutched in fists, feet lifted. The caption beneath it read, THE LAST OF THE HOUSE OF ASTOR?

  She would think, holding that clipping between her fingers, How young we all look, none of us older than twenty. How young and audacious and afraid.

  * * *

  The stony chill of the mansion swept over her; Madeleine felt it keenly through her tired cardigan and dress. Everything echoed, everything was loud and soft at once, reverberating.

  In the bronze-and-glass excess of the atrium, a man in evening wear approached, inclining his head. For a second, she could only stare at him blankly.

  The butler, she remembered. But she could not, for the life of her, summon up his name.

  “May I say, Mrs. Astor, on behalf of the entire staff, how good it is to see you again.”

  “Thank you. How kind.”

  “Doctor Kimball is waiting for you in the southeast salon.”

  She blinked. “Who?”

  “Kimball,” said Vincent, handing off his coat. “The physician. You saw him down at the pier.”

  “I don’t think I need—”

  “Just go talk to him,” Vincent interrupted. “So Dobbyn can go out and give a statement to the press saying you’re fine, you’re in impeccable health, strong as an ox. Then maybe they’ll all go the hell away.”

  Before she could reply, he was gone, vanished through one of the high stone archways that led into the mansion’s interior.

  She looked at Katherine, then helplessly back at the butler.

  “This way, madam,” he offered, and both she and Katherine moved to follow him, their footsteps softly sounding.

  At the entrance to the salon, Madeleine turned back to her sister.

  “My mind’s all muzzy. I completely forgot about Miss Endres. She’s never been here before and I just left her stranded by the stairs. If you wouldn’t mind, could you see about getting a room prepared for her? She’ll need clothing, toiletries—oh, you’ll have to ask her exactly what. And would you make certain Rosalie is all right?”

  Katherine smiled, quick and confident, a resurrection of her old self. “I will.”

  The southeast salon had a fire blazing in the green marble hearth; the man seated in the causeuse beside it rose to his feet as she came in. He was white-bearded and pot-bellied, eyeing her warily, as if she might either tip into hysteria or else dissolve into tears, and he had braced himself to be ready for either or both.

  But all Madeleine felt was a great empty nothing. Not hysterical. Not tearful. After this long, long day, in this cold and ornate home that was her own, all she felt was a sort of droning emptiness.

  And it was a relief.

  “Mrs. Astor,” he said, lifting his hand to her. Instead of shaking hers, he guided her down to the gilded love seat. “We met briefly last summer. I don’t know if you’ll recall it, aboard the Noma. It was a fine, sunny day along the shoals, late June or early July, I believe—”

  “Doctor Kimball, I don’t mean to be impolite, but I’m honestly worn through. I’ve been under the care of the Carpathia’s surgeon and my own nurse for days now, so I think I’ll be fine for the night. All I really desire in the next hour or so is a hot bath and my bed. Vincent mentioned we need to say something to the reporters outside, to tell them that I’m well enough so they’ll leave. So, if you could just . . . ask me what you need to ask me? For the statement?”

  The doctor nodded but did not move away. Nor did he ask her anything. He only looked down at her with an interested frown.

  She sagged back against the love seat.

  He said, “Have you had any headaches, or dizziness?”

  “No.”

  “Any sensation of numbness in your limbs?”

  “No.”

  “Any shortness of breath?”

  “Only when I was rowing.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She said wearily, “I had to row the lifeboat sometimes. All of us took turns. But I was better at it than most of the other women, so I rowed more. That was the last time I was out of breath.”

  “Good heavens,” he said.

  She was getting a neckache looking up at him. Madeleine propped her elbow on the arm of the causeuse and rested her chin upon her hand. This salon was one of the rooms Lina had shrouded in tapestries, towering and priceless, and she let her focus gravitate to the closest one. Cyrus and Croesus, surrounded by grapes and peacocks and courtiers. The cloth lifted and fell in its slow mockery of breath.

  The doctor was saying, “Please understand that your health is delicate, no matter how resilient you may feel at the moment. It is not uncommon for women in your condition to experience delayed symptoms of one kind or another after a trauma.”

  Might I board the boat in order to protect my wife? She is in a delicate condition . . .

  Exhaustion began to creep through her, a leaden weight in her bones.

  The doctor tugged at his beard. “Forgive my bluntness, but I must inquire about the child. Have you suffered any cramping?”

  “No.”

  “Any pain or bleeding?”

  “No.”

  He regarded her with a considering gaze, as if he didn’t quite believe her, but only said, “I’m gladdened to hear it,” when it became clear that she would not add anything else. “I will leave you to the comforts of your family and call again tomorrow, if that is agreeable. Do not run the water too hot for your bath.”

  “I understand.” Madeleine made to rise.

  “One more thing, please.”

  She sat down again, stifling a groan. He stood with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him. Just over his shoulder, one of the gold-lacquered lion heads topping a
pilaster winked at her in the dancing light.

  “I would request that, at this time, you do not share any of the more—distressing details of your recent experience with Mr. Vincent Astor. Nothing beyond the most basic of facts, and even then only if he asks.”

  Madeleine tore her gaze from the lion. The doctor was frowning again.

  “His mind is in the throes of what I would call extreme nervous agitation. He has spent the last few days in a near manic state, ever since the news of the sinking reached us. He is, from what I understand, quite close to his father.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Jack was his anchor.”

  Just as he was mine.

  * * *

  Her private bath was of sculpted marble, much like the bathing pool back in Cairo had been, oval and deep and (as she knew well) large enough for two. The wall next to it was marble, as well, with a large seashell carved into it, a nude putto and two curved dolphins forming the faucet and handles. All but one of the walls in this room were paneled in marble, in fact: pearl-white, webbed through with silver and gold. They and the bath and the floor gleamed in the darkened chamber—she’d wanted only candlelight, not the electric—the metallic veins dimly sparkling as she moved, and everything was as serene and calm as the inner sanctum of a church.

  But the water was tepid. The doctor must have had a word with Lillian, her second maid, and the girl had not dared to draw it any warmer.

  Madeleine wanted her bath hot. She wanted it hot enough to sting her skin (her soul), to make her feel every inch of herself. She wanted the realness of that, the pleasure of the painful warmth soaking into her, wiping away the chill of every hour she had lived since Titanic had gone down.

  She could have turned the tap herself, but instead she only sat there, floated there, and watched the play of light along the walls.

  This water did not sting. It did not relax her. It only surrounded her, a cowardly temperature, a neutral solution that allowed her arms and legs to float.

  The wall framing the door to the boudoir was papered in oyster damask. A large painting of Bacchus dangling a cluster of grapes over his mouth hung above the door, the exquisite labor of some Pre-Raphaelite master.

  The god’s eyes met hers, sidelong. He wore a crown of leaves in his hair and had his head slanted back, laughing.

  Madeleine slid down beneath the surface of the water.

  She allowed her arms and legs to stay floating. She kept her eyes open and held her breath as long as she could, her hair drifting like seaweed all around.

  She imagined it was the ocean rocking her. She imagined the water icy cold instead of temperate.

  Only when her lungs were screaming for air did she come up again.

  CHAPTER 30

  I became, overnight, the sweetheart of the world.

  From gold-digging social climber, I was transformed into the tragic “girl widow,” a fecund symbol of all that had gone wrong with society today. Man’s hubris and vice had left me—and other, less recognizable widows than me—stranded upon the shores of . . . I don’t know. Islands of hubris and vice, I expect.

  I became the face of feminine heroism, doughty yet demure. The newspapers published story after story about me, usually quoting other survivors who claimed they saw me that night, or they saw Jack, or they saw us both, so terribly, romantically star-crossed. According to them, we were all over the ship in her final hours, even down in steerage, helping to comfort the distraught.

  They said that we aided others into the lifeboats but jauntily refused to go ourselves, no matter how much they (our dearest, most bosom friends!) implored us to do so.

  That Jack had jumped into my boat and then out again no less than four times to make room for more women.

  That I had helped furiously row away from the sinking ship, only to collapse daintily afterward.

  That, as I covered the men we’d saved from the ocean in woolen rugs, I’d howled out my husband’s name, she-wolf-like, into the unforgiving night.

  People were inventing all manner of stories about the sinking—because some of the papers would pay for them, you see—and if they dribbled the name “Astor” into any of their accounts, it was like the publisher had been guaranteed a return in gold.

  I became the dream of countless dreamers, women from all around who still—still—thought that my smashed life was perfect. That the marriage which had taken everyone so aback before had crystallized into the most wondrous, sorrowful fairy tale.

  I was young, I was wealthy, and I was famous. That was all they really knew, and that was all they needed to know. It was enough to sustain their fantasies.

  At long last, I had managed to gain the world’s admiration and respect, and all it took was the loss of my husband. The felling of my heart.

  Jack was right when he’d told me that his people would eventually come around.

  The taste of this success is like ashes on my tongue.

  * * *

  Those first few days, before they hooked his body from the sea . . . those were the worst, I think. Those were the days I surrendered to my heartache and hid away inside the mansion, mostly beneath my bedcovers. I would not answer anyone’s questions. I would not look anyone in the eyes. I lived in dread of the next time someone would walk into my bedchamber, because I was sure they’d lean down close and whisper some version of, Yes, he is really gone. Now you must tell us what actually happened.

  But I couldn’t stay silent forever. The gathering of newsmen beyond the chateau’s walls had only grown. They were at the doors at all hours, demanding an interview. They were insatiable, and I had to feed them.

  William Dobbyn begged me for a statement he could give them, however vague, however short.

  So I gave him one. I told him to tell the reporters that I didn’t remember much of it. I was on Titanic with my husband; I was in the lifeboat without him; I was aboard Carpathia alone. That was all.

  There was no force upon this earth that could make me offer up my actual memories.

  Not to them.

  April 23, 1912

  Manhattan

  The telephone call from the White Star office came early in the morning. The captain of the Mackay-Bennett, a cable ship hired by the company to recover the bodies, could confirm with certainty that they had found the remains of Colonel John Jacob Astor. The ship would spend a few more days at sea before steaming to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the dead could be collected from the curling rink in town.

  Dobbyn came to her with the news, along with Carrie, who stood woodenly behind him with lowered eyes.

  Madeleine sat up in her bed with her hands resting over her stomach. She didn’t really hear the words Jack’s secretary was saying; she knew what they would be, anyway, so she didn’t need to hear them.

  So sorry . . . dreadful news . . . what we surmised . . .

  She gazed down at the diamond on her hand, the gold band against it, then stretched out her arm and ran her palm across the undisturbed left side of the bed. The side where Jack slept—where he used to sleep.

  She looked up again. “Have you told Vincent yet?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Dobbyn. “I thought it best to inform you first.”

  “Thank you.” A sigh escaped her, soul deep. “I’ll tell him.”

  * * *

  She knocked against his door, softly at first, and then, when there was no answer, a little harder.

  “Come in,” Vincent called, his voice impatient.

  She opened it, stepped into the sunbeams that streamed through the windowpanes, brightening the furniture, the paintings and orange mandarin drapery to tropical brilliance. Vincent was seated at his writing desk, scribbling something with his head down and his shoulders hunched. He didn’t turn around to see who had entered.

  “Tell Wilton I want the roadster brought up, the Bearcat. I’m going to see a stoker in Queens who claims he saw him in the water after the ship went down.”

  “Vincent.”

  His back stiff
ened. His head lifted. He pivoted slowly in his chair to take her in.

  She wore black. She didn’t own a black morning dress, so it was a day dress, simple and severe.

  “You’re out of bed,” he said, toneless. “Finally.”

  “We’ve had news.”

  He shoved out of the chair. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I know.”

  He stared at her, so awkward and handsome, that savage light rekindled behind his eyes.

  “Perhaps you should sit down again,” she suggested.

  “No. I’m going out. I’m going to talk to a man who says he saw him—”

  Madeleine was shaking her head, her lips pressed tight.

  “—saw him alive in the water, next to a raft, a life raft that—”

  “Vincent—”

  “He is not dead, damn you! He’s out there somewhere! Hurt or lost or—”

  “He is aboard a funeral ship. They’re bringing his body back in a few days.”

  Vincent reached up to clutch at his hair with both hands before letting his arms fall loose again. He made a sound deep in his throat, not a word but that low, flat moan of despair that chilled her as nothing else could have: the wounded beast again, here on dry land.

  It stripped away the usual wall of reserve she maintained with him. She walked through the bars of light, reached for his hand, and he came back to life, recoiling away from her.

  “It could be a mistake!”

  She lowered her arm. “It could be, but I doubt it. They described him. They described what he was wearing, the suit and shoes and shirt. His gold watch and belt buckle. His wedding ring.”

  Outside the house, the April sky shone a celestial blue. Outside, she heard the motors of automobiles and omnibuses filled with people, regular people, going about their regular lives, their errands, as if nothing could ever shatter them. Not on such a pretty spring morning, the clouds pale and fluffed, the light bright as butter.

  A pigeon landed on the sill of the window, fanning its wings. It strutted for a moment, its head jerking, then dipped down into the air below.

  Vincent had not released her from his stare. His lips drew back; he began to shake his head.