Alva then moved Consuelo from Paris to London to participate in the London season of 1895. Here, she re-established contact with Minnie Paget who took the necessary steps. Consuelo was asked to a ball by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland and, knowing almost nobody, was grateful to anyone who requested her as a partner by marking her dance card. Perhaps Aunt Lansdowne had had a word, for the Duke of Marlborough claimed several dances. To Alva’s intense satisfaction, he followed this up by inviting them both, and Lady Paget, to spend a weekend at Blenheim Palace.
The party that travelled to Oxfordshire on 15 June was small, consisting of Alva, Consuelo, Minnie Paget, ‘three young men’ – including Lord Lansdowne’s heir – and the Duke’s two sisters, Lady Lilian and Lady Norah Spencer-Churchill. They all seemed ‘lost in so big a house’ wrote Consuelo, but she liked Lilian immediately, finding her unaffected and kind.95 Saturday evening was spent listening to the Duke’s organist, Mr Perkins, playing the organ in the Long Library, installed when his father the 8th Duke married ‘Duchess Lily’, a wealthy American widow to whom Blenheim also owed the installation of central heating and electric lighting.
The following day, Alva’s usual rules of chaperonage were conspicuous by their absence for no obstacle was placed in the way of the Duke showing Consuelo round part of the Blenheim estate. They drove together to pretty outlying villages where ‘old women and children curtsied and men touched their caps as we passed’.96 Although enchanted by the countryside, the feudalism on display made Consuelo feel uncomfortable, and in Alva’s absence she was quick to say so. ‘That Marlborough was ambitious I gathered from his talk; that he should be proud of his position and estates seemed but natural; but did he recognise his obligations? Steeped as I then was in questions of political economy – in the theories of the rights of man, in the speeches of Gladstone and John Bright – it was not strange that such reflections should occur to me.’97
According to Consuelo – and we only have her side of the story here – the Duke of Marlborough seemed to find these remarks amusing rather than tiresome, and made up his mind that very afternoon that he would set aside his feelings for an English girl with whom he was in love and marry Consuelo. It seems more likely, given his subsequent caution, that the Duke of Marlborough simply decided that marriage to Consuelo was a possibility that could reasonably be explored. Even if her notions were a trifle outlandish, she was intelligent and thoughtful; and the intervening year had given this young duke ample time to discover that both his sense of obligation to Blenheim and his political aspirations required substantial financial resource. As far as Alva was concerned, however, the weekend at Blenheim and his pleasant attentions to Consuelo made it easy for her to extend an invitation to her ball at Marble House in August. The Duke immediately accepted, giving out that he had never visited the United States, and would come to Newport as part of a longer tour.
This was a major coup for Alva. By late June, the society press were lying in wait in Newport to await her return. The World even sent detectives – an early form of paparazzi – to Newport to watch every move both Vanderbilts made and report back. Once again, there were multiple narrative lines. How would the Cornelius Vanderbilts, who would be opening their house The Breakers that August, react if they met Alva? How would society as a whole respond to the invitation to her ball? There was also the delicious extra twist of Oliver Belmont’s arrival and the news that he too would be giving a house-warming ball at his Newport house, Belcourt. ‘The housewarming of this new mansion will probably be one of the chief social events of the Newport season, and may, if reports be true, also be the opening gun in the Montague and Capulet warfare that is still a menace to the peace of the season and looms like a dark cloud on the horizon,’ reported Town Topics.98 It was all feverishly exciting.
When Alva finally arrived with Consuelo in Newport in July, she soon put Newport society out of its misery by unleashing a secret weapon in the diminutive form of the Duke of Marlborough. The attention paid by the Duke to Consuelo had been noted by Town Topics, but stories of an engagement were dismissed on the grounds that the divorced status of Mrs Vanderbilt would present an obstacle to such a match. Now, Alva let it be known that there was no obstacle whatsoever for the Duke of Marlborough had accepted an invitation to attend her ball and would be coming to stay with her in Newport for several days. Suddenly, the much anticipated drama ebbed away. Realising they had been wholly outflanked, the denizens of Newport reached for their pens and their blotting paper, thanked Mrs Vanderbilt for her kind invitation through gritted teeth, and told her they would have much pleasure in accepting.
Consuelo faced a much more serious problem. She felt that she was being ‘steered into a vortex’.99 She considered herself secretly engaged to Winthrop Rutherfurd, and after the weekend at Blenheim she was certain that she did not wish to marry ‘Sunny’ Marlborough. ‘Homeward bound, I dreamed of life in my own country with my Rosenkavalier. It would, I knew, entail a struggle, but I meant to force the issue with my mother.’100
Once they reached Newport, however, even making contact with Winthrop Rutherfurd became very difficult and with the Duke of Marlborough’s visit less than six weeks away, Consuelo became anxious and despondent. Marble House stood in a prominent but isolated position on Bellevue Avenue, where every move was scrutinised by the summer colony and by the press; assignations were impossible, and all her post was monitored. ‘On reaching Newport my life became that of a prisoner, with my mother and my governess as wardens. I was never out of their sight. Friends called but were told I was not at home. Locked behind those high walls – the porter had orders not to let me out unaccompanied – I had no chance of getting any word to my fiancé. Brought up to obey, I was helpless under my mother’s total domination.’101
Was this melodramatic? Probably not, for by now the stakes for Alva were very high. It was essential to the success of Alva’s manoeuvres that nothing should prevent the Duke from honouring her invitation. She had no intention of letting her daughter undermine such a careful campaign with a misjudged teenage crush, and she may have feared that an obstinate but desperate Consuelo would somehow arrange an elopement. (One fictional account of Alva’s life even has her turning this period into a test of Winthrop Rutherfurd’s strength of feeling, which is not implausible either.102) Quite apart from Rutherfurd’s intrinsic unsuitability, Alva would be the laughing stock of America and her chances of protecting her own position in the aftermath of divorce would be greatly diminished.
In spite of every difficulty being placed in their way, however, Consuelo and Winthrop Rutherfurd eventually met once more at a ball. They had one short dance before Consuelo was taken away by Alva, but he had time to tell Consuelo that his feelings had not changed. That evening, matters came to a head in the most famous mother-daughter row of the Gilded Age. Following an ominous silence on the drive home, Consuelo went to Alva’s bedroom and informed her mother that she felt that she had a right to choose her own husband, and that she intended to marry Winthrop Rutherfurd. ‘These words, the bravest I had ever uttered, brought down a frightful storm of protest. I suffered every searing reproach, heard every possible invective hurled at the man I loved. I was informed of his numerous flirtations, of his well-known love for a married woman, of his desire to marry an heiress.’103 Alva went on to declare that there was madness in the Rutherfurd family, and that he could never have children (this was certainly inaccurate). Consuelo, by her own account, stood her ground. Alva argued back that Consuelo was far too young to make the choice herself, and that her ‘decision to select a husband for me was founded on considerations I was too young and inexperienced to appreciate’104 – sentiments Alva would later repeat almost word for word herself to Sara Bard Field.105
Alva had prided herself in bringing up independent-minded children, but when her doll-child finally showed some signs of independence, mother and daughter collided with force. For the first time in her life, Consuelo stood her ground and argued back. ‘I sti
ll maintained my right to lead the life I wished. It was perhaps my unexpected resistance or the mere fact that no-one had ever stood up to her that made her say she would not hesitate to shoot a man whom she considered would ruin my life.’106 Shouting that she would shoot Winthrop Rutherfurd was characteristic of Alva at her most impulsive, and it would give anyone who knew her a moment’s pause for thought. When Consuelo’s cousin, Adele, indicated she might want to marry her old roué of an uncle, Creighton Webb, her mother Emily – a far kinder and more subtle character – simply replied that she would rather see Adele in her coffin first, and that that was the end of the matter.107
What followed went far beyond the firm but well-meant line taken with Adele by Aunt Emily. The next day, the house was ominously quiet, and no-one came to see Consuelo. She was told that her mother was ill and that the doctor was on his way. Even her calm and collected English governess seemed harassed. Eventually, her mother’s friend, Lucie Oelrichs, now Mrs William Jay, came to see her. Aunt Jay condemned Consuelo’s behaviour. She may have pointed out that what Consuelo wanted to do was potentially very damaging to Alva. Most seriously, Aunt Jay gave Consuelo to understand that her mother had had a heart attack ‘brought about by my callous indifference to her feelings. She confirmed my mother’s intentions of never consenting to my plans for marriage, and her resolve to shoot X should I decide to run away with him. I asked her if I could see my mother and whether in her opinion she would ever relent. I still remember the terrible answer, “Your mother will never relent and I warn you there will be a catastrophe if you persist. The doctor has said that another scene may easily bring on a heart attack and he will not be responsible for the result. You can ask the doctor yourself if you do not believe me!”.’
The precise details of this scene may have been embellished over time, but much of what Consuelo maintained took place is consistent with Alva’s later behaviour at other times and in different places. Alva’s crude attempt to translate the question of Consuelo’s marriage into one about her own health and happiness is typical behaviour of a highly controlling personality in a very anxious state. Unlike Aunt Emily, Alva was the first to claim that when crossed, her instinct was to head straight for a tremendous fight and an outright win. In this instance she was fighting three battles at once: to stop Consuelo from marrying Winthrop Rutherfurd; to prevent Consuelo from doing anything which might stall the Duke’s visit; and to protect her own social position. Consuelo’s determined reaction may have taken her by surprise. Perhaps her daughter’s unprecedented display of strength of character did indeed make Alva feel so powerless that she fell ill. Who can tell? Whatever the truth, being told that she would kill her mother if she persisted had the desired effect on Consuelo as Alva must have known it would. ‘In utter misery I asked Mrs Jay to let X know that I could not marry him.’108
The short period between this terrible row and the Duke’s arrival was marked by a time of intense introspection when Consuelo felt compelled to keep her feelings to herself. She wrote that friends who had been rebuffed no longer called; her brothers meanwhile were too young and too preoccupied with their own affairs. What is perhaps more shocking to the modern sensibility is that no adult intervened. This was because they either shared Alva’s view of Consuelo’s best interests, were too frightened of Alva to protest, or, like Mrs Jay, had a vested interest in the Duke’s arrival in Newport. Remembering the gossip of previous generations, Eileen Slocum remarks that no-one in the wider summer colony could believe that Consuelo would hold out against such an advantageous match for long. It soon became clear that Winthrop Rutherfurd would not be attempting a dramatic elopement. A kind interpretation is that he simply took Consuelo at her word and did not wish to force the issue; a less charitable view is that the prospect of a fight with Alva which might damage a wedding settlement caused him to back off sharply, and he seems to have spent the rest of the Newport season in the background, pottering about on the golf course.
William K. Vanderbilt, meanwhile, was even less help. Even though the Valiant was moored in Newport harbour (and was not ‘away at sea’ as Consuelo thought in her memoirs), he felt out of reach. Consuelo adored her father too much ever to describe him as a weak man but this is the inescapable conclusion: ‘his gentle nature hated strife,’ she wrote. Even while her parents had been married, the children knew it was pointless appealing to him in any struggle with their mother. ‘He played only a small part in our lives … he was always shunted or side-tracked from our occupations … with children’s clairvoyance we knew that she would prove adamant to any appeal our father made on our behalf and we never asked him to interfere.’109 The Commodore’s first biographer, who met him, thought William K. showed signs of a ‘morose disposition’, and a rare interview in later life does indeed suggest that however charming and gregarious, William K. also had a melancholic, passive streak. ‘My life was never destined to be quite happy,’ he told the journalist. ‘It was laid along lines which I could not foresee almost from earliest childhood. It has left me with nothing to hope for, with nothing definite to seek or strive for.’110 On this occasion, passivity may have led him to fail his daughter.
It is also possible that the idea of Consuelo becoming a duchess appealed to him. Here indeed was the apotheosis of the Vanderbilts; here at last was the final symbol of the family’s rise to the highest echelons of international society; and here was splendid protection from any untoward consequences of his divorce from her mother. In fairness, Consuelo later admitted that she had kept her feelings to herself, and that she knew there was little point in involving her father in a struggle which would ‘only involve him in a hopeless struggle against impossible odds and further stimulate my mother’s rancour’.111 The log of the Valiant during the Newport season of 1895 suggests that though William K. had no need to protect his social position as Alva did after her divorce, he was equally determined to consolidate it with an on-board entertaining schedule that culminated in a luncheon for the Duke of Marlborough, giving rise to a dark suspicion that he may even have colluded with Alva on this issue.
Meanwhile Town Topics reported that Oliver Belmont would also be entertaining the Duke when he arrived in Newport, and that he was planning his own splendid ball to take place shortly after the one being given by Alva. So many people had a vested interest in the success of the Duke’s visit that eighteen-year-old Consuelo must indeed have felt that the forces ranged against her were overpowering and that the whole situation was too difficult to fight. The only person to whom she confided her fears was her English governess, Miss Harper, of whom she was very fond. In Edith Wharton’s novel The Buccaneers, the governess sacrifices her own happiness to secure the happiness of her charge. Miss Harper chose a more pragmatic approach. ‘How wisely she spoke of the future awaiting me in her country, of the opportunities for usefulness and social service I would find there, of the happiness a life lived for others can bring. And in such gentle appeals to my better nature she slowly swung me from contemplation of a purely personal nature to a higher idealism.’112 It was just as well for the news soon arrived at Marble House that the Duke was on his way to New York aboard the Campania and would be in Newport in just a few days.
* In The Buccaneers Edith Wharton writes: ‘A good many hours of Mrs St George’s days were spent in mentally cataloguing and appraising the physical attributes of the young ladies in whose company her daughters trailed up and down the verandas … As regards hair and complexion, there could be no doubt; Virginia, all rose and pearl, with sheaves of full fair hair heaped above her low forehead, was as pure and luminous as an apple-blossom. But Lizzy’s waist was certainly at least an inch smaller (some said two),’ pp. 4–5, p. 6.
** They were: Maud Burke to Sir Bache Cunard; Mary Leiter to George Curzon; Josephine Chamberlain to the 1st Baron Scarisbrick; Lily Hammersley to Lord William Beresford; Elizabeth LaRoche to Sir Howland Roberts; Leonora Van Roberts to the 7th Earl of Tankerville; Pauline Whitney to Almeric Paget; Cora Rogers to Ba
ron Fairhaven of Lode; and Consuelo Vanderbilt to the 9th Duke of Marlborough.
4
The wedding
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH was not the star passenger as he left Liverpool on the Cunard steamer Campania on Saturday 16 August 1895. This slot was reserved for Keir Hardie, leader of Britain’s emerging Independent Labour Party who was on his way to the United States for a lecture tour, and who was seen out of the harbour by waving supporters in a tug boat, The Toiler, complete with bunting, a band, and fluttering socialist mottoes.
Keir Hardie noticed the ‘haughty aristocrat’ immediately he boarded the Campania but refused to be intimidated. ‘There are dukes and archbishops and bishops and State Senators on board; but the I.L.P. passengers were the only ones who could command a crowded tug boat by way of a farewell,’ he wrote in tones of satisfaction a week later.1 One of the ship’s waiters told Keir Hardie that the Duke of Marlborough had been most interested in his presence, though he did not attend any of Keir Hardie’s impromptu on-board talks about socialism, where Hardie drew on the relationship between the Campania’s cabin accommodation and the British class structure to illustrate his point.2
When they disembarked in New York on Friday 23 August, however, it was the Duke who was greeted by the New York press, in a manner for which he was wholly unprepared. He was followed to the Waldorf; he was observed eating breakfast at 10 o’clock; he was joined by Captain A. H. Lee, a fellow passenger on the Campania; he took a stroll down Fifth Avenue; and he was called on by Creighton Webb (the same old roué who had tried to marry Cousin Adele). He then travelled in a reserved seat in a parlour car on the 5 o’clock train to Newport on the following day, Saturday. ‘Look-outs from some of the great housetops on the Cliffs are already watching for his Grace’s arrival,’ said the New York Herald; ‘and should he come he may expect a charge such as his famous ancestor, John Churchill, never met.’3
Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt Page 14