As far as The New York Times was concerned, however, there was one other guest at the funeral – the story of her first marriage, retold for the benefit of its readers on Thursday 10 December.79 But it was Consuelo’s own decision to let the story follow her to her grave. In her will she stated that she wished to be interred at Bladon ‘next to my son Ivor’, amazing her English family who believed that they been left in no doubt as to her feelings about Edwardian England after she published The Glitter and the Gold. And so, in the last journey in a long international life, her coffin was taken from St Thomas Church and flown to England, where there was more astonishment when English customs officials insisted that her coffin should be opened and searched for drugs (or so it is said).
In its simple way, her interment in the churchyard of St Martin at Bladon was as stylish as everything else about her. Only a few people gathered in the chill, foggy morning to walk behind the coffin, ‘trailing white chrysanthemum petals that fell from it, as it was carried into the churchyard’. The 10th Duke of Marlborough followed behind with his children, the Marquess of Blandford, Lady Sarah Russell, Lady Caroline Waterhouse, and Lady Rosemary Muir. Clementine Churchill was accompanied by Randolph, Sarah and Mary, though Winston Churchill, who had just celebrated his ninetieth birthday, was unable to attend for he was no longer mobile. Two of Jacques’ nephews came from France. The flowers came from Blenheim, the wreaths made up by Tompkins, the head gardener. Estate workers and villagers who remembered her stood at a respectful distance. Some of them had been school children when she first arrived at Blenheim in April 1896 and remembered lining up on the platform at Woodstock station to wave and cheer. ‘She was very kind and amicable,’ said one old man watching from the lichgate.80
Because of Ivor, the decision to be buried in Bladon appeared simple, but it was also, perhaps, the result of Consuelo’s final discussion with herself about who she really was and what mattered most. Most of the alternatives for burial defined her too narrowly, or resulted in definition of her identity by others. She was not a French Roman Catholic. Her embrace of Roman Catholicism had been a matter of form and though under other circumstances she might have wished to be buried with Jacques, the Balsan family tomb in the Cimetière Montmartre in Paris held no appeal. She might have started life as a Vanderbilt, but she had spun a much wider web and there was little attraction in the idea of burial with her Vanderbilt cousins in the Vanderbilt Mausoleum on Staten Island. And there was no question, after fifty-six years of negotiating independence, of settling down beside Alva in the chapel she had designed as a monument to herself and Oliver in Woodlawn Cemetery.
‘My years in England, from eighteen to forty-one, were my longest period in one country. Those are the maturing years, and I still feel very English in many things,’81 Consuelo once said to an interviewer. At Bladon, she was a safe distance from the 9th Duke himself, interred at Blenheim in the family chapel she always thought vainglorious. At Bladon, she was buried just across from Ivor, close to him in death even if she had been parted from him in the final years of his life; and she would be near others she had also loved, close to Winston Churchill and later to Clementine. It was also an act of kindness for the decision to be buried in Oxfordshire can only have come as balm to those, especially the 10th Duke, who had been beneficiaries of her marriage into the Marlboroughs, but who hated to think of her unhappiness and who had been so sharply reminded by The Glitter and the Gold.
The wording on her tombstone told a story of its own. Alva, who had so often felt forced into the role of spectator in the theatre of life, designed a hugely public theatrical farewell and dreamt of a public monument. Consuelo, who had been pitched into a public life by her mother and been a great success, sought the opposite kind of coup de théâtre in which it was not the public life that was celebrated but the private. In the end, Sunny had a small victory. She chose to be commemorated as ‘a link in a chain’ in an English country churchyard. It was not the absent Duke she wished to reassure, however, but surviving members of her family, a signal to her own flesh and blood that the unhappiest but most creative period of her life had been worth it after all: ‘In loving memory of Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan’ read the tombstone, ‘Mother of the tenth Duke of Marlborough – born 2nd March 1877 – died 6th December 1964.’
Afterword
IN 1973, AFTER SHE LEFT VOGUE, Diana Vreeland took on a new role as special adviser to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1975 she organised an exhibition called ‘American Women of Style’. She defined the ingredients of ‘style’ in the catalogue in her usual Vreelandese: ‘The energy of imagination, deliberation, and invention, which fall into a natural rhythm totally one’s own, maintained by innate discipline and a keen sense of pleasure. All who have it share one thing – originality. This is not a dress show.’1
For an exhibition that was not a dress show it included a strikingly large number of frocks. They were associated with ten women: Consuelo, her cousin Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who had so objected to the way heiresses were watched in 1895, Mrs Charles Dana Gibson, Elsie de Wolf (Lady Mendl), Mrs John W. Garrett, Isadora Duncan, Rita de Acosta Lydig, Irene Castle, Millicent Rogers and Josephine Baker. Several of these women knew each other well. Some were connected by family ties, and nearly all of them were linked in one way or another by friendship and acquaintance.
Consuelo might not have cared for the way she was displayed by Diana Vreeland in this exhibition. It was, at best, an elusive suggestion of her personality and focused exclusively on one part of her life. Three shop window mannequins were used to display dresses merely ‘attributed’ to her. These were set against the background of the Boldini portrait that Consuelo gave to the Metropolitan Museum in 1946, and an enlarged photograph of Consuelo as the 9th Duchess of Marlborough in her coronation robes, an image about which she was always acutely sensitive. Insofar as the costumes belonged to Consuelo at all, they were preserved from her time as an English duchess, during the years she lived at Blenheim: an early-twentieth century evening dress of black net and lace over pale blue chiffon; a walking dress of navy wool with ivory lace from 1901; and an afternoon dress of pin-tucked ice blue silk, with bands of turquoise velvet accented with mink, from 1900. One of Diana Vreeland’s favourite aphorisms was: ‘Never worry about the facts, just project an image to the public.’2 The ‘American Woman of Style’ presented here was in fact an English duchess, with images from a time in Consuelo’s life when she often felt that she was, indeed, little more than a shop window mannequin.
‘What sells is hope,’3 Vreeland once said, echoing the sentiments of Munsey’s Magazine’s article about the Vanderbilts in 1901. She and Alva had much in common. They both embraced the power of imagery and a stylish public persona. Like Alva, Vreeland was drawn to a dream world of aristocracy that had roots in the French eighteenth century, imperial China, the belle époque and the style of the English country gentleman, themes of four of her costume exhibitions during the 1980s. Diana Vreeland borrowed images of Consuelo for her exhibition of the belle époque at the Costume Institute too, one of several exhibitions heavily criticised for exalting unbridled wealth and ostentation without reference to the social conditions that sustained it, and for appearing to celebrate – at least by association – the ‘Dynasty’ culture of the Reagan era, that bore so many similarities to the cruelties of the Gilded Age.4
It could be said, therefore, that many years after her death, Consuelo-the-duchess was co-opted once again by a strong-minded female visionary. It was even possible to stare at her by making one’s way to Fifth Avenue, as in 1895, though on this occasion she could only be examined through glass in the Metropolitan Museum. Even here, however, she was placed at the service of a world view with which she would profoundly have disagreed. ‘What do I think about the way most people dress? Most people are not something one thinks about,’5 was another Vreeland bon mot. In these exhibitions, images of Consuelo were used to sanctify a morality-free w
orld of ostentation, greed and stylishness that had turned its back on the problems of ‘most people’ outside. It was the ‘glitter’ of Consuelo’s life with the Duke that was being celebrated here, rather than the ‘gold’ of her life with Jacques. There was no mention of her work as a serious philanthropist. She might have smiled a wry smile at the thought that, yet again, this was happening without her consent.
Or would she? A closer look at the catalogue for ‘American Women of Style’ written by the exhibition’s curator, Stella Blum, suggests that Consuelo might not have minded as much as all that. This was, after all, an exhibition in the Costume Institute, so clothes obviously counted for something. Otherwise, the criteria for inclusion were remarkably wide-ranging. The women did not have to be good-looking. Only three of them – including Consuelo – could be described as beautiful. They certainly did not have to be rich, or professionally accomplished, though at least five of them were. They did not even have to be fashionable. According to Stella Blum, the common denominators that united these women were something quite different. They had to have ‘a strong creative drive that looked for a perfect expression’; they had to be ‘daring in a positive way’; they all ‘insisted on living usefully’. Most were ‘involved in social movements, humane causes and even politics, some actually before women were doing such things’. All had an ‘iron-willed self-discipline’ and ‘left an imprint on everything they did’. Set against these criteria, their clothes were a ‘manifestation of their individuality’.6 Leaving aside the objection that the coronation robes of an English duchess were not a manifestation of individuality and never would be, Consuelo was an outstanding example of such stylishness.
In spite of all the privileges conferred by great riches, starting out life as a Gilded Age heiress brought disadvantages. Wealth was a ‘great gilt cage’ of its own, a solipsistic life led within the gilded aviary of Gilded-Age society. Many of the difficulties in Consuelo’s life stemmed from her strong desire to step outside the cage, without wishing to leave completely. Alva ultimately rejected the caged life herself, though she tried ruling it first before she reached for an escape route. Long before Alva’s life was dominated by the suffrage campaign, however, she arranged a way out for Consuelo – or thought she did. Eleven years of ‘an endlessly spread red carpet’ with the 9th Duke of Marlborough opened up Consuelo’s world, but failed to solve the problem that she wanted more. Yet one of Consuelo’s most striking characteristics was her ability to break through barriers, in spite of the deafness that sometimes threatened to cut her off entirely. Consuelo, said Viscount Churchill, was the only person who ‘passed completely through the barrier separating child from grown-up’.7 Many others noticed this too, from those who spoke up for her as a Progressive in 1917, to the old lady in the Oxfordshire village of Long Hanborough who still had dreams about her years later.
Stepping out of the great gilt cage was never as easy as it looked. It would have been easy for Consuelo to follow the example of Alva in her society phase and withdraw into a world of opulent fantasy, but she never did. Throughout her life she demonstrated an extremely practical streak of kindness which was still evident in her will. It was clear that she thought long and hard about how best to leave her estate to her grandchildren, according to their various circumstances. This posthumous thoughtfulness was extended to her friends as well: one admirer remembered in her will – Edward Crandall – was not well-off and Consuelo’s instructions to her executors with regard to Edward could not have been more down-to-earth. There were two Pissarros and a Segonzac in her house at El Vedado Drive in Palm Beach. But rather than give these to Mr Crandall as a sentimental keepsake which he would never have sold himself, she told her executors to sell the paintings and give him the cash which she clearly realised he needed.8
Those who knew her well were always struck by her modernity. In a recent exhibition of Horst’s photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London, images of Consuelo from the 1950s did not seem out of place among photographs of Jacqueline Kennedy, Steve McQueen or even the model Verushka. Though Consuelo was much older than almost every other subject in the exhibition, she looked just as glamorous and thoroughly at home. There was no sense of withdrawal here. Refusal to become detached required great self-discipline and self-reliance, however, and in Consuelo’s case it also meant resisting self-pity. Her creative vision involved retaining what was best about her life and discarding the detritus of the rest without sentimentality.
Alva and Consuelo reached for different solutions to the problems caused for talented and energetic women by the sharp division between public and private life in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Consuelo’s life was much happier because, unlike Alva, she never drove away affection and love. Alva achieved more for the history books and contemporary women have several reasons to thank her. In one important respect, however, Consuelo’s was the more modern persona, as Diana Vreeland instinctively realised when she made her the prototype for a new way of writing about the truly stylish for Vogue. In spite of the many voices throughout her life who told her what to be, she negotiated her way through and found an authentic – and extremely stylish – way of telling her own story. This was not the story told in The Glitter and the Gold. It was the story of the way she lived, the causes she pursued and the ambience she created – the manner in which she created her own reality. To this extent, Diana Vreeland was right. Consuelo, was indeed an American Woman of Style; and an American aristocrat.
NOTES
The following abbreviations are used in the notes.
SOURCES
CA Churchill Archives
CAP Church Army Papers
CESWP Charles Erskine Scott Wood Papers
CVBS Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan Scrapbook
DSUP Doris Stevens’s Unprocessed Papers
GDP Gladys Deacon Papers
GVWP Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Papers
HRP Harper and Row Papers
LCW Library of Congress, Washington
NWPP National Woman’s Party Papers
VA Vanderbilt Archives
VP Vanderbilt Papers
PERSONAL ABBREVIATIONS
9th Duke 9th Duke of Marlborough
C Consuelo
CESW Charles Erskine Scott Wood
CSC Clementine Spencer-Churchill
GD Gladys Deacon
SBF Sara Bard Field
WSC Winston Spencer-Churchill
PROLOGUE
1 Quoted in B. H. Friedman, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978), pp. 96–7.
2 New York World, 29 September 1895. Other characteristics in the list were: Face – somewhat oval, Complexion – Clearest olive, with rosy cheeks, Mouth – Small and without character, Teeth – White, regular and well kept, Lips – full and describing a Cupid’s bow, Accomplishments – Music, painting, languages, Chief accomplishment – none, Ears – small and close to the head. Head – well-rounded and well poised, Special Fad – None, Favorite Color – Pink, Favorite Sport – Tennis, Favorite Exercise – Bicycling, Favorite Flower – American Beauty rose.
3 ‘No-one knows what it all costs – or cares,’ added the report. ‘A Fortune in Flowers’, Town Topics, 31 October 1895, p. 21. Also see The New York Times, 7 November 1895; ‘Saunterings,’ Town Topics, 31 October 1895.
4 The New York Times, 7 November 1895.
5 World, 7 November 1895.
6 World, 7 November 1895.
7 World, 29 September 1895.
8 Munsey’s Magazine, Vol XXII, No. 4, January 1900, pp. 467–8.
9 The New York Times, 7 November 1895.
10 Interview with an anonymous guest, The New York Times, 7 November 1895.
11 Interview with an anonymous guest, The New York Times, 7 November 1895.
1 THE FAMILY OF THE BRIDE
1 Letter to Alva Belmont from genealogist Lily van der Schalk, 4 May 1931, CVBS.
2 W. J. Lane, Commodore Vande
rbilt: Epic of the Steam Age (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942), pp. 5–8. Also see J. E. Patterson, The Vanderbilts (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989), pp. 12–15. Both draw on the work of the Commodore’s first biographer, William A. Croffut.
3 See D. A. Silver, The Entrepreneurial Life (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1986), PP. 35–7.
4 Quoted in Patterson, Vanderbilts, P. 59.
5 Quoted in W. Andrews, The Vanderbilt Legend: The Story of the Vanderbilt Family, 1794–1940 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1941), p. 19.
6 Quoted in Andrews, Vanderbilt Legend, p. 19.
7 Only one New York railroad, the Erie, ever eluded the Commodore in a much publicised battle with his arch rival, Jay Gould. During the 1870s, the Vanderbilt railroad empire continued to expand westwards as the business acquired the Michigan Central Railroad and the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad. After these acquisitions Vanderbilt trains ran from New York as far as Chicago, Cincinnati and St Louis.
8 M. Josephson, The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934), p. 72.
9 K. C. Schlichting, Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering and Architecture in New York City (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2001), p. 40.
10 M. Twain, ‘Open Letter to Commodore Vanderbilt’, Packard’s Monthly, March 1869.
11 In the memoirs dictated to Mary Young after 1928, Alva described the Commodore as ‘one of the handsomest, most intelligent, and most interesting men I had ever met’, though she conceded that his manner was overbearing: Belmont Memoirs (Young), Matilda Young Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, North Carolina, p. 89. This second set of memoirs was dictated to Alva’s secretary, Mary Young, some time after she took up the post in 1928. They then passed into the care of her sister, Matilda Young. Since Mary Young was not a writer like Sara Bard Field, it is assumed that the greater part of this memoir was dictated by Alva.
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