That Churchill Woman

by Stephanie Barron

  “The red-haired girl said she’d heard my mother was a chambermaid before Papa married her,” Minnie added. “I’d have slapped her, but the Negro scared me.”

  “Was she?” Jennie asked, fascinated. Mamma had once repeated this rumor, too. Jennie assumed there was something Not Quite Right about Mrs. Stevens.

  Mr. Percival, the piano master, sat down on his bench. Mrs. Andrews, who conducted the Family Dancing Classes, motioned for the girls to find partners. Jennie put her arm around Minnie’s waist and held up her hand, ready to lead her in the waltz.

  “Of course not!” Minnie retorted. She had dark hair like Jennie and green eyes that were very sharp. Although she was slightly older, she was shorter and thus at a disadvantage; she had to cling to Jennie’s hand and shoulder. Jennie thought this was only reasonable. Most men Minnie Stevens would eventually dance with would be taller than she was. “Mamma married Papa in Lowell, long before the hotel was even thought of. She could not possibly have worked for Papa as a chambermaid.”

  “Where is Lowell?”

  “New England.” Minnie shrugged petulantly. “And everyone knows New England is better than the South. I should like to hurt that girl.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Smith.” Minnie’s green glare bored into Jennie. “No one of distinction is ever named Smith, Mamma says.”

  Jennie glanced over her shoulder. The Smith monster was paired with another stranger, a girl with sparkling black eyes and elaborate ringlets of dark gold piled high on her head. She had a laughing mouth and an aquiline nose. Something about her puckish face made Jennie want to laugh out loud. “That one looks like a princess,” she told Minnie. “Wouldn’t she be perfect in fancy dress!”

  Minnie followed her gaze. “She’s another Rebel. I couldn’t possibly remember her name—it’s fearfully foreign. Her father’s from some island. And her mother grew up on a plantation. Cotton people.”

  Jennie was leading vigorously, too absorbed in Minnie’s gossip to pay strict attention to the other pairs of girls as she swept buoyantly around the room. She loved the waltz; it was as good as skating or driving, so long as you didn’t step on your partner’s feet. “Do you think they’re all moving north because of the war, Minnie?” she asked. “Maybe they’re ashamed of being Southerners. Maybe they never wanted to leave the Union. We should—”

  “No,” Minnie said. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the dance floor and dropped Jennie’s hand. “Don’t you know that black man is a slave?”

  Her young voice was piercing. Every head in the room turned swiftly toward Jennie and Minnie, and with a jangle, Mr. Percival crashed his hands down on the keys.

  A body collided sharply with Jennie’s. She turned, and looked straight into the Delft-blue eyes of Miss Emily Astor. Emily was as fair as Jennie’s sister Camille. Her mother, Caroline, ruled New York Society. The Astors had never recognized any of the Jeromes.

  “You have trod on my toes,” Emily said. “But of course, how could you possibly know how to behave? Your mother is an Indian. And yours”—her gaze drifted three inches over Minnie Stevens’s head—“is a shopgirl from Lowell.”

  “Girls, girls!” Mrs. Andrews cried in exasperation. “Have I not told you repeatedly, there is to be no conversation during the figures? Miss Astor, are you injured?”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Andrews,” Emily replied with an angelic look, “but I fear Miss Jerome has said the most shocking things. I dare not repeat them.”

  “Snake,” Jennie breathed.

  “Miss Jerome, Miss Stevens, pray sit out the next dance.” Mrs. Andrews hurried over to the side of the room and seized the girl named Smith by the hand. As Jennie passed them, she heard the dancing mistress say strenuously, “…cannot allow it. Must insist…against my Republican principles and those of this establishment…a note to your mother…”

  Jennie sank into a chair. She longed with all her heart to box Emily Astor’s ears, not so much on her own account as on Minnie Stevens’s. At Emily’s words, Minnie had flushed red and then dead white, as though she might faint. It must be true, Jennie decided, that Mrs. Stevens had worked in a shop before Mr. Stevens married her.

  The two Southern girls also sat out the dance. Miss Smith looked, indeed, as if the Civil War had come to Delmonico’s. Her hazel eyes were flashing dangerously and her arms were crossed over her thin chest. She had a blunt, square face and a very strong chin. Behind her, the black man held out her coat, waiting for Miss Smith to allow him to place it over her shoulders. The plantation princess stood hesitantly beside her. Jennie studied them and comprehended the situation in an instant: the princess had been delivered to the dancing class in Miss Smith’s carriage. She had no other chaperone. If Miss Smith left, so, too, would her friend.

  Jennie took Minnie’s hand, rose from her seat, and walked resolutely over to the two new girls. As they were Southerners, she curtseyed carefully, as though she were on the stage of Papa’s theater.

  “I’m Jennie Jerome,” she told them. “I should very much like to meet your…footman.”

  “Why?” the red-haired girl demanded.

  “I have never known a black man before.”

  Dobbie was colored, it was true, but she was a woman—and had always been free.

  Miss Smith smiled faintly, as if in pity at the stupidity of Northerners. “This is Monroe,” she said. “He’s been with me since I was born. I guess he’d die for me. Wouldn’t you, Monroe?”

  “I’m not so sure about that, Miss Alva,” Monroe said. “Don’t you go putting on airs before the other girls. Pleased to meet you, Miss Jerome.”

  “I’m Alva,” Miss Smith admitted. She offered Jennie her hand. “Alva Erskine Smith, of Mobile and Fifth Avenue.”

  The way she said it, her name came out Owl-lvuh Urhs-kee-yin Smee-yuth. Jennie was enthralled.

  “That’s Conswell-a,” Alva added offhandedly with a wave at her friend. “It means ‘comfort’ in Cuban. She told me.”

  The princess dimpled at Jennie and dropped into her own delicious curtsey. “Consuelo Yznaga del Valle y Clemens at your service.”

  “This is Minnie.” Jennie pulled her friend forward. Minnie’s body was rigid with stubbornness but she relaxed under the strength of Consuelo’s smile. “Minnie lives at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which is a little like an enchanted castle and Heaven all at once. She invites her friends for hot chocolate and sweet buns on Saturday afternoons. Don’t you, Minnie?”

  “I do,” Minnie said defiantly. “Miss Astor is not one of my friends.”

  “She’s not one of ours, either,” Alva said.

  Jennie danced with Alva next and Minnie partnered Consuelo. It was the first time that Minnie had danced the lead, and she was pink with pleasure at the end. Consuelo was perfectly happy to be led and spent the remainder of the class displaying her small white kitten’s teeth in a broad smile.

  Alva insisted on playing the role of boy. She and Jennie almost came to blows about it—Miss Smith revealed an alarming tendency to use her fists until Monroe called her to heel—but Jennie wisely gave way. She sensed that in a world ruled by Astors, Alva might come in handy someday.

  * * *

  —

  Now, thirty years later, Alva Vanderbilt stopped short on the Kebo Valley Club’s porch, stared hard at Jennie, and let out a crow. “It’s true! I saw the news in the gossip sheets—Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill Make World Tour—and when I noticed you’d no intention of stopping in Newport, I said, ‘Well, Conswell-a, we’ll have to go rusticate at George’s in Maine!’ ”

  She was referring, of course, to the Beauty, who had been locked away in the schoolroom when Jennie last glimpsed America. Consuelo Vanderbilt was now Officially Out. Jennie dropped her book and stepped forward into Alva’s bosomy embrace. The two excessive deck chairs were ranged beside Lady Randolph’s and fresh le
monade and macaroons were brought for all three of them. Alva introduced her daughter. She had named her after Consuelo Yznaga, to give her a bit of continental flair.

  The Beauty had not much to say for herself. But then, she could never have gotten a word in edgewise; Alva talked for ten.

  “Sad about poor Connie,” she mused. “A widow so young. And I hear her scoundrel of a husband left nothing but debts.”

  “I’m sure Consuelo will rally,” Jennie replied. “She has her children to live for. There is young Kim, of course—the present Duke—who is barely twenty, and May and Nell are but fifteen years old. They are beauties, the pair of them, with the same gold hair Connie had as a girl.”

  “I wish her well rid of both,” Alva declared, “though with no fortune to speak of, she’ll have a time sending them off. It’s a deal of trouble, Jennie, raising daughters—but you wouldn’t know that. Finding a suitable husband! Which reminds me.” Alva leaned closer. “What do you think of Minnie Paget these days?”

  “I rarely see her,” Jennie managed, after an instant’s surprise. “She has inherited her fortune at last, and cultivates other friends.”

  Alva smirked knowingly. “She offered to introduce me and Conswell-a around the English aristocracy next fall, when we tour the Continent. If I pay her expenses, Jennie. What do I need with Minnie Paget, when I’ve got you and Dowager Duchess Connie?”

  “I cannot presume to advise you.” Jennie gathered her thoughts. She must be careful; Minnie had visited New York recently, and might be closer to Alva than either admitted. Marietta Stevens, Minnie’s mother, was one of Alva’s social acquaintances. “She certainly is received everywhere, and knows everyone.”

  “But?” Alva demanded.

  Jennie faced her old friend squarely. “Her tongue is a double-edged sword, my dear. One is never quite certain whether she is a friend or an enemy. I imagine that her English acquaintance might wonder the same about you.”

  “If that isn’t the old Minnie! Tell me something I don’t know!”

  Jennie smiled faintly. “Minnie may certainly admit you to the highest circles, Alva. She trades on her intimacy with the Prince of Wales.”

  “I doubt His Highness is much of a stranger to you, Lady Randolph. Nor Connie, neither. I read the papers. What I want to know is—is Minnie Paget worth her price?”

  “It is possible,” Jennie replied delicately, “that her price is the best guarantee of avoiding her poison. If you reject Minnie, Alva, she has the power to ruin your daughter’s chances.”

  She watched Alva absorb her warning.

  “Thank you, Jennie. Nothing more need be said.”

  “What’s your real object, darling?” Jennie asked. Her eyes drifted to the Beauty. Consuelo Vanderbilt was an exquisite piece of girlhood, as utterly unlike her mother as two creatures could be. Where Alva was virulently red-haired and freckled, with forthright hazel eyes and a pugnacious chin, her daughter was sublimely dark, with almond-shaped eyes that suggested the Orient, or perhaps Slavic blood. Her full lips were red and pouted. Her cheekbones, delicately tinted with a virginal flush, were divinely high. Her neck was a phenomenon of swanlike slenderness, adorned with a diamond collar to rival any of Princess Alix’s. Consuelo was a freak, Jennie decided—a complete accident of Nature—aligned with a fortune that exceeded any debutante’s on the planet.

  The girl’s thick eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings beneath Jennie’s scrutiny. Upright as though a sword were plunged down her spine, Consuelo gazed wanly at the horizon. Not even her sunshade trembled as she held it aloft. But she had neither animation nor conversation. Insipid, Jennie decided—and probably a peagoose. No brains.

  “Conswell-a,” Alva said, “you go on into the Ladies’ Saloon and write that thank-you note to Mrs. Astor. Tell her we’ll call when we’re back in Newport, mind.”

  “Yes, Mamma.”

  The Beauty smiled at Jennie—who felt as though a curtain had parted, so brilliant were the girl’s perfect teeth—and drifted elegantly away.

  “Mrs. Astor?” Jennie inquired sardonically.

  Alva fluttered a hand. “Oh, me and Caroline have been on sparring terms ever since I threw a Society ball ten years ago. She was pushing off her youngest, who was dying to come to our party. Needed an invitation. Lina had to recognize us. Changed all the Vanderbilts’ lives, I don’t mind saying, and they owe it to a Smith. But you asked what I want for my girl.”

  Jennie nodded.

  “I want a noble title,” Alva declared. “Conswell-a’s worth a hundred million dollars. As God is my witness. She thinks she’s in love with some polo player here in Bar Harbor, but it won’t last. Love’s Young Dream always turns out to be a nightmare, and when you wake up screaming, you need something to live on. Aren’t I right, Jennie? Wasn’t she born to be a duchess?”

  “Weren’t we all?” Jennie observed mildly. “But, Alva—money and titles aren’t everything. They don’t secure happiness.”

  “As if we both don’t know.” Alva eyed her speculatively. “You’ve got the title, and I’ve got the money. I saw Town Topics suggest you’re a two-bit floozy. That’s just so much horseshit, Jennie. But I guess neither of us is the picture of wedded bliss. If I catch Mr. Vanderbilt sailing off to Europe in the Alva with one more dancer on board, I’m suing for divorce.”

  “Really?” Jennie was startled. “But the scandal…”

  “I’ll risk it. I’d like a little happiness before I die. Money certainly doesn’t buy that, but I’m willing to bet it buys freedom.”

  Jennie studied her, tempted. England was definitely more cautious than America. “Wouldn’t a divorce hurt your daughter’s chances?”

  “Oh, I’ll wait until Conswell-a’s gone off,” Alva replied comfortably. “With her looks and her fortune, it won’t be long. Do you know any available dukes? And can Minnie Paget bring ’em up to scratch?”

  “My nephew Sunny is hanging out for a rich wife.” Jennie smiled broadly. “He’s the present Duke of Marlborough and decidedly presentable. But you can’t mean to sell your daughter to the highest bidder, Alva!”

  “Don’t I just?” Alva’s eyes flashed. “How old is this Sunny, anyway?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  In early August, the Churchills left Bar Harbor and traveled by private train car across Canada. They were welcomed in Ottawa at Government House, a vast stone monstrosity of nearly two hundred rooms. It was built in a bewildering mix of Regency, Norman, and Florentine styles, placed high on a bluff overlooking two rivers. The current Governor-General of Canada was John Hamilton-Gordon, the Earl of Aberdeen. His wife’s brother was married to Randolph’s sister Fanny.

  Which meant that a number of the Aberdeens’ English friends in Ottawa knew the Spencer-Churchills.

  Jennie could feel them talking behind her back whenever she entered a room. There was the sudden cessation of noise—the lifting of heads—and the equally studied aversion. A few of the men tried to include Randolph in cards and cigars and drinking in the billiards room. They ignored his inarticulate grunts and shaking limbs, the way he set each foot down carefully as he moved glacially across the floor. He could not hold a hand of cards without dropping them on the table, could not lift a glass without it chattering against his teeth. Everyone spoke cheerfully over his head as though he were a half-witted child.

  And then there were the women.

  “Duchess Fanny’s uncle was Lord Castlereagh, you know, who slit his own throat with a penknife,” Jennie heard one of them murmur—a Mrs. Fitzherbert, whose husband was something at the embassy. “The Duchess’s brother went mad, too, and had to be restrained before he died.”

  “It runs in the family,” her friend agreed, “but the American strain can hardly help. I hear the elder Churchill boy is tragically slow! He was asked to leave St. George’s—and never tried for Eton.”

 
Jennie rose, intending to move away from them, her eyes brilliant with anger. Mrs. Fitzherbert called out to her, as though only just aware of her presence.

  “Lady Randolph! Are you missing all your dear friends during this protracted tour?”

  Jennie halted, and turned back toward the two women. “Friends are everywhere, when one travels through the empire. But I confess that it is my sons I long to see. The younger is still at Harrow, and the elder has earned a distinguished record at Sandhurst. Lord Randolph and I expect great things of both. Have you any children, Mrs. Fitzherbert?”

  The lady’s expression closed. “Sadly, I was never blessed.”

  “You have my deepest sympathy.” Jennie allowed a certain self-satisfaction to creep into her voice. “Nothing in my life has equaled the gift of my two remarkable boys! The young demand a great deal of trouble—spirit is, after all, the mark of genius—but as my sons mature, they prove such a support and comfort. Far deeper than that of mere friends.”

  “How remarkable, then, that you have chosen to abandon them so long.” Mrs. Fitzherbert’s gaze hardened. “You are acquainted with my cousin Freddie Wolverton, I believe?”

  “A little,” Jennie replied. “How is Lord Wolverton? Have you any news of him?”

  “Only the most delightful!” Mrs. Fitzherbert exclaimed. “He is engaged to be married—to dear Lady Edith Ward. He has been besotted with her these several months, you know. Quite the pursuit—it has set all of London talking. I am so happy to be able to wish him joy!”

  Jennie had met Lady Edith, a plain girl of twenty-three who had languished on the marriage mart for the past five Seasons.

  Jennie gave Mrs. Fitzherbert her most artless smile. “Joy indeed. Lady Edith will never figure as a beauty, but she is a considerable heiress. And as the son of a banking family, Lord Wolverton will know just how to value her charms! When next you write to your cousin, pray offer him my sincerest congratulations.”