The Social Graces

by Renée Rosen

  * * *

  —

  The following evening, the event of the season has arrived. Mrs. Astor’s ball! Those of us who, after all these years, have finally received a coveted invitation enter her townhouse not quite sure what to expect. What we find is an enchanted entranceway with more tulips, tropical palms and American Beauties than we’ve ever seen before. Ivy is wrapped about the marble staircase, and a sea of yellow tulips is stationed in the front parlor along with a chiffonier overflowing with yet more American Beauties.

  This business of the list of 400 names looms in the air. We hear people whispering about it. Everyone seems to be on the lookout for Ward McAllister, who has yet to arrive. The big question on everyone’s mind is: Did Mrs. Astor know Ward was going to publish that list? We can’t tell because there she is, ever the consummate hostess, casting all gossip and speculation aside as she receives her guests. She sits on the raised dais, in her favorite throne-like banquette, beneath her life-size portrait. Dressed in her customary velvet, wearing a big wig, she is bejeweled in her diamond tiara, her diamond necklaces, a diamond stomacher and rings on five fingers. She sparkles, giving off a prism of light each time she moves.

  By eleven o’clock a line has formed stretching all the way down to the first-floor landing. For those of us meeting Mrs. Astor for the first time, the anticipation is immense. We’ve waited years for this moment. And now we shall wait the better part of an hour until it’s our turn. One by one, she greets her guests with a handshake and a cordial hello. Some get a mere welcoming nod. She manages to say a few words to the Livingstons and Belmonts, but when it comes time to receive Mamie Fish, Mrs. Astor only extends her hand.

  It’s Mamie who says, “Ward has certainly outdone himself this time, don’t you know. That man is going to need a stepladder to get over himself. We should change his name to Ward Make-A-Lister.” Mamie, who always enjoys her own wit, starts up with that laugh of hers.

  Mrs. Astor doesn’t so much as crack a smile.

  Soon enough Ward McAllister arrives, and we observe him looking terribly proud of himself. He goes to greet Mrs. Astor but she raises her hand to stop him. She is angry. There’s no mistaking that, and no mistaking that she had been caught off guard by his list, too. Ward reluctantly retreats, suddenly seeming smaller, his shoulders sagging; all his pomp has up and left him.

  Frankly, it’s hard for us to feel too sorry for him. He’s brought this all on himself, and besides, he’s hardly given any of us the time of day. And when he does, it’s usually to criticize us for one thing or another. He’s been especially hard on Lady Paget, denouncing her latest dinner party in the press because there was no meat course served. The paper neglected to mention that Lady Paget has joined a new non-flesh-eating movement. The next day, she sent Ward McAllister a fish—with the head and tail still attached.

  As we continue to mingle, we’re all aware of an unspoken emptiness around us, a void because Alva isn’t here. Mrs. Astor may have been forced to recognize the Vanderbilts after the masquerade ball, but that doesn’t mean she has to welcome them into her home.

  Earlier that day, Alva made a point of telling Lady Paget and Ophelia and Penelope and Puss and anyone else she could find that she and Willie had been called out of town at the last minute. How convenient.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Alva

  Alva inched down the hall, hands out in front, feeling her way through the darkness. She might as well have been blindfolded. She’d already turned too quickly coming out of her dressing room and stubbed her toe on the doorstop. She expected to make contact with the carved rounded banister any second, but it kept eluding her. She shuffled forward step-by-step, inch by inch, until finally, her fingertips found the baluster. She took the stairs slowly, with caution. Throughout the house she could hear her servants also bumbling about in the dark.

  When she made it to the first floor, she called out, “Willie?”

  “We’re back here. In the game room.”

  Alva followed the direction of his voice, which led her to where he and the children were riding out the night. There was just a hint of moonlight coming through the windows, barely etching the four of them, sitting close together. Willie was in the middle of a ghost story, and when he let out a big, loud boo, little eight-year-old Harold screamed and burst into tears.

  “Now look what you’ve done, Willie.” Alva couldn’t make out Harold’s face but she knew that scream, could picture his bottom lip quivering, his eyes squeezed shut.

  “Me?” Willie snapped. “You’re the one making us all sit in the dark.”

  “You’re going to give them all nightmares,” said Alva, pulling Harold onto her lap.

  “Then turn up a lamp. Or light a candle for God’s sake.”

  “No.”

  “This is ridiculous. Just one lamp. One candle.”

  “So help me, Willie K.,” she said, gritting her teeth, “if you reach for that lamp, I’ll break your fingers.”

  It was eleven o’clock. A few blocks south, Mrs. Astor’s ball was already underway, and Alva had ordered all lights out at four o’clock, just before dusk. Not a single lamp or light remained on inside the whole mansion.

  “But this is silly,” said Willie.

  But it wasn’t silly to Alva. As soon as she saw that her name wasn’t on that list, she told everyone she could think of that she and Willie had been called out of town unexpectedly, some sort of emergency down in Mobile. They were catching the five o’clock train, otherwise of course they would have been attending Mrs. Astor’s ball.

  “But they all know we weren’t on that list,” said Willie.

  “That list is full of holes and errors.” Several of the names that Ward gave the New York Times were flat-out wrong. Mr. Stanley Dunn had died of a heart attack the year before, and Mr. Herbert Franklin had also passed away; Marjorie Blundt had been entered once under her maiden name and a second time with her married name. “Everyone knows it’s not accurate. They could still think we were supposed to be on it.”

  “That’s absurd. And surely no one thinks all the servants have left town, too,” he reasoned. “They wouldn’t be in the house without any lights on.”

  “We gave them the night off,” she growled.

  “And how exactly are you going to explain your being back in town tomorrow?”

  Oh, you do know how to provoke me, don’t you! “We’ll tell everyone we came back early,” she said, knowing she wouldn’t be able to show her face until evening.

  “I will never understand you, Alva.”

  “And I’ll never understand why you can’t understand that I would rather sit here in the dark all night than let Mrs. Astor humiliate me. Again.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Alva

  Alva turned up the fur collar on her overcoat and stuffed her hands deep inside her muff. It had snowed earlier and now the skies were clear, the sun glinting off the new blanket of accumulation, tree branches etched in white. She had just come from Hunt’s office in the Village after reviewing the latest plans for the Newport cottage. As she was strolling by Washington Square Park, she came upon a crowd gathered near the arch; mostly women, young, old, some light-skinned, others dark. Some wearing babushkas, their faces lined, hands calloused. Others were dressed more like herself with fashionable furs and wide-brimmed hats. Alva noticed only a handful of men, mostly police officers. A marching band in formation beyond a snowbank broke into a rousing rendition of “Hallelujah.” Some of the women were wearing sashes over their coats and carrying signs and banners high: VOTES FOR WOMEN.

  Standing before the crowd was a woman whose booming voice defied her petite stature. Alva was cold and hadn’t planned to stop until she heard her say, “We as women need to unite in order to change the laws that keep us under our husbands’ control.” Alva ended up spending the next twenty minutes listening. “. . . We cha
llenge the laws that forbid a married woman to own her own land. We challenge the laws that say a woman cannot sign a legally binding contract. We challenge the laws that say a wife who does hold a job—who does earn her own money—be required to turn her wages over to her husband. We do not belong to the men of this world!” Alva marveled at the eruption of cheers and applause. The clapping was contagious, and she couldn’t help but remove her muff and join in.

  “. . . Some say a woman’s highest calling is to be a wife and mother, to keep a home. We say ‘nonsense.’ Some say that if women get the vote, we’ll become masculine, we’ll sprout whiskers and beards. We say ‘utter nonsense.’ We will get the vote and we will show them what we’re capable of, what our highest calling truly is.”

  Alva clapped so hard her palms stung. Wasn’t this what she’d been trying to prove ever since that day she’d found her father crying, asking God why he’d taken his only son and not one of his daughters? The band began playing again, and as Alva looked around at the women who’d come there from every corner of the city, she realized they were all the same. It didn’t matter if they were rich or poor, young or old, they were all women first and foremost. And all of them were being held back, held down. No amount of money or status could free them.

  The crowd began to disperse, and Alva headed up Fifth Avenue, deciding to walk despite the cold. Even though her toes were numb, her fingers stiff, she was exhilarated, filled with a daring energy that she knew couldn’t be satisfied by the same old visits to Tiffany’s or taking her children ice-skating or sledding in the park. Even with the work she was doing with Hunt on the cottage, she was still restless. She’d been searching for something more, certain there was something out there—waiting for her to uncover. Perhaps the suffrage movement was it.

  Continuing along Fifth Avenue she found herself enamored of the architecture and the changes to the city. Hacks and carriages were lined up, moving slowly, steam rising from the piles of manure. Pushcart peddlers, bundled up in ill-fitting coats and fingerless gloves, were on nearly every corner. When she came to Twenty-Third Street, she saw the familiar blue awning of the Glenham Hotel and something caught in her chest. Jeremiah. She missed him and his reckless counsel, the hours they spent inside his decrepit room, commiserating and conspiring. He’d been gone eight years and she still thought of him every day.

  On a whim she decided to go into the lobby, uncertain if she was purposely trying to ruin her good mood, replacing all that optimism with melancholy and nostalgia. Sabotage or punishment? She wasn’t sure. She walked up the carpeted steps and nodded as the doorman showed her inside. Just as she remembered, the lobby was dark and gloomy, quiet and nearly empty save for a man sitting in a wingback chair, reading a newspaper. Alva wondered if George Terry still lived there. She thought about calling on him, seeing if he was in, when she looked at the big gilded mirror over the fireplace and saw Charlotte Astor—well, now Charlotte Astor Drayton—coming through the doorway.

  What would she be doing at a hotel like the Glenham?

  A moment later, she understood completely. The man in the wingback chair set down his paper and crossed the room to greet her. Tall, handsome, with a slightly receding hairline. Alva had no idea who he was other than the fact that he was most certainly not Coleman Drayton. Alva could feel the spark between them when their eyes met, their lips curved into smiles. And then of course there was no denying that subtle way he’d placed his hand on the small of Charlotte’s back just before whisking her into the elevator.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Caroline

  Caroline had foolishly hoped that all the nonsense about Ward McAllister’s list would die down, replaced by some other salacious gossip, but the public’s fascination showed no signs of abating. If anything, it was just the opposite. She couldn’t pick up a newspaper without seeing that list. That list—it had taken on a life of its own. It had even become a proper noun, The Four Hundred.

  It had been reported that Ward McAllister had in fact only provided 319 names and that because of duplicates and other errors, the actual total had been a mere 169 families. That left 81 missing names, and now everyone was stirred up again, curious about those missing individuals. She found it all so tedious and petty. Caroline couldn’t bring herself to look anymore, and set her morning papers aside on her breakfast tray. Instead, she glanced out her bedroom window, only to see the back of Waldorf’s hotel, still under construction.

  He was hell-bent on opening his hotel the following year, and last she heard, it was supposed to be a staggering thirteen stories high. It would entirely block her views and would surely bring a bad element to the neighborhood. Technically, it might have been a hotel, but as far as she was concerned, it was a tavern. A tavern with bedrooms.

  Thankfully she had only a couple more weeks and the season would be over and she could leave New York, as she did every year. The last week in February she would retreat to her apartment in Paris, where she was also the pinnacle of the social scene. She’d stay there until July, when it was time to summer in Newport. And it wasn’t just the construction she wanted to escape, but Ward McAllister, who had come to her house nearly every day, begging her forgiveness.

  “Everyone’s turned against me,” he’d said, pacing about her drawing room, all his pride now deflated, replaced with desperation. “They’ve mocked and shunned me, don’t you know. You’re the only one who can bring me back into the good graces of society. Please, my Mystic Rose, I beg of you.”

  “There’s nothing I can or will do.” She’d hated to be cruel, but he had brought this on himself. She’d stood by him after he’d published his absurd memoir, but now, this was asking too much. She was still angry with him, or perhaps she was more disappointed, which was far worse. Despite all his gossiping and pretension, he had been the one person, outside of Thomas, whom she’d confided in. But no more. He was not to be trusted, which was all the more reason why she wasn’t going to save him now.

  There was a knock on her bedroom door, and much to her surprise, it was William. He was wearing a Harris Tweed hunting jacket and looked as though he’d been outside, his cheeks tinged red. “May I come in?”

  “You may.” She was stunned and couldn’t remember the last time William had stepped foot inside her room. She felt suddenly modest and pinched her dressing gown at her throat. She worried about his seeing her without her wig, her gray hair so thin and limp. She thought she was past caring what he thought of her, but clearly that wasn’t the case.

  She could tell by the way he held his arm close to his side that his shoulder must have been bothering him. A sure sign that damp, colder weather was coming. In another time, she would have gone over and massaged away the ache, but to do so now would have only been awkward for her and possibly unwanted by him.

  He took a chair opposite hers in the little seating area by the fireplace. “I’ve just spoken with Coleman. Apparently this affair of Charlie’s is still going on.”

  “But she ended it. She told me she did. She gave me her word.”

  “Well, according to Coleman, she’s still carrying on and the man can take no more. He’s confronted Borrowe and challenged him to a duel.”

  “Oh, dear God, no.”

  “What choice has he got?” William said with a shrug. “Coleman said someone from the New York World is reporting that Charlie and Borrowe were seen together at Delmonico’s and again at Sherry’s and also at the Glenham Hotel.”

  “No.”

  “The World is prepared to run with it, and you know it’s only a matter of time before all the other papers pick up on it, too.”

  * * *

  —

  William was right. The headlines were everywhere. One more incriminating than the next: The Astor Girl Scandal, said the New York Times. Mrs. J. Coleman Drayton Seen Embracing Mr. Hallett Borrowe in Public appeared in Town Topics. Injured Husband Challenges Wife’s Paramour to a Du
el was what the New York Sun published.

  It had been ages since Caroline and William were in agreement, but they both knew something had to be done. Caroline canceled her trip to Paris in order to deal with her daughter, and the day the New York Times ran a story, More Scandal Befalls the Astor Family, Charlotte was called into her father’s library.

  The construction work next door, the intermittent pounding and chiseling, intruded upon them. Charlotte had arrived in a formfitting gown with a satin sash accentuating her bosom, which Caroline found inappropriate. If her daughter wasn’t dressing in rags, she was parading around like that. But now was not the time to bring it up. Caroline sat up straight, gripping the armrests of her chair, watching William pace, his cheeks flushed red with fury.

  “You know your husband has challenged Borrowe to a duel,” said William. “You’re about to have blood on your hands, young lady.”

  Charlotte was impenetrable. Even when the newspapers were shoved under her nose—which William had done after reading each headline aloud—Charlotte stared straight ahead, unapologetic. Barely blinking.

  “You should know that I’ve paid your husband—quite handsomely—to stay in this sham of a marriage.” William raised his voice, and Caroline wasn’t sure if that was out of sheer frustration or in order to compete with the hammering next door. “You have your children to think about.”

  “And what am I to do?” Charlotte said, finally, matter-of-factly, as if the situation were out of her control. “I’m in love. Don’t I deserve to be happy?”

  It seemed like such a simple request. She asked as if it were her birthright, and maybe it was, but Caroline had never felt entitled to happiness. Happiness was something you worked toward achieving, it wasn’t a given.