The It Girls Read online

  “Don’t underestimate her. As for Clayton, he came drunk to the door a bit ago, and Cosmo stashed him upstairs to sleep it off for now. But don’t you see? Some have accused me of indecency for years, for creating clothes that were immoral, that showed a flash of leg and offered small, silky lingerie instead of bustles and break-back corsets. Some blue-blooded snobs snub me for ‘keeping a shop,’ especially since I’m now Lady Duff-Gordon. And yet the orders for more and the happy and assured women who wear them, including Princess Alexandra and the Duchess of York, keep coming. The right people will surely admire the uplifting and noble parts of your novel.”

  Elinor blew her nose and shook her head. “As I get older, I can’t continue to write just fun and frippery. But you mean the book might be popular anyway, despite the so-called scandalous parts?”

  “Your publisher, Mr. Duckworth, evidently believed in the book and its author, and he should be here any minute. I say, dry your tears, square your shoulders, and bluff it through. Defy them all. If it’s the book of your heart, I am certain I will love it and recommend it to my clients and friends.”

  “Oh, as much as we don’t get on sometimes, old girl, as much as you pooh-pooh my literary allusions, I am so grateful for you. But then—that’s right. Now that you write fashion advice for the Royal Magazine, perhaps you understand my literary aspirations more.”

  “Women must have aspirations beyond their families—passionate goals. I’ve agreed to design for the theater here in London, and I intend to take on French fashion in the heart of Paris, to open a shop there someday. Even your frivolous friend Daisy Warwick has turned to socialism in her struggles to help the poor.”

  “What would I do without you?”

  “Hide out more than you do writing in rural Essex and mope about, I suppose. Wait here, I said, and I’ll order some wash water from the kitchen for your face. Cosmo said just the other day—and I agree—that you are at the height of your beauty. And aren’t we at the height then of our creative goals and dreams, but with better yet to come?”

  “Just a moment then,” Elinor said and grasped her wrist. “One other thing before I face family and friends. You recall Lord Curzon, whom I’ve mentioned?”

  “Yes, of course. Former viceroy of India, now the Right Honorable Lord Curzon serving as a civil servant with parliamentary ambitions. So sad his wife died last year and left him with those three little girls to rear alone. I suppose like all ambitious men, he wanted a son.”

  “The thing is, I met him at a—a function again. So kind and dashing. Terribly witty. Well, through another friend, Alfred, Lord Milner, I sent Lord Curzon an early copy of the book. He read it and wrote that he understood the true purpose and passion of it.”

  “Understood the passion of it?” Lucile said with a knowing laugh.

  “Don’t look at me that way. He meant that there was a beauty in the love of my characters Paul and the mysterious lady and the child that came from their union. And that my ending was moral because she paid the price for her adultery with her life, but that their son would go on to rule, to be a noble man. Lord Curzon saw good parts in it, of her teaching a young Englishman to appreciate not just love but the arts and travel. And since I have the lady in the novel seduce the young man Paul while she is lying on a tiger skin, he sent me one he brought back from a hunt in India. I—I have two of them now, and I cherish both.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do say more than ‘oh.’”

  “I’ve heard you speak of Lord Curzon, but you’ve spoken of other admirers too. So he has become special. I’d best read the book, but if you wrote it and it came from your heart, Cosmo and I will support you with all we have. Now let me get that wash water, and it looks as if you’ve been tearing at your hair. Then we’ll face first the lambs here tonight and you can face down the lions of literature another day.”

  Elinor managed to get herself together, put back on her cloak and hat, and walked round to the front door. At her entry, everyone applauded, but then, she thought, they hadn’t seen tomorrow’s newspapers or heard the scuttlebutt.

  Her publisher, Gerald Duckworth, seemed to think early sales were good and whispered, “Buck up, Elinor. Scandal can be a boon to sales.”

  “Before it goes on sale in the States, I will write an explanatory introduction to my American readers. Perhaps they will grasp what our countrymen seem not to, that the one motive that makes a union moral in ethics is love.”

  “I’ll second that,” Lillie Langtry said and gave Elinor a hug. She recognized at once Lillie’s frock, a Lucile gown of emotion—that was her specialty. This one, if she recalled correctly, was Do You Love Me? Lillie had been a scandal to many and loved by many—too many—yet she held her head high and radiated the sort of passion for life that Lucile had just preached to her. The three of them, Elinor realized, were somehow all sisters under the skin.

  “Auntie,” Lucile’s daughter, Esme, said, and gave her a kiss on the cheek, “I think it’s so terribly exciting that you have American readers, and Anthony agrees and Grandmama, too!”

  Elinor gave her niece a hug. At age twenty-two—though much too young, Lucile thought—Esme was engaged to Anthony Giffard, Viscount Tiverton, a good catch. They were so in love, holding hands even now. Her fiancé was from a fine family, for his father was an earl who was Lord Chancellor and had written a book on English law. The young couple’s insistence on their short betrothal and coming marriage next month reminded her and Lucile of their own mother’s loyal love for her first husband, so passion obviously ran in the Sutherland family. Yes, whatever slings and arrows assailed her, Elinor decided right then she would hold her head high.

  Even Clayton came downstairs to join them for the toast to the release of Three Weeks. Of course he wouldn’t miss a chance to raise a glass, even to his own wife he’d emotionally abandoned long ago, even if it was champagne and not his favorite steady slugs of expensive, imported brandy.

  “To Elinor Glyn’s continued literary success,” Cosmo said and everyone agreed with a chant of, “Here! Here!”

  “To a long and fruitful writing career,” Gerald Duckworth added.

  “Good luck, Mummy!” her daughters, Margot, age fourteen, and Juliet, age nine, cried in unison and lifted their glasses of pink punch.

  “To my very talented sister!” Lucile said and clinked her glass to Elinor’s.

  Their mother said, “I am so proud of both my girls, but I don’t know if I’ll read this book at my age, dear. But a good love story, well, perhaps.”

  Lillie Langtry said, “I love America, and I think you would too. I hear Three Weeks goes on sale there soon, just the time for you to pop over for a visit. Mr. Duckworth, can you not send her there on a sort of tour? I say, ‘Go west, young woman!’ and that means to new places, new people. You’ll adore it there—you would too, Lucile. New horizons for all of us ‘just Jersey girls’!”

  Elinor’s gaze connected with Lucile’s. New worlds to conquer. Why, dear Lord Curzon had done that, and she admired him so. Now that he was back and had looked kindly on her—in his own aloof way, of course—she wasn’t set on a foreign jaunt, but she could do without Clayton’s grim face and penny-pinching ways for a while.

  Go west, young woman? Maybe so.

  PART III

  New York City

  1907–1912

  CHAPTER Eighteen

  The grand finale! So your maiden voyage to America was done in style,” Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, said to Elinor as they stood side by side along the portside railing of the Lusitania. New York Harbor was awash with tugboats and pleasure craft as their big vessel came slowly in. “There, you see,” Consuelo said, pointing at a huge statue on a small island, “the lady with the lamp holds it high to greet you.”

  “She’s magnificent. And if it’s been smooth sailing for me on my first Atlantic crossing, it is partly thanks to your kindness and hospitality on board, Your Grace.”

  “My dear Elinor, have you not heard t
hat hospitality is my middle name?” she asked with a smile.

  Consuelo was one of the first of what was called “a dollar princess,” a bride from a rich American family who wed an Englishman for a title, reputation, and grandeur in exchange for her father’s wealth saving a family estate and name from bankruptcy. Consuelo had wed a viscount, who became a duke when his father died. Perhaps she’d use that in a future book, Elinor thought, that is, if she survived the impact of her current novel.

  This grand lady, who insisted her friends call her by her first name—though Elinor slid in a “Your Grace” now and then—had an American mother but a Cuban father who had made a fortune as a merchant in the American South. Not only had she blazed a trail through the English upper classes, but she had been one of the numerous mistresses of the Prince of Wales, now King Edward. Currently in her midfifties, Elinor guessed, this outgoing woman’s Cuban heritage was revealed in her dark eyes and glossy black hair, now going a bit silver. Evidently, money was still a problem for the Manchesters, and it was said that the flamboyant Consuelo had accepted gifts for introducing later dollar brides to their titled mates.

  Patting Elinor’s gloved hand, Consuelo went on, “It has been a joy to know you better than when we were ‘ships passing in the night’ in London or at country house parties. When one’s entertaining King Bertie, batten down the hatches.”

  Elinor laughed at Consuelo’s clever banter. Not only had the woman been kind to her during the days of the Atlantic crossing, but she had invited her to come along to her friend’s home on the Hudson River for a few days rather than going directly to the Plaza Hotel in the city. The place was called Hyde Park—it sounded so English—and the hostess was Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt. Consuelo was godmother of the beautiful and popular Duchess of Marlborough, Consuelo Vanderbilt, her namesake, whom Elinor had met twice at London social events.

  Everyone knew King Edward loved American hostesses, especially the clever Consuelos, for they found new ways to amuse him. “Oh yes,” Consuelo had answered a question at the dinner table one evening on board. “His Majesty loves us upstart American climbers and comers. He loves good cooks, too, and I always have those—entirely worth the money to raid one from a fashionable French restaurant. And more than once, I hired a singer for a private concert when we entertained him. Our king is a connoisseur of everything and hates to be bored, but don’t we all?”

  Thanks to Consuelo, Elinor had not been bored on the voyage, although she had come alone with just her lady’s maid, Williams. Clayton was off for a visit to Japan with their daughters and his mother-in-law, filling in for Elinor, who had at first intended to go with them. They were all to meet up in the American West and traverse the huge country together, back to New York and then home. She would have loved to see exotic Japan, but, to her, the United States of America was exotic too.

  As they watched the flotilla of tugboats surround their big vessel to edge them toward the pier, Consuelo spoke again over the noise.

  “Now, don’t you fret about those nasty British reviews for your novel. Banned at Eton—how overly prudish! I thought it was a perfectly splendid story, and other discerning readers will too. Besides, I believe you will find that we born-and-bred Americans are not as—well, as hidebound in hypocritical ways as our dear English. After all, everyone’s reading Three Weeks.”

  “Not for the wrong reasons, I hope.”

  “Some, of course. A friend told me her daughter, age sixteen, was reading it in secret. Her governess was appalled and told her mother but then was caught reading it herself.”

  Elinor smiled. “I have heard similar tales, Your Grace. But the critics and churches have been brutal in condemning it—and me. I’m afraid that my publisher, Gerald Duckworth, sent word ahead to some American papers that I was coming for a visit on this ship. It’s been that sort of newspaper and magazine journalist who has caused me so much harm, so I wish he would not have done that.”

  “Nonsense. Word of mouth is what sold the book like nothing doing in England. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, my dear, that’s my motto. And in my homeland here,” she added with a sweep of her arm at the crowded array of buildings beyond the piers, “that’s a good one to remember.”

  But upon their disembarkation, the motto Elinor wished for was “Help!” Curse Gerald Duckworth, for at the bottom of the ramp onto the busy pier like a swarm of bees stood men who were shouting her name. Some held up signs with her name or a photograph of her face or the cover of Three Weeks. She almost turned round to march directly back to her cabin to head home where she knew where to hide. But she would face them down, no matter that she was off to a rocky start here where she had hoped for so much.

  Consuelo, surrounded by her two maids and men carrying a great array of luggage—both the duchess’s and Elinor’s—was motioning for her to follow. Elinor saw Consuelo was greeted by a man who gestured toward the exit. Elinor had only one-third as many trunks, though she had brought an array of Lucile fashions and sixty pairs of shoes, for who knew what she would face in this wild country? But as she moved toward the bottom of the ramp alone but for faithful Williams cowering behind her in the hubbub, the swarm of newsmen hemmed her in.

  “Mrs. Glyn, can you give the New York Herald a statement on your new novel? What do you think of the moral values of the rich in England?”

  “Over here, Mrs. Glyn!” another man shouted, waving a copy of a newspaper. “Our readers want to hear from the woman who wrote the runaway seller Three Weeks! Is it based on anyone you know? Is it true that the lady in the novel is based on a real person?”

  “Authoress Glyn! Just a short statement about your newfound fame, if you please!”

  Elinor moved aside off the bottom of the busy ramp. “As you can imagine,” she said in a clarion voice that almost didn’t quaver, “I am looking forward to my first visit to your country and need to rest now. But if you will give my companion your cards, I will let you know quite soon when interviews are possible.”

  There, she thought. Lucile would be proud. And, oh, thank God above, that Americans might be rude and crude—or so she had heard—but she liked them so much already she could have hugged each one.

  In her office, Lucile stopped midway through the letter she’d received from Elinor in America just this morning. She’d only read bits of it en route here, for Lucile Ltd. was presenting a huge mannequin parade by invitation only today, and people were already arriving.

  It seemed the newspapers in the United States were not attacking Elinor but extolling her as “a famous authoress extraordinaire.” She had been feted by a Vanderbilt relation at their lavish mansion and befriended by the Duchess of Manchester.

  “No time for all that right now,” Lucile muttered to herself as if speaking to Elinor through this letter. “This will be lavish and elegant today, too, with my goddesses wearing my new collection.”

  Elinor had gone on and on—she’d get to all that later—about the thrill of now living in the elegant Plaza Hotel. About how she was considering what Lucile had called self-advertisement, which Elinor had always pooh-poohed before. About a visit from some popular American author who had read Three Weeks and said he understood it, a humorist named Mark Twins or something like that, whom she called a “terribly witty creature.”

  Actually, Lucile hated to admit it rankled a bit that Elinor’s book, so degraded here, had now become a cause célèbre in the United States. As Elinor had put it, The Americans here in what is called “God’s own country” are indeed different from us. More color in their faces, more kindhearted. Even commoners on the streets seem full of vitality, intensity, and determination. She had gone on and on, not that Lucile had read the entire rambling letter yet.

  For heaven’s sake, Lucile groused silently, how dare Elinor turn on her own countrymen—perhaps including her own family. Did Elinor not know her older sister was full of vitality, intensity, and determination? She was doing smashing work here, and today would prove that. The audience incl
uded the queens of Spain and Rumania and noble ladies, including several HRHs. Also, the influential theater crowd would be here, such as Lillie Langtry, Ellen Terry, and Lily Else, the famous singer for whom Lucile had created costumes in her The Merry Widow triumph, including the new rage called the merry widow hat. Quite a few ladies had worn a version of that big-brimmed, bird-of-paradise-plumed fashion today, so it had been wise to build a slightly raised stage here so everyone could see.

  Most of all, Elinor’s letter did not sit well with Lucile because she herself intended to influence American women with her clothing, perhaps even designs for the common woman, for that seemed the American way. And she did not want to be known in America only as Elinor Glyn’s sister.

  After all, Lucile Ltd. was doing well, but until she conquered New York and Paris, it would not be enough. If her little sister could be a raving success in America, she could too. She intended to let Elinor know that the designer Lucile now commanded twenty guineas for a consultation, a mere consultation! When women had five to six changes of costume per day, and needed hats, shoes, and gloves to harmonize, the sky was the limit—not just in England and America, though, you might know, Elinor had gone on about expecting foreign translations of Three Weeks to sweep all Europe, too.

  Lucile tossed the letter onto her desk and went down the hall into the dressing room, abuzz with women’s voices. She clapped her hands for silence and made a little speech: “My dear goddesses, every seat is taken by ladies thrilled to see you presenting the Seven Ages of Woman. Quick costume changes will be necessary and done with whispers. Listen carefully for your cues, and I thank you all for what I know will be a smashing success.”

  As she swept back out in a new, rainbow-hued chiffon gown, she felt a bit of guilt. Actually, before she sailed, Elinor had come up with the concept for this presentation, something about Shakespeare and “the Seven Ages of Man” she had rattled off. Some of the goddesses were wearing jewelry borrowed from Elinor as well as from herself. But when she’d asked her sister to stay until after the parade, she’d said she couldn’t.