American Duchess Read online

  “I understand there are some family difficulties that will soon become full public knowledge,” he told me between the third and fourth courses of dinner. “Mrs. Vanderbilt says you are going home straightaway, but that you will return for the next social season, so perhaps the two of you can tour Blenheim with me then.”

  Mama had not told me we were leaving soon, but I was glad for it. And perhaps, for someone like this man who cherished his home and honor, a looming Vanderbilt divorce would keep him away. Oh, if only!

  “I am sure we would love to see the palace and estate,” I told him, feeling much relieved that I—if not he too—might be promised to another before then. Mama may hope my absence would make this man’s heart grow fonder—for my dowry at least—but I was praying that out of sight would mean out of mind.

  Suddenly the food and wine tasted better. Our halting conversation seemed smoother. I might never see his beautiful Blenheim at all, because I was going home.

  WE STEAMED BACK to the States in September of 1894 on the ship RMS Lucania, arriving in time to join the Newport social season. I was so relieved to be home and out of the clutches of titled Europeans and the women who acted as go-betweens for my mother. I was happy to be part of the demanding, breakneck Newport season. Mama was busy planning how to obtain her divorce and yet retain her place in society. Although I could tell she was keeping Win away from me, with Mama’s attentions otherwise engaged, we could still correspond and we planned an autumn reunion in New York. I cherished each letter that came through my maid, addressed to “Dear Amber” and signed “Your true Rosenkavalier.”

  The daily routine for the young social set in season stretched nearly from dawn to the next daylight. Morning rides sidesaddle, then the first of many changes of attire to a day dress for a carriage ride. Before lunch, swimming at Bailey’s Beach, though I detested the rocks and red algae there—and how long it took to change into my pantaloons, swimming dress, and huge hat. In truth, I thought a good deal of time was wasted in endless costume changes, usually from the skin out.

  Next came noon luncheons in cottages or on yachts in the harbor or a picnic elsewhere with linen, china, and crystal laid out on tables or blankets on the grass. Tennis and gossip at the meeting place, called the Casino, and afternoon promenades. Tea later on the lawn and another change of clothes for dinner. Balls in the evening of various themes or decorated in a particular color. And then all over again the next day.

  Papa spent his days on his yacht in the harbor or visiting his favorite place, Idle Hour on Long Island, to which I longed to escape. The few times I saw him, we quickly chatted somewhere outside since he was persona non grata with Mama, and I knew my friends might leak it to her, however loyal Miss Harper or my maid might be. Mama had sacked staff for far less before.

  “Do not think she has given up plans for you with Marlborough,” Papa warned me as we ducked inside one of the shops on Bellevue Avenue while Miss Harper pointedly looked around at the merchandise. “Talk about the Battle of Blenheim paying off for generations of those dukes,” he went on, speaking fast and low. “Your mother’s battle is big, too—first, complete the divorce and get control of you three children.”

  “No . . . that should be shared control at least,” I dared. “What else is she demanding?”

  “I have offered her all three homes in exchange for joint custody, but she is only taking Marble House—she’s always hated the Vanderbilt home on Long Island. I thought she’d want 660 Fifth Avenue—well, she designed it, too.”

  “Designed and decorated it with your money.”

  “Do not talk like that. It takes two to make a marriage, and I am the one who asked for her hand, made the marriage decision, however much she steered me into it. But, what the deuce, I think she is going to emerge from this social disaster unscathed. She gave me a high-flying speech that she intended to pave the way for women being able to get a divorce without losing face—and then went on a rant about women getting the vote, no less. But, dear girl, how has all this been for you?”

  “Everyone’s talking, whispering behind my back about it. A few sniggers here and there. But, Papa, it is so outrageous if Mama thinks she can still marry me off well after this. I heard that at the mere hint of divorce or marital troubles and Queen Victoria tosses former friends to the wolves, and it is not so different around here.”

  “Well, Queen Victoria has not met Queen Alva. Your mama managed to best Lady Astor once, so I would put my betting money on her. But I am sorry, my dear, about the whispers, the scandal, which you are no part of.”

  “It must bother Win, too. Please tell him I will see him in New York soon. I hope his feelings for me will not change, if you know what I mean. He is from a respectable, well-to-do family so she cannot say he is only after my—our—money.”

  “No one who sees or knows you could be after only that, my dear. I had best push on now. I will tell Win you are looking exceptionally lovely. I would ask him down, but your mother is a powder keg right now, so take care of yourself and the lads.”

  He pecked a kiss on my cheek. How much I loved him!

  Miss Harper knew to offer a handkerchief the moment she came back to me in the shop. “My mother will have my head if she hears I see him here and there,” I whispered to her.

  “My only assignment,” she said, “was to watch out for Winthrop Rutherfurd lurking about. Let’s go, or we will be late to the polo field to watch a few chukkers from the carriage. See and be seen, that is the best ploy to keep our chins up through all this.”

  I knew she meant the scandal of the Vanderbilt divorce. But the scandal that devastated me—that I must somehow escape—was the shock of being sold for a title to the highest bidder for my hand, and for the rest of me, too.

  BUT EVEN WHEN we returned to New York that autumn, I did not see Win. Granted, I was ailing for a while, but his letters stopped coming, even after I wrote him, making me even more ill, especially when the Vanderbilt divorce was discussed and dissected daily in the newspapers. I did not miss the whispers of my friends, but could the “great divorce” have changed Win’s mind about me?

  Then, on a windy but sunny week in late winter, a few days before the divorce would become final, Mama announced that she and I were heading back to England on March 3, and that she was going to host a luncheon for my female friends on my eighteenth birthday the day before. She informed me that carriages would take me and my guests for a bicycle ride afterward, weather permitting.

  Indeed, I thought, it would do me good to go out with a group of friends to get my stamina back and some color in my cheeks. In a way, but for having my brothers and Miss Harper around, I was in sore need of companionship.

  I knew I looked pale, but painting was strictly for the demimonde, so I pinched my cheeks and enjoyed the luncheon—though Miss Harper informed me that several of those invited were “engaged elsewhere” when it used to be that no one missed any Vanderbilt event at the elegant 660 Fifth Avenue mansion. Then out we trooped to carriages that delivered us near to Riverside Drive, since the new bicycle rage kept horse-drawn vehicles away from that picturesque street now. And you might know that Mama actually rode along with us, including my brothers. And, suddenly, there was Win!

  I never did learn how he managed to become part of our group! It hardly mattered. Here he was, at last, in the flesh, my handsome, clever Win. With the others around, Mama could hardly tell him to leave, and his presence made a public statement that the Rutherfurds, at least, still desired to mingle with the disgraced Mrs. Vanderbilt. He even doffed his hat to Mama as he coasted up beside me, and off we all went.

  “Pedal fast so we can outstrip them, especially your mother,” he said without turning his head my way. “Why haven’t you written?”

  “Only a million letters at least, and I have had none of yours.”

  “It is not my mother intercepting them.”

  “I am surprised I still have my maid and governess if she found out they used to pass them to
me.”

  “But that would be tipping her hand. Consuelo, my beloved ‘Amber,’” he added, using his secret pet name for me—probably secret no more, if Mama had intercepted our letters—“we will have to be strong through this. And I rejoice that you are of age today, as that may help.”

  “Or not,” I said with a sigh.

  We pedaled faster, ignoring the passing scene of the white-capped Hudson River, carriages, and other bicyclers. I was out of shape, out of breath—but out of patience, too. Indeed, I was of age! Must I be controlled by my mother yet?

  “Then you still care for me?” I asked breathlessly as we increased our speed even more.

  “I love you with all my heart. I play polo and think of you. I play golf and think of you. I have hidden here next to my heart a long-stemmed American Beauty rose to prove my continued constancy and pray that I am yet your Rosenkavalier. Would you consider a secret engagement until we can figure out how to best convince your mother?”

  “What about your family—now with the divorce?”

  “There is but one barrier as far as I can tell.”

  “Once she realizes how much we love each other, surely she will want to keep me here in society, not that of Europe. I have not heard one word about someone there I thought she fancied for me.”

  “Then, let’s stop here and make our vow,” he said, as we braked to a halt and glanced back at my laughing friends—and frowning Mama, all nearly caught up to us. He pulled a battered bright pink American Beauty rose from inside his buttoned jacket and seized my hand. The river wind ripped at us, loosening my hair and tugging at my hat. I clutched the flower to my breasts.

  “Consuelo Vanderbilt, I love you with all my heart,” Win said, in a rush. “I pledge you my undying love and admiration and wish to marry you—when—when we can manage it. Will you marry me?”

  “I will. I will! To death us do part.”

  We dared not kiss but squeezed hands. I thrust the rose under my buttoned cloak as the other riders pedaled up to meet us. Somehow Mama managed to wedge the front wheel of her bicycle between ours.

  “You are going much, much too fast,” she scolded us. “Consuelo, you have been ailing and need to keep up your strength for our departure tomorrow. And Win, how lovely to see you again. But you, too, look a bit windblown and flustered. Are you quite well? Nice of you to ride along today to bid Consuelo good-bye.”

  “Hey, there, Win,” someone shouted. “The wind is in my face but seems to be pushing you and Consuelo along!”

  “Not a bit of it!” Win responded with a smile as we all remounted our bikes.

  I sighed and shuddered with excitement as well as sadness that we were to be parted again so soon. But now I could imagine us riding a bicycle made for two through any gale or storm, way ahead of Mama’s machinations, all the way through my now adult life.

  Chapter Four

  To my utter horror—but I could not let on until Win and I could get Papa on board and face Mama together—the Duke of Marlborough invited us to Blenheim on June 15 for what the British called a Saturday to Monday, their version of a weekend visit. I had danced with him twice at one of the lovely events of the season, the ball given by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, where I tried to converse politely and ignore that the top of his head came only up to my eyebrows.

  Nor was I in the best of moods on that trip to Blenheim, for Lady Paget came along too, the woman who had so brutally assessed my weaknesses so that she and Mama could lay a trap for the duke—or was it to make a deal with him? So, for the trip to the Marlborough estate, I vowed to be polite again and not more. But that plan went awry when I first saw Blenheim. Though that had naught to do with Sunny, I plunged from curiosity to awe.

  Oxfordshire was lovely in general that late spring day, but the estate was stunning—overwhelming. Sunny had said the park was almost three thousand acres and the palace had three hundred twenty rooms under seven acres of roof, but that had not prepared me for the absolute grandeur of the first sweeping view.

  He had met us at the nearby railway station, and the carriage had taken us a short distance through mellow stone villages, past cottages surrounded by green fields to the weathered stone arch at the Woodstock entry to the estate.

  “I hope you will see, Consuelo, why I love this place above all else,” Sunny said, turning toward me. “And why preserving and improving it is the goal of my life.”

  “I understand completely,” Mama told him when I but nodded. “My childhood home in Mobile, Alabama, was quite grand before the war ruined everything.”

  I prayed she would not launch into her stories of how many servants—slaves—her family once had, for that still bothered me deeply. But now, even as Mama fell silent, I could only bite back a gasp. Through and below the arch, guarded by a doorman in antique costume, lay an emerald man-made lake with a small island. The water reflected clouds in the vast sky, clusters of ancient oaks, and a honey-hued, massive arched stone bridge. At first I mistook the stretch of the palace itself for a palace and a village, but it was all one edifice. I did not love this man, but at first sight I did so love his Blenheim.

  ONCE WE WERE inside the huge palace with its high ceilings and vast rooms, I thought it was all rather cold—a museum, not a home—a problem with which I was quite familiar but not on this grand a scale. Things were laid out so beautifully, so perfectly, here with balance and bravado. Why, the displays reminded me of my own bedrooms in New York and Newport in that nothing in the wardrobe or even on my dressing table were personal choices. Dusted and shined daily, all had been purchased and arranged by Mama, and in my younger days I had been afraid to touch them.

  Sunny lived in this massive place alone but for his huge staff, yet we were introduced to the two unwed of his three sisters, who had come for the day. It was only then I learned, to my surprise, that his parents had been divorced and his father, the eighth duke, had remarried. Could that be something my mother had missed when she seemed to know everything else about Sunny? She looked at first surprised, then smug when she heard it, but not when she heard Sunny preferred his stepmother, Lady Lillian, the dowager duchess, to his mother, Albertha, now known as the Marchioness of Blandford. And oh dear, that stepmother was a rich American who had wed his father and brought in funds to repair and enhance Blenheim! Had that somehow set a precedent?

  But would his parents’ divorce—he admitted it had caused a scandal and royal ostracism for a time—mean that he would look more or less kindly on the daughter of divorced parents?

  I also met his stepmother, Lady Lillian, that day. Meanwhile, his sisters, Lady Norah and Lady Lilian Spencer-Churchill also looked me over—not a good sign, I thought. Lady Norah didn’t pay me much attention, but Lady Lilian, a pretty blond, who seemed sweet and kindhearted, reached out while the others only studied me.

  “I know this place is rather much and can be a smashing bore—like dear Sunny,” she whispered to me, “but give him a chance. By the way, of course the house is haunted,” she added for my ears only. “The first duchess, Sarah, who oversaw the building of it just cannot let it go. Then there is the old male ghost that haunts the room where our cousin Winston was born, but he causes not a bit of trouble.”

  I learned that the Churchill name that the sisters sported was prominent in their family history and that Sunny’s cousin Winston was a dear friend, and I must simply meet him sometime, his sisters said.

  “Winston can talk about anything to anyone at any time,” Lady Lilian told me on the sly. “I suppose Sunny did not tell you that Winston is his heir for all this, should Sunny not have a son. I hear you have two brothers, so I suppose, even in America, you know all about that.”

  She winked at me. I wanted to roll my eyes or shake my head, but she was so likable that I merely nodded.

  “Besides,” she chattered on, “however close Sunny and Winston are, it annoys my dear brother that Winston was born here at Blenheim and Sunny was born in India when our father was stationed there.
” She whispered the next words. “Secrets simply breed here, did ever since the first duchess walked these halls, you’ll see.”

  That sent up red flags. Not that the place was haunted or that secrets hid here, but that she’d said, You’ll see.

  I could tell Mama wanted to know what young Lilian kept saying to me, but for once, she was keeping her hands off. Another danger sign was that she did not so much as turn her head—only her eyes—if Sunny steered me off into a corner or another room to show me some relic he fancied or was proud of, including the dusty battle banners of the first duke, Sir John Churchill.

  Mama also happily sat off to the side with Lady Paget on Saturday evening when we dined in the massive state dining room, called the Saloon. The room seemed chilly even though logs blazed in both fireplaces. Fabulous frescoes with gods and goddesses gazed down at us from the ceiling and walls. Afterward, we moved into the Long Library—and long it was—to hear a concert by the duke’s organ master on the tall pipe organ that seemed to soar to the ceiling.

  I was impressed by the moving memorial inscribed on a carved and gilded scroll attached to the pipes. It seemed the magnificent instrument was paid for by Albertha’s money. The inscription read: IN MEMORY OF HAPPY DAYS & AS A TRIBUTE TO THIS GLORIOUS HOME, WE LEAVE THY VOICE TO SPEAK WITHIN THESE WALLS IN YEARS TO COME WHEN OURS ARE STILL.

  My nostrils flared at that, and I blinked back tears. So big Blenheim could be a home and not just a relic from the past. And a home to an American woman who married a duke and who managed to leave something beautiful behind.

  But I quickly put all that out of my mind. I was getting silly and soft. Whatever writing was on the wall or on an organ, this place was not for me.

  ON SUNDAY AFTER church, Sunny drove me around the grounds, just the two of us. He said he wanted me to see the people of the outlying villages of Woodstock and Bladon. The palace had been built, he told me, on land where once sat the Plantagenet kings’ hunting lodge of Woodstock.