The Glitter and the Gold Read online

  How gratefully then I looked to Miss Harper for consolation and advice, how wisely she spoke of the future awaiting me in her country, of the opportunities for usefulness and social service I would find there, of the happiness a life lived for others can bring. And in such gentle appeals to my better nature she slowly swung me from contemplations of a purely personal nature to a higher idealism. Brought up to obey, I surrendered more easily to my mother's dictates than others nurtured in a gentler discipline might have done. It seemed to me impossible further to risk her displeasure, implying as it did persecution of the man I loved and the danger to herself the doctor had indicated.

  History records many marriages of convenience. Even in my day they were still in vogue in Europe where the interests of the two contracting parties were considered to outweigh the wishes of the bride. So that what to many of my compatriots may appear an unwarranted prerogative was to my mother but a reasonable decision concerning my future.

  Thus disciplined and prepared, I found with Marlborough's arrival a sudden change of scene. Determined to outdo all previous entertainments, my mother gave a ball described in contemporary newspapers as "the most beautiful fete ever seen in Newport." The favors for the cotillion, which she had selected herself in Paris, consisted of old French etchings, fans, mirrors, watch cases and sashes of ribbons, all of the Louis XIV period. Lanterns which were a facsimile of Marble House and bagpipes which really squeaked added an amusing note. Each favor was marked with a medallion representing Marble House. "The young Duke of Marlborough," the papers continued, "stood by Mrs. Jay in the grand salon and viewed the pretty women with interest."

  Once again launched into the gaieties of a season from which I had so recently been withdrawn, I went to dinners and balls escorted by Marlborough, chaperoned by my mother. In the harbor, on one of those sumptuous yachts millionaires then owned, John Jacob Astor and his beautiful wife, now Lady Ribblesdale, entertained us; a cruise with the Pembroke Jones was declined as Marlborough claimed he was too bad a sailor. My father's yacht, the Valiant, was away in other waters; we did not meet until later in New York. And the man I longed to see had withdrawn from so gay a scene.

  How leisurely were our pleasures! In the mornings. Math my mother, we drove to the Casino in a sociable, a carriage so named for the easy comfort it provided for conversation. Face to face on cushioned seats permitting one to lean back without the loss of dignity, we sat under an umbrella-like tent. Dressed in one of the elaborate batistes my mother had bought for me in Paris, with Marlborough opposite in flannels and the traditional sailor hat, we proceeded in state down Bellevue Avenue. And society rolled by in the elegant equipages one saw in those days when to be well turned out on wheels with a handsome pair of horses was as necessary to one's standard of luxury as a fine house. At the Casino we met the beau monde and its belles, young Mrs. J. J. Astor, Miss Grace Wilson, later to marry my cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the two lovely Blight girls who during their seasons in Paris impressed the Faubourg with the charm, distinction and gaiety their generation achieved. But to my mind the most beautiful of all, with a classic perfection of face and form, was Louise Morris who later, married to Henry Clews, bequeathed that beauty to her daughter the Duchess of Argyll. How charming they all were in their picture hats and organdies, so incompatible with comfort, but so becoming.

  Returning to Marble House, perhaps for a luncheon party, we would often see Oliver H. P. Belmont, a noted whip, bowl swiftly by on his coach, skillfully guiding his blue-blooded leaders Rockingham and Hurlingham. Oliver Belmont was a man of taste. He had at that time a unique stable of carriage horses. In order to be closer to them he had built over his stables near Bellevue Avenue an apartment where he lived with his books and a collection of equestrian knights in medieval armor. Below he housed his carriages—a cabriolet, a curricle, a spider phaeton and various types of gigs and buggies and breaks. These carriages were made in France and were copies of the ones we admire in the pictures of Carle Vernet and the drawings of Guys. They were beautifully turned out with the attention to detail Mr. Belmont's knowledge insured. Sometimes he drove us to the Polo Field where the young Waterbury boys were giving early proof of the dash and skill that later placed them in the team known as the Big Four, when with my cousin Harry Whitney and that great back Devereux Milbum they won back the Westchester Cup from England. The rivalry of international matches had not as yet caused polo ponies to become as valuable as jewels and the pace so furious as to be almost dangerous. We sat round the Field in our carriages and strolled off to tea at the end of a game.

  It was in the comparative quiet of an evening at home that Marlborough proposed to me in the Gothic Room whose atmosphere was so propitious to sacrifice. There was no need for sentiment. I was content with his pious hope that he would make me a good husband and ran up to my mother with word of our engagement. There was no time for thought or for regrets. The next day the news was out, and a few days later Marlborough departed to see something of a country he even then announced he would never revisit. There was in his sarcastic comments on all things American an arrogance that inclined me to view his decision with approval. When I broke the news of our engagement to my brothers, Harold observed, "He is only marrying you for your money," and with this last slap to my pride I burst into tears. It was obvious that they would have preferred me to marry a compatriot, but unable to speak of the emotional turmoil I had so recently experienced I could not enlighten them. Indeed an immense distance now separated me from them, for I had grown years older.

  In October we returned to New York to a new house my mother had taken since her divorce had become final. It was on Seventy-second Street and has only recently been demolished.

  November 5th was fixed for our wedding; but it was changed to the 6th when Marlborough said that November 5th was Guy Fawkes Day and that it would not be suitable for him to be married on a day that an attempt had been made to blow up the House of Lords. I could not understand why Guy Fawkes's attempt to blow up Parliament almost three centuries before should affect the date of our marriage, but this was only the first of a series of, to me, snobbish prejudices inspired by a point of view opposed to my own.

  Ordering my trousseau, always an exciting event in a girl's life, proved of slight interest since I had very little to say about it, my mother not troubling to consult the taste she claimed I did not possess.

  The marriage settlements gave rise to considerable discussion. An English solicitor who had crossed the seas with the declared intention of "profiting the illustrious family" he had been engaged to serve, devoted a natural talent to that end. Finally the settlements were apportioned in equal shares, at my request.

  The strain my engagement imposed on my feelings was further intensified by these material considerations. However, with my engagement, vigilance had relaxed and my correspondence was no longer subjected to scrutiny, a circumstance that permitted a host of proposals to reach me. They were penned by would-be knights anxious to prevent the unhappiness so unromantic a marriage seemed to hold in store. Rendered skeptical by recent experiences, I viewed these offers with less enthusiasm than did their begetters.

  As the wedding approached there came presents. My mother had forbidden me to receive any gifts from my Vanderbilt relatives and I felt hurt and pained when I was made to return them without excuse or thanks. My grandmother was the only Vanderbilt whom I was allowed to visit, and the only one invited to my wedding, but she naturally refused to come to a ceremony from which her entire family was to be excluded. My eight bridesmaids had been selected by my mother from among her friends for her own reasons, and some of them were several years older than I. They were Edith Morton, Evelyn Burden, Marie Winthrop, Katherine Duer, Elsa Bronson, May Goelet, Julia Jay and Daisy Post. They wore long dresses of white satin with blue sashes and their big picture hats were most becoming. The arrival of my wedding dress brought the realization that my mother had ordered it while we were still in Paris, so sure had she been of the su
ccess of her plans.

  Mine was the first international marriage that had taken place for some time. It created great interest and every incident of my engagement had been publicized. Reporters called incessantly, anxious to secure every particle of news, from the cost of my trousseau to our future plans. Since little news was given out, accounts were fabricated. I read to my stupefaction that my garters had gold clasps studded with diamonds, and wondered how I should live down such vulgarities.

  I spent the morning of my wedding day in tears and alone; no one came near me. A footman had been posted at the door of my apartment and not even my governess was admitted. Like an automaton I donned the lovely lingerie with its real lace and the white silk stockings and shoes. My maid helped me into the beautiful dress, its tiers of Brussels lace cascading over white satin. It had a high collar and long tight sleeves. The court train, embroidered with seed pearls and silver, fell from my shoulders in folds of billowing whiteness. My maid fitted the tulle veil to my head with a wreath of orange blossoms; it fell over my face to my knees. A bouquet of orchids that was to come from Blenheim did not arrive in time. I felt cold and numb as I went down to meet my father and the bridesmaids who were waiting for me. My mother had decreed that my father should accompany me to the church to give me away. After that he was to disappear. We were twenty minutes late, for my eyes, swollen with the tears I had wept, required copious sponging before I could face the curious stares that always greet a bride. To my mother, who had preceded us to the church, the wait appeared interminable and she wondered whether at the last moment her plans would miscarry.

  There were the usual crowds of curious sightseers on Fifth Avenue. When we reached St. Thomas I saw an endless aisle with clusters of white flowers, and at the altar stood the Bishop of New York and the Bishop of Long Island. So many eyes pried my defenses, I was thankful for the veil that covered my face.

  As I followed my lovely bridesmaids I remembered to press my father's arm gently to slow his step. Marlborough with the best man, his cousin Ivor Guest, was waiting for us. The usual hymns glorifying perfect love were sung, and when I glanced at my husband shyly I saw that his eyes were fixed in space.

  As we came out of the church the crowd surged toward us and women tried to snatch flowers from my bouquet. There were spasmodic cheers and less friendly sallies. At the luncheon which followed at our house the British Ambassador, Lord Pauncefote, made a charming speech to which Marlborough responded fittingly. The best man toasted the bridesmaids, but the ushers-chosen from the ranks of those who had perhaps from similar notions aspired to be in Marlborough's place—were not called upon to demonstrate their good will in speeches.

  Driving away from my home I looked back. My mother was at the window. She was hiding behind the curtain, but I saw that she was in tears. And yet, I thought, she has attained the goal she set herself, she has experienced the satisfactions wealth can confer, she has ensconced me in the niche she so early assigned me, and she is now free to let ambition give way to a gentler passion. In seeking a divorce, she had persuaded my father much against his will to give her the grounds a decree in New York State requires—a code in which the subtle charges of mental cruelty cannot be stretched to a complaisant elasticity. I was happy to think that in her marriage to Oliver H. P. Belmont she would find happiness. I did not then know how tragically short their married life would be.

  3: A Marriage of Convenience

  THERE were no tunnels to Long Island and no parkways in 1895. Brooklyn Bridge alone spanned the East River. We took a ferry to Long Island City and then a special train to Oakdale.

  Settled in an observation car, Marlborough whiled away the journey reading congratulatory telegrams, handing them on to me with the proper gestures of deference or indifference the senders evoked. Thus I could gauge the importance of each person, and received my first lesson in class consciousness. Unfortunately, there was no silver platter on which to present Her Majesty Queen Victoria's missive, but it was read with due respect, and a sense of her intimidating presence crept even into that distant railway car. It became clear that the royal family and his own families, the Spencer-Churchills and the Hamiltons, were ready to accord me a gracious welcome, though tempered with the reserve marriage with a foreigner evoked. From the Churchills, more immediately concerned, since Blenheim was their home, came a jubilant note; but from the Hamiltons there seemed to emanate a distinct warning that my person rather than my fortune would be my claim to their good graces.

  The Hamiltons were a formidable clan headed by the Dowager Duchess of Abercom, who was proudly conscious of her family and their alliances. Herself the daughter of a Duke of Bedford, she was a typical example of the hereditary aristocrat. A few years later, I was included in a photograph she had made of herself and of her one hundred and thirty descendants in the garden of Montagu House in Whitehall—at that time the residence of her son-in-law, the Duke of Buccleuch, but now the Ministry of Labour. I can remember still my surprise when one member after another of that well-bred company remarked to me that I was the first American she had condescended to receive! Could they imagine they were paying me a compliment? Of the Duchess's thirteen living children, six daughters had all been ordered to marry into the Peerage and no one beneath an Earl. My mother-in-law, Lady Blandford as she was known, since she had divorced her husband before he succeeded to the dukedom, had been forbidden to accept the proposal of a gentleman of lesser degree who later contracted another ducal alliance. Sensing the similarity of our experiences, we become knit in a close and sympathetic understanding, which caused her to stand by me in any differences that arose.

  Added to these royal and family congratulations were cables from political organizations, from county dignitaries, from tenants, from employees and from a host of friends, all together bringing me a realization of the complex and ordered society I was to join. The messages expressed so much deference that they seemed to me both snobbish and ridiculous, for after all we were only two very young people. But in time I learned that snobbishness was an enthroned fetish which spreads its tentacles into every stratum of British national life.

  My husband spoke of some two hundred families whose lineage and whose ramifications, whose patronymics and whose titles I should have to learn. Then Blenheim and its tenants, its employees and its household servants would claim my attention. It was only later that I found that my personal reactions toward what to me appeared absurd distinctions must be repressed and that I must not expect even a servant who stood high in the hierarchy to perform a task he considered beneath his dignity. On ringing the bell one day I was answered by the butler, but when I asked him to set a match to an already prepared fire he made me a dignified bow and leaving the room observed, "I will send the footman, Your Grace," to which I hastily replied, "Oh don't trouble, I will do it myself."

  Such pomp and ritual were considerations of prime importance in the country that was to be mine. To me, seated beside the man who now ruled my life, absorbed as he was in contemplation of the future at a moment when the present should mean so much, the outlook loomed somber.

  It was a relief to reach the little station of Oakdale, but there was no carriage awaiting us and we found ourselves surrounded by a large crowd. Rather than remain the objects of their curious scrutiny, we sallied forth on foot, accompanied by members of the press who were overjoyed at the scoop this bit of news would represent in headlines next day: "Duke and Duchess start honeymoon on foot."

  It was not long before the carriage found us and the gates of Idlehour closed behind us. Seeing my old home brought a flood of memories of happy days when my father and mother had been united and I had my brothers as companions. How different from the present when alone I faced life with a comparative stranger. The house looked cheerful with its blazing fire in the living hall from which wide steps of polished oak led to the landing above. Here my mother's room had been prepared for me and my room next door for Marlborough. A sudden realization of my complete innocence assa
iled me, bringing with it fear. Like a deserted child I longed for my family. The problem created by the marriage of two irreconcilable characters is a psychological one which deserves sympathy as well as understanding. In the hidden reaches where memory probes lie sorrows too deep to fathom.

  After the week's seclusion custom has imposed upon reluctant honeymooners, we returned to New York, and spent an evening at the fashionable horse show, where our box was mobbed by crowds which policemen had to move along. It was pleasant to escape from the glare of publicity that was focused upon our every act, and I left the city with few regrets.

  Since Blenheim was being renovated we could not go there before March, and since Marlborough, never having traveled, wished to see something of the world before settling down, we embarked for the Mediterranean. Crossing the Atlantic in those days was not the luxurious affair it is now. Ships were much smaller and there were no beautifully decorated suites, no Ritz restaurant, no cinema and no radio. There being no ocean liners to Italy, we traveled on a small cargo boat. The captain's suite, which he had turned over to us, was gloomy and boasted but a minimum of comfort.

  As a good sailor, I did not mind the long, extremely rough passage, but I was worried about Marlborough. There was no doctor on board; we were, I think, the only passengers, and the captain's ministrations did not help him. Seasickness breeds a horrible pessimism in which my husband fully indulged, and it took all the optimism I possessed to overcome the depressing gloom of that voyage.

  We left the ship at Gibraltar instead of going on to the port in Italy we had aimed for, since another sea voyage was not considered advisable for him. A visit to Madrid, Seville and Granada was arranged and we then intended to proceed by way of the French Riviera, Rome and Brindisi to our eventual destination, Egypt. Winters in Spain are apt to be cold and bleak. In Madrid icy winds made visits to poorly heated museums unpleasantly chilly. The galleries which contain so many masterpieces—and also so many rows of inferior pictures—were at that time atrociously arranged. My enthusiasm waned and, because I had overgrown my strength, I also felt exhausted.