March 1895, New York
‘Nature will have her way among any group of young people thrown together.’ – ALVA VANDERBILT
A single American Beauty rose sat perfectly wrapped in a box on Consuelo Vanderbilt’s dressing table. The young woman stared dreamily at it. There had been no card with the delivery, but of course a card wasn’t necessary. The sender was obvious. It was 2 March 1895, the day of Consuelo’s eighteenth birthday. She knew she was bound to receive many ostentatious gifts, perhaps some jewellery from her father and an antique fan from her mother, but none would be more cherished than the rose that lay before her. Consuelo, no doubt, felt a rising excitement within her, the growing intrepidness of a young lady on the brink of her first experience of love, the sense that this could be her chance to escape.
Winthrop Rutherfurd was the man on whom she was pinning all of her hopes. Older, dashing, handsome and from an Old New York family that had long been integral to society, he represented everything that Consuelo dreamed about in a future husband. It was just a pity she had neglected to tell her mother about her plans. Alva Vanderbilt was certainly not in favour of the match and so the courtship had been conducted in secret, with the young couple snatching anxious, feverish moments together when they could, but always with enough discretion not to arouse too much suspicion. However, Alva noticed everything when it came to her children and so had now taken to observing her daughter’s movements even more carefully than she had before. It left little opportunity for the debutante to emerge from her domineering mother’s shadow and presented her with a very real problem of how to influence the question mark that hung over her future.
For this year would mark the culmination of a power struggle which mother and daughter had been locked in for many years. While Consuelo had been raised to respect her parents’ wishes and to make decisions based on seeking their approval, she also had an inner belief that when it came to marriage, she, like most American heiresses, should be able to choose her own husband. Whether that decision was based on love or money or status or a combination of those factors, it would still be her decision to make, for better or for worse. Unfortunately for Consuelo, Alva completely disagreed with her daughter and was determined to mastermind her transformation from naive debutante to one of the most influential women in society. Consuelo must continue on the trail that Alva had blazed before her and ensure that the Vanderbilt name and place was maintained, no matter what it took.
Despite years of watching her mother’s calculated social manoeuvres from the sidelines, Consuelo was completely unsuited for the role. Certainly she was beautiful, intelligent and cultured, everything a Vanderbilt heiress should be and more – Alva had made sure of it – but she lacked the natural flair for entertaining and the naked ambition that her mother had so skilfully employed to assume her position within the establishment. The truth that Alva did not want to accept was that any spark Consuelo might have shown for the game of society had been extinguished by a life spent being drilled on the right way to behave. A childhood that had included relentless study in order to become an accomplished linguist, talented musician and knowledgeable companion. Not only was Consuelo expected to excel and frequently asked to recite long passages of prose to her mother, but she also had to endure her lessons attached to a metal back brace to ensure perfect posture. While Alva was confident, formidable and determined, Consuelo was shy, demure and a romantic. Faced with a daughter who seldom vocalised what she wanted, it is little wonder that Alva, so used to being in charge, attempted to lay the foundations for her future.
Towards the end of her life, Alva shared her views on her children’s marriages, telling her biographer Sara Bard Field, ‘You cannot help your children to advantages through sentimental romance but through money which alone has power.’1 Perhaps she was reflecting on her own marriage to Willie K, which had afforded her power and status but little personal happiness. However, despite her experiences of a union more reminiscent of a business arrangement than a partnership based on love, she still believed that this sacrifice was worthwhile and advocated it to her daughter. In a Gilded Age when men were the rulers of Wall Street and women were discouraged from asserting themselves in business or politics, marriage was their only route to power. The domestic sphere provided an opportunity for real influence and the domination of society was an extension of that. Alva had understood that as a young woman, and was determined Consuelo would carve out her own place. Given recent developments in her own marriage, she knew this would be difficult. Winthrop Rutherfurd, despite his good name and family connections, would not be enough to secure Consuelo’s position as her mother’s eventual successor.
The Vanderbilts’ divorce had once more put the family in a precarious social position. After more than a decade of dominating New York’s upper classes enveloped in a cloak of perfect propriety, their personal desires threatened to unmask them as society pretenders. Alva’s lawyer had pleaded with her to reconsider the divorce; after all, the couple had been leading separate lives for some time, they had the money to travel and entertain independently, and the scandal of the separation would deal an irreparable blow to their status. Their situation was far from unique, and within the upper classes there were many unwritten rules about how to successfully navigate a marriage, particularly an unhappy one. Mrs Astor had endured many years tied to an errant husband, but never let it engulf her position as the moral compass of the establishment. In the Vanderbilts’ New York, marriages were generally not expected to be happy and if they were, it was certainly a lucky accident. Edith Wharton encapsulated the reality of society marriages in the Age of Innocence, when Newland Archer ruminates on his own impending nuptials:
‘… with a shiver of foreboding he saw his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were: a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other.’2
Alva Vanderbilt had decided that in her marriage she would not keep up the charade any longer. Divorce was the only option and she would not relent for fear of what lay before her. She was confident that she could ride out the inevitable media storm and face down the society matrons who chose to shun her. She had taken on society before and outwitted them all, and she could do it again, because this time the prize was her freedom and the chance to marry Oliver Belmont for love.
Unfortunately for Consuelo, her mother’s happiness would come at the cost of her own. Since the divorce news had broken, she had endured several social occasions where her parents’ marriage was the main topic of conversation. While long-standing supporters such as Marietta Stevens had been kind and ensured that she was invited to dinner parties and balls, the mild-mannered debutante had felt the eyes of New York burning through her as she attempted to move effortlessly from one engagement to another while the Season continued relentlessly. On 27 February 1895, a dinner in the style of Napoleon’s First Empire had been given by John W Murray Jr in Consuelo’s honour, with great attention paid to ensure every element was historically accurate, an honour afforded to only the most highly regarded debutantes. So Consuelo Vanderbilt’s Season was not a disaster – but it wasn’t the heady success Alva had been dreaming of either, particularly now that the family of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Willie K’s brother, had closed ranks and publicly disowned Alva. For Alva, who took the combative view that you were either with her or against her, this proved an irresistible challenge. She would have to find another way for Consuelo to stun society, and once again she looked to old friends for help. Consuelo must secure a match that would capture the imagination and the loyalty of American society.
In the summer of 1894, Alva had taken Consuelo to England with the idea of a foreign marriage for her daughter slowly crystallising in her mind. After consulting Minnie Paget, her old friend from Paris and the daughter of Marietta Stevens, on the subject, they had together started to formulate a plan for Consuelo’s introduction to the British aristocracy. Minnie had suggested possible suitors and had arranged the fateful dinner party where they had first met Sunny, the Duke of Marlborough. They had spent the rest of the London Season attending the most fashionable occasions and ensuring Consuelo was seen by those who mattered, as Minnie had suggested, and then in August had retired to a house on the Thames, so Alva could consider her next move. She knew divorce from Willie K was inevitable and that Consuelo’s prospects would be affected by the fallout, but was an aristocratic match the answer? Since the divorce announcement, Alva had felt the chill of New York society’s reaction and was incensed that not all of the elite were falling into line behind her. ‘During the following months I was to suffer a perpetual denial of friendships and pleasures, since my mother resented seeing anyone whose loyalties were not completely hers,’ Consuelo remembered. ‘I had moreover to render a strict account of the few parties I was allowed to attend without her, and if I danced too often with a partner he immediately became the butt of her displeasure.’3
If Alva had doubts before about the merits of a transatlantic marriage, they now disappeared. They would go to England, Consuelo would become a duchess and Alva’s friends, who were now masters in engineering such marriages, were going to help them.
For the time being, Consuelo remained delightfully unaware of her mother’s plans. She did as she was told, diligently approaching the monotony of society: paying calls, attending the opera, taking tea with acquaintances, all while quietly remaining detached from the undercurrent of gossip and intrigue that permeated her world. She had spent years perfecting a distant quality for which she would become known throughout her life. An artist visiting the United States commented that Consuelo had ‘the grace and elusiveness of a swan, and the painter who could adequately transfer her movements to canvas would make his name, and go down to posterity’4. The skill of remaining aloof would work to her advantage, allowing her to remain above the whispers and to imagine an entirely different existence – a life with Winthrop Rutherfurd. In many ways Consuelo was more like her father, Willie K, than her mother. She was charming, gentle and genuinely likeable, all characteristics that she had witnessed in her father. She also disliked conflict and carried with her an air of melancholy that would cause one reporter to remark on her ‘subdued sadness’.5 Willie K’s inability to confront Alva’s forceful personality had led to him abandoning Consuelo for Europe at this crucial time and would see him consistently fail to intervene in the question of her marriage in the months to come. While he spent most of his life indulging his passions for women and sailing, travelling extensively on his yacht courtesy of his grandfather’s millions, the money did not seem to bring with it contentment. Rather tellingly, he was once reported as saying, ‘My life was never destined to be quite happy… inherited wealth is a real handicap to happiness. It is a certain death to ambition as cocaine is to morality.’6
His daughter shared this predilection for melancholy and would spend years trying to find the courage to abandon her sense of duty to others in favour of her own happiness. However, on this day, as a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, she could dream about a future that she had created for herself. A future that paid no heed to her mother, her father or the Vanderbilt fortune, a future based on love.
It’s clear that Consuelo had fallen for the older Winthrop, as was probably to be expected. He had been negotiating society for a number of years and was probably well versed in courting young debutantes. He was tall, athletic and was described by Edith Wharton as ‘the prototype of my first novels’7. From Consuelo’s own recollections of the period, Winthrop seems to have returned her feelings. In her memoirs she does not refer to him by name, instead describing him as ‘an older man who by his outstanding looks, his distinction and his charm had gained a marked ascendancy in my affections’8. A cycling outing had been arranged where Consuelo and Winthrop could indulge in the new craze that was taking New York by storm and hopefully steal some time alone. Alva was of course present, as she always was, and was determined to ensure that didn’t happen.
‘Nature will have her way among any group of young people thrown together. I was careful that my daughter should not meet men for whom she might have a youthful and passing fancy,’9 Alva remembered in her memoirs, and she was true to her word. After Consuelo was introduced to society, Alva was omnipresent, never risking her daughter’s reputation or heart for one moment, except when she deemed it acceptable.
On 2 March 1895, Consuelo was to enjoy a small victory over her mother. During their ride on Riverside Drive, Consuelo and Winthrop used their evident youth and skill to surge ahead from the rest of the party, including Alva. As they sped along together, further and further away from the constraints of family and duty, the couple, a sense of freedom and bravery engendered in them, sought to reclaim their future. They stopped to catch their breath and Winthrop proposed. With Alva and the others in pursuit, they had only moments to talk: ‘… as they strained to reach us he pressed me to agree to a secret engagement, for I was leaving for Europe the next day. He added that he would follow me, but that I must not tell my mother since she would most certainly withhold her consent to our engagement. On my return to America we might plan an elopement.’10
When Alva finally caught up with the couple, Consuelo knew that she had guessed their secret. ‘I have never succeeded in hiding my feelings and my mother must have guessed the cause of my new radiance,’11 she said.
With events rapidly engulfing Alva’s plans for her daughter, she took the only course of action available to her. She ploughed on with her plans for an English titled match for Consuelo. The foundations had already been laid the previous summer and she had enough contacts to ensure that it would become a reality. Marietta had assured Alva that Minnie was in place and ready to guide the Vanderbilts through the complex world of British etiquette. But they must work quickly. Unquestionably, Consuelo had a large dowry that would attract the highest calibre of suitor, and Willie K had assured Alva that this would be unaffected by their divorce. After all, the Vanderbilts would all surely benefit from Consuelo securing an advantageous marriage. However, the scandal surrounding the separation was not only taking its toll on Alva’s reputation in New York, and in a world where the upper classes travelled frequently and widely, the tales of impropriety would almost certainly make their way across the ocean. Would such assaults on their character be enough to put off the British nobility, who already had preconceived ideas about the suitability of American wives? Minnie Paget was confident that, with her assistance, certain members of the aristocracy would quickly see the benefits of an alliance with the Vanderbilts. And so, as Consuelo mused about Withrop and his dramatic and impassioned proposal, the women packed for Europe.