July 1895, Newport, Rhode Island
‘I have never even dreamt of such luxury as I have seen in Newport. It is like walking on gold. An enchanted island.’ – GRAND DUKE BORIS OF RUSSIA
The Newport Casino was already in full swing. In every corner of the club on Bellevue Avenue, the elite lingered at leisure. They clustered in corners with pitchers of iced tea or lounged in chairs concentrating on the morning newspaper; they prepared for a quiet game of billiards or indulged in a hand of cards. Whatever their chosen pursuit, they had one thing in common. All kept a constant watch on those who came and went, for any visitor to the Casino was there for one purpose only: to observe their friends and be noticed by those they had yet to win over. A mental note would be made of the movements of each member of society that graced the Casino’s Japanese-ivy-clad walls, with a particular murmur of excitement reverberating around the club if one of Mrs Astor’s inner sanctum chose to appear. It was all conducted in a deeply civilised manner, Newport society operating with a practised restraint gained from years of suppressing natural impulses. A surreptitious glance, a stealthy further check for confirmation, then a combined look of recognition with their companion was all it took to commit to memory the day’s attendees, then with a nod of approval the morning’s activities were resumed. That was the way life was conducted in Newport, and Pauline Whitney, who sat on the Casino’s grandstand in a delicate Worth gown, surveying the efforts of the lawn-tennis players below, was no different.
As the daughter of William C Whitney, a wealthy and influential lawyer and politician, Pauline’s place was assured at the club. The Whitneys were an integral part of the Newport set and Pauline had an expectant poise radiating from her this year in particular, knowing that she was in possession of a secret. One that would silence her doubters and enable her to claim her place as one of the most eligible young heiresses The Four Hundred had to offer. Her friend Consuelo Vanderbilt was talked about incessantly everywhere that Pauline went. Of course she had her ambitious mother, Alva, to propel her forward, an advantage that Pauline, after the death of her mother Flora three years previously, was lacking. Now more than ever she longed for that steadying maternal hand to guide her through the next few months. She almost envied Consuelo, even though she knew Alva ruled her daughter’s life not so much with a gentle hand as with an iron fist, resulting in few choices for the young Vanderbilt. Rumours had begun to circulate that Consuelo was set to marry a duke. If only the ladies who quietly repeated the gossip in that very grandstand, as they looked out over the immaculately groomed courts, knew that Pauline, poor, delicate Pauline, had already captured the heart of an English aristocrat and was sure to set a date before the Vanderbilt lawyers had even decided on terms with the Marlboroughs.
Almeric Hugh Paget was the younger brother of Arthur Paget, Minnie Paget’s husband. At thirty-three years old, he was thirteen years older than Pauline, but the age difference seemed to matter little. The two were in love and planned to announce their engagement at the end of the month. Although Almeric hailed from one of England’s most distinguished families, he had no title to speak of and had actually been living in Minnesota for many years, where he had prospered in the town of St Paul through real estate and insurance interests. As Arthur’s brother, he had become a favourite with Marietta Stevens, who was delighted by his affable charm and cordial manner. Everyone who met Almeric immediately warmed to him and Pauline had quickly been won over by the attentive English gentlemen who suddenly appeared in her circle. Almost from the moment they had been introduced, she had known that Almeric was the man she wanted to marry, and fervently prayed that circumstances would make it so.
‘It seems likely that they had met in England through Minnie Stevens [Paget],’1 Pauline Whitney’s biographer, W A Swanberg, determined in his book Whitney Father, Whitney Heiress. Indeed, the connections between the Whitney, Stevens and Paget families were long and had endured the many twists and turns that New York society had presented. Pauline’s parents, Flora and William, had met at Paran Stevens’s Fifth Avenue Hotel in 1868 and Flora immediately struck up a friendship with the lively and vivacious wife of the proprietor, Marietta, who so resolutely fought to become accepted into Mrs Astor’s closed society. When Flora died, Marietta, with her customary loyalty, made it her business to keep a watchful eye over the young and impressionable Pauline.
Pauline made her debut on 10 December 1892 at a lavish reception at the Whitneys’ mansion on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. Although Pauline was still considered very young by society’s standards to be presented as a debutante, her mother’s health had been increasingly deteriorating, necessitating William to bring forward the occasion. He knew that Flora’s greatest wish was to witness Pauline moving effortlessly through the grand white and gold Whitney ballroom and so, with the knowledge of the severity of his wife’s illness, he defied convention and set a date. The finest artisans had been drafted in to transform the tired-looking residence, which the Whitneys had recently invested in, into an opulent private house, with stained-glass windows imported from European cathedrals, priceless Flemish tapestries that hung over the balustrades and a banquet-hall floor that originally occupied an Italian palace in Genoa. These all provided a dramatic backdrop to the festivities, with the obligatory floral decorations adorning almost every inch of the mansion. Tall palms strained to reach the ceiling while undulating garlands of orchids and American Beauty roses intertwined around the room. Pauline suffering from a last-minute spell of nerves, belatedly discovered her poise and performed her duties with consummate ease in a stylish white silk gown. Four weeks later, Flora Whitney was dead.
William C Whitney had once written to Flora, ‘Pauline, withal so affectionate and sweet, is headstrong and decided and I always fear for her.’2 Those stubborn tendencies may have stood her in good stead now, as she assumed the role of responsible adult. Despite her tender years, she immersed herself in trying to take her mother’s place. She was a judicious companion to her father, mother to her little sister Dorothy (who was only five years old when Flora died), older sister to her brothers Harry and Payne and affectionate niece to her wealthy uncle Oliver Payne, whose promises of a handsome inheritance were strategically dangled before the Whitneys whenever their father’s speculations on the stock market incurred heavy losses. In 1894, Pauline and her father sailed for Europe where, upon arriving in England, they visited both Consuelo Manchester and Minnie Paget. In addition to undertaking excursions to Windsor, Oxford and Stratford, the Whitneys also visited Scotland, where William owned a country shooting bolthole masquerading as an extravagant country estate. At some point in June, the press reported that Pauline was ‘painfully and dangerously ill with rheumatism… the result of a coaching trip and the neglect of being properly protected against the chilly English air’3. William immediately retained the services of two nurses to attend to Pauline day and night. She eventually recovered enough to return to America in time for the social Season to begin in earnest, attending a dinner given in her honour in Newport later in the summer, at which Alva, Consuelo and Marietta were also present, and the popular horse show at Madison Square Garden in November, where they all watched the annual parade from their family boxes.
By 5 December 1894, Pauline was on board the Majestic, setting sail again for Europe. This time her companions included her father, her brother Harry, family friends Alexander Gunn and Miss Davidge and one Almeric Paget. The exchanges that William and Pauline had engaged in with Minnie and Consuelo during their visit to England, whose sentiments had been echoed by Marietta in New York on their return, had had the desired effect. Pauline and Almeric had been strategically placed together, and now it was a waiting game to see if affection could blossom.
The crossing over the Atlantic was stormy and the assembled party found themselves playing endless rounds of cards to stifle boredom and distract themselves from their inevitable nausea. William kept a careful eye on Almeric and Pauline, wondering if this young man could perhaps win his daughter’s heart. One reporter described Almeric as a ‘straightforward, hardworking, manly fellow, whose self-reliance is due wholly to achievement’4, all qualities that William, who had fought hard to accomplish his position, admired. There would be no raffish noble with an aversion to hard work for his daughter. When the ship docked in England William had already decided that he was ready to allow the marriage of Almeric to his beloved daughter, Pauline. The Whitneys continued to the Mediterranean before moving on to Cairo.
During the next month, Pauline and Almeric spent idyllic languid days together sailing down the Nile on the charming dahabeah boat Pauline’s father had hired for the trip. Extended canoeing trips provided a precious chance for them to engineer stolen moments alone and before long Pauline had fallen in love. ‘The attachment intensifies,’5 wrote their companion Alexander Gunn about the young couple. By the time they had left Egypt and travelled to Greece, he was reporting that Pauline and Almeric were ‘… earnestly engaged… there could never be a more political place for troth plighting… her face is filled with rosy light. I am sure the engagement is settled.’6
As she sat on the Newport grandstand, Pauline smiled at the memory of those heady days spent with her fiancé appreciating this occasion too. It wouldn’t be long until they had to leave for Bailey’s Beach. There was always a strict timetable to a Newport day. It began with a visit from the maid with a breakfast tray and a chance to catch up on any correspondence, followed by the obligatory morning call to the Casino, where the fashionable set would enjoy tennis, bowling or promenading with friends accompanied by the sound of one of the Casino’s many orchestras. Henry Conrad’s Society Orchestra was just one of the outfits that kept patrons entertained from morning until night, when weary ladies and gentlemen finally called for their carriages to transport them home. An excursion to Bailey’s Beach would occupy the hours between eleven and one o’clock. The private club was frequented by the Vanderbilts, Goelets and Astors, who had all purchased a bathhouse to enable a swift change into cumbersome bathing suits in absolute privacy. Before any of its members appeared, the beach manager, Old Sam, would instruct his workers, bedecked in crisp white uniforms, to groom the sand, lest it should be precariously uneven for its patrons. After any planned luncheons, often scheduled on one of the throngs of majestic yachts that filled the Newport harbour, the elite would ready themselves for the formal afternoon carriage parade. The great spectacle limited itself to Bellevue Avenue, the beating thoroughfare of Newport, where occupants flanked by liveried servants could inspect the newest addition to the Avenue’s real estate. And they had much to scrutinise. Increasingly opulent mansions sprang up every year in a never-ending competitive rush to ensure each of Newport’s superior families built a residence befitting their status.
During the course of the afternoon, it was the custom to drop in calling cards on friends and acquaintances and fulfil any visits that had been arranged, then ladies would retire to their palatial houses – referred to in Newport, somewhat disingenuously, as ‘cottages’ – while their errant husbands could excuse themselves to the Newport Country Club for a few precious hours of peace from the perpetual social frenzy. There they could practise the latest leisure pursuit of golf or while away the humid afternoon smoking cigars at the Reading Room. Without fail, every evening there would be a dinner party or ball to attend. Each event required formal attire, leaving many society ladies requiring up to six outfit changes a day, depending on their activities. Some ladies found the constant flurry of engagements overwhelming, as Eleanor Belmont recalled in her memoirs: ‘I found such an endless round of strangers and entertainment was frequently more exhausting than previous hard work had been.’7
Newport’s rise as the pre-eminent leisure resort of the American aristocracy had been swift and decisive. In 1881, Ward McAllister had persuaded Mrs Astor to purchase ‘Beechwood’, a charming and not inconsequential ‘cottage’ situated on Bellevue Avenue. She commissioned the architect Richard Morris Hunt, beloved by Gilded Age matrons, to extend the house to accommodate a ballroom, and so rendered it appropriate for society functions. McAllister presented Newport as the answer to the problem of society during the summer months, when it was too stifling to remain in New York. The upper classes looked to Mrs Astor and McAllister to provide guidance as to the destination of choice when society’s inevitable exodus from the city came. They needed somewhere that could manage an influx of the upper classes in a dignified and befitting manner, somewhere so exclusive that any social upstarts tempted to make the journey would be unable to force their way in. The Rhode Island town was small enough to curtail any visitors to a select group. It would be easy, McAllister reasoned, to keep any undesirables out. Any Swells that were on the verge of being accepted into society could expect to spend three Seasons trying to break in to Newport, said McAllister, and then they would only do so if they were very lucky or had an impeccable social sponsor. ‘You can launch them into the social sea, but can they float?’8 he asked. Newport was the ultimate test of a newcomer’s mettle. In many ways it was more difficult than New York to gain a social foothold, as its size rendered it much more exclusive. Socialite Elizabeth Drexel Lehr wrote, ‘Newport was the very holy of holies, the playground of the great ones of the Earth from which all intruders were ruthlessly excluded by a set of cast-iron rules.’9
Once accepted into Newport society, the smart set were plunged into a cluster of entertainments, whose sole purpose was to entertain and impress. Ostentatious displays of wealth were an everyday occurrence, as hostesses rivalled each other to conjure up the most lavish occasion. It wasn’t just the nightly round of balls that laid bare the great fortunes of America’s wealthiest families for all to see. From yachts to mansions, gowns to private clubs, everything about Newport emanated excessive wealth.
‘I have never even dreamt of such luxury as I have seen in Newport. It is like walking on gold. An enchanted island,’10 commented the Grand Duke Boris of Russia when he visited the resort. The French writer Paul Bourget was slightly less enamoured with the earnest devotion of the fabulously rich to an extravagant lifestyle when he visited Newport, writing, ‘It revolts you or it ravishes you accordingly, as you are nearer to socialism or snobbery.’11
Town Topics delighted in appraising its readers of the details of the summer entertainments, writing in 1895, ‘The sumptuous banquets, to which I have alluded several times as having been the feature of July at Newport, continue and grow if possible more magnificent than ever. By a sort of common consent certain evenings have been allotted to certain houses for these banquets and with them no one else interferes.’12
Of course, the sheer number of servants it required to guide such occasions and ensure the wealthy were well attended to every summer crept ever higher. In 1895, around 2,200 servants worked for the summer visitors from New York, making up ten per cent of the total population of Newport. The Four Hundred employed only the most experienced and qualified staff to do their bidding. Alva Vanderbilt drafted in a renowned French chef, Rammeau, to ensure her banquets were the most sumptuous and talked-about in Newport, happily paying him the exorbitant ten thousand dollars a year he demanded for his services.
As Pauline Whitney rose gracefully from her seat and descended from the grandstand, heading towards the Worth boutique housed in the Casino’s main building, she considered the evening ahead. The smart set had been assigned to Mrs Stuyvesant Fish’s house for dinner this evening. Mamie, as she was fondly known, favoured fun and frivolity over the tiresome entertainments preferred by other society matrons. There was sure to be a quirky flavour or unique diversion to lift the evening. Pauline would smile, she would regale acquaintances with exotic tales from her travels, yet she would keep her most interesting story from her companions and close to her heart. Her engagement would be announced soon enough. Some in society would wonder why William Whitney hadn’t insisted on a titled aristocrat for his daughter; after all, they were one of America’s most influential families. Pauline, however, remained unconcerned. She knew from Minnie’s experience that the Pagets were perfectly placed in English society to offer her a seamless transition into the upper echelons of the nobility. Besides, she had managed to find an aristocrat and love, a rare combination and one she was unlikely to discard for the prospect of an unhappy union with a viscount or marquess. She knew that soon all of society would be analysing the union, but for the moment she would take a delightful pleasure in keeping the information to herself. It was a secret that would remain hers for just a little longer, until she was ready to share it with the world.