* * *
—
Alva sulked and then, a few weeks later, she decided the time had come to pay a social call to Mrs. Astor. Yes, there were rules about this sort of thing, but as far as Alva was concerned, rules were meant to be broken. While it was customary to drop off one’s card ahead of time and wait—sometimes up to a week—for Mrs. Astor’s reply, Alva wasn’t willing to do that. She’d already followed the proper etiquette and had dropped off her card not once, not twice, but three times. She was tired of waiting. Hers wouldn’t be one of a hundred or so cards awaiting Mrs. Astor’s approval. Alva had never been passive about anything she’d wanted before, so why this?
She checked herself in the mirror one last time. She had decided to wear her pale green dress with the emerald beading along the bodice and the creamy strand of pearls that Willie said had once belonged to Catherine the Great. Those pearls along with her mink coat would make a statement.
It was snowing that day, the first measurable snowfall of the year. When the family’s coachman brought the brougham around for her, a dusting of flakes had already accumulated on the two black horses, steam coming from their muzzles. The driver lowered the carriage steps and helped her inside. Alva, who had walked the city till the soles of her shoes wore away—who had ridden crowded omnibuses alongside men with mud-caked boots and rank breath, women in threadbare clothing with children on their laps—would never take a private coach and driver for granted. She stuffed her gloved hands deep inside her silk-lined muff while the brougham eased forward.
By two o’clock that afternoon, a good four inches of snow had already fallen, with a gray sky promising more. Alva’s coachman negotiated the ice and snowdrifts, staying within the deep tracks laid down by previous carriages that had trekked up Fifth Avenue. Clearing a porthole in the window fog, Alva was mesmerized by a city that seemed to be growing skyward as much as it stretched outward. Those buildings, their stature and sense of permanence, left her in awe. She could only imagine what it must have been like to create something that solid, that enduring, something one could put their name on.
When she arrived at Thirty-Fourth Street, Alva gazed out at a rather unremarkable four-story townhouse. So, this is where the great queen lives? Alva had been expecting something much grander and noted that it was a tad bit smaller than the home of her brother-in-law, John Astor III, right next door. And, of course, the Alexander T. Stewart mansion across the street dwarfed them both.
Before the coachman helped her out of the carriage, he offered to deliver her calling card on her behalf. Alva thanked him anyway, and though it was out of the ordinary—highly so—she needed to meet with the Grande Dame in person, look her in the eye and win her over. She wouldn’t mention Emily’s rescue, wouldn’t say a word about the incident at Tiffany & Company. No, Alva would appeal to Mrs. Astor just as any other young society lady might do. She would make Mrs. Astor see that she could contribute to society, that not all railroad money was bad.
Alva proceeded, allowing her driver to guide her up the front stairs and tug the bell pull, before sending him back to the carriage. Alva clutched her calling card, practicing her lines: Why, Mrs. Astor, what a lovely home you have . . . It’s a shame the two of us haven’t met properly yet . . . Soon the front door opened, and Alva was face-to-face with Mrs. Astor’s butler, a tall, slim gentleman with a long, solemn expression and heavily lidded eyes that made him appear sleepy. He bowed respectfully and, without a word, held out a silver tray.
As Alva placed her card on top, she smiled and asked, “Is she in?”
His eyes flashed, breaking from his stuffy composure. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“Is Mrs. Astor in? I’d like to have a word with her.” Alva wasn’t sure if it was her request or her Southern accent—which she’d played up—that had confounded him. She smiled in that way that had opened many a door for her in the past and was about to step inside, when the butler deftly blocked the entranceway.
“I’m afraid Mrs. Astor does not receive guests in this manner.” He bowed again and, in his deep voice, wished her a good day and closed the door.
* * *
—
Alva stared at the bell pull, stunned, as if expecting him to open the door again. Through the stained-glass windows she saw him disappear down a long dark hallway. She’d been dismissed. By the butler. Forcing herself down the front stoop, her heart in her throat, she kept her shoulders high and dignified as she walked back to her carriage.
“Take me to Miss Yznaga’s home,” she said as her coachman helped her into the brougham.
She stuffed her hands inside her muff, fingers balled into fists. She needed Consuelo’s advice. Thankfully her friend was back in New York, preparing for her marriage to George Victor Drogo Montagu, Viscount Mandeville, the future eighth Duke of Manchester. At least that was one wedding she’d be invited to. Thankfully none of those ridiculous social formalities mattered when it came to Consuelo.
The two had met as young girls in Newport. Consuelo’s father had been a wealthy Cuban sugar plantation owner, and Alva’s father had run a successful cotton plantation. Both girls had grown up in the South, Consuelo in Louisiana, Alva in Alabama, their summers spent in Newport. Consuelo was the only one who had stuck by Alva after her family lost everything.
When she arrived at the Yznagas’ home, she found Consuelo in the music room, practicing her banjo, which accompanied her just about everywhere. Alva had seen her friend strumming away at lawn parties and dinner parties, and only Consuelo was charming enough to get everyone applauding and encouraging her to play more. She soaked her fingertips in a dish of butter each night to keep them from becoming calloused.
Alva whipped her muff and hat across the room and pulled her traveling gloves off with her teeth before relaying what had happened with Mrs. Astor’s butler.
Consuelo strummed a few chords and said, “Well, what did you expect? You know better than that, Alva. That little gesture of yours probably did more harm than good. You can’t go around bullying everyone—especially not Mrs. Astor.”
“And apparently not you, either.”
Consuelo laughed. “You’ve always been such a terror. When we were little, you’d do just about anything to get your own way.”
“And it worked, didn’t it?”
“That was then. This is now.” Consuelo accented her point with a C chord. “Society won’t give an inch. I’m warning you. And you have to stop following Mrs. Astor around in stores.”
“I wasn’t following her. She just happened to be there.”
“And you should have had the good sense to keep your mouth shut.”
“Well, I’ve about had it with society. I can’t seem to do anything right by these people.”