Knowing that plenty of people were curious to see her cottage, especially the interior, Alva had decided to host that day’s fundraising rally at Marble House. They sold $1 tickets that gave people access to the gardens and all the speeches as well as $5 tickets that included a limited tour inside. More policemen stood guard before the red velvet cords roping off the rooms she deemed private—including her bedroom.
With the blue and white-star suffrage flags flapping in the breeze outside the massive tent and the orchestra playing rally songs, 1,000 or so women—rich, poor, young and old, white, Negro, American and European—walked the grounds, buying pamphlets and buttons, sashes and banners, anything to support the cause.
Alva’s friends Puss and Lady Paget were there, along with her sisters. Even Tessie Oelrichs and Mamie Fish put in an appearance.
“Here we are again,” said Mamie, with a blasé wave of her hands, “older faces and younger clothes.”
“What a surprise this is,” Alva said in return. “And to think I thought you weren’t in favor of women’s rights.”
“Oh, I’m not,” said Mamie. “As far as I’m concerned, a good husband is all a woman truly needs.”
“Well”—Alva gestured about the grounds—“I’m afraid everyone here today would disagree with you.”
Alva looked at all the women who had come together that day. It nearly broke her heart when she thought about all their talents, their passions and ambitions that hadn’t been realized simply because they were women. And there were so many more out there, struggling to rise up and out of their circumstances. Let them vote, own property, leave their abusive husbands, and pursue their education and their dreams.
As an ambitious woman herself, Alva had made society her career because there were no other options. She’d once been a daughter of privilege whose family had lost their fortune, forcing her to claw and crawl her way back into society’s good graces. She’d made it, all the way to the top, in fact, but she wasn’t done yet.
Excusing herself from Mamie and Tessie, Alva twirled her parasol and walked toward the tent, eager to hear the first speaker. Society would carry on without Mrs. Astor and without Alva, too. Society didn’t need Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, but women—ordinary women everywhere—did.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Society
NEW YORK
We walk down Peacock Alley, that long lovely corridor that links the Hyphen, which is what everyone calls the newly combined Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Its opulence is immense. The onyx mosaic floors echo our every step as we pass a few couples seated on the plush benches butted up against the Corinthian columns.
When we enter the hotel café with its beautiful frescoes and elegant crystal and china table settings, we see that Penelope and Ophelia are already there. It’s been ages since we’ve gathered for luncheon. The last time was at Delmonico’s. It had been early summer then, just before we left for Newport. We’d dined outside amid red geraniums and scarlet peonies blooming in the window boxes. It had been a delightful day, and we had all agreed we should lunch together more often, it’s just that we’ve all been so busy as of late.
Puss now sits on the board for the Central Park Menagerie and has currently been fighting to keep the zoo here in the city. Peggy Cavendish volunteers twice a week to help children with speech impediments. Ophelia also does volunteer work, at an orphanage, and Penelope now sits on the board of the Astor Library, which is in great decline.
Cornelia Martin sadly won’t be joining us. She and her husband fled New York shortly after their Bradley Martin Ball. When various members of the clergy as well as populists and anarchists criticized them for their extravagance, they started receiving death threats. The last straw was finding their home and carriages vandalized. They’re now in Scotland or England—we’ve lost track.
Certainly no one has thrown a party on such a grand scale since. Some say the Bradley Martin Ball marked the end of the Gilded Age. And that is true, though judging by the jewelry and fashions on display at our table, not to mention the prices on the menu before us, we’re all still very well-off.
We feast on such delicacies as mutton stew, fresh tongue of beef, seared lamb with mint, and deviled lamb kidney. Lady Paget, who prides herself on having not touched a piece of flesh food for sixteen years, ordered broiled shad and roe, along with cold lobster tartare.
She looks at Mamie’s tenderloin steak béarnaise with great disdain. “How can you eat flesh?”
“Very simply,” says Mamie. “With a fork”—she raises her cutlery—“and a knife.”
The conversation moves on and we find ourselves discussing Penelope’s divorce and her daughter who is attending college. Lydia tells us about the plot for her next romance novel. Each of us has been sworn to secrecy about her writing under the nom de plume Louis W. Sterling. We laugh, we gossip, we share.
The last time we were all together was at Mrs. Astor’s funeral in November. She was seventy-eight and had died at home, surrounded by her son, Jack, daughter Carrie and her butler, Thomas Hade. They say that in recent years her butler never left her side, accompanying her on her daily carriage rides through the park. The two had been regularly seen dining at Sherry’s and Delmonico’s. Even here at the Hyphen. Some say she’d never been happier.
It’s the end of an era now that Mrs. Astor is gone, and while society still exists, it isn’t what it once was.
There was a time when we blindly followed the protocol as effortlessly as one season follows another. From winter to Newport and back again. The restrictions and limitations of yesterday were largely self-imposed. The very same society we so desperately wanted in on was the same society that told us no diamonds before nightfall, no social visits before two in the afternoon, no denying relations with your husband, no divorcing him, either. It’s sometimes hard to accept that in many ways, we had stepped inside the very cage that held us prisoner.
Looking back, it’s easy to say that one woman’s monotony is another’s sense of purpose. Now we regard all the etiquette as quaint. Passé. The next generation is much more lenient and society as we’ve known it will never be the same. Isn’t it interesting, though, to note that it now takes three women to do what Mrs. Astor had done by herself for three decades?
Tessie, Mamie and Alva have now taken over society. It’s no secret, though, that before she died, Mrs. Astor had handed the scepter to Alva. She told Alva that she was the best person to replace her, but by then, Alva didn’t really want the throne. Instead, she shared the honor with two hostesses who would have killed for it. Tessie and Mamie rule their ever-fading empire, and while Alva is still very much the head of society, her attention has shifted to rights for women—all women.