Amanda Stuart - Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt - The Story of a Mother and a Daughter in the ‘Gilded Age’

As Town Topics put it: ‘There has been little doubt in the minds of those who know Mrs Vanderbilt intimately, and consequently, understand her character and temperament, that she would return to Newport this summer and assert her position.’ 93 Months in advance of her return to Newport, Alva fired her first shot by letting it be known from Paris that she would be giving a ball at Marble House the following August, and that she would construe acceptance of this invitation as a pledge of loyalty. By the middle of June, these reports were sending New York’s elite into a frenzy, particularly in the absence of any signal from the Vanderbilt family whom nobody wished to offend. ‘Small wonder it is that the approaching dilemma begins to assume tremendous proportions in the minds of not only those who are not yet absolutely sure of their position in the social world, and who feel they cannot afford to risk their chances by a false move in the start, but even, indeed, in those of the contingent of assured position, who have no prejudice or animosity toward Mrs Vanderbilt herself, who certainly feel kindly toward her daughter, and yet are on terms of friendship and even intimacy with the other members of the family,’ 94 said Town Topics sagaciously.

Alva then moved Consuelo from Paris to London to participate in the London season of 1895. Here, she re-established contact with Minnie Paget who took the necessary steps. Consuelo was asked to a ball by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland and, knowing almost nobody, was grateful to anyone who requested her as a partner by marking her dance card. Perhaps Aunt Lansdowne had had a word, for the Duke of Marlborough claimed several dances. To Alva’s intense satisfaction, he followed this up by inviting them both, and Lady Paget, to spend a weekend at Blenheim Palace.

The party that travelled to Oxfordshire on 15 June was small, consisting of Alva, Consuelo, Minnie Paget, ‘three young men’ – including Lord Lansdowne’s heir – and the Duke’s two sisters, Lady Lilian and Lady Norah Spencer-Churchill. They all seemed ‘lost in so big a house’ wrote Consuelo, but she liked Lilian immediately, finding her unaffected and kind. 95 Saturday evening was spent listening to the Duke’s organist, Mr Perkins, playing the organ in the Long Library, installed when his father the 8th Duke married ‘Duchess Lily’, a wealthy American widow to whom Blenheim also owed the installation of central heating and electric lighting.

The following day, Alva’s usual rules of chaperonage were conspicuous by their absence for no obstacle was placed in the way of the Duke showing Consuelo round part of the Blenheim estate. They drove together to pretty outlying villages where ‘old women and children curtsied and men touched their caps as we passed’. 96 Although enchanted by the countryside, the feudalism on display made Consuelo feel uncomfortable, and in Alva’s absence she was quick to say so. ‘That Marlborough was ambitious I gathered from his talk; that he should be proud of his position and estates seemed but natural; but did he recognise his obligations? Steeped as I then was in questions of political economy – in the theories of the rights of man, in the speeches of Gladstone and John Bright – it was not strange that such reflections should occur to me.’ 97

According to Consuelo – and we only have her side of the story here – the Duke of Marlborough seemed to find these remarks amusing rather than tiresome, and made up his mind that very afternoon that he would set aside his feelings for an English girl with whom he was in love and marry Consuelo. It seems more likely, given his subsequent caution, that the Duke of Marlborough simply decided that marriage to Consuelo was a possibility that could reasonably be explored. Even if her notions were a trifle outlandish, she was intelligent and thoughtful; and the intervening year had given this young duke ample time to discover that both his sense of obligation to Blenheim and his political aspirations required substantial financial resource. As far as Alva was concerned, however, the weekend at Blenheim and his pleasant attentions to Consuelo made it easy for her to extend an invitation to her ball at Marble House in August. The Duke immediately accepted, giving out that he had never visited the United States, and would come to Newport as part of a longer tour.

This was a major coup for Alva. By late June, the society press were lying in wait in Newport to await her return. The World even sent detectives – an early form of paparazzi – to Newport to watch every move both Vanderbilts made and report back. Once again, there were multiple narrative lines. How would the Cornelius Vanderbilts, who would be opening their house The Breakers that August, react if they met Alva? How would society as a whole respond to the invitation to her ball? There was also the delicious extra twist of Oliver Belmont’s arrival and the news that he too would be giving a house-warming ball at his Newport house, Belcourt. ‘The housewarming of this new mansion will probably be one of the chief social events of the Newport season, and may, if reports be true, also be the opening gun in the Montague and Capulet warfare that is still a menace to the peace of the season and looms like a dark cloud on the horizon,’ reported Town Topics . 98 It was all feverishly exciting.

When Alva finally arrived with Consuelo in Newport in July, she soon put Newport society out of its misery by unleashing a secret weapon in the diminutive form of the Duke of Marlborough. The attention paid by the Duke to Consuelo had been noted by Town Topics , but stories of an engagement were dismissed on the grounds that the divorced status of Mrs Vanderbilt would present an obstacle to such a match. Now, Alva let it be known that there was no obstacle whatsoever for the Duke of Marlborough had accepted an invitation to attend her ball and would be coming to stay with her in Newport for several days. Suddenly, the much anticipated drama ebbed away. Realising they had been wholly outflanked, the denizens of Newport reached for their pens and their blotting paper, thanked Mrs Vanderbilt for her kind invitation through gritted teeth, and told her they would have much pleasure in accepting.

Consuelo faced a much more serious problem. She felt that she was being ‘steered into a vortex’. 99 She considered herself secretly engaged to Winthrop Rutherfurd, and after the weekend at Blenheim she was certain that she did not wish to marry ‘Sunny’ Marlborough. ‘Homeward bound, I dreamed of life in my own country with my Rosenkavalier. It would, I knew, entail a struggle, but I meant to force the issue with my mother.’ 100

Once they reached Newport, however, even making contact with Winthrop Rutherfurd became very difficult and with the Duke of Marlborough’s visit less than six weeks away, Consuelo became anxious and despondent. Marble House stood in a prominent but isolated position on Bellevue Avenue, where every move was scrutinised by the summer colony and by the press; assignations were impossible, and all her post was monitored. ‘On reaching Newport my life became that of a prisoner, with my mother and my governess as wardens. I was never out of their sight. Friends called but were told I was not at home. Locked behind those high walls – the porter had orders not to let me out unaccompanied – I had no chance of getting any word to my fiancé. Brought up to obey, I was helpless under my mother’s total domination.’ 101

Was this melodramatic? Probably not, for by now the stakes for Alva were very high. It was essential to the success of Alva’s manoeuvres that nothing should prevent the Duke from honouring her invitation. She had no intention of letting her daughter undermine such a careful campaign with a misjudged teenage crush, and she may have feared that an obstinate but desperate Consuelo would somehow arrange an elopement. (One fictional account of Alva’s life even has her turning this period into a test of Winthrop Rutherfurd’s strength of feeling, which is not implausible either. 102 ) Quite apart from Rutherfurd’s intrinsic unsuitability, Alva would be the laughing stock of America and her chances of protecting her own position in the aftermath of divorce would be greatly diminished.