The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

Black bathing bloomers, black shirtwaists with fat blossoming sleeves, everything from their necks to their knees down to the bones of their wrists thoroughly concealed. It was as though each and every summer noon, the exclusive strand of Bailey’s Beach became haunted by covens of fashionable, water-soaked witches.

Too many people (Europeans, really) consider carnations to be nothing but a vulgar American indulgence, but in my opinion, there is no blossom more intricate, more deliciously, thickly, fragrantly lavish, than a carnation.

The art of stillness—that classic and stultifying hallmark of a true lady, at least according to Mother—had never been one of Madeleine’s best skills. It seemed to her that remaining frozen in time and place really only suited hunted creatures. When she’d said so aloud one day during deportment lessons at Miss Ely’s School, her teacher had retorted that there was surely no creature more hunted than a young, pretty heiress.

She wanted a gallop, not a trot. She wanted the sun burning her face, the wind ripping at her hair, rather than the soft, safe comfort of salons and tea parties and early evening soirées.

seems to me that’s the most valuable skill one might have on the stage, the ability to convince the audience that you inhabit the truth.”

She became better at the art of stillness; she had become the hunted, after all.

there’s equal—in the sense of human potential and dreams and the rule of law—and then there’s equal. As in, who are your people, my dear?

“It can be difficult sometimes for our families to accept us as people separate from who they are. As separate souls. When we’re young, we’re taught to behave as our parents do—to cherish what they cherish and believe what they believe. And for a while, that’s as it should be. But as adults, sometimes we have our own desires, our own hopes, that are at odds with how our parents view the world.”

There are certain people in this world who have the ability to make you feel as if you’re the only person in the universe who matters to them. Whether it’s moment by moment or enough years to count up to a lifetime, they look you in the eyes and smile at you, direct and sincere—and you’re smitten.

But it did hurt. A petty little wound, this photograph, that photograph, this mention in the papers, that one. Each one chipping away at any thought she might have had of privacy, of control of her own face or figure or destiny.

One can only think of Diana Spencer, Princess of wales

“Because love is a tremendous gift, Maddy. A gift and a burden. Marriage especially is more than just hope and luck and a handshake. Marriage is work, enormous work, because it’s a living entity that needs everlasting attention. It will push you and bend you and test you, and if you’re not prepared for any of that, it will shatter you.

“Being in love makes all that work easier, but it does not make it go away. There will be necessary sacrifices. There will be pain. So I’ll ask you again: Do you think you’re in love with him?”

“I have heard, from various sources, that the consequences of divorce can be even more devastating for the children than for the parents themselves.” She gazed out at the sailboats, still making their way along. “As difficult as that may be to believe.”

“I would not have the world be cruel to you,” she emphasized. “I would not have Vincent Astor be cruel to you. But if—when—those things happen, I would not have you be cruel in return. Kinder hearts are stronger, I think.”

Her visitors brought any tidbits of news they could glean about Jack, about what had happened to him after Lifeboat Four had launched. He had helped load the last boats with frantic women and children. He had placed a woman’s hat atop the head of a boy so that the child would be allowed to board with his mother. He had sawed tangled ropes free from the davits with his penknife. He had freed all the dogs from the kennels. He had stood back calmly amid the pandemonium after all of the lifeboats were gone, smoking a cigarette with two other gentlemen.

The nature of hope is curious to me. It can sustain us through the darkest of times. It can buoy us above every reasonable expectation of despair. Yet hope can shatter us just as readily as the darkness can. People refer to it as false hope, but I think that’s misleading, because the feeling itself is painfully true. It is a treacherous hope, more precisely. A dangerous one.