They only met once during Consuelo’s visit to England, and it seemed at the time that nothing would come of the matter, to Consuelo’s great relief. Behind her back, however, English tongues were already wagging. Mrs Paget (later described by George Cornwallis-West as the worst gossip in London) was unable to keep quiet about the plan. On 19 July, the Duke’s grandmother, Frances, Duchess of Marlborough, wrote to her daughter-in-law Lady Randolph Churchill that she was ‘amazed at the news … [of] Marlborough’s marriage. Mrs Paget has been very busy introducing him to Miss Vanderbilt and telling everybody she meant to arrange a marriage between them, but he has only met her once and does not seem to incline to pursue the acquaintance.’55
One reason that the introduction may have stalled was that the American press had finally picked up the scent of the Vanderbilts’ separation. By 1894, the dark side of the Faustian bargain between the press and newer members of high society was all too obvious: socialites who had courted publicity now found themselves the captives of its machinery. It had become big business too. By the early 1880s most newspapers in New York responded to demand and carried social columns, while magazines devoted entirely to society matters began to appear. Both were aimed at two audiences. The first was a wider readership well outside the social elite, and included those who simply enjoyed society sagas as entertainment, nosey servants and those who worked in society’s service industries for whom information was power, such as Mrs Heeney in Edith Wharton’s The Custom of The Country (the ‘society’ manicurist and masseuse whose alligator bag was always filled with newspaper clippings). The second audience was high society itself and those who aspired to it. Here, the position of its members was reinforced and legitimised by constantly seeing their names, clothes and parties in print. ‘If one’s social goal was to force an entry into the most exclusive circles, half the satisfaction of achievement would have been lost if one’s erstwhile acquaintances had not been able to read all about it,’56 writes Ruth Brandon.
In some cases, newspaper editors were society figures in their own right, like James Gordon Bennett Jr of the New York Herald, or the society columnist George Wetherspoon who wrote for The New York Times. Though the social elite sometimes claimed to be irritated by comment in such publications, it generally remained on the right side of intrusive. Oddly, the two publications where it was most important to be ‘seen’ were the two which explicitly held the Four Hundred in the greatest contempt. One was the New York World after 1883, when it was bought by Joseph Pulitzer, who combined formidable liberal campaigning with a keen sense of the aspirations of his poorer female readership, and reconciled the two by covering the activities of high society in sensational and barbed detail while stopping just short of pouring unmitigated scorn. The other key publication was Town Topics, which changed the whole nature of society journalism after it was purchased by the piratical Colonel D’Alton Mann in 1891. When he took over ownership of the magazine that year he wrote: ‘The 400 of New York is an element so absolutely shallow and unhealthy that it deserves to be derided almost incessantly’57 – an editorial philosophy he pursued with great ebullience until a court case in 1905 exposed the seamier side of his methods. Colonel Mann paid for stories from a wide network of clubmen and other members of society down on their luck for his information, as well as servants and suppliers, which then became part of his weekly ‘Saunterings’ column. As a weekly magazine, Town Topics harassed society’s elite week in, week out using a well-placed network of spies so that long-running plot lines emerged for the initiated, which often turned out to be accurate because his informants were so close to the heart of society. Colonel Mann was known to accept money from society figures in return for pulling unflattering stories; and it would later emerge that he had a group of eminent ‘immunes’ whom he blackmailed into handing over large sums of money in exchange for soft treatment.
One of Mann’s favourite tricks was to place paragraphs in his column that described reprehensible behaviour on the part of anonymous individuals, giving the readership the fun of decoding his allegations (this was often easy because he frequently placed another paragraph describing quite innocuous activities by the named individual close by). On 19 July 1894, Town Topics leapt into print with a story of ‘a most offensive liaison going on in high life between a man who has been conspicuous in society and … the wife of a millionaire that moves in the same set’. It had long been thought that this relationship would become a scandal. ‘But with a great deal of manoeuvring some sort of treaty of peace was patched up.’ Much to Town Topics’ sorrow however, ‘the shameful affair had continued without abatement’, the lover in question was now in Europe with the married woman, and the husband’s reputation had been ‘recklessly besmirched’. The names of two honourable families were about to be ‘dragged in the dust, all to gratify the passions of a pair that have renounced the thousand legitimate delights at their command to embrace the one that is forbidden and reprehensible’.58
But there was another twist to the story. It would appear that the husband in the case had inexplicably forsaken the moral high ground by taking up with an inamorata of his own in Paris, a demimondaine whom he was entertaining in ‘the fashion of Lucullus of old’. By the following week Town Topics had stopped bothering to keep up the fiction. William K. Vanderbilt was in Paris flaunting his relationship with one Nellie Neustretter, a very grand courtesan – ‘one of the prettiest and nicest of the high-class horizontales’.59
Alva seems to have decided to sit the publicity out in England, staying on after the London season and all suitable aristocrats had dispersed to the grouse moors of Scotland. It is unclear whether Town Topics was correct in maintaining that Oliver Belmont joined her, but it is quite likely. Alva and Consuelo returned to New York on 28 September 1894 on board the Lucania, arriving in Newport well after the season closed on 29 September. Alva now prepared to implement a three-point plan. She would divorce William K. for adultery, ensuring that she could have custody of the children; she would place Consuelo in an English aristocratic setting; and she would regularise her own position with Oliver Belmont. These three objectives would become intricately entangled in the months ahead.
After the amusements of Paris, Consuelo looked forward to a winter season in New York, well away from Europe and threats of international marriage. She and Alva settled back into 660 Fifth Avenue. William K. was banished to his club. (Dissatisfied with the configuration of space he called in workmen to knock down partition walls and redecorate. ‘When at the club Mr Vanderbilt can entertain at dinner forty friends on the same floor upon which his rooms are and be sure of no intrusion,’ insinuated Town Topics silkily.60) It was reported variously that his brother Cornelius Vanderbilt II had rushed to Paris in the summer for crisis talks and that the Vanderbilts had met for a family caucus in Boston. Whether or not these family conferences took place, the Vanderbilts now rallied firmly behind William K., because, according to Town Topics, Alva had condescended to them all in the most supercilious manner for years.61 There was certainly tension. As far as Alva was concerned they were either with her or against her. She broke off relations with every one of William K.’s siblings and anyone else who failed to offer her unconditional support. As a result, Consuelo’s hopes of a New York debut were dashed. ‘During the following months I was to suffer a perpetual denial of friendships and pleasures, since my mother resented seeing anyone whose loyalties were not completely hers,’62 she wrote.
Disliking scandal and controversy, William K. did his best to dissuade Alva from pressing for a divorce. However angry he may have felt, he was concerned that given the double standards of the day, disgrace would rebound on her alone. Well into the autumn, Alva’s lawyer, Joseph Choate, did his