Choate argued that the punishment meted out to women daring to challenge male hegemony would be so harsh that even Alva would not be able to withstand it. Reflecting on the episode, Alva once again presented her reaction as heroic: ‘My argument in return was that I believed it was necessary for some woman to blaze the way for a just recognition of her own personality.’65 Later, though, she also said that if she had known how difficult it would be, she might have thought twice about going into battle alone. The problem which Alva never mentioned was that it was one thing to sue for adultery (and this was courageous); but it was quite another matter to survive the battle when the world knew that she had a lover of her own whom she wished to marry. Once Joseph Choate assured her she would have custody of the children, however, Alva determined to press ahead regardless. ‘The legalized prostitution that marriage covers is to me appalling … If marriage is a protection for the woman against many wrongs, divorce is also an escape from many degrading evils,’66 she said to Sara Bard Field.
Having surrendered on the divorce issue, William K. went back to Paris, where observant correspondents reported on his dalliance with Nellie Neustretter. A reporter for Town Topics thought that he looked wretched. ‘There were large circles under his eyes, and he looked neither well nor happy.’67 William K. arrived back in New York on 22 December 1894, and even the taciturn superintendent Mr Gilmour noted that the Christmas atmosphere was strained and tense. ‘Willie and his father went out walking this morning. In the evening I went to the Knickerbocker Club, 32 Street to get Mr V. for Mrs V. but he was not at home. Mr Jay came in the evening to see Mrs V. I was called out of my bed to take a note to Mr V. 11 pm.’68 On New Year’s Day, Alva had a huge row with another servant: ‘He was told to leave the house. He replied he would go when he felt so disposed.’69
The only person who did her best to ease the tension was seventeen-year-old Consuelo who treated her maid, her governess and Mr Gilmour to tickets for the opera on Boxing Day. In the middle of January 1895, William K. fled back to Europe amid mounting press speculation that the Vanderbilts were filing for divorce. On the day of his departure the World finally broke the story in prose breathless with excitement: ‘Mr Vanderbilt came from Europe just one month ago. His stay has been almost entirely devoted to arranging his family affairs. There has been no reconciliation between him and Mrs Vanderbilt.’70 One influential figure rallied to Alva’s defence. On the evening of 16 January, Mrs Astor publicly supported Alva by inviting Consuelo to a party for her great-niece, Helen Kingsland. It was a kind gesture but one society reporter noted that Consuelo had a miserable and embarrassing evening as the gilded youth of New York tittered about the scandal whenever her back was turned.
From a Vanderbilt point of view, William K.’s precipitate departure to Europe was both unfortunate and misjudged, for it handed control of the story to Alva. When the divorce was finally granted on 6 March, the dam of publicity burst. Never a newspaper to understate matters, the World described it as ‘the biggest divorce case that America has ever known. It is, in fact, the biggest ever known in The World.’71 The paper saw it as its moral duty to provide the reading public with everything it wanted to know, while simultaneously lambasting the rich for lax moral standards. One striking feature of its reportage, however, was the extent to which it favoured Alva over William K., leading to the suspicion that she had managed to brief its journalists. Mrs Vanderbilt had not fled to Europe, like her husband wrote the World. She was determined ‘to stay here until the divorce should be publicly announced; not to run away from the publicity which reflects only on her husband, who is pronounced guilty’.72 A photograph of Nellie Neustretter was printed in what looked suspiciously like her underwear. Alva (though the report was not entirely complimentary) was presented as the unhappy victim, made peevish by her philandering husband; and Oliver Belmont was never mentioned at all.
It is possible that Alva arranged a deal. Oliver’s name would be kept out of the World’s story in exchange for a most intriguing piece of information. On the morning of 7 March, the World produced a sensational piece of news. Nellie Neustretter was an elaborate sideshow, possibly just a decoy. The real object of William K.’s affections, and the true reason for Alva’s implacable fury, was that her husband had been having a longstanding affair with her very old friend, Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester.
There is no means of establishing for sure whether this story is true. It was never formally denied by anyone involved, however, and it may have some basis. Years later Sara Bard Field told an interviewer that although Alva would not allow her to mention it in the memoirs, William K. ‘had brought his mistresses right into the home’ including ‘poor women of the nobility of England’.73 Consuelo Manchester, to all intents and purposes, disappeared from Alva’s life after 1894, which is odd since she was not simply Consuelo’s godmother and an English duchess, she was also a relation by marriage after Alva’s sister, Jenny, married Fernando Yznaga. In her memoirs, Consuelo (Vanderbilt) makes very few references to her godmother.74 Consuelo Manchester was also famously unhappily married. Her husband had been declared bankrupt in 1890, and had abandoned her in favour of a music-hall singer whom he escorted round London before his death in 1892. She was constantly short of money; her other lovers included the Prince of Wales. The World suggested the affair between Consuelo Manchester and William K. was well established (though not exclusive): a ‘titled American woman’ and William K. had been linked eleven years earlier, in 1884. There was even one report that Alva had almost thrown a ‘titled American friend’ out of the marital home as early as 1879.75 William K.’s inexplicable conduct with regard to Nellie Neustretter was now quite comprehensible, said the World. He was simply trying to deflect attention away from a scandal involving his mistress by flaunting a relationship with a grande cocotte.
Town Topics, peeved at its failure to uncover this story first, managed to keep it alive by downplaying it. ‘According to the rumour most generally credited among those who know nothing on the subject, one of them is to marry a banker and the other a duchess.’76 Whatever the truth, the warm relationship between William K. and Consuelo Manchester was to be highlighted in the most tragic fashion possible within days of this publicity firestorm. In a coincidence far more dreadful than the sinking of any yacht, Consuelo Manchester’s daughter, who was named after Alva and who was only in her late teens, died in Italy ten days after the divorce was granted. Acutely distressed, Consuelo Manchester turned to William K. for help. On Saturday 16 March, he gave orders to the captain of the Valiant to sail to Civitavecchia in Italy. The captain wrote in the ship’s log: ‘In the afternoon we embarked the remains of the late Lady May Alva Montagu, accompanied by the Duchess of Manchester, Lady Alice Montagu, Miss Yznaga, Dr A. Muthie, Mr F. Yznaga, and servants, and at 6 p.m. sailed for Marseilles.’77 According to the same log, William K. went up to Rome by the 4.50 p.m. train, possibly to assist with