The Second Mrs. Astor(92)

God, I wanted to snap at them, had had nothing to do with Titanic. Jack’s death was entirely the work of men.

But I kept silent. I only sat in my designated place and let my mouth curve into a downward bow, twisting my wedding band around and around, waiting for the damned service to end.

Ah, but what bruised me, though, was that one little girl, swinging her feet above the church floor, her bottom lip thrust out.

In other times, under other suns, I would have attempted to lure her into friendship, even if her mother didn’t approve. (Maybe especially so.) It pains me to mention it here, but no doubt you’ll catch wind of it sooner or later, anyway—there are rumors that Alice isn’t Jack’s child at all. Which I suspect made me search her features extra carefully, although I tried to conceal it.

Perhaps she had his nose. Perhaps she’d been graced with the extravagant length of his eyelashes. But mostly, I think, she just looked like herself.

Beneath her floppy black hat, Alice Astor had the sweetest, saddest scowl. I couldn’t believe her mother wouldn’t accompany her to either of Jack’s services, but she didn’t.

We managed it ourselves.




May 4, 1912

Manhattan



She would learn later that over six thousand people lined the funeral route from the train station to the cemetery, tenuously restrained by squads of policemen. It was only a handful at first, people stopped and staring at the polished hearse, the five horse-drawn carriages strung behind it in a solemn line as they left the 158th Street Station. Men removed their hats. Women held handkerchiefs to their hearts.

Madeleine, in the first carriage, sat beside Alice, both of them trying not to slide around on the slippery leather squabs. Vincent and Dobbyn sat opposite. None of them spoke.

The scent of lilies seemed to hang over her, trapped behind her long lace veil. She felt suffocated with it, had to flip the material back over the brim of her hat (like a bride, a bride at a funeral) to take a clean breath.

The baby kicked, just once, against her ribs.

“Who are all those people?” Alice asked, peering out the window.

Madeleine and Vincent glanced at each other.

Voyeurs, she wanted to say.

“Voyeurs,” said Vincent.

Alice turned her big, dark eyes to him.

“Those are people who have come to let us know that they admired your father,” Madeleine said, as the carriage crept along.

“But why are they here? Why are they staring at us?”

“Because we are as close to him as they will ever get,” replied Vincent.

The nearer they came to the Trinity Cemetery gates, the thicker the crowd grew. The carriage’s windows were not tinted; Madeleine replaced her veil. She’d rather suffer through the reek of lilies than lose the thin protection of the black lace.

“Look!” Alice began to wave at the window. “They’re up on the rooftops, too. Some of them have climbed the trees!”

Madeleine raised her eyebrows at Dobbyn.

“They won’t get in,” he assured her. “No one will be allowed in without an admission card. Captain Kreuscher has assured me he has enough men assigned to keep control.”

He was correct. The horses drew them past the gates, and suddenly all the people on foot around them were gone—although, as she exited the carriage, she could still see the ones on the neighborhood roofs beyond the walls, stick figures gawping.

She moved away from the carriage, from the horses, standing in the shade of a large elm. The other carriages rolled up, her family, Jack’s family and friends climbing out one by one in their funeral attire, a procession of ebony crows. They made their way as a group toward the mausoleum, walking along a wide gravel path.

A choir began to sing from the chapel nearby, low minor tones that lifted and fell; a flock of birds abandoned the elm at the same time, scattering against the blue.

The iron doors marking the entrance to the vault already stood open, gaping.

Like it’s hungry, Madeleine thought, involuntary. Eager for its latest meal.

She stared down at the ground, repulsed, a little dizzy, as Jack’s coffin was removed from the hearse. Mother came up, took her arm and led her to one of the folding chairs set up in rows along the grass. She sat, still not looking up, wreathed in lilies, always lilies, and tried not to retch.

In her hands, she carried a black handkerchief—also lace; it did nothing to absorb tears, actually—and her strand of carnelian. She kept her chin tucked, ran her fingers over the stones.

People settled in beside her, behind her, the Vanderbilts, the Huntingtons, the Rockefellers. People who, before Titanic, were loath to even shake her hand.

The rector began to speak.

Reluctantly, Madeleine lifted her eyes. The casket was right before her, trapped in a mountain of flowers, a rich show of mahogany and brass blazing in the late afternoon sun.

She found she couldn’t look away from it.

He was in there. He was inside there. She hadn’t been brave enough to view his body, but others had, and Jack was in there, when he had been right beside her only just days ago, warm and alive and smiling at her, teasing her about the name of their baby, kissing her lips and neck and belly. Filling her with his taste and scent and soul.

How could he be gone now? How could it be that she would never see him again?

How could a life so giant, so strong and bold, just . . . end?