The Second Mrs. Astor: A Heartbreaking Historical Novel of the Titanic

A newspaper article misrepresents Madeleine as boasting that she will reign over New York society just like the previous Mrs. Astors. Letters arrive to Madeleine from long-ago acquaintances who want to reconnect as well as from utter strangers. Some look up to her, some provide advice, and some ask her to sponsor their fundraiser.

Madeleine tells Jakey that the hardest part of planning the wedding was finding a pastor who would marry a divorced man. The newspapers are full of speculation, yet for every column inch discussing the preparations, “there would immediately follow some dour, dire write-up by A Person of Virtue denouncing me, my parents, my education, your father, the entire world itself as corrupt and beyond redemption” (119). To flee her unwanted entourage, they take Jack’s yacht, the Noma, to Beechwood or Ferncliff Farm in Rhinebeck. “Back then,” Madeleine says, “the ocean was a friend. Back then, being out at sea felt like freedom” (120).

August 1911. At sea, Madeleine is woken by her father in the midst of a gale. A boat has tipped over, and the Noma is rescuing the stranded sailors. Madeleine offers them blankets and coffee.

Madeleine hates being judged and dissected by everyone but is learning to deal with the gossip that continually attends Jack. One day, they are going to lunch at a hotel and encounter Margaret Brown, who is truly friendly to Madeleine. A man across the street makes notes about them as all three go into the hotel.

Madeleine tells Jakey that Newport society remained cold and aloof to her. Margaret Brown was her only friend. Madeleine and Jack married at Beechwood and spent their wedding night aboard the Noma. Madeleine says of that night, “I was uncoiled. And all the world was new” (128).

September 1911. The family tries to throw the press off the scent of wedding plans. Madeleine has little concern for the planning as she cares only about becoming Jack’s wife. One day, when a man waylays her outside the jewelry store to demand details about the prenuptial agreement, “A white-hot pressure spiked through her [Madeleine] that felt very much like murderous rage” (129). Everyone counsels her not to lose her temper with nosy reporters.

They take the yacht to Beechwood for the wedding. Katherine tells Madeleine about a Scottish boy who stole kisses and asked Katherine to marry him. Katherine declined because what she felt wasn’t love. Katherine asks if what Madeleine feels is truly love. Madeleine assures her it is, though she fancies briefly she might become a mermaid rather than a missus, wear pearls and live an enchanted life. Jack teases her, asking if mermaids have husbands. He says Madeleine makes him happy, and she tells him to become accustomed to happiness.

The room is cold during the ceremony, and a storm gathers outside, but Madeleine holds hands with Jack and is full of joy.

Madeleine tells Jakey that they sailed the Noma for months. On land, the journalists, the gawkers, and the Four Hundred waited for them, and the established families craved and despised them. She pities that Jakey will have to navigate both these worlds, the Old Guard and the New.

December 1911. The couple enjoy being newlyweds, and Jack drapes Madeleine in jewels: pearls, emeralds, sapphires, belts, and bangles. She has a ring for every finger. In time, they weary of sailing and return to Manhattan to the Fifth Avenue chateau. The first night, Madeleine wakes alone and feels it is unfamiliar, even though she is the mistress here. She goes to breakfast and realizes she is sitting where Lina sat, where Ava sat.

Madeleine looks through her correspondence and sees a letter from Ava to Vincent, asking for a portrait of the family. Vincent is curt about her seeing it. Madeleine learns that meals are served on a strict schedule and imagines Ava set it. Jack suggests they host a luncheon and give out diamond rings as favors. “We’ve done it before,” he says (143) and Madeleine realizes his “we” is him and Ava, his first wife. Jack says he will have his secretary, Dobbyn, give her a list of around 50 people to invite, and they can commission a gold stickpin with their initials from Tiffany.

Madeleine peeks into Vincent’s bedroom to find the portrait of Ava. She is painted as a Roman goddess, Vincent and Jack with her. Madeleine sneaks away.

December 1911. The chapter is a list of polite responses to Madeleine’s invitation, all expressing regret that they cannot attend.

Madeleine tells Jakey she doesn’t think Jack was aware of how many versions of “she’s not Ava” she heard whispered by the Knickerbockers. Madeleine feels cold and lonely and has 40 gold stickpins with the initials J&M in her jewelry safe.

December 1911. Madeleine shivers in the immense rooms in Jack’s house, even with fires burning. Margaret visits and advises her to redecorate, make the place her own. Margaret describes how she was a shop girl who moved to Colorado and married a man who became rich, but she was never accepted by Colorado high society, who call themselves the Sacred Thirty-Six. Margaret spoke out on behalf of laborers and miners and their families, which also did not make her popular among the elite. Jack enters, and Madeleine asks if he would like to go to Egypt with Margaret.

Madeleine tells Jakey they sailed on Olympic and met J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, who bragged to Jack about the ship he was building. Madeleine says if Ismay were before her and she had a pistol, she would shoot him.

January 1912. France is rainy, and though their rooms at the Ritz-Carlton are well heated, Madeleine still feels cold and wears her furs everywhere. Food makes her queasy, and she realizes she is pregnant.

February 1912. As they approach Egypt, Madeleine thinks that everything is gray except for the Burmese rubies at her ears. Her lady’s maid, Rosalie, gives her a coat. Kitty has traveled with them. The hotel does not typically allow pets in its apartments, but Jack bribes the manager. Madeleine notices that the rooms are furnished exactly like those in France, like those back home.

Madeleine wants Jakey to know that his parents were in love; “we were twin spirits in love,” she says, and Jakey is “the spark born from us both” (168).

February 1912. Madeleine wakes in Cairo to find the rain gone. They climb one of the pyramids, and Jack teases that she is no longer a mermaid but a gazelle. As they swim in the hotel pool that night, Madeleine tells Jack she saw him when she was 13 and thinks that is the moment she fell in love with him. Jack says he fell in love with her when she asked to read his book. It is the first time they have said the words “I love you” to one another, and the words add to “their dark and precious bond” (175).

Madeleine describes their dahabiya, a boat built for traveling the Nile. She recalls how Jack smiled as he stepped onto the boat, “feeling the languid, steady pulse of the Nile rolling gently beneath our feet” (177). She hopes to see Jack’s smile again through Jakey.

February 1912. They visit the temple of Seti I with Margaret and her daughter, Helen. Madeleine reflects on how ancient the land is and how they will arrive in their motorcar, feast on fine food and wine in their tent, and the next day return to their boat on the Nile. At the temple, vendors are selling items, and a girl offers Madeleine a string of reddish-orange beads she says are carnelian. Their dragoman tells Madeleine not to buy it; he will find better from his cousin in Luxor. Madeleine enjoys exploring the temple. That night Jack calls her out of the tent to see the moon and gives her the strand of carnelian. The next day, they return to the boat to find that Kitty is gone.

Madeleine tells Jakey they delayed their trip to search for Kitty but did not find her. Madeleine enjoys the unhurried pace of life aboard the boat; she feels sunken and heavy. Jack hires a nurse, Carrie Endres, to look after her. Madeleine complains that she is not a child, but Jack insists.

March 1912. They visit Aswan and see the statue of Ramses II. Madeleine notes the girl carved by his feet, a royal daughter: “A girl who had lived and died thousands of years past, still standing at her father’s feet […] the princess had been captured in a singular moment forever because of a great man” (186).

As they sail, Madeleine watches Jack, who stands at the rail, looking for Kitty. He shouts, and Madeleine sees another boat coming toward them. On it are men holding Kitty. They are all overjoyed to have her back. Madeleine feels they are knit together, a unit.

At Alexandria, they part with Margaret and Helen, who are going to Naples. Jack has booked them passage on Ismay’s new steamship. Madeleine treasures the time they spend exploring Cairo. Madeleine likes their suite at the New Khedivial hotel, the “Arab” suite, which is decorated much differently. She and Jack talk about baby names. He wants a daughter they can name Paris. She says, if they have a boy, they can name him John Jacob Astor the Fifth, and Jack says there is already a Fifth, a distant cousin in England. Madeleine says the Sixth, then.