An English Entanglement: Gilded Age Belles

Prologue

Lucy Van Zandt sat perched upon a deck chair in a sunny corner of the steamship’s wooden promenade. The sharp point of her pencil made bold, decisive marks against the sketchpad in her lap. The horizon before her offered nothing but an empty, endless expanse of blue, yet her mind’s eye was alive with vivid scenes and snippets of text.

For eighteen months, she’d been devoted to her latest comic strip creation, Lucy LaMode’s Fashionable Frolics, which enjoyed five panels of print space in New York’s weekly Gossip Gazette. She idolized illustrators such as Charles Dana Gibson, George du Maurier, and Richard Outcault, especially since there were few celebrated women in her field—and even fewer who were the twenty-year-old daughter of a wealthy Wall Street stockbroker.

Only one held that distinct claim to fame: Miss Lucille Van Zandt.

Unfortunately, her family did not think her celebrated or unique in any way, and did not view her achievements with pride. To their dismay, she remained a second-tier debutante who never got invited to any good parties.

The Van Zandts were still considered ‘new money’, yet Lucy wasn’t concerned with elevating their status. Instead of mingling in ballrooms and dining rooms of polite society, her comic strip was her true passion even though her parents urged her to give it up. They had all but forced her to abandon her occupation, which was how she’d ended up in her present predicament—on a ship bound for England, some three thousand miles from home, tasked with the sole purpose of finding a titled husband.

She sailed with her mother and father. Her brother, Conrad, had been allowed to stay behind, as he attended Yale and had no interest in traveling abroad when he could spend the summer with his friends. Keeping up with one’s school connections was almost as important as marriage, according to Mother and Father. To truly succeed in high society—a lesson the Van Zandts had learned the hard way—was ultimately about who one knew and how.

Despite their newly-acquired millions, her parents couldn’t purchase a place at the top of New York City’s social strata. Instead, they sought to improve their position through Lucy, aiming to acquire an English lord as their ticket to the pinnacle of the British aristocracy, as many American heiresses had done before them.

Lucy found their scheme mortifying. Humiliating. Degrading. She wasn’t a piece of property to be haggled over, nor did she care to be listed among the roll of Yankee girls making their curtseys across the pond! She’d been perfectly content with her pencils and sketchpads, and the comic strip that she provided for her loyal following of readers.

As Lucy transformed her blank sheet of paper into a humorous scene of shipboard shenanigans, she scarcely noticed her mother approaching until the woman’s shadow blocked the sunlight illuminating her page.

Lucy squinted as Mother sighed. All those years of wasted art classes, Mrs. Van Zandt lamented as she claimed an empty deck chair by her daughter’s side. Why can’t you be content to sketch and watercolor like other girls?

"I do sketch and watercolor; you just don’t like the way I do it." Her mother preferred more conventional illustrations—flora, fauna, landscapes, and portraiture—over cartoons. Knowing it was hopeless to hide her work, Lucy offered her mother a glimpse at the scene she’d created. The latest installment of Fashionable Frolics depicted a luggage mix-up with Mrs. Blunderfield, a fictional fellow passenger.

Mother’s gaze raked over the page, judging the scene and finding it lacking, as she did with most of Lucy LaMode’s comic capers. I see nothing humorous about having to wear a stranger’s clothes to dinner.

It is funny because it’s absurd, Lucy explained. Nobody would ever behave this way in reality.

It’s silly… Mother said with a dismissive sniff.

Of course, it is silly. Most comics are. That’s the point—to laugh!

Lucy found the idea of a sturdy, sober matron searching through a stranger’s trunks and finding only hilariously inappropriate dresses incredibly amusing. When she sketched Mrs. Blunderfield descending the grand staircase of their ship’s first-class dining saloon dressed in gigot sleeves and feather boas, she couldn’t help but laugh aloud despite her mother’s scolding, which only annoyed the woman further.

There will be precious little time for sitting around with your sketchpad in London, Lucille. Your father and I are counting on you to make a good match!

Lucy dared not look up from the page as she argued for the hundredth time, though her voice was tinged with frustration, Why must it fall to me to ensure our family’s standing when I don’t care for society?

I am done being snubbed by my neighbors. On our own, we shall never join the ranks of Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred, but with your beauty and dowry, there isn’t any reason we cannot move among the finest families of the nobility.

A stiff, salty breeze ruffled her hair and curled the corners of her sketchpad. Lucy pressed her palm down to prevent losing the page. Buy our way into their drawing rooms, you mean?

These titled men are desperate. Their bank accounts are empty and their estates are foundering. They require an influx of cash…

Then they should go to work.

You know they cannot do that! The head of an eight hundred-year-old family cannot earn his living as a banker, an architect, or a shopkeeper. It would be beneath their dignity to even consider some occupation. These men must marry money. You shall have no trouble attracting a duke or an earl. If Consuelo Vanderbilt can do it⁠—

Lucy looked up, aghast. I’m nothing like Miss Vanderbilt!

Consuelo Vanderbilt, now the Duchess of Marlborough, was tall, dark-haired, and elegant; accomplished and intellectual. She had nothing in common with Lucy. Whether in looks or achievements, the two heiresses were as different as night and day.

No, thank goodness. Her mother is a tyrant. Yours is simply…tired. I’ve grown weary of being ignored, overlooked, and uninvited. There is no reason we cannot stand as tall as the Vanderbilts, Goelets, Astors, and Livingstons. Mrs. Van Zandt lovingly reached to smooth a wayward lock of blonde hair that had blown loose from beneath her daughter’s hat. You could do that for us, Lucille. You can make your family proud.

It was a tremendous responsibility to place upon her shoulders, and she felt it like a lead weight pressing against her heart, threatening to suffocate her. Lucy wished they could be proud of her as she was, for who she was, not simply for what she could do to benefit them.

Why can’t Conrad marry and secure the family position?

Mother waved that notion away. He is busy with college and far too immature to think of settling down. Rest assured, when the time comes for your brother to find a wife, Father and I shall hold him to the same high standards that we expect from you now.

Trusting that her lecture had hit its mark as intended, Mrs. Van Zandt angled in her seat to face the heady, blue horizon where England lay in wait. For Mother, the sight ahead represented a blank canvas of opportunity, a springboard for her family’s ascent. For Lucy, however, it was a gaping chasm, a foreign land lacking all friendliness, a place at odds with her passions and dreams. She had no idea how to navigate this new world her parents had consigned her to, yet her mother’s parting words echoed in the margins of her mind long after they’d docked:

You mustn’t let us down, Lucille. A successful marriage is our ticket to acceptance, and we are all depending on you.

Chapter One

London, 1896

His mother’s ghost would surely haunt him for selling the Vermeer. Even now, as Frederick stood in the gallery of Harlington House, Mama’s presence seemed to hover in a disapproving shadow where the painting had once hung. That exquisite seventeenth-century masterpiece depicting a peasant woman absorbed in her morning chores had graced the walls for fifty years—until Frederick hawked it at Christie’s for twelve hundred guineas.

The house had been emptying for ages. The Sèvres and Dresden china were gone, as were many other treasures. The library shelves thinned, flanked by now-vacant pedestals and hollow cabinetry.

Loss was visible everywhere.

It wasn’t Frederick’s fault that his parents had been reckless. The late Lord and Lady Harlington had squandered their children’s birthrights chasing the Prince of Wales’s Marlborough House set giving lavish house parties, shooting parties, hunts, and balls. Their grand entertainments had once been the talk of society, yet last-minute excursions to Monte Carlo had proved far more amusing than paying their coal bills whenever the weather turned bitter.

Amidst so much frivolity, the couple had neglected to provide for their children. As a result, Frederick had inherited the consequences—sad, stripped walls and the crushing responsibility of keeping the family afloat.

He contemplated his fate as he stood in the gallery of Harlington House, frowning at the dark square on the faded wallhangings. His fingers brushed the outline where the Vermeer had once hung, the frayed, uneven silk a painful reminder of all that had been lost and what little remained. He’d returned to his residence from a sobering visit to the bank and felt particularly despairing of his situation. Only one thing of value remained to be disposed of, and he cradled that jeweler’s box in the crook of his arm.

Frederick made no effort to conceal it when his sister appeared in the gallery. Like him, Lady Beatrice Marwood was tall and lean, with a thin, attractive face and middling blond hair that could sometimes be mistaken for brown under dreary light. But all three siblings had been born decidedly fair-haired and weren’t quite ready to relinquish that fact.

Ignoring the jeweler’s box, Beatrice studied the bald patch where the painting was absent. There is a particularly lovely portrait of one of our great aunts—Isolde, I think, though honestly I can never tell their likenesses apart. I believe she would fit nicely here. She turned her gaze toward her brother. Shall I have her brought down? That way, almost no one will notice the Vermeer is missing.

Everyone would know the Vermeer was missing, as the Marquess of Harlington’s financial ruin had become an open secret among the aristocracy, whispered about in ballrooms and at dinner tables. His peers could only sympathize as they too watched their fortunes wither away. When one could not work to raise funds, one’s only course of action was to sell off everything that wasn’t entailed.

That’s a capital idea, Bea, Frederick answered, though his heart wasn’t in it. He motioned for her to follow him into the drawing room where their youngest sister, Gertrude, sat waiting.

He’d called something of a family meeting between the three of them, as the time had come to discuss what could no longer be avoided.

He placed the jeweler’s box onto a side table and propped open the lid to reveal a brilliant crown of rose-cut diamonds set in gold and silver filigree. The Harlington tiara was topped with lustrous, pear-shaped pearls crafted by Collingwood & Company. It had been removed from the family vault for one last admiration, and then it must be auctioned off.

I’m sure it will bring four, perhaps even five thousand guineas, Frederick explained as his sisters gasped in surprise. The wife of some rich industrialist will pay handsomely for the privilege of wearing it.

Beatrice and Gertrude stared at the tiara with wonder and sadness. A tiara was seen as a social necessity, and the older the piece’s provenance, the better. Frederick hated to part with it, but his sisters needed dowries. The estate was heavily mortgaged, and try as he might, he could not scrape together enough funds for two Seasons, weddings, and trousseaux.

He struggled with selling the tiara, and worried about what his sisters would wear on their wedding days with no family jewels in which to shine. It had last been worn by their mother, standing atop her shining blonde head in a glittering display of Mama’s elegance and status. Now, it was a painful symbol of the family’s fall from grace, and Frederick grieved its potential loss as a personal failure.

Beatrice and Gertrude, however, considered it a small sacrifice to have no diamonds when their brother did so much for them.

I shall weave flowers in my hair, Bea vowed.

I’ll wear paste jewelry and glass pearls, said Gertie, and no one will know the difference!

He tried to smile at his sisters, yet their generosity broke his heart. "I’ll know the difference."

The girls deserved so much more than he could give them. Even five thousand guineas was no fit dowry for the sisters of a marquess, though it would be enough to see them both properly wed.

Do you want to try it on? he asked. Shall we have one last hurrah before sending it to the auction block?

Beatrice hesitated, as if it were a forbidden treasure. You mean, try on Mama’s tiara?

They’d only ever been allowed to admire it—and their mother—from a distance. Donning the Harlington tiara was a small, poignant act of defiance against their circumstances. No harm would come from allowing his sisters a moment of mischief with the thing.

Frederick removed the towering diamond-and-pearl crown from its box. He balanced it on his fingers, asking, Who’ll go first? Beatrice? Gertrude?

Gertie leaped at the chance to wear a tiara, a tradition not permitted to unmarried ladies. Oh, Freddie, let me!

He placed it on his youngest sister’s head. She appeared beautiful, radiant as she performed a graceful turn about the drawing room. Her skirt hems swished across the threadbare Aubusson carpet, but for one breathless minute no one noticed the shabby state of the space. Suddenly, little Gertrude, the baby of the family, was all grown up.

Laughing, she returned the tiara to her awestruck siblings. Now, you do it, Bea!

Yet Beatrice, the sensible middle child, shied away from the elaborate, pearl-topped piece. She shook her head, adamantly declaring, I don’t want to!

Frederick went to her, placing his arm around her shoulders. Why not?

If I never try it on, then I won’t miss it when it’s gone. When the time comes for me to marry, I want to remember all the wonderful things I have, not what I am missing out on.

Tucking his sisters against his side, Frederick said, We’ve come through many trials before. I reckon we must face this one as we always have—together.

With her usual practicality, Bea straightened her spine. We’ll make the best of things, Freddie.

Gertrude, still sparkling from her time with the tiara, nodded. And we’ll make certain our future shines brighter than any jewels!

Even when Mama and Papa were alive, the Marwood children had leaned on one another for love and support. There wasn’t anything Frederick wouldn’t do for the girls, who were as dear to him as daughters. No sacrifice was too great if it meant they would thrive.

With a deep breath, Frederick closed the lid of the jeweler’s box, sealing away the Harlington tiara once and for all. Unless a miracle befell them, it would be destined for Christie’s alongside the costly china, rare books, and the Vermeer painting. He would sell the clothes off his back for his sisters if necessary, and if their dire straits continued, it just might come to that.

Chapter Two

After arriving in London, the Van Zandts had rented a narrow, brick-fronted townhouse on Bruton Street. It was a modest, well-situated residence standing only a stone’s throw from Berkeley Square, thus forming a perfect base of operations for the London Season.

Lucy liked the house though her parents found it poky and small compared to their gleaming marble palace on Fifth Avenue. They were fortunate to have found a place at all, considering the crush of families crowding into the capital for June and July, when the weather was pleasant enough for garden parties and carriage rides in the park but not yet hot enough to feel sweltering.

With the windows propped open, the sitting room was cool and comfortable. Geraniums in the flower boxes lent a splash of natural color to the otherwise drab view, and the distant noise of traffic from Berkeley Square served as a subtle reminder that life outside continued at a brisk pace—unlike her own, which felt frustratingly stalled.

Lucy estimated that at least two dozen American heiresses were currently vying for a spot among the nobility. She’d crossed paths with a few of these girls in the weeks she’d been in town, but they’d regarded her more as competition than a compatriot, and had avoided her. Despite her substantial dowry and striking looks, they’d dismissed her as if she were yesterday’s news.

Worst of all, she’d gathered no fresh material for Fashionable Frolics.

Lucy hadn’t stopped sketching despite her mother’s warning. That morning, she’d crafted a dreamy story about Lucy LaMode being mistaken for a peeress of the realm and enjoying the lavish London treatment, but that was more wishful thinking than wildly amusing.

She felt isolated, stagnant, and uninspired, for what her parents had never been able to understand was that, whether at home in New York or halfway around the world, she was the same old Lucy—always an observer, never the shining star; happiest going her own way, at her own pace, even though she was beginning to suffer from something her father called ‘cabin fever’.

Lately, the Van Zandts had grown bored and were beginning to bicker. Mother wheedled Father, Father lost his temper, and Lucy swore she’d go insane without inspiration for her comic strip, never mind that she had no editor abroad to receive her work and no readership to establish a place for her in Punch or The Graphic.

Lucy had resorted to sketching the mundane lives of their neighbors, trying desperately to imagine stories where none existed, her creativity stifled by the oppressive sameness of her days. Sometimes she walked