William returned to New York while Alva and her children stayed on in Europe. In Paris, Consuelo made her (debutante debut) to Parisian society where she danced with her (eventual) second husband, Jacques Balsan. Following the Parisian season she went with her mother onto a rented home on the Thames in England. Established in London for the season, Consuelo and her mother visited Minnie Paget, an Heiress from New York who had married a knighted English man. In her memoirs, the “Glitter and the Gold,” Consuelo recalls being taken to Paget’s boudoir as her mother and Minnie discussed and critiqued her as if she were not in the room. “If I am to bring her out,” Minnie told Alva, “then she must be able to compete at least as far as clothes are concerned with far better-looking girls”. .” Tulle must give way for satin… Naiveté to sophistication. “ Lady Paget was adamant. During a dinner party given by Lady Paget, Consuelo and Marlborough were introduced. Strategically placed next to each other Consuelo thought he seemed a “very young man,” although six years her senior, she thought him “good looking and intelligent”. Upon her return to New York City she had fallen in love with one of her family’s travel companions, Winthrop Rutherford. A handsome man a few years her senior from a perfectly respectable old New York Family and they became secretly engaged. Her mother once again took Consuelo to England. Clothing was ordered from Worth’s and once again she met Marlborough, this time at his ancestral home of Blenheim Palace. And once again she found him charming but
though her mother had invited him to visit Newport in the summer. Back in Newport for the summer season, her life at Marble House plans to marry Rutherford. The halls of Marble House rang as Alva’s reaction was to tell her daughter that there was madness in Rutherford’s family and he could have no children, and then stating that she would not hesitate to shoot the man she considered capable of ruining Consuelo’s life, followed by her faking a heart attack. (No longer able to handle the gloom and hurt that would fall to her beloved, Consuelo sent word that she could no longer marry Rutherford. Marlborough’s visit brought the anticipated marriage proposal and Consuelo accepted. At the wedding at St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue, Consuelo felt numb and her (Worth) veil shielded the tears she cried behind it. With the marriage Consuelo became the ninth Duchess of Marlborough and the Duke now had her dowry of 2.5 million dollars to continue to live in the pomp and circumstance he deemed necessary. After Consuelo preformed her duty to the Churchill family that she dubbed “the heir and spare,” the Duke and Duchess began to live separate lives and the marriage would dissolve into a very public divorce later to become an annulment. Although the New York of her youth is gone and few of the glittering mansions are left on Fifth Avenue and the Vanderbilt name no longer dominates the railway industry, her lineage as a Vanderbilt and New York heiress lives on as her blood now runs through the
Resident