New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [305]
“The new Rolls-Royce is out—Claude Johnson’s been testing it up in Scotland, and the results are astonishing. Autocar says it’s the best car in the world. And it’s so silent, Johnson’s called his own car the Silver Ghost. There’s only a handful been produced so far, but everyone’s going to want one. Well,” he’d smiled, “those that can afford it.”
“What does it cost?”
“Well, Rolls-Royce sells you the chassis and engine. I guess that’s around a thousand British pounds. Then you order your own custom bodywork from the coachbuilder—that’s another hundred or so. There are other things besides. Maybe twelve hundred pounds.”
“How many dollars to the pound, William?”
“A pound is four dollars and eighty-six cents.”
“That’s six thousand dollars! Nobody’s going to pay that,” she cried.
William had said nothing. Last week it had arrived at the docks.
“I had mine done like Johnson’s: silver paint, silver-plated fittings. Johnson had green leather seats, but I went for red. I’m calling mine the Silver Ghost, too. Isn’t she handsome?”
She was indeed. For the rest of that week, William and the chauffeur drove the car together. Yesterday was the first day the chauffeur had been allowed to drive it alone. And today Rose sat in it, feeling like a duchess, as she was driven down Fifth to Gramercy Park.
When she got to the house, Hetty Master was waiting. She inspected the car with interest, asked what it cost, and said, “I don’t approve.” But she got in happily enough. Sometimes she liked to include her friend Mary O’Donnell on these outings, but today she was alone.
Few people could enjoy getting old, but insofar as it was possible, Hetty Master did so.
She was a rich old woman in the full possession of her faculties. Her family loved her and lived nearby. She said and did what she liked. She could indulge a few mannerisms which, when she was younger, it had been wiser to keep in check. She could even, to amuse herself, cultivate some new ones.
Though Hetty had never been so interested in the social world herself, and she was certainly less conservative than Rose, she understood the younger woman’s ambition and respected her. She was also not above teasing Rose, once in a while.
“Where shall we drive to?” Rose inquired.
“I’ll tell you as we go,” the intrepid old lady answered. “First we’ll pick up Lily.”
Rose knew better than to ask too many questions, and as they went back up Fifth, it was Hetty who led the conversation. From Twentieth to Thirtieth, she wanted to know all about the children. At Thirtieth, she remarked that the car was certainly very comfortable, but much too expensive, and that she’d have to tell young William that he was too extravagant. Only when they reached Thirty-fourth did Rose interrupt her. And when she did, it was to groan.
“Even after ten years,” she now declared, waving her gloved hand toward a sumptuous building, “when I think of the scandal, and my poor, dear Mrs. Astor, I can’t bear to look at it. Can you?”
For they were passing the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
There were several Astor wives of course, but throughout Rose’s childhood and youth, by common consent, and whatever her official title might have been, it was Caroline Schermerhorn Astor who had been the Mrs. Astor. The divine Mrs. Astor. Rose’s heroine, mentor and friend.
She was very rich indeed. That went without saying. She and her husband had occupied one of two huge Astor mansions on the site. But if the Astor family had become rich and established enough to assume New York’s social leadership, Caroline, through her Dutch Schermerhorn ancestors who went back to the founding of the city, could claim it as a birthright. And with all this power at her disposal, Mrs. Astor had undertaken a labor worthy of Hercules. She was going to polish New York’s upper class.
By chance she had a helper, who encouraged her to do it. Mr. Ward McAllister, a Southern gentleman who’d married money and toured