No. 1 · Saturday, March 11, 1911

A Season Begun in Black

Society has buried a shipping man, and Society is already counting what he left behind.

Mr. Aldric Ainsley, head of the Ainsley shipping concern, died at Thornfield, his house at Newport, on the night of the twenty-first of February. We have asked what Society has asked: what takes a gentleman to Newport in February, when the cottages are shuttered, the staff are on board wages and the wind comes in off the water with nothing to stop it? The answer given is "rest." We print it as given.

The funeral was well attended and very correct. Mrs. Ainsley, in the deepest black, received the city's condolences without once allowing the city to see her face do anything at all. We admired it. We were meant to.

The three sons stood together. The middle son and his wife were gracious to everyone. The youngest was gracious to the prettier half of everyone. The eldest arrived first, left last, and spoke to almost no one. We are told he has not been seen at his club since.

On Tuesday the family met with its attorneys. The estate is understood to be in excellent order. We are assured of this by persons who would not know.

We come now to the arithmetic. The new head of the Ainsley concern is thirty-one, in full possession of a fleet, a house on Fifth Avenue in his mother's keeping and a face we are told is handsome when it moves. It does not move often. He is unmarried. He has never given the smallest sign of wishing to be otherwise.

Every mother in New York has done the sum. Some did it before the funeral. We will not say which, except that one of them lives on West 54th Street, has an old name, two daughters out, and a household that has lately learned to make very good use of very little butter.

The elder Miss S. is very much admired. She is twenty-four and beautifully finished, and she is very patient. We understand there is also a younger Miss S. We have not yet been introduced. We are told she writes an excellent letter.

A son in mourning for his father is not expected in a ballroom this spring, and we do not expect to see Mr. Ainsley in one. The Dashwoods give their ball on the eighth of April. We shall be there. We are always there.

A Caller

For the modern reader

Mourning etiquette in 1911 New York

When a man of Aldric Ainsley’s standing died in 1911, his family went into mourning by rules every hostess in New York knew by heart. American etiquette books set a widow’s mourning at two years. The first was the deepest: dull black wool trimmed with crape, and a crape veil out of doors. A widow was not expected to go back into society for at least a year. The family’s writing paper and cards went out with black borders.

A son mourning his father wore black for a year. By 1911 a man’s mourning had come down to a black suit, a black tie and a crape band on his hat. The rule that mattered most was the one about pleasure. A child mourning a parent stayed at home for about six weeks, and kept away from balls and dances for six months.

Those rules are why Society watched every step the Ainsleys took that spring. A widow in a ballroom seven weeks after her husband died was an event. So was her son.

That is exactly the problem facing Duncan Ainsley in The Devil’s Asking Price, the prequel to The Wreckage Between Us. His father is dead. Society is watching him. And the one place he should not be in April is a ball.

By Astoria Bane, writing as A Caller · 12 November 2026 · 3 min read