The Gilded Hour (46 page)

Sophie agreed that she had.

“Did you see her after she gave birth in March?”

“Yes, I called on her two days later to make sure she was healing, and then she came to see me in my office some weeks ago.”

All heads came up abruptly.

“I don’t think I had that information,” said Hawthorn. “She came to see you in your office, for what reason?”

“She asked me to examine her.”

“Aha. And what were your findings?”

“She was a healthy young woman about a month postpartum. That is, she was physically healthy, but very melancholy and even despairing.”

“As is common after any birth,” Heath interjected.

“Not to this degree,” Sophie contradicted him.

Heath gave a dismissive wave of the hand.

The coroner said, “Did she give a reason for her state of mind?”

Sophie didn’t hesitate. “She believed herself to be with child, and she was terrified about another pregnancy so soon.”

“She said that exactly?”

“No,” Sophie said. “As I remember her words, she said, ‘I just can’t have another baby so soon, it will be the end of me.’”

Jack saw no surprise or even concern on the faces around the table, and for the first time got a sense of what Anna and Sophie meant when they talked about men’s willful blindness.

“Mrs. Campbell was with child.” The coroner was asking for confirmation of what he believed to be true, but Sophie was not so easily led.

“She may have been,” she said. “But it was too early to tell by examination.”

“She had an active imagination.” Heath ignored the sharp look that Sophie sent him, and Hawthorn seemed not to notice.

He said, “Did you operate on Mrs. Campbell, Dr. Savard?”

Conrad cleared his throat.

“Pardon me,” the coroner said. “Dr. Verhoeven.”

“I did not,” Sophie said.

“Did she ask you for the name of someone who would perform an abortion?”

“She did not.”

“Did you volunteer names of such persons?”

“That is a leading question,” Conrad said. “Please rephrase, or I will instruct my client not to answer.”

“I’ll let it go for the moment. Dr. Savard, you did operate on Mrs. Campbell.”

“Yesterday,” Anna said. “Yes.”

“And previous to that?”

“I never saw Mrs. Campbell previous to her arrival at the New Amsterdam yesterday.”

“You’ve read Dr. Manderston’s report. Do you agree with his finding on the cause of death?”

Jack was glad that they had finally come to the heart of the matter. It seemed Anna was glad too, because she spoke in the calm, matter-of-fact voice she had used in her laboratory classroom. “I found Dr. Manderston’s observations to be similar to my own, but I don’t agree with his conclusion that an operation was carried out by person or persons unknown.”

Mayo leaned forward, his long nose twitching as if he had caught the scent of something interesting. “The operation was legal?”

“Don’t answer that until and unless District Attorney Mayo clarifies what he means by ‘operation,’” Belmont said.

Mayo inclined his head. “Would you say that Mrs. Campbell underwent an abortion?”

“I couldn’t say that with certainty,” Anna said. “It’s unclear to me whether she was pregnant in the first place.”

“You wouldn’t recognize pregnancy at this early stage upon opening the reproductive organs?”

“If the uterus had been intact, certainly. But the damage was extensive, and at least a day old.”

“Then let’s say it this way. Did she undergo an attempted abortion?”

Anna looked the man directly in the eye. “In my professional opinion, the procedure in question was meant to interrupt a pregnancy. If there was a pregnancy. When undertaken for that specific purpose, such operations are illegal. As you well know.”

Mayo was running a finger back and forth over the tabletop as if he had found something etched into the wood that he needed to understand. To Jack it looked like a mannerism developed to distract and disorient a witness, but he had misread Anna if he thought she was so easily unsettled.

Mayo said, “You have never performed this operation yourself?”

“Do not answer that,” Belmont said, sourly. “It’s not relevant to the case at hand.”

“I agree,” Hawthorn said. And: “Dr. Savard, on what point exactly do you disagree with Dr. Manderston’s findings?”

“I believe Dr. Manderston was incorrect when he wrote ‘person or persons unknown.’”

Mayo widened his eyes in mock distress. “You know who operated on Mrs. Campbell? If you had said so to start with, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Anna looked at Manderston for a long moment, then spoke to him directly. “In my opinion, Mrs. Campbell’s injuries were self-inflicted.”

Heath gave a startled laugh. “That is utterly ridiculous.”

“I would say patently impossible,” Manderston volunteered.

The coroner raised a brow in Manderston’s direction. “As I understand it, many women perform such operations on themselves, and often with success.”

“Not in this case,” said Manderston. “This was no simple scraping gone bad. The damage was considerable and the pain would have stopped her.”

The coroner looked at Anna. “Dr. Savard?”

“The pain might well stop a man,” Anna agreed.

Sophie said, “Desperate women are capable of even worse.”

Heath snorted openly. “In your extensive experience, I suppose you’ve seen worse?”

“I have,” Sophie said. “But then I work mostly with the poorest women, and desperation is the rule rather than the exception.” She looked from Manderston to Heath and back again. “You would have less experience of this kind at your hospital.”

“I was practicing medicine before you were born,” Heath said, his lip curling.

“Of course,” Sophie said. “But in the homes of the rich or in your own clinic.”

“Mrs. Campbell was my patient, if I may remind you.”

“And she left your care.”

“Because she knew I wouldn’t perform the operation she wanted.”

“Because she was terrified, and knew you didn’t care.”

“Coroner Hawthorn,” Heath barked. “I will not be spoken to this way by a—by a—” He coughed and sputtered as he pushed himself out of his chair.

“Sit down, Dr. Heath,” Hawthorn said. “We are almost finished here. I see no option but to convene a coroner’s jury to decide if this was an accidental suicide or a death following from malpractice.”

“Or both,” Manderston muttered loud enough to be heard throughout the room.

“We’ll meet on Monday,” Hawthorn went on, ignoring him.

Sophie rose immediately and leaned over to Anna, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder to draw him into the conversation. “I must go down to Cap,” she said. “And get him home and into bed. Will you call later?”

“Not this evening,” Anna said. “You are in desperate need of rest, too, Sophie. Let’s let Conrad do his work, and we can talk over the weekend. We have until Monday to work out a strategy.”

They turned to look to the front of the room, where the attorneys and clerks and coroner were deep in conversation.

“What is that about, do you think?” Anna asked.

Jack said, “Belmont will be insisting on a second autopsy, and no doubt he’s arguing about the jurors. In other cases like these he would want as many doctors as he could get—”

He broke off, and Anna took up what he had been reluctant to say. “But not in our case. Not male physicians, at any rate, to sit in judgment of us.”

“Then who?” Sophie asked. “May we suggest names?”

“I think that you should,” Jack said. “Give them to Conrad as soon as possible, and let him steer things in that direction.”

“I’ll do that,” Anna said to Sophie. “You go on to Cap, and give him my love. Tell him Conrad has things well in hand.”

“I will,” Sophie said. “Though I don’t quite believe it myself.”

NEW YORK TIMES

Friday, May 25, 1883

EVENING EDITION

CORONER’S JURY TO EXAMINE TWO WOMEN PHYSICIANS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DEATH OF JANINE CAMPBELL

Just one day ago, while the rest of the city enjoyed the fireworks display that closed the ceremonies for the new East River Bridge, an autopsy was performed at the New Amsterdam Charity Hospital. The deceased, Mrs. Janine Campbell, a married lady of respectable family and mother of four small boys, died earlier yesterday. The postmortem examination revealed evidence of malpractice.

The physicians subpoenaed for questioning in connection with this case were Dr. Sophie Verhoeven, who attended Mrs. Campbell at the birth of her fourth son in March, and Dr. Anna Savard, the surgeon on duty when Mrs. Campbell arrived at the New Amsterdam yesterday.

The two lady physicians are distant cousins who grew up together on Waverly Place. Sophie Savard Verhoeven, a mulatto, was born in New Orleans and came to New York as an orphan in 1865. Both women are graduates of Woman’s Medical School and properly registered at Sanitary Headquarters.

Drs. Savard and Verhoeven met with Coroner Lorenzo Hawthorn at his offices this afternoon, accompanied by their attorney, Conrad Belmont, Esq., to answer questions arising from an autopsy performed by Dr. Donald Manderston of Women’s Hospital. Subsequent to that meeting
Coroner Hawthorn announced he will convene a jury. Jurors will decide if Mrs. Campbell’s death can be attributed to criminal malpractice on the part of one of the doctors who treated her. Such a finding would cause the doctors to be bound over to the grand jury to determine whether indictments are called for.

•   •   •

NEW YORK WORLD

Friday, May 25, 1883

EVENING EDITION

MULATTO BRIDE TO FACE CORONER’S JURY

As reported in the early morning edition of the
Post
, Sophie E. Savard, married this morning to Peter Verhoeven, Esq., the wealthy son of one of the city’s most noble families, has been instructed to appear before a coroner’s jury on Monday. The deceased is Mrs. Janine Campbell, a young woman who was in Dr. Savard Verhoeven’s care at the time of her death by malpractice. Also being questioned is Dr. Anna Savard, the last physician to treat the victim on the day of her death.

Accordingly Mr. and Mrs. Verhoeven have postponed their departure for Marseilles.

•   •   •

A
NNA
TOOK
A
cab to the Staten Island Ferry at the foot of Whitehall Street early Saturday morning, where Jack was waiting. He kissed her cheek and took her Gladstone bag and valise, bought tickets, and found seats quickly and without fuss. Anna, ill at ease and out of sorts after a poor night’s sleep, took exception. He seemed untouched by the events of the previous day, good and bad both. It set her teeth on edge.

When they had settled in for the journey Anna thought that he would raise the subject of the inquest, and was both relieved and irritated when he did not. Instead he talked of a letter from his mother and an ongoing rivalry between two sisters-in-law that had to do with what he called tomato gravy, Uncle Alfonso’s complaints about the utter lack of logic in the way English was spelled, and Oscar’s landlady’s dog who had produced six puppies in the middle of the night without uttering a sound. Or maybe, Jack suggested, Oscar’s consumption of beer had had something to do with
his undisturbed sleep. Comforting, easy conversation that had nothing to do with death or postmortems or the Comstock Act. There was no talk of Sophie or Cap, and really, she reminded herself, hadn’t she just this morning wished to have a day she could spend with Jack alone?

When there was a pause in his storytelling Anna pointed something out. “You’re trying to rob me of my mood.”

Jack stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles, put his hands behind his head, and tilted his face to the salt breeze. He grinned without looking at her.

“How am I doing?”

Anna bit back her own smile but conceded defeat; it was too fine a summer morning to fret over things that could not be changed or even prepared for. It all had to be left to Conrad Belmont, for the moment at least.

“Surprisingly well.”

“That’s a relief. It’s bad luck to scowl on your birthday.”

Anna closed her eyes and put her head back. “Sophie has been telling tales.”

“It’s not your birthday?”

Anna hummed.

“You don’t want any presents, she told me. You dislike birthdays.”

“True.”

“I like presents,” Jack said.

“Is it your birthday?”

“It is not, but if you’re not using yours—”

Anna turned toward him. “So what is it you want for your not-birthday?”

“I’ll think of something,” he said. Then he roused himself to take a wrapped package from his valise while he talked about progress he had made arranging repairs to the old Greber house. Except he didn’t call it
the old Greber house
or
my new house
or even
our new house
, but
Weeds
.

The Russo girls had given the new house that very odd name to distinguish it from Aunt Quinlan’s, now renamed Roses, as in
We’re going over to Weeds to play
, or
They’ll be wondering about us at Roses
. Without comment or discussion, everyone had taken up the new names. Anna feared that even after Mr. Lee had transformed the neglected garden into a showpiece the name would stick. In fifty years, quite likely, few people would remember why.

He handed her the package wrapped in brown paper.

“Not a birthday present,” he said. “Wallpaper samples. My sisters want to know what appeals to you.”

Anna unfolded the samples and spread them out on her lap. Huge fussy sunflowers against a background of maroon and brown, scrolling agapanthus in olive greens and grays, cabbage roses in pink and red rioting over a trellis interrupted here and there with blue globules that were meant, she thought, to be songbirds. She folded the samples and retied the bundle while she thought.

She said, “Do we have to have wallpaper?”

He let out a relieved sigh. “Maybe together we can convince my sisters that we don’t. I’d get a headache looking at any of those every day.”

“Tell them—never mind, you shouldn’t have to speak for me. I’ll take them to a friend’s house that I admire. Maybe that will be enough.”

“Friend?”

She looked at him closely. “You sound surprised.”

“Not in the least,” he said. “I’m just remembering you told me once that you didn’t have many friends.”

“It’s very rude of you to remember everything I say.” She made an effort to sound severe and produced only an indigent huff. “And I do have a few friends. This one’s name is Lisped; her daughter went to school with us at the Cooper Union. Annika married a Swede and moved back there, but her mother is still here.”

“Wait, you and Sophie went to the Cooper Union? I thought they only taught classes for adults.”

“The institute has a class for the children of faculty members. Aunt Quinlan taught drawing and painting, Cap’s uncle Vantroyen taught engineering, and Annika’s father taught mathematics. That’s how I met Cap, at a lecture the grown-ups went to hear, before we even started school.”

“You’ve never told me much about any of this.”

“Haven’t I?” Anna considered. “I don’t think the stories are anything out of the ordinary. We were overindulged, I suppose, when it came to school. Any curiosity was to be encouraged, and everything was a game, from mathematics to Latin. We took every opportunity to go off on our own to explore. Annika and her brother Nils sometimes joined us.

“But my point was, I very much like her mother’s house. Lisped is
someone I admire greatly. If there’s time to go visit, I wonder if your sisters would be shocked.”

“They might surprise you.”

Anna thought,
That would be nice
.

For a long time they didn’t talk at all, and Anna was free to take in the ocean air and the sun on the water, and the promise of what just might turn out to be a perfect day. Little by little she was aware of her mood floating away from her to disappear without a trace. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, put her head on Jack’s shoulder, and fell asleep. It was such a deep sleep that she was disoriented when he woke her an hour later, his breath on her ear sending a shiver running up and down her spine.

He said, “Vanderbilt’s Landing, Savard. Rise and shine.”

•   •   •

“Y
OU
KNOW
,
YOU
could call me Anna at this point,” she told him as they made their way from the ferry landing to the Stapleton train station. As they walked she was scanning the shoreline and all the mansions that overlooked the sound, the homes of men who traveled to Brooklyn or Manhattan by ferry, mornings and evenings.

He said, “You still call me Mezzanotte for the most part.”

“Because I like the sound of it. If your last name were Düsediekerbäumer or Gooch or Quisenberry—” She shrugged.

“You would never have talked to me at all?”

“Well,” she said, stepping neatly away. “Of course I would have talked to you. But I couldn’t marry someone with the name Düsediekerbäumer. In fact, it’s odd that I’m marrying anybody at all. I didn’t think I ever would.”

She was in a lighter mood, even playful, but not far beneath the surface she was still exhausted. Standing next to him on the platform she almost swayed in the breeze, blinking owlishly in the bright sun.

“What about Anna Mezzanotte, do you like the sound of that?”

She jerked and came fully awake. “Um,” she said.

Jack had wondered if this would be an issue, if she would resist taking his name. He hoped he wouldn’t have to convince her, because this was one point on which his parents—his father, most especially—would balk.

“I have a suggestion,” he said before she could think how to respond. “But let’s wait until we’ve found our seats.”

As soon as the train jerked its way out of the station she said, “Your suggestion?”

“As a doctor, you will want to remain Dr. Savard, I understand that. But at home, and when children come along—”

“They would have your last name, of course.” Relief flooded her expression. “I thought you would be unhappy about—my professional name.”

He shook his head, thinking,
Pick your battles
. He said, “At home you’re one woman and at the hospital, another.”

She collapsed, boneless, against her seat back, and yawned again. “I don’t seem to be able to keep my eyes open.”

“Then sleep,” he said, leaning a shoulder toward her in invitation. “Anything exciting happens, I’ll wake you up.”

She laughed, rubbing her cheek against his jacket as if to find the right spot. “I wonder what would count as exciting on Staten Island. A deer on the tracks?” She had other questions about the route—if the train line ran close along Raritan Bay, whether there might be time to walk on the beaches later—and then she was asleep again without waiting for comment or answers.

He put his arm around her to hold her steady against the sway and lurch of the train and looked up to see that they were being observed by two old women—farmers’ wives, almost certainly, by their faded sunbonnets and aprons. Watching Anna sleep as attentively as they might have watched a play on the stage. Sleep robbed her face of its fierce intelligence and turned her into nothing more or less than a woman in the full blush of her youth at rest, innocent, almost otherworldly. Then the women turned to look out the window, and the moment passed.

For a moment Jack weighed the idea of getting the
Times
out of his valise, and then remembered the article just under the fold on the front page, where Anna’s name figured so prominently. She might not have seen it. He hoped she had not. Even more, he hoped she hadn’t seen the
Post
or any of the other rags that were having such a good time dissecting the Savard women. Tomorrow would be soon enough for all that, or the day after. For today they were free of everything and everyone.

They traveled along Raritan Bay for a while, slow enough to take in long stretches of dunes that revealed and then hid the shore where
oystermen were hauling nets. On the horizon he could just make out boats like smudges of paint shimmering in the sun.

According to the train schedule the journey would take an hour, which Jack soon realized was more a fanciful guess than a statement of fact. He watched passengers amble along to get on and off as if they had never heard the word
timetable
. At one stop the conductor sat himself down on a convenient pile of luggage and launched into what looked like a serious conversation with the stationmaster, pausing only to light his pipe. So close to Manhattan, and a different world altogether, different from Greenwood, too, in ways he couldn’t quite pinpoint except that Greenwood was home.

Stapleton was a proper town, but the rest of the interior of Staten Island would be like this: farms, forest, wilderness. The next stop was in a village spread out around the train station like an apron: pretty, slightly tattered, and very quiet but for the huff of the train engine. A stand of tulip trees cast shade over the road where a leggy girl in wooden clogs was herding a couple of goats along the road. The baby balanced on her hip had one small fist knotted in the sleeve of her dress.