The Gilded Hour

  Comstock was just a single vote of seven. Of the six physicians, three could be counted as allies: Abraham Jacobi of Children’s Hospital, Manuel Thalberg of the German Dispensary, and Dr. Quinn, a Bellevue surgeon who also taught surgery at the Women’s Hospital and had been something of a surly but effective mentor to Anna. The other physicians were known to her only by name and reputation. Dr. Stanton, because he had published article after article attacking women physicians and the New Amsterdam in particular, and Dr. Hancock because he was one of the surgeons from Women’s Hospital, where women physicians were not welcome or even tolerated. The last physician she knew only as a Dr. Lambert, a specialist in forensics, one with an excellent reputation.

  With the exception of Thalberg, who worked exclusively among the poor German immigrants, all of the physicians had thriving practices. Some of them—Jacobi in particular—also did a large amount of charity work, but they all lived well. In this group Comstock looked out of place. The physicians were all carefully groomed and expensively clothed, while Comstock, ponderous and pompous, wore his poorly fitting black wool suit and standard grim expression. But for the whiskers he always reminded Sophie of an overgrown infant. It was his round face with its flawless complexion and high spots of color where the cheekbones would be, below the layer of fat. She had no intention of studying the man, but it was impossible to ignore the habit he had of sucking his front teeth.

  Sophie and Anna sat in the foremost row of the gallery, behind the table where the defense would be situated in a real trial. Behind them in the second row were Conrad and his clerk, and beyond them, about two dozen faces scattered in a room that would have seated many more. Hawthorn might be a businessman with little knowledge of medicine, but in Sophie’s view of things, he had done very well in arranging the inquest.

  She smiled a greeting at five classmates from Woman’s Medical School, and then got up to greet the three professors who had come as a powerful gesture of support: Mary Putnam Jacobi, Clara Garrison, and Maude Clarke. Sophie was especially surprised to see Dr. Garrison, who had so recently been on trial herself, another one of Comstock’s favored targets. She was especially glad to see Mary Putnam, who had a mind sharper than any of the men in the room, including her husband, Abraham Jacobi, who sat on the jury.

  “Steady on,” Mary said, and left everything else unsaid.

  • • •

  JUST AS SOPHIE returned to her seat the coroner asked the jury to put forward any questions they might have.

  “I’d like a clarification.”

  “Dr. Hancock, please go ahead.”

  “You’ve mentioned the possibility that the deceased may have operated on herself in a frame of mind that amounted to suicide. I agree, it’s something to consider, but if we’re going to look at suicide, we are talking about a woman who was suffering from severe mental illness. That discussion will necessarily lead to consideration of the Campbell sons, and what happened to them.”

  Anna stopped scribbling and her gaze fixed on the jury box. Then she wrote something down and turned the writing pad toward Sophie. She was writing with pencil, in sharp, straight strokes that pressed through many layers of paper. In her bag she’d have another dozen sharpened pencils to replace the one in hand when it got too dull. She had written, Morgan Hancock, Women’s Hospital?

  Sophie nodded.

  Studied with Czerny?

  Sophie nodded again.

  “I didn’t forbid the subject,” the coroner was saying. “But I would like to keep in mind that our primary purpose is something else entirely.”

  The coroner said, “We’ll start with Dr. Graham of the ambulance service.”

  • • •

  ANNA WAS AWARE of Jack at the back of the room. He stood there with Oscar Maroney and another detective, his arms crossed and his chin lowered to his chest as he listened to Neill Graham recount what had happened the previous Thursday.

  Graham was a good witness, clear and focused. The jurors asked questions—some of them very pointed—but Neill Graham didn’t fluster.

  “How many abdominal surgeries have you observed?” Abraham Jacobi’s tone was neither kind nor confrontational.

  “Mrs. Campbell’s case was the thirty-third.”

  “And your impressions of Dr. Savard’s performance?”

  He faltered then and glanced in Anna’s direction. She focused on her writing pad, where she wrote thirty-third and impressions of. Abraham Jacobi was asking questions he knew the answers to, to reestablish her credentials. He was subtle, as ever, in his support and therefore very effective.

  “I’m not asking you for a detailed critique,” said Jacobi. “Just your impression.”

  Graham didn’t hesitate any further. “She was confident. She moved quickly but not hastily. And she told me what she was doing and pointed out what she was seeing. I learned quite a bit in that short period of time.”

  Benjamin Quinn cleared his throat. “And what was it you learned?”

  “I thought I was pretty good at thinking on my feet, but I have a long way to go.”

  Anna wrote: a long way to go.

  Conrad Belmont leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder to whisper. “He said not one thing to contradict your testimony.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” Anna whispered back, irritably.

  Conrad patted her as if she needed encouragement, and she resisted the urge to pull away.

  • • •

  NEW YORK POST

  Monday, May 28, 1883

  CAMPBELL INQUEST BEGINS

  A NEIGHBOR’S CONCERNS FOR THE MISSING BOYS

  SUICIDE MENTIONED FOR THE FIRST TIME

  THE DECEASED’S HUSBAND TO TESTIFY TOMORROW

  Coroner Lorenzo Hawthorn began the inquest into the death of Mrs. Janine Campbell today by presenting seven prominent and educated men with a long list of admonishments about their responsibilities as jurors. A short discussion of the possibility of suicide, insanity, and the relevance of the Campbell sons’ disappearance was left unresolved, but it was the coroner himself who first raised the subject with one of the witnesses.

  The first witness was Dr. Neill Graham, an intern at Bellevue who works part-time for the police ambulance service. Despite pointed questions from the jury, Dr. Graham had only praise for Dr. Anna Savard, the surgeon who tried to save Mrs. Campbell’s life.

  The day’s second witness provided compelling testimony and insight into the life and death of Mrs. Campbell. We provide it here in fulfillment of our pledge to bring all the facts of this disturbing case to our readers.

  Inquest Testimony

  Mrs. Mabel Stone, housewife, resident at 24 Charles Street, appears before Coroner Hawthorn’s jury and makes the following statement.

  Coroner: Please start by explaining how you knew the deceased.

  Mrs. Stone: The Campbells are our neighbors and have been since they were first married, seven years this summer.

  Coroner: You considered her a friend?

  Mrs. Stone: I did. Janine Campbell was a no-nonsense kind of person, which I am myself. We saw eye to eye.

  Coroner: Did you see her often?

  Mrs. Stone: Janine had her hands full from dawn till dark with those little boys and the house. I myself have no children but have always felt the lack, and so I lent a hand wherever I could. I saw her every day, just about. Except Sundays.

  Coroner: And now if you could tell us about last week.

  Mrs. Stone: Early last Wednesday I went by train to visit my sister in Albany. I was back Thursday morning, and I noticed how quiet it was at the Campbells’ and so I went over to say hello. There was no answer when I knocked so I went around back to see was she hanging out laundry, but she wasn’t. So I looked in the kitchen window.

  Coroner: Is this common practice in the neighborhood?

  Mrs. Stone: It’s comm
on enough between friendly families. So as I was saying, I looked in the kitchen window, and there she was.

  Coroner: This is difficult, I understand, Mrs. Stone. But please be specific. Exactly what did you see?

  Mrs. Stone: I saw Janine—Mrs. Campbell—lying on the floor, in a pool of blood.

  Coroner: And then?

  Mrs. Stone: Well, I went in, of course like anybody would. At first I thought she was dead she was so pale, but when I lifted up her head she opened her eyes. “Easy now,” says I to her. “I’ll send for a doctor.” But she said no, she didn’t want me to.

  Coroner: Was she in pain?

  Mrs. Stone: Yes sir, in terrible pain, curled up tight with her knees to her chest. Hardly able to talk, but she didn’t want a doctor and she said so. Asked me to help her into bed so she could sleep. And I says to her, “Janine, you are bleeding to beat the band. You’re having a miscarriage and you need a doctor.”

  Coroner: How did you know she was having a miscarriage?

  Mrs. Stone: Only a man would ask such a question. You don’t get to be my age without seeing miscarriages and worse. Why, I’d seen Janine herself miscarry twice before. Near bled to death the second time, but Mr. Campbell was home. He got the doctor to come and late the next day she was out of bed and back to work. She didn’t have much choice.

  Coroner: These are things you witnessed yourself?

  Mrs. Stone: Yes. And I saw the doctor come. That gentleman, right there.

  Coroner: Let the record reflect that the witness is pointing to Dr. Heath in the gallery. Go on, Mrs. Stone.

  Mrs. Stone: As I say, I seen Mrs. Campbell in such a state before, so I knew why she was bleeding. But this time was far worse than the other two, so I says to her again, “I have to send for an ambulance.” And she says, “No, just leave me here. Archer will find me when he gets home.”

  Coroner: Those were her exact words?

  Mrs. Stone: Exact. But I ran outside and saw the baker’s boy and I told him to run as fast as he could to the Jefferson Market police station—just three blocks away—and tell them we needed an ambulance. And he did.

  Coroner: Where were the Campbell children while all this was going on?

  Mrs. Stone: I don’t know. I just don’t know. At the time I barely noticed they were gone except to think to myself—I do remember this—thank the Lord they don’t have to see their mam in such a state. But I didn’t ask her. That was my mistake.

  Coroner: It wasn’t unusual for the boys to be away from home?

  Mrs. Stone: It happened maybe three times a year that she sent them off to stay with relatives. Usually it was to Mr. Campbell’s brother, the one with the farm in Connecticut, but sometimes to another brother in New Haven. She sent them away when it was time to do the spring cleaning, usually, because they were too little to help and slowed her down. One thing she never had enough of was time.

  Coroner: Mrs. Campbell didn’t mention her sons to you while you waited for the ambulance?

  Mrs. Stone: Not a word. She fell away into a faint and didn’t rouse again until the young doctor—Dr. Graham, who spoke before me just now—came, not a quarter hour after I sent the boy running. He made me go out while he examined her but I heard her scream—scream loud—and then she was saying she didn’t want an ambulance. But he called for the stretcher anyway, as was proper. When they took her out of the house she grabbed my hand and said, “Send word to Mr. Campbell now, Mabel, would you? Tell him he’ll find me at the New Amsterdam.” And those are the last words I heard her say. Out she went into the ambulance and then she was gone. I hardly knew what to do with myself, I was that agitated. So I cleaned the floors, there was a terrible lot of blood, you see, and I took the bedding away to soak. Next I knew Mr. Campbell was at my door, telling me his wife was dead.

  Clerk: There is a question from the gallery.

  Coroner: So I see. Dr. Heath was once Mrs. Campbell’s physician of record. Please go ahead, Doctor.

  Dr. Heath: I am Dr. Heath. Did Mrs. Campbell ever mention me to you?

  Mrs. Stone: No.

  Dr. Heath: She never said she had gone to see Dr. Heath at Women’s Hospital?

  Mrs. Stone: No, she did not.

  Dr. Heath: Did she mention any other doctor or nurse or midwife?

  Mrs. Stone: No.

  Dr. Heath: Never said a word about her health?

  Mrs. Stone: That’s a different question altogether. We talked from time to time about such things, as women do.

  Dr. Heath: And in all those conversations she never mentioned a doctor’s name?

  Mrs. Stone: Doctor, you’ll forgive me for my blunt nature, but I doubt Mrs. Campbell ever gave you a thought. She was up to her ears in work, dawn till dark and beyond. When she took ten minutes for herself, to sit down with a neighbor to have a cup of tea, you were the last thing on her mind.

  Coroner: We’re off the subject. Mrs. Stone, just two more questions. When we spoke to Dr. Graham of the ambulance service he told us that Mrs. Campbell specifically requested she be delivered into Dr. Savard’s care at the New Amsterdam. Did she mention Dr. Savard to you before the ambulance arrived?

  Mrs. Stone: She did not.

  Coroner: This is the last matter we need to raise. Mrs. Stone, did Mrs. Campbell ever talk to you about abortion?

  Mrs. Stone: Janine Campbell was a good Christian woman, sir. Mr. Campbell wasn’t the easiest of husbands but she persevered as a woman must. She obeyed and kept house and raised those boys to be polite and helpful and made sure that dinner wasn’t a single minute late and her husband’s coffee was exactly the way he liked it, and when her health failed her, she bore up under that too. She wasn’t a complainer. She never spent a day in bed except when she was new delivered.

  Coroner: We have another question from someone in the gallery. Dr. Garrison, is it?

  Dr. Clara Garrison: Mrs. Stone, I’m a physician and a professor at Woman’s Medical School. May I ask, did you ever notice any signs of instability in Mrs. Campbell? Some of the questions before the coroner’s jury have to do with her state of mind and her sanity. You saw her almost every day, as I understand it. Would you have an opinion on this?

  Mrs. Stone: Hard work never killed anybody, that’s what my mam used to say, but it can grind a woman down to dust. Janine was tired and her spirits were low but I never heard her talk crazy or do anything but what she always did, housework and tending to the boys. She was a good mother, too, and her boys adored her. Some women take things out on their children, but Janine handled them different. She could get what she wanted with a soft word. And that’s the way she was, she worked hard, day in and day out and she looked after those boys—

  Coroner: This is very difficult, I understand. Take a moment to gather your thoughts.

  Mrs. Stone: She said to me once that her own father was too eager with the rod, and that she wanted something else for her boys. She didn’t have an easy life and she swallowed down more than her fair share of bile, but was no more insane than I am or you are, Dr. Garrison.

  Coroner: Thank you, Mrs. Stone; you’re excused.

  • • •

  ON THE WAY home from the inquest Monday evening Anna went over the long list of things she needed to do, all of which involved other people. Aunt Quinlan and Mrs. Lee would want to hear about Staten Island and about the inquest, Jack’s parents would be expecting them to call after supper, and once there, his sisters would raise the subject of the new house. Anna was curious, she could admit to herself, about Jack’s mother. It was odd to look forward to and dread something at the same time, but what she found oddest of all was this idea of herself as a daughter-in-law. As someone with parents, when for all these years she had been without. Anna realized that she had always assumed she wouldn’t marry, specifically because she had trouble imagining herself with a family that included parents and brothers and sisters. And now s
he had all of that.

  But what she wanted to do was slip between cool sheets and fall asleep in a breeze from an open window. She wanted to sleep for days on end, and to wake up when the whole sorry business of the inquest and the missing boys had been resolved. She wanted sleep in order to put Mrs. Stone’s testimony out of her head, and at the same time she wanted to bind all those words together into a club and hit every man in the room over the head with it. Because they hadn’t really understood the story behind the story, and what Mrs. Stone was trying to tell them about Janine Campbell’s life. Mrs. Stone had called herself plain-speaking and blunt, but she had wrapped every observation in the language of well-brought-up women, with the result that none of the men had any real sense of the anger and frustration that drove Janine Campbell.

  She wanted to sleep, and she wanted Jack sleeping beside her. Instead she had to resign herself to an evening of talking, one that started over supper. Then Sophie joined them, and Anna felt much better. She had come especially to hear about Vittorio Russo, something Jack’s parents made possible when they took the little girls off to be fed by his aunt Philomena and coddled by a house full of Mezzanottes.

  “And to speak Italian,” Mrs. Mezzanotte had explained. “They miss the language.”

  For once Margaret didn’t seem to mind letting them go off without her, but then she wanted to hear about the youngest Mezzanotte boy as well.

  Jack told the story in a very ordered, very complete manner that struck Anna as unlike him, until she realized that this was how he presented a case to his superiors, the men who judged his performance and made decisions about his career. It was a change from the way stories were usually told around Aunt Quinlan’s table, but then it was a serious subject.

  “He’s a beautiful child,” Anna said when he had finished. “Dearly loved. The picture of rude good health.”

  At the startled look on Jack’s face aunt Quinlan laughed. “A family turn of phrase,” she said. “Sophie’s great-grandmother used it for children who were thriving and content.”