The Gilded Hour (60 page)

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NEW YORK TRIBUNE

Thursday, May 31, 1883

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Sirs: Yesterday the inquest into the matter of the death of Mrs. Janine Campbell came to a close, but not before observers and reporters were treated to the questioning and testimony of the deceased’s husband, Archer Campbell, in the most disturbing and unnecessarily crass manner.

Mr. Campbell, having lost his wife to an illegal operation, has also lost his four young sons to an uncertain fate. Rather than plead prostration he has been searching for them day and night and only paused in his efforts in order to appear yesterday before the coroner’s jury to give testimony. For almost two hours Mr. Campbell suffered bullying and browbeating, and to what end? He was never a suspect. It was not he who performed the
operation that ended his wife’s life; nor did he take his boys away from home and leave them somewhere without parental care and protection.

He gave honest answers to often impertinent questions posed, it seemed, for the titillation of the jury and gallery both. Mr. Archer is a man of upright character and Christian morals, a man who took his responsibilities to his wife and children with all seriousness and provided an excellent home for them. A loving father, if a strict one, and yet Coroner Hawthorn and the jurors seemed determined to paint him a cruel and uncaring husband, a man of narrow sensibilities, as if that were enough to excuse the terrible crimes visited upon himself and his sons, by a wife who was not worthy of his trust, a wife who deceived him and must, as he put so honestly, suffer the fires of hell for her sins.

We may never know the details of the operation that led to Mrs. Campbell’s death, but it is certain that she sought out and submitted to a vile procedure that violates the laws of God and man. She alone was culpable, and she has paid the price and will continue to pay it through all eternity. Mr. Campbell is free of blame; indeed, Coroner Hawthorn and the jurors are more worthy of disdain and correction than this good man who has suffered so much.

Dr. James McGrath Cameron

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NEW YORK TRIBUNE

Thursday, May 31, 1883

SEARCH FOR THE MISSING CAMPBELL SONS WILL CONTINUE

While there is no news to report on the fate of the four young sons of Archer Campbell, police departments from Philadelphia to Boston have stated their firm intention to carry on with the investigation and search. The Campbell family is offering a substantial reward for any information leading to the boys’ recovery.

In related news, Mrs. Janine Campbell will be laid to rest tomorrow in a private ceremony at an undisclosed location.

A
NNA
DIDN
’
T
LIKE
to think of herself as a cowardly person, but the idea of having to say good-bye to Cap and Sophie a second time was more than she could face. Instead she went to the New Amsterdam and spent the day being short with her students and assistants and the staff, always with one eye on the door. If things went wrong again, sooner or later Jack would show up to tell her so.

The lunch hour she dedicated to paperwork, and at exactly one o’clock Kathleen Hawkins presented herself, as directed, at Anna’s door for the discussion about her training and nursing skills. Anna got no satisfaction out of this kind of interview, but she also would not procrastinate. She thought Hawkins would be glad to postpone this meeting indefinitely.

She was very young, Anna reminded herself, just twenty. More training, hard work, and supervised experience would make a nurse of her in the end. The question was whether Hawkins was willing to do what was necessary.

While the girl waited for Anna to begin, she kept her eyes strictly on her own folded hands, her posture erect.

“You know why you’re here, Nurse Hawkins?”

“Mrs. Campbell’s surgery and my poor performance.”

No excuses or rationalizations, which gave Anna some reason to think there was chance for improvement. She said, “There are two options. You can voluntarily repeat your last semester of training with additional course work in anatomy, or you can leave the New Amsterdam to find employment elsewhere. But without a letter of recommendation or referral.”

The girl’s shoulders sagged. For a moment she seemed to be on the brink of tears, but she pulled together her resolve.

“If I may remark—”

“You may not,” Anna interrupted her. “There is no excuse for your performance during an emergency surgical procedure.”

The girl stared at her, incredulous. “But the—”

“Yes, it was a terrible presentation,” Anna said, taking care to keep emotion out of her voice. “Enough to make an experienced surgeon blanch. But the patient comes first, and no matter how bad the situation, you have to push through your inclinations and keep your head. Which you did not.”

“The—smells disoriented me,” Nurse Hawkins said in a small voice. “I do know anatomy.”

Explanations and rationalizations. Anna had no patience with either, but she made an effort to soften her tone. “However well you think you know anatomy, that knowledge abandoned you at a crucial moment. It was your job to assist me, not to hinder me in my efforts. Do you think you met that very basic obligation?”

Mute, she gave a tight shake of the head.

“So, your decision?”

“You want me to decide between giving up nursing altogether and repeating a semester of training. But I can’t afford to do that, Dr. Savard. I couldn’t pay my rent.”

“Of course not,” Anna said. “You’ll have to move back into the nursing residence.”

The pale face flushed red.

“You have until tomorrow to reach a decision. If you want to continue at the New Amsterdam I will arrange for your reenrollment to begin on Monday. That should give you time to see to the practical matters. I realize this is difficult for you, but in the end I hope you’ll understand why I find it necessary.”

She watched the girl leave, and wondered whether she would see her again. She wondered too if she should have said something more encouraging.
I hope you decide to stay
, for example. But the truth was, she wasn’t sure that it would be good for anyone if she did.

There was a murmuring in the hall, not unexpected. Hawkins’s friends would have come with her to provide support, and no doubt they were now venting their outrage. One of them would be suggesting a letter of protest to be signed by all, while others argued that a letter would only draw more
attention and make things more difficult. She hoped the calmer heads would prevail, but she could and would deal with whatever came her way.

For the next hour people streamed in and out. Clerks with questions and letters to be signed, students asking questions about assignments, assistants with updates on the conditions of the patients they were assigned. At four one of the boys who ran errands for the Mulberry Street police station popped in, dropped a note on her desk, and backed out again, as if she were a regent and he a commoner. Which might seem to him to be the case.

“Jimmy.”

He paused, one brow raised.

“Have you had your lunch?”

The other brow joined the first while he contemplated the question. If he told her yes, he had eaten, he would never know what she had been prepared to offer him. If he said no, she might cause trouble at the station house, where he was supposed to get his meals as the only payment for his services.

“Never mind,” she said, and reached down to take something out of her bag. “I have a half sandwich that’s going to waste. Can you find someone who might want it? Roast beef.”

He disappeared with the sandwich clamped tight in one dirty hand. Anna made a note to herself to speak to the Mulberry Street matron about providing water and soap for the messenger boys.

The note was in Jack’s strong handwriting:

They are safe away, in calm good spirits. I’ll be by to walk home with you at six.

Anna let out the breath she had been holding for what seemed like hours. It was done, then. Cap was gone, and she would never see him again. What an odd idea, really, to know that someone so very necessary in your life was lost to you and couldn’t be called back. Of all the people she had lost, Cap would be the first since she gained adulthood. She reminded herself that there would be letters, but then thought that it would almost be like communicating with someone from beyond the grave.

How Cap would laugh to know she was thinking like the spiritualists whose tappings and whispering she truly abhorred. She could almost hear him. In mock solemnity he would promise that when he passed on, his first project would be to learn Morse code so he could really communicate, none of this silly
one tap for yes, two for no
. He would provide a travelogue, of sorts, from the other side.

She would miss him for the rest of her life.

Tonight she would write a letter of her own, one that would be waiting when they got to Switzerland if she sent it express. It would be worth the cost to think of Sophie reading it out loud while they sat on a veranda overlooking the mountains that were glacier bound all through the year. That was the picture she would hold on to.

Another knock at the door jarred her out of her thoughts, this one almost timid. Irritated, she got up and went to open it, ready to speak her mind, and very plainly.

The young woman standing there was a stranger: she carried a valise in each hand and wore an old-fashioned skirt and jacket, much mended at the hems and far too large. Anna had little sense of fashions in color, but even she knew that a true redhead—as this young woman was, her mop of thick hair shorn short—could not wear a green and brown dress. Only the sharp angles of cheekbones and jaw saved her from looking like a tomato coming into full ripeness on the vine.

The young woman’s expression, open and hopeful, gave way to something like sadness. She said, “You don’t recognize me.”

It was the voice that made the difference. Anna stepped backward in her surprise. “Sister Mary Augustin?”

“Elise Mercier,” said the young woman who was, apparently, no longer a nun. “Might I please come in?”

•   •   •

A
NNA
TRIED
NOT
to stare and failed.

“To say I’m taken aback would be an understatement. I thought you had gone away for good. That’s the impression I was given.”

An honest smile replaced the uncertainty. “You asked about me?”

“Well, yes. Was that a mistake? Did my letter cause you problems of some kind?”

“Oh, no,” said Elise Mercier. “I’m glad to hear it. I thought maybe you’d just turn me away.”

“You have to start from the beginning and tell me about—this change in your circumstances.”

“It’s not very complicated,” she began.

And it seemed she was right. Elise Mercier, was, after all, still the young woman Anna had liked for her simple ability to express herself, for her intelligence and curiosity. With no fanfare she explained she had come to question her calling to the religious life, primarily because she could not push away the bone-deep itch to study medicine. She went to her superiors with these doubts, and in response they had sent her back to the Mother House where she could contemplate in solitude. Not a punishment, she added quickly. Just the opposite; the sisters had encouraged her to consider all the consequences of her choice. She could be a servant of God, nun or layperson.

“I decided to leave the order,” she ended. After a moment she added: “It was the right decision, I knew immediately. Like suddenly putting down a burden. The sisters gave me their blessing and these clothes—” She looked down at herself and grimaced.

Anna bit back a smile.

“I know, it’s awful. But there wasn’t much choice.”

“If you have no clothes, what’s in your bags?”

Elise blinked. “Some books and my notes.”

“From your studies?”

“I’ve kept a journal or a daybook, I suppose you’d call it, since I began training as a nurse. There wasn’t really anyone to talk to about the details of the cases I saw, so it seemed important to at least record my observations and the questions that couldn’t be answered. It’s very odd of me, I’m sure.”

“Just the opposite,” Anna said. “It bodes well for your education. So the sisters just—waved good-bye?”

“They gave me train fare and arranged a ride to the station. I’m embarrassed to say that they thought I was going to go home to my family and I didn’t correct them. I took the first train into the city. I had just arrived when it occurred to me that I should have written to ask first. You might have changed your mind.”

“About?”

She raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Well, I would like to study medicine. After I’ve served as a nurse for as long as necessary, of course. But I do want to be a doctor, if I can fulfill the requirements and be accepted into Woman’s Medical School, on a scholarship—” Elise bit her lip. “Saying it out loud like that makes me sound either very conceited or unsophisticated or both. I don’t expect it to be easy. But if you meant what you said, and you’re willing to help me get started—or have I assumed too much?”

Anna said, “Not as far as I am concerned, but then I’m hardly an objective observer. Will you regret your decision, do you think?”

The question didn’t surprise her. “Sometimes I’ll regret the things I gave up,” Elise said. “But isn’t that always the way? Everyone makes choices and most people doubt themselves at one time or another. I may miss the solitude of the convent, but I know now that it wasn’t right for me.”

“Your family will object.”

“I think my mother will understand. What she wanted for me was a life free from the drudgery of a household and family.”

And this, Anna thought, was the time to say that her own thinking had changed on the subject, and that like Sister Mary Augustin—Elise Mercier, she corrected herself—like Elise, she had made some fundamental changes. But she couldn’t think how to start.

Instead she said, “If you apply yourself and work hard, I don’t doubt that you will be an excellent physician. Now we can go talk to the head of the nursing staff, and see how best to put you to work. Would that suit?”

So many things had been pressing on Anna, so many changes in such a short time, she hadn’t realized how unsettled she had been. But somehow the ability to help this sincere young woman, to put something important within her reach, that helped. A success to hold on to in a world where good young men went and stayed away.