With some small part of her mind she realized that the fireworks had begun. Colors fell like rain in the whispering dark.
22
NEW YORK SUN
Friday, May 25, 1883
BELMONT HEIR TO MARRY CREOLE
There is great agitation among the upper classes of this city about a wedding to take place this morning at Trinity Chapel. The groom is Peter Verhoeven, Esq., son of Anton Verhoeven, a prominent Belgian architect, deceased, and Clarinda Belmont of this city, also deceased. Through his mother Mr. Verhoeven, an attorney, inherited a large portion of the Belmont fortune as well as a fine home on Park Place.
The bride is Sophie Élodie Savard, a beautiful mulatto lady, highly educated and refined in person and habit. The couple have known each other from childhood.
According to the city clerk, a marriage license has been issued. In light of this fact, members of the Belmont and related families declared the intention to disown Mr. Verhoeven should the scandalous and unnatural union go forward.
Both bride and groom have declined to be interviewed, but the Sun has learned that they plan to leave for Europe after the wedding ceremony and luncheon. They will travel to Switzerland, where Mr. Verhoeven will be admitted to a private sanatorium for treatment of advanced consumption. His new wife, who is a qualified physician, will attend him there.
• • •
NEW YORK SUN
Friday, May 25, 1883
MOTHER’S TRAGIC DEATH
FOUR LITTLE BOYS LEFT BEHIND
MALPRACTICE SUSPECTED
Mrs. Janine Lavoie Campbell, aged 26 years, of 19 Charles Street, died yesterday afternoon at the New Amsterdam Charity Hospital as a result of possible medical malpractice.
Originally from Maine, Mrs. Campbell was employed by the Bangor post office until her marriage to Mr. Archer Campbell of this city. The marriage was a fruitful one, producing four boys in five years.
Yesterday morning a neighbor called on Mrs. Campbell and found her to be very unwell. A police ambulance was summoned, and Dr. Neill Graham of that service examined Mrs. Campbell and declared her to be in danger of her life.
In accordance with her wishes, Mrs. Campbell was transported to the New Amsterdam Charity Hospital to be delivered into the care of Dr. Sophie Savard, who was not present. Instead Mrs. Campbell was seen and operated on by Dr. Anna Savard. She did not survive the surgery.
The coroner was notified by the hospital, and an autopsy was arranged with all speed. The report of the postmortem examination carried out yesterday evening has not yet been made public.
Confusion in this case stems from the fact that two female physicians with the surname Savard were involved in treating Mrs. Campbell. Dr. Anna Savard and Dr. Sophie Savard are reportedly distant cousins who studied together at Woman’s Medical School. Dr. Sophie Savard is a mulatto. How she came to have a white lady of good family as a patient is a matter still under investigation.
Mr. Archer Campbell, a senior postal inspector and husband of the deceased, directed that his wife’s body be taken to his home. This young mother of four was by all accounts a virtuous woman beyond reproach.
• • •
JACK STOOD OUTSIDE Trinity Chapel watching a couple dozen people, Bonners and Ballentynes, Scotts and Quinlans and Savards greeting each other. Small groups would drift together and then apart, but nobody ever strayed very far from Anna’s aunt Quinlan. The old lady stood holding the Russo girls by the hand, both of them too excited to do anything but bounce in place while she talked to daughters and grandchildren, cousins and nieces.
As he left Waverly Place the evening before he had been introduced to most of them, returning from the excursion on the river. He made excuses for Anna, who had slipped away upstairs to put herself to rights. Jack wondered what she could have possibly done to chase the flush from her neck and face, and grinned to himself.
All of the family members he had met so far were friendly, but seven-year-old Martha Bonner had assigned herself as his companion and inquisitor. She had come to the city from Albany with her grandfather Adam. Adam Bonner, as he had introduced himself, was lean and straight, with pure white hair cut unfashionably close to the scalp. It set off the warm brown of his complexion and eyes of an unusual shade that could be called golden. Jack was reminded of the glow of Sophie’s skin and realized that the connection must be through the New Orleans branch of the family, though he could not think of a way to ask that would not be rude. He might have come up with something if not for Martha, who demanded his attention.
Like her grandfather the little girl had a complexion that seemed to draw in sunlight. Her eyes were a milder and deeper brown, in stark contrast to the energy that bubbled out of every pore. She wanted to know his whole name, if he had sisters and brothers, how tall he was (too tall, she announced, when he told her), if he liked eggs, and whether he had dogs. Now, it seemed, she had come to a matter of greatest importance just as he realized he had lost the thread of her conversation.
“You’re not listening,” she told him with a touch of impatience.
“Sorry,” Jack said. “Pardon me. My attention wandered, but you have it now. What did you need to know?”
“Who is the flower girl?” And in response to his blank face: “A bride needs a flower girl. Who is Sophie’s flower girl?”
Jack thought back to the chaos at the house on Waverly Place when he had stopped by just an hour ago.
“I don’t think she has one.”
“But she has to,” Martha Bonner said. “Are you sure?”
Jack said, “Fairly sure, yes.”
“Well,” she said, straightening narrow shoulders. “I am Sophie’s second cousin once removed. Her great-grandfather Nathaniel is my great-great-grandfather, and she has no flower girl and really, that’s not the way things are done.”
To his own surprise, Jack followed this reasoning. “They must be very distracted to have forgot something so important.”
She nodded her approval and smiled, showing off the gap where her front teeth were coming in. “Anna says you have lots and lots of flowers at your house.”
“That is true,” Jack acknowledged. “But my house is far away from here.”
“You could take a cab,” she suggested. “I could help you find one.”
“Martha,” said her grandfather as he came up to hear this part of the conversation. “What devilment are you up to now?”
The elderly woman on his arm gestured to her. “Martha, child, come here to me. Nobody has introduced me to this young man, so you’ll have to do it.”
The girl didn’t hesitate. “This is Auntie Martha Bonner. Martha Bonner like me, except old. This is Detective Sergeant Mezza—” She paused.
“Mezzanotte,” Jack finished for her, “Jack Mezzanotte,” and he gently shook the hand the old lady offered, aware of the swollen joints. She looked nothing like any other member of the family; there was still a touch of red in her hair, and her skin was so fair he could see a tracery of veins just below the surface.
“Aunt Martha,” Adam said. “Excuse me, please. Your namesake and I are off in search of flowers.” He winked at her. “So you can conduct your interview in private.”
• • •
“YOU INTEND TO marry our Anna,” Martha Bonner said, cutting right to the heart of the matter.
“As soon as she’ll have me,” Jack agreed. “But I may need a little time to learn all your names and faces. Especially the names. How many Martha Bonners are there?”
“Four at last count, but only two of us here today. We are a confusing family,” she said, taking his arm. “So now, pay attention.”
What followed was a rapid-fire sketch of the descendants of Nathaniel Bonner by three different women, one a youthful indiscretion followed by two marriages.
“But not at the same time,” she clarified.
“So think of the family as divided into three branches for the three women, Somerville, Wolf, and Middleton.”
“And you are?”
“I married into the Middleton line,” she said. “My husband was Lily’s twin brother. Their little sister Birdie—your Anna’s ma—was a favorite of mine.”
“Lily is—”
“They call her Aunt Quinlan these days, but you’ll have to ask Anna why. Now, Birdie was the youngest of the Middleton line and the twins the oldest, born some twenty years apart, mind you. Adam—” She looked over her shoulder, but he had disappeared with the younger Martha. “Is the Somerville line.”
“And Sophie?”
“Sophie is Hannah’s granddaughter, Wolf line. It would take paper and pencil to draw it all out for you, and that will have to wait. The bride is here.” A kind of sorrowful quiet came over the old woman’s face as she watched Sophie being helped down from the carriage with Anna just behind her. “She doesn’t look anything like her grandmother Hannah, but she has her spirit and her mind. I hate to think of her so far away from family when she’ll most need support.”
After a moment Jack said, “I’ve come to know Sophie fairly well. I don’t think anything could change her mind.”
“Hannah’s granddaughter,” she repeated. “And Curiosity Freeman’s great-great-granddaughter. Strong women with excellent minds, loving hearts, loyal unto death. It’s bred in the bone.”
• • •
TOGETHER CONRAD AND Cap had planned the ceremony with two things in mind: Cap was not strong enough to be in public for very long, and he needed to keep his distance from everyone, including the woman he was marrying. Somehow Conrad had convinced the rector and the vicar to go along with these requirements.
Anna was less sanguine about his decision to allow a small group of newspaper reporters into the back of the church, but she was certain that there was some strategy there. The papers couldn’t be controlled, but they could be manipulated by means of favors granted. The rest of the reporters from the cheaper papers waited outside the gate that surrounded the church. Uninterested in the facts, they would write the stories that sold the most newspapers. Only so much could be handled, even by Conrad Belmont.
There would be stories about the fact that none of Cap’s five aunts were present, about Cap’s finances and Sophie’s childhood, and worst, the public would be reminded that Cap Verhoeven was ill unto death. One more titillating fact to add to the mess of innuendo, rumor, and half truths that would be spun into headlines, which she imagined, unable to stop herself.
MULATTO LADY DOCTOR SNAGS DYING KNICKERBOCKER SCION
HE MARRIED IN SHAME AND FLED THE COUNTRY
OLD GUARD SHAKEN BY SCANDAL ON PARK PLACE
With the exception of Conrad, Bram, and Baltus, and a few of Cap’s household staff, the groom’s side of the church was empty until Adam noticed and migrated, taking his granddaughter and a pew full of Bonners and Ballentynes with him. Anna was glad of her family, sensible, observant, kind people who had long ago embraced Cap without hesitation or reservation and never wavered. Doubts they would have, she knew that, but doubts would not be voiced unless Sophie asked specifically about them.
Anna wanted to listen as Sophie recited her vows but found it almost impossible to concentrate. Her attention kept creeping away to roam through the church pew by pew, taking note of family members she had not seen for too long, and landing always on Jack.
He was watching her, too, and sent one of his most sincere and comforting smiles, which reminded her: whatever the newspapers printed, whatever scandal occupied the city because a white man of means had married an educated woman of mixed race, Cap and Sophie would not have to deal with any of it, and Anna would not have to deal with it alone.
As soon as the vicar had declared the couple married, Cap and Sophie started down the aisle, Cap walking with the assistance of two canes when he might have managed with none at all. He had taken them up to provide an excuse and explanation to curious strangers who would certainly note that the bride and groom never touched as they left the church. But Sophie was smiling, and there was nothing artificial or staged about the simple joy on Cap’s face, now that there was a ring on Sophie’s hand.
• • •
THE WEDDING LUNCHEON was exactly as perfect as Anna knew it would be, because Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Harrison had had the planning of it.
The party gathered in the large formal dining room around a table that was set for two dozen people, laid out with what had once been Clarinda Belmont’s wedding china and crystal and silver. Serving staff stood at attention next to a sideboard, waiting for the signal to start. Anna’s stomach growled quite reasonably, she reminded herself, as she hadn’t had breakfast.
She felt some of the anxious tension flow away as she sat down beside Jack; she had no work to do here, and no strangers to worry about. While the waiters served a first course of clear soup, Bram and Baltus entertained everyone with their usual irreverent observations, amusing chatter, awful puns, and worse doggerel. Most of their observations had to do with Cap, and all of them ended in the same place, with the conclusion that he had done very well for himself by marrying Sophie before anyone else could get to her. There was no talk of illness or the coming farewells.
Cap was trying, but to Anna he looked to be in pain. She watched him stifle a cough, which meant that the laudanum he took to see him through the ceremony was wearing off. Through one course and two more Anna talked to Jack and the trio of little girls—Martha had joined forces with Lia and Rosa—who came to her with one scheme after the other, and she watched Cap, comforting herself with the knowledge that in just a few hours he would be away to the docks and what she hoped would be a peaceful Atlantic crossing.
The knowledge that time was so short also made her terribly sad, and so she left Jack to his conversations with curious relatives and little girls and went to the head of the table to crouch down beside Sophie. Her cousin leaned over and pressed her cheek to Anna’s but said nothing, though her throat worked.
“So, Mrs. Verhoeven.” Anna put a hand on Sophie’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
Sophie’s smile was a little weary but there was also a deep content in her expression. She said, “I will miss you so.”
“Well, of course.” Then Anna pressed her mouth together to keep silent, because anything she might have been able to say would have made all three of them lose what was left of their composure. Instead she went around Sophie to Cap. He held up a hand in warning and she laughed at him, violating the perimeter he had set around himself to hug him, this bonier, slighter version of the boy and man she thought of as a brother.
“Provocative as ever,” he said, grumpily.
Anna made a face. “You can’t begrudge me a single hug on the day you marry. And I need another one, as you’ll be gone tomorrow on my birthday.”
But he turned away to cough into his handkerchief. When he began breathing again, he said, “I hope you have something better to do on your birthday than sit in a sickroom looking at me. Even if I were here to look at.”
Sophie shook her head at Anna. He was at the very end of his energy and irritated with himself.
“Look,” Sophie said. “Adam is about to start the toasts. It won’t be long now.”
The double doors at the far end of the room opened a crack, enough to let Mrs. Harrison slip in. She stood there, one fist pressed to her diaphragm in a way that spoke of distress. With her free hand she crooked a finger at Jack, who looked puzzled but not particularly concerned.
He shrugged at Anna and slipped away just as Adam began his toast with a story about Sophie and Cap. As the door opened wider to let him out, Anna saw that Oscar Maroney was waiting in the hall, and that another man, a stranger, stood beside him.
“This is about a prank that turned into a love story,” Adam was saying. Later Anna couldn’t recall a si
ngle sentence of what followed.
• • •
“OSCAR. CAPTAIN BAKER.”
The captain had appeared at Sophie Savard’s wedding luncheon for no reason Jack could imagine until the older man held up a distinctive roll of paper. Jack shot an alarmed look at Oscar, who closed his eyes briefly and then held up one palm. Wait, that palm said. But Jack could not.
“What is that?”
“Damn coroner,” Baker huffed. “Useless bugger. It’s a summons, as you know damn well.”
He looked apologetic and even embarrassed. The captain embarrassed was something new to Jack, and far more unsettling than one of his rages.
“What’s this about?”
Oscar cleared his throat. “A Mrs. Campbell, deceased yesterday,” he said. “Postmortem came back this morning suggesting malpractice. Coroner Hawthorn wants to see both the lady doctors today,” he added. “Seems they both treated her.”
If he hadn’t been so distracted, Jack told himself, he might have anticipated that the emergency surgery of the previous afternoon was likely to have quick repercussions.
“Does the coroner realize that Sophie Savard—I should say, Mr. and Mrs. Verhoeven—that they are supposed to board a ship for Europe this afternoon?”
Captain Baker cleared his throat. “He does know, yes.”
Oscar gave a brief jerk of the head, a silent warning to Jack to hold back his commentary. Right now they had the captain on their side, and it was important to keep it that way.
Jack said, “Give me five minutes,” and slipped back into the dining room without waiting for permission.
• • •
ADAM WAS COMING to the end of his toast with the attention of every person in the room firmly in hand. Every person except Anna, who was looking right at Jack. He gave her a grim smile—he would put off disrupting things as long as possible—and, turning, gestured to one of the servants who stood at the rear of the room. A man of forty or more, blank faced, not likely to make a fuss.
“I need to get a message to Conrad Belmont.”