“Did Mrs. Campbell wake in the night?”
“I slept in the boys’ room. It was her idea, thinking I shouldn’t catch the bug that had her so sick.”
From the jury Dr. Stanton cleared his throat. “You didn’t notice blood, I take it? There would have been a great deal of it.”
Campbell looked distinctly uncomfortable. “She told me she had her monthlies, and I left it at that.”
Abraham Jacobi said, “Were you disappointed to hear that Mrs. Campbell’s menses had started?”
For the first time Campbell looked confused. “I don’t follow you.”
“We heard testimony that you were hoping to increase the size of your family as quickly as possible. Something about a wager with your brothers. The news that your wife wasn’t with child, then, was that a disappointment?”
Beside Anna, Sophie went very still while Campbell’s neck and face flooded with color.
“That’s a private matter. Who told you that? Whose testimony?”
“Mr. Campbell,” said Hawthorn. “Please answer the question.”
Campbell’s head was turning as he scanned the gallery, moving from face to face. Sophie sat quietly, composed, unwilling to let Campbell read anything from her expression, once he found her where she sat.
“Mr. Campbell.”
He turned back to the coroner with clear reluctance. “I wanted a big family,” he said. “She knew that before she married me. She wanted the same.”
Dr. Thalberg said, “She never expressed doubts?”
“Doubts?” Campbell fairly spat the word out. “What do doubts have to do with anything? Man proposes, God disposes, so goes the saying. A woman raised right knows that, and accepts it as her duty.”
“But the evidence indicates that Mrs. Campbell performed an abortion on herself,” said Hawthorn.
“If that’s so,” Campbell said with great deliberation, “then she lied to my face and she’s burning in hell, where she belongs.”
There was a moment of shocked silence in the courtroom.
Jacobi said, “Where do you think your sons are? Do you have any sense of what’s become of them?”
Campbell’s whole face contorted. “If what you’re telling me about my wife is true, then I’d put nothing past her. Maybe she stole away and killed them, to spite me.”
Anna felt flushed with heat. Whatever they had imagined about Janine’s home life, it had been far worse. Casual cruelty and callous indifference could destroy a woman as effectively as fists.
“Then let me ask one more question,” Abraham Jacobi was saying. “Assuming for a moment that your sons will not be returned to you, did you have no idea that your wife held you in such contempt, that she was angry enough with you to do such unspeakable things?”
Campbell stood up suddenly, and so did Anthony Comstock. “The man is not on trial,” Comstock said. “You are making grave accusations without the least bit of evidence.”
“Your own tactics, Comstock. Come home to roost,” noted Dr. Thalberg.
“I beg your pardon!” Comstock bellowed. “How dare you!”
“Sit down, Mr. Comstock, and remember the seriousness of this inquest,” said Hawthorn. “Mr. Campbell, you too, sit down immediately.” He paused to take a deep breath.
“You may find Dr. Jacobi’s question insulting, Mr. Campbell, but it is a reasonable question. If your wife was so deeply unhappy and disturbed enough to do the things we’re talking about, where did those feelings originate?”
Finally, Anna thought. Finally.
• • •
THE DEBATE WENT on and on, it seemed to Anna, but nobody in the gallery moved a muscle. It was as good as a theater production, one with an excellent director. Her opinion of Mr. Hawthorn grew to considerable proportions as she watched him play the jurors off each other and off Campbell, stepping in exactly when things began to escalate too quickly, providing small jolts when things began to lag.
On her pad she wrote, no history of mental illness she admitted to and French Canadian and save the rod.
Mrs. Campbell did not approve of harsh physical punishment, it seemed. Her husband offered this as evidence of her deceptive character; because, he suggested, there was nothing gentle about a woman who could wrong him the way she had.
Anna had had more than her fill of Archer Campbell when the coroner declared the inquest at an end and cleared the courtroom of everyone but the jury. The hallway, already crowded with reporters, doubled in density. In the tumult of the crowd Anna stayed very close to Sophie, her Gladstone bag bumping against her leg as people pressed forward around islands of reporters who stood scribbling madly on paper held open against a palm. Perspiration was running down her back and sides, and she had never wanted to see an open window as much in her life as she did at that moment.
“Sophie Verhoeven.” A reporter pushed in front of them, his face lowered so that the brim of his hat would have touched Sophie’s forehead, had she not shoved him away.
“Don’t you want people to know—”
“What I want,” Sophie said, “is for you to remove yourself immediately. Immediately.”
Anna took her by the arm and pulled her aside. “Jack, there.”
He was easy to spot in a crowd, a head taller than the tallest man. Anna gave a very solid push in his direction, and Sophie followed.
“Let’s go,” Jack said. He used his body to create a protective wall, a passageway that moved with them. He opened a door and gestured them into another hallway, this one empty and dim and cool.
Anna leaned against the wall for a moment to catch her breath. Sophie stood very stiffly, her mouth pressed hard shut and streaks on her cheeks that had only one origin.
“Oh, Sophie.” Anna put a hand on her cousin’s elbow, and Sophie turned to her, pressed her face to Anna’s shoulder, and wept as though the world had ended.
To his credit, Jack stood back and let them be. Anna smiled wanly at him over Sophie’s head.
“She should have killed him,” Sophie said finally. “And saved herself.”
Anna fumbled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and wiped Sophie’s damp face. “In a just world, yes.” She felt very close to tears herself, until she saw Jack’s face.
“What?”
He said, “Sophie, Sam Reason and his grandmother are waiting in a room just down the hall to talk to you.”
Sophie stiffened. “He was arrested?”
Jack nodded. “But he won’t be charged. He’s free to go home.”
“What? How?”
“Comstock overplayed his hand. And he’s not the only one who knows people in the district attorney’s office. Sophie, be warned, Reason is—”
“Rude. I know,” she said. “But he has cause.”
• • •
DELILAH REASON WAS thinner than she had been, her cheekbones more prominent and the shoulders of her shirtwaist not quite so well filled out. But her smile was genuine, and Sophie was so glad to see that small sign of sincere welcome that her hands began to tremble.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Sophie said. “Though I wish the circumstances weren’t quite so grim.”
“You look like you haven’t got much sleep,” Mrs. Reason said. “Are you taking care of yourself?”
“Dr. Verhoeven has staff to take care of her,” Sam Reason said. He was standing near the door, very straight and tall and so tense he seemed to vibrate.
“Sam,” said Mrs. Reason. “I did not raise you to be impolite. Dr. Savard—”
“Sophie. Please, call me Sophie. Sam has good cause to be angry with me.”
They both looked at her as if she had suddenly started speaking Greek.
Sophie said, “I assumed that Comstock raided your offices because of our pamphlets, that he traced them somehow. That’s not what happened?”
&nbs
p; “The other way around,” said Sam Reason. “He—or better said, one of his men—brought one of your pamphlets in to me and asked what it would cost to reprint it.”
“But why were you arrested?” Sophie asked him directly.
“I was caught off guard and I did the first thing that came to mind. I handed him our price sheet. The one I use to calculate estimates, page count and paper stock, and so on. That’s all it took. Next thing Comstock came in himself and arrested me.”
“Because he didn’t reject the job straight out,” Mrs. Reason supplied.
“But it was one of the pamphlets I showed you?”
Sam nodded. “No doubt in my mind, it was my grandfather’s work.”
“It’s none of your doing,” said his grandmother to Sophie.
“I fear it is. I embarrassed Comstock in court yesterday,” Sophie told them. “I can’t help feeling there’s a connection.”
“Maybe so.” Sam Reason turned his hat around and around in his hands. “But it’s over and done now. Maybe you can thank the detective sergeant for speaking up for me. I’d be spending another night in a cell if he hadn’t.”
“I have already asked him to keep an eye out for Comstock on your behalf. You must be very careful from now on. He doesn’t like being bested.”
For the first time she saw a flicker of a smile on Sam Reason’s face. “Nobody does.”
Mrs. Reason picked up her reticule, and, taking a moment to gather her thoughts, she launched into what Sophie thought must have been a rehearsed speech.
“I saw in the newspaper that you married just a few days ago,” she said. “And I’d like to wish you and Mr. Verhoeven every happiness.”
“Thank you.” Sophie resisted the urge to turn away. “I should explain—”
“You don’t owe anybody an explanation,” Sam said. “It’s nobody’s business but your own who you marry.”
Sophie nodded. “Still, I wanted to say that I had hoped to come and visit again, but there have been so many complications. We leave tomorrow for Europe. Cap—my husband—Cap is going into treatment at a sanatorium, for tuberculosis. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Whenever that is, you are both very welcome at my home. Any time at all. I hope Mr. Verhoeven’s health is restored to him quickly.”
“That’s very unlikely,” Sophie said, and at the look on Mrs. Reason’s face, she realized how heartless she must have sounded.
“He is very ill,” she started again. “It is a matter of months, at the most.”
Sam moved suddenly. “I’ll wait outside.” And just that quickly he was gone.
“Talk of illness makes him uneasy. He has a deep fear of it.”
“Most people do,” Sophie pointed out.
“Sam more than most. He lost his wife to cancer, you see. When you visited us that Sunday, he was gone to Savannah to tell her family in person. He’s been very shut off since her death, but I expect you’re familiar with that kind of thing, as a doctor.”
“I thought he disapproved of my marriage.”
Mrs. Reason lifted a shoulder, as if to shrug off the possibility. “But I do not, and you are welcome in Brooklyn when you come back. You will come back?”
“Oh, yes,” Sophie said. “Of course I will. This is my home.”
• • •
NEW YORK TRIBUNE
Wednesday, May 30, 1883
LATE EDITION
CONCLUSION OF THE CORONER’S INQUEST INTO JANINE CAMPBELL’S DEATH
VERDICT OF THE JURY
The jury impaneled to investigate the death of Mrs. Janine Campbell of 19 Charles Street on Thursday, May 24, met this evening at 5 o’clock pursuant to adjournment, in Judge Benedict’s courtroom at the Tombs.
Coroner Hawthorn informed the jurors that Archer Campbell, husband of the deceased, was the final witness to be called. He instructed the jury to give the matter careful consideration and to render a verdict regardless of consequences or public opinion. The jury retired and two hours later rendered the following
Verdict
We, the jury, duly sworn and charged to inquire on behalf of the State and City of New York how and in what manner Janine Campbell came to her death, do upon their oaths and affirmations, say that the said Janine Campbell came to her death by septic peritonitis and blood loss due to an illegal and incompetent abortion performed late on Tuesday, May 22nd or early Wednesday, May 23rd. On the basis of the available evidence and sworn testimonies we are unable to reach a conclusion on the deceased’s state of mind or sanity at the time of the operation.
Further, we entirely exculpate Dr. Sophie Savard Verhoeven and Dr. Anna Savard, who attended her, from all blame and responsibility.
After close scrutiny of the evidence, we find that the abortion that led to Mrs. Campbell’s death may have been performed by the deceased herself, and otherwise was the work of person or persons unknown. We refer this matter to the police department for further investigation.
Dr. Morgan Hancock, Women’s Hospital
Dr. Manuel Thalberg, German Dispensary
Dr. Nicholas Lambert, Bellevue
Dr. Abraham Jacobi, Children’s Hospital
Dr. Josiah Stanton, Women’s Hospital
Dr. Benjamin Quinn, Bellevue and the Woman’s Medical School
Mr. Anthony Comstock, New York Society for the Suppression of Vice
• • •
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
• • •
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’ re
covery.
In related news, Mrs. Janine Campbell will be laid to rest tomorrow in a private ceremony at an undisclosed location.
29
ANNA 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.”