3
MARRIAGE
HARRY THAW SAILED FROM NEW YORK IN THE FIRST WEEK OF May, arriving in Paris ten days later, while Evelyn and her mother traveled at the end of the month on the SS New York, a luxury passenger ship of the American Line. Stanford White, unhappy that they had accepted Thaw’s offer to go to Europe, accompanied them to the harbor, warning Florence Nesbit to be on her guard against Thaw. He could not, in good conscience, allow them to travel without any money—they would otherwise be entirely at Thaw’s mercy—and at the last moment, just as Florence was about to board the ship, White slipped an envelope, containing a letter of credit for $500, into her hand.1
Six days later, after an uneventful voyage, the SS New York docked at Southampton. Evelyn and her mother, accompanied only by a maid, traveled along the coast as far as Folkestone, taking a boat across the Channel to Boulogne and then continuing onward by train to Paris.
Harry had rented an enormous apartment in the Eighth Arrondissement, on the Avenue Matignon, close to the shops and restaurants on the Champs-Élysées. Every morning, after breakfast, Evelyn and Harry would go sightseeing, or to a museum or an art gallery, and in the afternoons he would take her shopping. They visited the Louvre many times, often accompanied by a guide, listening to his précis as they walked through the rooms. Nothing gave Evelyn more pleasure than the sculpture galleries: the Winged Victory of Samothrace, portraying the goddess Nike descending from the skies, surpassed anything she had seen back in New York in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Venus de Milo, a marble statue of the goddess of love, seemed impossibly delicate, full of grace and beauty.2
But Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting the Mona Lisa, the jewel of the Louvre’s collection, was a disappointment. Evelyn recognized the enigmatic expression of the subject, the faint smile of the woman in the portrait, but there was otherwise nothing noteworthy about the work. It was a mystery, she decided, that this painting had attained its status as a masterpiece.
There was more enjoyment to be found in an adjacent gallery, in an exhibition of paintings of the Barbizon school. The Louvre had owned Jean-François Millet’s controversial painting The Gleaners since 1890, and in 1902 the financier Georges Thomy-Thiéry had donated several other important works, notably Théodore Rousseau’s Edge of the Forest, to the museum’s collection. The Gleaners, showing three peasant women picking ears of corn, had been controversial during the Second Empire for its sympathetic portrayal of the lower classes, but by 1903, when Evelyn Nesbit saw it, the painting had won a reputation as the epitome of the realist movement.3
There was nothing in New York, not even the Metropolitan Museum, that could compare to the Louvre, and the opportunity to view its collections brought Evelyn and Harry back to the museum day after day. There was too much to see in the few weeks that they had planned to spend in Paris; but no matter, Harry told Evelyn—they would certainly come again another year.
Their afternoons were spent shopping in the fashionable districts of the capital. Evelyn’s favorite destination was the Rue de la Paix, the street that connected the Place Vendôme to the Place de l’Opéra. The jewelers at Cartier knew Harry Thaw well—he was one of their best customers—and Evelyn loved to spend an hour or so browsing the showcases, picking out a diamond brooch, a lavaliere with a ruby pendant, or some pearls. It was a great convenience for her that the most fashionable couture houses—Jacques Doucet, Georges Doeuillet, Maison Paquin, Paul Poiret, and the House of Worth—were all located nearby, either on the Rue de la Paix or near the Place Vendôme, and Evelyn would often spend her afternoons choosing designs for a gown or an evening dress, selecting the fabric, and arranging for delivery. Her favorite salon was Doucet, a fashion house that had earned an extraordinary reputation for the elegance of its style, but she also frequented the House of Worth, an establishment known for its precision and detail.4
Florence Nesbit had accompanied Harry and Evelyn to Paris as her daughter’s chaperone, and occasionally all three would dine together in the apartment. But Harry preferred to spend his evenings alone with Evelyn, out of sight of her mother. His favorite restaurant, Lapérouse, located on the Quai des Grands-Augustins, was reputedly the best seafood establishment in the capital, and in fine weather they would drive to the restaurant along the banks of the Seine, crossing the river on the Pont Neuf.
On the weekends, Harry would take Evelyn on a carriage ride farther afield, outside the city limits. They toured the royal château and gardens at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and visited the palace at Fontainebleau, the traditional residence of the French monarchs. They also spent time at the Palace of Versailles, walking through the great halls and strolling through the gardens. But Versailles had suffered decades of neglect during the Second Empire and there were, even in 1903, few visitors. Renovations had begun ten years earlier, but Versailles still seemed strangely abandoned and forgotten.5
There was more enjoyment to be had at Longchamp, a racetrack within the Bois de Boulogne, a large park on the western edge of the city. In fine weather they would drive out to the Bois in an open carriage to watch the horses compete over the flat, to place bets with the bookmakers, and to mingle with the Parisian aristocracy. Harry was a familiar figure at Longchamp and at the Maisons-Laffitte racetrack, north of the city, and at both places he introduced Evelyn to his acquaintances.
It was a heady experience for the eighteen-year-old chorus girl. Evelyn Nesbit had been, six months previously, a pupil at the DeMille school in Pompton, studying her lessons with her classmates, and now she was in Paris, mingling with the elite of French society. Both Emma Calve, an opera singer who had recently starred in the role of Carmen at the Opéra-Comique, and Lina Cavalieri, an actress who frequently performed at the Théâtre de l’Odéon, knew Harry Thaw well. Evelyn also met the ballet dancer Cléo de Mérode, a mistress, so it was said, of the Belgian king, Leopold II. There were innumerable Russian princes, British lords, Italian dukes, and Spanish noblemen, all watching the races and placing bets on the horses, and on one memorable occasion Evelyn encountered Sultan Muhammed Shah, the third Aga Khan, on one of his visits to the Maisons-Laffitte track.6
Elisabeth Marbury, a theatrical agent, and her companion, the actress Elsie de Wolfe, had moved from New York to Paris in the 1890s. Marbury was well known in theatrical circles on both sides of the Atlantic for her success in bringing the plays of French and British authors to the attention of American audiences. Her influence on Broadway was commensurate with her reputation in Paris and London: she worked to ensure that her authors received their royalty payments while simultaneously providing the theater companies in New York with entertaining plays.7
Her residence, Villa Trianon, an eighteenth-century estate near Versailles, had originally served Louis XV as a retreat from the distractions of the French court. Villa Trianon had evolved into an essential destination for wealthy Americans in Paris who wished to spend time with their counterparts from Britain, France, and other European countries. Both Marbury and Elsie de Wolfe promoted Villa Trianon as an exclusive meeting place for an international aristocracy, hosting salons and concerts, staging theatrical productions, and generally welcoming anyone who could claim either wealth or fame.
Harry Thaw had been to Villa Trianon on his previous visits to Paris, and he first introduced Evelyn to his hosts in June 1903, on the occasion of her first sojourn in the capital. Her beauty, her youth—she was still only eighteen—and her Broadway experiences all combined to make her, for a short while at least, the center of attention. Elisabeth Marbury had known Stanford White in New York, and she was intrigued to learn, through gossip and conjecture, that this young American girl, apparently so innocent and impressionable, had spent time with White two years before. What was she now doing with Harry Thaw in Europe? Did she intend to go back on the stage when she returned to New York, or did she wish to settle down, perhaps with Thaw?8
Evelyn’s experiences in Paris exceeded her expectations in every way. Stanford White had spoken often of his travels in France, but his stories, invariably amusing and entertaining, had given her little sense of the delights that she now enjoyed. Harry Thaw also had exceeded her expectations. Harry had proven himself the perfect host, showing her the sights, taking her hither and thither, sparing no expense, and generally taking care to satisfy her every whim. Evelyn had heard the rumors about Harry from her friends, but she had seen no evidence either that he took drugs or that he frequented prostitutes. He had treated her well, with respect and consideration, and it seemed only natural that their time exploring the city together would bring them closer, in a feeling of mutual affection.
She was taken aback, nevertheless, when Harry suddenly asked her to marry him. She had had no warning, no premonition; the request came as a surprise. Evelyn hesitated, unsure how to deal with a situation that she had not foreseen. She was still only eighteen, she replied, too young to think of marriage, and she was not yet ready to settle down. They had known each other only a short time, and besides, she had begun to think about a return to the stage. What would be the response of his family if they knew that he was engaged to be married to an actress?
Her words seemed to have no effect, and for the first time, Evelyn realized that Harry was unaccustomed to hearing any refusal. He loved her, he replied, and he wished to marry her. His mother might not be happy that he had married an actress, but she would eventually come around—she always accepted his decisions—and he did not give a fig what society might think. He cared greatly for her, and he was sure that they would be happy together.
“Don’t you care for me?” Harry asked. “Don’t you care anything about me?”
“Yes,” she replied hesitantly. She appreciated everything that he had done for her. His solicitude for her recovery after her illness; his kindness and his consideration while she was in the hospital; and now his generosity toward her in France—it had all been wonderful…
Harry leaned forward, scanning her face for some clue that might provide an explanation for her hesitation. She had always seemed content to be with him, and they had enjoyed their time together. Was there some other cause, some reason, apart from their relationship, that explained her reluctance?
“Tell me,” he said, “why won’t you marry me?”
He had heard the gossip about Evelyn and Stanford White but he had paid little attention, until now, to such rumors. It had seemed scarcely credible that she would give her affection to such a man as White. Why, the disparity in their ages, at least thirty years, would have made any relationship between them improbable. But Harry had always been uncertain; and he had never previously asked her about her friendship with White.
He leaned forward again, gently taking hold of her hands, as he asked her about the architect.
“Is it because of Stanford White?” he said.
Tears welled in her eyes and she moved her head slightly, tilting it to one side as if to avoid his gaze. She nodded her reply—“Yes”—freeing her hand from his grasp to wipe away a tear that threatened to roll down her cheek.9
It was as if Harry’s questions had released a flood of memories. They stayed awake until dawn, Evelyn telling him everything that had happened two years before between her and White, describing their initial encounter, her adventure on the velvet swing, and her mother’s visit to White’s offices. Stanford White had given her mother some money to go to Pittsburgh, and she, Evelyn, had seen him almost every day during her mother’s absence.
Harry, his interest aroused, pressed her for details, demanding to know more, following the thread of her story to discover where it might lead. Evelyn continued to talk, telling him that she had posed for the photographer Rudolf Eickemeyer, and then, the next day, she had taken a cab from the Casino Theatre to Stanford White’s town house on Twenty-fourth Street.
White had taken her upstairs, to a small bedroom on the third floor, where she had fallen unconscious after drinking some champagne. She had awoken to discover herself naked in bed with White, telltale spots of blood on the sheets.10
Evelyn felt a great sense of relief: at last, after two years, she had told someone about the rape. It was as if a burden had lifted itself from her shoulders, and at that moment, she experienced a sudden, unexpected sensation of well-being.
But her story seemed to provoke a profound revulsion in Harry Thaw. He had listened intently to her narrative, all the while nervously biting his fingernails, his whole body tense with anxiety, his face twisted in an expression of disgust. Evelyn knew that she had told a shocking story, a violent tale of deceit and deception; but she was taken aback, nevertheless, by the severity of Thaw’s reaction.
He had started to sob; he had buried his face in his hands; and now he was no longer sitting in his chair but had begun pacing nervously about the room, his shoulders hunched together, his left hand tightly clutching his right forearm.
“The beast! The filthy beast!” Thaw’s voice, now rising almost to a shout, startled her with its rage. “A sixteen-year-old girl! Damn him!”11
Evelyn had started to speak, attempting to hush his words, but he had already returned to his chair, anxiously interrogating her further about the rape.
What role, he demanded, had her mother played in this awful event? Why had Florence Nesbit entrusted her daughter to the care of such a man as White? Had it been negligence on her part, or had she deliberately put Evelyn in harm’s way on account of the gifts that she had anticipated receiving from White? Stanford White had won their trust by his apparent generosity; but they should never have accepted his gifts.12
In any case, Harry told Evelyn, her story had not diminished his love for her. She had said that the rape had somehow tainted her, that White’s act had disgraced her, and that she was not worthy to be his wife. But that was not true—the rape had not diminished her in his eyes. He still desired that they should be married.
Evelyn hesitated again. She was not ready to give him an answer; and Harry was too upset, too distraught at that moment to push his suit any further.
Florence Nesbit knew nothing of the secret that Evelyn had confided to Harry that night. But Florence, isolated and lonely in Paris, was herself desperately unhappy that she had agreed to accompany Evelyn to France. She had come to Paris as a chaperone for her daughter, but Harry and Evelyn explored the city without her, leaving her alone in the apartment. She knew no one in Paris; she could not speak French; and she had little interest in walking about the city by herself. It was a miserable situation, and her obvious discontent heightened the antipathy that Harry Thaw and Florence Nesbit had always felt for each other.
They finally left Paris in August, traveling to London. Florence insisted that she and Evelyn live apart from Harry, and he moved into a suite at the Carlton Hotel, on the Haymarket, while Florence and Evelyn took up rooms at Claridge’s, a hotel in Mayfair. It would be only a short visit to the British capital, Harry announced: he intended to stay only two weeks in London before returning to Paris in preparation for their extended tour of the continent.13
But Florence Nesbit had had enough. She positively refused to spend more time with Harry Thaw, and she intended to return to the United States as soon as possible. She would no longer act as a chaperone to her daughter.
Her return to New York should have spelled the end of Harry’s plans to tour Europe with Evelyn. It would be too scandalous for a man to travel alone with an unmarried woman. But Harry assured Evelyn that there was no cause for alarm; he would hire someone in Paris as a replacement for her mother.14
Harry and Evelyn spent that autumn traveling through Europe. They sailed from England to France, stopping at Paris for a few days to hire a chaperone, the widow of a British army officer, before going north to Holland. They boarded a steamboat on the Rhine, traveling south into Germany, eventually making their way to Munich.
There was no destination so romantic, so picturesque, as the Austrian Tyrol, and Harry had arranged that they should spend three weeks in a small castle in the Trientine Alps. They left Munich at the end of August, crossing into Austria-Hungary and traveling south to Innsbruck, continuing by carriage to Meran, a spa town close to the border with Italy.
Meran, located at the intersection of the Passer and Etsch Rivers, was known for its mineral waters, its gardens, and its temperate climate. The empress consort Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Franz Joseph I, had visited the town frequently, but Meran had remained unspoiled, largely ignored by the tourists who flocked to the Tyrol each summer and fall.
Harry had reserved rooms for three weeks in September in a castle nestled among the mountains, more than three miles from the nearest house. The castle watchtower, a stone structure attached to the main building, provided magnificent views across the mountain range, and in the far distance, trapped between the mountain peaks, a small lake could be seen, its sky-blue waters shimmering in the sunlight.15
They left Meran at the end of September, traveling through the mountain passes into Switzerland, stopping at Lucerne, Bern, and Zurich before returning to Paris in October. Harry and Evelyn resumed the daily schedule they had pursued on their first stay in the capital, visiting the museums and art galleries, shopping on the Rue de la Paix, attending the ballet and the opera, and dining at the most exclusive restaurants.
But Evelyn was dismayed to learn in Paris that her secret—her confession that Stanford White had raped her—had become known to Harry’s friends. She had entrusted Harry with the most intimate details of her past life, and she had told no one else; but he had betrayed her trust. It was distressing to learn that Elisabeth Marbury, someone with many acquaintances in New York, a woman who was friendly with Stanford White, now knew everything. Harry’s betrayal would ensure that everyone, on both sides of the Atlantic, would learn about the rape.16
Even her mother had now heard the report that Stanford White had raped Evelyn. Florence Nesbit had returned from London to the United States earlier that summer, leaving Evelyn alone with Harry Thaw. But an acquaintance, Ida Simonton, had learned about the rape during a visit to Villa Trianon before traveling back to the United States. Simonton had booked a cabin on the same passenger liner on which Florence Nesbit sailed to New York, and as the boat chugged its way across the Atlantic, she revealed the entire episode to her companion, naming Stanford White as the perpetrator of the rape.
Nothing could have been more shocking to Florence Nesbit than the knowledge that Stanford White, her benefactor, the man in whose care she had placed Evelyn, had taken advantage of her absence to rape her daughter. It was too painful to believe, too distressing to accept, and to her relief, when she confronted White in New York with the accusation that he had raped Evelyn, he denied everything.
It was a false story, White replied, an invention of Harry Thaw, intentionally designed to blacken his reputation. Thaw had always been hostile toward him, believing that he, White, had blackballed him from the Union Club. There was no truth in the rumor, White repeated, that he had raped Evelyn. It was a wicked lie that Thaw had told in the hope of sending him to the penitentiary.17
Evelyn returned to the United States later that year, on October 24, 1903. She was now alone in New York: her mother had gone on to Pittsburgh to visit her fiancé and Harry had remained in Paris for a few weeks to settle some business matters. She still felt some fatigue and lassitude, symptoms of the illness that had afflicted her earlier in the year, but her time abroad had been an exhilarating experience. It was unfortunate, of course, that Harry had revealed her secret, but now even that no longer seemed so worrisome as it had first appeared. And Evelyn was preoccupied with her return to the stage. The producer Sam Shubert had offered her a part in a new show, The Girl from Dixie, a musical comedy that was scheduled to open in Hoyt’s Theatre in December.18
She had not expected to see Stanford White—his presence in her life had already begun to seem a distant memory—but a chance encounter on Fifth Avenue, an exchange of greetings as their carriages passed each other, reawakened their friendship. They saw each other frequently that November; White called at her apartment at the Savoy Hotel, and she occasionally visited the tower apartment at Madison Square Garden. He had last seen her in May, as she had been about to embark on the SS New York, and he was curious to hear about her travels in Europe. Evelyn reported that it had been a wonderful experience to spend time in Paris, seeing the sights and meeting the most interesting people; and it had been equally enjoyable to travel through Switzerland, Germany, and Austria-Hungary.
White was familiar with many of the places that Evelyn had visited during her time in the French capital. He also had spent many hours viewing the paintings and sculptures in the Louvre, and he had dined at several of the restaurants that she mentioned. He knew both Elisabeth Marbury and Elsie de Wolfe and had visited Villa Trianon on many occasions. But he did not fail to remind Evelyn again that she must be careful in her relations with Harry Thaw. White cautioned her that Thaw was a morphine addict, a man with a violent, unpredictable temper who was capable of doing her a great deal of harm.
Evelyn protested that she had seen no signs of drug use during her time in Europe with Harry. How could she believe such stories? But it was true, White replied, and if she would not believe him, why, there were other people in New York who knew about Harry Thaw. He could introduce her to several acquaintances who would corroborate his warnings.
Charles Dillingham, a friend of Stanford White, also spoke with Evelyn that month, advising her to be cautious. Dillingham, an urbane, smartly dressed man in his mid-thirties, had previously been the theater critic for the New York Evening Post before establishing his career as a producer of Broadway shows. He already had an enviable reputation on account of the success of The Little Princess, a play set in a girls’ boarding school, and in November 1903, when he met with Evelyn Nesbit, he was the producer of two shows, The Office Boy, a musical then playing at the Victoria Theatre, and Babette, a comic opera at the Broadway Theatre.
He had heard many stories from his actors about Harry Thaw, he told Evelyn, and none of them had been favorable. The accounts came from different sources, but they were all remarkably similar. Thaw frequently placed advertisements in the theatrical press, asking to interview actresses for a stage production. He would meet his victim, typically a young girl, at rooms he rented in a boardinghouse on Fifty-seventh Street. He would ask her about her background, her connections in the city, attempting to ascertain if she had relatives living nearby. If she lived alone, if she was vulnerable, if she had no protector or guardian, he would attack straightaway, tying his victim with cords and assaulting her with a dog whip. Such assaults were invariably brutal, leaving the victim with welts across her body, but Thaw had always avoided prosecution by paying large sums of money, thousands of dollars, to his victims.19
It became difficult for Evelyn to dismiss such accounts as entirely fictitious. Why would a man such as Charles Dillingham invent such stories? He was a well-known figure on Broadway who had produced several successful shows, with another, Her Own Way, soon to debut, and he had no reason to lie to her about Harry Thaw. Stanford White also was respected and reputable, and his warnings about Thaw seemed well intentioned, designed to safeguard her against danger.
White suggested that she should visit his lawyer, Abraham Hummel, for advice. Hummel was one of the best attorneys in New York, and he would give her the assistance that she needed. He was an ugly little man, White confided, with a grotesquely twisted body and a large head, but she need not be alarmed by his appearance; he was a brilliant lawyer with vast experience in the New York courts.
Evelyn trusted White and believed that he was acting selflessly to protect her interests. There was no disadvantage in speaking to a lawyer, and Evelyn made the journey downtown, to the Clock Tower Building at 346 Broadway, where Hummel had his office.
He was exactly as White had described him: no taller than five feet, with a head that seemed far too large for such a small body. His face had a chalky-white pallor, and Evelyn could see some tiny cherry-red warts on his cheeks and brow. His thin lips, sharp nose, pinprick eyes, and broad forehead gave Hummel a rat-like appearance; but there was nothing evasive or furtive about his manner. He was, on the contrary, excessively courteous, almost obsequious, in his greeting.20
Hummel was a divorce lawyer who specialized also in suits for breach of contract; he had succeeded in dozens of actions brought by actresses against wealthy men. He had settled a case against Harry Thaw several years before: a woman named Ethel Thomas had sued Thaw for assault, but Thaw paid her off before the case came to court. That was always the way, Hummel remarked; no one wanted the publicity that would come with a lawsuit.
Evelyn spent the afternoon talking about her friendship with Harry Thaw, describing their initial encounter at Rector’s and the solicitude he had shown her during her illness. He had invited her to travel with him in Europe, and she had sailed with her mother at the end of May, meeting Thaw in Paris and staying in France for about five weeks. Her mother had returned to the United States in June and she, Evelyn, had spent the remainder of her time traveling with Thaw through Holland, Germany, and Austria-Hungary.
Her description of the castle near Meran seemed to catch Hummel’s attention more than any other detail of her journey. The location, high in the mountains, far from any town, had been stunningly beautiful, Evelyn remembered, but the castle itself, a large rectangular structure with crenellated walls, was a forbidding place. She had seen only a few servants, two or three maids and a butler, but otherwise she and Harry had spent their time alone.
Abraham Hummel listened attentively to Evelyn’s descriptions, carefully noting the details that she provided, occasionally asking questions designed to complete her account. It would be best, he advised, to have a written record of her experience, something on which she could rely if there were a lawsuit. He would prepare a document that they could use against Thaw in such an event.
The suggestion puzzled Evelyn. Was it necessary to have a written summary of her remarks? What purpose would that serve? But her inexperience and her youth were no match for Hummel’s shrewd calculation. He called his stenographer into the office and Evelyn listened as he dictated a summary of her account.21
Nothing could have been more surprising to Harry Thaw, on his return to New York in the middle of December, than to realize that Evelyn Nesbit had no desire to continue their friendship. He had expected to see her again on his arrival, but he received no response to the notes that he sent to her apartment. He called on the telephone, but her maid invariably replied that her mistress had left and there was no telling when she might return.
It was a mystery, a puzzle that confounded Harry. They had parted amicably, even, one might say, affectionately, when Evelyn had taken the boat back to New York. They had had no contact since her departure, and nothing, therefore, could have passed between them to end their friendship.
It took a chance encounter, a coincidental meeting at the Café des Beaux-Arts on Fortieth Street, to solve the mystery. Neither one had expected to see the other that afternoon, and Evelyn was hesitant even to acknowledge Harry’s presence in the restaurant. But their tables were almost adjacent, and once they began to talk, Harry quickly realized why Evelyn had shunned his company.
She had heard horrible stories about him, reports that he lured young girls to his apartment, beating and whipping them and abusing them in the most dreadful ways. There was one account that he had scalded a young girl with boiling water. She had heard also that he was a morphine addict, that he frequently took cocaine and other drugs. It had been all too terrible to hear such stories, and she had no desire to see him again.22
Harry listened impassively, saying nothing as Evelyn explained her reluctance to continue their friendship. He merely shook his head from time to time, waiting for her to finish speaking. Finally she paused, expectantly, surprised that Harry had shown so little reaction to her words.
“I see,” he began, speaking with an air of resignation, “that they have been making a fool of you.” There was no anger in his voice, no indignation at the accusations that his enemies had leveled against his reputation. Stanford White, he explained, had always hated him and had done everything possible to destroy him. The reports that he had abused young girls were common currency among the blackmailers who had attempted to get his money. White had merely repeated the rumors that he, Harry, had heard so many times before, but there was nothing new in such gossip, he told Evelyn, and no truth in such tales.
Did Evelyn have any evidence, apart from the gossip that she had heard, to persuade her that White’s stories might be true? She had just spent several months traveling with Thaw. “If I had taken morphine,” he asked, “wouldn’t it have shown itself some time or other?” Stanford White knew a great deal about such things, more than he, Harry Thaw, had ever learned; and if anyone were guilty of such behavior, it was White.23
It was preposterous that White, of all people, should make such accusations. He was one of a group of wealthy roués, all members of the Union Club, who organized frequent orgies in secret locations scattered about the city. Other members of the group included Henry Poor, a financier; James Lawrence Breese, a wealthy man-about-town with an avocational interest in photography; Charles MacDonald, a stockbroker and principal shareholder in the Southern Pacific Railroad; and Thomas Clarke, a dealer in antiques.24
There had been a notorious episode in 1895 when James Breese had held a dinner for some friends at his apartment. Stanford White had been present that evening with his partners Charles McKim and William Rutherford Mead. The sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, several artists—Carroll Beckwith, Alden Weir, and Charles Dana Gibson—along with the architect Whitney Warren, had also attended. Some financiers and bankers, men well known on Wall Street, had accepted Breese’s invitation, and several literati—journalists, writers, and magazine editors, all presumed to be trustworthy—had come to the dinner. The caterer, Louis Sherry, had arranged a magnificent dinner with a limitless quantity of champagne, but the highlight of the evening came at midnight. Six waiters carried an enormous spherical pie into the room; the headwaiter cut the crust; and a young girl, almost nude, magically appeared. The girl, Susie Johnson, had been paid well for her performance, but there had been a tragic denouement. Later that year, she had disappeared without a trace, and her distraught parents had been unable to discover her fate.
An account of the dinner subsequently appeared in the New York World. The newspaper condemned the men, all prominent New Yorkers, for their selfish corruption of young girls. Susie Johnson, according to the World, had come from a decent family but she had been tempted into prostitution. Stanford White’s accomplices in the affair had used their social standing to escape prosecution. No one had been willing to indict them for their misdeeds, and the authorities, by their passive acquiescence, had thereby enabled them to continue with their crimes.25
It came as no surprise to Harry that Stanford White should accuse him of morphine addiction—it was an attempt by White to distract attention from his own misdeeds—but how had Abraham Hummel become involved in the affair? There were few lawyers, Harry told Evelyn, so crooked as Hummel. He had a reputation in the city as a blackmailer who frequently used the threat of a lawsuit for breach of contract to extort money from wealthy men. No one wanted to have his name linked to some disreputable woman, and most men were willing to pay any reasonable sum to settle the matter out of court. The accusations might be entirely false, without a shred of evidence to support them, but it was always preferable to avoid the publicity that would inevitably attach itself to a lawsuit.
Evelyn admitted to Thaw that she had talked with Hummel one afternoon in his office, telling him about her travels in Europe, describing the incidents in Paris that had led to her mother’s return to the United States, and detailing the itinerary that she and Harry had followed on the continent. Hummel had been especially interested in their stay in Meran in the Tyrol, asking her many questions about the castle in which they had spent almost three weeks during September.
Harry was intrigued to learn that Hummel had dictated a document, an account of her travels, to one of his stenographers. What was in that document? Where was it now? Had she signed anything, any papers, during the interview in Hummel’s office? Evelyn could give only vague replies to Harry’s questions, saying that she had not read the document very carefully—there had been little opportunity—and yes, she might have signed some papers that afternoon; but she was not sure…
There was a scheme afoot, Harry told her, a conspiracy. But what trick did Hummel intend to play? Stanford White had learned that his rape of Evelyn was no longer a secret. Perhaps, Harry speculated, White and Hummel were preparing some ruse that would protect White from prosecution. But Hummel was a shrewd, cunning lawyer who would never reveal anything if it did not work to his advantage, and it would not be possible to learn the nature of the conspiracy unless he chose to disclose it. They could only wait and see what might transpire.
It was a dizzying turn of events for Evelyn Nesbit. She was caught between two forceful, strong-willed men, each of whom accused the other of the most terrible behavior. Evelyn, still just eighteen years old, was naïve and impressionable, too quick to believe anything she heard, and it was impossible for her to determine which man might be telling the truth. Could it be that their mutual dislike had increased to such a degree that each was ready to repeat the most scandalous gossip that he had heard about the other? Perhaps there was no truth in either account; perhaps each man had allowed his antipathy for the other to exceed all reasonable bounds.
Evelyn traveled a second time to Europe with Harry, sailing from New York the following year on the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse at the end of March 1904. It was again necessary that a chaperone travel with them, and Harry persuaded a friend, Ben Donnelly, to accompany them on the journey. They went first to Paris, staying at the Hôtel Palais d’Orsay, before taking the train south to Monte Carlo. They stayed at the resort for two weeks, playing trente et quarante at the casino during the day and attending the opera at the Salle Garnier at night. Then it was on to Italy, going first to Verona and then to Lake Como, pausing briefly at Bellagio.
They followed a zigzag, almost haphazard itinerary, returning to Paris for a few weeks before crossing into Switzerland by motorcar. Harry traveled impulsively, deciding their route on a whim, yet his wealth invariably opened all doors, securing them the best rooms in the most exclusive hotels. They reached London in October, staying only to visit Harry’s sister Alice before boarding a ship back across the Atlantic to New York.26
Evelyn had imagined that their wanderings would distract Harry from thoughts of Stanford White—but nothing, it seemed, could dissuade him from his pursuit of the architect. Earlier that year, in February 1904, shortly before his departure from New York, Thaw had enlisted Anthony Comstock, secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, in his crusade to bring Stanford White to justice. Comstock, then fifty-nine years old, had campaigned for many decades against obscenity, successfully persuading the United States Congress in 1873 to ban the delivery by the postal service of lewd and obscene publications. Comstock’s remit, as secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, encompassed anything that he considered immoral, including literature on birth control and the prevention of venereal disease. Thaw’s complaints that Stanford White and other men were luring young girls to secret locations in New York and raping them seemed legitimate, and Comstock promised that he would assign detectives to investigate Thaw’s accusations.27
Nine months later, after Thaw had returned from Europe, the two men spoke again about White. Thaw reported that workmen had heard the cries of young girls coming from the building that contained the photographic studio of Rudolf Eickemeyer, the same studio in which Evelyn Nesbit had posed for Eickemeyer in a kimono. Comstock again promised to investigate, saying that he would assign detectives to watch Stanford White and to stand guard over the places that White was known to frequent. Comstock also informed Thaw that he had attempted to rent one of the tower apartments in Madison Square Garden in order to spy on White; but none of the apartments had become vacant that year.28
Harry Thaw had complained publicly about Stanford White, accusing him of various crimes, but already the gossip columns in the New York newspapers were remarking unfavorably on Thaw’s own behavior. He had traveled to Europe twice with Evelyn Nesbit, an unmarried woman, and social convention dictated that a chaperone accompany Evelyn while she was with Thaw. Yet Florence Nesbit, on the first trip, had chaperoned her daughter only during her stay in Paris and London; and no one had yet been able to determine who, if anyone, had accompanied Evelyn for the remainder of the journey.
Thaw claimed that his friend Ben Donnelly had been the chaperone for Evelyn on the second visit to Europe in 1904, but no one could have seemed less suited for the role. Donnelly, a former football player at Princeton, subsequently played for professional teams in Pittsburgh and Chicago, earning a reputation as a brutal thug who would do anything, no matter how unsportsmanlike, to win games. His later career as a football coach had been lackluster and his teams had achieved little success. He had drifted aimlessly since the end of his coaching career, finding intermittent employment here and there, and he had readily accepted Thaw’s offer of employment as a chaperone to Evelyn Nesbit.29
The newspaper reports that Harry might have traveled alone with Evelyn Nesbit in Europe were a source of acute distress to his family. His mother, Mary Thaw, a proud woman who had always jealously guarded her social position, was indignant that her eldest son was so recklessly endangering the family name. Evelyn Nesbit, an obscure actress who had played in risqué musical comedies on Broadway, was, in the opinion of Mary Thaw, little better than a courtesan, and it would be too scandalous to public morals to imagine that Harry had lived with such a woman.
Her other children had married well, choosing husbands and wives whose social position was secure; but there seemed no solution to the problem that Harry posed. One daughter, Alice, had wed George Francis Alexander Seymour, a member of the British aristocracy, the eldest son of the sixth Marquess of Hertford, and a second daughter, Margaret, had married George Lauder Carnegie, a nephew of the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Her two other sons, Josiah and Edward, had also chosen wisely, each marrying the daughter of a prominent Pittsburgh businessman.30
Mary Thaw had threatened to withhold Harry’s share of the inheritance if he continued in his determination to marry Evelyn Nesbit. But Harry was too strong-willed to pay much attention to his mother’s demands, and she knew, even as she made the threat, that it would be futile. If Harry was determined to marry Evelyn, then it was at least preferable that he marry her as soon as possible and thus avoid the continuing scandal that had attached itself to the relationship. Mary Thaw would consent to the marriage and accept Evelyn Nesbit as her daughter-in-law, but only, she informed Harry, if she could be allowed to forget that Evelyn had ever been on the stage. There were to be no reminders of her disreputable past as an actress.31
Harry renewed his proposal of marriage and Evelyn eventually accepted. She had always been uncomfortably aware that Harry’s relatives—his mother, his brothers and sisters—might not willingly accept her into the family. The marriage would also compel her to abandon her stage career, to relinquish any chance of success on Broadway, and might even, as Harry had suggested, require her to leave New York to move with him to Pittsburgh.
There was so much to consider and so many possible pitfalls. But marriage would mean financial security. Evelyn had always lived from day to day, never knowing what the future might hold. It no longer seemed possible for her to make a living as an actress, and now she could not count on the generosity of Stanford White. Her education had been only intermittent, and she was ill-equipped for any profession. Her future seemed to depend almost exclusively on marriage to someone wealthy, a man who would support her.
The wedding, on April 4, 1905, was almost pitiful in its brevity, an expression of the disdain that Mary Thaw felt for her new daughter-in-law. There had been bright sunshine earlier in the day, but that afternoon, when Evelyn Nesbit arrived for the ceremony, it had already started to rain. Her mother, Florence, and her stepfather, Charles Holman, accompanied Evelyn to the residence of William McEwan, pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. Harry Thaw greeted them, welcoming his bride with a bouquet of red roses. His mother and his younger brother Josiah were also present as witnesses, and after McEwan had conducted everyone to his study, a large room lined with bookshelves, the pastor began the service.32
No one else was present to see Harry Thaw take Evelyn Nesbit as his wife. Harry’s sisters, Alice and Margaret, unwilling to accept Evelyn as a sister-in-law, had declined their invitations, and Edward, his youngest brother, had also refused to acknowledge the marriage. The bride had hoped to invite one or two of her Florodora friends, and Harry had suggested that a couple of his friends might also attend; but Mary Thaw had insisted on a private ceremony, one that would receive as little notice as possible.
It was an almost perfunctory occasion, designed solely to satisfy the legal requirements, and soon, in less than an hour, it was over. Three carriages waited outside to take everyone to Lyndhurst, the Thaw family home, for a celebratory dinner, and later that evening Harry and Evelyn caught the train for New York in preparation for their honeymoon.
The next day the newlyweds traveled west, taking a train from New York to Chicago. They stayed there only two days before heading north, to Milwaukee, to visit one of Evelyn’s former classmates at the DeMille school. They spent several days with a guide in the Grand Canyon before continuing on to Yosemite, eventually reaching San Francisco before returning home to Pittsburgh.33
Neither Evelyn nor Harry had given much thought to the future; Harry had vaguely anticipated that they would settle in Pittsburgh after the honeymoon. Lyndhurst, the family residence on Beechwood Boulevard, was an enormous mansion, one of the grandest residences in the city, and Harry and Evelyn moved into the house at the end of May 1905.
But Evelyn quickly became disillusioned. Mary Thaw, on account of her philanthropy, exerted great influence within the Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh; she had given generously to religious charities in the city and throughout western Pennsylvania. But her reputation was less potent in other circles, and it soon became apparent that the social elite of the city was reluctant to accept Evelyn into its ranks. She occupied her time in self-improvement, studying French and taking piano lessons, but there was little opportunity for her to meet companions of her own age, and she soon began to think of herself as a prisoner, trapped in a large, rather gloomy mansion.34
Harry also felt restless. There was little for him to do in Pittsburgh, and he had few friends in the city. He was frequently absent, claiming that his business affairs in New York often compelled him to go east, and Evelyn, resentful that her husband occasionally abandoned her, felt a growing sense of isolation and loneliness. Had she made the wrong decision in marrying Harry Thaw? She had been married only a few months, yet already she had begun to contemplate filing for divorce.35
The sense of crisis that imperiled the marriage found reinforcement in the sudden appearance of the photographs of Evelyn that Rudolf Eickemeyer had taken in 1901. The copyright had somehow passed to a printing company in Elizabeth, New Jersey, that had started to distribute images of Evelyn commercially. In December 1905 Haudenshield & Co., a butcher in Diamond Square in Pittsburgh, issued its calendar for 1906, including among the illustrations a photograph of Evelyn Nesbit, dressed in a kimono and reclining on a bearskin rug.
Lawyers for the Thaw family pounced immediately, threatening Haudenshield & Co. with legal action if the butcher continued to distribute the calendar to his customers. The butcher was initially defiant, claiming to have been unaware of the identity of the girl in the photograph, but a financial settlement was reached and the attorneys were able to confiscate the remaining calendars.36
A second photograph of Evelyn appeared in January 1906 in an exhibition at the Carnegie Art Gallery. The portrait, identified only as a photograph by Rudolf Eickemeyer, showed a young girl asleep. There was nothing in the exhibition to identify the model as Evelyn Nesbit—Eickemeyer had named his work only In My Studio—but no one had any doubt about the matter.37
Rudolf Eickemeyer originally titled this 1901 photograph of Evelyn Nesbit The Little Butterfly. The photograph subsequently appeared in an exhibition at the Carnegie Art Gallery in January 1906 under the title In My Studio. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ds-10597)
It was a lamentable situation and nobody felt a greater sense of humiliation than Mary Thaw. She had given her consent to the marriage on the condition that there be no reminder of Evelyn’s disreputable past as an actress; it was not to be mentioned in her presence. Yet just a few months later, suggestive photographs of Evelyn as a young girl started to pop up in the most unexpected places. Mary Thaw had always cherished her position as a grande dame, giving generously to various cultural institutions in the city, guarding her reputation for moral probity, and actively supporting the local clergy; but her son’s marriage to Evelyn Nesbit cast a shadow over all her endeavors.
Harry Thaw was disconsolate. His wife was lonely and unhappy, regretful that she had agreed to live in Pittsburgh; his mother was angry and indignant that the photographs of Evelyn had undermined her social position and made her family the target of malicious gossip. Perhaps, he suggested to Evelyn, it would help their marriage if they traveled again for a while in Europe. They could spend some time in New York, visiting friends and renewing acquaintances, before taking a boat across the Atlantic.
Evelyn readily agreed. Nothing would please her so much as the chance to leave Lyndhurst. She had enjoyed her previous journeys to Europe, and she looked forward to seeing Paris and London again. They would leave Pittsburgh at the end of June, Harry said, spending several days in New York before sailing on the SS Amerika to Hamburg. It would be splendid to visit New York again, to chat with old friends, to catch up on the latest gossip, and to see some of the Broadway shows. A musical comedy, Mamzelle Champagne, was opening at Madison Square Garden on June 25. Everybody would be there on opening night, Harry predicted, and it promised to be a very special occasion.