She was not insane. This Mary knew with all her heart and soul and being.
She was distressed and despondent, yes, but what rational woman would not be in her circumstances? Bereft of her great love and her three cherished sons, abandoned by her sisters, betrayed by her dearest friend, scorned by the world, ridiculed by those who had once respected her, and now hauled into court by her only surviving child and denounced as mad—
What woman of sound mind would not succumb to despair? Who would not see all too clearly that she had no reason to go on?
She could not be confined to an asylum. There, among the morbidly insane, she truly would go mad. She had lost almost everything else, but she had clung fiercely to her reason, her understanding. She would not submit to having those stripped away from her too.
Robert had come by her hotel suite that morning on his way to work—to see how she was doing after the previous day’s ordeal, he claimed, but in truth, to gloat, to take grim pleasure in her misery. Upon his departure, he had warned her that he would return later with Mr. Swett to escort her to Bellevue Place.
Her son and his lawyer might very well try, but she intended to be gone by then.
They had placed three guards on her: a stern-faced woman who stayed inside her hotel room and two men, at least one of whom she suspected was a Pinkerton, stationed outside her door. She had overheard Robert instruct them not to let her leave the hotel under any pretense, but also not to physically restrain her in any way. She could have laughed at how Robert had tied their hands. How did he expect the guards to hold her there if she wished to depart—by the power of persuasive speech? No, he assumed she would confine herself there, cowering in her room. Robert believed her to be humbled, intimidated, too fearful to disobey him, and too mad to plan an escape. He would learn how very wrong he was, in this and other matters.
The lady guard had been placed in Mary’s room to prevent her from jumping out the window or otherwise harming herself, so when Mary picked up her reticule and announced that she must see the concierge to arrange to send an urgent telegram to her sister, the matron merely frowned, nodded, and adjusted her stance. Heart pounding, Mary stepped into the corridor and told the two men the same story. They too frowned and studied her, but when she turned to go, they made no move to stop her. She quickened her pace, muffling a laugh of delight when she made it to the stairwell without being accosted. Swiftly she descended, pausing once at a landing, certain she heard footsteps a flight above as if someone were in pursuit. The sounds stopped when she did, so after a moment’s fearful hesitation, she hurried on her way.
Of course she did not stop to speak to the concierge; she had to make haste, and there was no need to carry her ruse that far. She had passed the Squair & Company drugstore in the lobby many times since she had checked into the Grand Pacific Hotel a month before, and she had stopped in occasionally, so this visit would not strike the pharmacist as unusual. Stepping up to the counter, she forced a smile to hide the tremor in her voice and ordered a three-ounce bottle of laudanum and camphor—to apply to her shoulder for neuralgic pain, she added, when Mr. Squair momentarily hesitated.
“I shall need a half-hour to prepare the concoction, madam,” he said. “Shall I send the bellboy up to your room with it when it is ready?”
Mary fought back the urge to chide him for the delay. “No, no thank you. I have other errands. I shall return for it.”
Quickly she turned and left the drugstore. Crossing the lobby, she paused to glance over her shoulder as she reached the front entrance, a prickling on the back of her neck warning that she was being watched. She hastened outside, hailed a cab, and rode one block to the Rogers & Smith drugstore on the corner of Adams and Clark Streets. Instructing the driver to wait, she entered the shop, joined the queue, and waited impatiently while the pharmacist served two other customers. To her consternation, when it was finally her turn, a clerk summoned Mr. Smith into a backroom before she had a chance to place her order. The pharmacist promptly returned, frowning oddly, and when she asked for the laudanum and camphor, he apologized and explained that they were out.
“Of which compound?” she asked, suspicious.
“Camphor,” he replied, too quickly.
“I see,” she snapped, and wheeled around only to nearly collide with one of her guards. For a moment, she froze in shock, but she quickly recovered her composure. What did it matter? It was all nearly over anyway. “I need to purchase a few essentials before my travels later today,” she informed him imperiously. “Please do excuse me.”
Knowing he would not lay hands on her, she quickly sidestepped him and hurried from the store and into her cab. “Dale Pharmacy,” she instructed the driver, “two blocks down Clark Street.”
Minutes later, she entered the drugstore only to find three bemused customers waiting at the counter but no druggist in sight. Edging around an aisle of shelves, she glanced through the open doorway into the back office only to stop short, her heart in her throat, upon discovering Mr. Dale conversing solemnly with Mr. Squair, their brows furrowed, their voices low.
Panicked, she drew back, but as she inched toward the door she realized that if Mr. Squair was here, he would not be at his own shop. Hurrying back to her cab, she urged the driver to return at once to Squair & Company.
Her pulse racing, she fought to maintain an appearance of calm when she entered the shop for the second time that morning and politely inquired of the young, bespectacled assistant druggist whether her order was complete. “Only a few minutes more, madam,” he promised, raising a finger and darting into the backroom. He promptly returned, rang up the purchase, and handed her a small, brown bottle labeled Laudanum & Camphor. She felt a surge of triumph, but quickly concealed it, thanked him, and left the store.
As soon as she reached the sidewalk, she uncorked the bottle and drank the entire concoction down, shaking it upside down above her mouth to get every last drop. Immediately a wave of relief swept over her, cooled by only the faintest undertow of regret.
She returned to her hotel room, nodding in passing to the lone guard posted outside her door and the matron standing by the window. She lay down on her bed, fully clothed, to await the end.
She expected to drift off peacefully into a dreamless sleep from which she would never wake, but five minutes passed, and then ten, and she felt no different, except that her pulse had steadied as the nervous excitement of her mission subsided. As the seconds ticked by, her heart began to pound once again, and she felt tears gathering. Could she not succeed even in this?
The assistant druggist, probably a novice, must have worked up a diluted solution. Fuming, she rose from the bed, took her reticule in hand, again talked her way past the full complement of guards, and returned to Squair & Company. The pharmacist had resumed his post, and his eyes betrayed a flicker of wariness when she sternly informed him that his assistant’s concoction had done absolutely nothing to ease her shoulder pain. She ordered a replacement bottle, declaring, “I shall come behind the counter to observe you as you mix the compounds, just to be sure it is done properly this time.”
“I apologize for the error earlier today, madam,” said Mr. Squair. “However, the laudanum is kept in the cellar. The stairs are dark and steep, and customers are absolutely forbidden to go down there.”
“Very well,” snapped Mary. “Just please, be quick about your business.”
She paced near the window as she waited, ignoring the curious glances of other customers, until Mr. Squair returned with a new bottle, labeled Laudanum Poison.
“Be very careful with it,” he advised. “It is highly potent.”
She thanked him curtly, quit the store, and, on reaching the hotel lobby, swiftly uncorked the bottle and drank down every drop of it. She closed her eyes, sighed, and clasped the fist holding the empty bottle to her bosom. Now it was done.
She opened her eyes, and her heart plummeted.
Robert was approaching her from across the lobby, flanked by her two male guards. Her son’s face was stricken and pale, and just as she was wondering why he had come hours earlier than expected, she saw Mr. Squair around the corner, arms folded over his chest, chin lowered and mouth set in determination, and she knew that these men, all these men, had conspired with her son against her, and there was no hope now of going to sleep and waking in Abe’s arms, not with these men empowered to determine her fate.
She had delivered herself into their hands, but they could not hold her forever. She would not submit. She had powerful friends, and Abe was watching over her. They would see. She was Mrs. President, and she would not submit.