Book: The Gilded Age, Part 6.
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Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner >> The Gilded Age, Part 6.
THE GILDED AGE
A Tale of Today
by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
1873
Part 6.
CHAPTER XLVI.
Philip left the capitol and walked up Pennsylvania Avenue in company with
Senator Dilworthy. It was a bright spring morning, the air was soft and
inspiring; in the deepening wayside green, the pink flush of the
blossoming peach trees, the soft suffusion on the heights of Arlington,
and the breath of the warm south wind was apparent, the annual miracle of
the resurrection of the earth.
The Senator took off his hat and seemed to open his soul to the sweet
influences of the morning. After the heat and noise of the chamber,
under its dull gas-illuminated glass canopy, and the all night struggle
of passion and feverish excitement there, the open, tranquil world seemed
like Heaven. The Senator was not in an exultant mood, but rather in a
condition of holy joy, befitting a Christian statesman whose benevolent
plans Providence has made its own and stamped with approval. The great
battle had been fought, but the measure had still to encounter the
scrutiny of the Senate, and Providence sometimes acts differently in the
two Houses. Still the Senator was tranquil, for he knew that there is an
esprit de corps in the Senate which does not exist in the House, the
effect of which is to make the members complaisant towards the projects
of each other, and to extend a mutual aid which in a more vulgar body
would be called "log-rolling."
"It is, under Providence, a good night's work, Mr. Sterling. The
government has founded an institution which will remove half the
difficulty from the southern problem. And it is a good thing for the
Hawkins heirs, a very good thing. Laura will be almost a millionaire."
"Do you think, Mr. Dilworthy, that the Hawkinses will get much of the
money?" asked Philip innocently, remembering the fate of the Columbus
River appropriation.
The Senator looked at his companion scrutinizingly for a moment to see if
he meant any thing personal, and then replied,
"Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. I have had their interests greatly at heart.
There will of course be a few expenses, but the widow and orphans will
realize all that Mr. Hawkins, dreamed of for them."
The birds were singing as they crossed the Presidential Square, now
bright with its green turf and tender foliage. After the two had gained
the steps of the Senator's house they stood a moment, looking upon the
lovely prospect:
"It is like the peace of God," said the Senator devoutly.
Entering the house, the Senator called a servant and said, "Tell Miss
Laura that we are waiting to see her. I ought to have sent a messenger
on horseback half an hour ago," he added to Philip, "she will be
transported with our victory. You must stop to breakfast, and see the
excitement." The servant soon came back, with a wondering look and
reported,
"Miss Laura ain't dah, sah. I reckon she hain't been dah all night!"
The Senator and Philip both started up. In Laura's room there were the
marks of a confused and hasty departure, drawers half open, little
articles strewn on the floor. The bed had not been disturbed. Upon
inquiry it appeared that Laura had not been at dinner, excusing herself
to Mrs. Dilworthy on the plea of a violent headache; that she made a
request to the servants that she might not be disturbed.
The Senator was astounded. Philip thought at once of Col. Selby. Could
Laura have run away with him? The Senator thought not. In fact it could
not be. Gen. Leffenwell, the member from New Orleans, had casually told
him at the house last night that Selby and his family went to New York
yesterday morning and were to sail for Europe to-day.
Philip had another idea which, he did not mention. He seized his hat,
and saying that he would go and see what he could learn, ran to the
lodgings of Harry; whom he had not seen since yesterday afternoon, when
he left him to go to the House.
Harry was not in. He had gone out with a hand-bag before six o'clock
yesterday, saying that he had to go to New York, but should return next
day. In Harry's-room on the table Philip found this note:
"Dear Mr. Brierly:--Can you meet me at the six o'clock train,
and be my escort to New York? I have to go about this
University bill, the vote of an absent member we must have
here, Senator Dilworthy cannot go.
Yours, L. H."
"Confound it," said Phillip, "the noodle has fallen into her trap. And
she promised she would let him alone."
He only stopped to send a note to Senator Dilworthy, telling him what he
had found, and that he should go at once to New York, and then hastened
to the railway station. He had to wait an hour for a train, and when it
did start it seemed to go at a snail's pace.
Philip was devoured with anxiety. Where could they, have gone? What was
Laura's object in taking Harry? Had the flight anything to do with
Selby? Would Harry be such a fool as to be dragged into some public
scandal?
It seemed as if the train would never reach Baltimore. Then there was a
long delay at Havre de Grace. A hot box had to be cooled at Wilmington.
Would it never get on? Only in passing around the city of Philadelphia
did the train not seem to go slow. Philip stood upon the platform and
watched for the Boltons' house, fancied he could distinguish its roof
among the trees, and wondered how Ruth would feel if she knew he was so
near her.
Then came Jersey, everlasting Jersey, stupid irritating Jersey, where the
passengers are always asking which line they are on, and where they are
to come out, and whether they have yet reached Elizabeth. Launched into
Jersey, one has a vague notion that he is on many lines and no one in
particular, and that he is liable at any moment to come to Elizabeth.
He has no notion what Elizabeth is, and always resolves that the next
time he goes that way, he will look out of the window and see what it is
like; but he never does. Or if he does, he probably finds that it is
Princeton or something of that sort. He gets annoyed, and never can see
the use of having different names for stations in Jersey. By and by.
there is Newark, three or four Newarks apparently; then marshes; then
long rock cuttings devoted to the advertisements of 'patent medicines and
ready-made, clothing, and New York tonics for Jersey agues, and Jersey
City is reached.
On the ferry-boat Philip bought an evening paper from a boy crying
"'Ere's the Evening Gram, all about the murder," and with breathless
haste--ran his eyes over the following:
SHOCKING MURDER!!!
TRAGEDY IN HIGH LIFE!! A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN SHOOTS A DISTINGUISHED
CONFEDERATE SOLDIER AT THE SOUTHERN HOTEL!!! JEALOUSY THE CAUSE!!!
This morning occurred another of those shocking murders which have
become the almost daily food of the newspapers, the direct result of
the socialistic doctrines and woman's rights agitations, which have
made every woman the avenger of her own wrongs, and all society the
hunting ground for her victims.
About nine o'clock a lady deliberately shot a man dead in the public
parlor of the Southern Hotel, coolly remarking, as she threw down
her revolver and permitted herself to be taken into custody, "He
brought it on himself." Our reporters were immediately dispatched
to the scene of the tragedy, and gathered the following particulars.
Yesterday afternoon arrived at the hotel from Washington, Col.
George Selby and family, who had taken passage and were to sail at
noon to-day in the steamer Scotia for England. The Colonel was a
handsome man about forty, a gentleman Of wealth and high social
position, a resident of New Orleans. He served with distinction in
the confederate army, and received a wound in the leg from which he
has never entirely recovered, being obliged to use a cane in
locomotion.
This morning at about nine o'clock, a lady, accompanied by a
gentleman, called at the office Of the hotel and asked for Col.
Selby. The Colonel was at breakfast. Would the clerk tell him that
a lady and gentleman wished to see him for a moment in the parlor?
The clerk says that the gentleman asked her, "What do you want to
see him for?" and that she replied, "He is going to Europe, and I
ought to just say good by."
Col. Selby was informed; and the lady and gentleman were shown to
the parlor, in which were at the time three or four other persons.
Five minutes after two shots were fired in quick succession, and
there was a rush to the parlor from which the reports came.
Col. Selby was found lying on the floor, bleeding, but not dead.
Two gentlemen, who had just come in, had seized the lady, who made
no resistance, and she was at once given in charge of a police
officer who arrived. The persons who were in the parlor agree
substantially as to what occurred. They had happened to be looking
towards the door when the man--Col. Selby--entered with his cane,
and they looked at him, because he stopped as if surprised and
frightened, and made a backward movement. At the same moment the
lady in the bonnet advanced towards him and said something like,
"George, will you go with me?" He replied, throwing up his hand and
retreating, "My God I can't, don't fire," and the next instants two
shots were heard and he fell. The lady appeared to be beside
herself with rage or excitement, and trembled very much when the
gentlemen took hold of her; it was to them she said, "He brought it
on himself."
Col. Selby was carried at once to his room and Dr. Puffer, the
eminent surgeon was sent for. It was found that he was shot through
the breast and through the abdomen. Other aid was summoned, but the
wounds were mortal, and Col Selby expired in an hour, in pain, but
his mind was clear to the last and he made a full deposition. The
substance of it was that his murderess is a Miss Laura Hawkins, whom
he had known at Washington as a lobbyist and had some business with
her. She had followed him with her attentions and solicitations,
and had endeavored to make him desert his wife and go to Europe with
her. When he resisted and avoided her she had threatened him. Only
the day before he left Washington she had declared that he should
never go out of the city alive without her.
It seems to have been a deliberate and premeditated murder, the
woman following him to Washington on purpose to commit it.
We learn that the, murderess, who is a woman of dazzling and
transcendent beauty and about twenty six or seven, is a niece of
Senator Dilworthy at whose house she has been spending the winter.
She belongs to a high Southern family, and has the reputation of
being an heiress. Like some other great beauties and belles in
Washington however there have been whispers that she had something
to do with the lobby. If we mistake not we have heard her name
mentioned in connection with the sale of the Tennessee Lands to the
Knobs University, the bill for which passed the House last night.
Her companion is Mr. Harry Brierly, a New York dandy, who has been
in Washington. His connection with her and with this tragedy is not
known, but he was also taken into custody, and will be detained at
least as a witness.
P. S. One of the persons present in the parlor says that after
Laura Hawkins had fired twice, she turned the pistol towards
herself, but that Brierly sprung and caught it from her hand, and
that it was he who threw it on the floor.
Further particulars with full biographies of all the parties in our
next edition.
Philip hastened at once to the Southern Hotel, where he found still a
great state of excitement, and a thousand different and exaggerated
stories passing from mouth to mouth. The witnesses of the event had told
it over so many time that they had worked it up into a most dramatic
scene, and embellished it with whatever could heighten its awfulness.
Outsiders had taken up invention also. The Colonel's wife had gone
insane, they said. The children had rushed into the parlor and rolled
themselves in their father's blood. The hotel clerk said that he noticed
there was murder in the woman's eye when he saw her. A person who had
met the woman on the stairs felt a creeping sensation. Some thought
Brierly was an accomplice, and that he had set the woman on to kill his
rival. Some said the woman showed the calmness and indifference of
insanity.
Philip learned that Harry and Laura had both been taken to the city
prison, and he went there; but he was not admitted. Not being a
newspaper reporter, he could not see either of them that night; but the
officer questioned him suspiciously and asked him who he was. He might
perhaps see Brierly in the morning.
The latest editions of the evening papers had the result of the inquest.
It was a plain enough case for the jury, but they sat over it a long
time, listening to the wrangling of the physicians. Dr. Puffer insisted
that the man died from the effects of the wound in the chest. Dr. Dobb
as strongly insisted that the wound in the abdomen caused death. Dr.
Golightly suggested that in his opinion death ensued from a complication
of the two wounds and perhaps other causes. He examined the table
waiter, as to whether Col. Selby ate any breakfast, and what he ate, and
if he had any appetite.
The jury finally threw themselves back upon the indisputable fact that
Selby was dead, that either wound would have killed him (admitted by the
doctors), and rendered a verdict that he died from pistol-shot wounds
inflicted by a pistol in the hands of Laura Hawkins.
The morning papers blazed with big type, and overflowed with details of
the murder. The accounts in the evening papers were only the premonitory
drops to this mighty shower. The scene was dramatically worked up in
column after column. There were sketches, biographical and historical.
There were long "specials" from Washington, giving a full history of
Laura's career there, with the names of men with whom she was said to be
intimate, a description of Senator Dilworthy's residence and of his
family, and of Laura's room in his house, and a sketch of the Senator's
appearance and what he said. There was a great deal about her beauty,
her accomplishments and her brilliant position in society, and her
doubtful position in society. There was also an interview with Col.
Sellers and another with Washington Hawkins, the brother of the
murderess. One journal had a long dispatch from Hawkeye, reporting the
excitement in that quiet village and the reception of the awful
intelligence.
All the parties had been "interviewed." There were reports of
conversations with the clerk at the hotel; with the call-boy; with the
waiter at table with all the witnesses, with the policeman, with the
landlord (who wanted it understood that nothing of that sort had ever
happened in his house before, although it had always been frequented by
the best Southern society,) and with Mrs. Col. Selby. There were
diagrams illustrating the scene of the shooting, and views of the hotel
and street, and portraits of the parties. There were three minute and
different statements from the doctors about the wounds, so technically
worded that nobody could understand them. Harry and Laura had also been
"interviewed" and there was a statement from Philip himself, which a
reporter had knocked him up out of bed at midnight to give, though how he
found him, Philip never could conjecture.
What some of the journals lacked in suitable length for the occasion,
they made up in encyclopaedic information about other similar murders and
shootings.
The statement from Laura was not full, in fact it was fragmentary, and
consisted of nine parts of, the reporter's valuable observations to one
of Laura's, and it was, as the reporter significantly remarked,
"incoherent", but it appeared that Laura claimed to be Selby's wife,
or to have been his wife, that he had deserted her and betrayed her, and
that she was going to follow him to Europe. When the reporter asked:
"What made you shoot him Miss. Hawkins?"
Laura's only reply was, very simply,
"Did I shoot him? Do they say I shot him?". And she would say no more.
The news of the murder was made the excitement of the day. Talk of it
filled the town. The facts reported were scrutinized, the standing of
the parties was discussed, the dozen different theories of the motive,
broached in the newspapers, were disputed over.
During the night subtle electricity had carried the tale over all the
wires of the continent and under the sea; and in all villages and towns
of the Union, from the. Atlantic to the territories, and away up and
down the Pacific slope, and as far as London and Paris and Berlin, that
morning the name of Laura Hawkins was spoken by millions and millions of
people, while the owner of it--the sweet child of years ago, the
beautiful queen of Washington drawing rooms--sat shivering on her cot-bed
in the darkness of a damp cell in the Tombs.
CHAPTER XLVII.
Philip's first effort was to get Harry out of the Tombs. He gained
permission to see him, in the presence of an officer, during the day,
and he found that hero very much cast down.
"I never intended to come to such a place as this, old fellow," he said
to Philip; "it's no place for a gentleman, they've no idea how to treat a
gentleman. Look at that provender," pointing to his uneaten prison
ration. "They tell me I am detained as a witness, and I passed the night
among a lot of cut-throats and dirty rascals--a pretty witness I'd be in
a month spent in such company."
"But what under heavens," asked Philip, "induced you to come to New York
with Laura! What was it for?"
"What for? Why, she wanted me to come. I didn't know anything about
that cursed Selby. She said it was lobby business for the University.
I'd no idea what she was dragging me into that confounded hotel for.
I suppose she knew that the Southerners all go there, and thought she'd
find her man. Oh! Lord, I wish I'd taken your advice. You might as
well murder somebody and have the credit of it, as get into the
newspapers the way I have. She's pure devil, that girl. You ought to
have seen how sweet she was on me; what an ass I am."
"Well, I'm not going to dispute a poor, prisoner. But the first thing is
to get you out of this. I've brought the note Laura wrote you, for one
thing, and I've seen your uncle, and explained the truth of the case to
him. He will be here soon."
Harry's uncle came, with; other friends, and in the course of the day
made such a showing to the authorities that Harry was released, on giving
bonds to appear as a witness when wanted. His spirits rose with their
usual elasticity as soon as he was out of Centre Street, and he insisted
on giving Philip and his friends a royal supper at Delmonico's, an excess
which was perhaps excusable in the rebound of his feelings, and which was
committed with his usual reckless generosity. Harry ordered, the supper,
and it is perhaps needless to say, that Philip paid the bill.
Neither of the young men felt like attempting to see Laura that day,
and she saw no company except the newspaper reporters, until the arrival
of Col. Sellers and Washington Hawkins, who had hastened to New York
with all speed.
They found Laura in a cell in the upper tier of the women's department.
The cell was somewhat larger than those in the men's department, and
might be eight feet by ten square, perhaps a little longer. It was of
stone, floor and all, and tile roof was oven shaped. A narrow slit in
the roof admitted sufficient light, and was the only means of
ventilation; when the window was opened there was nothing to prevent the
rain coming in. The only means of heating being from the corridor, when
the door was ajar, the cell was chilly and at this time damp. It was
whitewashed and clean, but it had a slight jail odor; its only furniture
was a narrow iron bedstead, with a tick of straw and some blankets, not
too clean.
When Col. Sellers was conducted to this cell by the matron and looked
in, his emotions quite overcame him, the tears rolled down his cheeks and
his voice trembled so that he could hardly speak. Washington was unable
to say anything; he looked from Laura to the miserable creatures who were
walking in the corridor with unutterable disgust. Laura was alone calm
and self-contained, though she was not unmoved by the sight of the grief
of her friends.
"Are you comfortable, Laura?" was the first word the Colonel could get
out.
"You see," she replied. "I can't say it's exactly comfortable."
"Are you cold?"
"It is pretty chilly. The stone floor is like ice. It chills me through
to step on it. I have to sit on the bed."
"Poor thing, poor thing. And can you eat any thing?"
"No, I am not hungry. I don't know that I could eat any thing, I can't
eat that."
"Oh dear," continued the Colonel, "it's dreadful. But cheer up, dear,
cheer up;" and the Colonel broke down entirely.
"But," he went on, "we'll stand by you. We'll do everything for you.
I know you couldn't have meant to do it, it must have been insanity, you
know, or something of that sort. You never did anything of the sort
before."
Laura smiled very faintly and said,
"Yes, it was something of that sort. It's all a whirl. He was a
villain; you don't know."
"I'd rather have killed him myself, in a duel you know, all fair. I wish
I had. But don't you be down. We'll get you the best counsel, the
lawyers in New York can do anything; I've read of cases. But you must be
comfortable now. We've brought some of your clothes, at the hotel. What
else, can we get for you?"
Laura suggested that she would like some sheets for her bed, a piece of
carpet to step on, and her meals sent in; and some books and writing
materials if it was allowed. The Colonel and Washington promised to
procure all these things, and then took their sorrowful leave, a great
deal more affected than the criminal was, apparently, by her situation.
The colonel told the matron as he went away that if she would look to
Laura's comfort a little it shouldn't be the worse for her; and to the
turnkey who let them out he patronizingly said,
"You've got a big establishment here, a credit to the city. I've got a
friend in there--I shall see you again, sir."
By the next day something more of Laura's own story began to appear in
the newspapers, colored and heightened by reporters' rhetoric. Some of
them cast a lurid light upon the Colonel's career, and represented his
victim as a beautiful avenger of her murdered innocence; and others
pictured her as his willing paramour and pitiless slayer. Her
communications to the reporters were stopped by her lawyers as soon as
they were retained and visited her, but this fact did not prevent--it may
have facilitated--the appearance of casual paragraphs here and there
which were likely to beget popular sympathy for the poor girl.
The occasion did not pass without "improvement" by the leading journals;
and Philip preserved the editorial comments of three or four of them
which pleased him most. These he used to read aloud to his friends
afterwards and ask them to guess from which journal each of them had been
cut. One began in this simple manner:--
History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of
the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken
fragments of antique legends. Washington is not Corinth, and Lais,
the beautiful daughter of Timandra, might not have been the
prototype of the ravishing Laura, daughter of the plebeian house of
Hawkins; but the orators add statesmen who were the purchasers of
the favors of the one, may have been as incorruptible as the
Republican statesmen who learned how to love and how to vote from
the sweet lips of the Washington lobbyist; and perhaps the modern
Lais would never have departed from the national Capital if there
had been there even one republican Xenocrates who resisted her
blandishments. But here the parallel: fails. Lais, wandering away
with the youth Rippostratus, is slain by the women who are jealous
of her charms. Laura, straying into her Thessaly with the youth
Brierly, slays her other lover and becomes the champion of the
wrongs of her sex.
Another journal began its editorial with less lyrical beauty, but with
equal force. It closed as follows:--
With Laura Hawkins, fair, fascinating and fatal, and with the
dissolute Colonel of a lost cause, who has reaped the harvest he
sowed, we have nothing to do. But as the curtain rises on this
awful tragedy, we catch a glimpse of the society at the capital
under this Administration, which we cannot contemplate without alarm
for the fate of the Republic.