Gabrilowitsch was leaving for Europe; and as the wound in his head (from the surgical operation of a month or two ago) was not yet healed; and he was weak from his long illness, the sudden marriage was decided upon in order that my daughter might go with him and continue to nurse him. They will spend two or three months in retirement in Italy, for rest and recuperation, by order of the physicians. Also, by their order, Gabrilowitsch has cancelled his European engagements by cable.
Two months later, Twain offered a third version of the leave-taking. He claimed that after arriving in Europe, Clara “had been nursing her husband day and night for four months and was worn out and feeble.” Twain was having trouble keeping his stories straight. Years later Clara wrote that Gabrilowitsch had taken the year off from performing and that the two were “free to go wherever we wanted to.” These conflicting explanations for why they had to decamp so quickly indicate that there was another, more urgent, reason for their sudden engagement, marriage, and departure. Clara and Twain must have known that there was trouble brewing and decided that the faster Clara became a married woman and left the country with her new husband the better.
Katy recalled the flurry of activity that took place in order to prepare Stormfield for the impending nuptials. Oddly enough, on October 5, the night of the wedding rehearsal, Twain refused to participate. He insisted that he could not be distracted from his billiard playing. The agitated bride dispatched Marie Nichols, her violinist, to convince her father to come downstairs and join the wedding party, but Twain refused her entreaties. Miss Nichols said she “argued with him in vain, and finally he put the mortar board on my head and the robe over my arm and told me to go in and take his place.” On what would typically be a joyous occasion, Twain’s refusal to participate in the preparations certainly leaves a downbeat impression, particularly considering the pleasure he normally took in donning his Oxford regalia whenever an opportunity presented itself.
Before the wedding, Clara directed Joseph Twichell to omit the word “obey” from the vows, an unheard of request for the time. Stranger still, the day before the wedding, Twain prepared a statement about the impending nuptials. The Associated Press was duly notified, and when its representative arrived at Stormfield the next day he was handed a typed copy of Twain’s remarks. The New York Herald reported that Twain’s explanation for preparing the press release in advance was that “he wished to ‘avoid any delays at the wedding.’” There would be no spontaneous and open exchange with reporters. While a little more than two weeks earlier Twain had invited to Stormfield over five hundred people for a library fund-raiser, the guest list for his daughter’s nuptials was tiny by comparison, with only thirty-two people present, including the wedding party. Mr. Charles Edwin Wark was not among those invited.
According to Katy, the bride looked lovely, although her father overshadowed her in his scarlet Oxford robes and mortar board. Once the morning nuptials had concluded, Twain changed into his white cashmere suit and all retreated for a wedding breakfast. Afterward, instead of riding to the train station in the carriage that had been her parents’ wedding present, the bride and groom departed Stormfield in an automobile. Clara had finally married, and Twain could congratulate himself for having engineered the outcome. The day after the wedding, newspapers across the country carried the rather inauspicious headline “‘A Happy Marriage is a Tragedy’—Twain,” with Clara and Gabrilowitsch’s photographs printed beneath. Twain was quoted as saying that he could count “two or three tragically solemn things in this life, and a happy marriage is one of them, for the terrors of life are all to come.”
Clara’s abbreviated betrothal and rushed marriage were utterly inappropriate during this era of codified etiquette: every rule dictating behavior for polite society had been violated. Twain, a lifelong lover of ceremony and spectacle, and a frequent attendee of society weddings, had married off his daughter in almost total privacy out in the boondocks of rural Redding. This was hardly the socially acceptable ceremony that would have been expected for America’s most famous writer and his daughter. The extraordinary speed of events proved indicative of troubling outside circumstances. A headline appearing just over a week after the wedding added to any speculations people and the press might have had about Clara’s dash to the altar. On October 13, 1909, The New York Herald printed a small notice on page one:
Mrs. Edith Wark, wife of Charles E. Wark (formerly accompanist to Miss Clara L. Clemens), is requested to send her present address to Charles J. Campbell, attorney, 346 Broadway, New York City.
That same day Twain wrote a friend, Augusta M. D. Ogden, saying that Gabrilowitsch had done him a “service for which I am most thoroughly grateful: he has squelched Clara’s ‘career.’ She is done with the concert-stage—permanently, I pray. I hate the word. I never want to hear it again.” But through the newspapers he would be reading plenty about his daughter’s career.
The Associated Press issued a release on October 14 explaining the circumstances of the notice published the day before, which had been carried by newspapers from New York to California. The New York American’s headline shouted “Clara Clemens in a Mysterious Case.” According to the accompanying article, a “mysterious suit, which promises to involve the names of a number of prominent people in sensational developments is concealed behind the following advertisement, which appeared in several of yesterday morning’s papers. … Every effort was made yesterday to conceal the object of the advertisement, but it was reported that Mrs. Wark, who is now establishing a residence in a Western State, had started a suit against the former Miss Clemens.”
Clara Clemens and Ossip Gabrilowitsch’s wedding day, October 6, 1909, at Stormfield, in Redding, Connecticut. Left to right: Mark Twain, Jervis Langdon II, Jean Clemens, Ossip, Clara, the Reverend Joseph Twichell
Charles Campbell, the lawyer who had posted the notice, refused to state what his interest in the case was or whom he was representing: “He would neither admit nor deny that he was Mrs. Wark’s counsel in any litigation, and took the same attitude when asked if any suit against the former Miss Clemens had been started, or papers served upon her.” Campbell declined to tell the reporter “by whom I am retained or the purpose of discovering the whereabouts of Mrs. Wark.” The New York American reported that Charles Wark was currently separated from his wife and children. Campbell promised the eager reporter that he expected that there would be more information soon, “which would make interesting reading for the public.” The lawyer was most anxious to know the date on which Clara and Gabrilowitsch were due to set sail for Europe. The dogged reporter also called Jean at Stormfield to inquire if she or Twain knew anything about the potential suit and received this icy response:
No suit that I know of has been started against my sister … and served on her. I do not believe the story about the starting of a suit, and if such a story is in circulation it is probably the work of malicious persons. I have one woman in particular in mind who is taking every opportunity she can get to trouble us and who would be likely to start such a rumor.
Gone, but not forgotten, Isabel was still being blamed for any ill fortune that came the Clemenses’ way. The Oakland Tribune reported that Mrs. Wark had in fact started a suit against Clara. The suit the newspapers were referring to was for alienation of affection, a commonly invoked legal action at the time. A cursory reading of The New York Times at the beginning of the twentieth century reveals such lawsuits routinely appearing within its pages, with sums for damages ranging from $25,000 to $500,000. It may be that Mrs. Wark’s inspiration for the lawsuit had come from reading The New York Times’s article in which Ashcroft alleged that Clara had given Wark money. Mrs. Wark could sue for damages through the daughter and gain access to Twain’s assets. The basis for an alienation of affection tort was that there had been a “willful and malicious interference with marriage relations by a third party.” Causes of action elements included “wrongful conduct of the defendant, plaintiff’s loss of affection or consortium of spouse, and a ca
usal connection between the two.”
The New York Herald published the most shocking story of all. The headline read “Mystery in Quest of Pianist’s Wife.” In the article, R. E. Johnston, Clara’s former tour manager, expressed great surprise over the revelation that Charles Wark was not a bachelor: “He is an excellent man, but until I saw the advertisement I did not know he was married.” Johnston noted that Wark had “played all Miss Clemens’ accompaniments during her last concert tour.” After inquiring at the Brevoort Hotel where Wark “had lived at intervals during the last two years,” the reporter was told that the hotel was unaware that its frequent guest was married.
Three days later The New York Herald announced “Pianist’s Bridal Trip Deferred,” due to Gabrilowitsch’s continued ill health. The couple had been booked to depart on October 16; however, Gabrilowitsch was suddenly struck ill with appendicitis. When he was asked about the Campbell advertisement of the previous week, his response was peculiar. He said he believed that an individual “who does not feel kindly toward my wife may be attempting to stir up trouble, but I doubt even that.” If he was referring to Ashcroft or Isabel, he appeared to immediately retract his statement. But if not to them, then to whom? A slightly different slant was presented in a story in the New York American on October 17. Under the headline “Denies Daughter of Mark Twain Is Sued: Gabrilowitsch and Bride Cannot Understand Rumor of Alienation Action,” Gabrilowitsch rejected the rumor “that Mrs. Wark had brought suit for alienation of affection against [Clara].” Yet the newspaper found his protestations to be suspect:
Mr. Gabrilowitsch’s statement only served to surround the rumors of a suit with deeper mystery. … Last Tuesday an advertisement appeared in the morning papers, in which Mrs. Wark was requested to send her address to Attorney C. J. Campbell. … The next day an anonymous letter was sent to the newspaper offices, saying that every effort was being made to serve Mrs. Gabrilowitsch … with papers in an alienation suit. … “My wife and I are at a loss to know what it all means,” said Mr. Gabrilowitsch. … “Mr. Wark is a personal friend of both of us, and I am sure he has nothing to do with it. The report has evidently been circulated through maliciousness.” Mr. Gabrilowitsch also denied that the expected suit had any thing to do with the postponement of their honeymoon on which he and the former Miss Clemens were to have started yesterday. He said that he was suffering from appendicitis and would undergo an operation tomorrow. … R. W. Ashcroft … declared yesterday that neither he, nor his wife had anything to do with the circulation of the rumors of Mrs. Wark’s suit. This had been suggested by Jean Clemens.
What ultimately happened regarding the suit and its circumstances might never be known. No newspaper stories quoting either Will or Edith Wark have surfaced. A search of court cases for Manhattan yielded nothing. During that period a suit could have been filed, but if it was settled or abandoned, the outcome might not have been recorded. It is possible that the threat of a suit by Mrs. Wark might have been enough to force a monetary settlement from Twain. The same day on which the New York American article ran, Jean wrote to Twichell begging him not to show anyone the copy of the letter to Adolph Ochs that Twain had written and included in the “Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript.” Twain apparently had been “troubled for fear it might possibly be quoted by some unthinking person, which quotation reaching the ears of certain charming friends of his, might give them an excuse for starting an action.” Apparently Twain did not want to derail any settlement that had been reached. The next day a check for $1,000 was made out to John B. Stanchfield, Twain’s attorney, signed by Jean and countersigned by Twain.
Twain finished the “Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript” less than a week later and told Clara that she was free to use it however she liked in order to protect herself. If Ashcroft or Isabel ever tried to come forward and offer the newspapers the full explanation for Clara’s adulterous affair and subsequent marriage to Gabrilowitsch, Twain’s manuscript would suffice to rob them of all credibility. Twain and Clara were confident the two had been permanently silenced. Twain left a warning note in his 1910 notebook, ordering Clara, after his death, to retain his lawyers at $1,000 a year to maintain constant vigilance over his assets: “At this very day Ashcroft is manufacturing forgeries to rob Clara with when I am dead. Keep Lark & Stanchfield always, to be ready for him.”
As for Will Wark, he and Edith divorced, and on October 16, 1912, he married the New York socialite Ruth Sands at the Church of the Ascension. The happy couple permanently relocated to France. In 1913, Ruth was named as primary beneficiary of her uncle’s $600,000 estate. For a poor man’s son, Will Wark had done very well indeed, with an independent income and entrée to New York’s social register.
While Albert Bigelow Paine omitted any mention of the threatened lawsuit and newspaper headlines in his biography of Twain, he did briefly mention Letters from the Earth, which Twain wrote during the period when his daughter was publicly identified as an adulteress. Twain’s topic in Letters, a discussion of traditional theological orthodoxy in a comic vein, was in part a continuation of ideas he had earlier explored in “Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven.” Paine claimed that he and Twain laughed “themselves weak” over the manuscript. But while Paine apparently found Letters entertaining, he was dismissive of the ideas presented in it, claiming that they were new only in terms of their “phrasing. [Twain] had exhausted the topic long ago, in one way or another.” Yet Twain was in fact far more expansive than he had ever been before about one particular topic, namely female sexuality and, most specifically, female adultery:
During twenty-three days in every month (in the absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also, she wants that candle—yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart. … By the woman’s make, her plant has to be out of service three days in the month and during a part of her pregnancy. These are times of discomfort, often of suffering. For fair and just compensation she has the high privilege of unlimited adultery all the other days of her life. That is the law of God, as revealed in her make. What becomes of this high privilege? Does she live in the free enjoyment of it? No. Nowhere in the whole world. She is robbed of it everywhere.
This hardly appears to be the stuff for mutual guffawing. Actually, these passages in Letters could be interpreted as Twain railing against polite society, along with his felt imperative to force his daughter to uphold its mores, an irony he probably would have had greater appreciation for as the subject of his fiction rather than his life.
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Twain lost another old friend on November 18, when Richard Watson Gilder, one of his closest and most trusted companions, died unexpectedly. Twain was asked, along with Howells, to serve as a pallbearer at Gilder’s funeral, held at the Church of the Ascension. However, unlike Howells, he declined. The New York Times reported that Twain’s absence was due to ill health. Quite simply, Twain had lost too much over the previous year to be able to endure another funeral.
On November 20, 1909, the day of Gilder’s funeral, Clara and Gabrilowitsch finally sailed to Europe. The newlyweds spent their first weeks in Wiesbaden, Germany, visiting with Gabrilowitsch’s family, before traveling to Switzerland and Italy. Twain and Paine had sailed a day earlier for Bermuda. Jean was not invited to join them. Although both ships left from New York Harbor, Twain and Clara did not see each other before they departed. Twain wrote Dorothy Quick the day before the sailing, telling her that he did not want to go to Bermuda, but since he had been unwell for the “past 5 months,” his doctors had ordered him to make the trip: “I must obey, I suppose.” Paine offered a different version, saying that the voyage had been Twain’s decision. According to Paine, Twain “was not at all ill going down to Bermuda,” and on the morning of his seventy-fourth birthday “he was looking wonderfully well after
a night of sound sleep, his face full of color and freshness, his eyes bright and keen and full of good-humor.” Twain and Paine would remain in Bermuda for a month. At Twain’s specific request, no news was forwarded to him during that time.
When Twain and Paine returned to New York on December 20, they went directly to Stormfield, where Jean welcomed them. Jean had blossomed in her new surroundings and happily described her daily schedule to friends in great detail. Busy with her chickens and the apple orchard on her property, Jean also acted as her father’s secretary, corresponding on his behalf. Yet, despite the pleasing fullness of her days, she remained deeply lonely. Upon receiving Nancy Brush’s letter announcing her upcoming nuptials, an overwrought Jean responded that in her view Nancy was rushing, questioned whether she could afford a marriage, and warned her that she should delay starting a family. “Don’t begin right off to have a lot of children!” Jean castigated Nancy: “There are harmless ways of preventing such an occurrence and for a girl as young as you … it would seem to me too heartrending for words, if she began the cares of a mother before two or three years, at least.” Jean’s injunctions notwithstanding, at age nineteen Nancy married Robert Pearmain (Jean was twenty-nine at the time).
Jean’s attempts to control her friends’ lives seemed to alienate them. Bébé Schmitt received a letter in October from Jean demanding to know when she planned to visit her. In the same letter Jean told Bébé that she had felt “real jealousy” when she found out Bébé had spent time with another friend instead of with her: “I don’t like the idea that you are much with her.” A little over two weeks later, Jean wrote to Bébé again saying, “The principle reason for the existence of this letter is that I want to beg you to come and spend Christmas with me.” Although Bébé ultimately declined Jean’s pleadings to come to Stormfield for the holidays, Jean was pleased to be celebrating her first Christmas at home in several years, and she busily set about making preparations.
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