It only became clear to Evelyn years later (as described in unpublished letters as well as her memoirs) that White’s fascination with her, which became increasingly obvious as the afternoon progressed, was due to the fact that she was simply and intriguingly different from the norm—even to a man addicted to the extraordinary and capable of routinely performing remarkable feats, such as converting the Waldorf into the court at Versailles. But the tide had already turned as far as White and his self-selected cabal of connoisseurs, aesthetes, and fellow artists were concerned. For them, the sand had all but run out for the hourglass figure. The days of Anna Held and Lillian Russell were numbered. As for the generally restrained female population, trussed up in torture devices, corseted within inches of asphyxiation, they sorely needed a new model. And, as White recognized, Evelyn was the newest. It was something neither Edna nor her mother had counted on when they agreed to facilitate the tête-à-tête that afternoon.
As Evelyn would write: “Edna Goodrich was a big girl, plump and voluptuous—a type very popular in the Gay Nineties and the early part of the [twentieth] century. I was smaller, slenderer; a type artists and, as I learned later, older, more experienced men admired. I had discovered in the studios that artists cared little for the big-breasted, heavy-hipped, corseted figure, preferring to paint the freer, more sinuous, uncorseted one with natural, unspoiled lines.”
Throughout the afternoon, most of the fun was had at Evelyn’s expense. White teased her for her short, childish white frock and loosely bound long hair. At lunch she had her first real glass of expensive champagne. “I was permitted one glass, no more,” she wrote. White had been adamant on that issue. Nonetheless, she loved the “irresponsible happiness of that party,” and was pleasantly surprised by her host’s apparently inexhaustible capacity for playfulness. Ronalds left during the cherry pie à la mode (another invention of Delmonico’s), having some business to attend to down on Wall Street. White then asked the two girls if they would like to see some other rooms upstairs. They nodded enthusiastically and ascended two more flights of another darkened stairway, which led to a room at the top floor of the building.
Unlike the bold and subtler variations on shades of red below, the predominating color of this room was a deep forest green. Yet as Evelyn peered into the room, also illuminated by concealed lighting, amid the haze of green, two startling red objects suddenly materialized once her eyes adjusted to the light. One was a cardinal’s hat, hung from the ceiling as an irreverent lampshade. The other was a “gorgeous swing with red velvet ropes around which trailed green smilax, set high in the ceiling at one end of the studio.” As Evelyn approached the swing, White suggested teasingly to Edna, “Let’s give this kiddie a ride.”
Without hesitation, Evelyn jumped onto the swing. White grabbed the velvet ropes and Evelyn’s small hands simultaneously as he pulled her backward, then thrust her forward with a vigorous push. A second and third push sent her soaring into the air in the direction of a large, multicolored paper Japanese parasol suspended by an undetectable string White had put into Edna’s hand. He instructed Edna to pull at the string that moved the parasol up or down, and he encouraged Evelyn to kick at it. The closer she got, the happier he seemed. He clapped and shivered with delight each time Evelyn’s dainty foot pierced the gaily decorated paper. As the colorful parasol twirled like a kaleidoscope before her eyes, again and again a giggling Evelyn broke the thin membrane of the paper until another had to be put in its place. White always made sure he had a replacement on hand.
The heady combination of a glass of good champagne, sumptuous food, and the lush surroundings of his fantastic enchanted forest, combined with White’s visible admiration for her charms, proved intoxicating to Evelyn beyond anything she had ever imagined possible. That afternoon she and the architect laughed until their sides ached, and his reactions to her childish responses seemed gleefully real and equally juvenile. Except for the alcohol, even Saint Anthony of Comstock might have found little to complain about. Evelyn did not, on that first visit, see a different room, one that would play a crucial role in setting the stage for future tragedy.
As captivated as White was with his new playmate, at about four o’clock, he looked at his watch, stating that he had some business to attend to. He took Edna aside for a moment, who then sidled up to Evelyn. She told Evelyn that White wanted her to visit his dentist, and that she would take her. It was explained to Evelyn in the cab that White wanted her to fix a front tooth that spoiled her otherwise faultless beauty. Although it was barely noticeable in photographs, the tooth was slightly discolored (having been chipped during an ice-skating mishap as a child). Although both girls went to the dentist, only Edna saw the dentist dur-ing Posing for Metropolitan Magazine, 1902.
the visit, while Evelyn sat in the polished oak-paneled waiting room, which smelled faintly of sweet gas and burnt rubber.
Evelyn noticed that Edna seemed petulant during the ride home and increasingly bad-humored. She related her experiences of the day to her mother, who seemed puzzled about a number of things, not the least of which was why a society man would have such a gorgeous establishment in the heart of the business district. Evelyn, of course, didn’t realize that Edna had picked up clear signals that White had found “a new bon-bon.” The tip-off was the desire to fix her teeth. It wasn’t long before Edna and her mother stopped speaking to Evelyn altogether. Nor did Evelyn have an answer for her mother about the reason for the wondrous apartment and unlikely location.
“Unsophisticated enough not to be able to find answers to our questions, ” Evelyn later wrote, “Mamma and I dismissed our lack of understanding, attributing it to our small-town ways.”
Several days after, White sent a letter to Evelyn’s mother, asking “in his illegible scrawl” for her to call at 160 Fifth Avenue. The chronically insecure Mrs. Nesbit appeared flustered, not knowing whether this was a home or a place of business. She asked her daughter whether it would be proper to call at either. Evelyn simply shrugged her shoulders and offered once again that White was a well-known society man. Several days later, in spite of vague misgivings about impropriety, Evelyn’s mother met with White at the address he gave, which he had assured her in a phone call was his office.
The interview went “smashingly.” Late in the afternoon Mrs. Nesbit came back, talking nonstop about Mr. White’s kindness and concern for “his little Spanish maiden.” She related how White had seen her from afar in the show “a number of times,” and that after seeing her up close, he expressed the desire to have his dentist tend to Evelyn’s tooth. Her mother saw this as a particularly generous if curious gesture, but White assured her that he had done the same for all the girls in Florodora.
“It was rather a fad of White’s, this teeth-seeing,” Evelyn recalled. Not sensing any great urgency, however, neither Evelyn nor her mother followed up on White’s unconventional if gracious offer.
Several days later, White invited Evelyn to a second luncheon. This time the request came through Elsie Ferguson, a fleshy, blond chorus girl appearing in The Strollers, a musical comedy playing at the Knickerbocker Theatre, next door to the Casino. Much to Evelyn’s delight, where Mr. White was concerned, her mother no longer had any objections to her attending any parties. That afternoon, Elsie Ferguson’s “date” for lunch was a man named Thomas B. Clarke, who dealt in priceless Chinese porcelains and antiques. When he arrived, looking as he did with a shock of white hair and slightly bent like the silver-headed cane he carried, Clarke appeared to Evelyn an antique: “[He] looked to me as old as Methuselah.” (Evelyn heard some years later that Ferguson eventually married Clarke’s son.)
The four sampled fresh pastries from a Mulberry Street bakery, and after the roast partridge and quail, White produced a two-pound box of Lowney’s chocolates, which he placed gingerly on Evelyn’s small lap. He winked at her, acknowledging that she had been one of their models. Her host’s effortless charisma proceeded to win Evelyn over. She started to see him in a new
light and soon considered both his personality and barrel-chested appearance to her liking, including his bristling walrus-like brush of a mustache and “hair that stood up like velvet pile.” Friends and acquaintances all agreed that he was a vigorously charming and arresting figure, routinely described in the papers as “masterful,” “intense,” and “burly yet boyish.”
Evelyn also enjoyed his candid manner and ready laugh: “He was a compendium of information on all subjects, likely and unlikely. He was an authority and teacher. . . . [He] suggested his own genius by his appreciation of genius both contemporary and past.” He was, she writes, one of those men “gifted by Nature beyond the average,” and her growing impression of him, which her mother had felt immediately, was that “he was very kind, and that he was safe. True, he wasn’t the ‘romantic’ type, but he was handsome in a way that appealed, a charming, cultured gentleman whose magnetism undid all my first impressions of him. He emerged as a splendid man, thoughtful, sweet, and kind; a brilliant conversationalist and an altogether interesting companion.”
Numerous other men, most of them frequent patrons of Florodora, had already tried unsuccessfully to attract Evelyn’s attention. Some anonymously sent uninspired bouquets or paltry boxes of candy; others, like a Mr. Munroe, sent weekly mash notes, all of which she ignored. As several weeks went by, it was clear who dominated Evelyn’s thoughts. She spoke incessantly with her mother of White and his engrossing lifestyle. She repeated like a mantra the list of guests and the variety of food he had at his splendid parties, which she now attended frequently and where, among others, she met everyone from Annie Oakley to Caruso.
It pleased Evelyn that when it came to Mr. White, her mother’s conversation was equally filled with superlatives. The only one, it seemed, who wasn’t a fan of Stanford White was Mr. James Garland.
Although Mrs. Nesbit, not wanting to close any gates of gilded opportunity, had continued to allow Garland to provide Sunday entertainment on his “floating palace” for her daughter and her, her preference for White, whose generosity seemed limitless, was clear. And, just as Mamma Nesbit began to ponder what to do about the other married millionaire in Evelyn’s life, Garland himself brought up the subject. After Evelyn casually mentioned having attended a Stanford White soirée, Garland’s face clouded over.
“If you continue to associate with Mr. White, we must end our relationship, ” he said, as if scolding her.
An astonished Evelyn, who never considered that the elderly Garland had more than a sociable interest in her (and who she figured at the time was interested in a romantic relationship with her mother), listened as he continued, “I have most serious intentions regarding you. Right now I am divorcing my wife . . . but if you insist on going with a man like White, I cannot see you again.”
Evelyn was flabbergasted, and gave a little nervous laugh, hoping that her mother would know what to say. Her mother said nothing.
“Why?” a puzzled Evelyn finally asked.
“Because,” said Garland with disdain, “he is a voluptuary.” Evelyn didn’t know what the word meant, but she did know that White’s personality and gay parties were infinitely more appealing than anything Garland had to offer, yacht or no yacht. Moreover, if there had been some understanding, unspoken or otherwise, between Garland and her mother regarding Evelyn’s future, the little Spanish maiden had never been let in on the negotiations. Impressionable but precocious, if she gave any thought to the subject of marriage at all, Evelyn invariably considered it a dead end and a trap. She had exhibited no desire to trade the stage for a cage, gilded or otherwise, and when considering Garland specifically, as she put it, “I would as soon have married Santa Claus.”
So, with her mother’s unspoken approval, Evelyn left the rueful James Garland high and dry. He told Evelyn when they reached the dock to let him know if and when she ended her association with White. (The fact that Evelyn would be named in Garland’s divorce suit provided great fodder for the prosecution during the murder trial.)
It is not surprising that a freshly captivated Evelyn saw in White, however unconsciously, a man like her father, who was attentive, irresponsibly fun-loving, and “extremely clever.” As Evelyn put it, “Let me say here that cleverness in a man or woman has always been the supreme attraction.” And just as White had an impressive arsenal of wit at his disposal, his special influence in the Broadway district was additionally attractive to the aspiring actress. Here was someone who could help the stage career he vigorously encouraged, which Garland had obliquely disparaged. And, to put the vanilla ice cream on the cherry pie, Mr. White, who had a wife and family with whom he seemed decidedly contented, was “safe.” But if White was out of the ordinary, so too was the little girl from the suburbs of Pittsburgh who was not the type to take pleasure in the mere commonplace or the placid when offered the incomparable.
On their next luncheon date, Evelyn and White repeated the first afternoon’s harmless uplifting entertainment with a session on the red velvet swing. As Evelyn rode the swing, a disaffected Elsie Ferguson, who had again accompanied her, stood by, wanting to preserve a more genteel image. Like Edna Goodrich, Elsie was unaware that White preferred Evelyn’s unsophisticated vitality. Then, while getting ready to push her again, White commented on the fact that Evelyn had not gotten her teeth fixed. She had no sufficient answer for him, saying simply that Edna had not moved to help her when they were at the dentist’s office, nor did Evelyn or her mother consider it a priority.
White, however, decided to take the issue up directly with her mother again. He assured Mrs. Nesbit that as an artist, his interest in her daughter’s appearance was “a purely aesthetic urge,” and won her over to the idea more easily than her daughter, who had the same aversion regarding a trip to the dentist that most people have (particularly in those days of primitive foot-powered low-speed drills and sickly-sweet laughing gas administered via an ill-fitting, smothering rubberized mask). Mrs. Nesbit found herself “overwhelmingly grateful” for White’s attention to her daughter, since they were too poor to afford the impossible luxury of such a visit. In less than a fortnight, Evelyn had her teeth worked on. She was now perfect.
THE BIG BAD WOLF
As Evelyn would gradually learn, White’s modus operandi was always the same when it came to meeting his next conquest. He would invariably have a current favorite, an old friend, or his secretary, twenty-six-year -old Charles Hartnett, set up a rendezvous with a potential lust interest in one of his “snuggeries,” usually at his studio apartment on Twenty-fourth Street or in the Tower studio at Madison Square Garden. Some of his accomplices were girls who had gotten too old—having passed eighteen; these were “innocent agents” who simply did his bidding, not realizing that they were helping usher the way for their own replacement. Others who worked on White’s behalf “may have been of a less innocent character,” Evelyn later surmised. Needless to say, White was anxious to keep his various “friends” “separate and distinct,” absurdly so it seemed to a naive Evelyn at first. Once, when he invited her to a luncheon at his Twenty-fourth Street studio, where a second girl would be waiting, White cautioned Evelyn in the cab not to let the girl know about his acquaintance with Edna Goodrich. Evelyn giggled and enjoyed the fact that she was chosen to be the keeper of his “silly secrets.” To Evelyn, her mother, and the wider audience, the little chorus girl was his unofficial ward and he her sainted patron.
As Evelyn would describe on the witness stand, “men like White, the baser White with which the world is better acquainted, reduce their methods to an exact science.” The formula never varied. With an appearance and manner that easily deceived them, Stanford White found easy pickings in young “peaches” and “tomatoes” eager to appear on the stage. He insinuated himself into their usually deprived lives, and engaged their mothers (those who had them) as willing or clueless conspirators. Setting himself up as benefactor and friend, White would eventually arrange a meeting out of the public eye. Even if by nature he was a kind man, th
e
Sixteen-year-old Evelyn wearing Stanny’s
gift of a Red Riding Hood cloak.
fatherly attitude White showed toward those he had “marked down” was, as Evelyn came to see, calculated. A later editorial from the Atlanta News that labeled him as monstrous libertine also described how this “brilliant architect . . . was relentless and irresistible in his organized and well-prepared search for the honor and virtue of the young uncorrupted girls of the great metropolis in which he lived.”
With Evelyn, White took the “shortest cut to [her] affections,” both of which were intimately tied to her abbreviated childhood. In addition to her unmistakable love of sweets and food in general, it had become a well-known joke among the theater crowd that “the Kid” loved automata, the mechanical toys she lingered over in the shop window below White’s apartment. So White furnished his life-sized dolly with a new toy each time she visited. She had her pick of anything she fancied in the FAO Schwarz window, an inoffensive and ironic front for White’s hideaway. Nor did her mother consider these relatively expensive gifts of toys as anything but paternal kindness.
During the first impulsive month when he was actively pursuing Evelyn, White revealed himself to her as a man of tremendous powers and capabilities, one of which, unbeknownst to her, was the ability to juggle the affections of numerous girls simultaneously. But as far as Evelyn was concerned, he was a unique man, “large and generous in his dealings with his fellows; brilliant as an artist and scholar; kindly to a degree in his relations to those who needed his kindness.” And in a culture where the norm regarding meals and food in general (even in 1901) was to “buy it, boil it, bolt it and beat it,” White was a connoisseur and gourmand of the “Continental model,” a man who took the act of eating as seriously as he did his art. With variety of taste and sensuous presentation as his foundation, White strove to make meals an aesthetic experience; whether it was teal and mallard or veal medallions and rack of lamb, his table was invariably a source of unending pleasure and an epicurean delight. It was a rule that applied to virtually everything in his life, especially his craving for mignon of a very particular type.
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