The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [125]
Several hours later, a second telegram arrived, and as he read it his face changed. Looking suddenly “worn,” he rushed to catch the next train south.68 No word remains as to the text of the telegram, but it undoubtedly contained a gentler version of the news that Elliott had just given to Corinne at the door of 6 West Fifty-seventh Street: “There is a curse on this house. Mother is dying, and Alice is dying too.”69
WITH INEXORABLE SLOWNESS, the train crawled down the Hudson Valley into thickening fog. Even in clear weather, the 145-mile journey took five hours; it was anybody’s guess how long it would take on this murky evening. There was nothing Roosevelt could do but read and reread his two telegrams, and summon up all his self-discipline against that unmanly emotion, panic. Six years ago last Saturday he had taken another such express to New York, in response to another urgent telegram, and arrived to find his father dead.… For hour after hour the locomotive bell tolled mournfully in the distance ahead of him.70 It was about 10:30 P.M. when the train finally pulled into Grand Central Station. Roosevelt had to search out West Fifty-seventh Street by the light of lamps that “looked as though gray curtains had been drawn around them.”71 When he reached home the house was dark, except for a glare of gas on the third floor.
ALICE, DYING OF Bright’s disease, was already semicomatose as Roosevelt took her into his arms. She could scarcely recognize him, and for hours he sat holding her, in a vain effort to impart some of his own superabundant vitality. Meanwhile, on the floor below, Mittie was expiring with acute typhoid fever. The two women had become very close in recent years; now they were engaged in a grotesque race for death.
Bells down Fifth Avenue chimed midnight—St. Valentine’s Day at last—then one, then two. A message came from downstairs: if Theodore wished to say good-bye to his mother he must do so now. At three o’clock, Mittie died. She looked as beautiful as ever, with her “moonlight” complexion and ebony-black hair untouched by gray.72 Gazing down at her, Roosevelt echoed his brother’s words: “There is a curse on this house.”73 In bewildered agony of soul, he climbed back upstairs and again took Alice Lee into his arms.
Day dawned, but the fog outside grew ever thicker, and gaslight continued to burn in the Roosevelt mansion. About mid-morning, a sudden, violent rainfall miraculously cleared the air, and for five minutes the sun shone on muddy streets and streaming rooftops. The weather seemed about to break, but clouds closed over the city once more. By noon the temperature was 58 degrees, and the humidity grew intolerable. Then, slowly, the fog began to lift, and dry cold air blew in from the northeast. At two o’clock, Alice died.74
ROOSEVELT DREW a large cross in his diary for 14 February, 1884, and wrote beneath: “The light has gone out of my life.”
THAT EVENING, Cooper Union was packed with thousands of citizens supporting the “Roosevelt Bill,” whose passage through the Assembly had been postponed pending his return. Reporters noticed that the “more than usually intelligent audience” included, besides General Grant, ex-Mayor Grace, Professor Dwight, Elihu Root, Chauncey Depew, and two of Roosevelt’s uncles, James and Robert. The latter must have known about Theodore’s double tragedy, but they kept silent, for the news would not be announced until morning.
Although the real hero of the evening was not there, the hall resounded with cheers at the mention of his name. “Whatever Theodore Roosevelt undertakes,” declared Douglass Campbell, the keynote speaker, “he does earnestly, honestly, and fearlessly.” The resolution in support of the bill was approved by a tremendous, air-shaking shout of “AYE!”75
“SELDOM, IF EVER, has New York society received such a shock as yesterday in [these] sad and sudden deaths,” the World commented on 15 February. “The loss of his wife and mother in a single day is a terrible affliction,” agreed the Tribune,