Mark Twain's Other Woman by Laura Skandera Trombley

Author:Laura Skandera Trombley [Trombley, Laura Skandera]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-59325-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Mark Twain, Clara Clemens, and Marie Nichols at the piano, 1908

During the early months of 1908 Clara gave several performances in New York, one, as The New York Times reported, at the home of Dr. Edward Quintard, where she was accompanied, in addition to Wark on the piano, by Miss Lillian Littlehales on the cello. By spring Clara and Wark were full of plans for a European tour. On May 16, 1908, Clara, along with Wark and Marie Nichols, a Boston violinist, sailed from New York on the Caronia bound for England. Over the summer, both Clara and Wark would regularly send ebullient letters to Isabel, assuring her of their musical success while simultaneously asking for additional funds. Shortly after the trio had arrived in England, Isabel received notification from the bank that “the fourth letter of credit for Miss Clara Clemens” had been issued in response to her request.

Clara made her English singing début in early June at Queen’s Hall and Bechstein Hall, now known as Wigmore Hall. Wark wrote a chummy letter to Isabel at the end of the month from the Grand Hotel in Broadstairs, Kent, using the nickname the two had bestowed upon her, Nana. He explained that his exhausted songbird had spent the past week in Kent recovering from her recital. Wark informed Isabel that he and Clara were planning to travel to France “very soon” because “London is more than expensive.” The two would “settle down in some cheap country place (probably Barbizon) in about two weeks.” He noted that Clara’s weekly expenses averaged approximately twenty-two pounds, and he asked Isabel to “please tell me frankly if you think Clara is spending too much.” Before closing, Wark excitedly noted that a concert was being planned near London the following year, “on shares so that Clara won’t be under any expense,” and that the two of them missed “Nana” terribly “and would give anything to have you here—several times a day one of us will say, ‘Now I’m sure Nana would like this place or Nana would like that’—or ‘Nana must have some of these cigarettes.’”

Wark was ideally suited to attend to a woman of Clara’s enormous emotional needs. Indeed, a newspaper profile later underscored his sympathetic playing, reflecting his accommodating personality:

He understands perfectly how best to accompany the prima donna. He knows what volume is required, what shading is desirable, how much of it, and he follows every motion of the singer to detect her next requirement in the manner of piano support. He not only knows these things, but he does them. That is why he is such an excellent accompanist.

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