Fortune's Rocks (45 page)
The lawyer takes his seat next to the Bolducs and then pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, as if he already knew the judge’s disposition.
“Motion to set aside the writ of habeas corpus denied,” says Judge Littlefield matter-of-factly, and Olympia understands that Sears’s speech was never intended to persuade the judge to dismiss the suit, but rather to put forth the arguments of the respondents. And this the lawyer has done, she has to concede in spite of her agitation, in rather excellent fashion.
Beside her, Tucker is standing.
“Your Honor,” he says. “I should like to call Olympia Biddeford to the stand.”
• • •
She and Tucker have agreed that she should dress conservatively, neither hiding her class and wealth nor flaunting them. To this end, Olympia has purchased a suit of charcoal gray gabardine, which she has on over a high-collared white blouse. With it, she has worn a matching hat, a black velvet tie, and small pearl earrings.
Tucker, without notes, stands up slowly and approaches her in the witness box.
“Miss Biddeford,” he says kindly and with a smile, which, though doubtless much rehearsed, puts her at ease, as it is meant to do. “How old are you?”
“Twenty years.”
“And you live where?”
“Fortune’s Rocks.”
“And prior to living at Fortune’s Rocks?”
“I was a student at the Hastings Seminary for Females in Fairbanks, Massachusetts,” she answers, making sure, as Tucker has advised, that the word
seminary
is emphasized.
seminary
is emphasized.
“For how long were you in residence at this seminary?”
“Three years.”
“And the purpose of this female academy?”
“To train young women so that they might be sent out to foreign lands for the purposes of teaching children and setting good examples of Christian womanhood.”
“And were you in agreement with the aims of this seminary?”
“I was not in disagreement,” she says carefully.
“You fully intended to be such a missionary yourself?” Tucker asks, emphasizing the word
missionary
.
missionary
.
“I assumed that was my future. Yes.”
“And how did you acquit yourself at this school?”
“I acquitted myself well, I trust.”
“Is it not a fact that you consistently ranked number one or number two in a class of two hundred and seventy young women?”
“Yes.”
“Is it not a fact that you could, if you so chose, accept a teaching position right now, without further schooling?”
“Yes,” she says. “I imagine I could.”
“Then tell the court why you have chosen not to do so at this moment.”
“I wish to have my son with me.”
There is a muffled gasp from Albertine Bolduc, who brings a gloved hand to her mouth. Her husband puts his arm around her shoulders.
“I think that we can safely say,” says Tucker, ignoring the small outburst, but looking pointedly at Sears, “that the staff of this religiously oriented seminary considered you neither wanton or lascivious nor depraved, vulgar, and vile.”
“Your Honor.” Addison Sears is on his feet. “Would you be so kind as to ask counsel for the relator to desist in this line of questioning, as the answer calls for conjecture on the part of the witness?”
“Mr. Tucker,” says the judge.
Tucker seems unruffled by the mild reproof. “Miss Biddeford, how do you support yourself?”
“I have money from my father.”
“Would it be correct to say that as far as the foreseeable future is concerned, money is not a subject you need worry about?”
“One always wishes to be prudent with money,” she says carefully, “but, yes, I think you could say that was true.”
“So that, if you were to receive custody of your son, you would not have to leave the house to go to work?”
“No, I would not.”
“And thus you could care for the young boy full-time?”
“Yes, I could.”
Tucker turns and glances at Albertine Bolduc, as if physically to point out the difference between his client and the Franco woman. He walks back to the table, where he briefly consults his notes.
“Miss Biddeford, I know that these are painful questions. But let us now go back to the day of the child’s birth.”
Olympia takes in a long, slow breath. No matter how many times she and Tucker have rehearsed these questions, they always make her anxious.
“Where did you give birth to the child?”
“In my bedroom in my father’s house in Boston.”
“And what day and time was this?”
“Two o’clock on the afternoon of April fourteenth,
1900
.”
1900
.”
“Was it a normal birth?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened immediately after this birth?”
“The boy was taken from me.”
“By whom?”
“I do not know. But I do know that it was upon the instructions of my father. I doubt, however, that he personally handled the child himself.”
“And why is it you do not know for certain who removed your child from your arms?”
“I had been given laudanum by my mother’s doctor.”
“This would be Dr. Ulysses Branch of Newbury Street in Boston.”
“Yes.”
“How much laudanum were you given?”
“I believe three spoonfuls.”
“So you were asleep.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember the boy at all?”
Not once during their informal rehearsals has Olympia been able to answer this question without her eyes welling up. “Yes,” she says as evenly as she can. “I remember some things. I was drifting in and out of consciousness.”
“Tell the court what you remember.”
“I was told the child was a boy. He was swaddled and laid beside me. I remember black spiky hair, beautiful eyes. . . .” She bites her lip.
“That is fine,” Tucker says quickly, having established his point. “Was it your desire that the child be taken from you at birth?”
“No.”
“Had you made your feelings on this subject clear?”
“Yes, I had spoken of this to my father.”
“And what did he say?”
“That he had made what he called ‘arrangements.’ And that if I kept the child, he would disown me.”
“But, Miss Biddeford, did you not care more about the child than about being disinherited?”
“Yes, I did care more about the child,” Olympia says with fervor. “But I reasoned that if I went against my father’s wishes, I would have no way to support myself and that I could not survive. And that if I did not survive, the child would not survive.”
“Miss Biddeford, tell the court why it is you have put forth your petition now, as opposed to, say, two years ago or one year ago.”
Olympia looks at Tucker and then takes in the entire courtroom before her — Judge Littlefield, the clerk, the bailiff, the Bolducs, Mr. Sears. What she says now, Tucker has told her, may be everything.
“My child was stolen from me,” Olympia says. “I have suffered greatly with this loss. I have thought about my son every single day since his birth and have wanted him with me. But until recently, I was not of an age nor was I in the proper circumstances to petition for the child’s return to me. Nor did I even know where he was, as this knowledge was kept from me all these years.”
Tucker nods encouragingly. And it occurs to Olympia then that something is profoundly missing from these proceedings. The boy himself. Her son. Though she would not wish him here, would not wish him to have to listen to any of this testimony, the event seems patently hollow without him.
“But I do not seek to have the child returned to me simply because I wish to have my ‘property’ restored,” Olympia says. “No, I believe that I shall be a good and loving mother for the boy, that I can offer the boy certain advantages in terms of comfort and education that are not normally available to all children.”
The intensity of Albertine Bolduc’s angry stare is almost more than Olympia can bear. She tries to focus only on Tucker’s face, his spectacles.
“Mr. Tucker, my heart aches for the loss of my son,” Olympia says with unfeigned passion. “Our separation has been unnatural and painful. I pray that the court will redress the terrible wrong that has been done both to me and to the boy and that we will one day be reunited, as God and Nature have meant us to be.”
Albertine Bolduc closes her eyes. Telesphore, who still has his arm around his wife, glares at Olympia with what can only be hatred. Tucker stands motionless, allowing Olympia’s words to settle over the courtroom.
“No further questions, Your Honor,” Tucker says, taking a seat.
And then Addison Sears is standing. “Your Honor, I have some questions I should like to put to the relator.”
“Yes, Mr. Sears, proceed.”
The portly Mr. Sears takes his time shuffling his notes as he approaches Olympia. It is so cold in the chamber that for a brief moment, Olympia can see the lawyer’s breath.
“Good morning, Miss Biddeford,” Sears says, not even looking at her, but rather at his notes.
“Good morning,” she says in a low voice.
Sears glances sharply up at her. “I think you will need to speak up, Miss Biddeford, or the court will not be able to hear you.”
And immediately, she understands that he is setting a pattern of scolding, of chastising the child. She raises her chin. “Good morning,” she repeats in a louder and clearer voice.
“Miss Biddeford, are you or have you ever been married?”
“No.”
“And if you were to receive custody of the boy, you would, of necessity, be forced to care for him as an unwed mother. Is this not true?”
“Yes,” she says simply.
“Miss Biddeford, you have told the court that before arriving at Fortune’s Rocks you were at school. But is it not true that directly before coming to Fortune’s Rocks, you were in fact in the employ of Averill Hardy of Tetbury, Massachusetts, and not, as you have said, at the Hastings School for Girls?”
The deliberate misnaming of the school is not lost on Olympia, nor, she imagines, on the judge. “Yes,” she says, “that is true. But as it was a summer work-study program administered by the Hastings Seminary for Females, it was considered part of my education at the seminary. It took place under the auspices of the staff there.”
“Yes, quite,” says Sears. “You were employed as governess to Mr. Hardy’s three sons, is that not correct?”
“Yes.”
“And is it not true that on twelve July of last year you abandoned this post? That you left these three boys without a tutor and did not even tell them you were leaving?”
“The circumstances were such that . . .”
“Did you not in fact leave Mr. Hardy’s employ under
suspicious
circumstances?”
suspicious
circumstances?”
“Your Honor.” Tucker is standing. “Mr. Sears is not allowing the witness to finish her answer.”
“Mr. Sears.”
Addison Sears makes a show of bowing slightly to the judge. When he turns back to Olympia, he is smiling. “I apologize for my small interruption, Miss Biddeford. Doubtless I am too eager to discover the truth. Please, by all means, finish your answer.”
But Olympia cannot finish her answer. For while Tucker and Sears have been sparring, the bailiff has responded to a knock on the courtroom door and has opened it. Phillip Biddeford, his overcoat dusted with snow, his bowler in his hand, stands at the threshold.
He seems flustered, disturbed by his surroundings, as if unable to read them immediately. And then he catches sight of his daughter in the witness box with the judge towering over her, and this sight must appear to him so unnatural, so wrong, that he pales and actually brings a hand to his chest. Olympia leans forward as if she would go to him, realizing only then how utterly confining the witness box is, a small and temporary prison. She cannot go to her father, nor can she even speak to him. And worse, she will have to continue to answer Sears’s hideous questions with her father in the room.
The bailiff leads Mr. Biddeford to a bench. Tucker, who has leaned around in his seat in an unsuccessful effort to signal to Biddeford, turns back again to Olympia.
But it is Sears who has the floor.
“Please, Miss Biddeford. I believe the question was: ‘Did you not abandon these three boys with no explanation and without even bidding them farewell?’”
Instinctively, Olympia reaches for the locket inside her blouse and touches it through the cloth. “Mr. Hardy made unwanted and improper advances toward me, and I thought it prudent, for my own personal safety, to leave at once. It was hardly a situation I could explain to Mr. Hardy’s three sons.”
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