The Daring Ladies of Lowell (25 page)

“Objection,” shouted Greene.

“Objection sustained,” Chief Justice Eddy snapped.

But those in the jury box had heard, and the answer Mason wanted settled snugly over their shoulders, though none were aware of its presence.

By lunchtime, a heavy torpor began descending over the crowded courtroom. Yawns, stretches. Each doctor was saying about the same thing; once you’d heard one, you’d heard them all, a few people murmured to one another. As for the jurors, Alice was sure they were hardly listening.

After the courtroom refilled for the afternoon session, the thrust of the testimony began to shift away from the presence or absence of forensic evidence. Instead, witness after witness began offering stories about Lovey’s reckless behavior.

“I saw her going to the privy once with a towel, and I knew what she was planning to do,” said Asaneth Bowen, who claimed she had worked with Lovey in the Fall River mill.

“And what was that?” purred Jeremiah Mason.

“To kill herself, that’s what. Her eyes were too fiery, red, even. A naughty, reckless type, that’s what she was.”

“Objection!” Greene rose to his feet.

“Sustained.” The judge sighed.

But the testimony was relentless.

“Her language was different from any I had heard from a female,” testified a mill foreman from New Hampshire. “Coarse, in my opinion. I began to be inclined to suspect she was partially insane.”

One more, another—finally, six witnesses, all swearing they knew Lovey Cornell. And, of course, coincidentally, they were all Methodists. And none worked for the Lowell mill.

Alice lowered her head, swallowed by weariness. As far as Jeremiah Mason was concerned, it wasn’t Avery who was on trial anymore; it was Lovey Cornell. And that apparently was fine with Samuel. Oh, he was there during the morning session, sitting next to his father near the front, his fine, strong profile an arresting sight, the image of integrity. Once she had seen him quickly scan the room, looking for her. Their eyes had met; she had not blinked. His face unreadable, he had looked away. He disappeared before the afternoon testimony.

Tears slowly rolled down her cheeks. To admit it was hard, but Hattie was right.

S
amuel slumped down into the carriage waiting for him outside the courthouse, instructing the driver to use as much haste as possible to get to Boston. Hiram could bear witness alone for the rest of the day; he couldn’t stomach the charade. Hiram didn’t care if Lovey ended up being the one “convicted” here, even if the image of the Lowell mill would suffer. He’d ride that one out, or at least he thought he could. But to fight to convict a man guilty of murdering a helpless girl? Not if it collided with his self-interest.

Samuel stared out the window as the carriage clattered out of Lowell, noting the flower baskets just installed—at his father’s directive—on each lamppost. Grace notes, Hiram liked grace notes. The town he had built must look proper and vibrant, must reflect his will, his vision, no matter what realities intruded. But even now, in the middle of the day, he could see a small cluster of men on the steps of the Lowell Bank: hands in pockets, caps pulled low, talking, arguing. News of Tilda’s death was everywhere; one more girl dead from inhaling cotton. Was his father blind to the mill workers’ anger?

A shout—and a thud as something hit against the side of the carriage.

“Sit back, Mr. Fiske,” yelled the driver, whipping his horses. “That was a rock thrown by the men from the mill. They’re throwing ’em at the Methodists and throwing ’em at you, why can’t they make up their minds?”

“They will,” he replied. He hated the image of himself, crouching down, hiding from the people who had made the family’s fortune, with nothing he could do about it. Nothing at all.

He thought of Alice. That steady, cold look on her face last night. He had put it there, and he feared there would be no erasing it.

The wheels caught sparks of light from the afternoon sun as the carriage clattered on, bouncing over rocks, twisting around corners, bearing him back home.

There was only one person he could talk to about this. He hoped she would be awake when they reached Beacon Hill.

S
amuel rushed through the door of the Fiske mansion, peeling off his gloves as he started up the stairs. It was late.

“Can I get you some tea, Mr. Fiske?” a flustered maid at the bottom of the stairs said, obviously surprised at his arrival.

He stopped and turned around. “No, thank you,” he said distractedly.

“Some dinner, then?”

He looked at the girl, observing her worried frown. Her duty was to cater to his every whim, something he had spent his life taking for granted.

“No, Isabelle, I’m fine,” he said.

She bobbed her head, relieved, and disappeared, probably into the kitchen at the back of the house.

Samuel started back up the stairs, but something made him stop and gaze with fresh eyes at his surroundings. The flickering gaslight in the front hall added a deep glow to the gold frame holding the portrait of his grandfather. His eyes traveled to the ponderous chandelier above his head, noticing how the reflected light danced on each drop of crystal, burnishing everything in the hall—the crimson carpet beneath his feet, the gleaming pendulum swinging sedately inside his mother’s old clock—all of which he took for granted.

What had all this looked like to Alice when she first mounted these steps? From his vantage point, he could see into the library, where the flickering gaslight illuminated the gold-leafed leather volumes that lined the glass-enclosed bookshelves. What had she thought when she saw those books? Had she marveled at the richness of knowledge—which he also took for granted—inside their pages? Had she thought of how inaccessible they were to her?

He steadied himself against the banister. What a difference there was in their lives. An enormous gulf separated them. Saddened, he proceeded up the stairs.

G
ertrude Fiske, a mohair shawl tucked around her shoulders, lay in her bed on an exuberance of plumped-up pillows, a book, open but unheeded, in her lap. She looked up as Samuel walked into the room.

“Daisy told me what happened,” she said, squinting through a pair of lopsided glasses. “Poor girl, such a fragile teacup—came back this morning and couldn’t stop crying. Thinks it’s Armageddon. Sounds like you tried to do the right thing, Samuel. Now what?”

He sat down heavily. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You’re the heir apparent to the Fiske dynasty—impressive role, isn’t it?” A little of her natural humor had crept into her voice.

And he was finally able to say it. “I don’t belong here anymore,” he said.

“My dear Samuel, in some ways, you never have,” she said softly. “Neither have I. The difference is, you can do something about it.”

He looked closely at her, wondering why it was so easy for all to dismiss her as a placid old lady; nothing else, no spark of rebellion. But it was there; he could see it lurking in her eyes and found himself wishing he could bring forth from her the fire of the woman she once was.

“Do you feel trapped?” he blurted, immediately astonished by his own question.

“Sometimes.” She didn’t seem surprised. “Oh, your grandfather was a dashing, hard-driving man, and I loved him. He was an innovator. Nothing excited him more than trying something new.” She smiled a bit sadly. “Hiram was born with his father’s drive. Watching him and his partners plan the Lowell mill, using Francis Cabot Lowell’s drawings from England—all drawn from memory, what a feat that was. Then putting it together so the whole thing
worked
—those were wonderful times. We took chances. That’s what’s gone now. Among other things.”

He checked himself, rolling over the as-yet unspoken words of anger in his head. “Grandmother—” He stopped.

“It’s all right, Samuel.” She squeezed his hand. Her fingers felt like soft silk. “I know you are furious with your father. My poor Hiram, he lost himself somewhere.” She sighed. “He enjoys too much the ability to make others do his bidding.”

“Without acknowledging he could at times be wrong,” his son said softly.

She smiled again. “He keeps us all in fancy lace and polished shoes, doesn’t he? But he never understood the joy there was for his father and me in the
act
of toiling upward. He just wanted to be at the top and stay there.” She struggled to pull herself up on her elbows. “Samuel, you and your brother and sister will see change—oh, my goodness, it is coming. I wish I knew how to get Hiram to pay attention.”

“What can I do? What can I say to get him to understand?” He didn’t try to mask the bleakness in his voice.

“What does your young mill girl say?”

“She knows we’re not going to fight for a conviction. She knows the Fiskes care only about themselves.” He rubbed his face, trying to ease the tension. “She sees me as a coward.”

“You are not a coward, Samuel.”

“Then what am I?”

Gertrude Fiske mustered a smile. “You are a good man, and you will find a way to prove that to yourself—and move on from there.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, I’m here to mop up the pieces.” A flash in her eyes—of what? Sadness? “Not much of a role, when all is said and done. But I’m a tidy sort, dear.”

J
eremiah Mason was taking nothing for granted. For the next several days, he fought back ferociously against Greene’s various sly ploys to link Avery with the unsigned letters in Lovey’s trunk. They meant nothing. She was a crafty girl, out to die in such a way that Avery would be ruined, Mason said. “Would she manufacture evidence? Yes!” he said, facing the jury, arms spread wide. “And would she commit suicide? Of course; suicide is so common a termination of their careers that it may almost be termed
the natural death of the prostitute.
”

Those words soaked deep into Alice’s heart. She scanned the faces of the jurors; none looked shocked. Nobody leaned forward, eyes narrowing, mouth tight, disapproving. No objection from Greene. No mutters from the crowd. No reaction from Hiram Fiske in his seat at the front of the courtroom. No Samuel at all. She looked at the confidently swaggering Mason pacing back and forth, sharing with all the respectable citizens of Lowell his declaration about “fallen” women. Witness after witness, climbing on and off the witness stand, agreeing with him. Winks, sly remarks, muffled chortles. And by day’s end, she felt beyond a doubt that there was a current, deep and dangerous, taking not only Lovey but women like herself ever farther from a dwindling shore.

Alice sank into her seat, on the edge of despair. Just for an instant, no more. Then she straightened her spine and pulled herself up. It wasn’t over; she had to remember that.

A
lice joined the crowd pushing outward, trying to shape in her mind the report she would give of this harsh day to the others at dinnertime. She could hear shouting even before the heavy wood doors of the courthouse swung open.

“Rabble,” muttered a cleric squeezing forward on her right. “They’ll use any excuse to get us.”

“People are throwing rocks, mind your heads,” somebody cried out.

The crowd surged, this time taking Alice out the door. A rock flew by, almost hitting the cleric next to her. He swore and shook his fist at a pale young man with waxen cheeks. Alice recognized the rock thrower as one of the mill workers who hauled in the cotton off the wagons.

“We know what goes on at those campsites of yours,” the young man shouted. “You pretend to be men of God, but you’re seducing women, that’s what’s happening. It’s debauchery!”

He had barely finished shouting when a policeman grabbed him by the shoulders and hustled him away.

“Good riddance, and a pox on both sides. Mercy, I hope this trial ends soon.” The speaker was the wife of an Episcopal deacon whom Alice had seen frequently on Sundays at Saint Anne’s. She was fanning herself vigorously, as if trying to clear all unpleasantness from the air, at least any that might attach to her. When she realized she had been talking to a mill girl, she moved quickly away.

“I
don’t know if I can keep going to the courthouse,” Alice said to her friends at dinner. “It isn’t the fighting outside, it’s the trial itself.”

“That foul little Jeremiah Mason should have his license taken away,” Mrs. Holloway said, slapping an extra plate of fresh bread and butter on the table. “No one else there represents us. Now eat, you need strength.”

“‘Suicide…the natural death of the prostitute’?” Ellie said slowly in a thin, high voice. “He said that?”

It was easy to forget the presence of this child, and yet her tiny, heart-shaped face was a constant in Boott Hall. She rarely had much to say, sometimes bouncing restlessly next to her mother when the conversation got hard to follow. At times like those, she would remove whatever scrap of ribbon or bright yarn held her hair and carefully rebraid, pulling it tight, retying her ribbon, and then—often secretively—begin chewing on the ends. Delia, without even looking at her, would press her arm, and Ellie would dutifully stop. But she always listened.

They all paused. Indeed, Ellie’s eyes had seemed to reflect less wonder lately, the natural loss of childhood, no doubt. That was a sad thought, but did that perhaps make her less vulnerable? Was that good or bad? Alice didn’t know.

Delia instinctively drew her daughter close, but Ellie, gently, resisted. “I know what he’s saying, Mama. He’s a stupid old man.”

The girls exchanged weary smiles.

“Where is Mr. Fiske?” Ellie asked of Alice. “Is he still our friend?”

The child’s question hung in the air. Alice felt rather than saw the instant wariness of her friends around the table. They had not probed; no one had pushed to know more about her relationship with Samuel. Their undeclared loyalty was comforting, but they knew the rumors about Jonathan. Yet she couldn’t decide what more to tell them. There was their safety to consider, for Hattie’s words replayed insistently in her brain. Hiram Fiske was a hard man, and if he said those who talked about his son’s involvement would be sacked, he meant it. And Samuel? If he didn’t have the grit to stand up against such a harsh dictum, then he wouldn’t save the jobs of anybody at Boott Hall, hers included.

“I don’t think he will be around here anymore,” she said.

A small sigh from Ellie’s lips. “He doesn’t believe what Mr. Mason said, does he?”

“No,” Alice answered. She rested her right hand on the table, feeling the scratchy surface of the cracked oilcloth beneath, and stared down at the pattern of bright oranges and reds. Mrs. Holloway silently buttered a piece of bread and handed it to her, but she couldn’t quite move to pick it up. The rest of the dining hall had returned to its normal cheerful buzz of gossip, with occasional curious glances in the direction of the four girls and a child who huddled now each day in their own island of grief. They were alone.

No, Samuel didn’t believe Mason’s venom. Alice could say that much for him.

A
cross town, in the Fiske family suite tucked away in the Lowell Inn, Hiram sat with a glass of whiskey, swirling it slowly, not drinking. Directly opposite him sat Albert Greene, also cradling a glass, but his was almost empty. Standing back from them both, hands deep in his pockets, was Samuel.

“So my son has been not only arguing with you and his brother but trying to collar that chicken farmer and get him on the stand,” Hiram said lazily, flicking a glance at Samuel. “Ungrateful progeny, got any of those yourself, Albert?”

Greene stirred uncomfortably but only muttered a vague reply.

“You would talk of me as a balky child?” Samuel said evenly. “You miss what is at stake, Father.”

“And what is that, Samuel?”

“You have chosen to subvert the truth.” He turned and looked at Greene. “Something I would think you, sir, would find unacceptable. But apparently not.”

Greene flushed, his hand unsteady as he lifted his glass to drink.

“Are we going to fight over this again?” Hiram shot back.

“It isn’t over, Father.”

“Oh, yes, it is. There’s nothing you can do, so you might as well focus with us on the rest of our case.” Hiram turned to Greene. “What more does Mason have?” he asked.

“More of the same, enough to confuse the jury, which is of course his intent.”

“This should have been an easy case using the available evidence.”

“We were getting there, Hiram.” Greene’s tone was nonaccusatory, but Samuel saw his father’s eyes narrow. “And I haven’t given up.”

“It’s going on too long; I want it concluded. Too much unrest.”

“Then your man is Jeremiah Mason. He’s holding the cards right now.” Greene tossed back his last swallow of whiskey. “‘Suicide…the natural death of the prostitute’? Mason gets off some wild charges, but that one is particularly memorable.”

Hiram shrugged, managing to make it a faint gesture of regret. “We need to work at not letting our emotions get too involved.”

“Nothing wrong with a little disgust now and then.”

Hiram abruptly turned to Samuel and asked, “What are you hearing from your pretty little friend at Boott Hall?”

Ah, a lighter conversation was being proposed. Greene perked up: perhaps a bit of male banter lay ahead.

Samuel saw the expectation in his father’s eyes; it was time for a change of mood, and it was his job to provide it, to engage in one of those effortless changes of subject that his family did so smoothly. Another set of marching orders.

Samuel could say nothing. He walked to the door, pulled it open, and left the room.

“My son’s a bit of a brooder,” he heard Hiram say with a sharp laugh.