CHAPTER NINETEEN

Tilda was to be buried next to Lovey; that was the consensus. It was fitting, Alice thought, as she stood by the open grave, staring down on the slowly lowering coffin. She was here this time; she had to be. Great piles of rich dark loam lined the edges of the open hole, only a few feet from the curved mound that marked Lovey’s final resting place. Two workmen, standing discreetly back from the small cluster of people around the grave, rested on shovels, waiting for the signal to do their job. An uncomfortable-looking Episcopal minister—recruited by Samuel—hurried through a short service, avoiding the eyes of everyone. Benjamin Stanhope was there, his head bowed over a closed, shabby Bible.

Alice looked around. Jane, Delia, Mary-o, and a sprinkling of others from Boott Hall were here, though none had been excused from the looms. It didn’t seem to matter right now. And what later she would remember, the sound destined to stay in her head and heart, was that coming from the billowing figure of Mrs. Holloway. She was crying openly, wiping her eyes with a kitchen napkin snatched from today’s breakfast table—a lonely, tired sound that served as a sorrowing lament for them all.

The coffin was in the grave. Alice turned away, unwilling to watch the workers shoveling dirt over it, and only then saw another mourner standing back from the group. She stopped in surprise at the sight of Hattie Button.

“I thank you for coming,” she said, reaching out a hand.

“I did it for myself,” Hattie said. She did not take Alice’s hand, choosing instead to tightly cross her arms in front of her chest. “She was the best of all of you, in my opinion.”

“I won’t argue it,” Alice said. She was too tired for anger, for indignation, for any sharp retort or response. “Where are you now, Hattie?”

“I would’ve thought you’d be among the first to know. I’ve been sacked, of course.” The girl’s face looked worn and bitter, her thin lips almost blue.

“Why?”

“Look at that one over there.” Hattie nodded in the direction of Samuel, who had taken Mrs. Holloway’s arm to help her back to the carriage. “Ask him, he knows. I’ll tell you, it doesn’t pay to cross the Fiskes. You’re fooling yourself if you think Samuel Fiske cares about you at all. He’s not an honest man, and he’ll abandon you in a minute to save his brother. I’m telling you, if anybody killed that Cornell girl, it was Jonathan Fiske.” She gave a tired smirk. “Your beau is out to save his own kind. And himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“People wouldn’t like hearing about his fooling around with you; he’s supposed to be the good one. We’ve got them both.”

“We?”

“I warned you; you didn’t listen. If the prosecution tries to call his brother as a witness, we’ll be ready.” She glanced in Samuel’s direction. “I’d like to hear what he has to say to you today.”

“You’ve been working for the defense all along.”

“Of course. Good-bye, Alice.” She turned to walk away and stopped, turning back. “I’ve got something for you,” she said. She dug into her pocket and took out two objects, soft and familiar.

Alice gasped. Lovey’s gray leather gloves.

“Yes, I took them off her coffin. She didn’t need them anymore, and I wanted to try them on, to know how they felt. It was like—like being trapped in rubber, tight rubber. The feel of them made me choke. Not for me, I know my place.” She stared directly into Alice’s eyes. “I don’t think you know yours. You think Samuel Fiske is your ladder up? Think again. Old Hiram will never tolerate that. Then again, maybe you’ll reach the top and feel trapped, that’s it. Tight, no way to breathe. Don’t you understand? We have to stand with our own kind.”

Her torrent of words paused. She took a deep breath and continued. “Alice, you’re going to have to choose. You can’t not want to avenge Tilda, can you? The Fiskes killed her.” She seemed to waver, her slight figure blown by a sudden gust of wind. “I can’t say I wish you well, but I’ll give you fair warning—best for all of you to watch your tongues. No one around here can say what they think anymore.”

Hattie turned away again and trudged off, but not before Alice saw her shoulders heave and heard a familiar cough. It chilled her heart even as she curled her fingers around the softness of the gloves.

“I have something to tell you, and it is not good,” Samuel said slowly. They were walking together toward the carriages by the road, the soft, damp grass of the cemetery yielding beneath their feet.

She steeled herself.

“Jonathan won’t be testifying he saw Avery and Lovey together. My father won’t allow it.” He pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, looking down at the grass.

Two steps, three. He stared at her shoes keeping steps with his own, at their worn brass buckles, which looked to be hand polished by someone who cared. He noted that her feet were small. She stopped, her feet sinking deeper into the wet sod.

“Allow?”

With effort he looked up. “He says bringing Jonathan into it now will ignite the unrest at the mill. The family will be dragged into the trial, and Mason will pile on as much innuendo as he possibly can. Our reputation will be jeopardized.”

“By the truth? Do you agree?”

“No, of course not,” he protested. “You know who I am. We’re not in peril.” The rest was hard to get past the lump of fury in his throat. “There’s more. Greene had waiting a deposition from a chicken farmer who saw the three of them that day. He recognized Jonathan and saw him walk away from Lovey and Avery. It would have corroborated Jonathan’s story. Damn it all, it could have sealed the case.”

Her face went blank with shock as his anger spilled out.

“They had that deposition all along, and they’re not using it? Is this why the prosecution rested early?”

There were no words to explain; he searched for them, but there were no words. “My father is a powerful man, and I’m not denying his influence,” he said.

“So everything was decided by Hiram Fiske?”

“Alice, what can I tell you? I did not know this, believe me—but the answer is yes.”

“So why aren’t you fighting back?” she said, suddenly furious. More than furious, frightened—remembering Hattie’s parting words.

“I’m trying.” There was no use telling her he had battled with his father. Or that he had confronted Albert Greene, demanding he find a way to call the chicken farmer to the stand, to no avail. Or that he had actually hunted down Turnbull and urged the frightened chicken farmer to step forward and speak up. It was hopeless. Hiram Fiske had reached him first. Legally, his hands were tied. There was nothing else he could do.

“You mean, you won’t!”

Her voice sliced deep into his chest. “I don’t run the mill,” he said. “My father does.”

“Don’t give me such nonsense, you are part of it all, surely you could have fought back,” she lashed out. “So you’re telling me a witness could have confirmed your brother’s story, but your father actually cares so little about the truth he didn’t allow it?”

“We haven’t lost yet; we can still win this case.”

Alice paid him no heed. “Ah, and what happens to the people—the so-called rumormongers—who knew Jonathan was involved?”

“They lose their jobs.” He stared at his shoes sinking into the wet turf.

She nodded in the direction of Hattie Button’s disappearing figure. “Like that girl, right?”

“She was one of the people passing rumors and whipping up the mill workers.” He paused at the sight of Alice’s disdainful eyes.

“And poor and in need of a job to boot. Her crime was criticizing the Fiskes.”

What could he say? He wanted to shout out, I’m sorry, it was despicable. He wanted to vomit out the arrogance and power he had lived with so blindly all his life. But he was a Fiske, and he was caught.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s wrong, it’s stupid.” He stopped, balling his hand into a fist, hitting it against a tree.

Alice stood and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. She looked at him coldly.

She was dissecting him, that’s what she was doing, he realized. And he had no way to hold back her knife.

“Then I shall say good-bye.” She turned and walked away.

There was no moon that night, but Alice settled onto the steps anyway, tightening herself into a ball, trying to hold in her anguish. She fingered her mother’s cameo, worn today to Tilda’s funeral. She traced the line of the delicate profile of her mother, knowing it by heart. But it was futile; there was little comfort in memories tonight.

Samuel, I thought you were so much more. The man who had kissed her had disappeared; reverted to form. Alice pushed back her tears. He lived in a safe world where there was no disaster that couldn’t be avoided or deflected. He was alien to her, that was the truth, and to have begun to think differently was foolish. The air was still; the earth smelled sweet and dry. Her face was not.

The next morning in court Jeremiah Mason was in fine fettle, clearly smelling victory for the defense somewhere just around the corner.

“Your Honor, and gentlemen of the jury”—Mason bowed low as he began to speak—“my job here is to lay bare the prejudices of the prosecution’s witnesses, that lame, straggly line of misguided souls you were forced to listen to for all these many days.” He rolled his eyes, eliciting grins from three jurors. The legal clerk, a short man in owlish glasses, briefly glanced up, then went back to reading a copy of the Methodists’ pamphlet defending Avery.

“Now we’ve got people swearing they saw the Reverend Avery, almost sure of it,” said Mason. “Well, they qualify it a little; they think he was the man they saw near the site of this woman’s unfortunate—and self-inflicted—death. But none can say so indisputably.” He glared at the prosecution table. His cold smile promised a long session.

Over the course of the day, five doctors took their turns in the witness chair, each testifying identically. The fetus found in the autopsy was too far advanced to have been produced at any of the times when Lovey supposedly knew Avery. Well, yes, it was true no one really knew what was a standard length, one admitted on cross-examination. “We’d have to peek into a lot of bellies for that information,” he said jovially, sending a nervous wave of titters through the jurors’ box. Mason smiled comfortably, noting that the doctor who had performed the autopsy, an older man named Benjamin Stanhope—employed by the Fiskes, of course—was recruited hastily for the job and was quite lacking in experience, one might say. “Wouldn’t you put less confidence in the quality of work performed by such a man?” he asked.

“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.

Samuel 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.

Samuel 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.

Gertrude 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.”