CHAPTER TWENTY

Jeremiah 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.

Alice 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.

Across 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.