Pilfered Promises

by M. Louisa Locke

  “Yes, some lovely silver fox capes. I was quite upset since this next month is the peak buying season for furs. They are in high demand as Christmas gifts.”

  Annie nodded as if she could imagine any such thing…when her own finances didn’t even include replacing her navy wool coat, which was showing distinct signs of wear. “I gathered from Mr. Gower that he has also had some difficulty with missing items.”

  “Oh, old Gower. He was probably so busy bending some poor customer’s ear about his superior line of ovens he just forgot to put in the necessary order and needed to blame someone to cover up his mistake.”

  Robbie Livingston halted and said, “Please, Mrs. Dawson, forget I said that. My father thinks the world of Gower…but Father doesn’t have to listen to him pontificate all day long on the intricacies of modern kitchen equipment.”

  “I can understand why that might become tedious,” Annie responded. “But do you think there is anything to his complaint about some mismanagement in how goods are received and stored?”

  “Oh that’s just Gower’s on-going feud with Flanagan…another of Father’s favorites. You put an old German together with an Irishman, and you’ve got problems. Gower is all about efficiency….and well…Flanagan and his crew are more about getting the job done…in their own time.”

  “But what about the furs?” Annie thought it odd that he seemed to be siding with the workers down in receiving rather than a fellow manager.

  “Oh, the furs turned up the next morning. The box containing them just hadn’t been processed yet. So the mystery was solved.”

  Chapter 9

  “Judge Sullivan yesterday granted Patience O’Hara a divorce from James O’Hara, on the ground of his extreme cruelty.”––San Francisco Chronicle August 12, 1880

  Wednesday afternoon, November 24, 1880

  “Annie, is that you?” Nate leaped up and went into the front hallway where his wife was hanging up her wet umbrella and coat on the hall stand.

  “What are you doing home so early? Not that I mind.” Looking over at him, she said, “Sweetheart, what’s the matter?”

  She always knew when he was upset, always came up with something to help, which was why he’d come straight home rather than go back to the law office. He pulled her into the small parlor they shared as an office now that they were married, saying, “The case…something happened this morning. Poor Mrs. Inglenook. And I don’t know what to do. Cranston is out of the city visiting family for the holiday, and this really isn’t in my uncle’s area of expertise. He didn’t want me to take the case…and now I am wondering if he was correct.”

  He knew he was babbling, so he stopped.

  Annie took off her hat and walked over to the fireplace to put it on the mantel, saying, “Let me go down to the kitchen to see if there is anything Beatrice needs from me right away. I will ask her to send Kathleen or Tilly up with a nice pot of hot tea and some sandwiches. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I suspect you haven’t either. Then you will tell me everything, and we will get it sorted out.”

  After giving him a swift kiss, she left and he could feel his heart rate begin to slow…finally. He didn’t know that he’d ever felt quite so panicked since he started practicing law seven years ago. Of course, until recently the law he had practiced was mostly writing up unexciting deeds of property, wills, and trusts. He had only started doing trial work when his Uncle Frank brought Able Cranston into the law firm last year, and then most of the time he acted as co-counsel under Cranston. This was his first divorce case, and, instead of a jury, he needed to persuade a single judge to side with his client. And even though the laws governing divorce in California were some of the most liberal in the nation, Judge Simmons was not known to be particularly sympathetic to women.

  Nevertheless, he felt he’d been doing a good job. Friday morning, the St. Joseph’s parish curate testified on Mrs. Inglenook’s behalf, and he was the perfect witness. He answered Nate’s questions in a clear voice, didn’t digress, and didn’t budge when the husband’s lawyer, Knudson, tried to fluster him. Instead, he stuck to his narrative that he knew of Mrs. Inglenook’s growing distress over the way her husband was treating her, that she’d followed all his advice to try and restore harmony to the marriage, and that it was only when she feared for her life that she finally left, coming immediately to St. Joseph’s for refuge. He supported the servant’s testimony, saying that the night she came to the church, he’d seen bruises around her neck.

  Following Cranston’s advice, Nate didn’t call Mrs. Inglenook to the stand. The senior partner said that Judge Simmons tended to discount a wife’s versions of events and that it wasn’t worth the risk of subjecting her to cross examination. He’d said, “No need to remind him of the obvious inferiority of the wife’s background, which is what the opposing counsel, Knudson, will stress. And Simmons dislikes women who cry…and there are so few women who can take verbal attacks by lawyers without waterworks, so this would just prejudice him against her further.”

  Nate had expected the testimony Monday and Tuesday to be difficult, since it was now the defense counsel’s turn. Consequently, he wasn’t surprised when a series of men of wealth and respectability took the stand to say that Inglenook was one of the most upright and honorable men they’d ever known. They made him sound like a saint when they’d gotten through with him. Most of them also implied that they felt Inglenook had made a mistake in marrying beneath him and were not surprised that the marriage was ending in failure…although they were quite sure it was the wife’s fault.

  But Nate thought he’d successfully weakened their testimony during his cross examination. When he asked them about whether Inglenook had a reputation for being a hard-nosed businessman…getting the best of any competitors…they’d vigorously assented, coming up with examples of his ruthlessness. Then Nate asked the two of the men who attended dinner parties at the Inglenook home if they thought the wife was flirtatious. They both said that she wasn’t…that she’d been quite the opposite. They used words like mousey, tongue-tied, awkward, clumsy. Clearly they saw this as a chance to elaborate on their belief that her inferior background made her unfit to be their friend’s wife. Since both the servant and the neighbor had testified that they’d heard Inglenook berate his wife about how she’d flirted with this man or that, Nate hoped the defense witnesses’ descriptions of her as anything but flirtatious would reinforce the case he was building, that Inglenook was a man of unreasonable jealousy regarding his wife.

  As a result, he’d entered the courtroom this morning expecting that he and the other counsel would be giving their closing arguments and feeling confident that he had a good chance of winning the case.

  Pride goeth before a fall.

  He hated the thought of failing poor Mrs. Inglenook, but he also couldn’t help but worry about what the loss of this case might do to his future income––income he needed to support his wife and the children they hoped to have someday.

  “Tilly will be right up with the tea tray; I brought the sandwiches myself,” Annie said as she appeared in the parlor doorway, carrying two plates stacked with ham sandwiches, cucumber pickles, and his favorite cookies.

  Nate jumped up and took the plates from her. “Can they spare you?”

  “Absolutely. Beatrice has everything well under control, including your sister Laura and her friend Kitty, whose afternoon classes at the university were canceled for the holiday. Beatrice put them to work cutting up the dried fruit for the mincemeat pies, although I think most of the raisins are going into Laura’s mouth. Kathleen and Tilly are working away at plucking the turkey…which is huge! Dandy is helping by keeping scraps off the floor, and Queenie the cat is hissing at everyone for disturbing her usual afternoon nap. I think the best assistance I can give Beatrice is to stay out of her way. Now tell me what has happened to shake your equanimity so?”

  And there it was, her ability to insert that note of humor that reminded him that no matter what the crisis, life
and laughter would go on, and whatever the problem, they would solve it together.

  As they ate and drank their tea, he told her about how Knudson, the opposing counsel, had introduced a surprise witness to testify on Inglenook’s behalf. “You aren’t supposed to do this without notifying the other lawyer, but he said he’d not known about the individual until last night. Judge Simmons, who was anxious to wrap the case up today, let him call the witness.”

  “Who was it?”

  “A man named Stephan O’Grady, who said he was Mrs. Inglenook’s brother.”

  “And he was testifying on behalf of the husband?”

  “Even worse. He said that his sister and her lover had planned from the beginning of the marriage to take Inglenook for all he was worth…waiting until there were children to act as leverage to get the most out of any divorce. He said he came forward and contacted Inglenook when he heard about the divorce because he just didn’t think it was right. Said he worried about the children if she won custody because she was an unfit mother.”

  “Oh Nate, surely all that is a lie. What did you do?”

  “I immediately asked the judge for a recess so I could talk to my client, who had dissolved in tears beside me. Not the most favorable impression to leave with the judge, I might add.”

  Nate described how it had taken a good half hour to get Mrs. Inglenook to calm down enough to answer his questions coherently. “She said that O’Grady was her half-brother, the son of her father’s first wife. She kept saying he was ‘a bad man’ and that one of the reasons she’d married Mr. Inglenook was to get away from him. She also said she had not spoken to him since her marriage and that her husband knew how much she despised O’Grady.”

  Nate, remembering how his client had picked at her hands compulsively while she confided in him, told Annie that he wondered if O’Grady had abused Mrs. Inglenook in some fashion. He kicked himself for not having spent more time questioning her about her history before her marriage. Then he might have been prepared for something like this to happen.

  “Did the man seem believable?” Annie asked. “And are there any other family members you could call on to counteract his testimony? Or neighbors from when they were growing up?”

  “Her older sister married years ago and left the state, and her father died last year. Tracking down the neighbors would be a good idea. But she grew up in Sacramento, where she met Inglenook and where O’Grady supposedly has been living. I tried to get Simmons to postpone until next week, but he said I had until Friday. Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, that is like giving me no time at all. And if I can’t come up with someone else who can testify to this O’Grady’s bad character by then, I might have to call Mrs. Inglenook to the stand.”

  “Oh no. I know you didn’t want to do that.”

  Nate thought about how the half-brother had sounded so plausible as he told the lawyer Knudson that he hated having to testify against his sister. “I think Knudson had him all rehearsed and ready to go since the trial began. But he knew he couldn’t afford to give me time to prepare an effective counterattack, which is why he sprung him on me at the last second.”

  He could almost hear Knudson saying in his closing arguments that when Nate’s witnesses overheard Inglenook berate his wife, they were hearing a husband who had legitimate reasons for doubting his wife’s veracity and fidelity. Then there was his client’s reaction. He knew tears could be seen as an expression of guilt. No, having Mrs. Inglenook testify wasn’t a good option.

  Annie echoed this thought when she said, “If this half-brother abused your client in some fashion, I really don’t think you should force her to go through the humiliation of testifying. Not if you don’t think it will sway the judge.”

  “I know. But then what do I do? This poor woman might end up losing everything, her good name and reputation, her home, any source of income, and worst of all, her children.”

  Annie reached over and held his hand for a moment. Then she sat up and said, “How would this man have heard about the case if he was living in Sacramento? Or even if he was now living in San Francisco? Were there any newspaper reporters attending the trial?”

  “There is a printed docket, but there would be no way that O’Grady would just happen to see a copy of that. And there haven’t been any mentions of the trial in the newspapers. I’ve had the law clerk Rodgers go through the papers every day since the docket was published because I know that Mrs. Pitts Stevens, who is paying my fees, would want to be alerted if that happened, given how much she abhors any notoriety.”

  “So we must assume that Mr. Inglenook, who knew of this man’s existence and the bad feeling between him and your client, had his lawyer track him down.”

  “Yes! And they must have had a good idea he’d be the type of man who would be willing to perjure himself…for revenge.”

  “Or money,” Annie added.

  Nate thought about Knudson, who had the reputation of being ruthless and willing to skirt the law to win his cases. He wouldn’t put it past him to engage in a bit of bribery to get a man to lie on the stand. “You know, I think I will go down to the police station, see if Mr. O’Grady has any sort of record.”

  “And he’s got to be staying somewhere in town. Maybe there would be someone…landlord or drinking companion…you could question who might be willing to testify against his veracity. He sounds like the kind of man who might make enemies.”

  Nate felt a spurt of hope. “Yes, witnesses have to give their addresses. I’ll see if I can get Sergeant Thompson to assign a patrolman, maybe even Patrick, to help me track him down, interview potential witnesses. I might at least be able to prove that Knudson was lying when he said that he didn’t know of O’Grady’s existence until yesterday evening. That should get Simmons to give me more time to pursue the truth of his accusations.”

  Standing up, he gave Annie a hug. “I don’t know when I will get back this evening. Might be late. You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not. But whatever happens, you have to promise me you will stop and take a few hours tomorrow to come home to dinner. I don’t think Beatrice would survive the blow if you missed your first Thanksgiving at the boarding house.”

  Chapter 10

  “Thanksgiving Day. The stores were, as a general rule, closed.”––San Francisco Chronicle November 26, 1880

  Thursday afternoon, November 25, 1880

  Thanksgiving Day

  “Who do you think I should ask to do the carving if Nate doesn’t make it back in time?” Annie looked down the hallway to the front door, as if she could mentally force her husband to appear at the doorstep. She stood next to Kathleen, watching Tilly try to find space on the dining room sideboard for a dish of apple and pear sweet-pickles. Not an easy task given the bowls of cranberry sauce, currant jelly, stewed peaches, and plates of cold corned beef, lobster salad, and celery cream slaw already crowding its surface.

  “Surely the master will make it. I won’t be ringing the bell to call everyone to eat for at least fifteen more minutes.” Kathleen straightened the starched cap she was wearing for the occasion.

  They’d opened up the pocket doors between the dining room and the formal front parlor so they could add a second table to fit all fourteen people comfortably, with no banging of elbows or knocking over of glasses. The cut-glass crystal and dark blue Wedgwood china she’d inherited with the house looked beautiful against the soft ivory of the linen tablecloths. Tilly spent much of yesterday polishing all the silver to a high gleam. There were even small place cards that Nate’s sister, Laura, had made at the printers where she worked part time, since there would be guests intermingled between the regular boarders. Nate was supposed to sit at one end…where the turkey would be placed. But if someone else had to carve, should she rearrange the place cards?

  She looked down the hallway again and said, “He did promise faithfully he would be here, but I didn’t even get a chance to ask him yesterday if he’d ever carved before. Maybe he hasn’t…then it
would be actually kinder to ask someone else.”

  Truth be told, none of the other men at the table were sure bets when it came to carving experience. In the two years the bachelor, David Chapman, had boarded with her, he’d always demurred when asked to carve. Nate’s bachelor uncle had spent his whole adult life living in boarding houses, so she doubted he’d had many chances to practice this skill. There was Laura’s one male guest, Seth Timmons, who attended university with her. Annie thought about his varied career, fighting in the Union army when he’d been just a boy, then traveling around the west as a cowboy, eventually getting a teaching certificate, and now his part-time work running a printing press. None of these jobs, as far as she knew, meant he’d had any experience carving thin slices of dark and white meat.

  She said, “Do you suppose I should ask Mitchell, Nate’s friend from his old boarding house? He is a medical student…so theoretically he should have some skill with a knife.”

  “Oh ma’am, you aren’t serious?”

  “No, Kathleen,” she laughed “But I’m getting desperate. Why does it have to be a man anyway? The person who really should do it is Beatrice. She has the most experience.”

  “Oh goodness…no. She wouldn’t think it proper.”

  Kathleen was right. Beatrice had very strong ideas about showing up “above stairs,” as she called it. Downstairs in her kitchen, however, she ruled the roost. And in getting ready for this Thanksgiving meal, she’d been acting like a general mapping out a campaign. This morning, Annie overheard her giving Kathleen and Tilly their marching orders. Once the bell for dinner was rung, Kathleen was to usher all the guests to their places, where Tilly would ask what they would like to drink and start filling their glasses with water or cider. Once everyone was seated, Kathleen would go downstairs and start bringing up the hot dishes: the roast turkey, baked ham, mashed potatoes and boiled onions, pork and beans, and macaroni and cheese. Meanwhile, Tilly would start passing the serving dishes from the sideboard.