The Evidence Against Her

by Robb Forman Dew

  Only John Scofield broached the subject of Dwight’s wife’s death and the death of his son. It never occurred to John that he didn’t have the skill to make a person feel better about whatever might be troubling him, and he was right. Even at his worst John was a talented listener, and all sorts of people sought him out as a confidant, although Dwight Claytor had never been one of them. Dwight Claytor had never seemed to be a man in need of a confidant.

  December 3, the day after Catherine Claytor’s funeral, Louise Dameron and her husband, Jerome; Leo and Audra Scofield; Lily Butler and her in-laws, the Reverend Daniel and Martha Butler; Agnes and Warren; and Dwight Claytor and his children all gathered at John and Lillian’s house at Scofields. Warren had arrived from Washington that morning and could only stay until late that night. He was exhausted from having had to stand much of the way on the crowded train, and he was anxious to be alone with Agnes. He hadn’t even been able to get home for the services for her mother and brother.

  Everyone concerned was on hand to make arrangements about overseeing the Claytor property and various other issues. Mrs. Longacre had not come with them, and neither had Bernice, because they had both come down with colds and didn’t want to risk infecting the baby. Dwight Claytor had to return to Columbus the next day to chair a legislative committee, and the two older boys would stay with him at the Curtis Hotel for the rest of the school year, since Dwight had enrolled Howie and Richard in the Sperry School, which had resumed classes, unlike the city schools, which remained closed.

  “This is surely a terrible time for you, Mr. Claytor,” John said, with real interest, not with any bit of cloying sympathy, although he clearly was commiserating. “It always seemed to me that your wife was a gentle person. I didn’t know her very well, I’m sorry to say. I remember when she first arrived in Washburn, though. I admired her accent, I remember. She certainly was a lovely woman. And, of course, I know about losing a son. I’ve been through that twice, although they were just babies. Just babies. But there’s no describing it. It’s a sorrow not like anything else I can think of,” John Scofield said, with inclusive and unnerving sympathy, and Dwight Claytor immediately offered a word of reassurance.

  “Well, you see, Edson was his mother’s son. He was devoted to her, I think, beyond anything else. He was Catherine’s child. It’s hard to know how he would have turned out. He was mighty bright. Good in school. But he never . . . He wasn’t like the other two, you know. I think he was too sensitive for his own good. I don’t know what he would’ve made of his life. Of my boys, I always thought he wouldn’t be the one who’d be much of a success.”

  John had tipped his head forward in an attitude of contemplative listening. “He was soft natured, you mean? Edson, that is?” John Scofield asked, wanting to make certain he understood. His curiosity was genuine; all the people who had ever confided in him were invariably pleased at his interest in them, and the interest was real but fleeting. “Or was it that he wouldn’t have been able to make his own life? Away from his mother? Off on his own? Needed more . . . umh . . . ambition. Or a sense of competition? Needed to be more outgoing?”

  Agnes was holding the baby and sitting with Lily and Warren a few feet away, and she turned and gazed at her father, not registering any particular emotion but waiting to hear what her father would answer, and Lily and Warren turned, too, to see what had drawn Agnes’s attention. Dwight caught himself up short and spoke succinctly. “He was a fine boy, Mr. Scofield,” Dwight said. “He was a fine boy. We’ll miss him.”

  John straightened up, seeming slightly startled. “Well, certainly you will. Certainly you will.”

  Agnes was taken aback to have heard her father’s version of Edson’s life summed up so neatly. She was filled with objections. She wanted to explain the complications of her brother’s life, and she tried not to give in to a sudden resentment of Howie and Richard. Her father didn’t seem to understand that there was no need to disparage Edson in order to compliment the other two. But she turned her attention back to the baby and didn’t allow any thought at all to settle in her mind. She didn’t want to know if her father had meant that if he had to lose a child, it was just as well that it was Edson. She could scarcely stand to consider what her own role might be in that situation, so she simply tucked the whole conversation away to consider some other time.

  It had been left to Louise Dameron to bring up the subject of the naming and christening of the baby. She approached it as delicately as she could manage. “It seems to me that the first thing to do is to name that little boy,” she said, trying for a cheerful tone. “We can’t always be talking about him as ‘the baby.’ He’s liable to grow up thinking that’s his name.” But there was only a worried expression exchanged between Howie and Richard. Their father didn’t appear to realize that he should weigh in with an opinion; he merely looked on passively. Agnes was holding her little brother and jostling him gently in an effort to soothe him. She didn’t seem even to have heard Mrs. Dameron.

  Mrs. Dameron and Lillian and Audra Scofield and Lily Butler had worried over the name. They had been concerned that the suggestion might be made to name the baby after Edson, and they felt certain that in the long run it would be more painful than comforting. “Don’t you imagine his mother would have wanted him named after his father?” Audra Scofield finally said to the room in general, uncertain to whom she should direct this idea.

  “Oh,” said Agnes, coming to attention when she realized that everyone was looking to her for a response, not to her father. “Well, Mama talked about calling him Armstrong if he was a boy. Because of her uncle—or maybe he wasn’t her uncle, I’m not sure. He may have been her cousin . . . General George Armstrong Custer . . .”

  “Oh, Agnes. Surely not!” Lily Butler said before she caught herself. “Of course, I know he must have been a fine man. A brave man. And I don’t mean—what I meant was—given how things turned out for General Custer! Don’t you think it might be bad luck—”

  “ . . . or for her mother’s cousin, Aaron Burr,” Agnes went on. “I think that’s right. I think that’s how they were connected. I think his second wife was my grandmother’s first cousin. She was from Jackson . . . . But I might have her mixed up with . . .”

  “But, Agnes, there again . . .” Lily’s mother spoke up this time, so that Agnes realized the women in the room must have discussed this dilemma. “That might not be such a happy association, either. I hope you’ll forgive me, Agnes, but don’t you think that given all that’s happened . . . and since Howard and Richard are each named for a grandfather . . . and Dwight’s a good name. It doesn’t pin a child down, don’t you know what I mean? Aaron would be a limiting kind of name, I believe, don’t you?” The women had indeed discussed it and now they felt protective of the name they had concluded would be most appropriate.

  When they managed to put forth the idea, though, there was awkwardness all around, although no real disagreement. Mr. Claytor gave no sign one way or another; he was uncomfortable and didn’t make any comment. He didn’t meet his daughter’s eye, but Agnes intercepted the look Mrs. Dameron sent in her direction—a glance of entreaty—and Agnes realized it certainly wasn’t for her to say, in any case, and she let it drop. The baby born November 15, 1918, to Catherine Alcorn Edson Claytor, was christened Dwight Burr Armstrong Claytor that very afternoon, eighteen days after his birth, in a short, solemn ceremony performed by Reverend Butler, before he and his wife took their leave.

  Agnes took her newly named little brother off to the bedroom she and Warren shared to feed and quiet him. All the attention had left him overexcited and arching rigidly in her arms with incipient complaints. Agnes was glad to have an excuse to escape to the privacy of the upstairs. She sat in a rocking chair her mother-in-law had provided and fed the baby, and when he’d had enough of his bottle Agnes held him up against her blanket-covered shoulder and patted his back in circles, just as Louise Dameron had shown her how to do, and he finally burped and snuggled in, and Agn
es closed her eyes for a moment, just resting.

  Warren disengaged himself from the company in the front parlor as soon as he could and followed Agnes upstairs. He was exhausted from lack of sleep on the train, which had run so late that he hadn’t gotten in until midmorning. He hadn’t had any time alone with his wife. But she seemed to have fallen asleep, and he stood at the threshold, not knowing if he should disturb her. He had no choice but to take the evening train back to Washington, where bureaucratic chaos reigned. The logistics of the demobilization were going to be nightmarish. Already there were plots and conflicts brewing among the various war agencies, and Warren thought that down the road there was bound to be a problem with the railroads. He wanted to be done with it all; he wanted to be home.

  He leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes briefly, not wanting to wake his wife but hoping she would stir, but he came to with a start and realized he had nearly fallen asleep himself. He straightened up and rubbed his hands over his face as though he were sluicing it with water. As he struggled into alertness, though, he experienced one of those rare moments of recognition that wasn’t exactly as if he had witnessed the scene before, but was instead the certainty that the entire tableau he beheld was precisely as it should be: the alignment of the window shade, the drape of the filmy curtains, and, through the window, the outbuildings of Scofields and the woods beyond—the intricate branches of the leafless trees exposed against the flat white sky. And also just as it should be was his wife’s dark hair fanned out against the red of the cherry-wood rocker, the angle at which the runner of the chair canted against the blue and white rag rug, the dull blade of shadow it cast. He felt a powerful lurch of being suspended briefly in a moment that is perfect.

  He took in the scene with satisfaction, as though it were something he had known was there but had never witnessed; it was a sensation like waking after the happy but vague resolution of a dream. He forgot the reason his wife was sitting there holding an infant. He simply stood stock-still for a long moment, looking on at the baby’s wispy white hair against his wife’s shoulder, the baby’s head turned toward Agnes’s neck in a nuzzling sweetness.

  “Agnes?” he finally said softly, not certain if she was awake, but Agnes turned toward the door with a relieved smile.

  “Warren. I was just trying to quiet the baby. I was only resting a little.”

  “Well, the two of you make quite a picture,” Warren said. “Everyone said he was a beautiful baby. But have you ever heard anyone say otherwise about any baby? This is the first time I’ve known it to turn out to be true.”

  Agnes laughed. “Mama said I was as plain as a mud hen when I was born.”

  He looked at Agnes’s face carefully, although she was still genuinely smiling. He was glad but surprised that she could speak of her mother so easily. His mother and Aunt Audra had been worried about her. But for the moment Agnes was simply happy to see Warren and sheepishly relieved that she would soon be giving over the responsibility for this infant. Mrs. Dameron had spoken tentatively to her again about Mrs. Longacre readying the nursery out at the Claytor place when she was feeling better.

  When Agnes had settled into her in-laws’ house with the baby, Warren’s mother had been sympathetic and even helpful, but she had mostly steered clear of the whole situation. Agnes had scarcely slept in days, agonizing over the baby’s habit of saving his loudest complaints for the middle of the night, when Agnes was certain it kept her mother- and father-in-law awake. There was a period between one and four in the morning when nothing Agnes could do had any effect on the baby’s loud unhappiness, and she became panicky with helplessness. Occasionally she had brief periods of exhausted, desperate fury at the baby himself, at John and Lillian Scofield, whose annoyed sleeplessness Agnes assumed, and especially at her own mother for leaving her in such a fix. She was done in by her pretense of competency in caring for her mother’s child.

  She shifted the baby gingerly as she stood up, and for a moment Warren and the baby exchanged a glance as Agnes moved to put him down in his bassinet. The baby stared at Warren with a startled expression. He had beautiful, long-lashed, golden brown eyes, which Warren had never seen in the face of an infant.

  Agnes settled the baby, who went down quietly enough, and moved toward her husband with a wistful look of longing. There was no chance at all that they would have any time alone. She put her arms around Warren’s neck and leaned into him, her cheek resting on his shoulder, and Warren bent his head against her hair.

  “I’m so sorry about everything, Agnes. I’m sorry you were by yourself through all this. I know nothing can ever make up for what’s happened . . . .” But he stopped abruptly and made a low murmur of disapproval, moving his head from side to side and further disarranging Agnes’s hair. “Well, I don’t mean to say that. It’s the kind of thing I hate to hear other people say. People mean well. They mean to comfort someone. But of course nothing can make up for this. Nothing will be the same. Everything I mean to say sounds simpleminded. When I came in just now I didn’t know what to expect. But you looked exactly right. You and the baby facing the light from the window. Have you ever had that feeling? I knew that everything was just as it should be. That’s how you looked. When I saw you in the rocking chair I thought, well, at least there’s the baby. He is a handsome boy, Agnes. He’s bound to be some comfort to you, I think. And to me, too.”

  Warren couldn’t see his wife’s face, but, in fact, with her head still resting on his shoulder, Agnes opened her eyes and blinked slowly in surprise. She didn’t even like the child who had been placed in her care. She was terrified of him—of her inability to know what he wanted. And he would be brought up in the Claytor household, anyway, and she would be at Scofields, and she would come to like him—to love him, of course. He was her brother, after all. But Warren’s admiration of her with the baby was too flattering to dispute just at the moment. “He is a pretty baby,” she said. “He looks just like Mama, I think.”

  Warren leaned his head back to see her face, and he smiled indulgently. “Oh, maybe so. You might be right. But to me he looks more like a Scofield. He has such dark eyes, and your mother’s were light. But you might be right. Who knows how he’ll turn out? Aunt Audra always says that babies generally surprise you one way or another.”

  “Well, I guess that’s true,” Agnes said. “I guess they almost always do.”

  • • •

  When Agnes gave birth to her first child, though, she was far more than surprised; she fell into a state of maternal devotion so at odds with her experience and expectations that she was privately a little alarmed by her own emotion. Claytor Edson Alcorn Scofield was born on April 13, 1919, five months after little Dwight’s birth. Claytor Scofield was a red-faced newborn, long and thin and with all his features tightly pinched together in the middle of his face as if he were angry. And, as it happened, for the first three weeks of his life he was close to inconsolable, and Agnes was very nearly crazed with anxiety and empathic grief when she couldn’t solace him.

  Warren got home only twice before his son’s birth, once just after Robert Butler returned in January, and again the first of February, at which point Lillian Scofield had the crib brought down from the attic and placed in the little nursery for Dwight. It was apparently going to be quite a while before the nursery out at the Claytor place could be put to rights. When Mrs. Longacre’s cold had turned into pneumonia, Audra Scofield had arranged for Evelyn Harvey’s niece, Evie Bowers, to come in during the week and on Saturday afternoons to look after little Dwight. And the only word that came from the Damerons’ house was that Mrs. Longacre was recovering but was confined to bed. Dwight Claytor, though, was a happy baby, and he turned to the sound of Agnes’s voice, he beamed when she came into sight, and generally only she or her father-in-law, John Scofield, could assuage Dwight’s occasional bouts of discontent.

  After Christmas, Agnes had been confined to the house when the weather got bitter, but Lucille Drummond visited often
, and Sally Trenholm when she was home from school. Lily came over every afternoon, and Robert Butler often visited as well, and other than Lucille, it was Robert whom Agnes most liked to see. He was a pleasant man in every respect. He was nice looking but not dashing, interesting but not intimidating. It was clear every moment he was near her that he was devoted to Lily, and Agnes liked him very much for that. Agnes found that it was an entirely uncomplicated and happy coincidence that he and she liked each other immediately. She was surprised to be so comfortable with him as soon as they met, but she supposed that there was no more accounting for immediate friendship than there was for falling in love.

  She had developed a suspicion of Robert Butler since she first began to hear his friends and family talk about him. He was so highly thought of, and not one person had even implied anything unfavorable about him. Agnes had begun to resent him and think he must not be very interesting, since he was universally and tediously described as a good and decent man. His first book of poems had been published while he was in France, and she had read it but didn’t have any idea what the poems were about. Well, they were about God, but she couldn’t tell exactly what he was getting at. No one had thought to tell Agnes, however, about Robert’s quiet humor or his nearly eccentric courtliness.

  When Claytor was born, Robert presented him with a lovely little music box he had bought in France—had bought, in fact, intending it as a gift for Lily. But when he asked Lily if she thought it might not be a more suitable gift for Agnes and her new baby, Lily had seemed enthusiastic about his idea.