The Evidence Against Her

by Robb Forman Dew

  She never said anything, but the children of Scofields knew it anyway, and it made them uneasy. They sensed her reluctance to fall headlong into the fun of looking forward to all the events being planned for the Independence Day picnic and ceremony, and they wondered about it and brooded over it, each one privately. And after a while each child felt a little indignant. None of the grown-ups sensed Agnes’s skepticism about the whole affair, since she pitched in to help whenever she was asked, but it was entirely apparent to the children, and it was the sole detraction from their own excitement.

  When the day of the picnic finally arrived, the children were up before dawn, and Agnes and Warren were awakened by Betts’s fury at Dwight and Claytor when they tried to keep her from bursting into their parents’ bedroom. “You’re not the boss of me, Claytor! You’re not the boss of me!” And then there was a prolonged shriek as she protested when Claytor hung on to her as she lunged for the knob of the bedroom door. The boys knew they would be sent back to bed to wait until the sun was up, because that’s what always happened on Christmas morning.

  “Well, Miss Betts,” John Scofield’s voice boomed into the upstairs hallway, “I am the boss of you on this beautiful day. Miss Etty Betts! I’ll snatch you up and stuff you full of pancakes and you won’t be able to move. You’ll be filled up to the very brim! You’ll be sitting with your hands on your tummy to keep it from exploding! That’s what, Miss Betts! That’s what happens to little girls who don’t know who’s the boss of them!” And there was a joyous but alarmed squeak from Betts as John Scofield scooped her up and trundled her off downstairs, with Dwight and Claytor following fast behind.

  Agnes was unhappy at all this excitement—all this dangerous spontaneity—before she even swung her feet out of bed, but Warren looked forward to the day, and he was relieved to hear his father sounding so happy. It boded well to have him teasing Betts, who so often annoyed him. “Warren, take this little whirlwind off to her mother,” he would say, “so the boys and I can get our work done! Why, it’s like keeping company with a tornado!” Betts was always stoic and would implore her father to give her a horsey ride on his shoulders, but Warren knew it cut her to the quick to be excluded.

  John Scofield had commandeered the kitchen and was instructing the children about the secret to good pancakes. Dwight and Claytor were lined up on either side of him as he mixed and measured, and Betts was standing on a chair on the other side of the table so she could see. “And then the buttermilk. Not from the icebox. You have to take it out the night before, but not too early. So it’s a delicate business, as you can see. Out in the field you don’t have the luxury of cooling the milk, so you have to take your chances. And I’ll tell you, there may not be anything more unfavorable to a man’s outlook on the day than forking the first bite of pancakes into his mouth only to find out the batter was made with milk gone bad.” The children watched solemnly, Dwight and Claytor nodding that they understood.

  It was not quite six o’clock in the morning, but John Scofield was up and alert and elegantly dressed. His shoes gleaming, his shirt crisp, and his beautifully made suit hadn’t a wrinkle in it. “I’m going to drag these boys along to church with me this morning,” he said to Warren, who had dressed quickly and come downstairs while Agnes was still wrestling with her hair, pinning it up as firmly as possible since the day was already hot.

  “You must be looking to give the new minister a heart attack,” Warren said. “I don’t believe you’ve gone to church in over thirty years. Why, you’ll give the regular churchgoers a story to tell!” But Warren was pleased at the idea, although he didn’t know why, and Dwight and Claytor were delighted. Betts, though, began to protest.

  “Me, too, Grandfather! Me, too, Grandfather! I have a blue dress!”

  But Agnes swept into the room and caught Betts up in her arms, although Betts immediately squirmed to get down. “Evie’s coming over a little later, Betts, so that you and Trudy can meet her fiancé. And Aunt Lily wants to plait your hair with blue ribbons and Trudy’s with yellow. Don’t you remember when we picked out those pretty ribbons?” Betts subsided against her mother’s shoulder resignedly, but she knew she was going to miss the best fun of this day. Agnes would have liked to have a reason to forbid her father-in-law from taking the boys to church. What was he thinking? Causing discontent wherever he went. Betts was too young to go to church with Dwight and Claytor, but why in the world would John Scofield have so openly excluded her when he could have been discreet?

  “Well, Warren, I’ve decided not to let Leo corner the market on virtue,” John said to his son. “I don’t believe he’s missed a Sunday service in his whole life. I do plan to go to church this morning! It’s a grand day, after all. I don’t imagine I’ll even mind if the sermon’s boring on the Fourth of July. Besides, I made up my mind that it was about time I became more attentive to my spiritual well-being. Why, I’m sixty-seven years old! It’s about time I paid more attention to the welfare of my soul. I plan to increase my churchgoing from now on. I’ve made up my mind to attend at least one Sunday every fifty years or so,” he said, and Warren laughed.

  Agnes looked after Trudy and Betts while the rest of the family, and Mrs. Hutcheson and her oldest son, who were staying at Leo Scofield’s house, went to the ten o’clock service at the Methodist church.

  By eleven o’clock Agnes was at her wit’s end with the two little girls already having gone through several cycles of weeping disagreements and cautious reconciliations. It was terribly hot, and Trudy’s brown hair and Betts’s blond hair clung in damp tendrils to their necks. Agnes decided to occupy the two girls by giving them a long bath and washing their hair before Lily braided in the ribbons that would match their new dresses. As soon as she had them settled in the tepid water in the tub their tempers improved, and Agnes had a chance to sit on the step stool and put a cold cloth to her own forehead.

  She was shaky with mild queasiness in the solid, flat heat in her fifth month of her third pregnancy. She could see from the window that the crew from the Eola Arms was beginning to set up the tables, and the truck from the ice house arrived. She suddenly felt exhausted at the prospect of the long day and evening ahead. She thought she might cry, and the little girls were watching her face. Betts’s face began to pucker in sympathetic unhappiness, and Agnes knelt by the tub and pulled herself together. She gave each girl a tin cup and showed them how to pour the water over their heads so that they could wash their own hair. “If you do it yourself, you know, you never, ever get soap in your eyes,” she told them enthusiastically. And they began a delighted splashing of themselves and each other and inadvertently of Agnes, too, but Agnes didn’t care at all; in the heat her wet clothes felt good.

  Lily came dashing up the stairs; Agnes recognized the sound of her shoes clicking down the hall, and she came in looking flushed. “I slipped out early, Agnes. The church is like an oven, and Mrs. Hutcheson was surrounded by all sorts of people who remembered her parents, so I don’t think the rest of the family will be back very soon. Oh, you look done in!” she said, as she took Agnes’s bedraggled condition into account. But Agnes smiled.

  “Well, but I’ve finally cooled off. Betts has got to have a nap, Lily, or she’s going to—”

  “No, Mama! No, Mama! I don’t need a nap. I’m not sleepy! I don’t—”

  “Oh, Betts,” Lily said over Betts’s appalled grief at the injustice of this final thing, “everyone’s going to take a nap. Trudy, too. And your mama. And me, too. Then you can stay up late and hear the band concert. After you get up, sweetheart, I’m going to fix your hair, and you can put on your new dress, and you’ll be ready for anything. You can be first on the pony ride—”

  Then Trudy began an objection. “But why does Betts get—”

  “The two of you can share the first pony ride,” Lily said as she lifted Trudy dripping out of the tub and wrapped her in a towel.

  “Who gets to sit in front?” Betts began, and Trudy chimed in, and Lily just shook he
r head and met Agnes’s eyes with a resigned acknowledgment. “I’ll take this one home, Agnes, and leave you two to yourselves. They’ll never settle down if they’re in the same room.” Agnes nodded; she didn’t try to make herself heard over the ongoing debate between the little girls.

  Agnes dried Betts off and just slipped a loose gown over her head so she wouldn’t be too hot. Agnes lay down next to Betts in the big double bed in her and Warren’s room, but Agnes didn’t intend to fall asleep herself. There was almost nothing that made her feel worse, she’d discovered, than to sleep in the middle of the day. She knew that Betts wouldn’t stay put by herself, though, so Agnes simply lay down in the damp clothes she was wearing and listened to the bustle of activity in the yard below that drifted in the second-story windows left open in case some breath of air might stir. But when Agnes woke up all of a sudden, the light had changed; the sun was no longer streaming in the bedroom window, and Betts was nowhere in the room.

  Agnes rushed into the hallway and looked into the other bedrooms, feeling foolish that she hadn’t remembered to close and latch the bedroom door, and then she heard her father-in-law’s voice in the front hall and she began to move toward the landing.

  Warren had looked in on Agnes and Betts when he got home from church and found them both asleep. He had lowered the shade to keep the sun out and quietly made his way out of the room, hurrying down the stairs to steer Dwight and Claytor over to Uncle Leo’s before they burst loudly into the front hall. The picnic was getting under way, but Warren wanted to let his wife rest as much as she could; Lily could manage as hostess on her own until Agnes woke up.

  It was John Scofield who, a little less than an hour later, first caught sight of Betts—without a stitch of clothing on— running sturdily across the yard toward the general company, making a gleeful yodeling sound of pure exuberance. And just then he felt truly fond of her—his determined little granddaughter with her yellow hair spiking out in all directions. He crossed the yard to intercept her, but when Betts saw her grandfather coming she swerved and headed off at a right angle with a whoop of elation. She loved the air against her skin, the attention she’d attracted, and she was purely delighted with her own speedy trajectory across the yard.

  Leo and Lily had spotted her, as well, but they were walking along the drive with Agnes’s father, Dwight Claytor, who was in Washburn to give a short speech the following day after the parade. They were quite a distance away, and they moved slowly in Betts’s direction, since Leo didn’t have his cane and was leaning against Lily’s arm rather heavily. Dwight and Claytor were with Warren and Howie and Richard Claytor—who had come with their father for the Fourth of July celebration—on the far side of Leo’s house, where the horseshoe tournament had begun. There was no one else to catch up to Betts but John Scofield, and he pursued her with diligence and finally caught her and boosted her up to his shoulder to deliver her back to her mother.

  He was smiling as he came into the front hall and spotted Agnes at the top of the stairs. “This little lady is determined to bring scandal down on our heads, Agnes! There she was—”

  “Bring her to me,” Agnes said, only seeing John Scofield’s grin as he approached the stairs cupping Betts’s bare bottom in his large hand.

  “Yes. I’ll do it. I’ll certainly do it. I’m—”

  “Bring her to me,” Agnes said again, without the slightest inflection of humor or amusement, standing like a statue on the landing where it turned. She was still disoriented from sleep.

  John mounted the stairs slowly, juggling Betts from one side to another in an attempt to hold the rail, but finally giving up. “I’ll certainly do it,” he said, still teasingly. “I’ll deliver this child before she gets away from me.” He had just reached the stair two steps down from where Agnes stood when Agnes reached forward and hooked her arm around her daughter, who was doing her best to avoid the transfer. She was delighted to have her grandfather’s attention. Agnes couldn’t get a secure hold on Betts, who was squirming out of her reach.

  Agnes leaned forward until her face almost met John Scofield’s, as though she were about to kiss him. She had a sleep-induced expression of bemusement, although, in fact, she was stiff and awkward with outrage. She had turned slightly to one side, with Betts’s torso clasped against the shoulder that was turning away from her father-in-law, when John Scofield released the little girl entirely, so that Agnes had to lunge forward to catch her.

  John’s arm flew up in the air over his head, and Agnes was momentarily baffled as his face went slack with surprise. And then he was tumbling backward. Agnes was too startled and muddleheaded even to make a sound. She just stood holding Betts, who made no sound either. And then there was Lily kneeling over her uncle for a long moment that Agnes could never afterward put into a context of chronological order.

  She remembered hearing her father and Leo come in the back way as she stood looking down at her father-in-law lying flat at the foot of the stairs. He looked as if he had arranged himself there on purpose, except that one leg was bent beneath him. She remembered hearing Leo calling out to her, “Well, Agnes, John found my grandniece running around as naked as a jaybird. He’s bringing her around front . . . .”

  And she remembered Lily looking up at her with her face seeming more than usually pointed and pale. “He fell, Agnes. Uncle John fell down the stairs,” she repeated slowly, in a cadence like a children’s verse. In the determined meter of “London Bridge,” as though she were instructing Agnes. “Uncle John fell down the stairs.”

  Lily had let her father lean on the proffered arm of Mr. Claytor, and she hurried toward Agnes and Warren’s house when she saw her uncle John with Betts in hand heading up the front walk and then disappearing through the front door. She felt unreasonably alarmed as she approached the front door herself. When she entered the lower hall, the sun streamed into that shady alcove and was almost blinding. She immediately caught sight of Agnes on the upper landing, clasping Betts in one arm, her other arm extended as though she were conferring a benediction on the stilled figure of John Scofield, whom Lily finally saw lying motionless at the bottom of the stairs. Lily had gasped in surprise; she was appalled, but in spite of herself she was briefly swept over with admiration for Agnes. A single thought skittered briefly through Lily’s head: I don’t blame her. I don’t blame her for a minute. And in that instant there was not a moment’s hesitation about where her allegiance would lie.

  But Agnes was in shock. Leo Scofield had come with Dwight Claytor around to the back door where the steps were shallower. He moved slowly across the threshold of the front parlor, having some difficulty navigating without his cane, and then he came to a stop. He had come into the front hall and clasped the balustrade for support and looked down with a perplexed expression of irritation at his brother John. Dwight Claytor stood off to the side, staring up at his daughter and his little granddaughter with a peculiar expression of alarmed recognition. Leo stood for a long while, gazing down at his brother, and then he spoke with a note of exasperation. “I don’t like this, John! You come along, now. You come along. You look like a damned fool! You look like a fool, John.”

  And then Leo Scofield stood there without saying a thing for several minutes, finally straightening and putting his hands in his pockets. “I wish you’d get up, John,” he had said in a different tone altogether, like a boy trying to persuade a friend to join some game. “I wish you’d get up. I don’t think it could all just come to this.”

  Agnes was never able to recall much of anything else about that day. She didn’t remember John being carefully moved to the parlor; she didn’t remember that Warren had suggested that the family not spread this news during the picnic, nor did she know that Leo Scofield had not gone back out into the crowd, or that Robert and Lily had overseen the festivities as best they could. She never even made the connection between this awful event and the several years that followed when she was more content than she had ever imagined in her whole life that she
would be. Certainly she expressed shock and sorrow about the death of her father-in-law, but the fact is, she felt no responsibility one way or another.

  Now and then, over the years, Agnes would catch Lily observing her with a speculative expression, and Agnes’s own father’s manner was increasingly formal in his daughter’s company. But Agnes didn’t associate either detail with the circumstance of that terrible Fourth of July. It never occurred to her not to agree with her children when they became sad remembering that they didn’t have their grandfather Scofield among them. But she really agreed with them out of her understanding of the children’s own sincere regret. Although Agnes was genuinely sorry to witness the grief of her mother-in-law and her husband and the children, of Leo Scofield, and George as well, she was never visited with the slightest disquietude about John Scofield’s demise.

  • • •

  By the time Dwight and Claytor started back to school in September, the initial shock of John Scofield’s death had abated. Audra and Lillian Scofield had returned immediately from Maine, and the rest of the family, of course, had not gone away that summer. The hottest months elapsed while the Scofields adjusted to their new circumstances, and on November 15, 1926, on the morning of little Dwight’s eighth birthday, Agnes gave birth to a baby boy. He was named Warren Howard Scofield, after his father, but with a different middle name because Warren didn’t want anyone to take to calling his son Junior. And, in fact, the baby was always called Howard simply to avoid confusion.

  Just before Christmas, Robert Butler’s second volume of poems was published, and he gained a good deal of national attention, although in Washburn, where he was so well known and liked, no one but Lily and Warren had any idea what the poems could mean. They seemed to most of his acquaintances uncharacteristically dark and severe. Agnes had not even had time to read them with the new baby in the house and the household itself to contend with.

  In the summer of 1927, the whole family finally did go to Maine, although once again, Lillian and Audra Scofield went up at the beginning of June, and the rest of the family joined them in August. Warren was only able to stay for two weeks, because of various worries about the Company and some complications he was trying to sort out about his father’s affairs. But a vacation in Maine became an annual event, and by the time Betts Scofield and Trudy Butler started school it seemed to all the Scofields that they had always gone away for the month of August.