Miscarriage of Justice

by Kip Gayden

  “Magazines that I’ve read, and I’m giving them to him to take to his wife! Weren’t you listening?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “They say you look at him, Anna. They say it’s not just a casual glance when you do it.”

  Anna shook her head. “I cannot believe my best friend is actually believing such lies.”

  “Are they lies, Anna? I want to believe that, I truly do. But after some of the things you said to me last summer, the way you reacted, I . . . I just don’t know.”

  “If I was carrying on an affair, would I talk so openly to you about it?”

  “No, you wouldn’t Anna. You’d deny it. Just as you’re doing now.”

  Anna couldn’t think of anything else to say. She simply turned and walked away.

  So . . . this was behind the strange looks she’d been getting in town lately. This was behind the cool tone of Mrs. Olmstead and Mrs. Baskerville, the way they looked at each other every time Anna said something, as if agreeing again on something they’d previously settled. Anna had been tried and convicted in the silent court of their opinion. It infuriated her, all the more so because there was nothing she could do about it.

  Anna wondered what Walter knew, or suspected. She tried to figure out what she ought to do. She walked home, and every time she passed people on the street, she felt as if they were staring at her behind her back, pointing and snickering to each other. That’s Charlie Cobb’s whore! That’s the doctor’s wife, the one who’s carrying on with that barber!

  She went inside and straight up to her room. She paced back and forth, frantic to think of a way to get herself out of this mess. She stopped for a moment and studied the windowsill beside her bed, stained with the wax of the candles she’d lit to summon Charlie to her bed on the nights when Walter was away.

  Anna went to her writing desk. She found some paper, a pen, and ink, and scribbled a note to Charlie. She told him that things were getting out of hand; that people all over town were starting to talk, and what would they do when word got back to Walter, as it surely must, very soon? She informed him that she intended to strictly stay away from the barbershop until things quieted down, and advised him to avoid being seen anywhere near the vicinity of her house. She folded the note and put it in an envelope, then scrabbled through her desk for a postage stamp. She would walk down to the post office and mail this to Charlie Cobb’s box, and pray that for once, he would listen to her.

  CHARLIE READ ANNA’S NOTE, leaning up against the wall in the post office. He grinned, and pushed his bowler back on his head. Well, well, well! His little bird was singing a different tune, wasn’t she? So folks in town were starting to talk. Wasn’t that just too bad?

  Charlie knew what Anna was thinking. She was all worried about fouling her nest with Walter, about losing the way of life to which she’d become accustomed. She wanted to rid herself of the inconvenience of Charlie, now that things were getting a little hot.

  Well, we’ll just have to see about that. I may not be ready to just fold my tent and ride off into the desert. I may decide I like what I’ve got, and I might be willing to do something about it.

  Charlie looked at the note one last time before crumpling it in his fist and dropping it into the wastebasket. He walked out of the post office, whistling.

  “THANK YOU,” Anna said, dropping the embroidery thread into her pocketbook. She walked out of the store, ignoring the smirk on the clerk’s face.

  She needed to get home. It had gotten so that she could hardly stand to show her face in town. But Anna’s stubborn streak wouldn’t allow her to just lock herself away in her room. No, if she did that it was as good as an admission of guilt. She had to keep up her normal routine, and look people in the eye, and dare anyone to say anything to her face. Besides, she hadn’t seen Charlie Cobb since mailing him the note, a few days ago.

  Her heart began to betray her, causing her to contemplate the rest of her life without Charlie’s passion, his adoration of her body, his lovemaking. But she firmly closed the door on that line of thinking. I have to get on with my life—for my children’s sake, if nothing else.

  As she approached the house, someone got up from one of the tables on the porch of the Keystone Hotel and began sauntering across the street to intercept her. It was Charlie Cobb!

  “What are you doing?” she hissed, keeping her face turned away from him as she neared her front gate. “Get away from me. Everyone will see.”

  “Will they, my darling? And what will they see? Two people, talking in the middle of the street, in the full light of day. What could be more innocent than that?”

  “You know what I mean. The whole town is talking.”

  Charlie Cobb laughed—actually laughed! “Oh, yes. That must be terrible for you.”

  “Get away from me,” she said, and turned toward her gate.

  He stepped in front of her, barring her way. “Listen to me, Anna. You want me, and you know you do. And I want you. And Dr. High-and-Mighty Walter isn’t doing his duty by you, and you damned well know it. I’m not going away, Anna. I’ll have you . . . and you know I’m telling you the truth.” He held her eyes for a moment, then turned and walked away.

  Anna could hardly breathe. The insolence! The callous disregard! And yet, as she walked toward her front porch, a part of her mind relished the sound of his words: “I’m not going away . . . I’ll have you . . .” What is wrong with me? I must actually be losing my mind!

  She went inside, unpinning her hat and laying it on the side table in the vestibule. She went upstairs to her room.

  Walter was sitting on the side of her bed, staring at her windowsill. At the stain left by night after night of melted candle wax.

  He looked up at her like someone who had had a piece of flesh cut away with a dull blade.

  “Anna, is it true?” he said.

  “What’s the matter, Walter? You look terrible.”

  He gave her a tired smile. “You know, those are the first words of concern you’ve spoken to me in . . . oh, I can’t remember how long. Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Walter, what are you doing home at this time of the day? Don’t you have patients?”

  “Do you want to tell me about this here?” he said, aiming his chin at the windowsill.

  “What?”

  “Looks like there’s been a candle burning here, Anna.” He looked at her. “Some kind of signal?”

  “Why would it be a signal? I just like candlelight, sometimes. It helps me relax.”

  “Anna, your eyes are looking everywhere in the room but at me. Either you’re making up lines to say, or you’re lying. Or both.”

  “Walter, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?” He got up from the bed and walked toward her, and Anna realized that for the very first time in her life, she was afraid of him.

  “I forbid you to have anything further to do with Charlie Cobb.” A pained look crossed his face when he said Charlie’s name. He looked away. “And to think I befriended him! Wanted to have him join the lodge . . .” He tugged his eyes back to her. “You’ve disgraced me, Anna, and disgraced yourself. The only thing for you to do now is to admit your sin and ask forgiveness. And never see Charlie Cobb again.”

  “I don’t need forgiveness, Walter. I haven’t done anything wrong.” Anna surprised herself; the way she said the words, she almost believed them herself.

  He looked at her, and for a moment, she thought maybe he was going to hit her. But he didn’t. Instead, he slumped away from her, past her, through her doorway. “The children will be home soon,” he said. “I expect you’ll want to be ready for them.” He walked away, down the hall. Anna heard his footsteps descending the stairs, as slow and dragging as someone walking behind a coffin.

  WHEN CHARLIE ARRIVED HOME, the first thing he saw was Daisy, standing on the other side of the kitchen table, staring at him and holding the last issue of Argosy.

  “What’s this?” she said in her dumbfounde
d, bleating voice.

  He paused for a second or two, then stepped past her on the way to their bedroom. “What does it look like? It’s a magazine. You ought to read it, sometime. It’s got some good stories in it.”

  “I been reading it. There’s things in here in your handwriting. And someone else’s.”

  “Well, what gives you the right to be pawing around in my personal things, anyway?” he said, rounding on her and half-shouting. He saw Alice, cowering in the corner behind her mother, but right then he didn’t care. “That was put up among my underthings. You had no call to go snooping around in my things.”

  “Anna’s brother, Bobby, he told me back before school was out. He said Anna was bringing magazines to you at the shop—for me. He said she told him you were bringing them home for me to read. But you ain’t, are you, Charlie? You never meant for me to know about them, did you?”

  “Daisy, what in the world are you—”

  “It’s Anna, ain’t it, Charlie? I seen the way you look at her. I know you, Charlie. I know you look at other women, you always have. It’s Anna, ain’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He slammed the bedroom door. He yanked the hat off his head and threw it into the corner. He stomped around the room with his hands on his hips. First Anna, and now Daisy! That was the thing about women: Either they didn’t want to have anything to do with you, or they thought they owned you.

  He went to the corner and retrieved his hat, jamming it onto his head. He flung open the bedroom door and stalked past Alice and Daisy. “I’m going out for some fresh air. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  Charlie walked quickly into the night air, trying to decide whether he was angrier at Daisy or Anna. He thought about the note Anna had left in the last magazine—probably read by Daisy. So Anna wants to let things cool off awhile? Well, she might find out she’ll have a harder time waiting for me than I’ll have waiting for her. Charlie felt a grin starting across his face—a hard grin. He wasn’t ready to quit the game—not by a long shot.

  23

  When god created adam and eve and instituted the sacred bond of marriage,” Brother Olmstead said, “he intended that both parties in the covenant regard that relationship as sacred. And when our Lord walked among us, he held up no less a standard. ‘If any man looketh on a woman to lust after her,’ he said in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘he hath committed adultery already with her in his heart.’”

  Anna felt her face burning. If every eye in the church wasn’t on her, she felt certain every mind was. Brother Olmstead might as well have gotten down from the pulpit, walked down the aisle, and pointed at her in her seat as he preached.

  She didn’t know how much longer she could hold on, with things the way they were. Everywhere she went, she felt accused, stared at, and ridiculed. Walter wouldn’t as much as look at her, except to assure himself, several times a day, that she was where she said she’d be and that she wasn’t within a hundred feet of Charlie Cobb. She hadn’t been to a meeting of the ladies’ tea since the fiasco just before midsummer, and she had been put on notice that her presence wasn’t welcome. Mrs. Olmstead had come to the house, her back and her expression as stiff as a ramrod, and given Anna a sermonette about confession being good for the soul, and how the best thing to do when we’d made a mistake was to admit it and move on with life in a suitably contrite manner. Anna thanked her for her concern and assured her that if she had anything to confess, she’d let her know. Since then, none of the ladies would have anything to do with her, except Elizabeth Jennings. And even Elizabeth’s company wasn’t the balm it used to be. There was so much unspoken between them that they could hardly converse around the shouting silence.

  The only time Anna felt anything approaching peace was when she was with Mabel and Scott. Mercifully, her children didn’t seem to know anything about the scandal surrounding their mother, or if they did, they gave no evidence. Helping Mabel with her homework or reading to Scott in his bed at night, Anna realized how precious her children were to her. If anything happened to take them away from her, she knew her life wouldn’t be worth living.

  Because of her work with the women’s suffrage movement, Anna knew she had virtually no rights if Walter decided to divorce her. If she could be found to have had an adulterous relationship, no court in Tennessee would permit her to keep custody of her children. Since the house was titled in Walter’s name, she would be forced to rely on whatever he chose to give her.

  And so, Anna continued to deny everything in public and berate herself in private. And the maddening thing was, she still missed Charlie Cobb. Though it was certainly true that he had helped her reduce her life to a shambles, it was also true that he was maybe the only person in the world who was in no position to judge her. Shame and guilt were corrosive when pent up in a human heart, as Anna knew all too well. With Charlie, she didn’t need to feel shame or guilt—or at least it could be shared. That was better than nothing.

  Brother Olmstead preached on, and Anna did her best to allow the words to go past her ears without stopping. She kept her face composed and her eyes straight ahead; she wore her denial like a suit of armor. It was about all she had left. Anna hoped it would be enough.

  BOBBY GRUNTED as he turned the crank of the Winton Six. The engine tried to catch, but died. He rested a few seconds, then gave it another go. This time the engine caught well enough for him to hurry around to the driver’s side and switch the ignition from the battery to the coil. He got in and wrestled the automobile into reverse gear and started backing out of Walter’s driveway.

  It was a little cool for a drive in the country, maybe, but he had finally talked Mary Caine into the notion and he wasn’t about to postpone the outing. With all the gossip in town surrounding his sister, Bobby was surprised Mary would still have anything to do with him. If the novelty of motoring was what it took to stay in her good graces, then Bobby was just grateful his brother-in-law, amid all the worry over his errant wife, was still kind enough to loan the use of his car. In fact, it was almost as if he wasn’t really thinking about it when Bobby asked him. He had sort of glanced at Bobby and waved in assent, as if somebody else driving his car wasn’t worth considering for more than a few seconds. Which, with everything going on in his life right now, it probably wasn’t.

  Bobby was upset, too. He had always admired his older sister. He remembered the first time she’d brought Walter to their parents’ home, in Lafayette. He’d viewed Walter with mistrust at first—how could he be good enough for Anna? But he’d come to admire his brother-in-law very much over the years. It was so hard to imagine that his sister, who had the same parents and the same teaching Bobby had, could do something so crass and bring such shame upon herself.

  Well, maybe a drive in the country with Mary Caine was just what he needed, too. Anything to take his mind off the mess his sister was in. Bobby eased the stick into low gear and cautiously let out the clutch. After a lurch or two, the Winton Six set off down the street toward Mary Caine’s house.

  CHARLIE REACHED his hidden vantage point just as Walter’s car backed out of the driveway. He quickly crouched down low so a random glance from Walter as he drove away wouldn’t betray Charlie’s presence.

  Good. He’d been waiting for a chance like this for a while now. Looked like the good doctor was off again on one of his Masonic junkets. Just the time for Charlie to go in and remind Anna of why and how much she still needed him. She could give him the public cold shoulder all she wanted; he could see in her eyes that it was just an act. She was afraid of what Walter would do, or what the community would do, maybe. Charlie didn’t care about any of that. He wanted Anna Dotson, and he’d gotten used to having her, and nobody was going to dismiss him until he was good and ready to go on his own account.

  Charlie pulled his overcoat closer around him. The north wind was a little more crisp than was strictly comfortable. A litter of fallen leaves covered the backyard underneath the big elm tree beside the ci
stern. Glancing once more up and down the alley and all around to make sure no prying eyes were about, Charlie opened the back gate and crossed the yard toward the back door.

  He knocked, hoping the meddlesome maid wouldn’t be the one who answered. And when the door opened, he smiled. His luck was holding; Anna stood there.

  “Hello, my love. I’ve been missing you, and I just had to see you.”

  “Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage already?”

  He imitated a hurt look. “Damage? I thought we loved each other, Anna.”

  “Do I have to draw you a picture, Charlie? Everyone knows. If anyone sees us, even talking together like this, I’m ruined.”

  “No, you aren’t. Come away with me, Anna. We’ll go somewhere—Texas, maybe. We’ll start a new life, our own life. We’ll have children. We’ll be together, as we should be.”

  She looked at him, and Charlie convinced himself there was something like interest behind her eyes. “You’d do that? Leave Daisy and Alice and run away with me?”

  Charlie nodded. “Just say the word.” Uh-oh. Might have gone a little too far with that last bit. Oh, well. Let’s just see what she says.

  She turned her head, took in a deep breath and let it out. She shook her head. “It won’t work, Charlie. I can’t leave my children. You can surely understand that, at least. And besides, how could I ever trust you, or you me? Every time I looked at you, I’d have to remember that the only reason we were together is because we both broke promises we made to other people.”

  He gave a disappointed look. “I’ve always trusted you, Anna. How can you say I haven’t? But, listen . . . can’t we try again? What we have is so amazing, so wonderful. We can be more careful. Nobody will ever have to know.”

  And then, they both heard the sound of the front door opening, followed by Walter’s voice: “Anna? Where are you?”