Mittman, Stephanie

by The Courtship

  ***

  He saw Moss Johnson slip into the courtroom out of the corner of his eye, trying to hide Charlotte with his bulk. Damn! He'd begged her not to come. Told Moss he was to take her directly home. He hated that he couldn't just get up and go back there to where she sat and demand she leave. He hated that he had to sit impassively at the big oak table and simply take notes on what Cabot might miss.

  She was back there and it all but stopped his ability to breathe. The pencil in his hand, which he had forgotten, broke in two and he stared down at it, surprised to find how hard he had been clenching it.

  "So then you're saying that from the angle that the canister was thrown, it would be your guess that the man who set the second fire was left-handed?" Brent asked, hurrying with the question so that the jury would no doubt see the broken pencil in Ash's left hand.

  "Your wife is here," he whispered to Cabot, putting down the pencil as inconspicuously as he could.

  "I don't care if Lillie Langtry is here," Cabot responded. "You had to be a lefty, didn't you?"

  "Get her out of here," he said, imagining her last memories of him tainted by accounts of his illicit affairs.

  "Don't worry about it," Cabot said. "It's not likely she'll hear anything that isn't true."

  Ash studied the man next to him as he busily took notes. Naturally it wouldn't bother Cabot if Charlotte were to hear the worst. He reminded himself that this was the man who had let him believe that he was responsible—at six, yet!—for crippling his brother. This was a man who would offer a father money in exchange for his son.

  Slowly he stood up and waited for the judge to take notice of him. In the meantime he glanced back and looked quickly at Charlotte, enough for her to realize what he was doing and yet leave everyone else in the dark as to why.

  She shook her head, that sweet little mouth opening in horror.

  "Mr. Whittier?" Judge Hammerman said. "Is there something...?"

  "Yes, Your Honor," he said, clearing his throat to give her a moment. "I'd like to change—"

  He could hear the rustling of her skirts, the tapping of her feet, the slap of her hands against the courtroom doors, and she hurried out.

  "—my seat, if that's all right. I'm having trouble seeing the witness from here...."

  ***

  "I don't think you ought to come again," Cabot said to her after she'd played with her dinner and refused dessert.

  "I'm sure you're right," she said. She'd never noticed that the tablecloth had a floral pattern within the white-on-white damask. She traced one of the flowers with her finger.

  "How did your argument go?" he asked after Rosa had cleared the dishes and brought them each a cup of tea, hers in the cup that matched her mother's pattern.

  "Fine." The word came out slowly, longer than it needed to be.

  "Your worthy opponent—his argument anything special?"

  "Nothing he hadn't said before."

  "Mmm," he said, as if what she'd told him required deep thought.

  She traced another flower. Someday, she supposed, this tablecloth would be hers and she could pass it on to—no, she could never pass it on. She sniffed. What a stupid thing to make her cry. An old tablecloth that already had two wine stains marring its beauty.

  "Charlotte? Are you all right?" He waved away Rosa and they sat in silence. "Charlotte? Answer me, please."

  She nodded. If he didn't like nods he could sue her.

  "Did you see Mother after you got home from court?" he asked.

  She nodded again.

  "Is she ill?"

  She shook her head. Talking was too difficult. Breathing was too hard.

  "Where is she? Eli's?"

  "Bed."

  "Mother's in bed?" he said as if he needed to guess from her response. "But she isn't ill?"

  Charlotte shrugged. "Sad."

  "This is like talking to some prepubescent—" He stopped midsentence as if something had suddenly occurred to him. "You're certain you are all right?"

  "Tired," she said softly. "Very tired."

  "Charlotte, if there's something you need to tell me, something I ought to know—I realize that I can seem rigid sometimes, difficult, even. But this is your home and I am your family. And furthermore—"

  Furthermore. She could just imagine Cabot making love. There would be parties of the first part and parties of the second part and whereas clauses and... Not that he would ever make love to her. Not in any way.

  "You're crying," he said without any annoyance in his voice. He sounded surprised, confused. "What is it?"

  "I like this tablecloth," she said, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks and make patterns of their own on the white damask.

  "The tablecloth?" he said, wheeling over to where she sat and taking her hand in his. "It'll be all right. You'll see. When you're older, things will look different to you—better. You know what they say about time...."

  He waited for her to finish the line, but she was too busy gulping back tears to answer, and so he did it himself.

  "How it heals all wounds? We'll be fine, you and me. I was thinking about that little vacation I promised you. Does Europe sound better than Chicago?"

  She was racked with sobs now, and he let go of her hand so that she could tend to herself, blow her nose, wipe her tears.

  "Wouldn't you like to see England? France? If you're up to it, of course."

  He put the back of his hand to her forehead, then to each of her cheeks.

  "And if you like it, we can plan on going back sometime. Maybe bring Davis. Can you imagine him at the Tower of London?"

  She looked at the tablecloth again and laid her hand over one of the flowers, petting it gently.

  "Where's your rabbit, anyway?" he asked. "Do you suppose that a dog would bother him any? I've a client who raises Afghan hounds and I was thinking about getting a pair for you. Would you like that?"

  She dissolved into a heap on the table, her head in her arms as she wailed and gasped for breath.

  "Charlotte, this is wholly unlike you," he said, patting her gingerly on her back.

  "Maybe this is the real me, Cabot. Maybe I'm just a blubbering female. What if you were stuck with that?"

  "Do you remember that I promised you I'd take care of you? Have I ever not kept my word? Maybe we weren't meant to be happy, Charlotte. But we'll be all right."

  CHAPTER 25

  Had Cabot really sat beside her bed while she'd cried herself to sleep? Or was it a dream that he had tucked her tightly in and whispered that she not let the bedbugs bite? Wouldn't it have been her mother in a dream? But then why look for logic when what had sent her over the edge was an old tablecloth?

  So now it wasn't just lost cases that reduced her to tears. Fat lot of good falling in love had done her. She'd been better off before.

  She dragged herself out of bed and down the hall to the washroom, passing Cabot's open door on her way. His exasperated voice carried down the hall from Kathryn's room.

  "It's one thing, Mother, to find a witness who saw Ashford somewhere else that first night. It's quite another to find someone who saw the torch being thrown by someone else the second time. I can't prove he wasn't where he was, can I?"

  She couldn't hear Kathryn's response.

  "No, I don't," he said with a heavy sigh. "Not when he knew that Selma was in there. There's only one person he's ever been willing to hurt, and that's himself. I'm sure he was gone when the fire broke out or he'd have risked his own neck to save hers. I've no doubt of it. The fact is, the way the timing worked, he probably passed the murderer himself."

  Kathryn must have muttered something in response, or maybe she didn't. Charlotte didn't care. Cabot was right. Ash probably saw the killer!

  No one had ever dressed as fast. She threw on a fresh shirtwaist and the skirt she'd worn the day before and ran a brush through her uncontrollable mop. It was never going to be long enough to pull back again, but suddenly that didn't seem to matter. Ash loved it short and w
ild and if he wanted her to, she'd hack it off whenever he asked.

  She'd promised him that she would not show her face again in the courtroom. But she hadn't said she wouldn't visit him in jail, and grabbing up the notes she'd been poring over, she hurried down the steps and out the door.

  ***

  "What are you doing here?" he asked, buttoning his shirt and tucking it into his pants. "They said my lawyer was here to see me," he explained, running his fingers through his hair to straighten it.

  "Would you leave us alone?" she asked the guard the way she'd seen Cabot do a hundred times. "I need to speak with my client in private."

  "Charlotte, don't," he warned, but he didn't stop the guard from leaving and closing the door behind him.

  "You're losing weight," she said, touching his cheek where the hollow had grown deeper.

  He stood perfectly still and let her run her fingers over his face. His Adam's apple bobbed furiously, but his hands stayed at his sides. "Cabot know you're here?" he asked.

  "It was Cabot's idea," she started, then felt a pang of guilt. "That's not exactly true. I've come because of an idea that Cabot had. He's home with your mother."

  "She must be pretty bad if Cabot's with her," he said.

  Charlotte nodded, unable to lie to him. Then, with her fingers crossed for luck, she told him about Cabot's theory. "Can you remember seeing anyone after you left the warehouse?"

  "You mean someone I know?" He pulled out a chair for her and one for himself, coming to life for the first time since his arrest. "Wouldn't they have been hiding?"

  "Only if they got there before you. But then they would have heard you talking to Selma and have known she was inside. And who would want to hurt Selma?"

  She meant it rhetorically, but the question hung in the air.

  "No," he said finally, with the hint of a laugh. "If you knew Selma well enough to hate her, you'd have had to love her."

  "So then you and he probably crossed paths as you were walking down the street. He broke a window, so you had to be far enough away not to have heard it. Of course, he kept walking and so did you after you passed, which means you didn't have to be blocks away at the time to be—"

  "No one," he said, and hit his fist into his palm. "No one I remember. No one who stood out. Just your usual assortment of riffraff that the morning brings out. Plus the iceman. The milkman. The mailman. The—"

  The mailman. Charlotte reached into her pocket and pulled out the small envelope that she had taken from Selma's flowers. She slipped her finger under the seal and pulled out the card.

  "What is that?" Ash asked, leaning closer to her to get a look.

  Oh, but he smelled of cheap lye soap and frustration, and Charlotte thought if they could bottle it and sell it they'd be richer than Midas. She inhaled deeply while he read the note aloud.

  "I'm so sorry this happened to you—Ewing. Where did you get this, Charlie?"

  "What?" she asked, trying to pull herself away from the warmth his body gave off, the hard arm against which her breast was pressed. She looked at the note in her hand. "Think! Did you see Ewing Flannigan that morning, Ash? Was he the mailman you passed?"

  "Flannigan sent this to Selma?"

  She nodded. "Mr. Flannigan was the beau that Eli was talking about that night at dinner. Of course, he didn't know it was Davis's father she was seeing. But the truth is he was the one sweet on her. What if she'd spurned him?"

  "That wasn't the way Eli was telling it," Ash said.

  "What if Eli had convinced her?" Charlotte asked. "And in his anger Flannigan decided if he couldn't have her, no one could?"

  Ash shook his head. "Flannigan fights with his fists. He might have hit her if he was mad enough, but setting the place on fire? It just isn't his style."

  "We know he's violent. Maybe he does all kinds of terrible things when he's drunk."

  "And why would he have set the first fire?" Ash asked. "Selma hadn't even started seeing him then."

  "Maybe she'd turned him down," she insisted, unwilling to give up this first shred of hope. "And maybe he's a pyromaniac."

  "A pyromaniac who sends flowers?" Ash asked skeptically. "And I'd remember seeing him, don't you think? He isn't likely to be someone I wouldn't have noticed."

  "He says he's sorry, doesn't he? Isn't that an admission of guilt?" She studied the evidence in her hand.

  "What did you write on your card?" Ash asked her. "With your plant?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Liar," he said, touching the tip of her nose. "I bet it was pretty close to what Flannigan said."

  "So what if it was?" she said, lacing her fingers through his and brushing her cheek with his knuckles. "It's reasonable doubt, I think."

  "Because a man sent a woman flowers?" He brought their joined hands to his lips and kissed the back of hers. "I would send you flowers if things were different."

  "And I would learn to bake so that I could make you cakes and pies," she said, her thigh pressed against his.

  "Would you sneak a file in one of them?" he asked, his mouth against her ear.

  "A file? That, and my heart and soul," she said, turning her face so that his lips were a hairbreadth from her own.

  He pulled back, and she could see in his face what it cost him to do it. "Don't go giving those away to the likes of me," he said. "Not if I'm convicted. You go on with your life if that happens, Charlie Russe. Promise me you will."

  "I brought the list of customers with me," she said, fighting tears as she dug into her satchel. "Maybe if you see a name, you'll remember passing him that morning."

  "Cabot will take care of you, just like always," he said softly, looking at her as if it was the last time he'd ever see her. As if he had already given up. "He's promised me that."

  "And is that good enough for you?" she asked as the guard worked the key in the lock of the door. "Should it be good enough for me?"

  "It may have to be," he said as he rose and shoved his hands into his pockets

  ***

  "Kathryn," Charlotte said, standing by the woman's bed holding a dress in either hand, "which one are you going to wear today?"

  Kathryn rolled over, turning her back to Charlotte, and burrowed deeper under the covers.

  "So you're folding," Charlotte said letting her disappointment show. "All those times you told me to try a little harder, stand a little straighter, all those lectures about the good I could do women with my example—was that all just to keep me out of your hair and out of your house?"

  Kathryn's head whipped around and wide eyes stared at Charlotte. "You're trying to make me angry. You've never doubted that I wanted what was best for you. You got stronger and stronger—look at you! You have it within you to help Ashford." She sighed helplessly and picked at the covers. "I can't do a thing to help my own son."

  "Oh, yes, you can," Charlotte said, throwing back the covers and kneeling beside the bed. "You can do something I can't. You can go into that courtroom and sit right behind your sons. Brent will think twice before he disgraces your own child in front of you. He's a decent man, and your presence will make him very uncomfortable about bringing up Ash's indiscretions.

  "And if he does, the jury won't like him for it. They'll have sympathy for you and it will spill over to Ash. They'll see you think he's innocent and they'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It's all they need, Kathryn—reasonable doubt."

  The old woman grabbed her hand and pulled herself up with it, easing her legs over the side of the bed and feeling about with her feet for her slippers.

  "The lavender one," she said, pointing at the dress that rested at the foot of her bed. "It's grown a tad large and I look more pathetic in it."

  "I'm proud of you, Kathryn," Charlotte said, giving the woman her arm to help her rise.

  "I don't want to hear them say awful things about my son," she said when they were eye-to-eye.

  "I don't want to hear them either," Charlotte said, "but I'd give my right arm to be able to
sit in the courtroom and let him know that I don't care what anyone says about him."

  Kathryn patted her hand and stood up straight. She arched her shoulders and threw back her head. "I'm proud of you too," she said softly. "Cabot and I did a good job."

  Charlotte, who had begun to pull out the underthings that her mother-in-law would need, turned and put her hands on her hips. "You did have a lot to work with," she said with a smile.

  ***

  Davis's da was passed out cold on the sofa in the front room. Since Miss Mollenoff's accident on St. Patty's Day, he wasn't saving his drinking for Friday nights. Mostly, he was too drunk to hit Davis, but it didn't stop him from trying.

  "And where were ya thinkin' of going?" he roared as Davis tiptoed by the couch.

  Davis swallowed twice, breathed in, and said, "Miz Whittiers got work for me."

  His father opened one eye. "Ah, but can ya be sayin' it three times fast?"

  The smell of urine and vomit rose from the couch along with his father.

  "You're doin' better," he admitted, going to unbutton his pants and finding them already undone. "Get me a bottle and a piss pot."

  Davis brought the chamber pot from beneath his bed and handed it to his father. A creeping stain on his da's trousers showed he was a little late, and his father grabbed the pot and finished his business before reaching out to take a swipe at him.

  "She still dead?" he asked, coughing up some phlegm and spitting it into the pot by his feet.

  "Course sh-sh-sh..." he began.

  "Ah, and has the lease run out on your tongue?" his father asked. "Where's my whiskey?"

  "You're out," Davis told him, ready to dodge the blow that would follow.

  Instead his father put his head in his hands. "It's just as well, I suppose. The doc—he's all right, Davey?"

  Davis went to nod, stopped himself, and said, "Yes sir," with only the slightest hesitation.

  "You tell that man he best be taking extra care. There are people out there that are wishin' him harm, there are, for sure."

  "Who?"

  "A stand-up gent don't name no names," his father said, tucking his privates back into his damp pants. "Suffice it to say I got ears and eyes and he'd do well to be watchin' his back."