Fortune's Rocks

by Anita Shreve

  Tucker nods encouragingly. And it occurs to Olympia then that something is profoundly missing from these proceedings. The boy himself. Her son. Though she would not wish him here, would not wish him to have to listen to any of this testimony, the event seems patently hollow without him.

  “But I do not seek to have the child returned to me simply because I wish to have my ‘property’ restored,” Olympia says. “No, I believe that I shall be a good and loving mother for the boy, that I can offer the boy certain advantages in terms of comfort and education that are not normally available to all children.”

  The intensity of Albertine Bolduc’s angry stare is almost more than Olympia can bear. She tries to focus only on Tucker’s face, his spectacles.

  “Mr. Tucker, my heart aches for the loss of my son,” Olympia says with unfeigned passion. “Our separation has been unnatural and painful. I pray that the court will redress the terrible wrong that has been done both to me and to the boy and that we will one day be reunited, as God and Nature have meant us to be.”

  Albertine Bolduc closes her eyes. Telesphore, who still has his arm around his wife, glares at Olympia with what can only be hatred. Tucker stands motionless, allowing Olympia’s words to settle over the courtroom.

  “No further questions, Your Honor,” Tucker says, taking a seat.

  And then Addison Sears is standing. “Your Honor, I have some questions I should like to put to the relator.”

  “Yes, Mr. Sears, proceed.”

  The portly Mr. Sears takes his time shuffling his notes as he approaches Olympia. It is so cold in the chamber that for a brief moment, Olympia can see the lawyer’s breath.

  “Good morning, Miss Biddeford,” Sears says, not even looking at her, but rather at his notes.

  “Good morning,” she says in a low voice.

  Sears glances sharply up at her. “I think you will need to speak up, Miss Biddeford, or the court will not be able to hear you.”

  And immediately, she understands that he is setting a pattern of scolding, of chastising the child. She raises her chin. “Good morning,” she repeats in a louder and clearer voice.

  “Miss Biddeford, are you or have you ever been married?”

  “No.”

  “And if you were to receive custody of the boy, you would, of necessity, be forced to care for him as an unwed mother. Is this not true?”

  “Yes,” she says simply.

  “Miss Biddeford, you have told the court that before arriving at Fortune’s Rocks you were at school. But is it not true that directly before coming to Fortune’s Rocks, you were in fact in the employ of Averill Hardy of Tetbury, Massachusetts, and not, as you have said, at the Hastings School for Girls?”

  The deliberate misnaming of the school is not lost on Olympia, nor, she imagines, on the judge. “Yes,” she says, “that is true. But as it was a summer work-study program administered by the Hastings Seminary for Females, it was considered part of my education at the seminary. It took place under the auspices of the staff there.”

  “Yes, quite,” says Sears. “You were employed as governess to Mr. Hardy’s three sons, is that not correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is it not true that on twelve July of last year you abandoned this post? That you left these three boys without a tutor and did not even tell them you were leaving?”

  “The circumstances were such that . . .”

  “Did you not in fact leave Mr. Hardy’s employ under suspicious circumstances?”

  “Your Honor.” Tucker is standing. “Mr. Sears is not allowing the witness to finish her answer.”

  “Mr. Sears.”

  Addison Sears makes a show of bowing slightly to the judge. When he turns back to Olympia, he is smiling. “I apologize for my small interruption, Miss Biddeford. Doubtless I am too eager to discover the truth. Please, by all means, finish your answer.”

  But Olympia cannot finish her answer. For while Tucker and Sears have been sparring, the bailiff has responded to a knock on the courtroom door and has opened it. Phillip Biddeford, his overcoat dusted with snow, his bowler in his hand, stands at the threshold.

  He seems flustered, disturbed by his surroundings, as if unable to read them immediately. And then he catches sight of his daughter in the witness box with the judge towering over her, and this sight must appear to him so unnatural, so wrong, that he pales and actually brings a hand to his chest. Olympia leans forward as if she would go to him, realizing only then how utterly confining the witness box is, a small and temporary prison. She cannot go to her father, nor can she even speak to him. And worse, she will have to continue to answer Sears’s hideous questions with her father in the room.

  The bailiff leads Mr. Biddeford to a bench. Tucker, who has leaned around in his seat in an unsuccessful effort to signal to Biddeford, turns back again to Olympia.

  But it is Sears who has the floor.

  “Please, Miss Biddeford. I believe the question was: ‘Did you not abandon these three boys with no explanation and without even bidding them farewell?’”

  Instinctively, Olympia reaches for the locket inside her blouse and touches it through the cloth. “Mr. Hardy made unwanted and improper advances toward me, and I thought it prudent, for my own personal safety, to leave at once. It was hardly a situation I could explain to Mr. Hardy’s three sons.”

  “I see. So you found yourself once again involved in an improper amorous relationship.”

  Tucker leaps to his feet, furious this time. “Objection!”

  “Miss Biddeford’s moral character is a relevant issue,” Sears says quietly, as though he has anticipated Tucker’s consternation.

  “Your Honor, in describing Miss Biddeford’s interactions with Averill Hardy as a relationship, and, moreover, an amorous one, counsel is mischaracterizing the witness’s testimony,” says Tucker heatedly. “Miss Biddeford was molested by Mr. Hardy — not the other way around.”

  “Do we not agree that this is a matter Miss Biddeford might clarify for us herself?” Sears asks.

  “Yes, the court agrees,” says Judge Littlefield. “In future, Mr. Sears, you will put appropriate boundaries around your questions.”

  “Yes, Your Honor, I shall.”

  Sears bends a finger under his nose as if lost for a time in deep thought. Then he turns suddenly in Olympia’s direction.

  “Miss Biddeford, when did your sexual relations with Dr. Haskell begin?”

  The bluntness of the question not only stuns Olympia but also seems to startle Tucker, who looks sharply up from his notes. Neither has prepared for such a frontal attack. Despite Olympia’s best intentions, and Tucker’s advice, Olympia glances down into her lap. My God, she thinks, I cannot have my father listen to this. I cannot possibly answer these questions in front of him. She looks up and silently implores Tucker to do something.

  Tucker, either seeing the desperation on Olympia’s face or having similar thoughts of his own, stands. “Your Honor, counsel for the relator requests that Mr. Phillip Biddeford, the relator’s father, who has just arrived, be removed from the courtroom during this sensitive questioning of his daughter.”

  Littlefield nods. “Bailiff, please show Mr. Biddeford to another room, where he can await a summons or” — Judge Littlefield checks his pocket watch — “a recess.”

  Olympia watches as her father is led away, and it seems to her that he has to lean on the bailiff ’s arm for support. Sears returns his attention to Olympia.

  “The question, once again, is, ‘When did your sexual relations with Dr. Haskell begin?’”

  “On July fourteenth, 1899.”

  “And what was the nature of these sexual relations?”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” says Tucker from his seat. “Does the witness have to answer this abhorrent question?”

  “Objection sustained,” Littlefield says. “Mr. Sears, the court will not countenance such questioning of the witness.”

  “Miss Biddeford,” Sears says, “where did you m
eet Dr. Haskell for the purpose of this sexual congress?”

  “At his hotel.”

  “This would be the Highland Hotel of Fortune’s Rocks?”

  “Yes.”

  “You went to his room?”

  “Yes.

  “This is a room he occasionally shared with his wife when she came to visit on weekends?”

  “I believe so,” Olympia says, wondering how Sears can possibly know such facts.

  “Would it be accurate to say you initiated these relations?”

  Olympia thinks a moment. It is a question she has long pondered herself. “Yes,” she says finally.

  “And you were aware Dr. Haskell had a wife and children?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had, in fact, met this wife and children and had dealings with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “They were, indeed, guests at your house from time to time?”

  “Yes.”

  “On how many occasions did you engage in sexual congress with Dr. Haskell?”

  “I do not know.”

  “More than a dozen?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Did you always go to the hotel?”

  “No.”

  “Where else did you go?”

  “To a building site.”

  “To a building site?” Sears asks incredulously. He turns away from Olympia and glances at Albertine and Telesphore.

  “Dr. Haskell was building a cottage,” Olympia adds.

  “At Fortune’s Rocks?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you engaged in sexual congress with him in this half-built cottage?” Sears asks.

  “I have already said that I did.”

  The tension of Sears’s inquisition is producing an excruciating headache at the back of Olympia’s neck. For how long will these terrible questions go on?

  “Miss Biddeford, at the time you were engaging in these reprehensible acts, did you consider your actions wrong?”

  “I considered it wrong to harm Catherine Haskell,” she says. “I did not consider it wrong to love John Haskell.”

  “Catherine Haskell being Dr. Haskell’s wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you now consider your conduct during that time to have been sinful?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Truly, Miss Biddeford? Do you attend church services?”

  “I have done so.”

  “When was the last time you attended a church service?”

  “Last June,” she says.

  “I see. That would be eight months ago. Will you, if you are given custody of the boy, then consider your conduct sinful?”

  “Your Honor,” says Tucker, again on his feet. “The witness cannot know how she will feel at some future date.”

  “Mr. Sears.”

  “Let me put the question another way, Your Honor. Miss Biddeford, how will you explain the circumstances of your son’s birth to him when he is of an age to understand such things — if, indeed, such unnatural acts can ever be understood?”

  “I shall explain them in the way I would hope Albertine Bolduc would explain them. That is to say, I shall tell my son the truth.”

  Shaking her head, Albertine whispers to her husband.

  “Miss Biddeford, have you ever contacted the child?”

  “No.”

  “Have you shown any interest in his welfare?”

  “I have put this petition forward.”

  “In any other way?”

  “I have had interest in the boy ever since he was born.”

  “Have you indicated any such interest to any other person prior to moving to Fortune’s Rocks in July of last year?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever met the child?”

  “No.”

  “Miss Biddeford, do you love John Haskell still?”

  The question is swift and clean, a blade slicing to the bone. But Olympia does not hesitate in her answer. “Yes,” she says at once, and it is the first time during the proceedings that Addison Sears himself looks at all surprised. He takes a drink of water. “Can you possibly now foresee a day when you might repudiate, in the interests of your child, your love for John Haskell?” he asks.

  Tucker is on his feet, but Olympia is answering the question. “No,” she says in a clear voice. “It will never be in the interest of the child to repudiate my love for John Haskell.”

  “Your Honor, I have no further questions.”

  • • •

  Olympia meets her father during the noontime recess in a small chamber to one side of the courtroom. He falters and has to use his hands on a table edge to pull himself upright. It has been only eight months since Olympia last saw her father, but he seems scarcely familiar to her. His face is chalky in color, and he appears to be frail; and she does not know if this is a result of his shock in the courtroom, at the sight of his daughter in the witness box, or of age. Perhaps her father is unwell. When she embraces him, she kisses him, even though it is not their custom.

  “My dear,” her father says.

  They clasp each other’s hands, the kiss having unleashed a torrent of feeling in Olympia. They sit in the leather chairs at a library table. Tucker stands discreetly at the door.

  “Must you go through with this, Olympia?” her father asks.

  “I will have my son restored to me, Father,” she says. “But I am distressed at the thought of the anguish this is causing you.”

  “I do not have anguish if you do not,” he says. “And I no longer care about scandal. You should know that your mother did not agree to my . . . disposing . . . of the boy in the manner I did. She was most upset with me. And now . . . Well, I can hardly speak of now.”

  “You have told her?”

  “Yes, of course. I felt I must. She is bound to hear of it. Olympia, please let me help you. I wish to make amends. I shall stay here as long as I am needed. I will tell you, however, that I am bound to testify, for I have been summoned.”

  “Do so, Father,” she says. “Tell the truth. It can only help me.”

  “You must need money.”

  Olympia sits up straighter and glances over at Tucker. “Mr. Tucker has been kind enough to defer all fees until such time as I can pay him.”

  “Well, that is a matter Mr. Tucker and I shall settle between us,” her father says. “You must not try to be so independent, Olympia. It is not good for the heart.”

  And she thinks, as she gazes all about her father’s face and his coat, rumpled and wet from his journey, that of course her father has wisdom about some matters.

  “Father — ,” she says, but she cannot finish her sentence, for the door opens. Judge Levi Littlefield enters the room.

  “Oh, excuse me,” he says. “I did not realize anyone was in here.”

  Littlefield, who appears considerably smaller without his robes, seems for the first time to see the other person in the room.

  “Phillip,” he says, advancing.

  Olympia’s father stands. “Levi,” he says, putting out his hand.

  “I am sorry you have had to appear in this matter. You came last night?”

  “This morning.”

  “And missed the brunt of the storm, I hope?”

  “Just.”

  “Well, I shall leave you to your conference.”

  With a small nod in Olympia’s direction, and hesitating only slightly, Littlefield backs through the door.

  “You and Judge Littlefield know each other,” Tucker says to Phillip Biddeford.

  “A matter of pigs straying into the orchards and creating a general nuisance, as I recall,” Olympia’s father says. “Levi settled the matter with considerable grace and wit.”

  Olympia remembers the invasion of the pigs from the Trainer farm. Six years ago? Seven?

  Tucker smiles. “I imagine it was one of the more amusing matters to come before the court.”

  “I daresay it was.”

  “Father,” Olympia says, �
�let us take Mr. Tucker to lunch, and ascertain as well that you have a room at the hotel. There can be no thought of your journeying back to Boston until this weather has turned fine again.”

  “Olympia,” her father says, turning to her, his face having regained some of its color. “I have missed you so very much.”

  • • •

  Counsel for the relator calls Phillip Arthur Biddeford to the stand:

  “Mr. Biddeford, did you on the afternoon of fourteen April 1900 conspire to unlawfully remove the infant male child Pierre Francis Haskell from his mother, your daughter, Olympia Biddeford?”

  “Yes, Mr. Tucker, I did.”

  “Did you take the child yourself?”

  “No, I did not. I had my wife’s personal maid take the child and bring him downstairs to me, whereupon I immediately bade my personal manservant, Josiah Hay, to transfer the child to its father, Dr. John Haskell.”

  “And you had made prior arrangements with Dr. Haskell?”

  “Yes, I had.”

  “How so?

  “By post.”

  “At your instigation or at his?”

  “At mine. I had written to the man through his lawyer.”

  “And your agreement was?”

  “That he would undertake to place the child with an orphanage. He was well suited to do this, since he had often worked with charitable institutions in Ely Falls and elsewhere.”

  “Mr. Biddeford, tell the court why you made these arrangements and contrived in a clandestine manner to steal the child from your daughter.”

  “I was concerned for her reputation.”

  “Do you regret having done this?”

  “Yes, very much so. I pray my daughter will one day forgive me.”

  • • •

  Counsel for the respondents wishes to put questions to Phillip Arthur Biddeford:

  “Mr. Biddeford. When you discovered your daughter was with child, what were your thoughts?”

  “I was horrified.”

  “Did you consider your daughter too young to bear a child?”