Half Moon Lake

by Kirsten Alexander

  Maybe Mr Davenport had found this woman’s son and brought them together. But had he made a mistake, and the woman had become upset at seeing the wrong child? Or was she angry because the child was her son, and her chances of getting money from the Davenports or Mr Wolf had evaporated? Had she been part of a scheme to swindle the family, a scheme being kept from Mrs Davenport? Or, Esmeralda thought, she’d witnessed two reunions, in Mobile and Opelousas, in which neither mother nor child –? She paused mid-thought. No; she was missing a piece of the puzzle.

  Over the next few days, Esmeralda learned what she could about Grace Mill. She spoke with the deliverymen, her Uncle Joe, her sister Annalise, each of whom had opportunities to overhear things on a regular basis. She asked the members of her church choir. One man said the woman was most definitely staying at Penny Farm, and that he’d overheard Mrs Penny talking to her daughter as he’d helped Farmer Penny unload crates of oranges at the market. ‘She was worrying because the woman won’t eat, pining for her son that bad.’ She asked Aunt Celestine to call on the spirits for guidance, but Celestine said the spirits couldn’t make their way through the fog. ‘There are more children than you think, Es. Whole hive of them.’ Esmeralda asked Cook if she’d spoken with the boy or seen who’d brought him to the house, but she hadn’t. Sula volunteered that she knew where Penny Farm was, because one of her nephews had picked apples in their orchard the previous July.

  When Esmeralda had a bad tooth pulled out at the veterinarian’s surgery, she learned that witnesses were being brought in from Alabama for the court case, that people believed Grace Mill had turned on Gideon Wolf after his lawyers short-changed her, and that Gideon Wolf would hang. She heard everyone who had an opinion – which was everyone in the town – say the judge would find in the Davenports’ favour because the boy in their home was Sonny. It had now been proven. But once she put together what she’d discovered, Esmeralda was confident she’d been present at the making of a lie.

  Mary Davenport returned from her stay in the country so cheery, from the second she entered the house issuing rapid-fire instructions for Cook to replicate the magnificent meal she’d enjoyed the previous night and Esmeralda to prepare the parlour for the arrival of new drapes and Pru to bring the boys to her room right away, that it was clear she was ignorant of what had happened in her absence. Unless she was happy because it had gone well, Esmeralda thought.

  Either way, Esmeralda resolved to speak with Grace Mill before the trial, to tell her the boy she’d been shown was not the boy who lived in the Davenport house. She didn’t dislike the Davenports, and she needed her salary, but to keep a mother and child apart was wrong. As wrong as it would be for her to sit with a lie. According to Sula, though, Penny Farm was more than two hours away by foot, and she couldn’t be gone from the house for so long without anybody noticing. Her next Sunday off was too far away to help Grace.

  She’d go to the sheriff, then. He seemed a reasonable man, had always been polite to her, asked after her children. But, no, he’d travelled the country with Mr Davenport. She’d seen them talking to one another on the porch before they set off on those trips, thick as thieves. He must be in on this, too. He presented the greatest risk to Esmeralda if he was helping the Davenports. He could lock her up to keep her quiet. Or worse.

  But – yes. She could go to Tom McCabe. If anybody would want the truth, it’d be the reporter who’d followed the story from day one. He’d listen. It’d be for his own sake, not hers or anyone else’s, but he’d listen. And good Lord, she’d heard him prattle about his treasured sources and integrity enough to know she could trust him. He’d probably try to convince her again they were friends. But she’d tolerate that, because he could talk to the Davenports as one white person to others, help them unravel a wrongdoing without anyone losing face. He liked John Henry and was soft-eyed for Mary. He wouldn’t want them to do something so immoral, so born of pain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tom and Clara met with Eddie and Nora for dancing at Willy’s Original Café. Eddie had been excited about this night all week, telling Tom how terrific it was sure to be: Kid Ory’s Woodland Band was visiting from New Orleans.

  ‘Word on the street is Jelly Roll Morton’s coming our way, too,’ Eddie said, once they were seated in the crowded room.

  ‘You look like the cat that got the cream.’ Nora blew a plume of smoke over his shoulder.

  ‘Here, give me that.’ Eddie reached for the cigarette.

  Clara was eager to chat about the upcoming trial. Everybody was talking about it, except Tom. She’d asked him for updates, but that seemed to annoy him. Mostly, she thought, because he’d started to think of himself as one of the Davenports’ friends, only to be cut off. Since they’d returned with their boy there’d been no more reading, no social calls. He hadn’t even met the boy. Clara had mixed feelings about this: on the one hand, she’d hoped the Davenports might be their passport to Opelousas high society; on the other, she was happy Tom wasn’t spending time alone with Mary Davenport. It wasn’t as if he’d do anything shameful; his infatuation with her wasn’t a threat as much as a potential embarrassment. Clara imagined she’d been the only one who’d cottoned on to Tom’s affection for the woman, but perhaps Mr Davenport had, too, and had put his foot down. Why, Clara thought, if ever she were to meet Mr Davenport she’d give him a great big kiss on the cheek to thank him.

  When the band took a break and the café gave over to noisy chatter and gramophone music, Clara launched into the topic. Surely Tom would be more open to talking about it here, given the trial was due to start the following week, and Eddie and Nora were certain to have opinions. It would seem queer if he were to brush them off the way he did her.

  ‘Will you go to the courthouse to watch?’ Clara asked Nora.

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ Nora replied. ‘Mother and I have followed the whole story right from the beginning.’

  ‘Tom, do you remember those days when I’d visit you at the Davenports’ gate? How you spent your days on their front steps sitting in the sunshine with Walter? It seems a lifetime ago.’

  ‘Your visits were the best part of our day, Clara.’ Eddie grinned at Nora. ‘I hadn’t met you yet, my sweet.’

  Nora raised her eyebrows. ‘I, for one, hope they let the boy go back to his real mother. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure the Davenports made a mistake.’

  ‘Do you know, I’m thinking that, too,’ Clara said.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since now, Tom. You know I wanted the best for the Davenports from the start. But something doesn’t feel right to me. People say the boy cries day and night. Wouldn’t you think he’d be glad to be home? Maybe Mary Davenport was so set on getting a boy she –’

  ‘Ah, you’re talking through your hat,’ Tom said. ‘The boy is with his “real” mother, and I’m sure he’s plenty happy about that. I don’t know who these mystery people are who’ve seen him crying. You know nobody’s been near him. Anyhow, none of this gossip counts for anything. I’ve told you a hundred times the trial is between the Davenports and the tramp. It’s about a childnapping. Wolf dreamed up the idea of the other mother so he doesn’t get hanged.’

  ‘Dreamed her up? Oh, she’s real. People have met her,’ Clara said.

  ‘Listen, there is a woman.’ Tom spoke slowly, as though to a child. ‘But she’s not the boy’s mother. She’s some poor girl Wolf’s rich brother is paying to give him an alibi.’

  ‘They say the boy has her eyes,’ Nora said.

  ‘Does he?’ Clara leaned forward.

  ‘Mind you, I also heard she was in the same room as the boy and he didn’t recognise her. Screamed in fear.’

  Eddie joined in. ‘I’ve heard that, too. But it’s not in any of the papers. Why is that, Tom? Seems to me, it’s awful similar to what we saw –’

  ‘It’s not the same, not at all.’ Tom turned to Clara. ‘I’m astonished you’d want to see the boy go to an unwed woman with no means
and no home. What kind of life would that be for him?’

  ‘Well, I’m astonished you think the Davenports should get whatever they want just because they want it.’ She spoke again to Nora. ‘I’ve been reading the old clippings Tom keeps in a box and –’

  ‘Those are my work papers!’ Tom said.

  ‘Well, what am I supposed to do when you won’t talk to me about the most sensational thing that’s ever happened around here? Even though you’re smack in the middle of it.’ She softened her shoulders. ‘Oh, the band’s back.’

  Eddie ordered more drinks for the foursome.

  Clara fiddled with her teardrop earrings, refusing to meet Tom’s eye.

  Tom was troubled by her flippancy. She’d made sharp remarks on a few occasions, but he hadn’t known how wholeheartedly she’d turned on the Davenports, on Mary.

  ‘Grace Mill is bedbound with fever right now, anyhow.’ Tom raised his voice, to be heard over the band. ‘On top of her marital status, lack of money and having a newborn, she can’t leave her room. She’s in no fit state to care for the boy.’

  ‘Sick people can recover,’ Clara said.

  ‘And the rest? I don’t know why you’re siding with her. She’s the type of woman you’d cross the street to avoid.’

  Eddie and Nora watched the band, moving in time to the music.

  ‘It’s like you’re inclined to side with the Davenports no matter what. That doesn’t seem like the behaviour of a newsman, more of –’ Clara pursed her lips.

  ‘More of what?’ Tom asked.

  Clara looked towards the stage.

  Tom drank his whiskey and watched the band, but with none of Eddie and Nora’s evident enjoyment.

  In a break between songs, Eddie turned to face Clara. ‘I’m with you. Never did think the boy was theirs.’

  Tom thumped his glass onto the table. ‘Have you all gone crazy? What is it you’re drinking?’ He pointed at Eddie. ‘You know John Henry, how long and hard he searched for Sonny. And Mary almost died of heartbreak at losing her boy. I can’t believe you’d want them handing him over to a tramp.’

  ‘You’re right. I want them to hand him back to his mother,’ Eddie said. ‘I’ve heard you wax lyrical about the rights of poor people before. And Grace Mill is one of them. John Henry is sincere – yeah, of course he is. He sincerely wants his life to go back to normal. But you can’t put their needs above hers because you like them better.’

  Tom glared at Eddie. ‘The boy belongs with Mary.’

  Clara put down her glass. ‘Why, Tom, I think it’s Mary Davenport you’re thinking of, not the truth, not the boy, and not Grace Mill.’

  ‘Oh boy.’ Eddie reached out for Nora. ‘C’mon, honey, let’s dance.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Fate smiled on Esmeralda. On Monday morning, as the house was waking to the day – fires lit, beds made, Cook washing the remains of pain perdu and honey off breakfast dishes, Mason greeting Gladys Heaton at the front door; the boys using their early energy to up-end domestic order through pillow-fights, digging through drawers for preferred clothing and laying magazines on the carpet to play slip-and-slide hopscotch, the ruins of each game gleefully ignored – Esmeralda was once again trying to figure out how she could get to Tom McCabe without her absence being noticed. As she was folding Mary’s nightgown, Pru rushed into the bedroom.

  ‘No need to run.’ Esmeralda placed the nightgown in a drawer. ‘Not many things that important.’

  ‘He wants you in his library, tout de suite.’

  ‘Couldn’t use the bell? Never mind, I’m going.’

  She found Mr Davenport at his desk, the window flung open though it was close to arctic outside. Esmeralda stood in front of him, thinking it wouldn’t be too great a politeness for Mr Davenport to pause in his paper-arranging. She was keen to go back to the more civilised warm rooms of the house where he never ventured. She coughed.

  ‘I need you to deliver a document to Judge Roy’s house.’ He slid a large sealed envelope towards her. ‘You remember where he lives?’ His tone was stern, underlining the gravity of his question.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Remember to wait this time to see if he has a reply.’

  Esmeralda left the house and walked along the laneway that led to the judge’s Daffodil Road home. It was no more than ten minutes away, less if she moved fast enough to warm herself, and that extra pace would leave her time to make a detour via the Clarion.

  The front door to the Clarion building had a large brass lion’s-head knocker in the middle and a fluted column either side. The door marked the entrance to a place of authority, and Esmeralda was not confident it was hers to knock upon. Indeed, she stood at the front because there was no accessible back entrance. ‘With Him at my side, I will not be shaken,’ she murmured, then crossed herself and grabbed hold of the lion’s thick tongue.

  A thin moustachioed man opened the door, with undisguised displeasure at seeing a Negro on the front step. After Esmeralda explained to him she was there to see Mr McCabe, he closed the door and went to fetch Tom. Which meant more of Esmeralda’s time wasted, each minute of which she might have used to explain.

  By the time the door opened again she was anxious, impatient and chilled to the bone. She was relieved Tom was so plainly happy to see her. ‘What brings you here, Mrs Somerset? Do you have an invitation for me?’

  Esmeralda looked past him at the black-and-white checked floor tiles, the potted aspidistra, the dark wood staircase. So this was a newspaper office. Not as intimidating as any of the fine houses Mrs Davenport had dragged her to over the years.

  Tom read the anxiety in her face. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘Yes, sir, there is.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Tom stood in the doorway but didn’t suggest she come inside. ‘Is it Mary, John Henry?’

  She knew what a risk she was taking, but regardless of the danger, Esmeralda was going to speak the truth. Tom would stop treating her like an amusing child once she told him what she’d seen. ‘I’m here because I’ve been witness to an injustice. I’ve seen many injustices in my life but –’

  Tom held one hand up. ‘Ah, I’m glad you feel you can be candid with me, but the Clarion is loath to publish stories that rile up Negroes. Sheriff Sherman might make a better –’

  ‘No, sir, not an injustice of that kind.’ She silently asked for God’s help once more. ‘Mr Davenport invited Grace Mill into his home and showed her a strange child to trick her. It wasn’t the boy he calls Sonny, wasn’t any child I’ve ever seen before, though Mr Davenport told her it was. Judge Roy was in the room, too. I believe they’re conspiring to convince Miss Mill the boy they have is not hers. But Mr McCabe, he is.’

  Tom stopped fidgeting. Esmeralda could see he understood.

  Tom assessed his options. What Esmeralda had said was unexpected, and he wanted to ask for more details, but he didn’t want her to think he’d entertain publishing it, not for a minute. He walked a slow arc away from her to gather his thoughts.

  Everyone had known Grace Mill would need to see the child at some point. But Esmeralda had accused John Henry of deliberate deception, and implied Judge Roy was complicit. Whether or not that was true, he needed to stamp her accusations out immediately.

  Tom’s thoughts raced, but there was no question where his allegiance lay.

  He’d tell her what a fanciful imagination she had, suggest she’d been drinking the cook’s sherry. No – this was no time for deflective humour. Maybe tell her he’d look into it. Or that it was part of a legal strategy she didn’t understand. (Mill’s failure to recognise the boy must have thrilled Ellis. Gabino would have to argue – Lord, what would he argue?) But she’d ask what and how, and would push him.

  Esmeralda began talking at him again, describing how the strange boy cried and Grace Mill shook as she left the house. She quoted this lawyer and that. She said, several times, that Tom needed to speak with Mr Davenport before the trial, that he needed
to –

  ‘Stop, stop!’ Tom had become angrier with every word she’d uttered. She’d piled detail on detail, boxed him into a corner, leaving him no easy way to dismiss her. And now, to tell him what he needed to do. Tom stepped forward, and although Esmeralda stood her ground she leaned back as he unleashed the force of his fury. ‘I need to share your tall tale about one of Opelousas’ finest men? I need to defame a judge? I need to inflict further suffering on a woman who has already endured so much? I need to do none of that. Stop talking and let me think.’

  Esmeralda held her breath.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re telling me this, I don’t. For you to turn on the Davenports –’

  ‘I’m not –’

  ‘It’s outrageous. They’ve been good to you, Esmeralda, liberal. Is this how you thank them, by spreading a lie that could ruin any chance they have of happiness?’

  ‘This isn’t about thanks. It’s about a deception.’

  Tom stepped closer. ‘Listen, you think you saw something. But you don’t know what happened in that room. You don’t understand.’ Mason, Tom thought. He would speak to Mason, possibly the one loyal servant John Henry had. ‘You saw a boy going into a room, then he made some noise on his way out. I’m sure Sonny’s made a fuss countless times. That’s not unusual.’

  ‘Except the boy wasn’t Sonny.’

  Her insolence, her refusal to back down, infuriated Tom further.

  ‘I don’t think you comprehend what a serious accusation you’re making. It’s a downright fabrication, I’d say. Do you have some grievance against Mr Davenport? Because that would explain it. And since this is a legal matter, that’s tantamount to interfering with the course of the law for your own ends. Is that what you’re doing? Because there are severe penalties for that.’