But Grace ignored the lawyer, her focus on Gideon. ‘You were supposed to bring him home. No more than five weeks.’ She turned to the jury. ‘I know my boy. In a new place without me, there’s no way he’d run off anywhere. He would have stuck to you like glue, Gideon. Unless you were treating him badly. Did you? Did you mistreat Ned?’
‘Counsel,’ the judge snapped. ‘How many times do I need to ask you to do your job?’
‘Miss Mill,’ Gabino said, ‘given what we’ve heard, I think there’s no further reason for you to remain on the stand. You are distressed and the comfort of a bed’ – he gestured for the Pennys to come help Grace – ‘would be –’
‘I don’t believe any of this. Gideon, you’re wily,’ Grace said. ‘It was your silver tongue got you called back again and again to the Cavetts’. You never made that piano sound any better than a pile of old teeth. You’ve invented a tale to escape punishment. But I’ve been told the real truth by another.’ She looked at Gabino. ‘I told you when you came to Penny Farm that the Davenports’ housekeeper, Esmeralda, knows the child I was shown by Mr Davenport was neither Ned nor Sonny. She’s worked for them for years, knew their son since his birth. And why would the Davenports deceive me with a different child if they didn’t have my son? Ned is in their home. I’m certain of it. Their boy is lost and gone, and they took my Ned to replace him. That is the truth and you know it. You must all surely know it.’
Again, the room exploded into loud chatter.
‘We’ve been deceived, your Honour. That viewing was a scam.’
‘Miss Mill!’ the judge bellowed. ‘May I remind you I was in the library that day but the housekeeper was not. So her opinion is based on subterfuge and guesswork. And as such it is worth nothing.’
‘She wasn’t in the room, sir, but she heard and she saw. And she knows the boy they’re calling Sonny. He has no voice, like my Ned. There aren’t many boys without the ability to speak. When Esmeralda came to the Pennys’ farmhouse, she told us –’
Judge Roy gave up on Grace resisting the urge to talk to him directly. ‘You’re telling me the Davenport Negro travelled, without permission, to a farmhouse where no one knew her, to spin you a web of lies about her employer? And that we are to take her falsehoods – motivated by an animosity I have no wish to fathom – into consideration? Madam, I understand your thinking may be clouded by sickness and shock, but this is preposterous.’
Upstairs, Esmeralda sank low into her seat. It was enraging to hear insults about herself, beyond frustrating not to be able to shout out in agreement with Grace, but the judge’s feelings had escalated enough that she was in fresh danger. She could not be seen. Everyone around her understood the precariousness of her situation and arranged their bodies to help Esmeralda fade into the crowd.
Downstairs, Mary was stung at the news Esmeralda had gone to the Pennys’ farmhouse with the sole intention of betraying her. Was that where she was coming from when Mary had presented her with the beautiful blue dress? She reached out for John Henry.
‘Miss Mill,’ Gabino said as he stepped forward, alarmed at the judge’s anger, ‘you need to accept it is you who has been deceived. The housekeeper you met is wicked and aggrieved, and has concocted a story that in your desperate state you’ve believed. But please cast it from your mind. She lied, then fled. And her incredible story has served only to hurt you and the Davenports.’
‘She’s gone?’ Grace asked.
‘Yes.’ Gabino waited for this news to return Grace to the beaten and pliable witness he could control.
‘Gone where?’
‘Whoever knows?’ He turned to the jury. ‘But I believe I can say we are sorry to see how much distress an irresponsible servant has caused.’
The jurors murmured their agreement.
At this point, Gabino expected that Grace might begin to sob, or shake. The farm folk would comfort her. And then, after a quick deliberation by the jury, this nasty business could be ended.
Grace, however, raised her chin and met his gaze. ‘You’re lying. All of you, lying.’ Unassisted, she stepped down from the witness stand and left the room, the Pennys behind her.
Sheriff Sherman watched Grace leave, moved by her dignity, ashamed he hadn’t taken her side from the moment he met her. She was right, he thought. But it was too late, and there were too many forces against her.
Esmeralda tapped Joe on the arm.
‘Let’s wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Too much coming and going for it to be safe yet.’
‘Now.’
Joe mumbled his misgivings then followed Esmeralda through a tunnel of shielding bodies to the stairs.
Esmeralda had a fresh idea. Grace’s boy was inside the Davenports’ house, and Esmeralda knew that home and the habits of its occupants better than anyone. She could get the boy out and back with his mother before the court case was over. But she needed Grace and the Pennys to come with her to the Davenports’. If they distracted Mason at the front door, she could count on Sula to help her scuttle the boy out the back where they could collect him. Pru: well, she’d lose her job, but she’d find another. Esmeralda and Joe couldn’t ferry Ned to the farm – she was sure of that from the story of Clarence Tine and a hundred others. Two Negroes with a white boy … But the Pennys with him wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
‘Your Honour,’ Ellis said, ‘we contend that Miss Mill is not in her right mind due to her unfortunate illness and personal loss. We are satisfied with Mr Wolf’s admission that the child now with the Davenports is, indeed, their son. And my clients are prepared to drop their –’
He stopped at the sound of a chair scraping loudly on the floor and turned to see John Henry standing, and Mary briskly making her way for the door. Reading John Henry’s confusion, he asked if his client could have a brief recess.
Seeing there would be no way of stopping Mary without causing a fuss, the judge agreed.
‘I need air,’ Mary had whispered in John Henry’s ear. ‘I can’t breathe.’
Under any other circumstance, John Henry’s main thought as he followed Mary to the door would have been the humiliation of such an untimely public exit, but what he worried about instead was if there’d been enough time for Grace Mill to have left the building. Even an invalid would have been outside by now, though.
Yet there she was, sitting on a wooden bench near the doors, between the Pennys: marshalling her strength to get to their buggy, he supposed. He tried to direct Mary away from them but wasn’t quick enough to stop the two women from seeing one another.
‘Don’t do this,’ Grace called out.
Mary let go of John Henry’s arm and walked towards Grace. ‘I won’t ask what this is because you’ve been very clear about what you think, Miss Mill. But you’re wrong. I’m keeping my family together. What you’re doing, I don’t know. Causing chaos.’
The courtroom door shut with a bang as a scattering of people also in search of fresh air stepped into the hallway. Most of them, observing the tinderbox combination of individuals, and knowing the die had already been cast, chose to walk away. Two women from the Ladies Aid, though, stood against the nearest wall, watching, ignoring John Henry’s glares.
‘I saw your face in the courtroom,’ Grace said. ‘You weren’t aware of your husband’s deception, were you? But now you are, so everything is different.’
‘Mary, you don’t need to speak to her,’ John Henry said in a low voice. ‘Come with me.’
‘Different how?’ Mary said. ‘You’re right I had no idea of the falsehoods in your head. Nor did I know my housekeeper had betrayed me. But neither of those things changes the facts.’
‘Your husband showed me a boy in your house and said it was Ned but it wasn’t, nor was it your Sonny. The child said he’d travelled with Gideon but had never heard of Ned. That makes no sense with Gideon’s tale. He must have been a foundling, or one of your other sons told to lie.’
‘You’re mistaken, Miss Mill. There’s no reason my husband would manufact
ure something so odd.’
‘But that’s my point. He crafted that bizarre situation to throw me off. I believe Esmeralda – Ned is in your house, under false pretences. If the lawyers cared about the truth they would’ve found your housekeeper and let her speak.’
‘Your son ran off, Miss Mill. We heard Gideon Wolf say so.’
‘He’d say anything to escape the noose. Him with his fancy lawyer and you owning this town – I wasn’t worth enough to be heard.’
‘Money has nothing to do with it,’ John Henry said.
‘It has everything to do with it.’ Mrs Penny stood up next to Grace. ‘Let’s go home now. We’ll work something out.’
Mary struggled to find her breath, yanked at the band of her skirt, but there was no loosening it. ‘I’m sorry your boy is gone, Miss Mill, believe me. But the person who’s wronged us both is Gideon Wolf. You should direct your bitterness towards him, not me.’
Grace stared at her. ‘How can you go on this way? You know he’s not yours. You must.’
John Henry grabbed Mary’s arm. She shrugged him off.
‘Miss Mill, I’d no sooner take another woman’s child than I’d harm a puppy. I don’t know anything about your boy. Why,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘I’m flabbergasted at your suggestion there’s some nefarious plot against you. I tell you – no, John, let me – we’ve done nothing other than recover our son.’
‘You madwoman. You mad, deceitful pair. Do you want me to bow and scrape to get him back, to beg? I’ll do that.’
Grace dropped to her knees on the cold stone floor.
The Ladies Aid women gasped. One whispered, ‘We really must get someone.’ This time, the second woman agreed. The pair scampered back into the courtroom.
‘Miss Mill.’ John Henry moved towards Grace, but Farmer Penny shot him a look of such fury he stopped.
‘Stay away from her.’ Farmer Penny bent down to help Grace up. ‘This is no good for you.’
‘Oh, this is infuriating!’ Mary stamped her foot. ‘Why are you doing this to us?’
Grace spoke slowly, refusing to move from her knees. ‘Whatever that group of strangers decides, Ned is my son. To you, he’s property, a replacement for something you lost. But that boy is my flesh and blood. You will never rest if you do this.’
‘Miss Mill, get off the floor. Why must you keep shaming yourself? Mary, come, now.’
‘And you, Mr Davenport? Do you lie awake at night and think about your true son? He’s alone because of you, with no one searching for him anymore. You’ve condemned your own child.’
Mary strode forward, quick as lightning, and slapped Grace hard across the cheek. Grace fell sideways onto the floor, her hands splayed to support her.
‘You’re nothing, no one,’ Mary hissed. ‘And you’ll never see that child again.’
And the two Davenports walked back into the courtroom, bound.
Esmeralda and Joe were far enough away, on the stairs, that no one noticed them. But they were close enough to hear the slap of Mary’s hand.
Such a violent outburst disappointed but did not surprise either of them. Mary Davenport, despite any kindnesses she’d shown Esmeralda, was the same as every rich white person: enraged and hurt when confronted with the idea that the world and everything in it was not hers for the having. She’d been benevolent when things were going her way then outraged when they were not, like the worst kind of indulged child. And what spoiled, impulsive child can raise a good one? If she didn’t get the boy back to his mother the line of poison would drip down for generations.
An official stepped into the hall to call out to any other members of the public that the doors were closing. He waited a minute, and held the door open as a man ran towards him. By the time Esmeralda and Joe were able to dash unobserved to the front of the building, Grace and the Pennys had rounded the bend on Main Street and were headed home.
‘We’ll go to the livery,’ Esmeralda said to Joe. ‘Take a buggy out to the farm.’
‘Uh-uh, no. We’re not doing that. The Pennys aren’t going to let her steal the boy back. They already made that clear, and they’re right. Grace would’ve been locked up for it before this, and she’d be worse off now. Time to worry about your own.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
In the courtroom, everyone waited for the jury to return. No one thought the deliberations would take long, and they were right. As the jurors filed back in, Tom shooshed the two women seated in front of him. ‘It’s over now anyway,’ one said. She pointed at John Henry and Mary as they entered the room and walked towards their seats.
The judge read the verdict to himself then frowned at the jurymen. He signalled for Ben Fleury, the head juror, to come closer, whispered in his ear, then the jury filed back out to the room in which they’d deliberated. The judge joined them.
Once the judge closed the door everyone in the courtroom spoke at once, upstairs and downstairs. The lawyers and their clients were visibly confused. Even those who’d never been in a courtroom before knew this was when the verdict was supposed to be announced.
‘Judge didn’t like what he read,’ Tom whispered to Eddie.
‘And so what if he didn’t? That’s their part of the job, isn’t it?’ Eddie replied.
Another reporter nearby joined in. ‘Could be it’s a tie. And now he’s giving them a talking-to, making them vote again.’
The woman sitting in front of Tom turned to face them. ‘That’s interference. He can’t interfere.’
‘Seems to me he’s interfered plenty,’ Nora said.
Eddie nodded and lit a fresh cigarette.
‘Maybe he’s telling them to disregard Gabino’s lies,’ Tom said. ‘I’ve never seen anybody spout so much garbage in a courtroom.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t all garbage,’ Clara muttered.
Nearby, Gladys Heaton refolded her gloves in her lap. Mrs Billingham closed her eyes for a second’s respite. Ira picked fluff off his waistcoat while Tom watched John Henry and Mary fidget in their seats, as worked up as he’d ever seen them.
Clara eyed the Davenports, too, and realised right then that Mary Davenport was no threat to her. Tom had been called out in public, humiliated. There was nothing guaranteed to snuff out a secret infatuation as having everyone’s eyes on it. Clara felt relieved, glad even, of how the day had gone, no matter how it ended for the Davenports. Though it certainly would be the icing to see the boy go to Grace Mill.
In the back room, Judge Roy spoke to the jury at length, explaining to the men why, as a matter of law, he could not accept their unexpected verdict. With no other legal expert present to contradict him, the judge improvised a convoluted explanation as to the formal reasons they needed to reconsider. How on Earth, he asked himself, had they been more persuaded by Grace Mill than Gideon Wolf? He could not allow the Davenports to suffer the results of such foolishness.
After a half-hour, the jury re-emerged and Ben Fleury once again handed the judge a piece of paper. This time, Judge Roy read out that the jury had found Gideon Wolf innocent of childnapping, agreeing that Ned Mill was lost and Sonny Davenport was in his rightful home. The judge declared Gideon Wolf a free man.
The unfairness of it maddened George. They’d got an hour away from the house – and that had taken considerable doing – and on their way to Penny Farm when Mason saw them. The boys couldn’t have known he’d be in a buggy on his way back from running their father’s errands. The second he’d spotted them walking on the fringes of the vacant lot where the coloured children played he’d yanked the horse to a stop, shouted, then jumped out to chase after them.
George and Paul were quick, and Paul clever enough to split off in a different direction, but Mason caught Ned easily. Once he’d grabbed him by the shirt, he held him high, the boy’s feet pedalling madly, his arms lashing out for any part of Mason he could reach. When George saw Ned had been captured, he slumped. There was no point running anywhere without him. Paul, however, preferred action to acquies
cence, running at Mason and kicking him in the legs as hard as he could. Unfortunately, Mason was built more solidly than the boys had ever noticed, so Paul’s blows did no more than annoy him. George stood out of arm’s reach, imploring Mason to let the boy go, saying he didn’t understand what they had been doing. But Mason ignored both George and Paul, and hauled Ned to the buggy. He understood enough, he said, to know they were in big trouble.
Paul raced to the buggy and added closed-fist blows to his kicks, telling Mason that he hated him, had always hated him. George screamed. But after a short while they gave in, knowing that as long as Mason kept his iron grip on Ned – which he did, no matter how George and Paul hit, poked and railed at him – the escape was finished.
Back at the house, Mason dragged the boys up to their bedroom. All the servants were angry, and seemed more worried about getting into trouble themselves than the fact the three boys were upset.
Once George gave up on shouting out for the adults to see reason, he dropped onto the floor next to Ned. ‘Don’t worry. Not every plan works the first time.’
Paul lifted his head from his knees. ‘We’ll be lucky if they ever let us out of the house again.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Grace sat squashed between Farmer and Mrs Penny on the black leather buggy seat. There was enough room for the three to have spread out more, but the Pennys stayed close to keep Grace from flopping over like a dying daisy.
Grace felt the warmth of them through their wool coats; felt the cold wind swishing around her back, darting about her waist where Mrs Penny’s shawl fell short; felt her nose twitch at the strong smell coming off the horse’s rump. Her throat hurt from trapped pain, her jaw ached, her body was heavy yet drained. As she swayed in rhythm with the buggy, her pain grew darker, deeper, even as she willed herself to stay afloat for Ned.
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