Blessed Assurance

by Lyn Cote

  She smiled at him from under fluttering lashes. If she flirted with him, would he actually think his gentlemanly behavior had reminded her of “her place”?

  She glanced at the paper. Only four names and addresses. “I didn’t realize there would be so few lawyers in New Orleans.”

  “I’m afraid very few lawyers will be interested in such a cut-and-dried case.”

  “Especially for a black man?” she asked disingenuously.

  He nodded. For a moment, he looked as though he might say more, then went to open the door for her.

  Burning with unspoken outrage, she allowed him to show her out with every courtly courtesy. Outside, she murmured, “You’ll rue this day, Mr. St. Clair.”

  She rode away in a black-and-white taxi. When the taxi passed the building marked, “Jail,” tears of frustration stung her eyes. Del, so alive, so good, was in there caged up away from his music. Del, what are we going to do?

  In the distance, an imposing cathedral spire caught her eye. She tapped the cabby’s shoulder and directed him to take her there. She hurried into the shadowed French colonial church.

  The sound of the splashing rain on stone steps lingered by the open double doors. Meg closed her eyes, letting the peace of the cathedral seep inside her heart. She felt transported back to France where every city, and even some villages, boasted a medieval church. How many times, either in the midst of battle or on leave had she stolen into the back of a church and listened to the murmur of prayers and felt warmed by the glow of candles?

  Sliding into a rear pew, she knelt on the padded kneeler. Closing her eyes, she bent her head to the top of the worn wooden seat in front her. She wanted to pray for Del, ask God for guidance. She couldn’t. All her life, she’d been taught to pray. But now, inside, she felt parched, empty.

  Stop this. If I can’t get this cleared up, Del’s life could end. She sat back into the pew, wiped her eyes, and drew in a few deep breaths. Two black-robed nuns entered, their white wimples glimmering in the murky light. St. Clair had made his opinion against Del clear; she couldn’t trust the man. Meg glanced at the list. They might be the worst lawyers in New Orleans. To make her own judgment, she’d have to go where lawyers were, see them in action.

  She walked out into Jackson Square, a park bound by a wrought iron fence. The rain had softened to a mist. Ahead at the river’s edge, she glimpsed the French Market, street vendors under dripping awnings. Hailing another taxi, she ordered, “Take me to the county…I mean, parish courthouse please.”

  Marie is alive. Gabe couldn’t get Paul’s letter out of his mind. The bleak sky outside the courtroom cast almost no natural light through the tall windows. Someone coughed. Lonely globes of light dangled from the high ceiling. Gabe felt like he was waiting in a funeral parlor. He’d opened Paul’s letter right after that Yankee woman had left. Marie, oh, Marie.

  “All rise,” the bailiff called, bringing Gabe back to his surroundings. Just another numbing day of initial appearances where he announced charges against prisoners. Petty theft, prostitution, first-degree murder…I shouldn’t have left France. Gabe put this aside as white-haired Judge Simon LeGrand gaveled the court back into session.

  Gabe stated charges against a thin man who had been caught pick-pocketing, then a black prostitute in a wrinkled blue dress who had strayed from the Storyville red-light district. Both in turn pleaded not guilty and bail was set. Then Delman DuBois was led to the desk facing the judge’s bench. Someone behind Gabe let out a shocked gasp.

  Gabe glanced around, then looked at the prisoner more closely. Three days had improved the boy’s appearance though a white bandage stood out starkly on his dark forehead. The Yankee woman intruded on his confused thoughts. Miss Wagstaff would be worth a second look, if a man could overlook her naggy voice. What kind of man sent his young daughter alone to take care of a murder charge?

  Gabe’s conscience prodded him: Why wouldn’t you tell her that Delman’s initial appearance was before the court today?

  Because it would only upset her. Even I was disgusted by his battered face. I couldn’t expose a lady to something like that.

  His conscience pressed harder: You mean you felt guilty, not disgusted, don’t you? A bound prisoner had been beaten.

  I can’t be held responsible for others’ crimes. Worse happened in France. I sent the telegram, checked to make sure the boy received a clean bed and medical attention.

  The Yankee woman’s extraordinary face, framed by that ridiculous scrap of a hat and full bangs, emerged again in his mind. I can’t change the way things are. I’m just the prosecutor.

  The ancient judge straightened a few papers in front of him with blue-veined hands. “What are the charges against the prisoner?”

  Gabe replied, “Theft and murder in the first degree.”

  “How do you plead, Delman Dubois?” The judge peered down at the prisoner.

  “Not guilty, Your Honor.” Delman stood tall in spite of his rumpled clothing.

  Then Gabe noticed the judge’s gaze straying from both him and the prisoner to a point behind them. Unwilling to behave unprofessionally by twisting his neck around, Gabe waited in a silence that settled over the courtroom.

  “Miss,” the judge asked in a polite tone, “is there a reason for your standin’ in the aisle of my courtroom?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  It couldn’t be. Gabe stiffened as he recognized that voice. The Yankee had nerve, he’d give her that. He forced himself to keep his eyes on the judge. He wouldn’t allow her audacity to draw him into ungentlemanlike behavior. Why did this woman have to push her way where she didn’t belong…and today of all days.

  “Would you care to give the court your reason?” the judge continued with exaggerated courtesy.

  “If I may.”

  Her sweeter-than-sugar tone aggravated Gabe. She hadn’t sounded that way in his office. She might fool this old judge, but not him.

  “You may if you’ll do so quickly.” The judge motioned for her to come forward.

  Her high heels clicked on the hardwood floor. Each tap made Gabe’s irritation mount. “Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to let Del know that I’m here to help him—”

  “Meg!” Delman swung around.

  She hurried down the aisle past Gabe.

  In the stark courtroom, Gabe took in the sight of her. Red hat, red purse and shoes, and rouged lips, she flaunted herself like an exotic tropical bird. She reached for Delman’s hands. His wrists were shackled, but he caught her hands in his and bent his head over them.

  Gabe averted his eyes, uncomfortable by the show of emotion inappropriate between them and in a courtroom.

  “What did they do to you, Del?” She cast a blistering glance at St. Clair.

  Gabe wanted to clear himself of her suspicion, but she had no business standing in judgment over him. He had matters of life and death on his mind. Marie’s sweet face slipped through his thought, disrupting his concentration. How had she survived?

  “Counselor, would you explain what happened to the prisoner?” The judge stared pointedly at Gabe.

  Holding tightly to his self-control, Gabe gave a cramped smile. “Delman resisted arrest.”

  The prisoner straightened up and let go of the lady’s hands.

  She stared at St. Clair and in an undervoice demanded, “Is this why you wouldn’t tell me about the status of Del’s case?”

  Before Gabe could reply, the judge asked, “Mr. St. Clair, do you know this young lady?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. She visited my office this morning. I gave her a list of lawyers who might represent Delman.” Men went to court, not ladies. And her showing up here now shouted an immodesty that no real lady would ever display.

  The judge asked her what her relationship was to the prisoner. She gave the judge the same answer she’d given St. Clair. The judge looked sympathetic. “Young lady, we can’t hold up this proceeding any longer.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor. But coul
d I ask one question, please?”

  Her flustered expression was very convincing. St. Clair gripped the back of the chair next to him, fighting the urge to hurry her out into the hall and give her a piece of his mind.

  The judge nodded, obviously enjoying a lovely distraction in a boring, gray day.

  She tilted her head shyly. “Is this a case where bail would be possible? Bail is the right term, isn’t it, Your Honor?”

  Her bewildered tone didn’t fool Gabe. A woman who said she’d applied to law school knew something about bail.

  “Mr. St. Clair,” the judge asked patiently, “has the defendant obtained counsel?”

  “Your honor,” Gabe replied in a measured tone, “I wrote her a list of names—”

  “Yes, he did, but I’m a stranger here,” the woman put in sounding earnest. “How do I know how to judge which one to hire?”

  Her helpless-sounding explanation made Gabe clench his jaw, so he wouldn’t let a rash word slip. This judge was a stickler for decorum. And obviously a sucker for a well-turned ankle, which this woman definitely, unfortunately possessed.

  The judge spoke again: “It would have been better if a male member of your family had come, Miss.”

  My thoughts exactly, Judge. Gabe fumed.

  “My father couldn’t leave my stepmother. She’s at the end of a very difficult confinement.”

  “That is unfortunate. But the question of bail will have to be postponed until Delman has obtained counsel. Mr. St. Clair, I will order a continuance for this case for two days while this little lady seeks counsel for him.”

  “Thank you so much.” Her voice dripped with honeyed relief. “Your honor, are prisoners allowed visitors?”

  “You’ll have to talk to the bailiff about that, Miss.”

  “Thank you again.” She touched the prisoner’s shoulder, then he was led away. As she turned to saunter to the back in the courtroom and sit down again, the blasted woman had the nerve to smile sweetly at him.

  Gabe continued his duties. All the while, he felt her eyes burning into the back of this head. Women and law didn’t mix. She’d just proven that. But Gabe’s mind strayed back to what was more important. What was he going to do about Marie?

  Shaking inside with outrage, Meg made her way out of the courtroom. In the hallway, she asked the bailiff about visiting Del. He told her she could see him at the jail tomorrow at four in the afternoon. She walked back out to the street. The rain had stopped, but dismal clouds obscured the late afternoon sky.

  Seeing the evidence of the abuse Del had suffered had more than shocked her. Her father had never sheltered her from the nasty side of life. At fifteen, she’d started doing interviews for her father’s issues magazine, the Cause Celebre—striking workers outside factories, suffragettes, children picking fruit twelve hours a day for pennies. Then in France, she’d witnessed wholesale carnage and unimaginable suffering. But this was Del, practically her brother and one of the finest men she knew. She’d yearned to slap the prosecuting attorney’s smug face.

  Another taxi took her to the telegraph office where she struggled to compose a confident message. “Dear father, arrived safely. Stop. Spoke to parish attorney. Stop. Have seen Del. Stop. In process hiring counsel. Stop. Love to all, Meg.”

  Soon she returned to her hotel lobby and requested her key. An envelope awaited her, a pink gardenia-scented one. Upstairs in her room, she slit it open with her nail file. It was an invitation to dine with Aunt Fleur’s cousin, Emilie. Meg tossed it onto the soft bed and lay down. Dinner? She should be starving, but all she wanted was to storm the parish jail, free Del, and shake off the must and mold of this dreadful town.

  Del’s situation was more serious than she’d thought. The only way she could help Del was by arming herself with all the information she could find, not only about law but about this city as well. She needed to know where power lay here and who had clean hands. Cousin Emilie could introduce her to people of influence. She’d need influence to free Del. He didn’t merely face a false charge. He faced unabashed racial prejudice.

  She phoned Emilie who was just thrilled that Meg was in town, couldn’t wait to meet her, and who would send her car to pick Meg up at 7:30 P.M.

  The evening mist masked the moon and stars. Dressed in a sleek ebony wrap, Meg stepped out of Cousin Emilie’s car. Feeling nearly invisible in the gloom, she was greeted at the door by a white-haired black butler in tails. She’d guessed correctly, then. This would be a formal dinner. A footman received her evening cape and she was announced to a drawing room dotted with about ten people. The ivory and green room had a faded elegance.

  Cousin Emilie, a petite graying widow, came forward with arms outstretched. “Meg, honey, we are so happy you could join us. Fleur has often mentioned you in her letters over the years.”

  Meg murmured polite responses while being drawn to a grouping of chairs around a fireplace. A generous fire flickered behind a brass screen and chased away the damp chill of the January night. Emilie seemed honestly glad to see her and that soothed Meg’s frayed nerves. Maybe she would find help for Del here.

  Emilie introduced the assembled party: her daughter, son-in-law, and her teenage granddaughter, Maisy. All three women showed a family resemblance to Fleur—all petite, attractive brunettes. A blond cousin, Dulcine Fourchette, about Meg’s age, affected the pouty look of film star Mary Pickford.

  When Meg was introduced to the other guests, Mr. and Mrs. Sands St. Clair and their teenaged daughter, her interest perked up. Mr. St. Clair, still a handsome man with graying temples, sat in a wheelchair. His wife sat beside him plump and pretty in a china-doll way. Could they be related to Gabriel St. Clair? She didn’t ask. She didn’t think that, at this moment, she could be civil about Gabriel St. Clair. Besides she hadn’t gathered enough facts to come up with a strategy to free Del. On no account did she want to make the wrong impression or to embarrass Aunt Fleur. She banked the fire in the pit of her stomach. Meg needed these people and what she could learn from them. Taking the place Emilie indicated, Meg lounged back against a wicker chair and smiled politely.

  “I just love your dress, Miss Wagstaff,” Emilie’s granddaughter, Maisy, gushed.

  “Thank you. I brought it back from Paris.” Meg had chosen to wear a black silk Charmeuse that skimmed over her slender form. Meg noted the cousin, Dulcine, surreptitiously weighing and measuring her.

  So Meg reciprocated. Dulcine, her long blonde hair pulled low in a neat bun, wore a long blue satin skirt. Did Dulcine think Meg intended to be her rival? How amusing.

  “You’ve been to Paris?” Maisy asked, excitement lighting her eyes.

  The girl’s innocent reaction made Meg feel at least a century old. “Yes.”

  Emilie exclaimed, “Meg was one of our brave young American women who worked at YMCA canteens sustaining our gallant doughboys.”

  Both young girls looked at Meg as though she’d just been crowned queen. But Mrs. St. Clair cast a worried glance at her young daughter.

  Meg was used to this reaction. Don’t worry, madam, the war is over.

  The raven-haired St. Clair girl, appropriately named Belle, breathed, “How exciting that must have been.”

  Why did young women still react like this? Hadn’t enough truth about the war reached the States? “Sometimes the work got a little too exciting,” Meg commented dryly. “You can’t believe what it was like being one of only three women when a hundred soldiers came to dance.”

  Her two young admirers looked a bit daunted.

  “My, that does sound like a sacrifice,” Dulcine slipped in.

  “You’re too modest, Meg.” Emilie made a deprecating motion with her hand. “Why, Fleur wrote me that you were injured at the Somme.”

  Meg smiled and pushed away her dark memories of the Somme.

  “You were?” Belle squealed. “How?”

  “Belle,” Mrs. St. Clair admonished, “Miss Wagstaff is a lady and a lady never discusses physical problems.”

&
nbsp; “Well,” Maisy announced, “being in Paris didn’t hurt you. Your dress makes us all look frumpy by comparison.”

  Dulcine shot a razor-sharp glance at Meg.

  Meg shrugged. “Most of us bought Parisian designs to help the designers get back on their feet. The war decimated the French economy.”

  “That was indeed charitable of you,” Sands St. Clair put in.

  Meg caught the hint of irony in his tone and laughed. “And, of course, the temptation to come home with the thoroughly modern look was irresistible.”

  “Personally,” Mrs. St. Clair said with a disapproving moue, “I don’t understand what the Paris designers are thinking. How much skill does it take to drop a sack on a woman?”

  Meg could detect all too clearly the likeness in outdated ideas between the prosecuting attorney and this woman.

  “Mother!” Her lovely daughter with her long black hair coiled at her nape blushed with embarrassment. “Miss Wagstaff will think us dreadfully old-fashioned.”

  Meg laughed again. “My father wasn’t too happy with it either. My skirts are much too short.” She smiled warmly at the little brunette.

  “I think you’re the cat’s meow.”

  The butler announced dinner and Cousin Emilie led them to the dining room. Meg was given the place of honor next to her hostess. Meg noted one seat unoccupied. This day of extreme emotions had begun to tell on her. With so much on her mind and heart, how would she endure polite conversation?

  “Everyone, enjoy the wine.” Emilie lifted her glass to salute her guests. “That dreadful Prohibition is only weeks away.”

  Meg raised her glass to her hostess, but didn’t take a sip.

  “Emilie,” Sands St. Clair spoke up, “you needn’t fear losing your right to drink your own wine in your own home. Prohibition only regulates the sale and distribution of liquor.”

  “But my wine cellar cannot hold a lifetime supply,” Emilie countered.

  “Those foolish Yankees pushing such a ridiculous law down our throats.” Mrs. St. Clair frowned. “Why can’t they understand that dinner without wine is like a rose without its fragrance?”