Accidents of Providence by Stacia M. Brown

Author:Stacia M. Brown [Brown, Stacia M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (www.hmhco.com)

Thirteen

SAVE FOR A FEW scattered piles of straw where the scaffolding had stood, the rear of the courthouse was empty the day Rachel’s trial resumed. The straw covered the places where injured spectators had bled into the floorboards. Then the doors opened and the crowds returned; the front rows filled, and people began to stand and sit wherever they could, tossing down their doublets and cloaks and lowering themselves to the floor. Some had brought baskets of bread to eat and beer to drink while they watched the proceedings.

“Come to order,” the bailiff called.

Here we go, Bartwain thought from the safety of his wheeling chair, which White had pushed near the front. This time White was with him.

In bed the night before, Bartwain’s wife had wanted to know why he had not done more to help the defendant. “It’s not my job to help her,” he had said. “The law comes first. Rachel Lockyer has failed to uphold the law. That much is incontrovertible.”

“But what if others failed to uphold her? What about grace?”

“The law is grace,” Bartwain said irritably. “It gives form and pattern and order.”

Mathilda shook her head. “You know I had a stillborn once.”

He remembered. He did not like to think about that time. “Yes,” he said, more quietly, “but the law does not concern itself with a situation such as yours. The law does not worry about a married woman.”

“Why?” she pressed. “Is the married woman incapable of wrongdoing? I’d like to meet the matron who never dreamed of running over her husband with a scavenger cart. I’d like to meet that woman.”

He begged her to let him sleep.

“You will sleep when my questions are answered,” Mathilda had said.

The clerk was calling Mary du Gard to the witness stand.

Wait a minute, Bartwain thought. Hold on. You are not picking up where we left off last week. Where we left off before that damned scaffolding fell was the plea. The defendant is supposed to plead something. She is supposed to say “Guilty” or “Not guilty.” The investigator swiveled in his chair to regard his secretary. White returned his aggrieved look; he, too, had noticed the omission. Bartwain darted a glance at Griffin. This is not where we left off, you half-wit, he thought. Get the defendant back up front and tell her to plead something. If you do not follow procedure you make a mockery of the law. But no one in charge seemed to notice.

Bartwain ordered White to go inform the prosecutor. “I cannot maneuver in this goddamn chair,” he fumed. “Go tell him for me.”

White slunk up to Griffin, who was reading his notes. The prosecutor listened to the secretary’s whispered statement and said something into his ear, then delivered a sophomoric smile in the direction of the investigator. White retraced his steps, kicking the ends of the spectators’ benches along the way.

“What did he say?” Bartwain demanded.

“He said for you not to worry; justice will still be served.”

“No, it will not,” Bartwain raged, fumbling to his feet.

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