I watched the stagecoach lurch along the pike, churning up black mud in its wake, until at last it disappeared into the pines in the distance. I wondered if Mrs. Silver could see the road from the window of her cell. It is a high, barred window, and perhaps she is too small even to be able to reach it, but at least it will afford her a glimpse of the sky, and I must keep reminding myself that it is more than her poor young husband will ever see again. At least she has another summer yet to live, while the learned jurists in Raleigh deliberate. It should not take them long to consider the matter, for my summary of the trial consisted of a single page, simply stating the facts of the case and the nature of the defense’s objection to the verdict. I had not written very many appeals in my brief career as clerk of court, but the judge had read over it carefully, affixed his signature to the document, and informed me gruffly that it would do. I did not care to ask him if he thought that my eloquence would win the prisoner a new trial.
I had not seen Frankie Silver since the close of the trial, but I had heard her weeping.
On Friday, when the business of court had ended for the day with the conviction and sentencing of Frankie Silver, I had occasion to walk outside, for the day was mild and sunny, and I was grateful for the arrival of spring, however tenuous its hold on the weather in late March. The crowds had dispersed now, some to make the long ride home, but far too many others would pack into the taverns, celebrating the triumph of justice, or at least their own good fortune in knowing that it was not they who would be hanged. I could hear the sounds of shouting and raucous laughter far off down the street, and I resolved to go straight home tonight, for I did not want to mingle with the revelers. I thought that the sight of spring’s new leaf, almost golden in the sunlight, and deep breaths of brisk mountain air would do me more good than all the ale in McEntire’s.
The prisoner had been led away by the jailer, still in that walking stupor she had effected since hearing her death sentence pronounced. Now she was locked away in the upstairs jail cell reserved for female prisoners, where she would spend the remaining weeks of her brief life. I wondered if a clergyman had called upon her, for surely she would be in need of spiritual comfort on this bitter day.
Before I could think better of it, I directed my steps toward the frame house that served as the jail. I knocked on the door-just a tentative tap, for I was already thinking better of my impulse and wishing I had not come, but as I turned to leave, Gabriel Presnell himself opened the door with a thundering scowl that eased when he saw that it was I.
“Evening, Mr. Gaither,” he said. I saw that he was holding a pistol at his side, and he lowered it sheepishly as he recognized me. “I thought you might be one of them no-account sightseers wanting a look at the prisoner. Offered me money, one of ’em did.” He looked as if he wanted to spit.
Presnell opened the door wide enough to let me in, and as I stepped inside the narrow entryway, I could hear a low-pitched wail from above the stairs.
“I didn’t mean to trouble you,” I said hastily. “Is Mr. Butler here?”
“No. There didn’t look to be trouble after the verdict, so he left the watch to me. He’s up home, if you’re wanting him.”
Suddenly I felt foolish. “I just thought I’d inquire-that is, I wondered whether the parson has been to see her. Mrs. Silver, that is. To say a prayer with her, perhaps. It would be a kindness, wouldn’t it?”
Gabe Presnell jerked his head in the direction of the keening noise. “She won’t be seeing nobody tonight. She’s crouched up there in a ball underneath the window in her cell, bawling like a branded calf.”
“Has she said anything?”
“No. Just wailing. My wife is up there trying to calm her down, so’s we can all get a bit of rest tonight.”
“That’s kind of her,” I said, backing toward the door. “I’m glad to know that the prisoner isn’t left alone right now.”
“It’s more than she deserves,” said Presnell.
“Well, I suppose it is,” I said, not wanting to debate the matter on the threshold. “But we are bidden to be merciful, except in that last measure of justice which she must shortly undergo.”
“That’s as may be,” said Presnell, “but charity is hard to come by with all these rowdy sots a-knocking on the door every whipstitch, and that caterwauling from herself up yonder to be borne.”
“It will all be over soon enough,” I told him.
I rode home in the chill March wind, taking no joy in the signs of spring around me. It had been a long, wearying day, and I found that I could not rejoice in the verdict, whether justice had been done or not. The red-tipped branches of the budding oak trees made me think of fingers dripping blood in the forest, and I shuddered, thinking of Charlie Silver’s red hand lying in a clump of snow, clutching at nothing. The trial was not over for me. I had yet to write the appeal. I dreaded an evening of toil by lamplight, while my wife and her family enjoyed a pleasant conversation by the fireside.
Five of the Erwin sisters and their young cousin Miss Eliza Grace McDowell were waiting for me in the great hall at Belvidere, sipping tea and taking turns pacing with anticipation. One of the younger sisters was making a halfhearted attempt to piece out a tune upon the rosewood piano. When I appeared in the doorway, they stopped and stared at me openmouthed, waiting for a sign.
I shook my head and they shrank back with soft cries of distress, but while I saw dismay upon some of their faces, and polite regret on others, I did not detect surprise. We knew, we all knew, what was coming.
I sank down wearily on the sofa and stretched my hand out for a cup of tea before I let them prevail upon me to tell what had happened at the trial.
“Please, Mr. Gaither,” said pretty little Eliza McDowell. “Mr. Woodfin seemed so eloquent and so… noble. Could he not persuade the jury to be merciful?”
“He tried, Miss Eliza, but to no avail,” I said, suppressing another spark of irritation at Woodfin’s pervasive charm. The Erwin ladies grouped around me so that I felt like a honeybee smothered in the petals of a dozen silk frocks as I told my tale. They all looked so concerned, but so puzzled, over the turn of events we had examined in the courtroom that day. How could a young woman kill her husband? How could a poor woman receive second-best justice? They knew no more of Frankie Silver’s frontier existence than hothouse flowers know of ditch lilies. How could I stem their questions when I had no intention of enlightening them about the realities of the world past Belvidere?
I looked into the sweet, childish face of Eliza Grace McDowell, so similar in age and feature to Frankie Silver herself, and found myself wondering what seeds of murder might lie in that child’s innocent heart. Eliza Grace is the granddaughter of the two McDowell brothers, one a colonel and the other a general in the Revolutionary War, and the old folks tell tales of Miss Eliza’s great-grandmother Margaret O’Neil McDowell, who faced down the Tory soldiers as they were sacking her very home. With such ruthlessness in her bloodlines, surely Eliza Grace should be capable of the same ferocity that the jury found in Frankie Silver, and yet I could not imagine this cosseted young woman striking anyone in anger, or summoning up any passion that would unleash a whirlwind of violence. That patriot lady Margaret O’Neil McDowell might have understood the hardship and danger of the frontier, but she had lived generations ago, and since then her descendants had known only wealth and privilege.
Is it their upbringing, and the fine character of the aristocrat, that separates them from the sins of the murderess, I wondered, or is it only a matter of simple good fortune? Is Eliza Grace as capable of violence as any murderess, but innocent only because she has never suffered whatever torments led Frankie Silver to her crime? I put the thought aside. The law is my profession, and it must judge people by what they have done, without concerning itself with whether or not life has treated them fairly, for to do so would be questioning God’s will. There are some things we are not given to understand. But I did not pity Frankie Silver any the less for it. She was a fair and tender young creature, and she would have a hard life and an early death, while the fine ladies here before me lived measured, ornamental lives, innocent of drudgery or danger. They were no more beautiful or clever than the defendant, but they were wellborn, and that counted for everything. I could find no justice there. Perhaps there is a different kind of justice in heaven.