“I know it,” he said. “I thought it must have been, but as she could not testify in court, we could not present that defense to the jury. It is not the killing of Charlie Silver that will hang her, anyhow.”
“No, it isn’t. It is the cutting up of the body that has outraged the community, and she will not explain that point away. It was panic, I suppose. She wanted to hide the evidence of her crime, for she does not understand legal shadings like ‘self-defense’ or ‘manslaughter.’ Poor ignorant girl! What will you do now?”
Thomas Wilson sighed. “I will write to Governor Swain yet again. I must tell you, though, that he is reluctant to intercede. I received a letter from him only last week, and he shows no inclination to mercy. As for the persons who helped Mrs. Silver escape, the governor wants them hanged as well.”
“But she should not have been convicted!”
“She was, though. And the state says that verdicts are to be honored, just or unjust. I have shared the governor’s letter with the prisoner’s father, Isaiah Stewart. I hope it will serve as a warning to him, lest he should get the whole family hanged instead of only the daughter.”
“Poor Mr. Stewart. His daughter is wrongly convicted, and he is powerless to save her. Can you wonder that he is driven to desperate measures?”
“I have no sympathy to spare for the relatives,” said Thomas Wilson. “It is their meddling that will get her hanged. They should have trusted in the law the moment that Charlie Silver died, instead of now, when it is all but too late.” He shook his head. “Well, I will do what I can. I will advise the governor of Mrs. Silver’s confession. I must impress upon him that the act was self-defense. Perhaps he will not hang her when he knows the facts of the case. But the escape-that was ill-judged. She is indeed an unfortunate woman.”
“You must save her, Wilson.”
“Well, I will try. You would oblige me by making several fair copies of Mrs. Silver’s confession. We shall need them to accompany the petitions we must circulate around the county. The governor will want reassurance that he is making a popular decision.”
“I will write them out tonight,” I said.
“Good. Time is short. I will write to Woodfin in Asheville myself. I think when he hears of this new evidence, he will assist us as well.”
Downstairs we said our farewells to Sheriff Boone. “I have witnessed her confession,” I told him. “And it is a sad tale indeed. I hope that this document will spare you the terrible duty of hanging her.”
“I hope so, too,” he said. “With all my heart. Though I reckon it would disappoint half the county to be deprived of the spectacle.”
“Not I,” I said. “If the dreadful day comes, I hope I am far away from the site of the execution, and I shall wish to hear nothing whatever about it then or later.”
As I started to cross the threshold into the open air, John Boone called me back. “Mr. Gaither,” he said, “you do realize, don’t you, that as clerk of Superior Court you are the highest-ranking officer of the court in the county?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “Why do you mention it?”
The old sheriff put his hand on my shoulder. “I wondered if you knew that you are the state’s witness to the hanging.”
Late that night, after most of the household had gone to bed, I sat before the fire in the great hall at Belvidere, copying out the confession that I had taken down. I heard the rustle of skirts and the soft patter of slippers on the oak floor. I had hoped that it was Elizabeth, come to keep me company after putting young William to bed, but I saw Miss Mary in the doorway, carrying the decanter of brandy.
“I thought you might need fortification, Mr. Gaither,” she said. “Shall I pour you a glass?”
“Thank you,” I said, without troubling to look up, for I did not wish to lose my place.
She set the glass down beside the candle and poured another for herself, at which point I did look up, but although I raised my eyebrows at this impropriety, I said nothing. “I have come to read the confession,” she said, taking the chair next to my writing table.
I sighed. At dinner that night I had spoken of my visit to the jail, but before anyone could press me further about the details of that meeting, I had changed the subject to talk of a visit to Charlotte, and the squire had come to my aid, steering the conversation away from the distressing subject again and again. I knew, though, from seeing Miss Mary’s thoughtful stare farther down the table, that despite our best efforts at shielding the ladies, I had merely delayed the discussion.
“The document may distress you,” I said.
Miss Mary smiled. “Why, Mr. Gaither,” she said, “I knew that she had killed him. I merely wish to know why.”
Without another word, I handed over the paper and watched as she read my summary of Mrs. Silver’s declaration. Her expression did not change. “I thought it must be something like this,” she said at last. “A simple girl like that could hardly have been roused to murder for anything less. It is not murder, though, is it, Mr. Gaither?”
“Mr. Wilson says that it was clearly a case of manslaughter, if not justifiable homicide. The law realizes that people must defend themselves. Or it should.”
“Yet she was sentenced to death for it.”
“That is so. However, we believe that justice was not served in this case, and we are doing everything in our power to have the judgment set aside.”
I could see from Miss Mary’s expression that she had no doubt that they would carry the day. The Erwins are people of power and influence. They know how to go about these things. They know all the right people in Raleigh, and elsewhere. I was a new member of the family, and I had not the confidence of my new kinsmen.
“People wonder why I have never married,” Miss Mary said, taking another sip of her brandy. “There is too much risk in the venture. A woman is quite at the mercy of a fool or a brute, and one can never know the bargain one has made until it is too late.”
“We are not all such bad lots,” I protested.
Miss Mary smiled. “Not all snakes are poisonous,” she said, “but I leave them all alone just the same.” She took another quill from the pewter pot on the writing table. “Have you many more copies to make? I write a fair hand. Let me help you.”
We spoke very little after that, but sat side by side until the fire burned low, copying the cold words of Frankie Silver’s confession until we knew the phrases by heart.
A few days later, I arrived at Belvidere just before the dinner hour, having escaped the premises for most of the afternoon because an afternoon tea was taking place in the great hall. I had no sooner shaken the dust from my boots than Miss Mary appeared, brisk as ever, and thrust several sheets of paper into my hands. “Just the person I wanted to see,” she informed me. “Read this and tell me what you think.”
I arranged the sheets of paper in order and began to read.
June 29, 1833
To His Excellency David L. Swain:
Governor of the State of North Carolina
Your petitioners are fully sensible of the Delicacy of presenting to you this petition. Yet they Justify themselves by claiming as a duty peculiar to the Sex to be all-ways on the side of Mercy towards their fellow beings and to the female more particularly.
The subject of this petition is an unfortunate creation of our Sex, Mrs. Francis silvers who was Sentenced by our court to be executed on the last Friday in June, but by your goodness respited until the second Friday in July. We do not expect to refer you to any information in this that you are not already familiarly acquainted with, only it be the treatment the unfortunate creature received during the life of her husband.
We do not refer you to this with a cause of Justification but wish to reiterate the various unfortunate events which have taken place in the world in consequence of the woman’s abuse, indecorous, and insupportable treatment in which the creature now before your Excellency for God’s mercy has, contrary to the law of God & the country, yet so consistent with our nature, been her own avenger.