My Notorious Life (55 page)

—What’s the charge against her? a reporter shouted.

—Possession of instruments for the purpose of malpractice, and possession
of obscene materials, said my Accuser, who posed very grandiose and spoke indirect of himself as if he weren’t a worm, but a hero. —They said Anthony Comstock only pursued the small fry. They said Anthony Comstock did not have the mettle to go after this harridan. Well, today, gentlemen, you can see the truth: Madame is not small fry, but the wickedest woman in New York, and today Anthony Comstock has brought her to justice.

They slavered and ogled me. They wrote in their notebooks and buzzed around so that it was all a lady could do to walk a straight line. The papers next day said Madame DeBeausacq walked into the courthouse Calm and Mild as a Morning in June. But in truth I was a dark February tangle of fear as they hustled me along. Inside the halls of so-called justice, Judge James Kilbreth waited for me in his black habit, a hairy spider. At the witness table I sat under my veil, awaiting proceedings, awaiting my lawyer, awaiting my husband.

I didn’t see Morrill nor anyone who might stand for my lawyer. At last to my great relief, Charlie arrived with a grim look on his face, which further chilled my blood. He came to sit behind me. We spoke in whispers, our heads bent together so the lace of my veil fell forward and hid both our faces from the terrible gaze of the gallery, which overflowed with zealots.

—My darling, he said through his teeth.

—H***, I said, —where is Morrill?

—He’s on his way.

—And my sister? She has fled. I am afraid for her—

—She’s under the covers in the blue room. Having hysterics.

This news was a relief to me. She had not run off. I might still keep her. —Of course she’s having hysterics, I said. —They barged in and ransacked the place without so much as a by your leave, questioned her, wrote down her name. And the poor girl so delicate. And what they done in front of our Annabelle! It’s an outrage, Charlie.

—I’d like to gut them with a fish knife, he said darkly, but his attempt to play the tough cove did not hide the fear darting in his eyes, like eels. —If you’re lucky it’ll come to nothing. You’ll fight them very fierce. We’ll bail you out of here faster than blinking. You’ll be home for dinner.

But Judge Kilbreth had other ideas.

—Have you no attorney? he asked, peering over his spectacles.

I rose with my backbone straight, so ladylike-seeming you would think I was teaching Sunday school. Hearing how I talked to him, all sugar and cream and teardrops, you would never know the quagmire of rage that animated my spirit.

—Your Honor, kind sir, said I, —I ask to be released on my own good word. Haven’t I come here, willingly, in my own carriage? You must understand that I have several ladies from distinguished families under my care, who are approaching confinement and require my attention urgently. Not to mention that I am the mother of a young child, who depends on me. (And here my voice trembled out of control.) —Think only of how upset and fearful she will be if kept apart from me, her only mother. Especially under such frightful circumstances as these.

Kilbreth peered at me coldly. He was a young unicorn, ugly enough to lift the turf off a bog hole as my Mam used to say. Without a blink, he pronounced bail. —In the amount of ten thousand dollars, he said. The look on his face said it was a sport to him, to pick this number from the air and wave it about like a pistol. Ten thousand dollars.

—Here, I said. From my purse I removed a packet, and held it up to show. —I have government bonds in that amount. These will act as surety.

—Security is required in the form of real estate only, Kilbreth said.

—Your Honor, said Charlie, —Our home at One East Fifty Second Street is valued at over two hundred thousand dollars—

A gasp came from the courthouse throng, flabbergasted at such wealth. You could hear the pencils of the press gnomes scratching at their notepads to get the figure down correct.

—No properties in your name will suffice, said Judge Kilbreth. —You must have local property owners to stand bail for you.

So they would again play these games, just to keep me in their cage.

—I can produce surety by six o’clock this evening, my husband said. —Please allow her to leave in the meantime.

—Bring her to the sergeant’s room, said the judge. The bailiff escorted me to a crowded smoky nook in the back of the courthouse with several cells smelling of excrement and worse: despair. I waited while Charlie went off scrambling for money, sending telegrams to every man he
knew who owned property. But at six o’clock he returned exhausted with Morrill.

—No luck, he said. —People are reluctant, they’re afraid—

—THEY’re afraid?! It’s MY neck on the chopping block.

—The good news according to Morrill is that Kilbreth’s more sympathetic than you might think. We’ll have to see.

But it was too late to get me out before nightfall. The court adjourned for the evening and the judge went home to his sausage. The bailiff handed me over to a matron with stains on her apron. I would spend the night in jail. As she dragged me off Charlie touched my hand. The matron allowed him to embrace me and again I saw how he swallowed and shifted his gaze. He would not look at me. Nor I at him. I didn’t want to see the cornered fury in his eyes or all I stood to lose now. The matron led me away to the paddy wagon, and as we went I sang Whiskey in the Jar to steel my nerves.

Whack for the daddy-oh, there’s whiskey in the jar.

Singing, I was rolled over the paving stones to the Tombs and the paddy wagon’s wheels was a doom rattle for me same as it always was for all the brave Fenians before me who came to these shores only wanting some turf to call their own.

*  *  *

In the lockup no joy was to be had in reunions with Mrs. Maltby the head matron who welcomed me back with her death’s head grin. I was shown to my cage. No sooner had I retired to my hard cot when a terrible crawling was felt in the mattress. So with my purse for a pillow I lay down on the floor and slept not one cold minute. All told I rotted there in the Tombs five days between appearances at the courthouse, while the lawyers muttered about
res ipsa loquitur
and
habeas corpus
. It was Chinese to me. But what I understood too well was that this time they was out to put me away and ruin me for good. Comstock was known for it. He’d have my life and all my savings if he could. At last Charlie and Morrill paid a ratty pair of bondsmen to put up their property as surety. Both of them would
only give their name as Anonymous. They wanted no part of my notoriety. Nameless, they was saints to me, and true to Morrill’s prediction, Kilbreth at least allowed bail for me. Perhaps at last I had a judge on my side. I was released.

—Madame! called the newsmen as I left the courthouse, —Your comment on today’s proceedings?

—Just a lot of little lawyers, I said. —They buzzed about me like flies.

*  *  *

Upon my return home I went immediately to my sister. She sat so pale in the wing chair, blue veins in the white of her temples.

—Dutchie, I cried, kneeling at her knees. —I’m so relieved to find you here. I worried you’d run off.

—Where would I run? I am trapped here.

—I’m sorry, Dutchie, I didn’t know there’d be a raid on me. They’d no right to bust in like that.

—How could you expose me to such shame? she whispered.

—I’m the one who is exposed, not you.

—I gave my name. The police have my name. Oh why did I do that? Why? If only I hadn’t! She fretted and bit her lips.

—You’re safe here.

—Safe? she cried, so miserable. —Oh no. Not here. Not anywhere. This house is known. It’s watched. The paper this morning called it a maelstrom of hell.

—Is that how you have found it to be, in your time here? A maelstrom of hell?

She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and shook her head. —No, she said, in her small voice. —No.

—Then stay here with me. This is your family.

—Don’t you know? Didn’t you hear? The papers said the government would call as witness a certain lady who was in the offices at the time of the arrest. It’s only a matter of time before they publish my name! And if I testify . . . ? they will drag it into the mud.

—They don’t know where you are.

—They’ll find me! Word will get back to my husband. To my mother.

—That pretty crook you call mother need never know, if you let me help you.

My sister sighed so miserable and brushed the flat of her palm against her slender waist, resting it just below, as if to cover the state she was in.

—Lily, I said, gently, —tell me what you had decided, when you came to see me? You said you could not go through with it. With which? What did you mean by that? Have you taken those pills?

She began to gnaw at her fingernails. —Don’t ask me that. Don’t ask.

—There is still time.

By her lack of reply I hoped that my sister had decided to undergo her confinement and stay with me. I counted on my fingers and wondered if by October I would be an auntie. It was a secret guilty wish for me, as much as it pained her.

—This is my punishment, she said. —My trial. I see that now. And I must bear it.

*  *  *

Our separate trials hurtled toward us, mine the First of April, and her husband Eliot due to land the twenty first. Her predicament weighed on me as much as my own. If she testified, it would be against me. She knew my work, for I had explained it. And if I went to jail who would deliver her when her time came? How would she manage? Her husband Eliot would soon be on a ship, heading toward the Port of New York. He’d arrive in three weeks time. The month of March wore away in an agony of questions, of waiting. All signs were ominous. On Wednesday the eleventh, a magpie sang on the doorstep.

—Mam said a magpie was a sign death would come to a house, I told Charlie.

—We’ve had magpies before, he said, with false cheer, —and everyone lived.

His manner was unconvincing. He attempted to jolly me along in the usual fashion, finding coins behind my ears and roses under the pillow, but it was false cheer and it failed to lift me from my gloom. By the distracted pity in his eyes, and the set of his bulldog’s jaw, I saw the truth: he believed I was doomed. He had already said goodbye. Had he?

Then on Friday the thirteenth, Charlie put his shoes on the bed. —How many times have I told you it’s unlucky? I cried. He scoffed at me, and so I stood up from my chair too rapidly and it fell over backwards, which is unlucky too, and I told him so, and then we were shouting at each other.

—It’s cr*p, he said. —Chairs and magpies and thirteens—it’s hooey.

—Worse than putting out a light when people are at supper, I said, miserable.

—There’s no science in your backward Irish thinking and less logic.

—Neither logic nor science ever convinced Comstock. He’s the Holy Roller, I said, —it’s all God with him. And his God would send me to prison.

—If God exists he would not have you in jail. We’ll not allow it.

—How would you have me avoid it? kill myself?

—No need, he said. —The charge won’t stick. You’ll walk away.

—Why don’t I just walk away now? Before any of it starts. I’ll get on a boat. I’ll go to California.

This idea got his attention. —California?

—Let’s leave. We’ll take Belle and go. Chicago. Boston. No one will find us, no one will know. We’ll go in the dark, we’ll take what we can carry. I’d rather kill myself than go across the river to the Pen.

He looked at me and half a smile spread over his face. —You’d never do it, would you? Run just like that? He snapped his fingers. —You wouldn’t dare.

—I’d leave a note.

—What would it say?

—That I’d went to jump off the bridge.

—Ah, and instead of jumping off the bridge you’d go to Paris.

—And after a suitable time you would come and bring Belle to me.

A smile played around his lips, crinkled the corners of his eyes. —How long is suitable? Six months?

—Six months might do the trick.

Now the cockeyed plan sat there like a plump baby thinking about taking a few steps, and the both of us, me and Charlie, smiled at it.

—Who’d believe it? I said. —They’d catch us. We’d live like rats on the run.

—Paris. Think about it. Or London, if you prefer.

—You wouldn’t come. You’d never show. You’d send me off and be shed of me. While I fled across the ocean you’d act the part of the Aggrieved Man. I could just hear you now, Charlie, wailing, Oh the Tragedy of my wife’s death. Oh Poor Widower Jones. You’ll walk the riverbank for show, pretending to search for my corpse. Suicide is a Mortal Sin, you’ll say, and Mrs. Jones was Guilty of it and so much else. So sad, so very sad. Meanwhile, you’ve got the bank accounts, the house and the stables with your beloved horses. And you’ll find some pretty cooze to raise our daughter, the poor motherless thing. Oh yes, you can bet all the ladies of Fifth Avenue would be after you and your fortune, thinking me dead. And where would I be? Conveniently supposed to be in a grave! Secretly abroad, no way to come home without facing manacles.

He was regarding me now without mercy. He liked this scenario too much for my comfort. —You’d have to trust me, wouldn’t you? It’s a good idea. Just up and leave. Fake your death. Oh ho, he cried, —you’d have to trust me now at last.

The tick of his pocket watch was loud as my heart as he sat there so handsome in his shirtsleeves. But I wouldn’t buy it, what he was selling. Never trust a man who says trust me. He was trying to shed his wife, that was it. Was it? I didn’t know.

—I’ll take my chances with Mr. Comstock, I said, miserable.

—Suit yourself. If I was you, I’d pack a bag and have it ready.

—If you was me I’d be stupid as you think I am.

—It was your own idea, darling. I’m just saying I’ll back you. If you’re game.

He didn’t say Chickenheart but that was always it for him. Was I game? Was I chicken? Would I dare?

*  *  *

Friday afternoon, Annabelle invited her little school friends over to our house to play. They would have a concert, she announced, so busy and excited. The poor nightingale had no inkling of her mother’s impending doom just weeks away. She set out the chairs in rows and placed her dolls in the empty ones and invited me and Charlie and Dutch as audience. But the afternoon wore away and her little friends did not come. Not Sylvia or
Daisy or Marguerite. Their mothers had kept them home. Annabelle sat by the window looking at the carriages passing on the avenue. Not one of them stopped.