Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

“Really? Pretty, is she?”

That look again. Elizabeth takes a dim view of my teasing. “Eleanor White is the daughter of a North Carolina secretary of state,” she said primly. “Her maternal grandfather was Richard Caswell, governor during the Revolution. Thanks to Eleanor, and to his own efforts, of course, David Swain has connections that extend well beyond Asheville. That whole family has prospered in state politics. James Lowry of the State House of Commons is his half brother, you know.”

I didn’t know. Latin verbs are child’s play compared to unraveling the tangled lineages of the North Carolina gentry. “David Lowry Swain and James Lowry are half brothers? Curious coincidence of names.”

“Not a coincidence at all,” said Elizabeth. “Don’t you know that story? It’s common talk in the western legal circle. David Swain’s mother was Miss Caroline Lane, who as a young woman was married to a Mr. David Lowry. They lived on a farm in north Georgia, and she bore him a number of children. Sadly for his wife and babes, David Lowry was killed in an Indian raid, and poor Caroline Lowry married again-to a Mr. George Swain, who is a merchant and a physician. They had six or seven children-I forget the exact number-”

“Really? I would have thought you’d have their birthdays down by heart.”

She waved away the Swain offspring. “They aren’t important, except for the youngest. And his mother named him after her first husband-David Lowry. So he is David Lowry Swain. Isn’t that a sweet story, Burgess? Such a tender remembrance. The poor woman never forgot her first love.”

“One wonders how Mr. Swain felt about the matter,” I muttered. “Though perhaps after six predecessors, the happy couple had run out of names anyhow. They might have called the next one after the cat.”

“Names are a serious business in good families, Burgess,” said my wife reprovingly. “It tells the world instantly and precisely what your connections are-Oh!”

Her lecture on dynastic nomenclature was cut short by a wail from the nursery. Our own son and heir, young master William Willoughby Erwin Gaither, was in need of his mother’s attention.

A few minutes later Elizabeth returned to pursue the topic of Nicholas Woodfin with renewed interest, but I was unable to satisfy her curiosity regarding the young gentleman’s antecedents. I said that Colonel Erwin had vouched for Woodfin as a competent attorney, and we were too preoccupied with legal matters to inquire into his suitability for breeding purposes. Elizabeth murmured that perhaps someone in her family would know who he was, and I did not doubt that for a moment. The Erwins of Belvidere have eight daughters; no gentleman west of Wilmington escapes their scrutiny.

After a few minutes of companionable silence, my wife looked up from her embroidery and said, “Something has just occurred to me, Burgess dear.”

“Yes?”

“None of you lawyers wants to defend this poor girl Frankie Silver. Is that correct?”

“It is most fervently the case,” I assured her.

“Aha! Then why would Nicholas Woodfin agree to take it?”

“I can give you three reasons. First, he is a very young attorney who needs the trial experience, and perhaps even the celebrity that might be gained from this case. Second, he has another case on the Superior Court docket, so he is coming anyway. Another case will only make his trip more fruitful. Third, Woodfin may be well connected by association with David Swain, but your family assures me that he is by no means rich. The legal fees in the Silver case will not amount to much, but I’m sure they will be welcome to a fledgling attorney.”

“Those are good enough reasons, I suppose,” said Elizabeth. “But what would cause Mr. Woodfin to accept this case when our Morganton lawyers would not?”

“Precisely that, Elizabeth. Nicholas Woodfin is not a Morganton lawyer. A local man would lose the community’s goodwill and a substantial portion of his income from deeds and wills by associating himself with the infamy of Frankie Silver. Nicholas Woodfin will suffer no ill effects. He can take the case, show off his legal skills to his fellow attorneys in circuit court, collect his fee, and then ride away to Asheville, some fifty miles away, where few people will know or care about a Burke County murder case. He will not lose a scrap of business for his effort, and if he does well in court, he may even increase his practice by gaining the goodwill of the legal community.”

“It seems very suitable for all concerned,” Elizabeth conceded. “But what of that poor young woman? Will she be well represented by such young and inexperienced counsel?”

“Your cousin James assures us that Nicholas Woodfin is an able fellow who plans to specialize in the practice of criminal law. He may well be Mrs. Silver’s best hope for a defender. Besides, Thomas Wilson has graciously consented to serve as second counsel, so that Woodfin can have the benefit of his experience.”

“For part of the fee, of course,” said Elizabeth, smiling.

“Of course.”

“But he will not speak for Frankie Silver in court?”

“No, certainly not. That is Woodfin’s task. Woodfin is to be seen to act as her attorney.”

“So all of our local attorneys-”

“Most of which are in your immediate family,” I hastened to remind her.

“Thank you, Burgess. I know that. So the Erwins and Mr. Wilson are relieved of the obligation of taking the case, and therefore they will save their livelihoods. And you tell me that Nicholas Woodfin is a good man. I am glad to hear it. My sister Mary is most concerned about the poor young woman.”

“She need not worry on Mrs. Silver’s account.”

“Mary says that she would like to visit the jail. She wants to hear the facts of the matter from the accused woman’s own lips.” Elizabeth took a deep breath. “And I would like to go with her!”

“Neither of you will be permitted to do anything of the kind,” I said, with ill-concealed irritation. “Thomas Wilson is acting as advisory counsel until the trial. He has cautioned his client with the utmost severity against speaking to anyone about her case. I doubt that Sheriff Butler would permit you or Mary to visit. I urge you not to attempt such a thing.”

“My sister Mary is quite determined.”

“Your sister Mary always is.”

“And you are sure that Mr. Woodfin will be a sympathetic and conscientious defender of poor Mrs. Silver?”

“I am certain that he will be excellent, my dear,” I assured my wife. But I was thinking, He is a good deal more than she deserves, for we believe she is a wicked murderess. I did not tell Elizabeth that her cousin James’s parting remark had been, “Won’t we look like fools if the young devil gets her acquitted?” And we all laughed heartily at that.

I miss the flowers. I can hardly bear to look out. The ground is so bare and brown now, and the trees look for all the world as if they were dead. “Don’t you worry,” Sarah Presnell says to me when she brings me my dinner. “The flowers will be back in late March. Everything comes alive then, same as ever.”

I must be the opposite of the flowers, then, for they will reappear the very week that my trial is held. They will be coming alive as I commence to dying. They have got me a lawyer, Mrs. Presnell says, and she seems to set a store by them, always going on about what fine gentlemen they are, and big political men, but I cannot see what use that will be to me. I don’t trust strangers, and I’ve seen the way these town-bred folk look at us mountain people-like we were something they caught in a trapline, and they’re afeared of catching something off ’n us. I do not want to tell my secrets to such as them, for they are men, and like as not they own slaves to boot. What would they know about being afraid? They think the law looks after people that needs help. They live in a town with a sheriff within hollering distance, and prying neighbors to see that everybody does what he ought. It’s easy to die in the wilderness, and there’s nobody around to save you.