Evan Hunter - Lizzie

They sat on the embankment later, eating sandwiches Geoffrey purchased in a garden immediately opposite a bridge glowing with electric lights, watching the boats passing by in what Geoffrey called “our Venetian Fête”. One of them was rigged as a Chinese pagoda, the children aboard dressed in Chinese costumes, a floating crimson palace lighted with an opal roof; another, smaller boat flickered with a myriad number of lanterns twinkling in a halo of greenery; yet another was startlingly decorated with a freshly cut tree festooned with lights on every bough. There was a boat with a large Japanese umbrella hung with small lanterns and fixed to its masthead. A punt decked out as a two-master floated past with lanterns hanging from the crosstrees of both masts. On one of the rowboats, a lantern caught fire, and one of the two men aboard seized a boathook and struck wildly at the flaming lantern, finally putting it out to the accompaniment of cheers from the crowd on the bank.

And then came the fireworks from the opposite bank, and the crowd held its breath as reds and blues and whites and greens exploded against the night. Lizzie’s heart soared into the sky with each successive explosion, trailed to earth again in a shower of glowing sparks. And when at last the hour-long bombardment of rocket sticks had ended, and the lights of the boats dwindled on the distant river to be replaced by starshine on the black waters, Geoffrey got to his feet and extended his hand to her and said, “We must go, Lizzie. We’ll be returning to Richmond by coach, and from there to London by train, but even so, the hour is late.”

Lizzie rose, smoothing the back of her skirt, slightly damp from the grass. “I hate for it to end,” she said, sighing. “You’ve made our stay here so wonderful. I can’t imagine how we shall ever repay you.”

“You’ve just repaid me more than adequately,” he said. “Although it mightn’t hurt,” he added with a wink, “to mention to my dear sibling, should your paths chance to cross again, how devastatingly charming, thoughtful and witty was her brother. I know it will please her.”

“You’re so very alike,” Lizzie said, as they walked up the embankment. “In so many ways.”

“As well we should be,” Geoffrey said.

“It’s not all that usual, you know,” Lizzie said. “Even in the closest of families, brothers and sisters...”

“Oh, but didn’t she tell you?” Geoffrey said. “We’re twins, you know.”

And all at once Lizzie realized that having spent these past several glorious days with Geoffrey as her guide and constant companion had been the equivalent, virtually, of having Alison by her side all that time.

“We must hurry, you know,” he said. “I shouldn’t want to miss our coach. Ladies!” he called. “ Do come! Felicity! Anna! Rebecca! Never mind your skirts, I shan’t ogle your pretty ankles!” There was laughter behind them as the other women scurried up the bank, holding their skirts above their flashing legs.

“Presto, signorine!” he shouted in Italian, and winked at Lizzie and took her arm, and their smiles and their eyes met and joined in the star-drenched night.

“Be good enough to lift your veil. What is your full name? ”

“Anna H. Borden.”

“You live in Fall River, Miss Borden, do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

”And have all your life?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are, I believe, not a relative of the prisoner.”

“No, sir.”

“How long have you known her?”

“About five years.”

“Did you at some time make a trip abroad with her?”

“I did.”

“In what year?”

”1890.”

“Did you occupy the same cabin in the steamship?”

“I did.”

“On the outward and homeward voyages?”

“I did.”

“When was your return voyage? What time did you arrive in New York, if you landed in New York?”

“I think it was the very first of November.”

“And your voyage was about the preceding week? The week preceding the first of November?”

“Yes, sir. The last week of October, I think.”

“During that voyage, did you have any talk — during the return trip, I am speaking of now — did you have any talk with the prisoner with respect to her home?”

“I object to that,” Robinson said.

“What year?” Chief Justice Mason asked.

“1890,” Moody said. “The week preceding the first of November in 1890. And this is simply a preliminary question. On the question of the admissibility of this testimony, I should like to say a word to Your Honors. I wish to call attention to the nature of the conversation in arguing upon its admissibility. Your Honors can very readily see that statements which indicate a permanent alienation may be of importance even though quite distant from the time under inquiry. In order to fully understand the nature of this testimony and its importance, I shall be obliged to state more fully about it. It is merely a preliminary question now.”

“I object to the question on the threshold of the subject,” Robinson said. “If there be any statement of substance, we will consider that subsequently.”

“The witness may step down,” Mason said. “The jury may retire with the officers and remain until sent for.”

It was very hot for so early in June.

The shuttered windows on one side of the small courtroom were open wide to the street below, but there was scarcely a breeze and the glare beyond the glass panels seemed as bright as the burnished brass of the four gas-burning chandeliers that hung from the ceiling. The courtroom was situated on the second and uppermost floor of the old brick building that was New Bedford’s Superior Court House, a structure graced with a roofed white porch and Corinthian columns but nonetheless eclipsed by the more pretentious residential dwellings in this remote section of the city. Outside the Court House, heavy strands of cable and telegraph wires had been strung from tall poles into the rear of the building and the old carriage sheds. Roughly improvised fences, constructed to keep back the curious crowds, lined the green sloping banks on either side of the concrete walk leading to the entrance.

This was the only courtroom in the building, and it was approached by a stairway leading upward from the ground level. The stairwell created an awkward opening in the courtroom floor, and the haphazard design was further cluttered by the witness box and the jury box to the left of the judges’ high bench, the spectators’ slat-backed wooden benches tiered at the back, the long tables and stools arranged near the court crier’s box, and the hasty accommodations erected for the use of reporters. For several days now the newspaper representatives had been here in force, and each train still added to their swelling number.

Originally, a space in the courtroom beside the jury box had been set apart for them, and boards on sawhorses were set up as makeshift desks. But these could accommodate only twenty-five people and the space was promptly monopolized by the Bristol County and Boston papers. Yesterday, just before the prosecution began its opening statement to the jury, seats and desks were set up near the dock occupied by Lizzie and her attorneys. These were awarded to the reporters of the Providence Journal. The reporters from the New York dailies and the Baltimore Sun — and this pleased Lizzie because the description of her in the Sun still rankled — were left to take their chances finding places among the spectators, who had all been furnished tickets for their seats. Even before what properly might have been considered the first true day of the trial — when the jurors were being selected — the advance corps of newspaper artists had been on the spot, sitting on fences in the vicinity of the Court House, sketching everything immovable and even curious passersby. Lizzie had seen them roving around inside the House of Correction, and they were inside the courtroom now, drawing the interior of the place, making sketches of anyone and anything in sight.