michael schein

PROLOGUE

The First of October, sharply cold.  Just a girl, really, she seeks comfort against the wrenching carriage ride in the warmth of her big sister’s arms, and finds it as she always has.  The rutted, half-frozen lanes leading to Glenlyvar are determined to shake out her bowels, but she fights back, sucking herself into a ball, focusing now on the blurred sunshine outside the window, now on the tempest within.  Upon arrival she must lie down, not like this, not like that, not here, not there, for there is no surcease inside this skin.  Up the narrow stairs, through the outer chamber, bolt the door to the inner chamber, muffle the cries between the spotless sheets.

The cries! oh Lord such cries as fly unbidden from the entrails.  Cries that would freeze a wolf in its tracks, sour milk in the teat, tauten vestigial hackles.  Sister dear, where are you?  Laudanum, be quick about it! So bitter it is sweet again then bitter then bitterest.  No oblivion, just another ocean of nausea.  Sister, where are you?  Brother, is that you?  Medicine, now!  No, not that, no – you know what I need.  Not so bitter, not so bad, it goes down greedy smooth then turns to broken glass in the womb.

Sister, hold my hand, sister?  Brother?  Take my hand and squeeze with all your strength.  If you love me, really love me, you will help me now.    

PART ONE:

PRETRIAL PROCEEDINGS

Chapter 1

Counsel for the Defense

1.

Straight in the saddle, at a canter not a gallop, he rode as a gentleman should. Boots spit shined, breeches starched, frock coat tight, waistcoat tighter, he took the ground between himself and the Cumberland County Courthouse like enemy territory.  His sharp dismount tossed dark locks from darker eyes to reveal features at once frozen and roiling.  Ignoring the handful of geezers stuck like toadstools to the courthouse's tobacco-stained stoop, he bounded up the steps and executed an abrupt about face, startling one octogenarian who stood too close.  To the no one in particular assembled, and to all Virginia which in 1793 was damn near everyone, he said with all the dignity he could muster through his rage:

“I am Richard Randolph of Bizarre.  My character has lately been impugned by accusations of crimes at which humanity revolts. My wife is humiliated; the good name I would pass to my innocent baby son has been trampled in the gutter.  I cannot refute these vicious smears by private suits against their authors; for every one silenced ten more would appear.  Slander, to be refuted, must be confronted openly, here in the sight of God.  If the crimes imputed to me were true, then my life and my sacred honor would justly be forfeit to the Commonwealth of Virginia.  But I pledge that there is no truth to these slanders, none! Therefore I demand to be tried before a jury of this County on the charge of infanticide.  And mark this well – I will clear my name!”

Done with this extraordinary declamation, Mr. Randolph produced a handwritten version of the same, to which he had not referred once while speaking, and shoved it through a link in one of the many wrist cuffs bolted to the front of the courthouse for use on auction day.  He departed as smartly as he arrived, save only for the tobacco juice on his boots, and the triumph in his eyes.

“Damn fool,” said the geezer he’d nearly trampled, “they’ll hang him now, fer sure.”

2.

"Mr. John Marshall,” announced the butler, in advance of a tall, gawky fellow with a head too small for his body.  Marshall bumped his homespun frock coat against the elaborately carved doorway of the study, sending up little wisps of road dust.  In his pocket he could feel the eight words that had launched him from his modest Richmond home to Matoax, Judge Henry St. George Tucker's breathtaking plantation perched on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers.  "I must see you at once," read the Judge's scrawled missive, "urgent business." Marshall could guess the nature of the business:  Judge Tucker was Richard Randolph's stepfather.

“Ah, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Marshall,” said the Judge, a robust, trim fellow in his mid-forties, “welcome to Matoax.  So glad you could come promptly – Do you see what I mean,” he added, suddenly addressing an overweight and apoplectic gentleman seated behind him, who looked to be at least fifty.  “That’s one thing you can count on Mr. Marshall for, over that other fellow – promptness.”

“With all due respect Judge Tucker,” said Marshall, bristling at the implication that he might be a second choice, “as no particular time was specified in your note, I could not fail but be on time.”

“What’d I tell you, what’d I tell you,” laughed the Judge to the corpulent gent, “logical as a watch spring; not like that other fellow.”

The gentleman snorted noncommittally, apparently still loyal to “that other fellow.”  He looked from Marshall’s homespun garments to his squashed keen face, and then quickly away, refusing to hold Marshall’s eyes.  Marshall could read the look:  not what the gent expected of a fellow Randolph and a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates.  Yes, it was true; his mother, a Randolph, had married “poorly”, which meant for love.  He himself had been out of the public eye for several years now, and had quickly slipped into obscurity.  It rankled him that no one seemed to care any longer about his many services to the Commonwealth, or even that he’d stood by Washington’s side through the endless Valley Forge winter that one in four didn’t survive.  Now he was forced to hang out his shingle to feed his family. Well, let them look down their noses.  No amount of family money would save young Richard – it was to him they turned, John Marshall, a cousin who wasn’t too proud to ply a trade.

 “But where are my manners?” asked the Judge.  “Mr. Marshall, this is Colonel Harlan Beauregard Randolph of Tuckahoe.”

Marshall straightened instinctively at the mention of rank, though it be rank bought with cash, not blood.  Of course, thought Marshall, striding to the brocatel easy chair supporting Colonel Randolph's girth to accept his diffident handshake, I should have deduced that this would be the compromised lady’s father.  “Colonel Randolph,” he said with courtesy, “this is indeed an honor.”

“Sir, indeed,” affirmed Colonel Randolph, dropping Marshall’s hand like a toad.

“Drink?  Cigar?  What can I offer you, Mr. Marshall?” asked the Judge.

“I’ll thank you for a glass of milk to wash down the road dust,” said Marshall, and then immediately regretted it when he detected amusement in the Colonel’s eyes.

The Judge sent for the milk, and he and the Colonel refreshed their bourbons and lighted two Matoax cigars.  After a long draw, the Judge looked up through the smoke and said, “Mr. Marshall, I expect you know why I’ve called you here.”  Marshall nodded his small head imperceptibly, waiting for the Judge to continue.  He needed this high profile case desperately, but he was not about to show it.  The Judge went straight to the point:  “Colonel Randolph and I want the best lawyer we can get for Richard and Nancy, and I think that lawyer is you.  I’d like you to take the case.”  That was it, plain and simple.  Marshall liked Judge Tucker.

“I’m honored by your confidence, Judge, but,” here Marshall focused on the Colonel, “what about that other fellow you two were considering?”

“Oh, that, well it’s nothing, it’s nothing; hell, I can’t fool you. I’ve seen your work, I know its good, damn good, perfect to my Judge’s eye.  The only thing is, while that’s just the kind of thing we’d want in a matter concerning mortgages, wills and the like, well, Colonel Randolph thought that maybe we’d need to find a lawyer with a little more, shall we say, fire and brimstone to his pleading.”

At this, Colonel Randolph leaned forward in his chair.  “Can you do that Mr. Marshall?  Can you take the jury by the scruff of the neck, make them think up is down, like a real lawyer?  Could you make them acquit the Devil himself?”

Marshall’s milk appeared in a crystal goblet on a silver tray, but Marshall didn’t touch it.  He thought of his dear Polly, how she would love such a tray and goblet. He thought of his own reputation, how he had ridden high at the time of the ratification debates, but now was better known for mortgage foreclosures than eloquence, and little remembered for either.  He chose his words carefully.  “Colonel Randolph, do you believe that the earth is flat?”

The Colonel fell back in his chair, shooting the Judge an I told you so glance.  “Of course not, the earth is round, like a ball.”

“Then it follows, does it not, that what you call up is what another fellow on the opposite side of that ball calls down?”

“Well . . .,” Marshall had him there, but he wouldn’t admit it.

“As for the Devil, he’s just a failed angel same as any juror, so yes, of course, I could talk them into forgiving him most anything, just as they forgive themselves their own sins on a daily basis; but the question is:  would I want to?”  Marshall drank his milk.

“Why wouldn’t you?” asked the Colonel.  “Do you think they’re guilty?”

“Do you?” parried Marshall.

At this the Colonel, for all his girth, deflated.  “I don’t know.  I know she is an ungrateful wretch of a child.  Her mother, my first wife – very fine family, you know, not Randolphs like us – ” and here the Colonel graciously included Marshall – “but decent; she died when Nancy was fourteen, and I’m afraid she took it rather hard. I did what I could to console her, but somehow she came to blame me for, for,” he paused, seeking just the right word, “the state of things,” he said, with more emphasis than elucidation.  “I thought perhaps she was getting better, until I remarried.  That was three years ago, when Nancy was fifteen.  A fine girl, Gabriella Harvie, perhaps you know of her grandfather, Gabriel Harvie?”

“Oh yes, a renowned lawyer,” replied Marshall.  And a renowned scoundrel.  Any granddaughter of Gabriel Harvie was surely young enough to be Nancy's sister. No wonder she was hostile – her mother replaced by a strumpet.  “If you want fire and brimstone, hire Gabe, right Judge?”

“Ha!  That’s right, that’s right,” laughed Judge Tucker.  “I once had to throw his neighbor in jail for the night just to keep Gabe from killing him!”

“As soon as Gabriella arrived,” continued Colonel Randolph, “there was no peace at Tuckahoe.  Nancy was in a blind rage half the time, cold as ice the rest.  Got so you couldn’t have a word in her presence.  Well, I couldn’t stand it, and the new Mrs. Randolph couldn’t stand it, so I had to ask Nancy to leave.  I hated to do it, but it had to be done.”  The Colonel stubbed out his half-smoked cigar.

“Where did she go?” asked Marshall.

“To live with my elder daughter, Judith, and her husband Richard, at Bizarre Estate.  Judith and Nancy have always been very close.”  The Colonel gave a wan smile.  “Like shipmates going down together . . .,” he added, his voice trailing off. “But you haven’t answered my question, Mr. Marshall, about --”

“Whether I’m too punctilious to defend a guilty client?  Nor have you answered mine, Colonel Randolph,” replied Marshall, enjoying the chance to flummox the head of a great house.

“Sir, you have the advantage.  My old brain lets slip a thing or two these days.”

Again, the Colonel was pinioned by a dark stare.  “Do you think Miss Nancy is guilty, Colonel Randolph?”

“She’s young, she’s impetuous, she’s beautiful, very beautiful.  Do I think she’s capable of illicit intercourse?  I’m sure she is. But murder?  No, I think not.”  He paused, and then added with a laugh that fell flat, “If she were, I’d have been dead long ago.”

Marshall turned to the Judge, who’d been sitting with his feet up on a maple desk, staring nowhere over his fingertips through the haze of smoke, half-listening as if to a rhythmic master’s report on the metes and bounds of a disputed parcel of property. Marshall startled him out of his reverie with an abrupt “And Richard?”  Unaccustomed to being the target of the questioning, the Judge blurted out the simplest response. “He told me he isn’t, so he isn’t.”

“With all due respect, Judge, that assumes too much.”

Face flushing, the Judge rose and poked at Marshall with his cigar.  “John Marshall, you are the most infernal machine.  Richard’s word is good enough for me, and if you want to continue to enjoy my hospitality, it’ll be good enough for you, too.”

Marshall rose, too, and executed a stilted bow.  “Judge, I apologize.  But it’s necessary.  Would you rather I be polite, or win the case?”

The two men glared at one another for a moment before the Judge relaxed. “You’re right, you’re right, confound it!  It’s just that, well, if you knew him . . ."  Here, the Judge's voice faltered.  "He calls me 'father', and I call him 'son'," he added softly, as if that were enough.

After a moment of silence, Judge Tucker rallied.  “We’ve answered your questions, Mr. Marshall.  Now, you must answer ours.  Will you take the case, and act with vigor?”

“Gentlemen,” began Marshall, parsing the issues in his curious manner, “first, am I too punctilious to defend a possibly guilty client?  The answer is that I am a lawyer, not a judge or a jury, and until the latter have spoken my client is innocent under the law, and innocent to me, regardless of the evidence against him.  Second, will I undertake the defense?  Promise me full control, and I shall defend them with all the energy I possess.  Agreed?”

“Absolutely,” said Judge Tucker, sticking out his hand to seal the bargain.

“And my fee shall be two hundred dollars,” added Marshall, trying not to let his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth at the mention of so princely a sum.

The Judge hesitated imperceptibly, then grabbed Marshall’s hand with fervor. “So it shall, so it shall,” he said with a grin.

“Colonel?” said Marshall, turning his way.

“One hundred dollars?” said the Colonel.

“Two hundred,” said Marshall.

“One hundred and ten hogsheads of tobacco?”

“Two hundred,” said Marshall, in a peremptory tone.

“Two hundred,” said Judge Tucker, “right Colonel?”