Either way, she finds the company better than no company at all. So she listens to the Clarion vilify her as “the Northern Borgia” and “self-proclaimed Queen of the Arctic”—a proclamation that has never passed her lips in public or private—almost as reverently as she listens to the Beacon praise her as “a noble American Valkyrie” and “the Arctic Fury.” At least there are words. At least there are voices.
And now that her trial has begun, there will be more voices and faces than she can stand. She will listen in silence as penance. They would not disdain her if she had not failed; she deserves this. Who will the first one be?
The prosecutor announces, “The Commonwealth calls Gabriel Bishop to the stand.”
Bishop? She knows no Bishop. Breath and motion ripple throughout the room while whoever it is comes forward, murmurs tracking him like wind in grain. Again she is reminded of church. Will she ever be allowed in church again? To see shafts of light illuminate stained glass, to feel the utter peace of her soul lifting after confession, the deep rumble of the organ vibrating in her very bones? How long until she’s allowed to set foot anywhere beyond her solitary cell and—hardly better—this cavernous courtroom? She does not allow herself to think about where she will spend time or how much of it will be left to her if she’s found guilty.
The man Gabriel Bishop steps up into the witness box. He has thinning reddish hair, smoothed sidelong across his forehead all the way down to a narrow, silky-looking pair of brows, incongruously delicate. His sideburns are faint, and he is otherwise clean-shaven. His face is more English than Irish, not a freckle to be seen, and wholly unfamiliar. What Virginia can see of his body is on the slim side of average and as straight as the barrel of a gun.
The bailiff extends the Bible forward, and the witness places his hand atop it without hesitation. He raises his other hand to take his oath. She is still not sure she has ever seen his face before. Then again, she doesn’t need to remember him for him to remember her. And she has no idea what he’s there to say. What nail has he been called here to drive into her eventual coffin?
The prosecutor opens by requesting his name and position. Bishop’s relevance springs into her brain, too late, just as he begins to speak.
In a firm, steely voice, he says, “My name is Gabriel Bishop. I am employed as a butler in the home of Mr. Tiberius Collins.” The British hint to his voice is more a lilt than an accent. But-luh.
“That’s Tiberius Collins of Beacon Hill, correct? The father of Caprice Collins?”
The butler stares out over Virginia’s head and the heads of the women in the front row to gaze farther into the courtroom. “From her birth until her untimely death.”
“Her murder, yes. May she rest in peace,” says the prosecutor with great, performative sorrow.
To Virginia, the routine playing out here seems as carefully rehearsed as any scene in a playhouse. The actors exchange their lines with precisely chosen inflections. She’s keenly aware others will see it with less cynical eyes. And those people might believe it. She wants to leap up. Scream. Give voice to her sorrow, her anger, her fear.
Instead, she sits in silence, not even letting her toes touch inside the closed box of the dock, giving the observers nothing to observe.
The next question. “How long have you been employed by Tiberius Collins?”
“Twenty-two years in that good man’s employ, sir, and if I might add, I was employed by his father-in-law before him. The now Mrs. Collins was born a Masterson. Of the Chestnut Hill Mastersons. You know of the family, I presume.”
“Oh, of course,” says the prosecutor, his voice approving.
“I was established in the Collins household when they married as a bit of a gift, you might say.”
“I might,” said the prosecutor, smilingly familiar. “I imagine Mr. Collins was thrilled to have a man of your sterling reputation as his butler, with your long-standing record of excellent service. Someone upon whom he could rely.”
The butler’s eyes return to that same spot in the crowd, and Virginia realizes that Bishop must be looking at Mr. Collins himself. She can’t pick him out without turning her head, which she decides against doing, but he must be there. A shiver runs up both sides of her neck. She hadn’t thought of having to face Caprice’s parents, these people who want her dead for what they think she’s done. She hasn’t seen them since they had her arrested, months ago.
“I should like to think so, sir.”
“So you were in the household when Miss Caprice Collins was born, then?”
“Yes.”
“Knew her from a babe?”
“I did, yes, sir. She grew into a fine young lady, fine indeed.” His overbearing pride in himself extends, for a moment, into pride in Caprice.
Virginia sees no sorrow at all here, just this stuffed-up, faux-noble arrogance. How she would dearly love to slap him across the face. As if names and places of origin matter. As if any of this matters. If he is going to help them kill her, which it seems he is, she wants him to go ahead and get straight to the meat.
The prosecutor continues. “And though I know she’s less familiar to you, I’d like you to tell us now how you know this person here, the defendant at the bar.”
Virginia notices he doesn’t use her name or even young woman. Just person. Caprice was a young lady. Virginia is the defendant. This time, he does not even raise his arm to indicate her. He does not turn, even slightly, in her direction.
“That is Virginia Reeve,” says the witness, who does glance her way, if only for a moment. “Or at least she gave that name when she visited the house. We had no benefit of a formal introduction.”
“She just showed up at the Collins house one day?”
“She did.”
Virginia notices the implication that she wasn’t expected, though in fact she had been. Witnesses could do equal harm to her through what they said and what they failed to say.
“And were you present for the meeting?”
“I showed her in and presented her to Miss Collins, who received her in the formal parlor.”
“You’re sure of that?” The prosecutor interrupts him to ask the obvious question, which Virginia wonders at, but she imagines he must have his reasons.
“The day is utterly etched in my memory,” the man intones in a serious voice, the picture of responsible rectitude.
Virginia’s stomach drops. How much of this have they rehearsed?
“Thank you. Please, proceed.”
He does. “After I brought the visitor in, I immediately retired to the hall, to my post at the front door.”
“Yet you heard some of their conversation?”