would present his case first. He rose, and inclined his head toward Judge Donnell with just the suggestion of a bow. The murmuring swelled and then tapered off at a stern look from the bench. Mr. Alexander waved his fist in the air. “We are here to try a wicked and heartless creature for cruel murder!” he announced.
Full of the righteous brimstone that infuses prosecuting attorneys, William Alexander described the finding of Charlie Silver’s sundered body, dwelling on the victim’s youth and innocence. He let his voice falter as he described the life cut short, the soul sent unshriven into the hereafter, and the fatherless child left to fend for itself in the world. He ended with a thundering demand for justice. “The very blood of Charles Silver cries out for retribution. Let not his killer go unpunished!”
Nicholas Woodfin sat through this harangue, frowning slightly, as if he wondered what his colleague was talking about, his expression suggesting that Mr. Alexander had been misinformed, and that he welcomed the opportunity to rectify the misunderstanding. Perhaps we are not so far from actors after all.
Frankie Silver herself sat motionless, staring at the window beyond the jury box, as if she could not hear the tumult taking place around her. Perhaps she hears but does not comprehend, I thought. I wondered if Nicholas Woodfin had explained the trial procedure to her, and if so, had he done it in simple enough terms for an unlettered girl to understand? Surely there are more people here today than she has ever seen in her life; perhaps she is terrified of the sight of so many unruly strangers. She looked distressed only once, for the briefest moment, when Nicholas Woodfin left her side so that he might address the court on her behalf.
The prince speaks,I thought sourly, remembering the stir that his appearance had caused among the ladies of the community. He stood tall and straight in his black suit, with his classical features composed into a solemn countenance. I was loath to admit, even to myself, that he did make an impressive figure in our simple country courthouse. I wondered what the jurors would make of him.
“Gentlemen, you sit in judgment of a tragedy,” he told the jurors. “A young man in his prime has been cruelly struck down, and we compound the sorrow of the family by accusing his widow of his murder, by hauling her into open court to suffer the gaze of strangers, while we accuse her of the basest of crimes.
“My colleague has told you how Charles Silver was done to death, and that his remains were cut up with a knife, as one might butcher a deer, and that his body was burned in the fireplace as if it were refuse. Is this the crime of a woman,gentlemen? Can you see even the most pitiless female savage committing such an outrage upon an enemy? I cannot. Yet Mr. Alexander asks us to believe that this gentle young woman, only eighteen years of age, a frail girl who is the tender mother of a baby, could do this awful deed—not to a stranger, but to a man who is her own husband.”
Nicholas Woodfin turned and pointed to the defendant, who sat with perfect composure gravely watching him. “This fair young woman whose fate is in your hands is Frances Stewart Silver. Look at her. She is not mad. She is not a savage. She is an ordinary young woman, against whom no word of censure has ever been uttered in her community. She is not lazy. She is not wanton. She is not a drunkard. She is a simple young wife and mother. They say so, all of them in the place she comes from. Yet Mr. Alexander would have us believe that she had the ferocity to butcher a man—her own husband! Where is the sense in it, gentlemen? Where is the strength that would allow her to do it? And—that which concerns us most of all in a court of law— where is the proof that she did it?For I saw none. A man is dead, that much has been shown. But by whose hand he met his untimely death—that has notbeen
shown.”
It was a stirring speech, I thought, delivered in the ringing tones of an actor or perhaps a camp-meeting preacher. I wondered whether the jury would be swayed by it, or whether the enormity of the crime had moved them past the power of persuasion.
The witnesses were