I’d come to the ballroom through a side door, when Mr.—I’m sorry—Senator Mae himself turned the corner. I felt all nervous straightaway, knowing that they didn’t want him bothered with having to see mental patients. So I tried to excuse myself, but he said he was looking for . . . he needed—” Elizabeth broke off, her face scarlet.
“He needed what, Elizabeth?” Pickering prompted.
“He was looking for the privy, sir,” Elizabeth blurted out, her embarrassment sending the court into peals of laughter. Her flush faded after she took a drink of water, then continued. “He asked whether we had indoor plumbing—and we do, sir, the asylum added it new just a few years ago. It’s ever so very nice.”
Mr. Pickering leaned against the witness box, a patient smile on his face. “And what happened next, Elizabeth?”
“I told Senator Mae that I didn’t dare take him over to the men’s wing to their privy, but he said he’d use the women’s so long as I didn’t tell anyone, and he wouldn’t tell anyone I was out of my room. Then he kind of winked at me, and I thought maybe it would be okay to help a senator, even if I was out of bed and taking him into the women’s side. He’s . . .” Elizabeth paused, her eyes dropping. “He’s got that way about him, sir. The senator, he can talk you into doing things you wouldn’t consider otherwise.”
“Objection,” Mr. Atkinson called lazily from the defense.
“Sustained,” the judge said, and Elizabeth glanced up at him, alarmed.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
“You can’t say things that aren’t facts, Miss Martin,” he answered, his voice low and kind. “You’re here to tell us what happened that night, not to make conjectures about Mr. Mae’s personality.”
“Senator Mae,” Elizabeth corrected him.
“Yes, of course, Senator Mae,” the judge said. “Please go on.”
“All right.” Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Well, I took him to the ladies’ room. All the while we were walking he was ever so nice, asking me about my life at the asylum, what my name is, how old I was. And then we get to the . . . to the privy and I wished him a good night and—” She stopped, her lips quivering. “Do I have to, Mr. Pickering?” she asked, eyes pleading.
“I’m sorry, Lizzie. Yes, it’s very important that you tell the court what happened after you wished him a good night.”
“He . . . he grabbed my wrist, sir.” Elizabeth’s face contorted, her eyes shiny with tears and focused on nothing. “He grabbed and twisted it and dragged me through the door after him. He’d been so nice, so kind and polite, that I thought I had to be confused, that this fine, important man would never touch me like that and I couldn’t imagine a reason for him doing it. And then . . . then he shoved me down to the privy floor and pushed my nightgown up and I guess I knew pretty well what his reason was then.
“I started fighting, sir. Yelling and crying too. But the fighting only seemed to make him like it more, and yelling and crying isn’t anything new in an asylum. Nobody came to help, and he had his way with me, right there on the floor.”
Elizabeth was crying freely. Mr. Pickering reached for his handkerchief and she took it but left it unused, her tears as much a part of her testimony as her words.
“And the next part, Lizzie?” Pickering said quietly, his voice carrying in the dead silence of the courtroom.
Lizzie bit down on her bottom lip, hands twisting Pickering’s kerchief. “Near the end the senator, he put his hand over my mouth and my nose and pushed down real hard. The dark was coming in around the sides of my eyes and all I could think was ‘Let me die, so this is over.’ But I didn’t die, and he was through with his pleasure. And he pulled his hand back and put his face down close to mine and he said . . . he said, ‘You’re lucky you’ll be looked for, or I’d see you turn blue like that bitch out on the Pomeroy road.’”
A gasp rolled over the courtroom, followed by a swell of whispers and Elizabeth’s rolling sobs as she wiped away her tears, while Grace’s flowed unseen beneath her veil.
THIRTY-SIX
“Where are they taking her?” Grace asked Adelaide moments later as Lizzie was escorted from the courtroom by the bailiff.
“I