Page 33 of The Girl from Greenwich Street

The jury then went out and returned in about five minutes with a verdict.

—From Coleman’s account of the trial of Levi Weeks

New York City

April 2, 1800

“But—the jury should hear observations on the testimony.”

Mr. Colden clung to the bench like a drowning man to a spar.

“The jury has heard observations enough—more than enough,”

Justice Lansing said with feeling. “We cannot in good conscience keep the jury together another night without the conveniences necessary to repose. Motion denied.”

Caty should have been tired—she hadn’t slept at all last night after that horrible conversation with Hope, only lain awake next to the snoring bulk of Elias—but she was fired by a terrible energy.

This was what she had been waiting for these past three months, ever since Levi had been taken up: the moment when they would finally have justice, when this could finally all be done.

The chief justice peered at the jury through the wavering light of the tapers on the bench. “Gentlemen of the jury, in the normal course of affairs, the arguments of counsel would allow this court time to adjust and arrange the mass of evidence that has been brought into view.”

Why couldn’t he just get on with it? Caty sat bolt upright on the edge of the bench, her whole body straining for that one word: guilty.

The justice appeared to be prepared to discourse at length. “It has, unexpectedly, become my duty to charge you immediately upon the close of testimony. I have agreed to this with reluctance, and only because I am persuaded that, despite that great mass of evidence, there are only a few points on which this case ought to be decided.”

On that, Caty agreed. Elma had said she was to be married to Levi. Elma had left with Levi. It was as simple as that.

Justice Lansing held up a hand. “Before I consider those pieces of evidence, I would like to remind you of the great moment of this decision you are about to make. On your verdict depends a man’s life.”

Not just Levi’s life, Caty wanted to cry out. It was hers and Elias’s too. And Elma, who had been killed.

Justice Lansing leaned forward, his face framed by tapers. “I don’t need to tell you that this matter has excited the public attention to a remarkable degree. A great many reports have been circulated, which cannot have failed to reach your ears—but you, gentlemen of the jury, by your obligation as jurors, are duty-bound to limit yourself only to the evidence you have heard at this trial.”

Caty’s nails bit into her palms through her gloves.

“The prosecution has never pretended to afford positive proof as to the commission of this murder by the prisoner. It has attempted to prove his guilt by circumstantial evidence. If it could be established, by a number of circumstances so connected as to produce a rational conviction, that Levi Weeks is the perpetrator of the crime, it would be your duty to find him guilty.”

Why didn’t he stop talking already and let them go and come to their verdict?

“The prosecution has failed to establish such a chain,”

pronounced Justice Lansing.

There was a buzzing in Caty’s ears. The interplay of flame and shadow made the room spin wildly. What in goodness’ name was he saying?

“It is, as this court sees it, very doubtful whether Gulielma Sands left the house of Elias Ring in company with the prisoner.”

Caty’s mouth fell open; she could feel the protests jamming at the back of her throat. Of course he’d left with her! She’d told them he’d left with her! She might not have seen them, but she’d heard them. She’d heard the door.

The judge went on, in the same dry voice, “As for the testimony respecting the one-horse sleigh, if one is not satisfied by the testimony of Mrs. Susanna Broad, then it must be evident that the relations of the other witnesses respecting a sleigh and the cries of distress near the Manhattan Well can have no application to the prisoner.”

No application? People had heard Elma crying murder! How had that no application simply because an old woman had been confused by clever lawyers?

Justice Lansing gestured to the shadowy confines of the dock. “The prisoner appears to be a young man of fair character and mild disposition. It is difficult to discover what inducement could have actuated the prisoner in the commission of the crime with which he is charged.”

Levi Weeks stood up straighter. Caty could see his chest rise and fall as he drew in a deep breath, as if he could already scent freedom.

“The witnesses produced on his part account for the manner in which he spent his evening, excepting only a few minutes.”

Ezra Weeks sat with his arms folded across his chest. Caty wanted to slap his smug face. He’d lied for his brother; they all knew he’d lied for his brother. How could the court not see it?

Justice Lansing raised his voice to be heard over the excited murmuring from the galleries. “This court is unanimously of the opinion that the proof is insufficient to warrant a verdict against the prisoner. With that charge, gentlemen of the jury, we commit the prisoner’s case to your consideration.”

Caty turned to Elias, who looked as shocked as she felt. “Is he allowed to say that? Can he tell them what to think?”

“They’ll make up their own minds. That’s what they’re here to do,”

said Elias numbly, but he fumbled for her hand, and Caty didn’t stop him.

Hope was staring at Levi with a look on her face Caty didn’t like at all. Caty clutched Elias’s hand, and felt him squeeze it in return.

“He did it; they have to know he did it,”

Caty muttered. She turned to Hope, raising her voice so Hope would hear her. “Thee knows he did it.”

Hope didn’t answer; she only stared at Levi.

Caty bent her head, praying without words, praying that they’d do the right thing and come back with a verdict of guilty. If they didn’t—it wasn’t even to be thought of. He was guilty.

“Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

How could they be back already? They’d only just gone out. Caty clutched Elias’s hand, scarcely aware of where she was or what she was doing.

The foreman cleared his throat. “The unanimous verdict of this jury is that the prisoner is NOT GUILTY.”

“What?”

Caty was on her feet without realizing she’d stood. “No! No!”

Ezra Weeks enveloped Levi in a huge hug, pounding him loudly on the back. Mr. Colden looked like he was about to faint. People were exclaiming, cheering, booing, rushing out of the room to tell the people slumped half-asleep on the floor of the corridor beyond the courtroom, waiting, waiting, waiting for the verdict.

“Not guilty!”

The cry went up from mouth to mouth to the waiting crowd outside. “Weeks not guilty!”

“He is guilty!”

insisted Caty hysterically. “Why do thee tell such lies? He’s guilty!”

Hope tugged at her hand. “Caty, come away. Hush. . . .”

“Don’t hush me! How can I hold my tongue when Elma’s in her grave and her killer free? Or does thy desire outrun thy duty?”

Hope flinched as though Caty had slapped her. “Thee heard the judge, Caty. The evidence . . .”

“Thee mean Elma’s words we weren’t allowed to say?”

Caty retorted. “Thee mean the lies paid for by Ezra Weeks’s coin?”

Caty knew who was to blame. It was those lawyers, in their fancy coats with their fancy words, sowing doubt, coming up with strange rules to prevent the truth being told. She hated them all.

Levi was walking past her, walking free as day, flanked by his brother and General Hamilton. General Hamilton leaned across Levi, saying something about his plans for a house. “—in the classical style, not too large, with something like those doors Levi designed—”

“It was thy mischief!”

Caty launched herself into their path. “It’s thee confused their minds with false suspicions!”

“Mrs. Ring,”

began General Hamilton, with false sympathy.

“Thee should be ashamed of thyself! If thee dies a natural death, I shall think there is no justice in heaven!”

Someone was pulling her away, dragging her back. Elias wrapped an arm around her, turning her face into his chest, muffling her words, blocking her sight.

She could hear Ezra Weeks saying, with a coarse laugh, “I think you’ve just been cursed, General.”

“I don’t believe Quakers are allowed to do that,”

returned General Hamilton cheerfully. “Now about that house . . .”

She wanted to curse them. She wanted to make their man parts shrivel and their countenances turn as black as their souls.

Caty yanked herself free, but they were already gone. She could just see the glimmer of Alexander Hamilton’s blue silk coat as the Weeks brothers left the courtroom. It should be purple, stained with Elma’s blood.

“I’m so sorry.”

Mr. Colden stumbled up beside Elias, his lips gray. “I never imagined—I can’t think—”

Caty rounded on him. “If thee had thought, Levi would be in prison now!”

They would never be free of this. The full magnitude of it hit Caty, making her sag against Elias. If only the court had pronounced Levi guilty, the horrible scandal of Elias and Elma wouldn’t matter as much. But now—the world would always wonder. They would wonder if Elma had killed herself. They would wonder if Caty’s husband was a murderer as well as an adulterer.

Dimly, Caty was aware of someone leading her away, to Mr. Colden’s carriage, as Mr. Colden went on mouthing apologies that meant nothing. She felt like Rachel’s old doll, the inexpertly jointed limbs moving strangely, the head stuffed with wool.

The house was dark, Mr. Colden’s maid again dozing by the fire. Caty left Hope to send the maid out to Mr. Colden’s carriage. Caty spoke to no one, walking woodenly to the bedroom, her fingers clumsy on the string of her bonnet. Let someone else deal with the oats for breakfast. Let someone else make sure the fire was banked. What did it matter if the house burned down and all of them in it? Her life was ash already.

Caty’s eye fell on her children, all four of them, asleep on their pallets, and her chest contracted painfully.

If the house burned, her children would die, and she couldn’t bear the thought of that, of any harm befalling them.

They shouldn’t suffer for their parents’ sins.

Except they would. Caty stuffed her hand in her mouth to keep herself from crying out. They’d failed the children. She’d thought she was such a good wife, such a good mother, such a good neighbor, but every single one of their neighbors had testified against them. They’d all heard her husband having relations with her cousin.

And now—now they would wonder if her husband had killed her cousin. Or perhaps if Caty had, she thought wildly.

How could she live here? What would they say to the children?

Caty could feel Elias come up behind her, as he had that first day when she was on the stand and he was meant to be out of the room. It felt like years ago, back when she’d been so certain their ordeal was almost done, before the world heard all their shame and secrets.

“I didn’t kill her,”

Elias said quietly. “I wasn’t the husband to thee I should be, but I didn’t kill her.”

“I know.”

Blindly, Caty turned and leaned against him, resting her head against his chest.

After a moment, she felt his palm tentatively come to rest against the back of her head. It had been a very long time since they’d stood together like this. It had been a very long time since Elias had touched her with anything like affection.

Caty felt the sting of tears, and blinked them away before the wet could touch his shirtfront.

If this had been six months ago . . . a year ago . . .

“I should have done better by thee,”

he murmured against her hair.

Yes, he should have. “There’s no good in should,”

Caty said wearily, moving away from him. “We can only do better from now on.”

From now on, she would know better than to trust her husband too far. Her mother had made her own compromises, and Caty would have to make hers. She could feel it like a burning in her chest, the loss of her hopes, the loneliness of knowing she would always have to be the one who made all the sacrifices. Elias might feel bad now, but he couldn’t be trusted to remain that way.

“We could go away somewhere,”

he offered.

The only place Caty wanted to go was back to New Cornwall, to the house her grandparents had built. But New Cornwall was closed to them now. Everyone there would hear; everyone would look at Elias and imagine him with Elma.

“No,”

she said. “No. If we go, they’ll think we did something wrong.”

Beds creaking in the night through the walls. Their neighbors gossiping and she’d never known.

Caty swallowed the bitterness. “We’ll need new boarders. I doubt Ezra Weeks will board his journeymen here now.”

“That man is capable of anything,”

muttered Elias.

“Yes,”

said Caty slowly. “He is.”

That judge had said the sleigh hadn’t gone out that night; that Levi’s time had been all accounted for. But who had said so? The only evidence that the sleigh hadn’t been out that night came from Ezra’s apprentice, Demas Meed. The only evidence that Levi had been at his brother’s when he claimed came from Demas and Ezra.

Caty’s brain was working furiously. Ezra Weeks hadn’t wanted Levi to marry Elma. Ezra Weeks’s apprentice had the key to the gate. According to the people Mr. Colden had spoken to, there had been a second man in the sleigh—a man who might have untied the bells and harnessed the horse, and brought the sleigh to Levi. A man under orders from his master, prepared to lie in a court of law.

Ezra Weeks was capable of anything.

“I hope Elma haunts them,”

said Caty, so vehemently that Rachel sighed and rolled over and David stirred, lifting his head.

“Is it over?”

he asked drowsily. “Has the bad man been punished?”

Caty looked to Elias, but Elias only shook his head. Caty had never hated her husband more than in that moment. If he had kept his hands off Elma . . . if he had refrained from spreading stories about Levi . . .

Ezra Weeks would still have paid his underlings to tell lies, she reminded herself. Elias’s misdeeds had only been so much good fortune for him.

“He’ll have his justice in heaven,”

she said in a brittle voice. “Just thee wait and see. The Lord neither slumbers nor sleeps.”

“But we should,”

said Elias, with an attempt at heartiness that annoyed her more than anything else. “Come to bed.”

Caty looked at her children, at her husband. She could hear the creaking upstairs as her boarders, returned from the trial, got themselves ready for bed.

Elma’s killer was free and Elias’s adultery was known to the world, but the children and the boarders would still expect to be fed.

“I’ve got to start the oats steeping,”

she said, and went to go back about the business of living.