Fifteen. The Trial
Fifteen
The Trial
IN THE MATTER OF SCOTT v. SCOTT
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
October 23, 1865
The courtroom at State Street was packed with spectators and newspapermen from both sides of the ocean. The matter of Scott v. Scott had been expedited at the request of local counsel for the petitioner, Mr. Denham Scott, who had arrived only two days earlier from England to attend—writ of seizure in hand—and would need to sail home before the winter season stranded him on American shores. Although the enforcement of a writ abroad did not require the physical presence of the petitioner, his London counsel had advised that he would need every argument of law and influence of emotion on his side. “The former colonies are rather wild and unpredictable, Mr. Scott,” the barrister had almost spat, “and you have an increasingly gutted demeanor that can only act in your favor.”
Given the historic issue at law, the chief justice had decided that the case merited the attention of the entire bench. The entire bench, that is, less two : Justice William Stevenson and Justice Thomas Nash would both be absent from the proceeding. They had again immediately recused themselves due to their personal relationship with the respondent, Mrs. Henrietta Scott. They were expected to appear in the gallery of the courtroom instead, next to their new wives and behind the respondent and her counsel, the imposing and smooth-drawled Southerner, Graydon Saunders.
Local counsel for the foreign petitioner had argued in a preliminary motion against the right of the state supreme court to even hold the trial (“Not again ,” Justice Roderick Norton had loudly grumbled) due to the respondent’s father and new brother-in-law being among its members. However, the chief justice had relied on the legal principle of necessity in allowing the matter to go ahead: “Where else could it be held and still be subject to the legislative and civil laws of this great state? In a fair and just society, if the choice is trial or no trial, there is only ever one answer to that.”
Meanwhile, the question at law remained: was Henrietta Stevenson Scott, daughter of Boston, through the mere act of a whimsical marriage at sea, destined to be treated as a citizen of England only, and was the secret, private gift of Admiral Sir Francis Austen to Mrs. Scott—a gift somehow connected to literary great Jane Austen—to be seized and returned to England, where it might end up publicly and brazenly consumed as so much penny press?
While legal pundits and news reporters debated the merits of the case, Little Bobbie Acheson sat on the curb farther up State Street, impatiently waiting outside the offices of the Evening Traveller . Its late-afternoon edition would feature the trial, and Little Bobbie was determined to be first in line to grab his stack. At ten years of age, he didn’t understand any of what he sold, but that summer had taught him one thing: the salacious and seemingly unquenchable appetite of all of Boston when it came to the matter of love. For that was clearly, at least to Little Bobbie if to no one else, what was really at stake in Scott v. Scott : a wife had run away, and the husband had come a-calling.
Breakfast at Eleven Beacon Street on the morning of the trial was an intimate yet tense affair. William joined the Nashes and Henrietta at his former home with his bride of one week on his arm, having rushed back from honeymooning in Niagara. Nash and Charlotte had already enjoyed two weeks in the small Adirondacks cabin, having raced to the altar first. They had been most eager to take advantage of the temporary reprieve in poor Henrietta’s ongoing trials and to fall back into bed together, this time under approval of the law.
William and Constance were happy to oblige the young couple’s desire for a quick marriage, given the perceived greater sexual freedom for people of a certain age. All of this made the distinction between practice and principle seem rather suspect. Perhaps “people” were simply less interested in the old and grey, Constance had wondered aloud to her future stepdaughters on the night before her own wedding, beaming with as much excitement as a bride half her age.
Henrietta stayed at Eleven Beacon Street for now, but even the attic was not far enough away from the newly married couple below. Charlotte and Nash were something beyond happy—a state that Henrietta recognized from her own home in Hanbury Street of less than a day. She was ecstatic for Charlotte, who had married a man so besotted with her that he only wanted her happiness. They would raise their own family in the house of her childhood—they would stay close to her father—they would let her sister live with them forever.
Nash was also adamant that Charlotte return to the stage. Boston theaters were enjoying a postwar explosion, and auditions with several acting troupes had been lined up. A telegram had recently arrived on the Neptune from Fawcett Robinson as well, urging Charlotte to change her mind and join the New Adelphi players; that season’s leading ingenue was not working out. But Charlotte was content to build a life on the Boston stage. She wanted Nash’s happiness as much as he wanted hers, so there was no question of her going away.
This was where Henrietta envied Charlotte and Nash the most. They were both fortunate to have fallen in love with someone who needed little beyond the other’s happiness to be happy themselves. A form of romantic renvoi, that rarest of antelopes. Good graces and self-sacrificing attentions constantly passed back and forth between the newlyweds in an endless rally of love. Only on occasion—for Charlotte would not give up her high spirits for anyone—could the most adorable contretemps be overheard between them, always resolved with a kiss by the fireplace, Coco jealously nipping at their heels.
The trial started in an hour, and Charlotte was the only one at breakfast with any appetite. She greedily consumed all the popovers, her favorite, which Mrs. Pearson had made expressly for her. Both the cook and Samuel had asked to stay on following William’s sale of the house to Justice Nash. This exchange of living quarters between the two men had been conducted with all the logic and equity of a judicial decision. William had even made a tidy profit from the sale, which Nash had insisted be executed at significantly more than market value. William had then divided the funds equally between his daughters to keep as their own, holding Henrietta’s share in trust until Denham’s claims on her property were judicially resolved.
As the family exchanged news on anything but the trial, Henrietta returned to the letter in her lap. The new Mrs. Nelson wrote from Rome, full of news of her September wedding to Haz in Scotland with Louisa as witness. The three of them planned to stay on the Continent for the winter, then sail back in the spring. By now Louisa had purposefully lost her elderly charge, who had never really needed her services, and continued to live off of Sara-Beth’s winnings from the smoking lounge on ship.
Sara-Beth wrote to Henrietta of how Louisa was “in the vortex,” as she called it, writing for hours in their pensione before breakfast, preoccupied with the notion of family the farther away she traveled from hers: How the strength of the family comes from caring about others as much as oneself. How our differences buff each other to a diamond-like shine—by forcing us to see ourselves in relation to others, we gain greater knowledge of the self. But although Lu might miss her own sisters terribly, Sara-Beth expressed no such burning desire to return home to hers. This was a sure sign of connubial bliss and one that Henrietta herself knew well, at which point she put down the letter only to notice it stained by her own tears.