Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [163]
But the infection of high spirits begins to dissipate as Olympia nears the courthouse, for she has an increasing dread of reentering the hearing chamber. It is a dark, claustrophobic room, too small for such grand passions, for such need, for such antipathy. And she has as well a sour taste in her mouth from having had to reveal thoughts and feelings that one should never have to speak of in public. As strongly as she wants to win her suit, she is not without sympathy for Albertine Bolduc, who will have to take the stand today and will have to answer many of the same questions Olympia did yesterday.
But dread is quickly replaced with bewilderment as Olympia rounds the corner to the entrance to the courthouse. For arrayed all along the stone steps are many persons, some with hastily hand-lettered signs. LA SURVIVANCE! she sees scrawled on a board. JE ME SOUVIENS! she sees scrawled on another. A man, hanging over the stone balustrade, catches sight of her as she stands frozen at the corner. “Ici la jeune fille!” he yells to the crowd. Frightened, Olympia watches as the throng moves quickly toward her, carrying their placards with them. Before she can think what to do, she is surrounded by men who are shouting rude questions and remarks at her: “Ou est le docteur?” “Miss Biddeford, why are you suing for custody?”“Ou est la justice?” A sign is thrust in front of her face, and she puts her hands up to ward it off. She feels then a strong tug on her arm, which she resists frantically until she hears the familiar voice of Payson Tucker and looks up to see his spindly figure towering above the others.
“Leave her alone,” he commands in a surprisingly deep voice. “Let us pass.”
He takes hold of Olympia’s arm and walks her through the crowd, which parts under his direction. He runs her up the steps and through the courthouse doors, which are opened for them only. He ushers her quickly into an anteroom.
“Are you hurt?” he asks at once.
“No,” she says, though she is badly shaken. “I do not think so. But I do not understand.”
“It is a disaster,” Tucker says, looking for an electric light switch and, failing to find one, drawing back the dusty drapes at the window. “A disaster.” He opens his briefcase. “Have you seen the newspapers?”
“No,” she says, but already she feels a foreboding.
“Take a look at these.”
There are two newspapers, the Ely Falls Sentinel, with which she is familiar, and L’Avenir, a French-language paper she has occasionally seen on newsstands but has never picked up. BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER OF BOSTON BRAHMIN SEEKS CUSTODY OF FRANCO CHILD, reads the headline of the English paper. FORTUNE’S ROCKS SCANDAL, shouts the Franco paper, Olympia translating, with a subheading: THE BREAK-UP OF A FRANCO FAMILY. The editors of both newspapers have commissioned drawings of Olympia. The portrait in the Ely Falls Sentinel is in an oval, much like a cameo, and it shows the young but serious face of a pretty woman who resembles more than anything else a Gibson girl. The drawing that accompanies the story in L’Avenir, however, shows a woman in a low-necked dress that reveals a great deal of bosom. The woman’s lips are parted, and hair wisps float around her face. Neither picture looks much like Olympia.
“Oh,” Olympia says, sitting down.
“This is precisely what I did not want to have happen,” Tucker says, picking up one of the papers and slapping it with the back of his fingers. “The city is polarizing. The Francos are passionate about their own community and now will rally around the Bolducs. And the Yankees, threatened by la Survivance, will demonstrate the worst sort of prejudice, as only they are capable of. This has been simmering for years, it is always there, and occasionally there is an event, like this suit, that brings it to the fore. This is Sears’s doing, I know it is. He has nothing to lose from this, and everything to gain. Indeed, I suspect that is why he has taken the case. For the publicity. He certainly is not in it for the fees.”
But Olympia has another thought, one she voices to Tucker. “To me, this gesture has