The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill

older boys had asked if they could ride out one afternoon. I did not see the harm in it. From the window, I watched Gabriel and Morris lead their horses back in, caught Morris raise his head and look up at me, his eyes even from that distance unmistakably grieving, though whether for Charlotte or for me I cannot say. I do not know if they asked for me.
    On our approach to town, at the bottom of Ferryquay Street, the horses’ hoofs began to slip on the icy road and it was soon clear that the pair were not going to be able to mount the hill with a full carriage. Early though it was, there were people in the streets. The sudden prospect of being made to walk to the police barracks in Meeting-House Street, through the Shambles, past the fishmonger and the butcher, the newspaper offices and the milliners, in the custody of Sergeant Quinn, was appalling to me. I jumped down, ran back to the sergeant to ask if I might travel in the outside car until the horses regained their footing. The poor man looked terrified. I believe for a moment he thought that I was going to make a dash for it, but when he understood me he readily gave up his seat and I was saved the ignominy of arriving on foot.
    The whole way along the road I could smell the fumes from the distillery chimney in Killowen. Across the bridge at the Clothworkers’ Arms, guests were descending from carriages like it was any other day. A nurse stood on the balcony at one of the windows in the cottage hospital; the fountain outside was still.
    The magisterial inquiry was held not in the courthouse butin a room on the second floor of the barracks, with the window blinds drawn against the street. Edward had insisted that Mr. Crankshaft be my solicitor; he had represented the Ormond family for years. We used to smile, Edward and I, over those notices in the local paper: Mr. Crankshaft contesting the ruling on the setting and lifting of salmon nets; his defense of applications for spirit licenses; his prosecution of the owners of goats that had allowed their animals to graze on the public highway. And now he was defending me.
    The charge was read and Mr. Crankshaft politely objected to my being brought there, since it was his understanding, following the inquest, that there would be no further proceedings before the trial at the Derry assizes. He said he thought these actions to be most unusual, but the crown solicitor duly ignored him and carried on as if he had said nothing at all.
    The sergeant made a statement in which dimensions featured gravely (“the room is six feet by eight feet”; “the ring was five feet eight inches off the ground”; “the stocking was thirty-seven inches long”; “the ring would carry the weight of the child”).
    Mr. Crankshaft objected to the reading of the statement I had made at the inquest, on the grounds that we appeared to be commencing the hearing as if no earlier evidence had been heard and that as such, I ought to be permitted to give a fresh account. Again, his objections were ignored, the whole inquiry appearing to treat him as one would a petulant child whose presence was to be tolerated but whose protestations were not to be seriously considered. “None of us seems to know why we are here today,” he said, and if it had not been for the circumstances, which weighed heavily on all of us, I believe I would have laughed. Dr. Creith repeated his evidence and my testimony was read. I was not required to speak, and if I had been, what would I have said? That I had wanted to impress upon my daughter the value of self-government? That I had not intended that she be left alone in thewardrobe room for so long? That I had come so far down the road of believing myself to be entirely autonomous that I had forgotten what it was to need and to ask for and to acknowledge help? What good would it have done to have uttered such words?
    I sat in silence and looked out from beneath the protection of my veil; the fine gauze made me feel a bit