June 17th, 1895 — outside a Wizengamot Courtroom

Day two of the trial meant that the Pendergasts were asked by a Wizengamot clerk to produce Kaatjie and prove that she hadn't left the country and was well taken care of. Mrs. Aoife Pendergast brought her on time, was asked to leave so that Kaatjie could not be influenced, and Kaatjie was asked a few boring questions: who was she staying with, what were her conditions, had anyone involved in the trial come to visit her?

Mrs. Pendergast wasn't coming back until later, so Kaat had to sit in the back of the courtroom and be bored. The lawyers were doing lawyer things, she guessed, and she could see the tops of her heads of family members from both sides, but even that couldn't hold her attention for long when she had a row to herself in the back. She slumped in her chair. She played with the hems on her sleeves. She considered unbraiding and rebraiding her hair.

The only thing that caught her attention was when the lawyers started arguing about her last name, and she sat bolt upright.

"Legally my clients agree that it should have been Dempsey," one of her uncle's lawyers said, "But Miss Kaatjie's paperwork bore the name Spaans when she was orphaned. It appears that Mrs. Adriana Dempsey modified the paperwork in order to hold her maternal surname. This was done due to her being separated from Mr. Don Juan Dempsey at the time of Miss Kaatjie's birth."

The Dempsey lawyer said something about Spaans being used by her mother to hide her. This went back and forth for several minutes, until the Wizengamot member cut them off:

"It's quite obvious that Mrs. Adriana Dempsey made several irresponsible decisions in the course of getting married and raising her child; it's also obvious that this was some form of character deficiency, given the respectability of the rest of the family. I would appreciate our moving on today, as we will have many other days to discuss the girl's mother."

Kaatjie bit her lip. No one was looking at her anymore, so as the Wizengamot member called for a break she slipped out of her row and out of the door in the back of the courtroom, and scittered own the hallway. She pressed the balls of her hands to her eyes, which were leaking tears in a sudden torrent — why were these people being so mean about her mama?

She was trying to keep it in, but a sob wheezed out of her mouth. She pressed her back against the hallway wall.

Don Juan Dempsey Fortitude Greengrass

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   Madeleine Backus

The solicitor had coached him on what to say today, and there had been such a long list of questions prepared and practiced that Don Juan had the feeling of being an actor in a play. For all that, he had only been called upon to speak three times, and each time his answer had been a sentence or less. The solicitor doubtless preferred that; more opportunity to speak meant more opportunity to accidentally let slip an inconvenient truth. Despite his parents' earlier sanctimonious declaration that they didn't need to lie, the case their solicitor had built up — so far as Don Juan could tell — was primarily based on lies of omission, propped up by vague aspersions and unverifiable assumptions.

It was early, but so far it seemed to be working. The emerging narrative certainly had a lean to it that didn't favor Adriana. The questions he had been asked — did Mrs. Dempsey write to him after the girl's birth? Was he aware that she was living in England under the name Spaans? — had truthful answers that did her no favors. They were also so close to questions that could have been incriminating that he was beginning to wonder if this trial had been staged — if the outcome was predetermined, if his father or Oz had bought the court or the opposing lawyer to make things go their way. Ask if I knew Ana was pregnant when I left, he thought. Ask if I cared. Ask if I ever thought about going back. Ask if Klaas wrote me when Ana died.

They didn't ask. The first day had been mostly procedural, establishing the facts of the case; this was the first session that felt like it meant anything, and they were already digging deep on Ana's alleged character flaws. This wasn't how he'd expected things to go. The Spaans were supposed to win. As the legal team droned on a sinking realization that he might really be expected to parent this child at some point crept through him. He felt desperate. He almost wished the Spaans' solicitor would hurry up and ask him about his drug habit.

When they let everyone stand up, he bolted for a cigarette. Or tried to; the courtroom itself was so high-ceilinged that he had forgotten until reaching the hallway that they were several stories underground, which meant he couldn't slip outside. Probably there was a smoking room somewhere nearby, but if he went there he might be subjected to company. Would he piss off a judge if he was caught smoking in the hallway? There was a chance, and at the moment he felt he could use any help (or whatever the opposite of help was) he could get.

He walked through the halls looking for a suitable spot, but froze when he came face to face with Kaatjie, looking tearful. Don Juan looked caught, though he wasn't doing anything visibly wrong — but it felt like he was wrong to be here, with her, alone. Maybe by virtue of the ongoing trial, or maybe by virtue of being the kind of person he was.

"Is — someone watching you?" he asked, hoping the answer was yes and a pinch-faced nanny was about to swoop in to rescue her from his presence.

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Kaatjie didn't want to be seen by any adults. But her father wasn't the worst option she had, because she had stopped thinking of him as a particularly serious person, and because she had already cried in front of him once. Still, she wiped at her eyes but failed to stop the flow of tears, and tried to give him a withering look to make up for the embarrassing visible presence of emotions.

"Mrs. Pendergast is picking me up later," she said, trying for a competent tone and landing somewhere on stuffy. "So no."

  

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set by Bee!!

She was crying but also glaring at him. Don Juan wasn't sure what sort of reaction she wanted him to have to this. He had the feeling she resented him, which was fair, he supposed. He'd made her cry before Christmas... but she had seemed interested in talking in their letters since then. Interested in knowing more about him. Not that he had anything to tell her, or that this was the right venue for it, but it was still a bit jarring to see the hostility on her face now. He was itching for a cigarette, but it felt too conspicuous to smoke if she was standing here watching him, and he didn't know how to leave.

"Oh," he said lamely. He wasn't sure what Mrs. Pendergast had to do with anything, but wasn't going to ask. That was the Spaans' business, if it was anyone's.

He didn't know what else to say. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He didn't know how to leave. "Are you going to... talk more? Up on the — in front of the court," he clarified.

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Kaat reached up to wipe at her eyes. "I'm not sure," she admitted, with a shrug of her shoulders that her governess would have chided her for. (Shrugging was unladylike.) "I have to keep coming but I only talk when the Wizengamot asks me too." Her lower lip jutted out in a slight pout. This was a dreadfully boring way to spend her days.

  

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set by Bee!!

Don Juan let out a short, expressionless huff of air. "Yeah, me too." He was only meant to be saying what his lawyer had coached him to say, additionally. He wondered if anyone had coached her. Technically that wasn't allowed, probably, but he was sure that if she'd been living at the Dempsey house between the start of this ordeal and the court date then their solicitor would have had a few heart-to-heart conversations with her, heavy on the suggestions. So there were two things they had in common: they were the most directly impacted by the decision of this case, and the least trusted to have any say in how it went.

He finished pulling out a cigarette, having determined that if no one was coming to collect her he might as well smoke.

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