To protect Arabella, Lancer realized gloomily as Wilson and he were moved apart by the warder. As he was marched to his cell Lancer was tormented by the memory of recent events. He had walked away from Adamslee so that his relationship with Arabella would not cause problems between her and Lionel Heelan. It now seemed that he should have stayed there to protect her from a boy who had proved himself capable of the worst crime of all. This latest incident convinced him that fate was making him pay dear for having miraculously survived the sinking of the Paloma.
Even the lift that knowing that he had served two-thirds of his prison sentence had given him in the past few days had deserted Lancer the following morning. His spirits fell even lower when a warder arrived to announce that a police officer wanted to see him. As he was escorted to the under-warden’s office, he speculated on what the policeman could want of him. His biggest fear was that something bad had happened to Arabella.
It was Constable Price who was standing waiting for him in the office. Delaying speaking until the under-warden had left, Price then began hesitantly. ‘I have taken a risk in coming here, Lancer. Having spent a considerable amount of time in your company I feel it insulting to ask you this, but I must have your assurance that what passes between us here will forever remain secret.’
‘You have my word. You have always treated me fairly and with respect, Constable Price.’
‘It was easy for me to do so, Lancer.’ Price managed a brief smile. ‘You are the type of person I don’t normally come across in my line of work. Why I was so cautious a little while since is because I broke the rules when we attended Owen’s Farm. Githam was not involved, neither does he know about it.’
‘Neither do I,’ Lancer informed him, guessing that Price was worried that he may have noticed something while there.
‘That never occurred to me,’ Price assured him. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a folded sheet of paper and held it out to Lancer, saying. ‘For my first time as a policeman, at the scene of a death not due to natural causes, I withheld evidence from the coroner. It seemed to me that you are the rightful person for this to go to.’
Taking the paper not knowing what to expect, Lancer opened it to read a penned note:
My darling Joby,
I have prayed that it will not affect you badly to read this when I am no longer in the world, but I feel it necessary to let you know the truth. I have been for many years planning what I am about to do. Long before I met you, dear Joby. Please do not regard what follows as self-pity. I realized that I was destined to have an unhappy life even before an awful union with Euart Owens was forced upon me. By coming to the farm you extended my life for several wonderful weeks, Joby. It was seems to me that our being together, even for so desperately short a time, may have been God’s way of compensating me for the misery of the remainder of my life.
Thank you for coming my way and for making it possible for me to die happy from having known and loved you. Please believe that my last wish is for you to live your life to the full.
With my eternal love, goodnight and God Bless You.
Nancy.
Folding the note, Lancer attempted to hide how deeply he was moved by commenting, ‘How could an obviously well-educated woman such as this be married to a monstrous creature like Owens and living in such terrible conditions?’
‘Those were exactly my thoughts, so I did a bit of asking around. I gather that Nancy was the daughter of a travelling woman who went by the name of Black Nance. The girl travelled round West Country fairs until she was aged four. That was when her mother, a drunken slut from all accounts, died. Little Nancy was looked after by various travelling people until Mrs Thomasine Westerhall, the widow of an army general, learned of her plight and fostered her. Nancy was highly intelligent and a fast learner who was so well tutored by Mrs Westerhall that she was destined to become a schoolteacher at the age of ten, when Mrs Westerhall passed away.
‘That was when the good life ended for poor Nancy. A travelling woman claiming to be a close relative of Black Nance took the girl back on the road. I understand that Nancy’s life was horrendous at that time. The story goes that she was rescued from that terrible travelling life by farmer Euart Owens.’
‘That is an abuse of the word rescued,’ Lancer remarked.
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Price said, as he shook Lancer by the hand. ‘Take care of yourself. I do hope that we shall meet again.’
‘That is also my wish, and I am most grateful to you for coming here today,’ Lancer replied, at last freed of guilt by Nancy’s letter.
‘This has truly been a day to remember, Sarai,’ Mildred, the wife of one of the Members of Parliament for the City of Exeter, trilled.
Managing a smile that she had to reach for, Sarai who was already trying to forget her five-hour-old marriage, agreed. Her high-society marriage ceremony at the Cathedral Church of St Peter at Exeter had been conducted in grand style by Henry Phillpotts, the Lord Bishop of Exeter. In the way that the frivolous antics of the highly privileged inexplicably attract the under privileged living on the breadline, the streets around the cathedral were thronged with as many spectators as to a royal wedding. Leaving in a four-wheeled Jenny Lind buggy, she and Emil had pulled the curtain of the carriage back to smile and wave at cheering crowd who didn’t know them, and whom they wouldn’t want to know.
Farcical, Sarai whispered to herself now, as she saw Elspeth, the count’s sister coming towards her out of a mass of guests, most of whom were inebriated.
‘It is a unanimous decision, Sarai,’ Elspeth shouted at the top of her voice. ‘We want the bride to sing for us.’
There was a concerted roar of support. ‘We do, we do.’
‘Sing Amazing Grace,’ a male voice called.
‘It’s a beautiful new hymn,’ a woman agreed.
‘For my beautiful new bride to sing,’ the count, swaying drunkenly shouted as he raised his glass to Sarai.
Not in the mood to sing, Sarai protested. ‘Amazing Grace is not a new hymn. It was written in 1789 but has only just been published.’
‘It was worth waiting for,’ a man shouted.
He was immediately supported and then a chorus of many voices chanted her name. ‘Sarai, Sarai, Sarai, Sarai, Sarai, Sarai, Sarai, Sarai….’
Defeated, Sarai signalled to the pianist, an elderly man who nodded assent and put out his hands to the keyboard.
As the introduction ended, a hush instantly fell on the assembly as Sarai’s voice filled the hall. Needing to fight an urge to flee had the surprising result of her singing being at its best. But getting through the song was tough for her, because the lyrics were about the sea, about boats, and about danger. It brought an image of Gray Sawtell to her. Memories of the magical times she had spent with him did a replay through her mind. Nearing the end of the song she realized that she and the handsome smuggler had been, still were, soulmates. That was something that her husband could never be.
As if to prove that point, when she reached the close of the song rapturous applause started up, only to die away fast as Emil Edelcantz shouted, ‘Well done, my darling,’ before losing his balance and falling sideways, crashing to the floor.
There were cries of concern and people rushed to kneel beside him. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by her husband’s heavy fall, Sarai slipped from the ballroom unnoticed and hurried up to her room.
When early on a Thursday morning Gray Sawtell and Willie Brickell were brought to stand trial for murder they had to pass through a crowd of sightseers assembled outside the entrance to the Crown Bar Court in Exeter Castle. There was little chance of any of these spectators gaining admission to the court. Most of the seats had been reserved for Devon’s VIPs, the aristocrats and gentry and their ladies.
The Judge, Baron Cecil Lawes, was already infamous for both his bias and harshness. The prosecutor was Barnaby Ryall, an Exeter solicitor who had retained barrister Abraham Weyland. No witnesses were called for the prose
cution as all the evidence was circumstantial. Sawtell could not or would not account for his movements on the night John Nichol had died, and neither could Willie Brickell. Sawtell had paid a solicitor, and could have afforded a barrister, but he saw no point in paying for one as counsel were not allowed to address the court on behalf of those accused of a felony.
In the dock Sawtell was well groomed and smartly dressed but Willie Brickell, an undersized, painfully thin lad with a mop of tangled curly hair, was, in contrast, scruffily clad. The indictment of wilful murder was read out. Sawtell was charged with beating Nichol to death, and Brickell of aiding and abetting.
Weyland, the barrister, cleverly presented what had to be an unarguable case for the prosecution, and even the heart-rending episode when Willie Brickell’s ailing mother was carried into the court to testify that he had spent the whole evening and night of the May Day celebrations with her, didn’t seem to register with the jury.
Seemingly bored by the long-winded summing-up by Judge Ryall, they fidgeted and appeared to be wishing they were somewhere away from the stifling, fusty smelling courtroom. They were at last permitted to retire at ten o’clock in the evening, to return within minutes, and the foreman gave a unanimous verdict of ‘Guilty’ against both the accused.
On hearing the verdict, Willie Brickell bowed his head, tears running down his cheeks and his skeletal body convulsed by sobbing. The clerk of the court asked both the prisoners why the sentence of death should not be passed on them. The boy showed no sign of having heard, but the tough-looking Sawtell faced the judge confidently.
‘My lord,’ he began. ‘I do not intend to plead for mercy for myself, but I am not going to permit you to send this innocent boy to his death. Neither you, my lord, nor any other man or woman in this courtroom can consider for one moment that if I had set out to batter a man to his death I would take this poor little wretch to assist me. That is too ridiculous even to contemplate. Willie Brickell is innocent.’
The judge was already lifting the black cap but hesitated, and there was a concerted gasp in the courtroom, as a voice cried out in praise of Sawtell. ‘By gad, sir, you are a noble fellow!’
The general astonishment in court was increased by the shout having seemingly come from the clerk, who was then staring down at something on his desk.
Recovering, the judge donned the black cap and addressed Sawtell and Brickell. ‘Prisoners at the bar, you have been convicted following a painstaking and impartial trial. Upon the facts that have been diligently and meticulously presented to the jury, the jury then came to this conclusion. That leads me to presume that they hold the opinion that the weight of evidence against you is compelling. In my address to the jury, you will have noticed that I placed the evidence and the facts of the case before them in every sympathetic point of view for you.’
There was a stirring in the court as Sawtell interrupted him. ‘I have a statement to make, my lord. Please hear me. I ask you not to send an innocent man to the trap. This lad by my side is innocent of murder. I know him well as he has worked for me for some time, and proved himself to be a hard worker. Every penny he earned he spent on his mother, that poor lady who, despite being very sick, insisted on being brought into this court to swear the innocence of her son. This boy, my lord, is as incapable of committing murder as you are.’
‘We must be regulated by the evidence given, on which the jury have found you both guilty—’
‘I am trying to stop you hanging an innocent boy, not contesting the verdict pronounced on me, my lord,’ Sawtell emphasized.
‘I recognize that, and admire you for it,’ the judge acknowledged. ‘Nevertheless, I can add nothing to what I have said before. You cannot find mercy here. All that is open to me is to strongly suggest that you immediately focus your minds on appealing for forgiveness and mercy to the only quarter now open to you.
‘It is now necessary for me to perform my unwelcome duty to direct that you Gray Sawtell, and you, William Brickell, be taken to the place from whence you came, and thence to the place of execution, and there to be hanged by the neck until your bodies be dead. That you be then interred within the precincts of the prison – and may the Lord have mercy upon your souls!’
As the words of the judge faded away, Willie Brickell made a strange barking sound that changed to an eerie noise like the howl of a wolf. Echoing alarmingly through the courtroom, the relief of everyone there could be sensed as it died away. A motionless Sawtell seemed not to be aware of the howl as he glared stoically at the judge. Then, as the screech started up again, he reached out to hold the boy tightly and, to the relief of all present, silence him.
After a shaky start, Sarai’s relationship with Count Edelcantz settled into what could best be described as a parody of marriage. This compromise was largely due to her decision to tolerate her husband’s lack of consideration for others, which was the infuriatingly childish egotism of those privileged by birth. She could never love him, but due to his self-interest he didn’t seem to notice. It was a married state of mutual benefit; with him enjoying the esteem of having a dazzlingly attractive wife, and she the prestige of belonging to Swedish nobility.
Yet it was a fragile arrangement that she realized must one day fracture beyond repair. This was never more evident than the afternoon when Kendall Harrison, who owned a newspaper in Dorchester and was an old lover of hers, rode up to Adamslee House. Emil was away from home at a meeting with the local aristocracy, but Sarai panicked because she expected him back at any moment.
Hurrying from the house she confronted Harrison before he had the chance to dismount. She brusquely enquired, ‘Why have you come here, Kendall?’
‘I am delighted to see you again, too, Sarai,’ he responded sarcastically. ‘I have just come from the courthouse at Exeter Castle and have news.’
He was in the act of dismounting when Sarai stopped him. She spoke sharply. ‘I question why you have come here today, Kendall. Our liaison, such as it was, ended long ago. Please leave, now. My husband is an extremely jealous man.’
‘With good reason I don’t doubt,’ he remarked, settling back in the saddle. ‘Then he will welcome the news that he need no longer fret over your lover whom I understand was a major threat to your marriage. You can read about it in my newspaper, Sarai.’
Pulling on the reins, he was wheeling his horse about and she frantically ran a few steps after him, raising her voice to ask, ‘Who are you speaking of, Kendall?’
‘Now you want to learn my news,’ he chuckled, as he reined his horse to halt.
Sarai realized that he was enjoying the moment immensely. It was she who had ended their clandestine relationship, and he had reacted angrily. When they had met socially afterwards he never concealed the bitterness he felt toward her. Whatever news that had brought today it had to be something that would cause her distress.
He leaned over in the saddle to bring his face close to hers as he said, ‘In the court today, Judge Baron Cecil Lawes sentenced Gray Sawtell and William Brickell to death.’
Shocked at hearing this, feeling faint, she reached out to steady herself against the horse. But Kendall Harrison quickly moved the animal forward. As he rode away she lost her balance and fell weeping to her knees on the hard ground.
Eight
‘THE RT HON Montague James has invited us to dinner this evening, darling,’ Emil Edelcantz proudly and excitedly announced, the moment that he arrived back at Adamslee House. ‘It will be a grand time, I assure you. The Home Secretary and his lady will be attending, and it has been said, although Montague wouldn’t confirm it to me, wanting it to be a surprise I presume, that a member of the Royal Family will be present. Everyone will, of course, be longing to hear you sing. I shall be the proudest man there when that sweet voice of yours rings clearly through Cavendish Hall.’
She and Emil differed in many ways, the principal one being his penchant for needing to impress the aristocracy. Despite her breeding, if push ever came to shove she would d
esert the patricians and join the ranks of the plebeians.
The way she felt right then, Sarai had grave doubts that she would be able to sing that evening. Yet her husband, who took advantage of her looks and singing voice to boost his own ego, which didn’t need help anyway, would be angry if she let him down. Being subjected to a furious Emil Edelcantz was a far from pleasant experience. Frantic with worry over the probable fate of Gray Sawtell, she was worried that he might notice her eyes were red and swollen from her having ceased crying only minutes before he had come home.
Conversely, when the evening arrived, Sarai, having dreaded it throughout the afternoon, was surprised to discover that being part of a crowd dulled but didn’t significantly alleviate her mourning for Gray Sawtell. Mingling with others was enough to enable her to sing, but she conceded to herself that her performance was below par, even though her enthusiastic audience plainly didn’t notice.
Late in the evening, worry over Sawtell had her covertly contrive a conversation with Trevor Bolland, the Governor of Dorchester Prison, a dour but kindly man who seemed to her to be in awe of the power he held. She turned the subject to capital punishment. Saying that she had heard of two local men being sentenced to death at Exeter, she disguised her worry by asking, with a distinct tremor in her voice, ‘I understand that the laws of England provide that murderers, unless respited, have to be executed within forty-eight hours of pronouncement of sentence.’
‘That is no longer so, I thank the Lord, my dear Sarai,’ Bolland replied uncomfortably. ‘That harsh law was of constant concern to me in my position. It must undoubtedly mean that I, as a prison governor, have been an accomplice in sending many an innocent man to the gallows.’
‘That law doesn’t apply now, Trevor?’ Sarai double-checked, afraid to believe that Sawtell would have another opportunity to prove what to her was his undoubted innocence.
‘A Bill was passed changing the law some six weeks ago, my dear Sarai.’
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