by Anne Perry
He slid a little farther down in his chair. “We need our heroes. We don’t want them proved to be weak and ugly, to practice vices we can barely even bring ourselves to name—let alone against their own children.”
“I don’t care a damn whether people like it or not,” Monk said violently. “It is true. We must force them to see it. Would they rather we hang an innocent woman, before we oblige them to see a truth which is disgusting?”
“Some of them well might.” Rathbone looked at him with a faint smile. “But I don’t intend to allow them that luxury.”
“If they would, then there is not much hope for our society,” Hester said in a small voice. “When we are happy to turn from evil because it is ugly, and causes us distress, then we condone it and become party to its continuance. Little by little, we become as guilty of it as those who commit the act—because we have told them by our silence that it is acceptable.”
Rathbone glanced at her, his eyes bright and soft.
“Then we must prove it,” Monk said between his teeth. “We must make it impossible for anyone to deny or evade.”
“I will try.” Rathbone looked at Hester, then at Monk. “But we haven’t enough here yet. I’ll need more. Ideally I need to name the other members of the ring, if there is one, and from what you say”—he turned to Hester—“there may be several members. And of course I dare not name anyone without proof. Cassian is only eight. I may be able to call him; that will depend upon the judge. But his testimony alone will certainly not be sufficient.”
“I think Damaris might know,” Hester said thoughtfully. “I’m not certain, but she undoubtedly discovered something at the party that evening, and it shook her so desperately she was hardly able to keep control of herself.”
“We have several people’s testimony to that,” Monk added.
“If she will admit it, that will go a long way towards belief,” Rathbone said guardedly. “But it will not be easy to make her. She is called as a witness for the prosecution.”
“Damaris is?” Hester was incredulous. “But why? I thought she was on our side.”
Rathbone smiled without pleasure. “She has no choice. The prosecution has called her, and she must come, or risk being charged with contempt of court. So must Peverell Erskine, Fenton and Sabella Pole, Maxim and Louisa Fumival, Dr. Hargrave, Sergeant Evan, and Randolf Carlyon.”
“But that’s everyone.” Hester was horrified. Suddenly hope was being snatched away again. “What about us? That’s unjust. Can’t they testify for us too?”
“No, a witness can be called by only one side. But I shall have an opportunity to cross-examine them,” Rathbone replied. “It will not be as easy as if they were my witnesses. But it is not everyone. We can call Felicia Carlyon—although I am not sure if I will. I have not subpoenaed her, but if she is there I may call her at the last moment—when she has had an opportunity to hear the other testimony.”
“She won’t tell us anything,” Hester said furiously. “Even if she could. And I don’t suppose she knows. But if she did, can you imagine her standing up in court and admitting that any member of her family committed incest and sodomy, let alone her heroic son, the general!”
“Not willingly.” Rathbone’s face was grim, but there was a faint, cold light in his eyes. “But it is my art, my dear, to make people admit what they do not wish to, and had not intended to.”
“You had better be damnably good at it,” Monk said angrily.
“I am.” Rathbone met his eyes and for a moment they stared at each other in silence.
“And Edith,” Hester said urgently. “You can call Edith. She will help all she can.”
“What does she know?” Monk swung around to her. “Willingness won’t help if she doesn’t know anything.”
Hester ignored him. “And Miss Buchan. She knows.”
“A servant.” Rathbone bit his lip. “A very elderly woman with a hot temper and a family loyalty … If she turns against them they won’t forgive her. She will be thrown out without a roof over her head or food to eat, and too old to work anymore. Not an enviable position.”
Hester felt hopelessness wash over her anger. A black defeat threatened to crush her.
“Then what can we do?”
“Find some more evidence,” Rathbone replied. “Find out who else is involved.”
Monk thought for a few moments, his hands knotted hard in his lap.
“That should be possible: either they came to the house or the child was taken to them. The servants will know who called. The footmen ought to know where the boy went.” His face pinched with anger. “Poor little devil!” He looked at Rathbone critically. “But even if you prove other men used him, will that prove that his father did, and that Alexandra knew it?”
“You give me the evidence,” Rathbone replied. “Everything you get, whether you think it is relevant or not. I’ll decide how to use it.”
Monk rose to his feet, scraping back his chair, his whole body hard with anger.
“Then we have no time to lose. God knows there is little enough.”
“And I shall go to try and persuade Alexandra Carlyon to allow us to use the truth,” Rathbone said with a tight little smile. “Without her consent we have nothing.”
“Oliver.” Hester was aghast.
He turned to her, touching her very gently.
“Don’t worry, my dear. You have done superbly. You have discovered the truth. Now leave me to do my part.”
She met his eyes, dark and brilliant, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing herself to relax.
“Of course. I’m sorry. Go and see Alexandra. I shall go and tell Callandra. She will be as appalled as we are.”
Alexandra Carlyon turned from the place where she had been standing, staring up at the small square of light of the cell window. She was surprised to see Rathbone.
The door swung shut with a hollow sound of metal on metal, and they were alone.
“You are wasting your time, Mr. Rathbone,” she said huskily. “I cannot tell you anything more.”
“You don’t need to, Mrs. Carlyon,” he said very gently. “I know why you killed your husband—and God help me, had I been in your place I might have done the same.”
She stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“To save your son from further unnatural abuse …”
What little color there was left fled from her face. Her eyes were wide, so hollow as to seem black in the dim light.
“You—know …” She sank onto the cot. “You can’t. Please …”
He sat on the bottom of the cot, facing her.
“My dear, I understand that you were prepared to go to the gallows rather than expose your son to the world’s knowledge of his suffering. But I have something very dreadful to tell you, which must change your mind.”
Very slowly she raised her head and looked at him.
“Your husband was not the only one to use him in that way.”
Her breath caught in her throat, and she seemed unable to find it again. He thought she was going to faint.
“You must fight,” he said softly but with intense urgency. “It seems most probable that his grandfather is another—and there is at least a third, if not more. You must use all the courage you have and tell the truth about what happened, and why. We must destroy them, so they can never harm Cassian again, or any other child.”
She shook her head, still struggling to breathe.
“You must!” He took both her hands. At first they were limp, then slowly tightened until they clung onto him as if she were drowning. “You must! Otherwise Cassian will go to his grandparents, and the whole tragedy will continue. You will have killed your husband for nothing. And you yourself will hang—for nothing.”
“I can’t.” The words barely passed her lips.
“Yes you can! You are not alone. There are people who will be with you, people as horrified and appalled as you are, who know the truth and will help us fight to prove it. For
your son’s sake, you must not give up now. Tell the truth, and I will fight to see that it is believed—and understood.”
“Can you?”
He took a deep breath and met her eyes.
“Yes—I can.”
She stared at him, exhausted beyond emotion.
“I can,” he repeated.
9
The trial of Alexandra Carlyon began on the morning of Monday, June 22. Major Tiplady had intended to be present, not out of cheap curiosity; normally he shunned such proceedings as he would have an accident had a horse bolted in the street and thrown and trampled its rider. It was a vulgar intrusion into another person’s embarrassment and distress. But in this case he felt a deep and personal concern for the outcome, and he wished to demonstrate his support for Alexandra, and for the Carlyon family, or if he were honest, for Edith; not that he would have admitted it, even to himself.
When he put his foot to the ground he was well able to bear his weight on it. It seemed the leg had healed perfectly. However, when he attempted to bend it to climb the step up into a hansom, he found, to his humiliation, that it would not support him as he mounted. And he knew dismounting at the other end might well be even worse. He was both abashed and infuriated, but he was powerless to do anything about it. It obviously needed at least another week, and trying to force the issue would only make it worse.
Therefore he deputed Hester to report to him, since she was still in his employ and must do what she could for his comfort. He insisted this was crucial to it. She was to report to him everything that happened, not only the evidence that was given by each witness but their manner and bearing, and whether in her best judgment they were telling the truth or not. Also she was to observe the attitudes of everyone else who appeared for the prosecution and for the defense, and most particularly the jury. Naturally she should also mark well all other members of the family she might see. To this end she should equip herself with a large notebook and several sharp pencils.
“Yes Major,” she said obediently, hoping she would be able to fulfil so demanding an assignment adequately. He asked a great deal, but his earnestness and his concern were so genuine she did not even try to point out the difficulties involved.
“I wish to know your opinions as well as the facts,” he said for the umpteenth time. “It is a matter of feelings, you know? People are not always rational, especially in matters like this.”
“Yes, I know,” she said with magnificent understatement. “I will watch expressions and listen to tones of voice—I promise you.”
“Good.” His cheeks pinkened a trifle. “I am most obliged.” He looked down. “I am aware it is not customarily part of a nurse’s duties …”
She hid a smile with great difficulty.
“And it will not be pleasant,” he added.
“It is merely a reversal of roles,” she said, allowing her smile to be seen.
“What?” He looked at her quickly, not understanding. He saw her amusement, but did not know what caused it.
“Had you been able to go, then I should have had to ask you to repeat it all to me. I have no authority to require it of you. This is far more convenient.”
“Oh—I see.” His eyes filled with perception and amusement as well. “Yes—well, you had better go, or you might be late and not obtain a satisfactory seat.”
“Yes Major. I shall be back when I am quite sure I have observed everything. Molly has your luncheon prepared, and …”
“Never mind.” He waved his hands impatiently. “Go on, woman.”
“Yes Major.”
She was early, as she had said; even so the crowds were eager and she only just got a seat from which she could see all the proceedings, and that was because Monk had saved it for her.
The courtroom was smaller than she had expected, and higher-ceilinged, more like a theater with the public gallery far above the dock, which itself was twelve or fifteen feet above the floor where the barristers and court officials had their leather-padded seats at right angles to the dock.
The jury was on two benches, one behind the other, on the left of the gallery, several steps up from the floor, and with a row of windows behind them. On the farther end of the same wall was the witness box, a curious affair up several steps, placing it high above the arena, very exposed.
At the farther wall, opposite the gallery and the dock, was the red-upholstered seat on which the judge sat. To the right was a further gallery for onlookers, newsmen and other interested parties.
There was a great amount of wooden paneling around the dock and witness box, and on the walls behind the jury and above the dock to the gallery rail. It was all very imposing and as little like an ordinary room as possible, and at the present was so crowded with people one was able to move only with the greatest difficulty.
“Where have you been?” Monk demanded furiously. “You’re late.”
She was torn between snapping back and gratitude to him for thinking of her. The first would be pointless and only precipitate a quarrel when she least wanted one, so she chose the latter, which surprised and amused him.
The Bill of Indictment before the Grand Jury had already been brought at an earlier date, and a true case found and Alexandra charged.
“What about the jury?” she asked him. “Have they been chosen?”
“Friday,” he answered. “Poor devils.”
“Why poor?”
“Because I wouldn’t like to have to decide this case,” Monk answered. “I don’t think the verdict I want to bring in is open to me.”
“No,” she agreed, more to herself than to him. “What are they like?”
“The jury? Ordinary, worried, taking themselves very seriously,” he replied, not looking at her but straight ahead at the judge’s bench and the lawyers’ tables below.
“All middle-aged, I suppose? And all men of course.”
“Not all middle-aged,” he contradicted. “One or two are youngish, and one very old. You have to be between twenty-one and sixty, and have a guaranteed income from rents or lands, or live in a house with not less than fifteen windows—”
“What?”
“Not less than fifteen windows,” he repeated with a sardonic smile, looking sideways at her. “And of course they are all men. That question is not worthy of you. Women are not considered capable of such decisions, for heaven’s sake. You don’t make any legal decisions at all. You don’t own property, you don’t expect to be able to decide a man’s fate before the law, do you?”
“If one is entitled to be tried before a jury of one’s peers, I expect to be able to decide a woman’s fate,” she said sharply. “And rather more to the point, I expect if I come to trial to have women on the jury. How else could I be judged fairly?”
“I don’t think you’d do any better with women,” he said, pulling his face into a bitter expression and looking at the fat woman in front of them. “Not that it would make the slightest difference if you did.”
She knew it was irrelevant. They must fight the case with the jury as it was. She turned around to look at others in the crowd. They seemed to be all manner of people, every age and social condition, and nearly as many women as men. The only thing they had in common was a restless excitement, a murmuring to one another, a shifting from foot to foot where they were standing, or a craning forward if they were seated, a peering around in case they were to miss something.
“Of course I really shouldn’t be ’ere,” a woman said just behind Hester. “It won’t do me nerves any good at all. Wickedest thing I ever ’eard of, an’ ’er a lady too. You expec’ better from them as ought ter know ’ow ter be’ave their-selves.”
“I know,” her companion agreed. “If gentry murders each other, wot can yer expec’ of the lower orders? I ask yer.”
“Wonder wot she’s like? Vulgar, I shouldn’t wonder. Of course they’ll ’ang ’er.”
“O’ course. Don’t be daft. Wot else could they do?”
“Right and proper thi
ng too.”
“ ’Course it is. My ’usband don’t always control ’isself, but I don’t go murderin’ ’im.”
“ ’Course you don’t. No one does. What would ’appen to the world if we did?”
“Shockin’. And they’re sayin’ as there’s mutiny in India too. People killin’ an’ murderin’ all over the place. I tell yer, we live in terrible times. God ’isself only knows what’ll be next!”
“An’ that’s true for sure,” her companion agreed, sagely nodding her head.
Hester longed to tell them not to be so stupid, that there had always been virtue and tragedy—and laughter, discovery and hope—but the clerk called the court to order. There was a rustle of excitement as the counsel for the prosecution came in dressed in traditional wig and black gown, followed by his junior. Wilberforce Lovat-Smith was not a large man, but he had a walk which was confident, even a trifle arrogant, and full of vitality, so that everyone was immediately aware of him. He was unusually dark of complexion and under the white horsehair wig very black hair was easily visible. Even at this distance, Hester could see with surprise as he turned that his eyes were cold gray-blue. He was certainly not a handsome man, but there was something compelling in his features: sharp nose, humorous mouth and heavy-lidded eyes which suggested sensuality. It was the face of a man who had succeeded in the past, and expected to again.
He had barely taken his place when there was another murmur of excitement as Rathbone came in, also gowned and wigged and followed by a junior. He looked unfamiliar to Hester, lately used to seeing him in ordinary clothes and informal in his manner. Now he was quite obviously thinking only of the contest ahead on which depended not only Alexandra’s life but perhaps the quality of Cassian’s also. Hester and Monk had done all they could; now it lay with Rathbone. He was a lone gladiator in the arena, and the crowd was hungering for blood. As he turned she saw the familiar profile with its long nose and delicate mouth so ready to change from pity to anger, and back to wry, quick humor again.