Beyond the Veil of Tears

by Rita Bradshaw

  Spring came and it was a warm one. Almost overnight, flowers were blooming and the skylarks were singing their sweet, liquid melody in blue May skies. The day before the court case, a Sunday, Angeline and Jack spent together. They had been careful not to be seen in public together, at Mr Havelock’s insistence, but this day was their own. Jack arrived at her little house at eight o’clock on a beautiful sunny morning, and when she opened the door he was standing next to a bicycle with two sets of pedals and two saddles, arranged one behind the other. ‘It’s a tandem,’ he said, grinning at the expression on her face. ‘A bicycle made for two.’ He pointed to the basket at the front. ‘A picnic, also for two.’

  They set off amid much wobbling and little screams from Angeline. She had never ridden a bicycle before; her mother would have considered such a thing with horror, and totally unsuitable for the female sex of any age. But with Jack steering and keeping the bike upright, she soon found she was enjoying herself, the more so when they left the town behind and reached open countryside. There followed a day Angeline knew she would remember for the rest of her life.

  In quiet pockets of wayside vegetation in the hedgerows and verges the drooping, bell-shaped heads of bluebells vied with buttercups, daisies and a whole host of spring flowers. The day was comfortably warm, with a gentle May breeze heavily scented with blossom, and butterflies and honey-bees were busily going about their business. They passed the odd hamlet and small village, thatched cottages with small front gardens bursting with colour, as pretty as any picture on a chocolate box, and wherever they went folk stopped to stare and smile and wave.

  After this had happened several times, Angeline decided it was because a tandem was such a novelty, but Jack insisted it was her beauty that caused such a stir.

  The stench and dirt of the town with all its industry, tenements and poverty seemed a million miles away, the deeper they travelled into the countryside along dirt lanes ridged by cart wheels and horses’ hooves, and already the clover and rye grass had started to seed and farm lads were going about their scything in the fields. Overhead the sky got bluer and the temperature steadily rose, and by the time they ate their picnic lunch in a flower strewn meadow the distance was partly obscured by a trembling heat-haze.

  They lingered there all afternoon, talking, laughing, loving, the time bitter-sweet. Neither of them mentioned the following day, but its shadow made each moment all the more precious. Angeline didn’t want ever to go home, back to the black smoke of factory chimneys, the grids of streets, the dank and often foul-smelling river and the incessant noise and bustle of thousands of people packed into a small area of thriving humanity. She said as much to Jack as she lay with her head on his chest in the sweet, green grass, and he was quiet for a few moments. ‘It’s where I’m called to be, lass,’ he said after a while. ‘There in the midst of it all, with my ain folk. One day I want to set up as a solicitor myself, but among them – the people who matter – taking on cases that the fancy lawyers won’t, for folk who haven’t got two pennies to rub together.’

  ‘I know. Oh, I know.’ She knelt up, looking down into his green eyes. ‘And I want that, too, I want to be with you. But’ – she smiled ruefully – ‘I want this, too. The peace and quiet, and the smell of newly cut grass and flowers.’

  ‘It’s not so romantic in the winter, lass. Not when you’re knee-deep in mud and the fire sends the smoke back down the chimney to choke you, and you’re hungry and tired. You think the pay’s bad in the steel works and mines, but some farmers pay their men a pittance for a day that begins when it’s dark and ends when it’s dark. I know of farm labourers who—’

  ‘Shush.’ She touched his mouth with the tip of one finger. ‘Let me have my dream, Jack, and see it as beautiful today.’

  He sat up at that, pulling her fiercely into him. ‘I don’t want to spoil your dream, lass, and I promise you there’ll be days like this in the years ahead. It’ll be up to us to make them happen and escape the town now and again. We’ll bring the bairns and let them run free, little lassies with ribbons in their hair who look just like you.’

  ‘And little boys who are the image of their father.’ She smiled at him, not wanting to spoil the moment. But if things went against her tomorrow, who knew what would happen? And even if Oswald’s petition was thrown out of court, and he was shown up for who and what he was, it would mean that she was still married to him – a separation order being the most she could hope for in the future, unless at some point she was able to prove evidence of his adultery and cruelty and so obtain a divorce.

  But she wouldn’t think about the ifs today, she told herself resolutely. Not when she was with Jack and each minute was speeding by so quickly. All she could do was put herself in the hands of God. God, and Mr Havelock, she added wryly.

  ‘It will happen, lass,’ Jack said again, kissing her long and hard until every other thought went out of her head and there was only Jack – Jack and this wonderful, stolen day.

  They cycled home in a mellow dusky twilight broken only by the songs of the blackbird and thrush and the cooing of wood pigeons in the trees bordering the lanes. All too soon they were approaching the outskirts of the town, and then on into the densely packed streets and industry.

  Jack left her on the doorstep; he had to return the tandem to the friend he had borrowed it from that evening, but long after he had disappeared Angeline stood staring after him.

  He had kissed her before he rode off, holding her close and whispering that she had to trust him that everything would be all right, and she had nodded and said all the correct things. But she was frightened. So frightened.

  Once indoors, she made herself a hot drink and forced down some supper, only to go to bed and lie awake most of the night, cat-napping now and again and then waking with a start from nightmarish dreams. When a faint glow in the sky told her dawn was breaking she was glad to get up, and as she washed and dressed a calm descended. The day she had dreaded was here. No more waiting. Mr Havelock had told her that Oswald would be in court, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  May had wanted to be present for moral support, but as she was as big as a house with suspected twins, Howard wouldn’t allow it. Angeline had expressed her thanks to May, but in actual fact she was relieved at how things had turned out. If there was the faintest chance of May being recognized by someone from the asylum days, it would be a disaster. Far better that she was out of the picture altogether. Myrtle and Albert were leaving the farm in the care of the family and meeting her at court, and of course Jack would be there, in the guise of Mr Havelock’s clerk.

  Angeline looked at herself in the bedroom mirror before she left the house. The day out in the open air had put a touch of colour in her cheeks, for which she was thankful; she suspected she would have been as white as a sheet otherwise, the way she was feeling inside. She had dressed carefully in a smart grey suit with a pink blouse, and her little hat was the same hue as the blouse. Neat and respectable. She nodded at the thought, oblivious of the startling beauty of her reflection.

  She had arranged for a horse-drawn cab to pick her up and transport her over the river to the county court, situated at the foot of Westgate Hill at its junction with Fenkle Street. It wasn’t too far and she could easily have walked the distance, but Mr Havelock had advised her to arrive by cab in case the weather was inclement on the day. As it happened, it was raining slightly when she left the house and she was glad she had taken the solicitor’s advice.

  She had been to look at the court building and make sure she knew exactly where it was some weeks before, and now, as the cab deposited her at her destination, her gaze was drawn to the five female heads carved on the window keystones. The one set under the date of the building was Justice wearing her blindfold. She gazed at Justice for a few moments, her heart thudding like a drum, and when she lowered her gaze there were Myrtle and Albert and Mr Havelock, and Jack was coming towards her to take her arm. And so she walked through the arched entran
ce surrounded by people who cared about her.

  And then she saw Oswald. He was standing some distance away, talking to a man who was clearly his barrister, and a young, well-dressed woman was hanging on his arm, with an older man on the woman’s other side.

  She stared at him, taking in every detail of his appearance in the few moments before he noticed her. He was as well groomed and fashionable as she remembered, although stouter, but he carried himself with the same effortless panache. Perhaps it was her gaze that drew his, because suddenly the cold grey eyes were looking straight at her, and for a moment she was back in the asylum, listening to him pretend that he had cared about the death of the baby, in his charming, empty way. He was everything she despised, everything she hated. She stared back at him, her face expressing exactly what she was feeling, and it was his eyes that dropped from hers. He must have said something about her, because the next moment his three companions had turned to look at her, and Angeline noticed that the woman in particular was glaring. Wide-spaced eyes over a nose that was like a sharp beak raked her from head to foot, deliberately offensive. It was only the older man swinging the woman around and saying something that broke the contact.

  ‘Angel?’ Jack’s voice penetrated the whirling emotion. ‘Don’t let them unnerve you, sweetheart. All right? All you have to do is speak the truth today and, however good this man from London is, he can’t trip you up. Do you hear me?’

  She heard him, but for a moment she couldn’t respond. She had suffered at Oswald’s hands, and since the first moment she had met him he had been in control. She had never seen it so clearly. Somehow she managed to turn to Jack and say, ‘Don’t worry. He can’t—’ She had been about to say, ‘He can’t hurt me any more’, but legally he could, if the case went his way. Instead she changed it to, ‘He can’t frighten me any more’ and, as she spoke the words, she knew them to be true. For years she had lived in fear of Oswald Golding, but however things went today, his hold on her was broken. He had done his worst and she had survived. She had Jack, and she had good friends. She glanced at Myrtle and Albert, and thought of May and Howard. The bond between herself and her friends had been forged in the fire of adversity and it wouldn’t break. She doubted if Oswald had one person in the world he could say the same about.

  Raising her chin, she smiled at Mr Havelock. ‘Let battle commence.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The courtroom was unusually crowded for a civil case. But this was no ordinary case, and anyone who had got a whiff of it was there. The local justice of the peace, Justice Cook, seemed somewhat annoyed about the interest. Staring across the court, he opened with, ‘I trust everyone in this room agrees that marriage is the very basis of society, something to be held together at all cost. We are a civilized nation, a great nation, and the Empire stretches round the globe, bringing enlightenment to native lands and peoples. It is our sacred duty.’

  Lowering his head, he consulted the papers in front of him.

  ‘Golding versus Golding. I understand an initial request by Mrs Golding for a judicial separation was responded to with a petition for nullity by Mr Golding. For those present, let me clarify. Nullity enables a marriage to be declared null and void; a separation does not dissolve the marriage, and neither party can marry again. Every Decree of Nullity or separation is in the first instance a decree nisi, the grounds having been proved, and this is not made absolute until the expiration of six calendar months. So’ – he raised his head again, his gimlet eyes raking the court – ‘let us begin.’

  The court soon discovered that Oswald Golding’s London barrister was an eloquent speaker. He described how the late Mr Hector Stewart had introduced Mr Golding to his niece, the then Miss Angeline Stewart, shortly after her parents had died. It was immediately clear the girl had led a very sheltered life, but at the time Mr Golding – deeply in love and wishing to see only the best in his beloved – assumed it was simply a devoted mother and father being over-protective that had led them to keep their daughter hidden away from society. Of course, looking back now, the signs of madness were already there; but, as everyone knows, hindsight is a wonderful thing. The courtship was brief – again, in hindsight, it had become clear that Mr Hector Stewart knew of his niece’s affliction and was anxious to rid himself of the responsibility of caring for her. The marriage subsequently took place and, from the very day of the wedding, Mr Golding’s wife began to exhibit worrying quirks and mannerisms – her disposition becoming, on the one hand, withdrawn and non-communicative with Mr Golding and, on the other, prone to bouts of violent temper and unreasonable behaviour.

  The barrister went on to explain how, because Mr Golding cared deeply for his poor wife, he had done everything he could to find a cure for her mental deterioration, but to no avail. Some of the time she appeared perfectly normal, and he found himself hoping she was getting better, but then – particularly when they were alone – her mood swings could be described as extreme. The doctors he approached proved to be unable to help, beyond suggesting the benefits of an asylum, but this he was loath to do. The barrister paused here, his voice dropping as he said, ‘He cared for her, you see, despite the fact that by now he realized he had been tricked into marrying a mentally sick woman.’

  Justice Cook cleared his throat. ‘Keep to the facts, sir. You know better than that.’

  The barrister bowed in acknowledgement, before going on to say how things had gone rapidly downhill when Mrs Golding became with child – one fit of rage causing such extreme behaviour that she fell, losing the child, and almost her life. After this she became completely unhinged, attacking Mr Golding so badly that the doctor had to be called to the house, after which she was taken to Earlswood Asylum. There she continued to display aggressive behaviour, so much so that several times she was put in a padded cell.

  Angeline felt, rather than heard, the intake of breath from those listening.

  ‘At other times,’ the barrister said, ‘Mrs Golding could appear as normal as you or I, which is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this sad affair. After some months a fire broke out at the asylum in which over twenty people lost their lives. It couldn’t be ascertained how this began, but Mrs Golding was detained in the area in which the fire took hold.’

  Again Justice Cook warned the barrister, who graciously apologized to the court.

  ‘Mrs Golding was assumed dead in the fire, and Mr Golding was left trying to rebuild his shattered life.’ The barrister paused again, glancing around the court and then at Oswald, who sat with his head in his hands, the picture of dejection. ‘Some years later he meets the lady sitting next to him today, a lady who made him believe in love again, who infused in him the will to trust another woman sufficiently to take the momentous step of marriage. And what happens? Mrs Golding, who we can only assume has been waiting and watching for reasons of her own – reasons that must seem acceptable to her poor, damaged mind – makes herself known to him. After seven years. Seven years! Your Honour,’ the barrister now looked straight at the JP, his voice ringing out in condemnation as he said, ‘Mrs Golding’s illness has made her dangerous and cunning. My client feared for his life many times in the past and he fears for it now, if she is left to her own devices. This was never a real marriage; from the first Mr Golding was her carer, her nurse, her warder, if you like. Never has a Decree of Nullity been more deserved, and for her own sake – her own protection – Mrs Golding must be detained in a secure place indefinitely. Let us not lose sight of the fact that, but for the tragedy of the fire that killed so many innocent people, she would still be in Earlswood today.’

  Turning back to the court, he went on, ‘I would like to call the family doctor who attended Mrs Golding at the time of her marriage, along with others who can testify to the truth of the attacks on Mr Golding by Mrs Golding.’

  Angeline had sat as still as stone during the barrister’s discourse. Mr Havelock had warned her before the case began that she must be calm and circumspect at all times, and
that any show of emotion or anger would be used by Oswald’s counsel against her. Now, as she looked over to where Dr Owen was preparing to speak, she was assailed by so many terrible memories of the time when she had lost the baby that for a moment she thought she was going to faint.

  Dr Owen spoke quietly – so quietly that he was asked to repeat certain statements – but his description of her mental state was damning. Another doctor, a London man whom Angeline knew for sure she had never set eyes on in her life, took the stand and said much the same. He was followed by one of Oswald’s friends, Robert Taylor, a plump cocksure little man who described an incident when he had had to pull Mr Golding’s wife off him as she had tried to scratch his eyes out. His crime? Taylor asked sadly; Mr Golding hadn’t been sufficiently enthusiastic about a new frock she was wearing.

  Oswald had persuaded people to lie for him. Angeline’s eyes were drawn to where he sat, and just for a moment he looked at her, one eyebrow slightly raised. You don’t stand a chance, that eyebrow said. You cannot win. I will crush you as I would an ant, and with as little feeling.

  She turned to Mr Havelock. Jack was sitting on the solicitor’s other side, for Mr Havelock had not wanted them next to each other and had warned them, more than once, not to look at each other or communicate during their time in court. Now, as she caught sight of Jack’s face, she prayed he wouldn’t do anything foolish. Mr Havelock must also have noticed his clerk’s murderous expression, because he murmured something in Jack’s ear, and Jack lowered his head, pretending to fumble with some papers in his lap.

  ‘Mr Havelock?’ Angeline touched the solicitor’s arm. ‘The second doctor, he’s the one I haven’t seen before. And the incident Oswald’s friend described never happened.’

  Mr Havelock nodded, but said nothing, and after a moment she sat back in her seat.