Dickie (Feeney Family Sagas Book 4)

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Haig said that this must have been very distressing for him. ‘Now, can you tell us of the events leading up to the fire?’

  ‘On the afternoon of the fire I was in a public house drowning my sorrows when my brother came in.’ Dickie gave a wistful little smile. ‘I was delighted to see him again. We had a long talk about the family and he told me he was sure my parents would like to see me again too as they often spoke of me. I felt so ashamed that these good people were ready to forgive me for ruining their name – through no fault of my own but nevertheless I was responsible. I felt so humble … All the way home I couldn’t get it out of my mind how much they loved me an’ how much I was looking forward to being among them again… then we saw the fire.’ He looked stricken and fell mute for as long as Counsel would permit. ‘When I heard that the children and my sister-in-law were inside, I saw a way to redeem all my past sins. In truth, I hoped I would die in that fire, so depressed had I become at the state of my life. After I’d rescued the children I went back in, but saw that in her unconscious state there was little hope of getting my sister-in-law down the staircase which was now well alight. The fire seemed to have spread all around me. The route to the front door was suddenly cut off.’ He enacted fearfulness. ‘I tried to get out of the side door but there was no key in the lock. I panicked, ran down to the cellar which seemed to be the only place not on fire. It was there that I saw my chance to escape: the coal chute.’

  ‘You say that you saw your sister-in-law unconscious. Did you see anyone else there?’

  Dickie lowered his eyes, and leaned against the sturdy oak box as if deeply disturbed. ‘I saw a man who was also unconscious.’

  ‘And why did you not mention him to anyone when you told them about your sister-in-law?’

  Dickie replied in a sombre manner. ‘Mr Haig, if you saw a half-naked man in the bedroom of your brother’s wife, would you tell him about it?’

  The young barrister looked at the Jury and moved his head in sympathy. ‘So what occurred after you had escaped from the cellar?’

  Dickie spoke with great depth of feeling. ‘When I got out, it came to me that once again I’d acted out of selfishness, had left my sister-in-law to die … In that knowledge, how could I face my family? So, I ran away down the back garden and climbed the wall, allowing them to think I’d died a hero, hoping that the troubles I’d caused them would at least be over now … but instead this coward has once more brought his family into disrepute.’ He dropped his pain-filled eyes to the floor.

  ‘I’m sure you have no call to malign yourself, Mr Feeney,’ comforted Haig. ‘Your rescue of the children could never be construed as cowardice. Now, could I ask you finally: when you made that decision to pretend you were dead, did it not strike you that there might be questions over the insurance?’

  Dickie fixed steady blue eyes on the Jury, eyes that erased all the sordid details that had gone before. ‘No.’

  ‘Were you aware that your mother held an insurance policy on your life?’

  ‘No, why should I be?’

  ‘Isn’t it a simple fact of life that most parents insure their children?’

  ‘Is it?’ Wan-faced, Dickie shrugged. ‘Well, it never occurred to me.’

  ‘The Jury might find that surprising, Mr Feeney. You must have insurance policies yourself.’

  ‘Why should I? A waste of money if you ask me. Never saw the sense in it.’

  Haig raised an eyebrow. ‘Not even on your house? Your property? What if you had suffered the same misfortune as your parents and lost everything?’

  ‘I’d say it was my hard luck,’ Dickie flashed a sad smile at the Jury. ‘Well, when you’re young ye don’t ever think of things like that happening to you, do you? I guess I just put my trust in my Maker.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Feeney. Will you remain as you are, please. My learned friend may have questions he’d like to put to you.’

  ‘I have indeed,’ said Lindley and took the floor. At Thomasin’s instruction, Fox would not be interrogating her son. ‘Mr Feeney, Fm sure the Court is very impressed both by your undeniable heroism in rescuing your nephew and niece and also the consideration you showed your family in not wanting them to think they had a coward in their midst. Nevertheless, there are certain points I would like to clarify. Let us return to your Last Will and Testament …’

  Dickie’s scalp prickled. He could not help the involuntary glance at his solicitor, but maintained his composure.

  ‘I see that it is dated twentieth September, eighteen seventy-four. Only two months before the fire …’

  Sonny tensed. He’s going to say it.

  ‘Apart from this coincidence, it seems out of character for a feckless young man – as you have admitted you were – to make his will. Can you tell the Court what led you to the decision to do so?’

  ‘I don’t see anything strange in it,’ replied Dickie, unperturbed. ‘Despite being put out of business I wasn’t destitute by any means. I wanted to ensure that if anything happened to me my money was apportioned in the manner I wished it to be. How else could this be done unless I made a will?’

  ‘Quite so. You say, “if anything happened to me” … were you expecting it to?’

  ‘Of course not. I was only twenty-one – but accidents happen, don’t they?’

  ‘Indeed they do, and that is why I find your attitude rather contradictory. On the one hand you do not see the need to insure your property on the grounds that, “You don’t ever think of things like that happening to you”, and yet you take the more unusual step of drawing up a will. As the Court has heard, the greater portion of your assets were left to your brother and only a token bequest to your parents, your sister, your nephew and niece. Why was that?’

  ‘In the natural course of events if I hadn’t made a will, my parents would have inherited everything – I was unmarried at that time. They were already very prosperous. I love my brother, sir. With my death I could make the generous gesture that I’d omitted to make in life. I was sometimes very uncaring of his feelings.’

  Lindley frowned, deeply puzzled. ‘Mr Feeney, still I cannot help but feel that you were expecting to die.’

  Dickie warned himself to be more careful in his playacting. ‘But we all die,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Some more prematurely than others. So … what did you do immediately after you had escaped from the fire?’

  Now that the questions over the will had seemingly been dealt with, Dickie’s stomach uncoiled. ‘I emigrated to America.’

  ‘As simply as that? Did you not first go to your home and take a bath, collect your money and belongings?’

  ‘The only stop I made was to ask my fiancée to come with me.’ He smiled fondly at his wife in the gallery. ‘I took a bath at her house and she lent me some of her father’s clothes.’

  ‘Your fiancée who is now your wife? And she was expecting you?’

  ‘Yes, I’d arranged to go and meet her but I was late.’

  ‘And presumably she was ready and waiting with her suitcases.’

  ‘Of course not. She didn’t know we were going to America.’

  ‘Oh, I thought when you said you’d arranged to meet her …’

  ‘Simply to meet her! I had no inkling this was going to happen.’

  ‘But you told us that you wanted people to believe you were dead.’

  ‘Not her. I couldn’t make that sacrifice. I told her what I’d done and she had to decide there and then whether or not to come with me.’

  ‘And she chose to aid your deception.’

  ‘She loved me. Our elopement was a spur of the moment thing. I had to get right away and make my death look convincing and also build myself a new life, but I knew I couldn’t do that without her.’

  Lindley referred to the will yet again and, still looking at it, asked, ‘What was your wife’s maiden name?’

  ‘Miller. Primrose Miller.’ He hardly dared glance at his wife. But Dusty was too afraid for her husband’s safety to carp a
bout the silly name today.

  ‘Primrose Miller … I don’t see that name written here.’ Lindley looked up from the will. ‘You have just mentioned your great affection for her yet she was to receive not even the smallest bequest?’

  Dickie struggled to escape the web. ‘But that will would have been naturally revoked with matrimony and as I wasn’t expecting to die between making it and marrying her there seemed no point in including her.’

  ‘On that basis,’ said Lindley in tired manner, ‘there would seem little point in writing a will at all, would there?’ He put the document down. ‘Now… the visit you paid your fiancée on the night of the fire … was that not rather risky? I mean, you must have cut a very conspicuous figure, blackened with smoke. Surely someone could have seen you and when they heard later that you were supposed to have died in a fire … well, they would have put two and two together and informed your family that you were in fact alive.’

  ‘I made sure no one saw me when I went to meet her. Anyway, it was dark.’

  ‘When you went to America, did she bring with her any dowry?’

  Be careful, Dickie told himself. ‘My wife was the owner of a wholesale provision store. She had a very reliable staff who she could trust to run the business in her absence. She brought certain monies with her – enough to set us up in America.’

  ‘Did she not inform her employees of her marriage?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And after you had landed in America did you receive any money from England?’

  ‘As I said, my wife still had her business at that time …’

  ‘But did you personally receive any money?’

  ‘May it please Your Lordship,’ Fox intervened here. ‘I believe my learned friend is implying that Richard Feeney received money from his mother – the benefits of an insurance fraud. May I save the Court’s time by producing Thomasin Feeney’s personal bank accounts for a three year period after the fire.’ It was fortunate that Thomasin rarely threw anything out, and even documents prior to November seventy-four had not been destroyed, having been stored in a fireproof box. ‘This, My Lord,’ said Fox, pointing out the figure, ‘is the total amount paid out by the Yorkshire Insurance Company in recompense for the destruction of Mrs Feeney’s house and for the death of her son. Now, if you look down each column you will see that never during that three year period was there any substantial amount withdrawn, apart from the sum used to purchase a new dwelling house.’

  ‘Er, I beg to differ, Mr Fox.’ The Judge tapped his finger. ‘There appear to be several large withdrawals for the same amount.’

  Fox, who had hoped for this, said mainly for the Jury’s benefit, ‘Ah yes, I apologise, My Lord. Mrs Feeney is a regular contributor to various charities. Those particular amounts are her donations to the Blue Coats School.’

  ‘Most generous,’ muttered the Judge, wearing the emotionless mask he had used throughout most of the proceedings.

  ‘There are receipts to substantiate this, My Lord,’ said Fox.

  The Judge asked Lindley if he had any more questions. ‘I have, my Lord,’ said Lindley. ‘Mr Feeney, I am not satisfied as to why you did not mention that there was a man in that burning house.’

  ‘I told you – I didn’t want to upset my brother.’

  Lindley donned a look of contemptuous horror. ‘So you allowed a man to die simply because you did not wish to upset your brother?’ He ignored Dickie’s insistence that it had been impossible to save the man. ‘I put it to you that your real cause for concern was not for your brother but for your own wretched skin and the promise of financial gain.’

  Dickie remained calm. ‘No.’

  Lindley sat down abruptly.

  Fox rose again. Thomasin leaned forward, ready to stop any unpermitted badgering of her son, but his question was simply intended to remove ambiguity. ‘Mr Feeney, you have admitted that you did fake your own death. Was there at any time any discourse between you and John or Thomasin Feeney about financial reward?’

  ‘None. When a man has just rushed into a burning building and rescued two children at the risk of his own life, the last thought on his mind is money.’

  When the questioning appeared to have finished, Dickie gripped the edge of the witness box and leaned towards the Jury, eyes beseeching. ‘Sirs, through a well-intentioned gesture of a callow youth, a man and a woman stand before you who ought never to be here …’

  ‘You must not make speeches,’ interposed the Judge. Dickie turned to him with the utmost politeness. ‘It is not in my own favour that I wish to plead, My Lord, but for my mother and my brother. Both are well-known and respected in this city, respected both for their business achievements and their personal ones.’ As the Judge opened his mouth to intervene again, he rushed on, ‘For twenty-six years they believed me to be dead. If there’s anyone to be punished here then let it be me …’

  ‘As well you might be,’ warned the Judge severely.

  ‘… not my brother, who’s suffered enough from my stupid efforts to spare him the distressing truth about his wife; and not my mother who is innocent of all charges, save the crime of loving an unworthy son.’ Finished, he showed reverence to the Judge. ‘I’m deeply grateful, My Lord.’

  Lord Alverstone tightened his lips. ‘You may stand down. There will now be a short adjournment.’

  ‘All rise!’

  * * *

  In the gallery, Belle leaned on the cast-iron railings and tried to ease her spine; these oak pews were not made for comfort. ‘Do you think they’ll get off?’

  ‘I’ve no earthly idea,’ sighed her mother. ‘It could go either way. ’Tis a pity they don’t have women jurors, the fancy speech Yankeedoodle put on for them. God, poor Sonny, having to go through all that – and poor Josie.’ She clutched her sister-in-law’s plump hand.

  ‘I thought Mother coped well,’ said Josie.

  Francis agreed. ‘I’m fairly confident that Sonny and Thomasin will be acquitted.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’ Erin opened her fan and began to waft her cheeks. ‘They might believe that Mam would do anything to see the back of him after that brothel business… and that Amy! I’m glad she got her come-uppance, the stirrer. God, all this waiting!’

  No mention was made of ‘Poor Dusty’ sandwiched between Belle and Francis. Not one of them bothered to ask what I’m feeling or what Dick must be going through, she thought bitterly. No word of comfort for us. It doesn’t matter that our entire lives hinge on this verdict – everyone knows that Dickie doesn’t deserve to be a father anyway … Erin’ll probably be glad if he is convicted. God, I hate this family and their stupid squabbles …

  After the adjournment, came the witnesses to substantiate the defendants’ case. First of these was a Mrs Miles, at whose home the Feeneys had stayed directly after the fire. She testified that the family’s grief appeared to be genuine and she herself had heard nothing between the accused to indicate that a conspiracy had taken place.

  Next, came the family’s doctor who told the Court he had been summoned to Mrs Miles’ house to administer medical help to Mrs Feeney who was in a very distressed state. He had given her a sedative and had in fact continued to treat her for several weeks after the disaster. In his opinion her actions could not have been faked. Cross-examination failed to shake his stand. The last of the witnesses was Abigail, their old maid, who had arrived two days ago. As yet the Feeneys had not been allowed to relay their gratitude – had not even seen her, as she had been staying in an hotel – but now, Thomasin cast her a warm smile as Abigail picked up the Bible and gave oath.

  ‘Mrs Pfeffer,’ said Fox in an admiring voice, ‘I believe that you have travelled all the way from Germany to give evidence at this trial?’

  ‘I have, sir. I’d travel to the other side of the earth to put paid to the vile rumours about Mrs Feeney.’ She was asked how long she had worked for the latter and answered that it was fifteen years approximately. Fox asked why she had left. ‘To get married, sir
. We were on holiday – that is, the family and myself – and I met my husband. Mr and Mrs Feeney very kindly allowed me to stay on when they went home. I was sorry to leave them, they were very good to me.’

  ‘Now, Mrs Pfeffer, can you tell the Court what occurred in the domestic quarters on the day of the fire.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t remember what I did in the morning, but I do recall that the other maid and myself were given the afternoon off by Miss Peggy – that was Mr John Feeney’s wife.’

  ‘You’re certain that it was she who granted you the time off and no one else?’

  ‘Oh, positive, sir, because there was no one else in the house save the children. We were in the middle of washing the luncheon pots when Miss Peggy came into the kitchen and told us to go out for the afternoon because Mr and Mrs Feeney would be out to tea and wouldn’t be needing us. I said we’d better finish the pots first, but she insisted we go there and then. I argued that the mistress might not like us going off and neglecting our duties but she got very cross and practically shoved us out.’ Fox enquired when they had returned. ‘We were told not to come back before it was time to start cooking dinner – that’d be around six-thirty, so we daren’t. When we did get back the house was a-fire.’

  ‘And did you explain to your mistress about your absence?’

  ‘Later we did … I felt sort of guilty what with being out when the fire started – I mean, I know it was an accident, but I told the mistress that I was ever so sorry about leaving Miss Peggy on her own with the children; they could be right little monkeys … but then she had made us go.’ Her voice tailed off.

  ‘Mrs Pfeffer, can you recall if John Feeney was present when you told your mistress about his wife being alone apart from the children?’