‘Everyone who lived in these cottages had left to stay with friends and relatives. But in the late afternoon of the 27th, when the storm was in full spate, Agnes Wellows insisted I went down to our cottage to get the rest of our things. I refused to go, because it was almost dark and extremely dangerous, but she ridiculed me. And so, in the end, I went.
‘It was terrifying, the steep lane was strewn with shingle, the wind so strong I had to clutch at walls to stay upright. The waves were already washing into the houses, and it wasn’t even high tide yet. I managed to wade in, go upstairs and pack a bag with the few personal items left, and just seconds after I got out, a huge wave washed in, taking the last of the furniture with it. At that point I realized that Agnes Wellows had sent me there, hoping I’d be swept into the sea.’
Haines objected to that remark, saying it was just her opinion, not a fact.
His objection was upheld, and Mabel continued to tell how she suddenly decided she wouldn’t go back to Tern Cottage, to Agnes and Martin. She walked on, through the storm, to Kingsbridge and then on to Totnes.
‘And where were you going? Or maybe I should ask to whom were you going? Was there a boyfriend or lover you were running to?’
‘Certainly not,’ she retorted, angry at the suggestion. ‘I had no clear plan at all. I made the decision on the spur of the moment, because I couldn’t take Agnes’s nastiness a moment longer. She had taken over nursing Martin when he came out of hospital. She barely let me near him, so it wasn’t as if I was leaving him without anyone to care for him.’
The barrister went on to ask what she’d done since, but she sensed he’d lost interest in riling her, and his questions soon petered out.
Then it was Haines’s turn to question her. He asked about the ownership of the destroyed cottage, and wanted to know who stood to inherit Tern Cottage from old Mr Wellows, and get the compensation for the home that had been hers.
‘Well, Martin, of course,’ she said.
He went on then to ask how she had managed financially while Martin was in France.
‘I shared his pay with my mother-in-law,’ she said. ‘But I worked as a housekeeper too in Kingsbridge.’
‘Agnes Wellows didn’t work, then?’
‘No, she didn’t see why she should. She had her widow’s pension. She didn’t have to pay rent, either, to her father-in-law.’
‘So she was a woman who thought she should be provided for?’
Mabel couldn’t see that this line of questioning was helping Agnes at all. If anything, it was helping to support the idea that she killed Martin to make life easier for herself.
‘Excuse me, Mr Haines, but how about asking me why I believe Agnes couldn’t have killed her son?’
Someone in the gallery clapped, and a ripple of laughter ran around the court.
She could see Haines didn’t like that. ‘Please enlighten us,’ he said waspishly.
‘Martin was her life. Until he was wounded in France, he was strong, handsome, intelligent and kind. That was the man I fell in love with and married. Agnes had a happy marriage too, until her husband tragically died, and Martin was a reminder of that happy marriage and the qualities she’d loved in her husband.
‘It is true she became an unpleasant harridan of a woman, but she had nursed her husband for two years before he died, and the savings they had, which were intended to pay for an apprenticeship for Martin, soon disappeared with no wage coming in. She hadn’t a penny left when her husband died, and she lost her home too. Yet however embittered she was, I have seen her spoon-feeding Martin like a baby when he first came home from France and couldn’t even hold a knife and fork. She got up in the night to soothe him when his terrible nightmares came, she took the trouble to shave him every day, and she kept him clean and well fed. She always thought he would get better in time.
‘In my opinion, knowing both my husband and his mother well, I would say he’d had enough of being frightened by sudden noises and remembering all the horrors of the trenches, and he threw himself off that cliff so his mother could be free again.’
‘I think the young Mrs Wellows has said all there is to say in defence of the accused,’ the judge said. He smiled at Mabel in reassurance that she’d done a superb job. ‘Let us now hear the summing up of the case.’
Mabel was led to the bench at the back of the court, where the other witnesses were sitting. Mary reached out for her hand and squeezed it affectionately. All at once, Mabel felt the kind of love she’d known when her mother was alive, coming home from school to be enveloped in a warm hug. Mary’s touch had taken her home.
22
The barrister for the prosecution took his stand close to the jury, taking his time, looking along the two benches at each man in turn.
‘You’ve heard some conflicting accounts about the accused,’ he began. ‘But I would advise you to listen to your inner voice and think which of the witnesses has given us the most realistic view of her.
‘Mr Barnaby is totally unbiased, as he only knew the Wellows family by sight. He saw a scuffle between Agnes Wellows and her son, Martin, on the cliff top at dusk, and the next morning Martin Wellows lay dead at the foot of the cliff.
‘Mrs George, who has been a lifetime neighbour of the Wellows family, clearly dislikes Agnes Wellows. So her evidence about seeing Agnes going into Tern Cottage alone, that same evening, is not necessarily reliable. She might have mixed that evening up with a different one. She also told us about Agnes Wellows shouting hysterically at her son on many occasions. She overheard her say, ‘It would’ve been better if you’d been killed at the Somme than this everlasting hell now,’ which could be taken two ways. Would Martin’s death there have been better for his mother? Or better for him, instead of being only half a man now? Was that remark said from love, or bitterness?
‘Mr Talgarth fished with both Martin Wellows and Bert Grainger, Martin’s father-in-law, before Martin enlisted and went to France. After he was brought back, wounded and suffering from shell shock, Mr Talgarth often popped in to see him on his way home. He told us how Wellows just stared into space, and how he didn’t appear to know anyone. He also told us how, one evening, his mother dropped a plate on the floor, and Wellows dived out of his chair in panic and knocked over a mug of hot tea. Mrs Wellows attacked her son for it, slapping him around the head and kicking his leg. Do we see that as a momentary loss of patience? Or evidence of someone who has had enough and wants it to end?’
‘Stop, I have something to say!’
Everyone looked startled at the shrill voice coming from the dock.
Mabel, who was behind the dock, but to the right of it, had to crane her neck to see. She couldn’t see Agnes’s face, but she could tell by the way she was holding herself that she was extremely agitated.
‘You will get your chance to speak after the prosecution and defence have summed up the evidence,’ the judge said. He looked and sounded angry.
‘No, no, I have to speak now. I did kill my son.’
All sound in the court stopped dead. Every face turned towards Agnes.
‘You had better explain yourself,’ the judge said. ‘Are you now pleading guilty?’
‘Yes. I pushed him. I intended to go over the cliff with him. I couldn’t bear to witness his suffering any longer, I knew he wanted to die.’ She wrung her hands together and her voice was full of pain. ‘I took him up there at dusk for a walk. I planned to do it. Martin was calm, I put my arms around him, and it was my intention to just push against him till we both went over together, but he struggled with me. I think he sensed what I was doing. It was like Mr Barnaby said, we were holding each other’s arms, both pushing and pulling. He just let go of me, and he toppled back and went over the cliff. I wanted to jump over too, but I lost my nerve and ran home.’
It was too much for Mabel. She got up and ran out of the courtroom, up the corridor, and didn’t stop running until she got to the entrance hall. Her heart was thumping, she felt sick and dizzy.
She sat down on one of the benches to make sense of what she’d heard. She had never understood Agnes, her bitterness, sarcasm, meanness and complete lack of joy. Yet strangely, Mabel understood her trying to take both her and Martin’s lives together. Martin had nothing to live for, and neither did she. She’d made too many enemies, and she had absolutely no one in her life other than Martin. To her it was an act of love to put her arms around him and hold him close until death claimed them both.
Maybe there, in the dock, she thought they were going to find her not guilty. She’d have to go back to the same life, with everyone hating or despising her, yet without Martin, who had given some purpose to that life.
She knew by speaking out that she’d hang. But that was fine by her, it was death she wanted.
No one was coming out of the courtroom and Mabel wondered what they were doing, but she couldn’t go back in there.
She didn’t know how long she sat there; the clock on the wall said four thirty, but it felt like it should be later. Finally, she saw people coming out of a door right at the back of the building. In front of them, perhaps looking for her, was Haines.
‘Come with me,’ he said as he got closer, and he snatched up her arm roughly.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she squealed at him, frightened now.
‘Out of the way of reporters,’ he said. ‘Quickly now.’
He ushered her into a small anteroom. He told her later it was a room where juries made their deliberations, but all she saw then was a big table surrounded by chairs. She was taken aback when he locked the door.
‘Your friend Baring has charged me with protecting you from reporters,’ he said. ‘As I made such a poor show of her defence, I feel it’s about time I got something right today.’
They sat down in the narrow, airless room.
‘I thought you did what you could,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t a poor show.’
‘You were the only good part of it,’ he said, looking at her in admiration. ‘You spoke so bravely and honestly.’
‘Will she hang?’
‘Yes, the judge put on his black cap and said those awful words. I’ve heard them four times now, but it never gets any easier.’
Mabel realized by his remark that he wasn’t quite the shallow, lazy man she had thought.
‘She’s probably the first woman in history who chose to be hanged. Do you suppose I could see her before they take her back to the prison?’
‘Are you sure you want to?’
‘Yes, Martin would’ve wanted me to forgive her. And I’m sure she’s suffered enough since his death. Maybe my seeing her will ease her last days.’
‘You are a remarkable woman, Betty – or is it Mabel?’
‘Thank you, Mr Haines, I’m not sure I want to be remarkable. But I know you meant it as a compliment. It is Mabel now, for good.’
‘While I slip out and find the custody officer, I’ll keep you locked in here, as there are two reporters who worried me. One was from The Times . If they catch you, they’ll keep on at you until you say something you meant to keep quiet, and they’ll take photographs. It will be fine them using your old name, but we don’t want them finding out the new one and printing that.’
While Haines was gone, Mabel closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. It was done now. Tomorrow she could go back to Bristol, and maybe there would be a letter from Thomas. She would think later about what she was going to do if he hadn’t written. That was too awful to contemplate.
She wondered if Joan had remembered to telephone Clara and explain what was happening. Joan had said Percy wouldn’t mind her using his phone. What she really needed now was Clara or Joan; they both seemed to have the knack of dispersing her fears.
The door was unlocked, and there was Haines. ‘Quickly now, I’ve got you just ten minutes with her, though the custody officer said he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to see her.’
The cells below the court were frightening. The lights were dim, the walls were a shade of light brown, but stained with what could be blood, or worse. There was a smell of damp, unwashed bodies and lavatories. The floor beneath her feet was bare stone, and Mabel imagined rats coming out when no one was about.
Agnes was in the last of the cells. It was tiny, with a window up by the ceiling, so small it hardly counted as a window. The only furniture was the bench Agnes was sitting on, and another upright chair. The walls had initials and names gouged into them here and there.
‘You shouldn’t have come,’ Agnes said, and for once her tone wasn’t sharp, a mere mild reproach, as if she thought Mabel was in danger here.
‘I wanted to see you because I needed to tell you I understood what you said. I know how much you loved Martin.’
Agnes looked up at Mabel. Her pale brown eyes were darker now with sorrow, and the anger that had always been in them was gone. ‘You know I’m to be hanged?’
Mabel nodded. ‘You were truly courageous to admit what really happened.’
‘I don’t want to live,’ she said. ‘Everyone I care for is on the other side. If I’d been kinder to you, maybe it could all have been different.’
Mabel took a chance of being rejected and went to her, taking her two hands in her own. ‘Don’t let’s dwell on the past, it’s over and done with. I know Martin would want the last words I say to you to be kind ones. I came here to help you, and I hoped I’d see you walk free. Can I hug you now? We never did that, not even once.’
She gently pulled on Agnes’s hands. The older woman got to her feet and let Mabel pull her into her arms. For the first few seconds she was like a plank, every fibre of her body resisting, but slowly she softened, leaning into Mabel. Then she began to cry.
Mabel let her, and her own eyes filled with tears too, remembering that this woman had given birth to her husband, had loved and cared for him as a child, and if fate had been less cruel and her own husband hadn’t died, maybe she could have been so different.
‘I do forgive you, Agnes,’ she whispered, stroking the woman’s heaving shoulders. ‘For everything. I understand losing your husband changed you, grief can do that to people. I had so much happiness with your son, I really loved him too. We were both victims of circumstance.’
Agnes drew away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Mabel took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the older woman’s face gently, putting the handkerchief in her hand to keep. ‘I have to go now. Stay strong, and you will be in my thoughts and prayers.’
She kissed her mother-in-law on both cheeks. Then, blinded by her own tears, she went to the cell door to be let out.
‘Thank you, Betty,’ she heard Agnes say softly as she left. ‘I’m glad you came.’
‘Oh dear!’ Haines said when he saw her face as the custody officer led her back upstairs. ‘Was it harrowing?’
‘Not really. That was the nicest she’s ever been to me. The night I left Hallsands, I remember thinking, “You’ll never see me again.” Meaning her. Yet in a strange way I’m glad I did see her again. I feel sort of healed.’
He smiled, and all at once he looked more attractive. ‘Good luck for the future, I really hope your part in this trial doesn’t reach Dorchester.’
‘I wish I’d brought an umbrella,’ she said. ‘I’m going to get soaked going to the hotel.’
Haines chuckled. ‘They say the sun shines on the righteous. Look!’
She looked ahead, at the front doors of the court, to see the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.
‘Thank you, Mr Haines,’ she said, shaking his hand.
‘It looks like those reporters have given up,’ he said. ‘Safe journey home.’
Mabel walk
ed down the court steps and across the pavement to cross the road and go back to her hotel. She was just waiting for a carriage to pass when she felt a light touch on her shoulder. She wheeled round, expecting it to be one of the reporters, but to her shock it was Thomas.
Her mouth dropped open.
‘You were magnificent,’ he said. ‘But I thought you’d skipped off through some other door. I was just about to leave.’
‘You were in the courtroom?’ she asked, her voice just a squeak with the shock.
‘Of course. I kept my face turned away once they’d called you, as I thought I might put you off.’
‘But how did you know?’
He laughed. ‘Shall we get across this road safely first? Then let’s find somewhere to sit down and have some tea or champagne.’
She saw what he meant; they were teetering on the edge of the pavement with the traffic, carriages, carts and trams careering past them.
A few minutes later, he led her into an elegant, expensive-looking hotel and into a drawing room furnished in dark reds with comfortable armchairs, highly polished tables and thickly draped curtains.
‘A bottle of champagne, please,’ he said to the waiter who escorted them to seats by the window.
‘So how did you know?’ Mabel was frantic to find out.
‘Clara came to me and told me. Her words were, “I know it’s none of my business, and snub me if you like, but you need to get to Plymouth court if you do love Mabel.”’
Mabel blushed. She could just imagine Clara saying that. ‘And you came?’
‘Of course I did. What Clara didn’t know was that I’d already posted a reply to your letter, telling you I would do anything in my powers to help you, and I couldn’t care less about other people’s opinions. It was a good thing I’d just bought an automobile, like I said I was going to. So I hopped in it and drove here.’
Mabel could only sit back and smile. There would be time later to find out all the whys and wherefores, for now it was enough to know he loved her, and he’d come when she needed him most.
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