A Dangerous Mourning Page 6

  She was annoyed with herself for having left herself open to such a remark, and with him for making it. Instinctively she dealt back the hardest blow that she could.

  “I see a great deal of your recollection must have returned since we last met. I had not realized, or of course I should not have commented. I was endeavoring to be helpful, but it seems you do not require it.”

  The color drained from his face leaving two bright spots of pink on his cheekbones. His mind was racing for an equal barb to return.

  “I have forgotten much, Miss Latterly, but that still leaves me with an advantage over those who never knew anything in the beginning!” he said tartly, turning away.

  Callandra smiled and did not interfere.

  “It was not my assistance I was suggesting, Mr. Monk,” Hester snapped back. “It was Mr. Rathbone’s. But if you believe you know better than he does, I can only hope you are right and indeed you do—not for your sake, which is immaterial, but for Menard Grey’s. I trust you have not lost sight of our purpose in being here?”

  She had won that exchange, and she knew it.

  “Of course I haven’t,” he said coldly, standing with his back to her, hands in his pockets. “I have left my present investigation to Sergeant Evan and come early in case Mr. Rathbone wished to see me, but I have no intention of disturbing him if he does not.”

  “He may not know you are here to be seen,” she argued.

  He turned around to face her. “Miss Latterly, can you not for one moment refrain from meddling in other people’s affairs and assume we are capable of managing without your direction? I informed his clerk as I came in.”

  “Then all civility required you do was say so when I asked you!” she replied, stung by the charge of interfering, which was totally unjust—or anyway largely—or to some extent! “But you do not seem to be capable of ordinary civility.”

  “You are not an ordinary person, Miss Latterly.” His eyes were very wide, his face tight. “You are overbearing, dictatorial, and seem bent to treat everyone as if they were incapable of managing without your instruction. You combine the worst elements of a governess with the ruthlessness of a workhouse matron. You should have stayed in the army—you are eminently suited for it.”

  That was the perfect thrust; he knew how she despised the army command for its sheer arrogant incompetence, which had driven so many men to needless and appalling deaths. She was so furious she choked for words.

  “I am not,” she gasped. “The army is made up of men—and those in command of it are mostly stubborn and stupidlike you. They haven’t the faintest idea what they are doing, but they would rather blunder along, no matter who is killed by it, than admit their ignorance and accept help.” She drew breath again and went on. “They would rather die than take counsel from a woman—which in itself wouldn’t matter a toss. It’s their letting other people die that is unforgivable.”

  He was prevented from having to think of a reply by the bailiff coming to the door and requesting Hester to prepare herself to enter the courtroom. She rose with great dignity and swept out past him, catching her skirt in the doorway and having to stop and tweak it out, which was most irksome. She flashed a smile at Callandra over her other shoulder, then with fluttering stomach followed the bailiff along the passageway and into the court.

  The chamber was large, high ceilinged, paneled in wood and so crowded with people they seemed to press in on her from every side. She could feel a heat from their bodies as they jostled and craned to see her come in, and there was a rustle and hiss of breath and a shuffle of feet as people fought to maintain balance. In the press benches pencils flew, scratching notes on paper, making outlines of faces and hats.

  She stared straight ahead and walked up the cleared way to the witness box, angry that her legs were trembling. She stumbled on the step, and the bailiff put out his hand to steady her. She looked around for Oliver Rathbone, and saw him immediately, but with his white lawyer’s wig on he looked different, very remote. He regarded her with the distant politeness he would a stranger, and it was surprisingly chilling.

  She could hardly feel worse. There was nothing to be lost by reminding herself why she was here. She allowed her eyes to meet Menard Grey’s in the dock. He was pale, all the fresh color gone from his skin. He looked white, tired and very frightened. It was enough to give her all the courage she needed. What was her brief, rather childish moment of loneliness in comparison?

  She was passed the Bible and swore to her name and that she would tell the truth, her voice firm and positive.

  Rathbone came towards her a couple of steps and began quietly.

  “Miss Latterly, I believe you were one of the several wellborn young women who answered the call of Miss Florence Nightingale, and left your home and family and sailed to the Crimea to nurse our soldiers out there, in the conflict?”

  The judge, a very elderly man with a broad, fragile tempered face, leaned forward.

  “I am sure Miss Latterly is an admirable young lady, Mr. Rathbone, but is her nursing experience of any relevance to this case? The accused did not serve in the Crimea, nor did the crime occur over there.”

  “Miss Latterly knew the victim in the hospital in Scutari, my lord. The roots of the crime begin there, and on the battlefields of Balaclava and Sebastopol.”

  “Do they indeed? I had rather thought from the prosecution that they began in the nursery at Shelburne Hall. Still—continue, please.” He leaned back again in his high seat and stared gloomily at Rathbone.

  “Miss Latterly,” Rathbone prompted briskly.

  Carefully, measuring each word to begin with, then gradually gathering confidence as the emotion of memory overtook her, she told the court about the hospital in which she had served, and the men she had come to know slightly, but as well as their injuries made possible. And as she spoke she became aware of a cessation of the jostling among the crowd. More faces were quickened in interest; even Menard Grey had raised his head and was staring at her.

  Rathbone came out from behind his table and paced back and forth across the floor, not waving his arms or moving quickly to distract attention from her, but rather prowling, keeping the jury from becoming too involved in the story and forgetting it all had to do with a crime here in London, and a man on trial for his life.

  He had been through her receipt of her brother’s heartbroken letter recounting her parents’ death, and her return home to the shame and the despair, and the financial restriction. He elicited the details without ever allowing her to repeat herself or sound self-pitying. She followed his direction with more and more appreciation for the skill with which he was building a picture of mounting and inevitable tragedy. Already the faces of the men in the jury were becoming strained with pity, and she knew how their anger would explode when the last piece was fitted into the picture and they understood the truth.

  She did not dare to look at Fabia Grey in the front row, still dressed in black, or at her son Lovel and his wife, Rosamond, beside her. Each time her eyes roamed unintentionally towards them she averted them sharply, and looked either at Rathbone himself or at any anonymous face in the crowd beyond him.

  In answer to his careful questions she told him of her visit to Callandra at Shelburne Hall, of her first meeting with Monk, and of all that had ensued. She made some slips, had to be corrected, but never once did she offer anything beyond a simple answer.

  By the time he had come to the tragic and terrible conclusion, the faces of the jury were stunned with amazement and anger, and for the first time they were able to look at Menard Grey, because they understood what he had done, and why. Perhaps some even felt they might, had fortune been so cruel to them, have done the same.

  When at last Rathbone stepped back and thanked her with a sudden, dazzling smile, she found her body was aching with the tension of clenched muscles and her hands were sore where her nails had unconsciously dug into the palms.

  The counsel for the prosecution rose to his feet and s
miled bleakly. “Please remain where you are, Miss Latterly. You will not mind if we put to the test this extremely moving story of yours?” It was a rhetorical question; he had no intention whatsoever of permitting such a testimony as hers had been to stand, and she felt the sweat break out on her skin as she looked at his face. At this moment he was losing, and such a thing was not only a shock to him in this instance, but of a pain so deep as to be almost physical.

  “Now Miss Latterly, you admit you were—indeed still are—a woman rather past her first youth, without significant background, and in drastically impoverished circumstances—and you accepted an invitation to visit Shelburne Hall, the country home of the Grey family?”

  “I accepted an invitation to visit Lady Callandra Daviot,” Hester corrected.

  “At Shelburne Hall,” he said sharply. “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you. And during that visit you spent some time with the accused, Menard Grey?”

  She drew breath to say “Not alone,” and just in time caught Rathbone’s eye, and let out her breath again. She smiled at the prosecutor as if the implication had missed her.

  “Of course. It is impossible to stay with a family and not meet all the members who are in residence, and to spend time with them.” She was sorely tempted to add that perhaps he did not know such things, and forebore carefully. It would be a cheap laugh, and perhaps bought very dearly. This was an adversary to whom she could give no ground.

  “I believe you now have a position in one of the London infirmaries, is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Obtained for you by the same Lady Callandra Daviot?”

  “Obtained with her recommendation, but I believe on my own merit.”

  “Be that as it may—with her influence? No; please do not look to Mr. Rathbone for guidance. Just answer me, Miss Latterly.”

  “I do not require Mr. Rathbone’s assistance,” she said, swallowing hard. “I cannot answer you, with or without it. I do not know what passed between Lady Callandra and the governors of the infirmary. She suggested I apply there, and when I did, they were satisfied with my references, which are considerable, and they employed me. Not many of Miss Nightingale’s nurses find it difficult to obtain a position, should they desire it.”

  “No indeed, Miss Latterly.” He smiled thinly. “But not many of them do desire it, as you do—do they? In fact, Miss Nightingale herself comes from an excellent family who could provide for her for the rest of her life.”

  “That my family could not, and that my parents are both dead, is the foundation of the case that brings us here, sir,” she said with a hard note of victory in her voice. Whatever he thought or felt, she knew the jury understood that, and it was they who decided, after all each counsel could say.

  “Indeed,” he said with a flicker of irritation. Then he proceeded to ask her again how well she had known the victim, and to imply very subtly but unmistakably that she had fallen in love with him, succumbed to his now well-established charm, and because he had rejected her, wished to blacken his name. Indeed he skirted close to suggesting she might have collaborated to conceal the crime, and now to defend Menard Grey.

  She was horrified and embarrassed, but when the temptation to explode in fury came too close, she looked across at Menard Grey’s face and remembered what was truly important.

  “No, that is untrue,” she said quietly. She thought of accusing him of sordidness, but caught Rathbone’s eye again and refrained.

  Only once did she see Monk. She felt a tingle of pleasure, even sweetness, to recognize the outrage in his expression as he glared at the counsel for the prosecution.

  When the prosecution suddenly changed his mind and gave up, she was permitted to remain in the courtroom, since she was no longer of importance, and she found room to sit and listen while Callandra testified. She too was first questioned by Rathbone and then, with more politeness than he had used before, by the counsel for the prosecution. He judged the jury rightly that they would not view with sympathy any attempt to bully or insult an army surgeon’s widow—and a lady. Hester did not watch Callandra, she had no fear for her; she concentrated on the faces of the jurymen. She saw the emotions flicker and change: anger, pity, confusion, respect, contempt.

  Next Monk was called and sworn. She had not noticed in the waiting room how well he was dressed. His jacket was of excellent cut, and only the best woolen broadcloth hung in quite that way. What vanity. How, on police pay, did he manage such a thing? Then she thought with a flicker of pity that probably he did not know himself—not now. Had he wondered? Had he perhaps been afraid of the vanity or the ruthlessness the answer might reveal? How terrible it must be to look at the bare evidence of yourself, the completed acts, and know none of the reasons that made them human, explainable in terms of fear and hopes, things misunderstood, small sacrifices made, wounds compensated for—always to see only what resulted, never what was meant. This extravagant coat might be pure vanity, money grasped for—or it might be the mark of achievement after long years of saving and working, putting in extra duty when others were relaxing at home or laughing in some music hall or public house.

  Rathbone began to question him, talking smoothly, knowing the words were powerful enough and emotion from him would heap the impact too high, too soon. He had called his witnesses in this order so he might build his story as it had happened, first the Crimea, then Hester’s parents’ death, then the crime. Detail by detail he drew from Monk the description of the flat in Mecklenburg Square, the marks of struggle and death, his own slow discovery piece by piece of the truth.

  Most of the time Rathbone had his back to her, facing either Monk or the jury, but she found his voice compelling, every word as clear as a cut stone, insistent in the mind, unfolding an irresistible tragedy.

  And she watched Monk and saw the respect and once or twice the momentary flicker of dislike cross his face as he answered. Rathbone was not treating him as a favored witness, rather as someone half an enemy. His phrases had a sharp turn to them, an element of antagonism. Only watching the jury did she understand why. They were utterly absorbed. Even a woman shrieking in the crowd and being revived by a neighbor did not break their attention. Monk’s sympathy for Menard Grey appeared to be dragged from him reluctantly, although Hester knew it was acutely real. She could remember how Monk had looked at the time, the anger in him, the twisting pain of pity, and the helplessness to alter anything. It had been in that moment she had liked him with absolute completeness, an inner peace that shared, without reservation, and a knowledge that the communication was total.

  When the court rose at the end of the afternoon, Hester went with the crowd that pushed and shoved on every side, onlookers rushing home in the jam of carts, wagons and carriages in the streets, newspaper writers hurrying to get the copy in before the presses started to roll for the first editions in the morning, running patterers to compose the next verse of their songs and pass the news along the streets.

  She was outside on the steps in the sharp evening wind and the bright gas lamps looking for Callandra, from whom she had become separated, when she saw Monk. She hesitated, uncertain whether to speak to him or not. Hearing the evidence over again, recounting it herself, she had felt all the turmoil of emotions renewed, and her anger with him had been swept away.

  But perhaps he still felt just as contemptuous of her? She stood, unable to decide whether to commit herself and unwilling to leave.

  He took the matter out of her hands by walking over, a slight pucker between his brows.

  “Well, Miss Latterly, do you believe your friend Mr. Rathbone is equal to the task?”

  She looked at his eyes and saw the anxiety in him. The sharp retort died away, the irrelevancies as to whether Rathbone was her friend or not. Sarcasm was only a defense against the fear that they would hang Menard Grey.

  “I think so,” she said quietly. “I was watching the jurors’ faces while you were testifying. Of course I do not know what
is yet to come, but up until now, I believe they were more deeply horrified by the injustices of what happened, and our helplessness to prevent it, than by the murder itself. If Mr. Rathbone can keep this mood until they go to consider their verdict, it may be favorable. At least—” She stopped, realizing that no matter what the jurors believed in blame, the fact remained undeniable. They could not return a verdict of not guilty, regardless of any provocation on earth. The weighing lay with the judge, not with them.

  Monk had perceived it before her. The bleak understanding was in his eyes.

  “Let us trust he is equally successful with his lordship,” he said dryly. “Life in Coldbath Fields would be worse than the rope.”

  “Will you come again tomorrow?” she asked him.

  “Yes—in the afternoon. The verdict will not be in till then. Will you?”

  “Yes—” She thought what Pomeroy would have to say. “But I will not come until late either, if you really do not believe the verdict will come in early. I do not wish to ask for time from the infirmary without good reason.”

  “And will they consider your desire to hear the verdict to be a good reason?” he said dryly.

  She pulled a small face, not quite a smile. “No. I shall not phrase my request in quite those terms.”

  “Is it what you wished—the infirmary?” Again he was as frank and direct as she recalled, and his understanding as comfortable.

  “No—” She did not think of prevaricating. “It is full of incompetence, unnecessary suffering, ridiculous ways of doing things which could so easily be reorganized, if only they would give up their petty self-importances and think of the end and not the means.” She warmed to the subject and his interest. “A great deal of the trouble lies with their whole belief of nursing and the nature of people who should work in it. They pay only six shillings a week, and some of that is given in small beer. Many of the nurses are drunk half the time. But now the hospital provides their food, which is better than their eating the patients’ food, which they used to. You may imagine what type of men and women it attracts! Most of them can neither read nor write.” She shrugged expressively. “They sleep just off the wards, there are far too few basins or towels for them, and nothing more than a little Conde’s fluid and now and again soap to wash themselves—even their hands after cleaning up waste.”