by Anne Perry
Hester faced him with her heart beating so violently her body shook and her breath caught in her throat so she feared she might choke when she was forced to speak.
“Miss Latterly,” he began smoothly. “The defense has painted a picture of you as a virtuous, heroic and self-sacrificing woman. Because of the circumstances which bring you here, you must give me leave to doubt the total accuracy of that.” He pulled a small face. “People of the sort depicted by my learned friend do not suddenly stoop to murder, especially the murder of an old lady in their trust, and for the gain of a few pearls set in a pin. Would you agree?
“In fact,” he went on, looking at her with concentration, “I presume the burden of his argument to be that it is inconceivable that a person should change her nature so utterly, therefore you could not be guilty. Is that not so?”
“I did not prepare the defense, sir, so I cannot speak for Mr. Argyll,” she said levelly. “But I imagine you are correct.”
“Do you agree with the hypothesis, Miss Latterly?” His voice was sharp, demanding an answer.
“Yes sir, I do, although at times we may misjudge people, or fail to read them aright. If it were not so, we should never be taken by surprise.”
There was a ripple of amusement around the room. One or two men nodded in appreciation.
Rathbone held his breath in an agony of apprehension.
“A very sophisticated argument, Miss Latterly,” Gilfeather conceded.
She had seen Rathbone’s face, and knew why he had stared at her with such pleading. She must make amends.
“No sir,” she said humbly. “It is merely common sense. I think any woman would have told you the same.”
“That is as may be, ma’am,” Gilfeather said. “However, you will appreciate why I shall endeavor to disprove their high estimation of you.”
She waited in silence for him to do so.
He nodded, pulling a very slight face. “Why did you go to the Crimea, Miss Latterly? Was it like Miss Nightingale, in answer to a call to serve God?” He invested no sarcasm or condescension in the question, his voice and his expression were innocent, but there was a waiting in the room, a readiness for disbelief.
“No sir.” She kept her voice low and her tone as gentle as lay within her power. “I intended to serve my fellow men in a way best suited to such skills as I possessed, and I believed it would be a fine and daring thing to do. I have but one life, and I had rather do something purposeful with it than at the end look back and regret all the chances I had missed, and what I might have made of myself.”
“So you are a woman to take risks?” Gilfeather said with a smile he could not hide.
“Physical ones, sir, not moral ones. I think to stay at home, safe and idle, would have been a moral risk, and one I was not prepared for.”
“You draw a fine argument, madam.”
“I am fighting for my life, sir. Would you expect anyone to do less?”
“No madam. Since you ask, I expect you to use every art and argument, every subtlety and persuasion that your mind can devise or your desperation conceive.”
She looked at him with loathing. All Rathbone’s warnings rang in her head as clearly as if he were saying them now, and her emotion overrode them all. She was going to lose anyway. She would not do it without honesty and what dignity was possible.
“You make it sound, sir, as if we were two animals battling for mastery of each other, not rational human beings seeking to find the truth and serve our best understanding of justice. Do you wish to know who killed Mrs. Farraline, Mr. Gilfeather, or do you merely wish to hang someone, and I will do?”
For a moment Gilfeather was startled. He had been fought with before, but not in these terms.
There was a gasp and a sigh of suspended breath. A journalist broke his pencil. One of the jurors choked.
“Oh God!” Rathbone said inaudibly.
The judge reached for his gavel, and mistook the distance. His fingers closed on nothing.
In the gallery Monk smiled, and his stomach knotted inside him with grief.
“Only the right person will do, Miss Latterly,” Gilfeather said angrily, his hair standing on end. “But all the evidence says that that is you. If it is not, pray tell me who is it?”
“I do not know, sir, or I should already have told you,” Hester answered him.
Argyll rose to his feet at last.
“My lord, if my learned friend has questions for Miss Latterly, he should put them to her. If not—although she seems well able to defend herself—this baiting is unseemly, and not the purpose of this court.”
The judge looked at him sourly, then turned to Gilfeather.
“Mr. Gilfeather, please come to the point, sir. What is it you wish to ask?”
Gilfeather glared first at Argyll, then at the judge. Finally he turned to Hester.
“Miss Nightingale has painted you as a ministering angel, tending the sick regardless of your own sufferings.” This time he could not entirely keep the sarcasm from his tone. “She would have us envision you passing gently between the hospital beds wiping a fevered brow, bandaging a wound; or else braving the battlefield to perform operations yourself by the light of a flickering torch.” His voice grew louder. “But in truth, madam, was it not a rough life, most of it spent with soldiers and camp followers, women of low degree and even lower morals?”
Vivid memories surged back into her mind.
“Many camp followers are soldiers’ wives, sir, and their humble birth equals that of their husbands,” she said angrily. “They work and wash for them, and care for them when they are sick. Someone must do these things. And if the men are good enough to die for us in our bloody battles, then they are worthy of our support when we are safe in our own houses at home. And if you are suggesting that Miss Nightingale, or any of her nurses, were army whores, then—”
There was a roar of anger from the gallery. One man rose to his feet and shook his fist at Gilfeather.
The judge banged his gavel furiously and was totally ignored.
Rathbone sank his head in his hands and slid farther down in his chair.
Argyll swiveled around and said something to him, his expression incredulous and accusing.
Henry Rathbone closed his eyes and offered up a silent prayer.
Gilfeather abandoned that line of attack altogether and tried another.
“How many men have you seen die, Miss Latterly?” he shouted above the general clamor.
“Silence!” the judge said furiously. “I will have order in court! Silence! Or I shall have the gallery cleared!”
The noise subsided almost immediately. No one wished to be removed.
“How many men, Miss Latterly?” Gilfeather repeated when the uproar had finally abated.
“You must answer,” the judge warned even before she had had time to speak.
“I don’t know. I never thought to count. Each one was a person, not a number.”
“But a great many?” Gilfeather persisted.
“Yes, I am afraid so.”
“So you are accustomed to death; it does not frighten you, or appall you, as it might most people?”
“All people who care for the sick become accustomed to death, sir. But one never ceases to grieve.”
“You are argumentative, madam! You lack the gentleness of manner and the delicacy, the humility, which is the chief ornament of your sex.”
“Perhaps,” she responded. “But you are trying to make people believe that I hold life cheaply, that I have somehow become inured to the death of others, and it is not true. I did not kill Mrs. Farraline, or anybody else. I am far more grieved by her loss than you are.”
“I do not believe you, madam. You have shown the court your mettle. You have no fear, no sense of decorum, no humility whatsoever. They are well able to judge you for a woman who will take from life what she wishes and defy anyone to prevent her. Poor Mary Farraline never had a chance once you had determined upon your course.”
Hester stared at him.
“That is all!” Gilfeather said impatiently, flicking his hand to dismiss her. “There is little edifying to the jury in listening to me ask question after question, and you standing there denying it. We may assume it as read. Do you wish to reexamine your witness, Mr Argyll?”
Argyll thanked him with more than a touch of sarcasm, and turned to Hester.
“Was Mrs. Farraline a pathetic little old lady, easily browbeaten, timid?”
“Not in the least,” Hester said with some relief. “She was quite the opposite: intelligent, articulate and very much in command. She had had a most interesting life, traveled a great deal and known some quite remarkable people and events.” She summoned the ghost of a smile. “She told me about dancing the night away at the great ball the night before the Battle of Waterloo. I found her brave, and wise, and funny … and … and I admired her.”
“Thank you, Miss Latterly. Yes, that is the opinion of her which I had formed myself. I imagine she also found you to be most worthy of her admiration. That is all I have to ask you. You may return to the dock for the time being.”
The judge adjourned the court. Newspaper reporters knocked each other over in their efforts to be first out of the door. The gallery erupted in noise, and the wardresses on both sides of Hester closed in on her and demanded that the cage be let down into the bowels of the building so that she might safely be locked up again before riot broke loose.
Monk walked the streets. Rathbone and Argyll sat up till long after midnight. Callandra sat with Henry Rathbone, and they talked of everything else they could imagine. And all of their thoughts were of nothing but Hester and what the morrow would bring.
Argyll rose to his feet.
“I call Hector Farraline to the stand.”
There was amazement in the gallery. Alastair rose to protest and was pulled back into his seat. It was useless, and Oonagh at least understood that. Alastair looked on in an agony of embarrassment.
Hector appeared and walked very slowly, his feet uncertain, his eyes wandering. He crossed the floor to the foot of the stairs up to the box.
“Do you need assistance, Mr. Farraline?” the judge inquired.
“Assistance?” Hector said with a frown. “What for?”
“To mount the steps, sir. Are you well?”
“Quite well, sir. And you?”
“Then take your place, sir, to be sworn in.” The judge looked at Argyll with acute disfavor. “I presume this is necessary, sir?”
“It is,” Argyll assured him.
“Very well, get on with it!”
Hector climbed the steps, was sworn in, and waited for Argyll to begin.
Gilfeather was watching intently.
“Major Farraline,” Argyll said courteously. “Were you in the house when Miss Latterly first arrived?”
“What? Oh … yes. Of course I was. I live there.”
“Did you see her arrive?”
Gilfeather rose. “My lord, Miss Latterly’s arrival is not in dispute. Surely this is irrelevant, and wasting the court’s time.”
The judge looked at Argyll, his eyebrows raised.
“I am coming to the point, my lord, if my learned friend will permit me,” Argyll replied.
“Then be a little more rapid, if you please,” the judge ordered.
“My lord. Major Farraline, did you see Miss Latterly moving about the house on that day?”
Hector looked confused. “Moving about? What do you mean … going up and down stairs, that sort of thing?”
Gilfeather rose again. “My lord, this witness is obviously not… not well! He is not competent to tell us anything of value. Of course Miss Latterly moved about the house. She could hardly have remained and not been seen the entire day. My learned friend is wasting time.”
“It is you who are wasting time,” Argyll countered. “I could get to my point a great deal faster if I were not constantly interrupted.”
“Get to it now, sir,” the judge commanded. “Before I also lose my patience. I am inclined to agree that Major Farraline is not in sufficient command of himself to offer anything of use.”
Argyll gritted his teeth.
Rathbone was leaning forward again, his hands clenched.
“Major Farraline,” Argyll resumed. “Did you meet with Miss Latterly alone, in the hallway, on that day, and have some conversation with her about the Farraline family business and its wealth?”
“What?”
“Oh really!” Gilfeather exploded.
“Yes,” Hector said with a moment of clarity. “Yes. On the stairs, as I recall. Spoke to her for several moments. Nice girl. Liked her. Pity.”
“Did you tell her that there had been money embezzled from the company books?”
Hector stared at him as if he had been bitten.
“No—no, of course not.” Then his eyes wandered away from Argyll and across to the gallery. He found Oonagh, and looked at her imploringly. She was pale-faced, her eyes wide.
“Major Farraline,” Argyll said firmly.
“My lord, this is inexcusable,” Gilfeather protested.
Argyll ignored him.
“Major Farraline, you are an officer of one of Her Majesty’s most renowned and battle-honored regiments. Remember yourself, sir! You are under oath! Did you not tell Miss Latterly that someone had been embezzling from the Farraline printing company?”
“This is monstrous,” Gilfeather cried, waving his arms furiously. “And completely irrelevant. Miss Latterly is on trial for the murder of Mary Farraline. This can have nothing to do with the case at issue.”
Alastair made as if to rise to his feet, then subsided again, his expression anguished.
“No I didn’t,” Hector said with another sudden rush of clarity. “I can remember it now. That was Mr. Monk I told. He went off to find McIvor about it, but he didn’t learn anything. Poor fool. I could have told him that. That’s all covered up now.”
There was a moment’s utter silence.
Rathbone sank onto the table in devastated relief.
Argyll’s dark face split into a grin.
The judge looked furious.
Monk punched his clenched fist into his open palm again and again till the flesh was bruised.
“Thank you, Major Farraline,” Argyll said quietly. “I am sure that you are right. It must have been Mr. Monk, and not Miss Latterly. That is my error, and I apologize.”
“Is that all?” Hector said curiously.
“Yes, thank you.”
Gilfeather swung around in a complete circle, staring at the gallery, the jurors, then at Hector.
Hector gave a discreet hiccup.
“Major Farraline, how many glasses of whiskey have you drunk this morning?” Gilfeather asked.
“I have no idea,” Hector said politely. “I don’t think I used a glass. Have one of those flasks, you know. Why?”
“No matter, sir. That is all, thank you.”
Hector began to fumble his way down the steps.
“Oh …” Gilfeather said quickly.
Hector stopped three steps from the bottom, clinging on to the rail.
“Do you keep the company books, Major Farraline?”
“Me? No, of course not. Young Kenneth does.”
“Have you seen them lately, Major? Say, within the last two weeks?”
“No. Don’t think so.”
“Can you read company accounts, sir?”
“Never tried. Not interested.”
“Quite so. Do you need assistance down the steps., sir?”
“No I don’t, sir. Make my own way.” And with that he missed his footing and slid the last three steps, landing inelegantly at the bottom. He straightened himself and walked unaided and quite steadily back to the gallery and was given a seat.
“My lord”—Argyll turned to the judge—“in view of Major Farraline’s evidence, I would like to call Kenneth Farraline.”
Gilfeather was on his feet. He hesitat
ed, a protest on his lips.
The judge sighed. “Do you object, Mr. Gilfeather? It seems there is some question of embezzlement, real or imagined.”
Argyll smiled. If Gilfeather gained the impression he was perfectly happy to be denied Kenneth, and leave doubt in the jury’s minds, or a question of appeal, so much the better.
“No objection, my lord,” Gilfeather conceded. “It would be advisable to clear up all doubts.” He shot a tight smile at Argyll.
Argyll inclined his head in thanks.
Kenneth Farraline was called and took the stand looking acutely unhappy. He could feel the brooding, almost violent tension in the court, and he saw Argyll advance on him like a bear closing in for the kill.
“Mr. Farraline, your uncle, Major Hector Farraline, has told us that you keep the company books. Is that correct?”
“Irrelevant, my lord,” Gilfeather objected.
The judge hesitated.
“My lord, if there is embezzlement from the company books, and the head of that family has been murdered, it can hardly be irrelevant,” Argyll reasoned. “It provides an excellent motive, unconnected with Miss Latterly.”
The judge conceded the point, but with displeasure.
“You have not proved it yet, sir. So far it is merely a suggestion, indeed the ramblings of a man the worse for drink. If you cannot show something more substantial, I shall disallow it next time Mr. Gilfeather objects.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Argyll turned back to Kenneth. “Mr. Farraline, was your mother aware of Major Farraline’s beliefs that the books had been tampered with?”
“I … I …” Kenneth looked wretched. He stared at Argyll with eyes unfocused, as if he longed to be looking elsewhere.
“Sir?” Argyll prompted.
“I’ve no idea,” Kenneth said abruptly. “It’s …” He swallowed. “Nonsense. Complete nonsense.” He faced Argyll with something like a challenge. “There is no money missing whatsoever.”
“And you are the bookkeeper, so you would know?”
“Precisely.”
“And you would also be in the best position to conceal it, if there were?”
“That …” Kenneth swallowed. “That is slanderous, sir, and quite unjust.”
