by Clara Benson
She stood and waited, looking straight ahead, as Sir Benjamin prepared to begin. Not once did she look at Angela, who knew what was coming and was bracing herself. The Attorney-General knew he had a strong case, but he also knew that Mrs. Delaney had a spite against her daughter-in-law which might prejudice the jury against her. Still, she had important evidence to give, and for that reason he was determined to handle her carefully—not least because she must not be allowed to realize that his purpose in questioning her was to establish beyond all doubt a motive for the crime. She believed that she had come to turn the court against Angela, but what Sir Benjamin really wanted was to reveal Davie Marchmont’s true character and to show just what sort of man it was who might drive a woman to murder.
‘You are the mother of David Marchmont, yes?’ he said.
‘I am,’ she replied.
‘You live in New York, I understand.’
She replied in the affirmative.
‘Did you live with your son?’
‘No. He had his own place, which he shared with his wife until they separated, and I had mine.’
‘At whose instigation did the separation occur?’
‘At hers,’ said Della.
‘Do you know why she left?’
‘He said it was because they didn’t get along any more,’ she replied shortly.
‘Only that they didn’t get along?’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘Are you quite sure that was all there was to it?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Della.
‘Why, that women do not generally just leave their husbands on such a slight motive. I beg your pardon, but are you sure that there was no indiscretion on his part, for example?’
Della did not answer immediately. She seemed to be deliberating.
‘Davie was a good-looking man,’ she said at last. ‘Women liked him and you could hardly blame him if he liked them back. But they were no more than passing amusements. Men do it, and a good wife forgives. I guess your wife forgives you, doesn’t she?’
As it happened, Lady Hicks-Reddington was quite unaware of the existence of the young lady in Chelsea—or so Sir Benjamin hoped. He was much too sure of himself to be even slightly discomposed by Della’s remark, however, and since his questioning had achieved the desired result, which was to expose Davie Marchmont as the adulterer he had been, he now moved on to a different subject.
‘Do you remember when it was that you last saw your son?’ he said.
‘It was in late October last year. We had lunch together, as we did frequently.’
‘Did he tell you he was planning to come to England to see his wife?’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Delaney. ‘I had no idea of it. If I had, I’d have tried to talk him out of it.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because no good could have come of it.’
‘Can you explain why you believe that?’ said Sir Benjamin.
Mrs. Delaney paused and weighed her words. Sir Benjamin need not have worried that she would ruin his case, for she was perfectly aware of the need to appear measured and moderate in her evidence.
‘I didn’t want Angela to turn against him even more than she already had,’ she said eventually.
‘What do you suppose was his purpose in coming to England? To effect a reconciliation with his wife, perhaps?’
‘No. Of course not. It was too late for that.’
‘Some other purpose, then.’
‘I imagine he needed money,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Oh?’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘And he intended to ask Mrs. Marchmont for it? Was he accustomed to receive money from her?’
‘He had no choice,’ she said, and her hooded eyes gleamed angrily. ‘He had nothing of his own and relied totally on her for support.’
‘Your son did not work in New York, then?’
‘He was in business when he first married,’ she said. ‘His wife had a share in the company too, but after a few years she bought him out and left him with nothing to do. After that he felt useless and couldn’t settle to anything else.’
‘Why did he feel useless?’
‘It’s not right for a man to do nothing while his wife goes out to work. She made him feel worthless. He had to come to her whenever he needed money.’
‘But you said Mrs. Marchmont bought his share of the company. Surely that must have provided him with a lump sum to live off?’
Mrs. Delaney hesitated.
‘He was never especially good at looking after money,’ she said at length. ‘He had a little trouble holding on to it.’
Sir Benjamin paused for a moment, while the words ‘idle good-for-nothing’ ran through the minds of the majority of those present, just as he had intended they should.
‘Did Mrs. Marchmont ever refuse to give him the money he asked for?’ he said at length.
‘I don’t believe so,’ replied Mrs. Delaney.
‘Then she was generous to her husband, even though they were no longer living together?’
‘I wouldn’t call it generous. He had to keep coming back for more. And when she left for England the funds dried up.’
‘Did she want to divorce him?’
‘Maybe she did. I don’t know. I thought myself they’d be better off apart, but Davie said he couldn’t afford to live without her. He was trapped, he said, and the only guarantee he had that she wouldn’t divorce him was the fact that he knew something that she didn’t want put about, and could speak at any time.’
‘He was blackmailing her, you mean?’
Della hesitated as she realized how she had sounded.
‘That’s an ugly word,’ she said. ‘Of course it wasn’t blackmail. They had an agreement, he told me. It was quite above the board. She would keep him in funds and he would make sure that nobody found out about it.’
‘Found out about what?’ said Sir Benjamin, and his voice was as smooth as silk.
Della licked her lips. She had come a long way to spite her daughter-in-law. It was all she could do not to turn her head and look at Angela.
‘About the child,’ she said.
There was a momentary stir in court, then silence. Freddy and Kathie looked blankly at one other.
‘Which child?’ said Sir Benjamin.
‘Why, Angela’s,’ said Mrs. Delaney, and the spite dripped from her tone as her anger grew. ‘That’s what she brought to the marriage: a bastard child. My son took her on out of the kindness of his heart when nobody else would have touched her, and this is the thanks he got.’
At this sensation everybody started talking at once, and there was some ado to quiet the court. The only person who seemed unaffected by the revelation was Angela, who continued to look straight ahead. Outwardly nobody could have told what she was thinking, for she seemed as calm as ever, but inside she was in turmoil. She had known, of course, that this was coming, and had done her best to steel herself against it, but it was still a blow to the heart to hear it stated so baldly in front of so many people, by someone who wished her nothing but ill. Still, the worst was over now, she thought, and she had nothing left to hear that could hurt her. In this, she was wrong, as it happened, but for the present she felt a little relief, at least.
Sir Benjamin was congratulating himself on having drawn Della out so effectively, but hid it well.
‘The child was not Mr. Marchmont’s, then?’ he said, when the noise had died down.
‘No,’ said Della. ‘The story was that she was engaged to someone else before she married Davie, but he died. I don’t know whether that’s true, but she was caught out, all right.’
‘And what became of the child?’
‘She was sent to England to live with some relation or other when she was very young,’ said Della. ‘Barbara, I think her name is. I don’t know where she is now. The whole thing was kept secret. I didn’t know about it myself until Davie told me long afterwards.’
‘Mr. Marchmont did not adopt her?’
‘No,’ said Della. ‘What would h
e want with someone else’s child?’
‘And yet you say he married Mrs. Marchmont out of the kindness of his heart. Presumably that kindness did not extend to accepting his wife’s daughter as his own.’
‘The child was quite well where it was,’ said Mrs. Delaney. ‘That’s what Davie told me. And what use would there have been in bringing her over to live with them? Angela had no time for her. She would only have been in the way.’
‘Let me see if I have understood this correctly,’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘Your son married Angela Marchmont in the full knowledge that she had an illegitimate daughter, but rather than adopt the child as his own, he instead demanded money from his wife in return for his silence on the matter. In fact, he went so far as to follow her to England and hound her for even more money after the marriage had irretrievably failed and she might justifiably have thought herself rid of him.’
Under her face-powder, Mrs. Delaney flushed angrily.
‘That’s not how it was at all,’ she snapped. ‘He was penniless, and it was the only way he could persuade Angela to help him. There was no question of blackmail. I won’t have you saying things like that about my son. Davie was a good man at heart, and his only mistake was in marrying her.’
Here she nodded over her shoulder at Angela. Sir Benjamin glanced at his reflection in the paper-weight and was satisfied. Things had gone better than he had expected. Della Marchmont Delaney had been the perfect witness for his purposes, and had left the court in no doubt that Davie Marchmont had been the worst sort of cad and that Angela Marchmont had had every reason to take a gun and shoot him dead.
SEVENTEEN
That concluded the case for the prosecution, and even Mr. Travers had to admit that Sir Benjamin had played his hand well. There were one or two holes in the prosecution’s story, he said to Angela, and it would be Mr. Travers’ task to enlarge those holes bit by bit until the jury was in so much doubt that it would have no choice but to acquit—but still, there was no denying that it would be an uphill battle.
‘It is unfortunate,’ he said, ‘that this story of your daughter had to come out, for of course it appears to give you a very strong motive. However, forewarned is forearmed, as they say, and we must do what we can with it. Where is Barbara now, by the way? I seem to remember you told me she lives mostly with relations of her father.’
‘Yes,’ said Angela. ‘They’re in India at the moment, and she’s been taken out of school and sent there to join them for a few weeks until this is all over. I didn’t want her to have to face ridicule from her class-mates when it all came out. Not that I think she’d put up with that sort of thing for an instant, but still, I thought it was best.’
In fact, she was by no means certain that this was the case, for she knew Barbara was not the kind of girl to suffer being sent out of the way while such a thing was going on. As the trial went on, Angela had every moment expected to hear that Barbara had run off and was heading back to England, and she lived in fear that she would one day see the girl sitting in the public gallery, glaring at Angela in righteous outrage at having been kept out of things. Barbara had always believed she was an orphan, and Angela had no idea how she would take the news that the woman she had always thought of as her godmother was in fact her mother, but the thought of how hurt Barbara might feel did nothing at all to assuage Angela’s feelings of guilt. It would surely be hard on her, though, to find out that her mother was alive and well, only to see her hanged weeks afterwards for murder—for by now Angela was quite certain that her trial could have only one outcome.
Odd as it seemed, Angela had spent so many years regretting her ill-advised marriage to Davie Marchmont that by now she barely gave it any thought. For herself, it was nothing—she had learnt to live with her mistake, and for the most part had done very well in spite of him. But Barbara was a different matter, since she had suffered unknowingly as a consequence of it all. Davie had known about Angela’s engagement to Jack Wells, and how the proud young Englishman had died in a tragic motor accident only ten days before their wedding; had guessed, too, about Angela’s additional source of grief, and why Carey Bernstein had allowed her to absent herself from her duties for some weeks only a few months afterwards. She had then gone to Europe with Bernstein on business while the war was at its height, and had returned some time later, still pale and sad. Davie encouraged her to confide in him, and at length she did, and soon after that they were engaged and then married. He seemed understanding about Angela’s position, and implied that he would adopt Barbara as his own, but it swiftly became clear that he intended to do no such thing. Instead, he had used his wife’s secret as a weapon against her almost from the start. In such a situation, Angela could not bring herself to send to England for her daughter, who had been staying with Jack’s sister and her husband, for how could it benefit the girl to grow up surrounded by such unhappiness? No, she was much better off where she was.
After Angela returned to England it seemed she and Barbara were doomed to remain nothing more than friendly acquaintances, for the sad fact was that Angela had not the first idea about motherhood after so many childless years, whereas Nina and Gerald had a brood of their own and were quite happy to include Barbara in it, and give her the family life she could not have enjoyed with Angela and Davie. Moreover, there was still no getting around the fact of Barbara’s illegitimacy, which was a heavy burden to lay upon a child, and so all in all it seemed safest to maintain the fiction that she was an orphan. Angela had always meant to tell Barbara the truth one day, but had continually put off the decision to do so until it had become too difficult. Now the secret had come to light in the most public way possible, and in addition to all her other woes Angela was now racked with guilt at the thought of the effect the trial would have on her daughter—although she was beginning to think Barbara would be much better off without her, for there was no denying that she seemed to have made rather a mess of things.
Involuntarily, her thoughts turned to Edgar Valencourt, and she wondered where he was and what he was doing. Had he read in the newspapers about her arrest and trial? If he had indeed gone to France as he had said, then it was quite likely that he knew nothing about what was going on at present; at least, she hoped that were the case, for it was too painful to her to think that he might be perfectly aware of her plight and observing it helplessly—or even indifferently—from afar. Perhaps he had reached South America already and was busy establishing a new life for himself. If so, then he would certainly know nothing, and by the time he found out what had happened she would probably be long dead. Still, she stood firm in her belief that naming him would do nothing to help her cause—and in fact would be more likely to harm it. Her reputation was already battered enough, but some pride still remained to her and she did not wish to damage it any further by having all her sins put on public display at once. If some miracle occurred and she were acquitted, there would be enough work in trying to live down what had already been revealed. Angela wondered which, if any, of her friends would prove loyal in that event. Her brother Humphrey was doing his best; he had sent her a stiff letter of support, even though she knew that the very idea of such a thing happening in the family must horrify him. Other friends had sent messages of varying degrees of sincerity. Freddy she was certain of, but there was no saying how some of her more distant acquaintances might regard her now that they knew the truth.
At that, Angela remembered William and Marthe, those two most faithful of servants. Poor William had evidently been upset at being called to appear for the prosecution, although he had had nothing to tell that could harm her. Marthe could be trusted to keep quiet about Valencourt—and in any case there was no reason why she should suppose that he might have had anything to do with Davie’s death at all, for she had seen him only briefly a few days before the murder. She and William had proved themselves wholly trustworthy and for that she silently thanked them, but still, they would soon need to find new situations when the inevitable happened. Perha
ps it would be better if she released them from her service immediately, in fact. She would, of course, write them excellent references—although she had no idea how a new employer might look upon the word of a convicted murderess. She hoped her reputation would not harm their prospects. Yes, perhaps she would give them notice now. They were welcome to remain until they had found something that suited, naturally, but the least she could do was to allow them plenty of time to make the necessary arrangements.
Having reached this decision, Angela wrote the letters and the references immediately, for she felt that there was no time to lose. They would be sent out later, and Marthe and William would be free, and then she would have one less thing to worry about. After she had finished, she sat, thinking of what was to come. The case for the defence was due to begin the next day, and all she could do now was trust that Mr. Travers, with Freddy’s help, would somehow produce some evidence that would exonerate her. It was a small hope, but at present it was the only one she had.
EIGHTEEN
The case for the defence opened on Friday morning. The crowd outside the Old Bailey had swelled to almost twice the size of the first day, for the whole country, it seemed, had been eagerly following the progress of the trial in the newspapers, and hundreds of people formed a queue down the street, agog to see what, if anything, the defence might have up its sleeve. The revelation about Angela Marchmont’s love-child had been more sensational than any of the observers had expected even in their wildest imaginings, and the popular papers had lingered over the story with outward solemnity and inward glee. Now it remained to be seen what sort of weapon Angela might have in her armoury to defend herself against the charge of killing this husband of hers, who had clearly been a scoundrel of the worst sort. By now there was a fair amount of sympathy for her among the wider public, but the facts which could not but awaken their compassion were, of course, the very facts which gave her an undeniable motive for murder. The law was not concerned about whether the prisoner were worthy of sympathy or not—murder was murder, and justice must be pursued to the bitter end.
