Marriage on Trial

by Lee Wilkinson

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Want me to show you?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said demurely. ‘If we have time.’

  He pretended to consider. ‘Well, I don’t care to rush these things, but no doubt with a little cooperation…’

  Later they shared a shower—which, allowing for the enjoyment factor, took somewhat longer than usual—before dressing together.

  When Elizabeth had brushed her hair and coiled it into its usual smooth chignon, she fastened Henry’s silver locket around her neck.

  Glancing up, she saw Quinn watching her, his eyes cold. So he was still jealous. Sighing, she went to scramble some eggs and make the coffee.

  As they sat over the breakfast table and she watched him butter his toast, she thought sadly that even now they were together there were still doubts and mistrust, rather than the mental closeness she longed for…

  Catching a fleeting glimpse of her expression, and misinterpreting it, Quinn asked, ‘More regrets?’

  ‘No.’ Realizing he’d heard the slight hesitation, she added firmly, ‘At least not in the way you mean.’

  ‘Then in what way?’

  ‘I was regretting what we might have had if…if things had been different.’

  ‘You mean if you could bring yourself to tell me the truth about the earrings? Or I could bring myself to accept a lie?’

  ‘No, that isn’t what I mean. I wouldn’t want you to accept a lie. But I would like you to believe the truth.’

  ‘I no doubt will, when I hear it.’

  She bit her lip until she tasted blood, the minor pain helping to eclipse the major. Then, knowing there was no way she could win, and determined not to get embroiled again, she said flatly, ‘I’d rather not talk about it.’

  ‘Why not, if you’re really on the side of the angels?’

  ‘I don’t see the point, as I’m never going to be able to convince you that I’m speaking the truth…’

  ‘If you didn’t get them from Henry, why were you so unwilling to tell me where they did come from?’

  Bristling, she jumped to her feet. ‘I didn’t see why I should have to tell you. I wanted you to trust me.’

  ‘I wish I could.’

  Agitation making her clumsy, she gathered together some of the breakfast dishes and, cutlery rattling, went through to the kitchen.

  Picking up the rest, he followed her.

  Putting the dishes in the sink with unnecessary violence, she ran the hot water, squirted in some bubbles, and began to wash them.

  Instead of going away, he picked up a cloth and began to dry them with maddening efficiency.

  Without in the least meaning to, she burst out angrily, ‘I just can’t understand why you’re so sure the earrings came from Henry.’

  ‘Believe me, I have a very good reason.’

  ‘Then tell me what it is.’

  He shook his head. ‘First I want to hear your version of where they came from.’

  Seeing her expression grow obstinate, he said trenchantly, ‘The time for playing games is over, Jo. I want to know how you came by them, and I want to know now.’

  She hesitated, while the desire to tell him the truth and a certain inbuilt reluctance to be browbeaten battled it out.

  Finally, she said, ‘Very well, I’ll tell you. My natural mother left them to me—’

  ‘Your natural mother?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I think you’d better come and sit down.’

  She dried her hands, and, returning to the living room, sat down on the settee, while Quinn leaned a shoulder against the fireplace and waited.

  Having collected her thoughts, she began, ‘I didn’t know I’d been adopted until after both my parents, or at least the people I’d always looked on as my parents, were killed.

  ‘It was then I discovered that my real mother had died from some infection when I was only a few days old, and the woman I’d always looked on as my mother was actually my aunt. I was the child of her younger sister.’

  ‘What became of your natural father?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I understand my mother wasn’t married, and when she died no one came forward.’

  ‘So your aunt and uncle stepped in?’

  ‘Yes. When my mother became ill they agreed that it was their duty to take care of me if anything happened to her…’

  ‘What about the earrings?’

  ‘She’d left them for me as a twenty-first-birthday present, along with a letter that said they were her most precious possession—’

  ‘You told me you didn’t have them when I first knew you,’ Quinn objected sharply.

  ‘I didn’t. In fact at that time I didn’t even know of their existence.’

  ‘Go on,’ he ordered.

  ‘It seems they’d been lodged with my aunt’s solicitors, and by the time they tried to contact me my aunt and uncle were dead and the flat was empty.

  ‘It was after I’d left you… I was looking for job opportunities in one of the papers when I happened to catch sight of an advertisement. It said something along the lines of, “If Miss Josian Elizabeth Merrill will get in touch with Firkin and Jones solicitors, she may well learn something to her advantage.”

  ‘At first I was afraid to answer it…’ Watching Quinn’s lips thin, she added, ‘It was only a short time since I’d managed to give your detective the slip, and I thought it might be a trap.

  ‘But just then I was desperately short of money, and finding it a struggle to pay the rent for my bedsit, so finally I was forced to risk it…’

  ‘If you were hoping for some financial help you must have been terribly disappointed?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I wasn’t disappointed.’

  ‘The earrings must be worth quite a lot,’ he pointed out brusquely. ‘If you were so desperate why didn’t you sell them?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have dreamt of selling them,’ she informed him coldly. ‘I was thrilled to bits when I realized that they’d belonged to my real mother.’

  ‘Even though you’d never known her?’

  ‘Maybe for that very reason.’

  They had been something concrete from the past, a priceless gift to keep and cherish. When she’d read the accompanying letter she felt sad, yet, in an odd way, close to the unknown woman who’d given birth to her.

  ‘It seems my aunt and uncle had intended to tell me that I’d been adopted when I reached twenty-one. But of course fate stepped in, and I learnt it from papers they’d kept.

  ‘At first I felt bitter that they hadn’t told me earlier. I could have asked about my real mother, known what kind of person she was, what she looked like, if I resembled her at all…’

  Elizabeth sighed. ‘But of course it was far too late. All I had was one short, shakily written letter and the earrings.’

  Quinn was watching her, his green eyes guarded. ‘And that’s your story? You don’t want to change it?’

  ‘Why should I want to change it?’ she asked angrily. ‘It’s the truth… You don’t suspect me of making it all up? If I was that clever I’d be writing fiction!’

  ‘Isn’t that what this is?’

  She felt a terrible sense of despair. Piery had done far more harm than he’d ever imagined.

  Lifting her chin, she suggested quietly, ‘Surely there should be some way of checking with the solicitors?’

  ‘Probably. If they’re still in business?’

  ‘I don’t know if they are,’ she said uncertainly. ‘They were only a small, back-street firm, and it was almost five years ago.’

  ‘Where were their offices?’

  ‘In Whitechapel.’

  His voice holding more than a hint of challenge, he suggested, ‘Would you like to go over and see if they’re still there?’

  She hesitated. Suppose they weren’t? But if they weren’t, apart from raising her hopes for nothing, she would be no worse off.

  ‘Yes, I would,’ she said firmly.

  B
ut, noting her hesitation, his face cynical, Quinn observed, ‘You don’t appear very sanguine.’

  Gritting her teeth, she retorted, ‘Oh, but I am.’

  ‘Then we’ll pay them a visit before we start for Saltmarsh.’

  Some ten minutes later they left Cantle Cottage and headed east through London’s traffic. The day was cold and bright. A stiffish breeze battered signs and awnings and sent puffs of grey cloud scurrying across the sky like smoke signals.

  They were approaching Whitechapel before Quinn broke the silence to ask, ‘You do know the address?’

  ‘I don’t recall the name of the street,’ Elizabeth admitted, ‘but it’s off Rockwell Road. There used to be a big, old-fashioned pub on the corner. It was painted blue.’

  Halfway down Rockwell Road, Quinn said suddenly, ‘This looks like it. Cranton Street.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said eagerly. ‘It comes back to me now. It’s a cul-de-sac, and the offices were at the bottom end.’

  They drove the length of the street, and Elizabeth’s heart sank. There was a garishly painted mini-market where she’d hoped to see the funereal-looking window she remembered from five years previously. So it had turned out to be a wild-goose chase after all…

  ‘That looks like it.’ Quinn’s voice, sounding strange, broke into her gloomy thoughts. She followed the direction of his gaze and realized she’d been looking on the wrong side of the road.

  Pulling over, he parked the car on the uneven frontage, where the wind had rounded up and corralled a small pile of litter, and helped her out.

  The black and gold writing on the glass proclaiming ‘Firkin and Jones Solicitors’ was peeling a little, and the whole place had an air of once prosperous respectability gone slightly to seed.

  Inside the black-painted door, the carpet and the decor had a faded elegance that harked back to palmier days.

  A neatly dressed, middle-aged woman looked up from behind an old-fashioned desk in the corner. ‘Good morning. Can I help you?’

  Elizabeth found her voice. ‘My husband and I were hoping to make some enquiries with regard to a small legacy I received about five years ago. It had been lodged here, pending my twenty-first birthday, by a Mr and Mrs Christopher Merrill, my adoptive parents, on behalf of my natural mother.’

  ‘And your name at the time?’

  ‘Josian Elizabeth Merrill. I came in answer to your advertisement.’

  ‘Can you tell me which partner handled the matter?’

  ‘Mr Jones.’

  ‘I’ll see if he’s free. If you’d like to take a seat for a moment…?’

  Elizabeth complied, while Quinn remained standing, his hands thrust negligently into his jacket pockets, his broad shoulders against the panelling.

  Elizabeth glanced at him. Though his posture was relaxed, and his face gave nothing away, she could sense a hidden core of tension.

  The receptionist, who had disappeared into some inner sanctum, returned after several minutes, to advise them that, ‘Mr Jones will see you, if you’d like to come this way.’

  They followed her into a stuffy, overheated office where a small, dapper man with a skull-like face, shrewd blue eyes and impossibly black hair rose to greet them.

  Yes, she recognized him, Elizabeth thought, her heart beating faster. But common sense insisted that he was hardly likely to remember her.

  ‘Do sit down.’ He waved them to a pair of red leather chairs that had once been handsome but were now frankly worn and, resuming his own seat, asked, ‘Now, how can I help you?’

  Elizabeth repeated what she’d told the receptionist.

  The solicitor opened a file that lay ready on his desk and consulted it for a moment, before querying, ‘Your birthday is September the seventeenth, and your natural mother’s name was Elizabeth Smith?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said eagerly.

  ‘So what exactly do you wish to know?’

  Before she could speak, Quinn asked in the voice of a stranger, ‘Can you tell me what form this legacy took?’

  ‘The description here merely states a pair of antique earrings.’ Looking up, Mr Jones went on, ‘But if my memory serves me correctly they were most unusual. The early seventeenth-century craftsmanship, something I’ve always been interested in, was quite superb.’

  Pulling his wallet from his pocket, Quinn shook the earrings into his palm and held them out for the other man’s inspection.

  ‘Anything like those?’

  The sharp blue eyes studied them. ‘Exactly like those.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Quinn returned the earrings to his wallet and rose to his feet. ‘We need take up no more of your time.’

  A hand beneath her elbow, he urged a somewhat dazed Elizabeth to her feet. At the door she turned to add her own, belated thanks.

  When they were back in the car, Quinn turned to her and said shortly, ‘It seems I owe you an apology.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t want an apology. I’m just happy that you know the truth.’

  But even as she spoke she was shaken to realize that he was far from happy. His face was set and serious, as though the truth had come as a most unpleasant shock to him.

  Chilled and disconcerted, she lapsed into silence.

  The first half of the journey proved to be far from comfortable. What little conversation there was sounded forced and stilted, and Quinn avoided even glancing in her direction.

  As the afternoon wore on, they stopped for coffee and sandwiches at a country pub, but neither finished them.

  The second half of the journey was, if anything, worse. Quinn’s face looked even more bleak and sombre, and Elizabeth’s spirits had sunk to rock-bottom.

  When they reached the coast, the tide was out and they were able to drive straight over the causeway. Elizabeth was so upset and despondent that she hardly gave the previous traumatic crossing a thought.

  Once inside the house, like a man driven by God knew what anxieties, Quinn headed straight for the study.

  Hanging up her coat, she followed, to find he had already opened Henry’s wall safe and was taking things from it and stacking them on the desk.

  His face was set and there was a curious urgency about his movements. He gave the impression of being braced for some impending calamity.

  The air struck cold, and knowing how considerate he usually was of her comfort, she wondered why he hadn’t stopped to light the fire.

  Seriously perturbed, convinced now that something was dreadfully wrong, she raked through the ashes, put a match to a little pile of kindling, and, having blown it into life, made a wigwam of sticks.

  When it was flaming cheerfully, she piled on some split logs, and, her heart heavy with fear, sat huddled by the blaze, her eyes on Quinn.

  He had almost emptied the safe when he came to a small oblong case. Using his thumbnail, he pressed the catch and lifted the lid.

  For what seemed an age, he stood motionless, staring at the contents. Then, with a look on his face that froze her to the marrow, he came over and handed her the case.

  She found herself staring down at a brooch. Made of silver and mother-of-pearl, intricately curved into the shape of a mermaid, it was both old and beautiful. Her breath caught in her throat, she looked up at him wordlessly.

  Taking the earrings from his wallet, he placed them alongside the brooch and, his voice curiously flat, said, ‘A perfectly matched set. Though I’d only seen the brooch once before, and briefly, I knew I couldn’t be mistaken.’

  ‘So that was why you were so sure Henry had either given me the earrings or I’d taken them?’

  ‘I didn’t dare let myself believe anything else. Then, when the solicitor confirmed your story…’

  He ran a hand over his eyes and, sounding like a man on the rack, asked harshly, ‘You understand what this means, don’t you?’

  Bemused, and having had no time to think, she shook her head.

  ‘Do you remember me telling you about my childhood? About a girl nam
ed Beth who came to live with us…?’

  As she struggled to make sense of what she was hearing, he went on heavily, ‘You were right that Henry didn’t keep a diary in the conventional sense. But the other day I discovered that, from being a young man, he had filled notebook after notebook with a daily account of everything that mattered to him.

  ‘From one of those notebooks, I learned that Beth’s full name was Elizabeth Smith. Henry called her the love of his life. He wanted her to marry him, but she refused. When he discovered she was having his baby, he begged her to change her mind.

  ‘Maybe he pressured her too much, because one day, when he’d gone to London, she kissed me goodbye and walked out.

  ‘She left a note telling Henry that she’d started to feel trapped. That she loved him, but she had to be a free spirit and couldn’t bear to be tied down…

  ‘He did his best to trace her, and, when he failed, tortured himself with the thought of her having an abortion…

  ‘But if she’d had any such intention it seemed she changed her mind… The dates match exactly…’

  As Elizabeth stared at him in dawning horror, he added, ‘There’s a strong probability that you’re Henry’s daughter.’

  ‘B-but I can’t be,’ she stammered. ‘That makes me…’

  His face grey, he said, ‘My half-sister.’

  All at once there was blood pounding in her head. A blackness caught her up and threatened to envelop her… Somehow she fought it off. ‘No! I don’t believe I’m Henry’s daughter!’ Yet everything pointed to it being the truth, and it made sense of so many things…

  Heavily, Quinn said, ‘Henry obviously thought you were. It explains his affection for you; why he left you half his estate; why he was so distraught when you vanished, and so furious with Piery and myself—’

  ‘But it doesn’t explain one very important thing,’ she broke in urgently. ‘He knew we were going to be married. I told him. If he as much as suspected that I was his daughter, why did he allow our wedding to go ahead? Why was he so pleased about it? And he was pleased—I’d stake my life on it.’

  Quinn’s head came up and the grey, beaten look gave way to a gleam of hope.

  His voice holding a sharpening excitement, he suggested, ‘Let’s see if there’s anything in those notebooks that will throw any light on it.’