That got a snicker out of the jury, and it sounded sympathetic to Jack.
The Coroner glared at her. “And did your husband tell you why he suddenly turned up?”
“I always expected him, sir,” she said. Jack clamped his lips tight to keep from smirking. Another truth. “But he didn’t tell me why he come when he did.” Then she sighed sadly and dropped her eyes. “It didn’t take long to guess, sir. It had to be the drinking.”
That answer took the Coroner completely by surprise; clearly it was not something he had anticipated her saying. “What do you mean?” he asked, startled.
“He weren’t the man I married,” she said, still staring at her hands. “The man I married never touched nothing stronger than cider. The man what turned up at my door was drinking a bottle of gin a day. Two, if he could get it.”
It was one thing for the other witnesses to have said that the strongman was drunk. It was quite another for Katie to state, matter-of-factly, the sheer quantity of alcohol Dick Langford was consuming. There were a couple of incredulous gasps from the jury box.
And Jack knew they would be making up a story to match those facts in their own minds. Langford turning to drink and being tossed out of the circus. Langford coming to Brighton and discovering that his wife was making far more money than either of them had dreamed she could.
Langford, now the slave of gin, falling completely into debauchery. One of the first witnesses that the solicitor had brought in had been the whore Langford had beaten and thrown out—though, of course, she had made no mention of why he had brought her to the cottage, nor that she had been trying to steal. Her story had been that “the gemmun offered her a drink, an’ ’e beat ’er when she tol’ ’im no t’ ’is improper advances, an’ she didn’ know ’e was married.”
This was a comfortable story for these jurors, made familiar by dozens of “improving” plays and redemption novels. Jack could almost see their thoughts falling into those familiar pathways, and saw their glances as they looked over at Katie soften. She might dance on a stage, but it was “ballet,” which was marginally respectable, and she fit the role of “long-suffering wife” a great deal better than “vicious man-killer.”
The Coroner saw it too; he had lost them, and he sensed it. From fierce, he turned to crestfallen; his shoulders sagged, and the energy just drained out of him. “Tell us in your own words what happened the night of the fire,” he demanded, but he had given up, and his words held no more accusation and no force.
“I had left out dinner for Dick, as he asked me to do,” she said. “He said he was going out and would not be back until late. I was having a bit of a lie-down up in the loft, where it was cooler, waiting for him.”
The only lie there was that the loft was cooler than the rest of the cottage, but not one of these people would know that.
“I heard him at the door, and he was terribly drunk, the worst he had ever been, and I could tell that even before he got the door open,” she continued. She stared down at hands that were clenched tightly in her lap, and her voice trembled as she retold and relived that night. It was not feigned emotion, but it would not be possible for the jurors to tell that it was fear, not grief, that made her shake.
“When he got the door open, he began blundering about, cursing and shouting. He broke the paraffin lamp that was right by the door, and spilled the paraffin all over everything. When I looked down out of the loft, I could tell he’d just ruined his shirt and trousers with it. He was throwing things about and breaking them, and I ducked out of the way to keep from being hit. Then I heard more breaking glass, and there was a huge whoosh, and one wall went right up in flames—and screaming, horrible screaming. He was all on fire and running around the room, and setting fire to everything else!”
Now her voice broke on a sob, and there were murmurs of sympathy from the jury.
“He fell down across the back door,” she continued. “The front door was already on fire from the paraffin. Then Mr. Prescott broke through the door.”
Now she looked up, straight at the jury. “He’s a war hero, and a hero twice over to me,” she said, her voice ringing with sincerity and admiration. “He charged that fire like the enemy, even though he’s only got one leg left from the war. He got me down out of that loft—but by the time he did, we couldn’t get out. I remembered there was a cellar, and we got down into it, because going down there was better odds than staying where we were or trying to get out. And that’s all.”
She dropped her eyes to her hands, but suddenly Jack found himself the center of attention. He looked back at them stoically, and whatever they saw in his expression seemed to satisfy them.
When the jurors finally looked back at Katie, she was sitting there shaking visibly, and it was clear from the looks on their faces that she had gone from Whore of Babylon to Suffering Martyr. The Coroner saw it too, and clearly gave up on any notion of getting her brought up on the charge of murder. He dismissed her, and with a long face, called up Jack.
Jack took his time limping his way to the box with the aid of a crutch. He needed the damned crutch, his hip still hurt like fury—but it was a very effective sight, and the Coroner knew it. If he’d gotten the notion that he might cobble up some doubts about why Jack and Lionel had turned up so aptly in the nick of time, he lost them on that long walk to the box.
Jack repeated Lionel’s story, that Katie had forgotten her pay packet and that they were afraid her husband would think she—or Lionel—was up to some sort of mischief, and would cause her trouble.
Lionel had already made a very convincing “boss,” who was already irritated at having lost his last assistant to marriage, and was even more irritated at the notion that his new one would be too battered to perform the next day. “I’m no gull,” Lionel had said, gruffly. “I saw bruises on her, covered up by stage paint. I don’t care what a man does with his wife in their own home, but if she’s my assistant, he’d better leave her fit to work.”
Jack backed that up, saying that she was known to be a hard worker, that the Palace needed her as the headliner if they were all going to continue to take home pay packets, and that he saw it as his duty to back Lionel up in case Dick Langford got belligerent.
“I’m the doorman,” he said. “I’m expected to keep order there, and missing a leg or no, I’m used to a bit of rough and tumble at need. So I came with him and we told the cabby to rush it up. The sooner we got there, the more likely we’d get the blighter calmed down before he did something. But when we pulled up, there the place was, on fire.” He straightened his back. “I’m a soldier. I know my duty when I see it. I broke down the door, got in, got the girl down, and by then we couldn’t get out again. She thought of the cellar, I thought, well, fire burns up, so we might have a chance, so down we went. And that’s that.” He nodded forthrightly.
And indeed, that was that. The Coroner, deprived of a murder charge, made no further effort at all. The jury declared it a “death by misadventure.”
Jack would have liked nothing better than to rush to Katie and embrace her, but instead, he turned his back on her and limped painfully out of the inquest room. Nor did he wait for her to come out; Lionel and the solicitor had been adamant that he must have no contact with her until they were all well clear of the area of the court.
So he took a cab with Lionel back to Lionel’s house, which was where he was staying while his hip healed, at both Lionel’s and Mrs. Buckthorn’s insistence. Katie was going back to Mrs. Baird’s with Suzie and a couple of the chorus girls, where they would all have a celebratory tea.
He’d have very much liked to be part of that group . . . but instead, he and Lionel shared a celebratory brandy.
And waited.
And finally, after dinner, after sunset, there came, at last, the sound of a cab pulling up in front of the house, and the sound of Katie’s happy voice greeting
Mrs. Buckthorn.
She was preceded and accompanied by a veritable horde of salamanders, Fire sprites, and firebirds, who swarmed around her and lit up the room. But nothing lit up the room like her smile.
And then, at long, long last, she was in his arms, as the Elementals wreathed around them both, and all the world was right, as it would be right, from this moment on.
Steadfast Page 33
