Take No Farewell - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  I moved to the boards set up in the centre of the hall, where the day’s cases were listed court by court, and scanned the sheets in search of Consuela’s name. Never before had I imagined that one day could feature so much litigation, so much argument, so much opposition. And somewhere, lost amidst the welter of suit and counter-suit, Rex versus Caswell was approaching its conclusion. I came to the end of the row without having found it and turned to check the other side. As I did so, I glanced towards the stairs at the far end of the hall. And there, in a group of descending figures, I recognized Windrush and Sir Henry.

  There were five of them in all, robed and wigged but for Windrush. They were walking fast, conferring as they went. Their faces were grave and intent. If I had not stepped into their path, I do not think they would even have seen me.

  ‘Sir Henry!’

  He pulled up, as did the others. For a second, there was silence. That and their troubled expressions should have told me what to expect.

  ‘Is the case over?’

  Sir Henry nodded. ‘It is, Staddon, yes.’

  ‘Adjourned, you mean?’

  ‘No. Their Lordships delivered their verdict just a few minutes ago.’

  ‘And?’ He was avoiding my gaze now, staring down at his feet, running one hand around his double-chin. Windrush too was looking elsewhere. What I had dreaded but foreseen was there, palpable in their collective embarrassment. ‘The appeal was dismissed, wasn’t it?’

  Sir Henry sighed. ‘Out of hand, I fear.’

  ‘Then … what …’

  He roused himself. ‘Windrush and I must proceed at once to Holloway, Staddon. I trust you appreciate the need to inform Mrs Caswell without delay.’ He glanced at one of his companions. ‘Mr Browne, be so good as to furnish Mr Staddon with details of the judgement. We must be on our way.’

  And so it came about that the Appeal Court’s pronouncement on Consuela’s fate was explained to me by a young man named Browne in a quiet corner of the George public house, on the other side of the Strand, just after it had opened for business that evening. He drank lemonade shandy, I remember, and I drank whisky. He was nervous, though I could not understand why. Perhaps he felt as a junior doctor might when breaking the news of a fatal disease to a relative of his patient. What he had to say was both logical and inevitable, but was tinged with mortality, and he had never had to say it before. He will become accustomed to such painful duties as his career proceeds. But his audience never will.

  ‘I am sorry to say, Mr Staddon, that their Lordships refused to entertain any of Sir Henry’s arguments. They did not merely endorse the judge’s handling of the trial, they applauded it. If anything, their remarks were more severe than Mr Justice Stillingfleet’s.’

  ‘What about the doubts concerning the authenticity of the letters?’

  ‘They did not appear to think there were any doubts. They even went so far as to accuse Sir Henry of sophistry. It made him very angry, although of course he did not let them see that it had.’

  ‘There were no redeeming features?’

  ‘None. Between you and me—’ He leaned towards me and lowered his voice. ‘Sometimes, the bench likes to take down prominent barristers a peg or two. Those they consider are winning too glowing a reputation. I fear today may have been Sir Henry’s turn. The Lord Chief Justice was in … censorious mood.’

  ‘Sir Henry’s turn? The Lord Chief Justice’s mood? Are you saying Con—Are you saying Mrs Caswell’s life depends on such things?’

  Browne coloured and took a draught of his shandy. My outrage had disconcerted him. He was, after all, only doing his best to make me understand what had happened. The vagaries of the judicial system were not his responsibility.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said in a more measured tone. ‘Forget what I just asked. Simply tell me this. What’s to be done now?’

  Browne looked relieved to be back on uncontroversial ground. ‘Well, to some extent that is up to Mrs Caswell. She may ask Sir Henry to apply to the Attorney-General for leave to appeal to the House of Lords. I am bound to say, however, that such leave is highly unlikely to be granted.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it can only be granted on the grounds that an issue of exceptional public importance is involved.’

  ‘Isn’t a miscarriage of justice exceptionally important?’

  Browne grimaced. ‘I am certain the Attorney-General will not feel there has been one.’

  ‘Then … what else?’

  ‘Sir Henry will undoubtedly advise Mrs Caswell to petition the Home Secretary for mercy. That is her only recourse.’

  ‘By recourse you mean hope?’

  ‘Well, yes. Unless the Home Secretary commutes the death sentence passed on Mrs Caswell, it will have to be carried out. Now her appeal has failed, only a political decision can save her.’

  ‘A political decision?’

  ‘I mean a decision taken by politicians but based on legal advice. The new administration may be less committed to capital punishment than the old. On the other hand, they may be anxious to show that they are not “soft” on crime. Labour are, I must confess, an unknown quantity where law and order are concerned.’ He smiled uneasily. ‘This is something of a test case for them.’

  Judges settling scores and politicians making points. Where, I wondered, in this jungle of mean sentiments and doubtful motives, was the delicate flower of mercy likely to bloom? ‘If the Home Secretary chooses not to intervene,’ I said slowly, ‘when … that is, how soon …’

  ‘There is a fixed formula in such matters. At least three Sundays must elapse between conviction and execution.’

  ‘Three? Is that all?’

  ‘The shorter the wait, the easier it is for all parties. At least, so goes the theory. Of course, the lodging of an appeal caused some delay. It is more likely to be four Sundays now than three, perhaps as many as five.’

  ‘Five? You call five many?’

  Once more, he seemed surprised by how ghastly his answers could sound to those who received them. ‘I am sorry, Mr Staddon, really I am. I am merely placing the facts before you, as Sir Henry directed me to. If the sentence is carried out, it will probably be before the end of this month.’

  ‘And will it be carried out?’

  ‘I do not know. None of us knows at this stage.’

  ‘But what do you think?’

  He deliberated for a moment, raised his glass as if to drink, then put it down again and said: ‘I think you should prepare yourself for the worst.’

  The worst. How could I prepare myself to face what I never thought I would have to? Consuela’s death, not by accident or disease, not by a random mischance of nature, but at the hands of the law, was now decreed, fixed, chartered and determined. It was a settled event towards which we were all inexorably moving. Struggle or protest as I pleased, flee or turn away, I was bound to meet it, out there in the future, just a little way off, a dot on a distant horizon that had grown black and vast and become my destination.

  After I left the George that evening, I crossed to the church of St Clement Danes on its island in the Strand. Inside, it was as silent and peaceful as a sanctified tomb. I knelt before the altar and, for the first time since Edward’s death, prayed to God for intercession.

  A telephone call next morning from Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett’s clerk told me that he and Windrush would be pleased to meet me at his chambers at six o’clock that evening. I pressed the clerk for news, but he claimed to have none. From that I took what comfort I could. The newspapers had reported the outcome of the appeal as a foregone conclusion. They seemed neither triumphant nor regretful, merely content to let the law take its course.

  Plowden Buildings was largely deserted when I arrived. Sir Henry received me with sombre politeness, his flustered brusqueness of the day before replaced by a weary despondency. Windrush sat in a shadowy corner and seemed reluctant to leave it. He barely nodded as I entered. Before a word was spoken, it was clear to me that none they me
ant to speak would give me any comfort.

  ‘Young Browne apprised you of the situation, I trust,’ began Sir Henry.

  ‘Yes. He spoke of a possible appeal to the House of Lords.’

  Sir Henry shook his head. ‘Alas, the Attorney-General has refused to hear of it.’

  ‘Then clemency is the only hope?’

  ‘Indeed. The Home Secretary is a humane and religious man – a devout Wesleyan, I believe. He may not wish to commence his term of office with the execution of a woman.’

  ‘But there are difficulties,’ put in Windrush.

  ‘What are they?’

  Sir Henry sighed. ‘Firstly, Mrs Caswell’s insistence that she is innocent. We believe her, of course, but we are in the minority. Those who disbelieve her would be better disposed to show her mercy if, in return, she exhibited some degree of remorse.’

  ‘How can she be expected to show remorse for something she hasn’t done?’

  ‘That is one of the difficulties,’ said Windrush. ‘Though not the gravest.’

  ‘Mr Henderson has only been Home Secretary for a couple of weeks,’ explained Sir Henry. ‘He’s not likely to feel sufficiently sure of himself yet to overrule his civil servants. Moreover, as you may have read in the papers, he’s badly in need of a constituency. A Cabinet minister who has no seat in the House of Commons is something of a lame duck.’

  ‘He’s on the trail of one now,’ said Windrush. ‘Dan Irving, the Labour member for Burnley, died recently. Henderson’s up there trying to make sure he wins the by-election. It’s to be held on the twenty-eighth of this month. Until then he won’t want to rock any boats. Of that you can be certain.’

  ‘And I know his Under-Secretary of old,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Sir John Anderson is a strict and inflexible man. He won’t even think of recommending clemency.’

  ‘Then … what you’re saying is …’

  ‘They’ve fixed a date, Staddon,’ said Windrush.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Thursday the twenty-first. One week before the Burnley by-election. Thirteen days from now. At nine o’clock that morning, the sentence of the court will be carried out.’

  I stared at him dumbly for a moment, then looked at Sir Henry. ‘She … Consuela knows?’

  ‘The prison governor informed her last night.’

  ‘How … Have you seen her since?’

  ‘I was present at the time, Staddon. So was Windrush. She took it with the composure she has displayed throughout this sorry affair. She is … a remarkable woman.’

  ‘But … What can we do?’

  ‘Very little. We shall plead the case for clemency with all the eloquence at our command. And Mrs Caswell’s friends should be urged to write to the Home Secretary supporting our plea. Beyond that, I have nothing to suggest.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘The press are against her,’ put in Windrush. ‘Foreign, Catholic and guilty – as they see it. It’s no good hoping for a campaign in that quarter.’

  ‘Even if every editor in Fleet Street were on our side,’ said Sir Henry, ‘I doubt they could achieve anything. Sir John does not like to be pushed. It merely hardens his heart. And his legal advisers have made it clear to me that they see no grounds for clemency.’

  I looked from one to the other of them. ‘You believe this hanging will take place, don’t you?’ In the silence that followed, their answer was delivered.

  Suddenly, Sir Henry cleared his throat and rose from his chair. ‘I must have a word with my clerk before he goes home. Excuse me, gentlemen.’ With that, he bustled from the room, leaving Windrush and me staring at each other across a carpeted waste of shadows.

  ‘She’s quite resigned to it,’ Windrush said after a moment. ‘I believe she has been ever since she was charged. Unlike we cynical Englishmen’ – he smiled faintly – ‘she never expected to be spared on account of her innocence.’

  I said nothing. There seemed then as little to say as there was to do. Beyond the exhaustion of our last resource lay only a wilderness of despair.

  ‘She asked me to tell you of the arrangements she has made for Jacinta. Her daughter’s future has been her principal concern of late. She has been anxious to ensure that the girl does not remain with her father. Some weeks ago, I submitted a request to Caswell’s solicitor on her behalf. To my surprise, it’s been granted. Caswell has agreed to let Jacinta be adopted by her maternal uncle, Senhor Francisco Manchaca de Pombalho, a coffee merchant in Rio de Janeiro. The fellow’s quite wealthy, I believe – though not as wealthy as Caswell. Be that as it may, a new life in a distant country seems altogether the kindest provision to make for the girl. She’s young enough to put this … horror … behind her, don’t you think?’ He waited for me to respond. Then, when I did not, he continued: ‘We’ve had a cable from Brazil. Jacinta’s uncle is on his way. He’s bringing his wife with him. They’ll take Jacinta into their custody as soon as they arrive. Three return passages to Brazil have been booked aboard a steamer due to leave Liverpool on the twenty-second, the day after …’

  We have no words, I thought as he broke off – no trite and conventional phrases – to cater for situations such as this. Whether Windrush understood why Consuela wanted me to know what was to become of Jacinta – whether I understood myself – seemed now a matter of no significance whatever. ‘I’d like to see her,’ I said, as expressionlessly as I could contrive.

  Windrush raised his hand and began massaging his brow with the tips of two fingers, as if to relieve a headache. ‘I’d hoped to avoid telling you this, Staddon. The fact is that she’s quite emphatic about refusing to see you. She’s asked me to make that abundantly clear.’

  So, the embargo was to remain in force. The gulf I had opened between us thirteen years before was not be closed even in death.

  ‘I’m sorry, Staddon.’

  ‘So am I. But sorrow doesn’t help, does it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wish …’ But wishes, like hopes and prayers and every unavailing effort, were useless now, worn out and wasted on ears that would not listen and minds that would not bend. Darkness, beyond the window, between our words, within our minds, was rushing and rising around our future. Darkness. And the worst – that could never be prepared for. I rose, my wish unspoken, and left, stumbling in silent confusion out into the night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ONCE, IN THE foolishness of my youth, I took part in a séance. It was during my first year at Oxford, in the rooms of a student with whom I shared a landing. Late at night, with lexicon cards and an upturned glass, seven of us, drunk, frightened and trying not to show it, embarked on a clumsy and sniggering attempt to communicate with the dead. It worked. At all events, it seemed to. The glass moved and spelt out answers to our questions. Later, Parkhouse claimed he had pushed it, which we were all happy, not to say eager, to accept. What each of us truly believed is another matter. In my case, I am no surer now than I was then. At first, it was harmless fun. The month of one fellow’s birth. The maiden name of another chap’s mother. On such a light-hearted level it would doubtless have remained had one of our number not insisted on asking to be told the year in which he would die. At that, the glass ceased to move, the spirit (if it was a spirit) declined to answer and the séance dissolved amidst suddenly humourless recriminations.

  Why, I have often wondered since, did I ask such a question? What possessed me to do it? For who – when it came to the point – would ever really want to know such a thing? Uncertainty is what renders mortality bearable. Death is a caller whose visit is only tolerable because it is unexpected. And yet, for a crazy instant, I had tried to discover when that visit would occur. How would it have felt to be told? What would it have seemed like to know? Thank God I never found out.

  But Consuela found out. She, who did not ask the question, was given the answer. Nine o’clock on the morning of Thursday 21 February 1924: the time and date of her execution. The condemned prisoner’s unique privilege is foreknowledge of the
moment of death.

  I spent the weekend following my meeting with Windrush and Sir Henry at Sunnylea, where Imry was now on the mend. We shared every stray thought our despair inspired and found in the process some scant form of consolation. One such thought, bursting unbidden into my mind, recalled that madcap séance of more than twenty years ago and posed another question to which I did not want to know the answer. Was Consuela’s death to be the reward for my impudence on that long-ago occasion? Was it her fate I had sealed by tempting mine?

  One meagre blessing of this time was the end it brought to secrets between Imry and me. I told him not merely how Rodrigo had died but of the counterfeit money I had found in Victor’s safe. I revealed the fatal reward Malahide’s attempts at blackmail had brought him and the fact that the letter he had sold me was a fake. I confessed every shameful detail of my deception of Consuela all those years ago. I recalled my futile efforts to help Doak and thereby appease my conscience. I even admitted how I had gone about ensuring Imry received none of the credit for the Hotel Thornton.

  But no amount of honesty could alter the position in which we found ourselves. Nor could anything it lay in our power to do halt or prolong the expiring ration of days left to Consuela. We would write to the Home Secretary imploring him to let her live. We would write to the Attorney-General, the Lord Chancellor, the Prime Minister, the King himself. But we did not expect – we scarcely even hoped – that any of them would respond. Their minds were made up, set firm in the concrete of their absolute refusal to believe that the law could be mistaken. We who were sure that in this case it was, could do no more than stand together and bear witness.

  Thursday 14 February. St Valentine’s Day. The first day of what the law had decided was to be the last week in the life of Consuela Caswell. The false spring had faded and a cold east wind was blowing, bringing snow to the streets of London. I was on a tube train, halfway between Chancery Lane and St Paul’s, when the hands of my watch showed nine o’clock and the same hour, one week ahead, seemed to toll within my head. Time, measured in ever smaller and more agonizing fractions, overshadowed all thought and action. According to Sir Henry, a reprieve – if there was to be one – would come before the weekend. If it did not, even the slenderest hope would cease to be sustainable.