Bitter Eden (38 page)

"No, sir."

"No, sir? Well, well, Miss Dawson, I am pleased to see that you have sufficient respect for this court not to foist that same story on us again."

"I have no desire to tell this court anything but the truth," Callie said quietly.

"The truth. Ah, yes, the truth. The truth will set him free, something like that, Miss Dawson?"

Callie began to stammer. "Y-yes, sir."

Stephen cringed in his seat, barely able to hold still as he watched the predatory barrister stalk back toward the witness box. He glanced up at Peter. The guard had his hands on Peters shoulders holding him seated. On Peter's face was a mixture of grief and anger.

"Were you present at the farm the day the murder took place?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you see anything of note—unusual that day?"

"No, sir, but . . ."

"Were you witness to the crime? Do you know anyone who was? Is there any reason we should waste our valuable time listening to you, Miss Dawson?"

"He didn't murder his wife ... or Albertl I know he didn't It was ... it was someone else!"

"Who, Miss Dawson? Can you tell us that, or has it slipped your mind?"

"Must I say?"

The barrister glanced up at the judge, barely able to stifle his laughter. "Why, yes, Miss Dawson. You do want to free the accused on the basis of your testimony, do you not? Isn't it reasonable, and why, yes, even fair, that you should tell us whom we are to try in his place?"

'It was Natalie," Callie whispered. "It wasn't her fault She couldn't help herself. She isn't well. She . . ."

"Repeat your statement, Miss Dawson. Aloud. So all can hear. Whom do you claim committed the crimes?"

Callie was ghost-white, her eyes wide with pain and fright. "Natalie Berean Foxe."

The barrister laughed aloud, turning, his arms outspread to the spectators. "Natalie Foxe! Do you realize, Miss Dawson, that your testimony contradicts that of the elder Mrs. Foxe and her household servants? Natalie Foxe was confined to her bedroom all day under doctor's orders. You weren't at Foxe Hall, were you? And yet you presume to tell us that you know more about Natalie Foxe's whereabouts than those people who were with her all that day and night as well"

Callie sat straight and rigid in the seat "They're

wrong! Natalie went to the pickers' cottages. She knew about Albert and Rosalind. She had told me just the night before. And . . . and why was Albert's horse found in the field behind his house if someone didn't ride it there?"

"Most horses can find their way back to their stalls, Miss Dawson."

"Rosalind's horse didn't run back to his stall. Only Albert's was gone."

"Perhaps he had a more intelligent horse?" The barrister guffawed, then turned to look at the spectators. "Well, Miss Dawson, you've had your moment of glory, but Fm afraid we have indulged you enough." He turned back to Callie, his head lowered. "The truth is, Miss Dawson, that you want the murderer to be someone other than Peter Berean. You want that badly, and are willing to sacrifice anyone to achieve that end Even this man's sister, a dangerously ill woman who has just lost her husband and her child. A woman who at this moment lies at death's door! It is this woman you want us to believe tramped through a mile of dense woods, entered the Berean farmhouse unnoticed, stole her father's dueling pistols unseen, tramped across the yard of the Berean farm—unseen-back through the woods, intercepted her husband and his lover and coldly shot both of them, then returned to her sickbed to await the news. Of course, I might add that in addition to this diabolical piece of story telling, we must also in that case believe that this same woman wished the death of her unborn child and perhaps herself; for otherwise we would have to accept her behavior as hysterical grief, and we cannot do that if we take your story>as the truth. Can we, Miss Dawson?"

"It's true!" Callie sobbed, standing in the box, pounding on the front panel. "You have twisted it all

around. But it's true! It is a simple matter for Natalie to come from Foxe Hall. She does so all the time."

Stephen held to his seat white-knuckled, one fist pressed hard against his teeth. He couldn't bear to see her, nor could he stand hearing her voice, but he watched her and listened to her plead, cry, and beg the sneering, cynical barrister to listen. He called her every name but whore, and he implied that; and still she kept telling them the truth, stating Peter's innocence over and over, until she had no voice left and they forcibly took her from the witness box.

Peter leaned forward, his hand outstretched toward her until the guard pulled him back. The prosecution called Frank Berean, whom they didn't actually need, for the trial was already over.

Frank, his jowls quivering with rage and resentment at Callie, swore his testimony was true, then neatly placed Peter at the scene of the crime, identified the dueling pistols as his father's, and claimed that Peter, like all the members of the family, had access to them. Then, unasked, he volunteered information of the argument that had occurred the night before the murders—the night, Frank said, that Peter had nearly attacked him because he had made bold to tell Peter to watch better over the activities of his wife.

After having been warned that she would either be quiet or be expelled from the courtroom, Callie pressed her handkerchief into her mouth to silence her sobbing. Stephen had tried to get her to leave, to wait outside, but she wouldn't. She'd stay to the end. He held her close, no longer caring what they thought of him or of her. All the name calling had been done; so he held her and glared defiantly at the curious who persisted in staring and pointing and talking.

They listened to the final business of the trial being argued and decided.

There were three means considered sufficient to deter a murderer. One was hanging. To the poor it was the most satisfactory. Since the time of George III they were given eight holidays a year to attend the hanging days. If there were no hangings, there would be no frivolity and gaiety at the Tyburn Tree and at Newgate.

If the jury was not in a hanging mood—and they might not be, for hangings were more often for villainous men, or property offenders—Peter might expect to live his life chained within the frame of one of the hulks that crowded the Thames near Newgate, or he might be transported halfway around the world to live the rest of his life in servitude in one of the penal colonies.

While Stephen prayed to his tarnished God for a miracle, Frank sat two seats away from him, hoping that Peter would be hanged. Hanging had the single advantage of being relatively quick, ana there would come a day when Peter, and Stephen too, would see the virtue in that.

Peter remained like a stone in the dock as he waited for sentence to be pronounced. He didn't know what he had expected, but somehow the reality of it hadn't reached him until he had heard Callie take the stand and tell the truth. It had been one thing for Peter to feel that he was keeping his sister from suffering prison, or worse, incarceration in a madhouse where she'd most likely be chained to a wall and treated like an animal for the rest of her life. It was another to stand there and hear the truth laughed at, to know that he was being condemned because the judge and the jurors "knew" they were condemning a murderer.

Now, for the first time, Peter felt like proclaiming his innocence, and he knew it was too late. Beyond that, he knew it had always been too late. His knuck-

les were white as he clutched the front panel of the dock for support. His head buzzed with the shuffling sounds of people leaving the courtroom. He had never known such terror. No matter what a man may sacrifice for another human being, or for a cause, there lives in him the certainty that behind all the pain and fear there is the solid rock of right, truth, and God. But Peter had just seen that fortress crumble in a welter of sarcasm, name calling, and cynicism. He looked out at the judge from the void that was now inside him.

The bewigged, black-garbed judge looked over at the prisoner. His flat, unspeaking eyes prolonged the moment. Then he said, "You shall be sentenced to the Crown colony of Van Diemen's Land to serve for the term of your natural life."

Peter heard it, then froze into blankness as he had after he had found Rosalind. The guard came and forced his hands free of their grip on the dock. Stiffly he was led away.

"He'd have been better off with a hanging sentence," Frank said.

"No!" Callie cried, near hysterical. "No!" Stephen took her in his arms again, pressing her face against his chest.

"He won't go, Callie. We'll do something."

Frank sat stolidly in his seat; then he turned looking at the staring people. He tapped Stephen on the shoulder. "Let's go. We've made enough of a show for them already today. And stop feeding her that pap about doing something, unless you have a Royal pardon up your sleeve. Start facing things as they are."

"Just how are they, Frank? Perhaps if his own brother hadn't been so damned anxious to get up there and condemn him with every word out of his mouth he wouldn't be where he is now"

"111 not lie for any man."

"Lie?'

"Yes, lie. Are you so damned sure he didn't do it, Stephen? It's just the sort of hotheaded thing he would do."

"I am damned sure he didn't. And so would you be if you were any brother to Peter or to me."

Frank looked at him, but said nothing. They rode back to Kent in silence. Anna met them at the door. Jamie clung to her skirts, trying his best to stand alone.

Sobbing, Callie picked the child up, hugging him close to her.

"It went bad," Anna said.

'It went as expected," Frank snapped and headed for the study and the liquor cabinet.

"Oh, Frank! What shall we do? What can be done?" Anna asked, following him into the room.

"Damn itl" he shouted, slamming down the decanter. "Will you all shut up! There is nothing to be done. He's dead! Get it into your heads. Peter is dead. He died today when sentence was passed. We'll never see him again, and there's nothing you or I or any one save the king can do. That's the last I ever want to hear about it Now get out—all of you. I want to be alone."

Anna shut the door, leaving Frank. She put her hands out, speaking quietly. "He doesn't mean it You know he doesn't mean it. It's just his way. Let him be for a time, and you'll hear a different tune. Now—let me fix something for you to eat before I take Jamie up to bed. Mother Berean will want to be told what happened. She will need me to stay with her for a while after this."

"We're not hungry, Anna. Thanks anyway. How is Natalie?" Stephen asked.

"She is doing fairly well. The doctor says she should

recover if she doesn't get childbed fever. If Mrs. Foxe hadn't put her out of Foxe Hall, I'm sure she'd be stronger. But after the horrible things that woman said, I suppose we are all better off here. You can just never tell about people. Mrs. Foxe didn't consider Natalie's condition at alL Her own daughter-in-law. . . . the drive did her no good, but she is quiet now. Doctor Potts says we'll just have to wait and see how she improves."

Stephen nodded but said nothing. He began to walk to the front door. Anna took Jamie from Callie's arms and started up the stairs.

"Stephen, don't leave me," Callie cried and ran after him. "Stay with me, please."

He turned and waited for her. As soon as her reaching fingers touched the warmth of his outstretched hand, she felt safe. Stephen was like bedrock to her. Where he stood the ground would never shift under her.

Chapter 28

The great dirty stone walls of Newgate Prison contained a world unto itself, a world Peter had never thought he'd see let alone live in. He was put with others like him—those who had been rightfully or wrongfully convicted of offending English law—to await transportation to Van Diemen s Land.

Peter had always prided himself on his ability to work. He was an energetic man who enjoyed not only the sense of accomplishment work gave him, but also the physical invigoration that was part of it. In Newgate he learned what it was to expend pointless energy hour after hour to no purpose but humiliation and endless punishment

Along with the other prisoners he was given tasks to perform most of the day. The most favored of these was the separating of oakum, a fiber from old rope, encrusted with pitch that had to be picked out by hand. He sat in a long line of men slowly and monotonously untangling and separating the oakum from the pitch. It remained his favorite job, however, for at least there was a purpose to it It didn't prevent boredom,

but he could imagine the oakum later being used to caulk ships, perhaps the very ship that would carry him to Van Diemans Land. The separating of oakum ceased from time to time so the prisoners could pound logwood into the small pieces used to make dyes. These were the tasks that redeemed to some degree his time spent in Newgate. The other hours were those he dreaded most.

The prisoners spent time on the treadmill, a contraption of twenty-four steps like the floats of a paddle wheel fixed to a wooden cylinder sixteen feet in circumference. The wheel revolved two times each minute. There was a device by which a bell rang every thirty revolutions. At that time twelve men stepped off and twelve other men took their places. Occasionally the treadmill was used to grind corn or cayenne pepper. Sometimes it was used to pump water. Mostly it was used for punishment, not the punishment earned by insolence or bad behavior, but the punishment that was a part of being unfortunate enough to land in Newgate.

The treadmill turned endlessly, moving around and around in man-powered circles as twenty-four men mindlessly struggled to keep their footing on the narrow steps, each time lifting the equivalent of their own weight. At the end of each treadmill period, the men who were used to it learned to nap on their short rest periods. They needed it. It was an exhausting effort, a man lifting his own weight once every thirty seconds and doing so for thirty-minute periods. Peter was too new and too sore to be wise, still too incensed at the treatment of prisoners, still not able to think of himself as one of them, and still wondering what diabolical twist of fate had brought him to this.