Defend and Betray (48 page)

“What about Mrs. Felicia Carlyon, the boy's grandmother?” he pressed, but his voice was gentle. “Wouldn't she have to have some idea? Could you not have told her?”

“You are naive, Mr. Rathbone,” she said wearily. “If she had no idea, she would be furious, and throw me out instantly—and see to it I starved. She couldn't afford to have me find employment ever again, in case I repeated the charge to her social equals, even to friends. And if she knew herself—then she had decided not to expose it and ruin the family with the shame of it. She'd not allow me to. If she had to live with that, then she'd do everything in her power to keep what she had paid such a price to preserve.”

“I see.” Rathbone glanced at the jury, many of them craning up at the gallery, faces dark with disgust, then at Lovat-Smith, now sitting upright and silent, deep in concentration. “So you stayed in Carlyon House,” Rathbone continued, “saying nothing, but doing what you could for the child. I think we may all understand your position—and admire you for having the courage to come forward now. Thank you, Miss Buchan.”

Lovat-Smith rose to his feet, looking profoundly unhappy.

“Miss Buchan, I regret this,” he said with such sincerity it was palpable. “But I must press you a little more harshly than my learned friend has. The accusation you make is abominable. It cannot be allowed to stand without challenge. It will ruin the lives of an entire family.” He inclined his head towards the gallery, where now there was the occasional murmur of anger. “A family known and admired in this city, a family which has dedicated itself to the service of the Queen and her subjects, not only here but in the farthest parts of the Empire as well.”

Miss Buchan said nothing, but faced him, her thin body erect, hands folded. She looked fragile, and suddenly very old. Rathbone ached to be able to protect her, but he was impotent to do anything now, as he had known he would be, and she knew it too.

“Miss Buchan,” Lovat-Smith went on, still courteously. “I assume you know what sodomy is, and you do not use the term loosely?”

She blushed, but did not evade his look.

“Yes sir, I know what it is. I will describe it for you, if you force me.”

He shook his head. “No—I do not force you, Miss Buchan. How do you know this unspeakable act was committed on General Carlyon when he was a child? And I do mean knowledge, Miss Buchan, not supposition, no matter how well reasoned, in your opinion.” He looked up at her, waiting.

“I am a servant, Mr. Lovat-Smith,” she replied with dignity. “We have a peculiar position—not quite people, not quite furniture. We are often party to extraordinary scenes because we are ignored in the house, as if we had not eyes or brains. People do not mind us knowing things, seeing things they would be mortified to have their friends see.”

One of the jurors looked startled, suddenly thoughtful.

“One day I had occasion to return to the nursery unexpectedly, “ Miss Buchan resumed. “Colonel Carlyon had neglected to lock the door, and I saw him in the act with his son. He did not know I saw. I was transfixed with horror— although I should not have been. I knew there was something very seriously wrong, but I did not understand what—until then. I stood there for several seconds, but I left as soundlessly as I had come. My knowledge is very real, sir.”

“You witnessed this gross act, and yet you did nothing?” Lovat-Smith's voice rose in disbelief. “I find that hard to credit, Miss Buchan. Was not your first duty clearly towards your charge, the child, Thaddeus Carlyon?”

She did not flinch.

“I have already told you, there was nothing I could do.”

“Not tell his mother?” He waved an arm up towards the gallery where Felicia sat like stone. “Would she not have been horrified? Would she not have protected her child? You seem, by implication, to be expecting us to believe that Alexandra Carlyon,” he indicated her with another expansive gesture, “a generation later, was so violently distressed by the same fact that she murdered her husband rather than allow it to continue! And yet you say that Mrs. Felicia Carlyon would have done nothing!”

Miss Buchan did not speak.

“You hesitate,” Lovat-Smith challenged, his voice rising. “Why, Miss Buchan? Are you suddenly not so certain of answers? Not so easy?”

Miss Buchan was strong. She had already risked, and no doubt lost, everything. She had no stake left, nothing else could be taken from her but her self-esteem.

“You are too facile, young man,” she said with all the ineffable authority of a good governess. “Women may be as immeasurably different from each other as men. Their loyalties and values may be different also, as may be the times and circumstances in which they live. What can a woman do, in such a position? Who will believe her, if she accused a publicly loved man of such a crime?” She did not once betray that she even knew Felicia was there in the room with them, much less that she cared what Felicia thought or felt. “People do not wish to believe it of their heroes, and both Randolph and Thaddeus Carlyon were heroes, in their own ways. Society would have crucified her as a wicked woman if they did not believe her, as a venally indiscreet one if they did. She would know that, and she chose to preserve what she had. Miss Alexandra chose to save her child, or to try to. It remains to be seen whether or not she has sacrificed herself in vain.”

Lovat-Smith opened his mouth to argue, attack her again, and then looked at the jury and decided better of it.

“You are a remarkable woman, Miss Buchan,” he said with a minute bow. “It remains to be seen whether any further facts bear out your extraordinary vision of events, but no doubt you believe you speak the truth. I have nothing further to ask you.”

Rathbone declined to reexamine. He knew better than to gild the lily.

The court rose for the luncheon adjournment in an uproar.

* * * * *

The first witness of the afternoon was Damaris Erskine. She too looked pale, with dark circles under her eyes as if she had wept herself into exhaustion but had found little sleep. All the time her eyes kept straying to Peverell. He was sitting very upright in his seat next to Felicia and Randolph in the front of the gallery, but as apart from them in spirit as if they were in different rooms. He ignored them totally and stared without movement at Damaris, his eyes puckered in concern, his lips undecided on a smile, as if he feared it might be taken for levity rather than encouragement.

Monk sat two rows behind Hester, in the body of the court behind the lawyers. He did not wish to sit beside her. His emotions were too raw from his confrontation with Her-mione. He wanted a long time alone, but circumstances made that impossible; however, there was a certain alonencss in the crowd of a courtroom, and in centering his mind and all his feelings he could on the tragedy being played out in front of him.

Rathbone began very gently, with the softly cautious voice Monk knew he adopted when he was about to deliver a mortal blow and loathed doing it, but had weighed all the facts, and the decision was irrevocable.

“Mrs. Erskine, you were present at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Furnival on the night your brother was killed, and you have already told us of the order of events as you recall them.”

“Yes,” she said almost inaudibly.

“But I think you have omitted what most undoubtedly was for you the most devastating part of the evening, that is until Dr. Hargrave said that your brother had not died by accident, but been murdered.”

Lovat-Smith leaned forward, frowning, but he did not interrupt.

“Several people have testified,” Rathbone went on, “that when you came down the stairs from seeing young Valentine Furnival, you were in a state of distress bordering on hysteria. Would you please tell us what happened up there to cause this change in you?”

Damaris studiously avoided looking towards Felicia and Randolph, nor did she look at Alexandra, sitting pale-faced and rigid in the dock. She took one or two moments to steel herself, and Rathbone waited without prompting her.

“I recognized—Valentine ...” she said at last, her voice husky.

“Recognized him?” Rathbone repeated the word. “What a curious expression, Mrs. Erskine. Was there ever any doubt in your mind as to who he was? I accept that you did not see him often, indeed had not seen him for some years while he was away at boarding school, since you infrequently visited the house. But surely there was only one boy present?”

She swallowed convulsively and shot him a look of pleading so profound there was a murmur of anger around the room and Felicia jerked forward, then sat up again as Randolph's hand closed over her arm.

Almost imperceptibly Peverell nodded.

Damaris raised her chin.

“He is not the Furnivals' natural child: he is adopted. Before my marriage fourteen years ago, I had a child. Now that he is—is of nearly adult height—a young man, not a boy, he. . .” For a moment more she had to fight to keep control.

Opposite her in the gallery, Chaiies Hargrave leaned forward a little, his face tense, sandy brows drawn down. Beside him, Sarah Hargrave looked puzzled and a flicker of anxiety touched her face.

“He resembles his father,” Damaris said huskily. “So much, I knew he was my son. You see, at the time the only person I could trust to help me was my brother, Thaddeus. He took me away from London, and he saw to the child's being adopted. Suddenly, when I saw Valentine, it all made sense. I knew what Thaddeus had done with my child.”

“Were you angry with your brother, Mrs. Erskine? Did you resent it that he had given your son to the Furnivals to raise?”

“No! No—not at all. They had . . .”She shook her head, the tears running down her cheeks, and her voice cracking at last.

The judge leaned forward earnestly, his face full of concern.

Lovat-Smith rose, all the brilliant confidence drained away from him, only horror left.

“I hope my learned friend is not going to try to cloud the issue and cause this poor woman quite pointless distress?” He turned from Rathbone to Damaris. “The physical facts of the case place it beyond question that only Alexandra Carlyon had the opportunity to murder the general. Whatever Mrs. Erskine's motive, if indeed there were any, she did not commit the act.” He turned around so that half his appeal was to the crowd. “Surely this exposure of a private grief is cruelly unnecessary?”

“I would not do it if it were,” Rathbone said between his teeth, his eyes blazing. He swiveled around on his heel, presenting his back to Lovat-Smith. “Mrs. Erskine, you have just said you did not resent your brother's having given your son to the Furnivals. And yet when you came downstairs you were in a state of distress almost beyond your ability to control, and quite suddenly you exhibited a rage towards Maxim Furnival which was close to murderous in nature! You seem to be contradicting yourself!”

“I—I—saw ...” Damaris closed her eyes so tightly it screwed up her face.

Peverell half rose in his seat.

Edith held both her hands to her face, knuckles clenched.

Alexandra was frozen.

Monk glanced up at the gallery and saw Maxim Furnival sitting rigid, his dark face puckered in puzzlement and ever-increasing apprehension. Beside him, Louisa was quite plainly furious.

Monk looked along at Hester, and saw the intense concentration in her as she turned sideways, her eyes fixed on Damaris and her expression one of such wrenching pity that it jolted him at once with its familiarity and its strangeness. He tried to picture Hermione, and found the memory blurred. He found it hard to remember her eyes at all, and when he did, they were bland and bright, without capability of pain.

Rathbone moved a step closer to Damaris.

“I regret this profoundly, Mrs. Erskine, but too much depends upon it for me to allow any compassion for you to override my duty to Mrs. Carlyon—and to Cassian.”

Damaris raised her head. “I understand. I knew that my brother Thaddeus was abused as a child. Like Buckie—Miss Buchan—I saw it once, by accident. I never forgot the look in his eyes, the way he behaved. I saw the same look in Valentine's face, and I knew he was abused too. I supposed at that time that it was his father—his adopted father—Maxim Furnival, who was doing it.”

There was a gasp around the room and a rustle like leaves in the wind.

“Oh God! No!” Maxim shot to his feet, his face shock-white, his voice half strangled in his throat.

Louisa sat like stone.

Maxim swung around, staring at her, but she continued to look as if she had been transfixed.

“You have my utmost sympathy, Mr. Furnival,” the judge said over the rising level of horror and anger from the crowd. “But you must refrain from interruption, nevertheless. But I would suggest to you that you consider obtaining legal counsel to deal with whatever may occur here. Now please sit down, or I shall be obliged to have the bailiff remove you.”

Slowly, looking bemused and beaten, Maxim sat down again, turning helplessly to Louisa, who still sat immobile, as though too horrified to respond.

Up in the gallery Charles Hargrave grasped the rail as if he would break it with his hands.

Rathbone returned his attention to Damaris.

“You spoke in the past tense, Mrs. Erskine. You thought at the time it was Maxim Furnival. Has something happened to change your view?”

“Yes.” A faint echo of the old flair returned, and the ghost of a smile touched her mouth and vanished. “My sister-in-law murdered my brother. And I believe it was because she discovered that he was abusing her son—and I believe mine also—although I have no reason to think she knew of that.”

Lovat-Smith looked up at Alexandra, then rose to his feet as though reluctantly.

“That is a conclusion of the witness, my lord, and not a fact.”

“That is true, Mr. Rathbone,” the judge said gravely. “The jury will ignore that last statement of Mrs. Erskine's. It was her belief, and no more. She may conceivably have been mistaken; you cannot assume it is fact. And Mr. Rathbone, you deliberately led your witness into making that observation. You know better.”

“I apologize, my lord.”

“Proceed, Mr. Rathbone, and keep it relevant.”