Never Call It Love (10 page)

For
her the trial had been a series of disjointed, nightmarish vignettes. The
coroner on the stand, describing in technical but still far too vivid detail
the state of Anne Reardon's violated, broken body. Patrick Stanford, his face a
dark, controlled mask, telling of how he had brought his ward to London to be
married. Sir John Fielding, a striking figure on the stand with his massive
head and tightly closed eyelids, telling of Christopher's arrest.

After
that there had been a don from Christopher's college at Oxford, recounting the
episode that had caused Christopher to be sent down, and stating that
"young Montlow was always a troublesome young man, a
troublesome
young man indeed." And there had been that housemaid from Kingman Street,
describing the dark figures on the sidewalk, the dislodged hat, and then, later
on, the white body hurtling down through the night.

Elizabeth
had been heartened by the way Sir Archibald had deflated the prosecution
witnesses. He had forced the Oxford don to admit that Christopher's college
pranks had never been actually criminal in nature. He had made him concede, also,
that he had dealt with many "troublesome" students in his long
career, some of whom had gone on to become members of Parliament, respected
churchmen, and even ministers of the crown.

As
for the housemaid, one Dorcas Small, his questions soon reduced her to
frightened incoherence. How was it that by night, and from a window four floors
above the street, she could identify an individual just by his hair? Was she
sure it had even been hair—"Remember you are under oath, my
girl!"—and not a wig? At last, apparently having learned that her eyesight
was not of the keenest, he had asked her to describe the clothing and features
of a woman spectator at the rear of the room. "Come, come, Dorcas, if you
could recognize that man in the street at night, surely in this well-lighted
place, and at no greater distance, you can see and describe that lady."

"She's
wearing something blue, sir, but whether it's a coat or a cloak, I can't
say," Dorcas finally answered, and then burst into tears. With a lordly
wave, Sir Archibald dismissed her from the stand.

But
if the prosecution witnesses had seemed to Elizabeth inept, those for the
defense had seemed even more so. She felt sure that Mary Hawkins' testimony had
been sheer disaster. Graying head topped by a black bonnet, she had spoken in
wooden tones, sometimes breaking off abruptly, and then repeating her last
phrase before she was able to go on. The effect was that of a witness
thoroughly
rehearsed, as indeed she had been, by Sir Archibald.

But
at least the lawyer for the crown, a little man whose wizened face framed by
his long wig reminded Elizabeth of a monkey, had been unable to budge Mary
Hawkins from her memorized answers. The best he could do was to establish that
she had spent her entire adult life with the Montlows, and otherwise was
completely alone in the world, with no living relatives. "In that
case," he said, "would it be fair to assume that you are devoted to
the Montlows?"

"That
I am, sir," she blurted. "It's as if they was my own flesh and
blood."

Before
dismissing her, he turned to the jury with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile,
as if to say, "Do you see? This woman would testify to anything to help
her employers."

As
for Mrs. Montlow, she had succeeded in irritating everyone—the fat judge in his
scarlet robe, Sir Archibald, the wizened lawyer for the crown, and, Elizabeth
feared, even the jury. She had not been content to testify as to the essential
point, Christopher's presence in her home that night the girl died. Instead she
had interwoven her answers to Sir Archibald's questions with garrulous praises
of her son. "He never gave me a moment's worry from the time he was in his
cradle," and, "Everyone said they had never seen such a sensitive,
tenderhearted boy."

Those
irrelevancies had given the crown attorney a chance to cast doubt upon her
truthfulness. "Are you asking this court to believe, Mrs. Montlow, that
your son never misbehaved? There was not even the usual childish
naughtiness?"

"Never!"

"Then
how is it that he became so naughty after he went to Oxford?"

She
glared at him for a long moment and then said feebly, "Any boy is apt to
fall in with bad companions."

Elizabeth
was to be the last witness called by Christopher's attorney. Now, while on the
bench in front of her Sir Archibald and his clerk conferred in low tones,
Elizabeth realized with frightened dismay that her brother's life might depend
upon her own behavior during the next few minutes. She sat with her eyes
fastened on her clasped hands. In her anxiety, she could not even look at Christopher,
pale from his months in prison, there in the dock.

And
she knew she must not, lest she go to pieces completely, look at Patrick
Stanford, there on a bench across the aisle and a few rows back. For the last
few days she had avoided even glancing at him, because she knew she might see
him looking at Christopher, looking with a deadly hatred in his dark eyes. No
one seeing that look could doubt that Sir Patrick Stanford longed to watch her
brother strangling at the end of a rope.

And
if Christopher escaped the rope? That look on Sir Patrick's face seemed to say
plainly that he would not escape some other form of death. It was to thwart
that cold resolve in the Irishman's face that, several days ago, Elizabeth had
made certain arrangements...

Sir
Archibald was standing up, was saying something. It took Elizabeth several
seconds to realize that the time had come for her to testify. Trying to look
calm despite her pounding heartbeats, she moved to the stand. She threw one
glance at her brother's pale, anxious face. Then her eyes sought Donald. He had
stayed in London ever since the trial began, occupying rented rooms next door
to the house owned by Sara Finchley, Elizabeth's aunt. Each day, he had
escorted Elizabeth and Mrs. Montlow to and from Old Bailey. Now, seated halfway
back in the courtroom, he gave her an encouraging smile.

With
deft questions, Sir Archibald led her through the account that she herself had
given him as soon as he had
agreed to defend Christopher. She told of her
brother's arrival at the Hedges near teatime that Wednesday afternoon, his
confession that he had been sent down, the supper of roast chicken he had
shared with her and their mother. With growing confidence, she felt that she
was telling the necessary lies very well, in a voice that sounded calm and
convincing.

And
then she saw that Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons, gowned and bonneted in demure gray,
sat among the spectators.

Sir
Archibald asked, "And after supper?"

"My
brother was tired, and so he soon went upstairs to his room."

"Did
you see him again that night?"

"Yes,
I feared he might be coming down with a chill, and so I took a posset up to his
room."

Again
she looked at Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons—and stiffened with shock. Inwardly, the
woman was convulsed with merriment. Laughter was plain in the brown eyes
beneath the blond ringlets, and in the twitching lips.

Why
was she laughing, as if in contemplation of some sort of fool? The woman had
seemed well-disposed at their first meeting, even friendly in a tentative sort
of way.

And
then, like a blow, the possible explanation struck Elizabeth. Perhaps the woman
had
made a fool of her. Perhaps Christopher had not been with Mrs.
Frazier-Fitzsimmons that Wednesday evening. And if that were the case, then
almost certainly she herself had been telling these lies, not in defense of an
innocent man, but of...

She
tore her gaze from the woman's face, only to find herself looking at Patrick
Stanford. He looked back at her with scorn and fury. "Liar," that
dark gaze said. "Liar and perjurer."

Unable
to look away from him, she began to tremble. Suddenly it seemed to her that
everyone in the courtroom must realize that she had been lying. She knew
that Sir
Archibald was speaking to her, but somehow, perhaps because of her heart's
pounding, she could not distinguish the words.

At
last she was able to look away from that accusing dark face. "I am sorry.
Will you please repeat your question, Sir Archibald? I did not quite
hear."

His
tone was soothing. "Of course. And don't be sorry. We all realize what an ordeal
this trial has been for a sheltered, delicately bred young woman. What I asked
you was the hour at which you took the posset up to your brother's room."

The
lawyer's little speech had given her time to regain self-control. "It was
just before ten. I heard the clock strike as I carried the empty glass down the
stairs."

"And
so at no time on the date in question, from three in the afternoon until ten
o'clock at night, was your brother out of your sight long enough to go to your
neighboring village and back, let alone to London.

"I
have no further questions," he added, and made a courteous little bow to
the lawyer for the crown.

With
an apprehension she tried to hide. Elizabeth watched the wizened man approach.
He looked at her sourly for a moment, and then up at the scarlet-robed justice.
"I have no questions for this witness, your Lordship. The crown rests its
case."

Sir
Archibald shot to his feet and said jubilantly, "The defense also
rests."

She
became aware that the jury had risen and was filing out, and that his Lordship,
banging a gavel, had dismissed the court. Dazedly she realized that the trial
was over. Now there was nothing to do but to wait for the verdict.

Sir
Archibald, extending a plump hand to take her cold, trembling one, helped her
down from the stand. She said, beneath the babble of voices around them,
"I did very badly."

"You
did splendidly."

"Splendidly!
Why, when I saw that... that girl's guardian staring at me, I completely lost
control."

"That
is what was so splendid. I know he was glaring at you. I turned and saw him.
The jury must have seen it, too. Those jurymen are all good Londoners, my dear,
brewers and wool merchants and clothmakers and such. They hate the landed
gentry, and they hate the Irish, and Sir Patrick is both. When he looked at you
in that murderous fashion, and you began to tremble, you became beauty in
distress,
English
beauty in distress."

"I
pray you are right." She paused and then asked, "Why didn't the
lawyer for the crown question me?"

"Because
he had seen that he had lost the case. He also knows London juries."

By
this time Elizabeth was quite in command of herself. Why had she leaped to the
conclusion that Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons had deceived her? There was a simpler
explanation for the woman's amusement. Perhaps, recalling her young bedmate of
that Wednesday night, she had been convulsed by Elizabeth's account of him as a
penitent schoolboy lying chastely in his own bed and accepting a posset from
his sister's hand.

Sir
Archibald said, "Here come your mother and Mr. Weymouth. Now, go to your
aunt's house, and don't worry. As soon as the jury returns, I will send a boy
to summon you back to court. And I'll wager that won't be more than half an
hour from now."

Sir
Archibald's guess was uncannily near the mark. The Montlow women and Donald had
been in Aunt Sara Finchley's parlor less than forty minutes, discussing the
cruel weather, and British reversals in the war with the rebellious American
colonies, and anything and everything except the trial, when a boy sent by Sir
Archibald knocked on the door. The jury, he told them, had reached its verdict.

Afraid
to trust her rheumatic legs to the icy sidewalks, Aunt Sara remained behind.
Mary Hawkins, though, chose to accompany her employers and Donald the few hundred
yards through the blustery cold to Old Bailey. Just before they reached the
courtroom, Elizabeth managed to whisper to Donald, "Is the
carriage...?"

"It's
waiting, there in the alley. I slipped out long enough this morning to make
sure."

The
courtroom was even more crowded than it had been for that morning's session.
Space, however, had been reserved for the prisoner's family on the bench
directly behind Sir Archibald. As she took her place, Elizabeth sent a swift
glance toward a door at the right of the jury box, the door through which
Christopher had been led in and out of the courtroom each day. Yes, the bailiff
to whom she had given a gold sovereign yesterday, a tall man with a saturnine
face, was waiting beside the door.

The
jury filed in. The foreman, a stout man with the flushed face of someone overly
fond of port wine, looked
at the prisoner, and then, with a smile, at Elizabeth. Overwhelming relief
swelled her heart. She did not need to hear the words "We find the
prisoner not guilty" to know that they had won.

The
verdict was greeted by a few cheers and a few angry murmurs, both gaveled into
silence. Even before Christopher had stepped down from the dock, Elizabeth was
on her feet. Trailed by her mother and Hawkins and Donald, she moved toward her
brother, who was already the center of a small crowd.