Slaves of Obsession (42 page)

“Oh … we spoke for a little, of course, then he stepped out for a few moments while I changed my clothes.”

Deverill murmured under his breath.

“And the watch?” Rathbone asked.

Suddenly there was utter silence in the room.

“I …” Her face was white.

Deverill was on the point of interrupting again.

Rathbone wondered if he should remind Merrit that she had sworn to tell the truth, but he was afraid that she would consider the truth a small price to pay not to betray Breeland.

“Miss Alberton?” the judge prompted.

“I don’t remember,” she said, looking at Rathbone.

He knew she was lying. In that moment she had recalled very clearly, but she would not say so. He changed the subject.

“Was Mr. Breeland expecting you, Miss Alberton?”

“No. No … he was very surprised to see me.” The color washed up her face. She was acutely conscious of the fact that she had gone uninvited. It seemed to Hester, seeing her discomfort, that Breeland had not welcomed her as a lover might, but rather as a young man would who had been taken very much by surprise and been obliged extremely hastily to rearrange his plans. She hoped that was not lost upon the jury.

Rathbone was standing elegantly in the open space of the court, his head a little bent, the light shining on his fair hair.

Hester glanced up at Breeland. He also looked self-conscious and uncomfortable, although it was not so easy to know for what cause.

“I see. And after you had greeted each other, you had explained your presence, and he had permitted you to change your clothes, what did you do then?” Rathbone asked.

“We discussed what we should do,” she replied. “Do I have to tell you what we said? I am not sure I can remember.”

“It is not necessary. Were you together all the time?”

“Yes. It was not so very long. At a little before midnight a messenger arrived with a note saying that my father had changed his mind and would sell Lyman the guns after all, and we should go straight to the Euston Square station with the money.”

“Who wrote this note?”

“Mr. Shearer, my father’s agent.”

“Surely it surprised you? After all, your father had been adamant, only a few hours before, that it was completely impossible for him to change his mind. It was a matter of honor,” Rathbone pointed out.

“Yes, of course I was surprised,” she agreed. “But I was too happy to question it. It meant he had seen the justice of the Union cause after all; he was on the right side. I thought perhaps … perhaps my argument meant something to him.…”

Rathbone smiled ruefully. “And so you went to the station with Mr. Breeland?”

“Yes.”

“Would you describe that journey for us, Miss Alberton?”

Step by step, in tedious detail, she obliged. They adjourned for lunch, and then resumed. By midafternoon, when she had completed her account, anyone still listening might well have felt as if they themselves had made the train journey to Liverpool, stayed in a boardinghouse and embarked upon the steamer to cross the Atlantic.

“Thank you, Miss Alberton. And just to make sure we have not misunderstood you, was Mr. Breeland out of your company at any time during the night of your father’s death?”

“No, absolutely not.”

“And did you see your father after you left home, or go anywhere near the warehouse in Tooley Street?”

“No!”

“Oh … one thing more, Miss Alberton …”

“Yes?”

“Did you actually see Shearer at the Euston Square station? I assume you do know him by sight?”

“Yes, I do. I saw him very briefly, talking to one of the guards.”

“I see. Thank you.” He turned to Deverill, inviting him to take his turn.

Deverill considered carefully, perhaps more to test Rathbone than in actual indecision. Merrit had already made it plain she would defend Breeland to the last degree, and the more she did so the more the jury respected her, whether they believed her or not. They did not think she was lying, except perhaps about leaving the watch in Breeland’s rooms, but they may well have thought her duped and used by a man unworthy of her. He would alienate them if he made that any more publicly apparent than it already was.

It was a difficult night. The tension made sleep difficult, in spite of exhaustion. Monk had been up and down the river all day, and intended to resume the day after as well, determined to find something. Hester did not ask him for an account of progress; she needed to keep hope alive, for Judith’s sake.

On Friday Rathbone called Lyman Breeland to the stand. This was the most dangerous gamble of the whole defense, but he had no choice. Not to have called Breeland would have demonstrated his fears, not only to Deverill but more important, to the jury. Deverill would have made the most of it in his summing up.

Above all Rathbone would have liked to separate Merrit from Breeland in the jurors’ minds, even in the legal charge, but that was morally impossible. He had already done too much with the watch. He had undertaken to defend Breeland, and he must do so to the very best of his ability.

Standing in the witness-box with shoulders squared and chin high, Breeland swore that he would tell the truth, and gave his name and his rank in the Union army.

Rathbone drew from him the bare facts of his journey to England and the reason for it. He did not ask him why he was prepared to go to such lengths in his cause; he knew Breeland would tell them anyway, spontaneously and with a
passion that would ring through whether they wanted to believe him or not.

“And you presented yourself to Daniel Alberton in the hope of purchasing the guns you needed?” Rathbone asked, meeting Breeland’s eyes and willing him to keep his answers brief. That they might also be respectful was beyond his hope, in spite of his efforts to convince Breeland that antagonizing everyone now might cost him his life, the balance was so fine. Breeland had replied simply that he was innocent and that should be enough.

Rathbone had dealt with martyrs before. They were exhausting, and seldom open to reason. They had a single view of the world and did not listen to what they did not wish to hear. In some ways their dedication was admirable. Perhaps it was the only way to accomplish certain goals, noble ones, but it left a trail of wreckage behind. Rathbone had no intention that Merrit Alberton should be part of Breeland’s destruction.

Breeland agreed with unexpected brevity that he had indeed gone to see Alberton in hope of purchasing guns, and when he had met with resistance and learned that the reason for it was a commitment to Philo Trace, he had done all in his power to change Alberton’s mind by convincing him of the Union’s morally superior cause.

“And during this time you made the acquaintance of Miss Merrit Alberton?”

“Yes,” Breeland agreed, a flicker of warmth at last lighting his face. “She is a person of the deepest compassion and honor. She understood the Union cause and espoused it herself immediately.”

Rathbone would have wished he had phrased it in more romantic terms, but it was better than he had foreseen. He must be careful not to lead Breeland so his emotions seemed coached.

“You found you had in common the most important values and beliefs?”

“Yes. My admiration for her was greater than I had expected to feel for any woman so young and so unacquainted with the actuality of slavery and its evils. She has an extraordinary
gift for compassion.” His face softened as he said it and for the first time there was something like a smile on his lips.

Rathbone breathed a sigh of relief. The jurors’ expressions relaxed. At last they saw the human man, the man in love, with whom they could identify, not the fanatic.

He did not look at Merrit, but he could imagine her eyes, her face.

“But in spite of all both you and Miss Alberton could do to change his mind,” he continued, “Mr. Alberton did not agree to go back on his word to Mr. Trace, and sell you the guns instead. Why did you not simply go to another supplier?”

“Because he had the finest modern guns available immediately, and in quantity. I could not afford to wait.”

“I see. And what plans did you make as a result of this, Mr. Breeland?”

Breeland sounded slightly surprised.

“None. I confess, I was very angry with his blindness. He seemed incapable of seeing that there was a far greater issue at stake than one man’s business reputation.” The hard edge had returned to his voice and he directed his attention entirely towards Rathbone. Merrit seemed to have gone from his mind. He leaned a little forward over the rail of the witness-box. “He could see nothing but the narrow view, his own word and what Philo Trace thought of him. He was a man without vision. No matter what I told him of the evils of slavery.” He waved his hand in a small dismissive gesture. “And all your gentlemen here have no idea what a cancer of the human soul it is when you have seen human beings treated with less dignity than a good man treats his cattle.” His voice rang with the fire of his anger; his face burned with it. Rathbone could easily see why Merrit had fallen in love with him. What was less easy to see was what tenderness or patience he could give her in return, what laughter or tolerance or simple joy in daily life, what gratitude for little things—above all, perhaps, what forgiveness for failing and understanding of its needs. He had no compassion for weakness.

But Rathbone was in his middle forties; Merrit was sixteen. Perhaps she had years ahead before she would come to realize the value of such things. Now Breeland was a hero, and heroes were what she wanted. She knew his vulnerabilities and loved him the more for them. She did not see his limitations.

“We have heard that you quarreled with Mr. Alberton on the night of his death, and on leaving his house you told him that you would win in the end, regardless of what he might do. What did you mean, Mr. Breeland?”

“Why, that the Union cause was just and in the end would prevail against any ignorance or self-interest,” Breeland replied clearly, as if the answer should have been obvious. “It was not a threat, simply a statement of the truth. I did not harm Mr. Alberton, as God is my judge!”

Rathbone kept his voice calm, almost matter-of-fact, as if he had barely heard Breeland’s denial or the passion in him.

“Where did you go after you left Mr. Alberton’s house?”

“Back to my rooms.”

“Alone?”

“Of course.”

“Did you make any agreement with Miss Alberton that she would follow you?”

Breeland opened his mouth to respond instinctively, then changed his mind. Perhaps Breeland remembered Rathbone’s warnings about the sympathies of the jury. “No,” he said gravely. “I had no wish to come between Miss Alberton and her family. My intentions towards her were always honorable.”

Rathbone knew that he was on dangerous ground, full of pitfalls. He wished he could have avoided asking at all, but the omission would be so glaring it would have done more harm.

“You went to your rooms. Mr. Breeland, had you, for any reason, taken back from Miss Alberton the watch you gave her as a keepsake?”

Breeland did not hesitate. “No.” His gaze was unflinching.

Rathbone had not meant to look at the jury, but in spite of
himself he did. He saw the coldness in their faces. They believed Breeland, but they did not like him for it. In some subtle way he had enlarged a gulf between himself and Merrit. Her loyalty was to him; his was to his cause. It was not what he had said which jarred; it was the manner in which he said it, and perhaps it was also what he did not say.

“Have you any idea how the watch came to be in Tooley Street?” Rathbone asked.

“None at all,” Breeland responded. “Except that it was not dropped by either Miss Alberton or myself. She arrived at my apartments at about half-past nine, and remained there with me until we both left a little before midnight, when the note came from Shearer that Mr. Alberton had changed his mind and was willing to sell the guns to the Union after all. Then we left together and went to the Euston Square station, and from there to Liverpool.” He summed up the entire story in a few sentences, leaving Rathbone less to draw from him than he had intended, but it was spontaneous and spoken with such force that perhaps it was better than a carefully guided response would have been.

“Were you surprised by the note from Shearer?” Rathbone began, then was aware of Deverill rising to his feet. “I apologize, my lord,” he said quickly. “The note that purported to come from Shearer?”

“I was amazed,” Breeland conceded.

“But you did not doubt it?”

“No. I knew the justice of my cause. I believed that Alberton had at last realized it himself, and that the issue of freedom from slavery was far greater than the business dealings, or the reputation for honor, of any one man. I admired him for it.”

There was total silence in the room. Rathbone felt as if a kind of darkness had descended over him. He drew in his breath with difficulty. Breeland had in a few moments laid bare his philosophy and shown them an indifference to the individual which was like a breath of ice, a road whose end could not be known.

Rathbone looked at the jury and saw that they did not yet
perceive the fullness of what Breeland had said, but Deverill did. Victory was in his eyes.

Rathbone heard his voice in the high-ceilinged room as if it were someone else’s, echoing strangely. He must continue, play it out to the very last word.

“Did you show the note to Miss Alberton?”

“No. I had no reason to. It was important to pack up my few belongings and leave as quickly as possible. He had allowed us very little time to get to the Euston Square station.” Breeland was quite unaware of there having been any change. Nothing was altered in him, not the set of his shoulders, his hands gripping the rail, the confidence in his voice. “I told her what it said, and she was overjoyed … naturally.”

“Yes … naturally,” Rathbone repeated. Detail by detail he took Breeland through the ride to the station, a description of the place, of the guards, of Shearer himself, of the train and all the passengers in the carriage they shared. It coincided with Merrit’s description so honestly he began for a moment to feel hope again. All the events and people were recognizable as the same she had seen, and yet with a sufficiently different perception, a different use of words, that it was clear they were not copied from each other, or rehearsed.