The Young Clementina (7 page)

We adjourned for a hurried lunch in the court refreshment rooms. I could not eat anything, but I drank a cup of coffee and found it cleared my brain a little. Kitty nibbled a sandwich and discussed the case with Mr. Corrieston in anxious whispers. I tried to ask them some of the questions which were torturing me, but I could get no satisfaction from either of them.

“It's all lies,” Kitty said. “You know it's all lies, Char. The whole thing is made up from beginning to end.”

“Leave it to Mr. Amber,” said Mr. Corrieston smiling foxily. “Don't worry at all, Miss Dean. Mr. Amber knows exactly what he's doing, just leave it all in his hands and answer his questions clearly and distinctly.”

“But I've got to answer the other counsel too,” I said anxiously.

“It will be all right, just leave it to Mr. Amber,” replied Mr. Corrieston. “Just leave it all to him.”

We returned to the court and took our seats as before. My terror, which had been slightly dispelled by the coffee and Mr. Corrieston's assurances, returned in full force. I longed to get up and run away. If only I could run away and hide from it all, from the shame, and the disgrace, and the sordid misery—if only I could hide. The court swam before my eyes, I could scarcely breathe.

I was aroused by a voice shouting “Mrs. Cope,” and to my amazement it was my own Mrs. Cope who appeared in the witness-box; my own Mrs. Cope in her Sunday clothes, wearing a hat which had been given her by me—a red hat I had worn for years “brightened up” for the occasion with a vivid green wing.

Kitty sat up suddenly and looked at me with hard, suspicious eyes.

“What does
she
know?” she whispered.

“She knows you spent the night with me,” I replied. I remembered now that Mrs. Cope had promised to take a cup of tea to Kitty. We had discussed the matter when we met on the stairs. This fact had slipped my memory until the sight of Mrs. Cope in the witness-box had stirred my sluggish brain and brought it back. It was a good thing they had brought Mrs. Cope, I thought; she would tell them that she had seen Kitty and taken her some tea, and the mistake would be cleared up. Mr. Amber was leaning over, whispering into Mr. Corrieston's ear. He wrote hurriedly on a slip of paper and passed it to Kitty who shook her head and frowned. They seemed worried about Mrs. Cope; it was strange that they should be worried, but there were so many things I did not understand that one thing more or less made very little difference. I left them to their whisperings and frownings, and bent my attention upon Mrs. Cope—her evidence is the only part of the case which remains clearly in my mind. She took with her, into the witness-box, her own aura of personality—her sensible, foolish, honest character shone in her face for all the world to see—she faced the crowded court with equanimity; she brought with her, into that sleepy, frowsty place, a breath of air from the London streets; she dispersed the legal fog like a London breeze. It was no use talking to Mrs. Cope in legal phraseology because she did not understand it (did not pretend to understand it), and it seemed to me that everything would have been much simpler if we had all been like Mrs. Cope.

Mrs. Cope looked round the court and preened herself; she was not in the least frightened, nor dismayed. Is there another country in the world where a woman of Mrs. Cope's class and upbringing could face a judge and jury in a crowded court with confidence in their integrity and in her own rectitude? Is there another country in the world that could produce a Mrs. Cope?

I awaited Mrs. Cope's evidence with eagerness. She would clear up the whole affair and perhaps—I was very ignorant in these matters—there would be no need for my evidence at all. Surely they would not waste their time in questioning me, when they had already got a full account of Kitty's tenancy of my room from Mrs. Cope! It was not until halfway through Mrs. Cope's evidence that I began to realize where it was tending, that far from exculpating Kitty, Mrs. Cope was ruining her irretrievably.

“Mrs. Lily Cope?” inquired Garth's counsel.

“That's me,” nodded Mrs. Cope brightly.

How strange that although I had known Mrs. Cope for twelve years I had never had occasion to learn that her Christian name was Lily! Did anybody on earth look less like a lily than Mrs. Cope—so compact, she was, so red and tough and capable?

“You work for Miss Dean, I believe.”

“That's right. I been daily 'elp to Miss Dean twelve years.”

“A long time, Mrs. Cope”—in a friendly encouraging voice.

“So it is, sir. But Miss Dean and me gets on all right. I likes gentlemen as a rule, to do for, but Miss Dean's no more trouble than a gentleman.”

There was a ripple of laughter in court which quickly subsided.

“On the morning of the nineteenth of March, did you go as usual to Miss Dean's flat?”

“That's right, sir.”

“Will you tell the court what happened that morning?”

Mrs. Cope took a long breath. “Well, it was loike this. I met Miss Dean on the stairs—just on the stroke of nine it was—‘'ullo, Mrs. Cope,' she ses ter me. ‘Laite as usual,' she ses. That's just our little joke, ye see, sir.”

“You were not late?”

“No, sir. Miss Dean an' me always meets on the stairs. So then she ses ter me that 'er sister's spending the night an' I'm not to waike 'er. She ses ter me, ‘'Er pore 'ead's somethin' awful,' she ses. ‘Don't you go maikin' a noise,' she ses. ‘Pore soul,' I ses, ‘I'll maike 'er a nice cup o' tea an' taike it in.' Miss Dean thinks to 'erself a minute an' then she ses, ‘Could you stay laiter today, Mrs. Cope?' she ses. ‘Mrs. Wisdon doesn't want to be disturbed before eleven.' Well, I said I would. I 'ad another job, but it didn't matter bein' a bit laite so long as I got it done sometimes. So we settled it all right. ‘That's okay,' she ses, an' off she goes. Well I does the 'all an' the sittin' room, goin' about quiet-like, an' then I maikes a noice cup o' tea an' a few bits of toast an' takes it in ter the bedroom, an' bless my soul you could 'ave knocked me dahn wif a feather—there's nobody there.”

“The respondent had gone?”

“Wot's that?” inquired Mrs. Cope with a puzzled frown.

“Mrs. Wisdon was not in the room?”

“Nobody wasn't,” agreed Mrs. Cope.

“Would it have been possible for Mrs. Wisdon to have left the room and gone out while you were in the flat?”

“No, it wouldn't then. She'd 'ave 'ad ter step over me when I was washing the floor in the 'all.”

Another ripple of laughter.

“Then the—er—Mrs. Wisdon must have left the flat before you arrived?”

“That's right.”

“What did you do next?”

“I went an' 'ad a look at the bed an' I sees it 'adn't bin slep' in.”

There was a rustle in the court.

“The bed was—er—made?”

“No, it wasn't made neither. It 'ad bin rumpled about a bit to maike it look untidy, but the bottom sheet was smooth,
an
' the piller. I knows the way Miss Dean maikes beds—as smooth as cream, 'er beds are—An' I knows Miss Dean's linen an' I knows that bed 'adn't bin slep' in.”

Mr. Amber leaped to his feet. “My lord, my lord, I protest,” he said vehemently. “The witness's opinion is not evidence.”

They wrangled for a few moments and Mrs. Cope waited patiently while they did so. The Judge instructed the jury to make a note of the fact that it was the witness's opinion, and therefore not evidence, that the bed had not been slept in.

“What did you do next, Mrs. Cope?” inquired counsel sweetly.

“I picks up the nightie—on the floor it wos, an' all of a 'eap, crumpled up—an' the nex' thing is a pin runs straight into me 'and.”

“A pin?”

“That's right. It was Miss Dean's best nightie—cripe der sheen—she'd got it out for 'er sister ter wear. But nobody 'adn't worn that nightie, an' why? Becos nobody couldn't wear a nightie wifout takin' out the pins.”

“But why pins?” inquired counsel. “To a mere man it sounds rather strange.”

“Ter keep the pleats right,” explained Mrs. Cope. “I done up that nightie 'arf a dozen times for Miss Dean, an' don't I know the job I've 'ad ironing the pleats down the front. They're crule to iron, pleats are.”

“What did you do next?”

“Well, sir, it seemed a shaime ter waiste the tea so I 'ad it myself—I was feelin' a bit queer, yer see. I'm subject to palpitations an' I was a bit upset loike. So I 'ad the tea myself an' felt all the better. An' then I washed up and went on ter Mr. Smith's. I was about a hour laite, yer see, what wif one thing an' another.”

Garth's counsel sat down with a satisfied smile, and Mr. Amber rose to cross-examine Mrs. Cope. He did not make much of her. Her evidence was too firm to shake, and it was to her advantage that she did not understand his more subtle questions, so that the traps he laid for her unwary feet failed to catch her. When she did not understand the question, she did not answer, and the questions put in plainer language lost a great deal of their sting.

“On the morning of the nineteenth of March you met Miss Dean on her way to work.”

“That's right,” said Mrs. Cope.

“You met her at the end of France Street, didn't you?”

“No, I didn't then. I met 'er on the stairs like I sed.”

“I suggest that you did not go into the flat immediately. There was something you wanted to do. You remembered it after you had met Miss Dean and went out to get it.”

“I didn't want nothin',” replied Mrs. Cope. “An' if I 'ad wanted anythink, I'd 'ave got it on the w'y. I don't walk any further than I 'as to wif me corns stabbin' me loike knives. I went straight up ter the flat when I'd seen Miss Dean an' there I st'yed.”

“You had other flats to visit.”

“That's right. After I've done for Miss Dean I goes on ter Mr. Smith.”

“What time do you leave Miss Dean's flat?”

“About tennish,” said Mrs. Cope. “But that d'y I'd promised Miss Dean I'd st'y an' maike 'er sister a cup o' tea. You 'eard me s'y so to the other gentlemen, didn't yer?”

“I am now cross-examining you, Mrs. Cope. Kindly give me your attention.”

“Well, I am, aren't I?” inquired Mrs. Cope, not unreasonably.

“I suggest that you left Miss Dean's flat at the usual hour—about ten o'clock—and went to this Mr. Smith, returning about eleven to prepare breakfast for the respondent.”

Mrs. Cope looked at him blankly, and he was obliged to repeat his “suggestion” in plainer language.

“Well, I didn't, then,” said Mrs. Cope. “I didn't do no such thing. Mr. Smith's is at the other end of the street, an' I wosn't goin' trilin' off to the other end of France Street an' back agen—as a matter of fac', I never thought of it. Wot I did was this, if yer wants ter know, I finished at Miss Dean's an' it maide me a good hour laite, but it worked in all right, 'cos I did the sittin' room thorough, as well as the 'all wot I generally does the nex' d'y. So the nex' d'y I gives Mr. Smith the extra hour. See?”

Mr. Amber left that and passed on.

“While you were busy in the sitting room the respondent could have gone out of the bedroom into the hall—Mrs. Wisdon is the respondent,” he added anticipating Mrs. Cope's question.

“Not 'arf she couldn't,” replied Mrs. Cope. “Miss Dean's flat is cozy, but it ain't big, an' the only w'y out of the bedroom is through the sittin' room—unless she 'ad wings an' flew out of the winder.”

“Do you mean to say there is no door out of the bedroom into the hall?”

“Well yes, there is a door, so there is. But it's blocked up wif Jeremiah standin' up against it—that's Miss Dean's grandfather's clock wot she brought wif 'er from 'er old 'ome. You go an' look for yerself if yer don't believe me; nobody couldn't move that clock by themselves. It taikes up most of the 'all. I ain't big, but it taikes me all my time ter squeeze around it when I does the 'all. Besides, the door's locked an' always 'as bin ter my knowledge.”

“Regarding the bed. You informed the court that it had not been slept in—rather a rash statement wasn't it?”

“Wot's that?”

“Why did you think the bed had not been slept in?” inquired Mr. Amber impatiently. “You informed the court that the bed had been rumpled about.”

“So it 'ad,” replied Mrs. Cope firmly. “I knows wot I'm talkin' about when I talks about beds. If you'd 'ad as much to do wif beds as I've 'ad, you'd know soon enough when a bed 'ad bin slep' in.”

“A bed does not get rumpled unless it has been slept in.”

“If someone rumples it, it does. Someone 'ad wanted to maike it look like it 'ad bin slep' in, but they didn't do it right. If you wants ter maike a bed look like as if it 'ad bin slep' in, you get in, an' 'ump yerself about a bit—see?”

There was a good deal of laughter at this. How could they laugh? It disgusted me that they could laugh at such a moment. Mrs. Cope looked round, smiling at the success of her remark, and waited for the laughter to subside.

“It seems strange that you did not inform Miss Dean of this marvelous discovery,” said Mr. Amber sarcastically.

“Wot's that?”

“Why didn't you tell Miss Dean about your suspicions?”

“Oh that!” said Mrs. Cope. “It wosn't no business of mine, I sees lots of funny things in my life an' I don't say nothin'. Yer never gets into no trouble for sayin' nothin'—that's flat.”

“When did you change your mind? Was it after you had seen the resp—Mrs. Wisdon—and she had admonished you for your impudence?”