The Reckoning (72 page)

But in the Chelmsford household, even that news was less
shocking than the fact that the Grand Jury at Aylesbury
Assizes had returned a true bill against Harvey Sale,
Marquess of Penrith, for the murder of his wife.

‘
How did it happen?' Fitzherbert Hawker asked Rosamund
gravely. 'There's been some mismanagement here, I'm sure.’

He had come looking for her at Chelmsford House, to find
it under siege from crowds of gawpers and gossipers, and the
family gone into hiding. He found her at last at her mother's house in Upper Grosvenor Street, preparing to go down into
the country until the trial came on.

‘When is the trial to be, anyway? I must be sure not to miss it.'

‘It will probably be some time in January, when Parliament
reassembles after the Christmas recess,' Rosamund said. 'But I doubt whether you'll be able to witness it – there'll be very
little room in the spectators' gallery. Only very important
people will be given tickets.'

‘
I am very important, didn't you know? I'm not so close to
Sidmouth for nothing, you know.'

‘
You needn't sound as though the whole thing is a fair
ground show for your benefit,' Rosamund said. 'It's all very
shocking and unpleasant.'

‘
Yes, I see that it is,' he said kindly. 'You look fagged to
death, and no wonder – the whole burden must have fallen on
you, if I know anything about those around you.'

‘
You're wrong – Lord Anstey has been wonderful, and
Marcus is the greatest comfort to me.'

‘
I'm glad to hear it. Nevertheless, they don't feel it as you do, and if I speak lightly, it's not because it is a light matter,
but because you must keep up your spirits, or your health will
suffer.'

‘
I hardly know how to think about it, to say the truth. One
part of me believes that the Lords will dismiss the whole thing
with the contempt it deserves; but I still can't shake out a tiny
seed of fear that it will end in tragedy. That doesn't bear
contemplating.'

‘
Then don't!'

‘
It's so horrible and disgusting,' Rosamund added thought
fully, 'and yet I suppose there's a comic side to it, if you look
hard enough. All this fuss and parade, you know: a special
committee of lords to present an address to the Prince,
humbly requesting him to appoint a Lord High Steward for
the occasion; another committee busy ordering the fitting out of the great hall, and working out a seating plan, and making
up an invitation list for the spectators; every lord in the land
brushing his robes or ordering new ones; and the newspapers
in a perfect frenzy about the whole business – all because
Lady Barbara needs must try to bully a servant, and not even
one of her own servants at that!'

‘Is that how it happened?' Hawker asked.

Rosamund told him of Hill's visit to Chelmsford House.
‘She went away in a fury, determined to make it all public,
and took her story to the local magistrate at Stainton. It
happens that he's a strict moralist, disapproves of modern
society and the antics of the
ton,
especially in regard to other
people's wives and husbands, so he took more notice of her
than anyone else might. He interviewed some of the other
servants, and discovered that it wasn't only Hill who had
noticed things.'

‘
Yes, servants always see everything. The wonder of it is
that they don't talk more about what they do see.’

Rosamund looked tired. 'According to Polly, there wasn't
much to see in this case: they only met secretly to talk.
However, that was enough for the magistrate. He enquired in
Aylesbury, where Polly and Harvey dined together at the
Crown –'

‘Oh, depravity!'

‘
Just so. But it might have ended there – the perfect alibi,
you see – except that a pert little chambermaid happened to
let out that "Miss had come over queer" during dinner and
had been taken to a bedroom to recover, where she had fallen
asleep for several hours. During that time, Harvey, naturally
enough, left the inn.'

‘Ah!'

‘
To look at the fair, of course. Well, he could hardly have
sat by Polly's bedside all that time, could he? Anyway,
Stainton's less than ten miles from Aylesbury. He could have
been there and back in a couple of hours, and there were four
hours unaccounted for. On the basis of that, and on the
servants' evidence that Harvey and Polly had secret meetings,
and that Harvey was in love with her and not with his wife,
the jury – Methodists to a man – found a true bill, and the
whole dreadful thing is to go to trial.'

‘
Where they will surely acquit him,' Hawker said comfor
tingly. 'I said there had been some mismanagement, and so
there has been. This is no evidence at all, and it should never
have gone beyond the magistrate's hearing. This has all been
very trying for you, Lady Chelmsford, but take courage: it
can't last much longer. Lord Harvey will go free, and you will
soon be able to forget the whole sorry business.’

Rosamund didn't look comforted. 'The only good thing is
that Polly wasn't called to give evidence at the Assizes, for she
was in such a state of terror, the Lord knows what she might
have said.'

‘They were lovers, then?’

Rosamund met his eyes. 'Once, I believe – after which she
told him she couldn't do such a thing again –'

‘
Thereby driving the poor man to desperation. Dear me!’

‘
It isn't a matter for levity.’

No, no, of course not. I was merely anticipating what the
prosecution might deduce. Well, Lady Chelmsford, the
burden must not fall on you again. Miss Haworth must be
carefully schooled before the trial, where she is bound to be called, as to what she must and must not say. Shepherd will
appear for the Crown, of course – Sir Samuel Shepherd, the
Attorney-General – which is a pity, for we could have done
with him on our side. We must think who will be the best man
to appear for the Defence. Denman is excellent, but perhaps
he is not your man, after the Pentrich trials. There's Losh –
Parke – Garvie – no, they won't do. Wait now, I have it – Sir
Rigby Fielding is the one. You must have Fielding.'

‘Is he good?'

‘
Very good, a most persuasive advocate. Would you like me
to speak to him for you? We are acquainted.'

‘I should be very grateful. You are kind.' She looked at him curiously. 'How do you come to know all these men of law?'

‘
Through the Pentrich trials, of course. It has all been the
greatest fun imaginable! I'll tell you about it one day. Well
now, I shall speak to Fielding for you, and you must not worry any more. You're going down to Wolvercote?'

‘
Yes, tomorrow. Lady Barbara and Barbarina left this
morning, but I'm waiting for Marcus.'

‘
Very wise. You'll be able to keep yourselves private there,
at the heart of your ancestral estate.'

‘
That's why we moved here from Chelmsford House, but it
won't be long before the crowds find us again. We'll have
Christmas at Wolvercote, and I'll try to get Polly out hunting,
to take her mind off things. She really is in a pitiable state,
poor creature, and no wonder.'

‘
None indeed,' Hawker agreed; but inwardly his thoughts
were very much more in line with Helena Greyshott's on that
subject. Rosamund, he felt, would never have got herself into
such a situation. He was sure that active, decisive people
caused far less trouble in the world than those who passively
let troubles accumulate around them.

*

The trial in the House of Lords opened on the 20th of
January, 1818: a day of pale, wintry sunshine, encouraging
spectators to gather about the precincts of the Palace of West
minster in such numbers that a whole regiment of Hussars
was called in to keep the crowds in check.

The sunshine filtered into the dark, wood-panelled hall
through the high narrow windows, illuminating the medi
aeval splendour of this most ancient of courts. At the stroke of
eleven a fanfare sounded, and two by two, in their order,
beginning with the youngest baron, the peers of the realm
filed in. Robed in their crimson and ermine, attended by the Garter King-of-Arms and his heralds, they took their places
on the benches down the sides of the chamber.

The gallery was packed with those influential enough to have acquired tickets, while the seats below the Bar of the
House reserved for peeresses shewed not a single gap. Here
Rosamund had her place, and knew herself to be an object of
close scrutiny, in anticipation of which she had dressed herself
in a style both sober and dashing: a smoky-blue pelisse with
smart Hussar frogging and a sable collar, and a hat of the
same shade, decorated with three curving black cocks'
feathers and a cluster of jet beads like a bunch of luscious
black grapes. From time to time Marcus looked up from his
place amongst the earls and smiled at her, meaning to reas
sure her, but in reality reassuring himself that she was the
bravest as well as the most beautiful of women.

Rosamund thought he looked very well in his robe and
coronet. Her greatest trial was that since the peeresses' seats were for the daughters as well as the wives of peers, she was
obliged to sit next to her mother-in-law, who was the
daughter of the Duke of Watford, and who had declared that
she would not dream of allowing Rosamund to face the ordeal
unsupported. On Rosamund's other side, however, was Lady
Tonbridge, who was a friend of her mother's and kindness
itself, and beyond her the dashing Lady Greyshott, whom
Rosamund had always admired for her flouting of convention.
By turning her head that way, she managed to be comforted
rather than undermined during the long wait before the
Sergeant-at-Arms called for silence.

Now the peers were all seated, and the proceedings began
at last, with the establishing of the court's authority. The
Clerk of the Crown in Chancery knelt before the throne and
presented the Commission under the Great Seal to the Lord
High Steward, appointed
pro hac vice,
who was in fact Lord
Eldon, the Lord Chancellor himself. The Commission was
read out, and then the Garter King-of-Arms and the
Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod knelt before the throne
and handed the Lord High Steward his white staff of office —
a staff which would be broken in half at the end of the proceedings to signify that its authority did not extend
beyond this one occasion.