The Sins of the Wolf (43 page)

“Indeed, prior to your noble and pioneering work,” Argyll continued, “it was the sort of task to occupy those women who were not able to find a respectable domestic position. For example, if I may ask you, why did you yourself undertake such an arduous and dangerous task? Were your family agreeable to your doing such a work?”

“Mr. Argyll!” the judge said angrily, jerking forward in sudden movement.

“No sir, they were not,” Florence replied, ignoring the
judge. “They put up considerable argument against it, and it took me many years, and a great deal of pleading, before they succumbed. As to the reason why I persisted against their will, there is a higher duty even than that to family, and a higher obedience.” Her face was lit with a simple, blinding conviction, and even the judge’s protest died unspoken. Every man and woman in the room, juror or spectator, was; listening to her. Had the judge spoken he would have been ignored, and that he would not invite. It would have been intolerable.

Argyll waited expectantly, black eyes wide.

“I believe that is what God has called me to do, sir,” she answered him. “And I shall devote my life to that end.” She gave a little shiver of impatience. “Indeed, I wrong myself and am cowardly to express it so. I know He has called me. I believe that others have the same desire to serve their fellow men, and the conviction that nursing the sick is the finest way in which they can do it. There can be no higher calling, and none more urgently needed at such times than the relief of suffering, and where possible the preservation of life and restoration to health of men who have fought for their country. Can you doubt it, sir?”

“No, madam, I cannot, and I do not,” Argyll said candidly.

Gilfeather stirred in his seat as if to make some interruption, but knew his time was not yet, and restrained himself with some difficulty.

With a supreme effort of self-control, Rathbone also remained motionless.

“And Hester Latterly served in the hospital at Scutari?” Argyll asked, his face expressionless except for a mild interest. Whatever emotions of triumph or expectancy boiled inside him, there was nothing in his features to betray them.

“Yes, she was one of the best nurses there.”

“In what way, ma’am?”

“Dedication—and skill. There were too few surgeons and too many patients.” Her voice was calm and controlled, but
there was an intensity and feeling in it which commanded the attention of everyone in the room. “Often a nurse had to act as she thought he would have done, or a man’s life would be lost which she could have saved.”

There was a gasp somewhere in the gallery, a hissing of anger at such suggested arrogance.

The judge’s face registered his acknowledgment of it.

Florence took no more notice than if it had been a fly on the windowpane.

“Hester had both the courage and the knowledge to do so,” she went on. “There are many men alive in England now who would be buried in the Crimea were she a lesser woman.”

Argyll waited several seconds to allow the full impact of what she had said to sink into the minds of the jury. Their faces were filled with battling emotions: awe of Florence, which was almost a religious reverence; and memories of their own of war and the losses of war, brothers and sons buried in the carnage, or perhaps saved by the efforts of such women. Mixed with those feelings were outrage at the challenge to centuries of masculine leadership, previously unquestioned rights. The confusion was painful, the doubts and the fears profound.

“Thank you,” Argyll acknowledged at last. “And did you also find her personally honest, both truthful and careful of the rights and possessions of others?”

“Absolutely and without exception,” Florence replied.

Argyll hesitated.

The tension was unbearable. Rathbone sat hardly daring to draw breath. The decision Argyll made now might be the difference between winning and losing, between life and the hangman’s noose. Only he and Argyll knew the weight of what hung in that moment. If he succeeded in maneuvering Gilfeather into attacking Florence she would retaliate with a passion and emotional force that would sweep away all the quibbles and arguments he could raise. On the other
hand, if he had the wisdom to retreat, and dismiss her, her value to Hester would be lost.

Was it enough? Had he goaded Gilfeather sufficiently, masked the hook by the bait?

Very slowly Argyll smiled at Florence Nightingale, thanking her again for having come, and resumed his seat.

Rathbone sat with his heart pounding. The room seemed to sway around him. Seconds stretched into eternity.

With a scrape of chair legs, Gilfeather stood up.

“You are one of the most deeply loved and highly respected women in the nation, madam, and I do not wish to seem to detract from that in any way,” he said carefully. “However, the cause of justice is higher than any individual, and there are questions I must ask you.”

“Of course,” she agreed, facing him squarely.

“Miss Nightingale, you say that Miss Latterly is an excellent nurse—indeed, that she has displayed skills equal to those of many field surgeons when faced with cases of emergency?”

“That is true.”

“And that she is diligent, honest and brave?”

“She is.” There was no hesitation in her voice, no shred of uncertainty.

He smiled. “Then, madam, how is it that she is obliged to earn her living, not in some senior position in a hospital, using these remarkable qualities, but traveling on an overnight train from Edinburgh to London, administering a simple dose of medicine to an elderly lady whose health is no worse than that of most persons of her age? Surely that could have been done quite adequately by a perfectly ordinary lady’s maid?” There was challenge and triumph even in the angle of his body where he stood, the lift of his shoulders.

Rathbone clenched his hands, digging his nails into his palms with unbearable tension. Would she retaliate as he had hoped, as he had counted?

In front of him Argyll sat rigid, only a tiny muscle flicking at the side of his temple.

Florence’s face hardened as she looked at Gilfeather with dislike.

Please—please—Rathbone prayed in his head.

“Because she is an outspoken woman, with more courage than tact, thank God,” Florence said sharply. “She does not care for hospital life, having to obey the orders of those who are on occasion less knowledgeable than herself but are too arrogant to be told by someone they consider inferior. Perhaps it is a fault, but it is an honest one.”

The jury smiled.

Somewhere in the gallery a man cheered, and then instantly fell silent.

“And an impetuous one,” Gilfeather added, taking a step forward. “Even, perhaps, a self-indulgent one, would you not say, Miss Nightingale?”

“I would not.”

“Oh I would! Sometimes self-indulgent, and unquestionably arrogant. It is the weakness, the fault, of a woman who considers herself above others, believes her own opinions count more than those of men trained and qualified in their profession, a profession perhaps she aspires to, but for which she has no training but practice, in extraordinary circumstances—”

“Mr. Gilfeather,” she cut across him imperiously, her eyes blazing, her body quivering with the fierceness of her emotion. “You are either intending to provoke me to anger, sir, or you are more naive than a man in your position has a right to be! Have you the faintest idea of the ’extraordinary circumstances’ to which you refer so glibly? You are well dressed, sir. You look in the best of health. How often do you go without your dinner? Do you even know what it is like to be so hungry you would be glad to boil the bones of a rat?”

There were gasps around the room. A woman in the gallery slid forward in her seat. The judge winced.

“Madam—” Gilfeather protested, but she barely heard him.

“You have your sight, sir, and your limbs. Have you seen a man with his legs shot away? Do you know how quickly one must act to stop him hemorrhaging to death? Could you find the arteries in all that blood and save him? Would your nerve hold you, and your stomach?”

“Madam—” Gilfeather tried again.

“I am sure you are master of your profession,” she swept on, not leaning forward over the railing as another might have, but standing stiff and straight, head high. “But how often do you work all day and all night for days on end? Or do you return home to a nice soft bed—one that is warm enough, and in which you may lie safely until the morning? Have you lain on a canvas sheet on the earth, too cold to sleep, listening to the groans of those in agony, and hearing in your memory the rattle of the dying, and knowing tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow there will always be more, and all you can do will only ease it a little, a very little!”

There was utter silence in the court.

The judge waved his hands at Gilfeather.

Gilfeather shrugged.

“And when you are ill, sir, vomiting and with a flux you cannot control, is there someone to hold a bowl for you, wash you clean, bring you a little fresh water, change your sheets? I hope you are suitably grateful, sir—because, dear God, there are so many for whom there is not, because there are too few of us willing to do it, or with the heart and the stomach for it! Yes, Hester Latterly is an extraordinary woman, molded by circumstances beyond most people to imagine. Yes, she is headstrong, at times arrogant, capable of making decisions that would quail many a heart less brave, less passionate, less moved by intolerable pity.” She barely took a breath. “And before you ask me, I can believe she would kill to save her own life, or that of a patient in her charge. I would prefer not to think she would kill out
of revenge, no matter how gross or intolerable the wrong, but I would not swear to it on oath.” Now at last she did lean forward, facing Gilfeather with a burning eye. “But I would take my oath before God, she would not poison a patient for gain of a paltry piece of jewelry and then give it back unasked. If you believe that, sir, you are a lesser judge of mankind than you have a right to be and hold the calling you do.”

Gilfeather opened his mouth, then closed it again. He was well beaten and he knew it. He had provoked a force of nature, and the storm had broken over him.

“I have no more questions,” he said grimly. “Thank you, Miss Nightingale.”

Rathbone had been staring at her.

“Go and help her,” he hissed at Argyll.

“What?”

“Assist her!” Rathbone said fiercely. “Look at her, man!”

“But, she’s …” Argyll began.

“Strong! No she’s not! Get on with it!”

The sheer fury of Rathbone’s voice impelled him to his feet. He plunged forward just as Florence reached the bottom of the steps and all but collapsed.

In the gallery people craned forward anxiously. One man rose as if to leave his place.

“Allow me, madam,” Argyll said, grasping Florence’s arm and holding her up. “I feel you have exhausted yourself on our behalf.”

“It is nothing,” she said, but she clung to him all the same, allowing him to take a remarkable amount of her weight. “Merely a little breathlessness. Perhaps I am not as well as I had imagined.”

Quite slowly he escorted her, without asking the court’s permission, as far as the doors out, every man and woman in the room watching him with bated breath, and then amid a sigh of approval and respect, he returned to his place.

“Thank you, my lord,” he said solemnly to the judge. “The defense next calls the prisoner, Miss Hester Latterly.”

“It is growing late,” the judge said sharply, his face creased with ill-suppressed rage. “The court will adjourn for today. You may call your witness tomorrow, Mr. Argyll.” And he slammed down the gavel as if he would break the shaft of it in his hand.

Hester climbed the steps of the witness-box and turned to face the court. She had slept little, and the few moments she had had were fraught with nightmares, and now that the moment had come, it seemed unreal. She could feel the railing beneath her hands, the wood of it smoothed by a thousand other clenched fingers and white knuckles; the judge with his narrow face and deep-set eyes seemed the figment of yet another nightmare. Her senses were filled with an incomprehensible roaring sound, without form or meaning. Was it people in the gallery talking to each other, or only the blood thundering through her veins, cutting her off from the sights and sounds plain to everyone else?

In spite of all the promises to herself, her eyes searched the gallery for Monk’s hard, smooth face, and she found instead Henry Rathbone. He was looking at her, and although from that distance she could not see him clearly, in her mind’s eye his clear blue eyes had never been plainer, and the gentleness and the hurt for her brought a rush of emotion beyond her control. She knew him ridiculously little. She had had just a few moments with Oliver in his house on Primrose Hill, a quiet evening supper (overcooked because they were late), the summer evening in the garden, the starlit sky above the apple trees, the scent of honeysuckle on the lawn. It was all so familiar, so sweet, the pain of it almost intolerable. She wished she had not seen him, and yet she could not tear her eyes away.

“Miss Latterly!”

Argyll’s voice jerked her back to the present and to the proceedings that had at last begun.

“Yes … sir?” This was her chance to speak for herself, the only chance she would be given between now and the
verdict. She must be right. She could not afford a mistake of any sort, not a word, a look, a gesture that could be interpreted wrongly. She might live, or die, upon such tiny things.

“Miss Latterly, why did you respond to Mr. Farraline’s advertisement for someone to accompany his mother from Edinburgh to London? It was a post of short duration, and far beneath your skill. Did it pay extraordinarily well? Or were you so greatly in need of funds that anything at all was welcome?”

“No sir, I accepted it because I thought it would be interesting, and agreeable. I had never been to Scotland before, and all I had heard of it was in its praise.” She forced a wan smile at memory. “I had nursed many men from Scottish regiments, and formed a unique respect for them.”

She felt the ripple of emotion through the room, but she was not sure if she understood it or not. There was no time to think about it now. She must concentrate on Argyll.