The Sins of the Wolf (44 page)

“I see,” he said smoothly. “And the remuneration, was it good?”

“It was generous, considering the lightness of the task,” she said honestly. “But it was perhaps balanced by the fact that in order to accept it, one would have to forgo other, possibly longer, engagements. It was not undue.”

“Indeed. But you were not in grave need, were you?”

“No. I had just completed a very satisfactory case with a patient who was well enough no longer to require nursing, and I had another post to go to a short time afterwards. It was ideal to take up the time between.”

“We have only your word for that, Miss Latterly.”

“It would be simple enough to check on it, sir. My patient—”

He held up his hands and she stopped.

“Yes, I have done so.” He turned to the judge. “There is a disposition for Miss Latterly’s past patient, my lord, and another from the lady who was expecting her, and who of
course has now had to employ someone else. I suggest that they be read into the evidence.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the judge conceded. “Proceed, if you please.”

“Had you ever heard of the Farraline family, before the post?”

“No sir.”

“Did they receive you courteously?”

“Yes sir.”

Gradually, in precise detail, he led her through her day at the Farraline house, not mentioning any other members of the family except as they affected her movements. He asked about the dressing room when the lady’s maid was packing, had her describe everything she could recall, including the medicine chest, the vials she had been shown, and the exact instructions. The effort to remember kept her mind too occupied for fear to creep into her voice. It stayed submerged like a great wave, forever rolling, its great power never breaking and overwhelming her.

Then he moved on to the journey on the train. Stumblingly, filled with sadness, her eyes focused on him, ignoring the rest of the room, she told him how she and Mary had talked, how she had recalled some of the journeys of her youth, the people, the laughter, the scenes, the things she had loved. She told him how she had been reluctant to end the evening, how only Oonagh’s warning about Mary’s lateness had made her at last insist. In a low quiet voice, only just above tears, she recited opening the chest, finding one vial gone, and giving the second vial to Mary before closing the chest again and making her comfortable, and then going to sleep herself.

In the same voice, with only the barest hesitation, she told him of waking in the morning, and finding Mary dead.

At that point he stopped her.

“Are you quite sure you made no error in giving Mrs. Farraline her medicine, Miss Latterly?”

“Quite sure. I gave her the contents of one vial. She was
a very intelligent woman, Mr. Argyll, and not shortsighted or absentminded. If I had done anything amiss she would certainly have known, and refused to take it.”

“This glass you used, Miss Latterly, was it provided for you?”

“Yes sir. It was part of the fitments of the medicine chest, along with the vials.”

“I see. Designed to hold the contents of one vial, or more?”

“One vial, sir; that was its purpose.”

“Quite so. You would have had to fill it twice to administer more?”

“Yes sir.”

There was no need to add anything further. He could see from the jurors’ faces that they had taken the point.

“And the gray pearl brooch,” he continued. “Did you see it at any time prior to your finding it in your baggage when you had arrived at the home of Lady Callandra Daviot?”

“No sir.” She nearly added that Mary had mentioned it, and then just in time refrained. The thought of how close she had come to such an error sent the blood rushing burningly up her face. Dear heaven, she must look as if she were lying! “No sir. Mrs. Farraline’s baggage was in the goods van, along with my own. I had no occasion to see any of her things once I had left the dressing room at Ainslie Place. And even then, I only saw the topmost gowns as they were laid out.”

“Thank you, Miss Latterly. Please remain where you are. My learned friend will no doubt wish to question you also.”

“Indeed I will.” Gilfeather rose to his feet with alacrity. But before he could begin, the judge adjourned the court for luncheon, and it was afternoon before he could launch his attack. And attack it was. He advanced towards the witness stand with flying hair an aureole around his head. He was a large man, shambling like a newly awoken bear, but his eyes were bright and gleaming with the light of battle.

Hester faced him with her heart beating so violently her
body shook and her breath caught in her throat so she feared she might choke when she was forced to speak.

“Miss Latterly,” he began smoothly. “The defense has painted a picture of you as a virtuous, heroic and self-sacrificing woman. Because of the circumstances which bring you here, you must give me leave to doubt the total accuracy of that.” He pulled a small face. “People of the sort depicted by my learned friend do not suddenly stoop to murder, especially the murder of an old lady in their trust, and for the gain of a few pearls set in a pin. Would you agree?

“In fact,” he went on, looking at her with concentration, “I presume the burden of his argument to be that it is inconceivable that a person should change her nature so utterly, therefore you could not be guilty. Is that not so?”

“I did not prepare the defense, sir, so I cannot speak for Mr. Argyll,” she said levelly. “But I imagine you are correct.”

“Do you agree with the hypothesis, Miss Latterly?” His voice was sharp, demanding an answer.

“Yes sir, I do, although at times we may misjudge people, or fail to read them aright. If it were not so, we should never be taken by surprise.”

There was a ripple of amusement around the room. One or two men nodded in appreciation.

Rathbone held his breath in an agony of apprehension.

“A very sophisticated argument, Miss Latterly,” Gilfeather conceded.

She had seen Rathbone’s face, and knew why he had stared at her with such pleading. She must make amends.

“No sir,” she said humbly. “It is merely common sense. I think any woman would have told you the same.”

“That is as may be, ma’am,” Gilfeather said. “However, you will appreciate why I shall endeavor to disprove their high estimation of you.”

She waited in silence for him to do so.

He nodded, pulling a very slight face. “Why did you go
to the Crimea, Miss Latterly? Was it like Miss Nightingale, in answer to a call to serve God?” He invested no sarcasm or condescension in the question, his voice and his expression were innocent, but there was a waiting in the room, a readiness for disbelief.

“No sir.” She kept her voice low and her tone as gentle as lay within her power. “I intended to serve my fellow men in a way best suited to such skills as I possessed, and I believed it would be a fine and daring thing to do. I have but one life, and I had rather do something purposeful with it than at the end look back and regret all the chances I had missed, and what I might have made of myself.”

“So you are a woman to take risks?” Gilfeather said with a smile he could not hide.

“Physical ones, sir, not moral ones. I think to stay at home, safe and idle, would have been a moral risk, and one I was not prepared for.”

“You draw a fine argument, madam.”

“I am fighting for my life, sir. Would you expect anyone to do less?”

“No madam. Since you ask, I expect you to use every art and argument, every subtlety and persuasion that your mind can devise or your desperation conceive.”

She looked at him with loathing. All Rathbone’s warnings rang in her head as clearly as if he were saying them now, and her emotion overrode them all. She was going to lose anyway. She would not do it without honesty and what dignity was possible.

“You make it sound, sir, as if we were two animals battling for mastery of each other, not rational human beings seeking to find the truth and serve our best understanding of justice. Do you wish to know who killed Mrs. Farraline, Mr. Gilfeather, or do you merely wish to hang someone, and I will do?”

For a moment Gilfeather was startled. He had been fought with before, but not in these terms.

There was a gasp and a sigh of suspended breath. A journalist broke his pencil. One of the jurors choked.

“Oh God!” Rathbone said inaudibly.

The judge reached for his gavel, and mistook the distance. His fingers closed on nothing.

In the gallery Monk smiled, and his stomach knotted inside him with grief.

“Only the right person will do, Miss Latterly,” Gilfeather said angrily, his hair standing on end. “But all the evidence says that that is you. If it is not, pray tell me who is it?”

“I do not know, sir, or I should already have told you,” Hester answered him.

Argyll rose to his feet at last.

“My lord, if my learned friend has questions for Miss Latterly, he should put them to her. If not—although she seems well able to defend herself—this baiting is unseemly, and not the purpose of this court.”

The judge looked at him sourly, then turned to Gilfeather.

“Mr. Gilfeather, please come to the point, sir. What is it you wish to ask?”

Gilfeather glared first at Argyll, then at the judge. Finally he turned to Hester.

“Miss Nightingale has painted you as a ministering angel, tending the sick regardless of your own sufferings.” This time he could not entirely keep the sarcasm from his tone. “She would have us envision you passing gently between the hospital beds wiping a fevered brow, bandaging a wound; or else braving the battlefield to perform operations yourself by the light of a flickering torch.” His voice grew louder. “But in truth, madam, was it not a rough life, most of it spent with soldiers and camp followers, women of low degree and even lower morals?”

Vivid memories surged back into her mind.

“Many camp followers are soldiers’ wives, sir, and their humble birth equals that of their husbands,” she said angrily. “They work and wash for them, and care for them when they are sick. Someone must do these things. And if
the men are good enough to die for us in our bloody battles, then they are worthy of our support when we are safe in our own houses at home. And if you are suggesting that Miss Nightingale, or any of her nurses, were army whores, then—”

There was a roar of anger from the gallery. One man rose to his feet and shook his fist at Gilfeather.

The judge banged his gavel furiously and was totally ignored.

Rathbone sank his head in his hands and slid farther down in his chair.

Argyll swiveled around and said something to him, his expression incredulous and accusing.

Henry Rathbone closed his eyes and offered up a silent prayer.

Gilfeather abandoned that line of attack altogether and tried another.

“How many men have you seen die, Miss Latterly?” he shouted above the general clamor.

“Silence!” the judge said furiously. “I will have order in court! Silence! Or I shall have the gallery cleared!”

The noise subsided almost immediately. No one wished to be removed.

“How many men, Miss Latterly?” Gilfeather repeated when the uproar had finally abated.

“You must answer,” the judge warned even before she had had time to speak.

“I don’t know. I never thought to count. Each one was a person, not a number.”

“But a great many?” Gilfeather persisted.

“Yes, I am afraid so.”

“So you are accustomed to death; it does not frighten you, or appall you, as it might most people?”

“All people who care for the sick become accustomed to death, sir. But one never ceases to grieve.”

“You are argumentative, madam! You lack the gentleness
of manner and the delicacy, the humility, which is the chief ornament of your sex.”

“Perhaps,” she responded. “But you are trying to make people believe that I hold life cheaply, that I have somehow become inured to the death of others, and it is not true. I did not kill Mrs. Farraline, or anybody else. I am far more grieved by her loss than you are.”

“I do not believe you, madam. You have shown the court your mettle. You have no fear, no sense of decorum, no humility whatsoever. They are well able to judge you for a woman who will take from life what she wishes and defy anyone to prevent her. Poor Mary Farraline never had a chance once you had determined upon your course.”

Hester stared at him.

“That is all!” Gilfeather said impatiently, flicking his hand to dismiss her. “There is little edifying to the jury in listening to me ask question after question, and you standing there denying it. We may assume it as read. Do you wish to reexamine your witness, Mr Argyll?”

Argyll thanked him with more than a touch of sarcasm, and turned to Hester.

“Was Mrs. Farraline a pathetic little old lady, easily browbeaten, timid?”

“Not in the least,” Hester said with some relief. “She was quite the opposite: intelligent, articulate and very much in command. She had had a most interesting life, traveled a great deal and known some quite remarkable people and events.” She summoned the ghost of a smile. “She told me about dancing the night away at the great ball the night before the Battle of Waterloo. I found her brave, and wise, and funny … and … and I admired her.”

“Thank you, Miss Latterly. Yes, that is the opinion of her which I had formed myself. I imagine she also found you to be most worthy of her admiration. That is all I have to ask you. You may return to the dock for the time being.”

The judge adjourned the court. Newspaper reporters knocked each other over in their efforts to be first out of
the door. The gallery erupted in noise, and the wardresses on both sides of Hester closed in on her and demanded that the cage be let down into the bowels of the building so that she might safely be locked up again before riot broke loose.

Monk walked the streets. Rathbone and Argyll sat up till long after midnight. Callandra sat with Henry Rathbone, and they talked of everything else they could imagine. And all of their thoughts were of nothing but Hester and what the morrow would bring.

Argyll rose to his feet.

“I call Hector Farraline to the stand.”