Jason, Veronica Page 7

  He kissed both her hands, and then her lips. "Your mother has told me all about Christopher." His gaze went over her face. "I imagine you don't want to talk about it. You look tired, my dearest"

  "I don't mind talking about it. But first I would like to know why you came back from Bath so early."

  His thin, intelligent face broke into a warm smile. "Because I couldn't wait any longer to tell you my news. Come over here."

  They sat down on a small red plush settee facing the fire. He said, "We can be married sooner than we planned. The vicar has written my uncle that he will retire in June. After that, the living will be mine."

  "Oh, Donald! I'm so glad."

  He drew close to her and kissed her, his lips far more ardent than ever in the past. Once, he had told her that for the last five years, ever since he was twenty, he had wanted to marry her. Five years was a long time for a man to wait.

  He released her. "We can be married in June, can't we? Surely by then this trouble of Christopher's will be well in the past."

  She nodded. "His case will come up in February."

  He hesitated. "Surely you won't stay at the Kingman Street house...."

  "During the trial?" She shuddered slightly. "No, I'm sure we can stay with Aunt Sara. Her house is very near Old Bailey." Sara Finchley, Mrs. Montlow's older sister, was also a widow. Although badly crippled by rheumatism, she always welcomed visits from the Montlows.

  "Good." He got to his feet. "I must go now."

  She said, dismayed, "But won't you take supper with us?"

  "I must not. I must see my parents. They may have heard by now that I arrived on the stagecoach this afternoon." He laughed. "I was so eager to see you that I walked right past my own house to get to yours."

  They moved to the parlor doorway. There he said. "You are not worried about Christopher's trial, are you?"

  "No, not really."

  "It will be all right. From now on everything will be all right for you. I feel there is no evil that I could not guard you against."

  He kissed her, more gently this time. "I will see myself out. You stay by the fire, and rest."

  She listened to his footsteps go down the hall. Then she moved to the fire and held out her hands to its warmth. There was no evil he could not guard her against, he had said. Surely that was true. As long as they both lived, his love would be like a warm, shielding cloak around her.

  Then why, even as she held her hands to the fire's warmth, did she feel cold, almost as if she stood stripped and shivering in the blast of some black tempest?

  On this, the last day of Christopher's trial, an icy February wind swept the streets outside Old Bailey, so that pedestrians hurried along with bent heads, and horses scrambled for footing on the freezing cobblestones. But here inside the courtroom, with every bench packed with excited spectators, and with oil wall lamps blazing in their brackets to augment the feeble daylight that fell through the windows, the air seemed suffocatingly warm. Or perhaps, Elizabeth reflected, as she sat on the bench directly behind tall, portly Sir Archibald, it was sheer anxiety that had brought the perspiration out on her forehead.

  For her the trial had been a series of disjointed, nightmarish vignettes. The coroner on the stand, describing in technical but still far too vivid detail the state of Anne Reardon's violated, broken body. Patrick Stanford, his face a dark, controlled mask, telling of how he had brought his ward to London to be married. Sir John Fielding, a striking figure on the stand with his massive head and tightly closed eyelids, telling of Christopher's arrest.

  After that there had been a don from Christopher's college at Oxford, recounting the episode that had caused Christopher to be sent down, and stating that "young Montlow was always a troublesome young man, a troublesome young man indeed." And there had been that housemaid from Kingman Street, describing the dark figures on the sidewalk, the dislodged hat, and then, later on, the white body hurtling down through the night.

  Elizabeth had been heartened by the way Sir Archibald had deflated the prosecution witnesses. He had forced the Oxford don to admit that Christopher's college pranks had never been actually criminal in nature. He had made him concede, also, that he had dealt with many "troublesome" students in his long career, some of whom had gone on to become members of Parliament, respected churchmen, and even ministers of the crown.

  As for the housemaid, one Dorcas Small, his questions soon reduced her to frightened incoherence. How was it that by night, and from a window four floors above the street, she could identify an individual just by his hair? Was she sure it had even been hair—"Remember you are under oath, my girl!"—and not a wig? At last, apparently having learned that her eyesight was not of the keenest, he had asked her to describe the clothing and features of a woman spectator at the rear of the room. "Come, come, Dorcas, if you could recognize that man in the street at night, surely in this well-lighted place, and at no greater distance, you can see and describe that lady."

  "She's wearing something blue, sir, but whether it's a coat or a cloak, I can't say," Dorcas finally answered, and then burst into tears. With a lordly wave, Sir Archibald dismissed her from the stand.

  But if the prosecution witnesses had seemed to Elizabeth inept, those for the defense had seemed even more so. She felt sure that Mary Hawkins' testimony had been sheer disaster. Graying head topped by a black bonnet, she had spoken in wooden tones, sometimes breaking off abruptly, and then repeating her last phrase before she was able to go on. The effect was that of a witness thoroughly rehearsed, as indeed she had been, by Sir Archibald.

  But at least the lawyer for the crown, a little man whose wizened face framed by his long wig reminded Elizabeth of a monkey, had been unable to budge Mary Hawkins from her memorized answers. The best he could do was to establish that she had spent her entire adult life with the Montlows, and otherwise was completely alone in the world, with no living relatives. "In that case," he said, "would it be fair to assume that you are devoted to the Montlows?"

  "That I am, sir," she blurted. "It's as if they was my own flesh and blood."

  Before dismissing her, he turned to the jury with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile, as if to say, "Do you see? This woman would testify to anything to help her employers."

  As for Mrs. Montlow, she had succeeded in irritating everyone—the fat judge in his scarlet robe, Sir Archibald, the wizened lawyer for the crown, and, Elizabeth feared, even the jury. She had not been content to testify as to the essential point, Christopher's presence in her home that night the girl died. Instead she had interwoven her answers to Sir Archibald's questions with garrulous praises of her son. "He never gave me a moment's worry from the time he was in his cradle," and, "Everyone said they had never seen such a sensitive, tenderhearted boy."

  Those irrelevancies had given the crown attorney a chance to cast doubt upon her truthfulness. "Are you asking this court to believe, Mrs. Montlow, that your son never misbehaved? There was not even the usual childish naughtiness?"

  "Never!"

  "Then how is it that he became so naughty after he went to Oxford?"

  She glared at him for a long moment and then said feebly, "Any boy is apt to fall in with bad companions."

  Elizabeth was to be the last witness called by Christopher's attorney. Now, while on the bench in front of her Sir Archibald and his clerk conferred in low tones, Elizabeth realized with frightened dismay that her brother's life might depend upon her own behavior during the next few minutes. She sat with her eyes fastened on her clasped hands. In her anxiety, she could not even look at Christopher, pale from his months in prison, there in the dock.

  And she knew she must not, lest she go to pieces completely, look at Patrick Stanford, there on a bench across the aisle and a few rows back. For the last few days she had avoided even glancing at him, because she knew she might see him looking at Christopher, looking with a deadly hatred in his dark eyes. No one seeing that look could doubt that Sir Patrick Stanford longed to watch her brother stranglin
g at the end of a rope.

  And if Christopher escaped the rope? That look on Sir Patrick's face seemed to say plainly that he would not escape some other form of death. It was to thwart that cold resolve in the Irishman's face that, several days ago, Elizabeth had made certain arrangements...

  Sir Archibald was standing up, was saying something. It took Elizabeth several seconds to realize that the time had come for her to testify. Trying to look calm despite her pounding heartbeats, she moved to the stand. She threw one glance at her brother's pale, anxious face. Then her eyes sought Donald. He had stayed in London ever since the trial began, occupying rented rooms next door to the house owned by Sara Finchley, Elizabeth's aunt. Each day, he had escorted Elizabeth and Mrs. Montlow to and from Old Bailey. Now, seated halfway back in the courtroom, he gave her an encouraging smile.

  With deft questions, Sir Archibald led her through the account that she herself had given him as soon as he had agreed to defend Christopher. She told of her brother's arrival at the Hedges near teatime that Wednesday afternoon, his confession that he had been sent down, the supper of roast chicken he had shared with her and their mother. With growing confidence, she felt that she was telling the necessary lies very well, in a voice that sounded calm and convincing.

  And then she saw that Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons, gowned and bonneted in demure gray, sat among the spectators.

  Sir Archibald asked, "And after supper?"

  "My brother was tired, and so he soon went upstairs to his room."

  "Did you see him again that night?"

  "Yes, I feared he might be coming down with a chill, and so I took a posset up to his room."

  Again she looked at Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons—and stiffened with shock. Inwardly, the woman was convulsed with merriment. Laughter was plain in the brown eyes beneath the blond ringlets, and in the twitching lips.

  Why was she laughing, as if in contemplation of some sort of fool? The woman had seemed well-disposed at their first meeting, even friendly in a tentative sort of way.

  And then, like a blow, the possible explanation struck Elizabeth. Perhaps the woman had made a fool of her. Perhaps Christopher had not been with Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons that Wednesday evening. And if that were the case, then almost certainly she herself had been telling these lies, not in defense of an innocent man, but of...

  She tore her gaze from the woman's face, only to find herself looking at Patrick Stanford. He looked back at her with scorn and fury. "Liar," that dark gaze said. "Liar and perjurer."

  Unable to look away from him, she began to tremble. Suddenly it seemed to her that everyone in the courtroom must realize that she had been lying. She knew that Sir Archibald was speaking to her, but somehow, perhaps because of her heart's pounding, she could not distinguish the words.

  At last she was able to look away from that accusing dark face. "I am sorry. Will you please repeat your question, Sir Archibald? I did not quite hear."

  His tone was soothing. "Of course. And don't be sorry. We all realize what an ordeal this trial has been for a sheltered, delicately bred young woman. What I asked you was the hour at which you took the posset up to your brother's room."

  The lawyer's little speech had given her time to regain self-control. "It was just before ten. I heard the clock strike as I carried the empty glass down the stairs."

  "And so at no time on the date in question, from three in the afternoon until ten o'clock at night, was your brother out of your sight long enough to go to your neighboring village and back, let alone to London.

  "I have no further questions," he added, and made a courteous little bow to the lawyer for the crown.

  With an apprehension she tried to hide. Elizabeth watched the wizened man approach. He looked at her sourly for a moment, and then up at the scarlet-robed justice. "I have no questions for this witness, your Lordship. The crown rests its case."

  Sir Archibald shot to his feet and said jubilantly, "The defense also rests."

  She became aware that the jury had risen and was filing out, and that his Lordship, banging a gavel, had dismissed the court. Dazedly she realized that the trial was over. Now there was nothing to do but to wait for the verdict.

  Sir Archibald, extending a plump hand to take her cold, trembling one, helped her down from the stand. She said, beneath the babble of voices around them, "I did very badly."

  "You did splendidly."

  "Splendidly! Why, when I saw that... that girl's guardian staring at me, I completely lost control."

  "That is what was so splendid. I know he was glaring at you. I turned and saw him. The jury must have seen it, too. Those jurymen are all good Londoners, my dear, brewers and wool merchants and clothmakers and such. They hate the landed gentry, and they hate the Irish, and Sir Patrick is both. When he looked at you in that murderous fashion, and you began to tremble, you became beauty in distress, English beauty in distress."

  "I pray you are right." She paused and then asked, "Why didn't the lawyer for the crown question me?"

  "Because he had seen that he had lost the case. He also knows London juries."

  By this time Elizabeth was quite in command of herself. Why had she leaped to the conclusion that Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons had deceived her? There was a simpler explanation for the woman's amusement. Perhaps, recalling her young bedmate of that Wednesday night, she had been convulsed by Elizabeth's account of him as a penitent schoolboy lying chastely in his own bed and accepting a posset from his sister's hand.

  Sir Archibald said, "Here come your mother and Mr. Weymouth. Now, go to your aunt's house, and don't worry. As soon as the jury returns, I will send a boy to summon you back to court. And I'll wager that won't be more than half an hour from now."

  CHAPTER 9

  Sir Archibald's guess was uncannily near the mark. The Montlow women and Donald had been in Aunt Sara Finchley's parlor less than forty minutes, discussing the cruel weather, and British reversals in the war with the rebellious American colonies, and anything and everything except the trial, when a boy sent by Sir Archibald knocked on the door. The jury, he told them, had reached its verdict.

  Afraid to trust her rheumatic legs to the icy sidewalks, Aunt Sara remained behind. Mary Hawkins, though, chose to accompany her employers and Donald the few hundred yards through the blustery cold to Old Bailey. Just before they reached the courtroom, Elizabeth managed to whisper to Donald, "Is the carriage...?"

  "It's waiting, there in the alley. I slipped out long enough this morning to make sure."

  The courtroom was even more crowded than it had been for that morning's session. Space, however, had been reserved for the prisoner's family on the bench directly behind Sir Archibald. As she took her place, Elizabeth sent a swift glance toward a door at the right of the jury box, the door through which Christopher had been led in and out of the courtroom each day. Yes, the bailiff to whom she had given a gold sovereign yesterday, a tall man with a saturnine face, was waiting beside the door.

  The jury filed in. The foreman, a stout man with the flushed face of someone overly fond of port wine, looked at the prisoner, and then, with a smile, at Elizabeth. Overwhelming relief swelled her heart. She did not need to hear the words "We find the prisoner not guilty" to know that they had won.

  The verdict was greeted by a few cheers and a few angry murmurs, both gaveled into silence. Even before Christopher had stepped down from the dock, Elizabeth was on her feet. Trailed by her mother and Hawkins and Donald, she moved toward her brother, who was already the center of a small crowd.

  She gave him time to embrace and kiss his mother, and then threw her own arms around his neck. "There is a carriage waiting in the alley," she whispered. "It will take you to Southampton." Reaching into the pocket of her cloak, she took out a small pouch of soft leather and put it in his hand. "Here is money. Take the first ship out Write to us. I will tell you when it is safe for you to come back to England."

  His blue eyes, looking down into hers, held no questions, only a vast reli
ef. He too had read the death sentence in the Irishman's face.

  The bribed bailiff had opened the door. "Go!" she whispered fiercely. Without a word Christopher turned and went through the door. The bailiff closed it, and then stood with his back to the panels.

  Mrs. Montlow said, bewildered, "Where has Christopher gone? Isn't he free to come with us?"

  "Of course he's free, Mother. It's just that there are a few formalities to be gone through." She added hurriedly, "Sir Archibald is coming toward us. We must thank him."

  As she spoke, she glanced swiftly to her left. Patrick Stanford stood halfway back in the rapidly emptying room, his grim gaze fixed on the small crowd near the prisoner's dock. Obviously he had not yet realized that Christopher was no longer a part of the crowd.

  Sir Archibald bowed an acknowledgment of Mrs. Montlow's tearful thanks. "My son will thank you too, as soon as he comes back."

  "Comes back?"

  Elizabeth said swiftly, "He went through that door there. He said there were some matters he had to attend to."

  Sir Archibald looked at the door where the bailiff stood, barring the way. When his gaze returned to Elizabeth, it held admiring comprehension. "Ah, yes. Certain matters. Perhaps a warden is here, with personal property Christopher had with him in prison."

  Again Elizabeth turned her head and looked at the tall Irishman. His gaze still searched the crowd, but there was the dawn of understanding in his face now. For an instant his cold, furious gaze swung to Elizabeth. Then he turned and strode rapidly toward the courtroom's front entrance.

  Elizabeth, drawing a sharp breath, looked at Donald. Without a word he too strode toward the entrance. Mrs. Montlow said, "Now, where is Donald—"

  "It is all right, Mother. He will join us at Aunt Sara's. So will Christopher. You will tell him we have gone on, won't you, Sir Archibald?"