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The chamber was large, high ceilinged, paneled in wood and so crowded with people they seemed to press in on her from every side. She could feel a heat from their bodies as they jostled and craned to see her come in, and there was a rustle and hiss of breath and a shuffle of feet as people fought to maintain balance. In the press benches pencils flew, scratching notes on paper, making outlines of faces and hats.
She stared straight ahead and walked up the cleared way to the witness box, angry that her legs were trembling. She stumbled on the step, and the bailiff put out his hand to steady her. She looked around for Oliver Rathbone, and saw him immediately, but with his white lawyer’s wig on he looked different, very remote. He regarded her with the distant politeness he would a stranger, and it was surprisingly chilling.
She could hardly feel worse. There was nothing to be lost by reminding herself why she was here. She allowed her eyes to meet Menard Grey’s in the dock. He was pale, all the fresh color gone from his skin. He looked white, tired and very frightened. It was enough to give her all the courage she needed. What was her brief, rather childish moment of loneliness in comparison?
She was passed the Bible and swore to her name and that she would tell the truth, her voice firm and positive.
Rathbone came towards her a couple of steps and began quietly.
“Miss Latterly, I believe you were one of the several wellborn young women who answered the call of Miss Florence Nightingale, and left your home and family and sailed to the Crimea to nurse our soldiers out there, in the conflict?”
The judge, a very elderly man with a broad, fragile tempered face, leaned forward.
“I am sure Miss Latterly is an admirable young lady, Mr. Rathbone, but is her nursing experience of any relevance to this case? The accused did not serve in the Crimea, nor did the crime occur over there.”
“Miss Latterly knew the victim in the hospital in Scutari, my lord. The roots of the crime begin there, and on the battlefields of Balaclava and Sebastopol.”
“Do they indeed? I had rather thought from the prosecution that they began in the nursery at Shelburne Hall. Still—continue, please.” He leaned back again in his high seat and stared gloomily at Rathbone.
“Miss Latterly,” Rathbone prompted briskly.
Carefully, measuring each word to begin with, then gradually gathering confidence as the emotion of memory overtook her, she told the court about the hospital in which she had served, and the men she had come to know slightly, but as well as their injuries made possible. And as she spoke she became aware of a cessation of the jostling among the crowd. More faces were quickened in interest; even Menard Grey had raised his head and was staring at her.
Rathbone came out from behind his table and paced back and forth across the floor, not waving his arms or moving quickly to distract attention from her, but rather prowling, keeping the jury from becoming too involved in the story and forgetting it all had to do with a crime here in London, and a man on trial for his life.
He had been through her receipt of her brother’s heartbroken letter recounting her parents’ death, and her return home to the shame and the despair, and the financial restriction. He elicited the details without ever allowing her to repeat herself or sound self-pitying. She followed his direction with more and more appreciation for the skill with which he was building a picture of mounting and inevitable tragedy. Already the faces of the men in the jury were becoming strained with pity, and she knew how their anger would explode when the last piece was fitted into the picture and they understood the truth.
She did not dare to look at Fabia Grey in the front row, still dressed in black, or at her son Lovel and his wife, Rosamond, beside her. Each time her eyes roamed unintentionally towards them she averted them sharply, and looked either at Rathbone himself or at any anonymous face in the crowd beyond him.
In answer to his careful questions she told him of her visit to Callandra at Shelburne Hall, of her first meeting with Monk, and of all that had ensued. She made some slips, had to be corrected, but never once did she offer anything beyond a simple answer.
By the time he had come to the tragic and terrible conclusion, the faces of the jury were stunned with amazement and anger, and for the first time they were able to look at Menard Grey, because they understood what he had done, and why. Perhaps some even felt they might, had fortune been so cruel to them, have done the same.
When at last Rathbone stepped back and thanked her with a sudden, dazzling smile, she found her body was aching with the tension of clenched muscles and her hands were sore where her nails had unconsciously dug into the palms.
The counsel for the prosecution rose to his feet and s
miled bleakly. “Please remain where you are, Miss Latterly. You will not mind if we put to the test this extremely moving story of yours?” It was a rhetorical question; he had no intention whatsoever of permitting such a testimony as hers had been to stand, and she felt the sweat break out on her skin as she looked at his face. At this moment he was losing, and such a thing was not only a shock to him in this instance, but of a pain so deep as to be almost physical.
“Now Miss Latterly, you admit you were—indeed still are—a woman rather past her first youth, without significant background, and in drastically impoverished circumstances—and you accepted an invitation to visit Shelburne Hall, the country home of the Grey family?”
“I accepted an invitation to visit Lady Callandra Daviot,” Hester corrected.
“At Shelburne Hall,” he said sharply. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. And during that visit you spent some time with the accused, Menard Grey?”
She drew breath to say “Not alone,” and just in time caught Rathbone’s eye, and let out her breath again. She smiled at the prosecutor as if the implication had missed her.
“Of course. It is impossible to stay with a family and not meet all the members who are in residence, and to spend time with them.” She was sorely tempted to add that perhaps he did not know such things, and forebore carefully. It would be a cheap laugh, and perhaps bought very dearly. This was an adversary to whom she could give no ground.
“I believe you now have a position in one of the London infirmaries, is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Obtained for you by the same Lady Callandra Daviot?”
