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“Not at all,” she said with wide-open eyes. “In fact, the very opposite. Her sister, Faith, would read novels and imagine herself the heroine. She would daydream of handsome young men, as most girls do. But Prudence was quite different. She seemed only concerned with study and learning more all the time. Not really healthy for a young girl.” She looked puzzled, as if the anomaly still confused her.
“But surely she must have had girlhood romances?” Lovat-Smith pressed. “Hero worship, if you will, of young men from time to time?” But the knowledge of her answer was plain in his face, and in the assurance of his tone.
“No,” Mrs. Barrymore insisted. “She never did. Even the new young curate, who was so very charming and attracted all the young ladies in the congregation, seemed to awaken no interest in Prudence at all.” She shook her head a little, setting the black ribbons on her bonnet waving.
The jury members were listening to her intently, uncertain how much they believed her or what they felt, and the mixture of concentration and doubt was plain in their expressions.
Rathbone glanced quickly up at Sir Herbert. Oddly enough, he seemed uninterested, as if Prudence’s early life were of no concern to him. Did he not understand the importance of its emotional value to the jury’s grasp of her character? Did he not realize how much hinged upon what manner of woman she was—a disillusioned dreamer, an idealist, a noble and passionate woman wronged, a blackmailer?
“Was she an unemotional person?” Lovat-Smith asked, investing the question with an artificial surprise.
“Oh no, she felt things intensely,” Mrs. Barrymore assured him. “Most intensely—so much so I feared she would make herself ill.” She blinked several times and mastered herself only with great difficulty. “That seems so foolish now, doesn’t it? It seems as if it has brought about her very death! I’m sorry, I find it most difficult to control my feelings.” She shot a look of utter hatred at Sir Herbert across in the dock, and for the first time he looked distressed. He rose to his feet and leaned forward, but before he could do anything further one of the two jailers in the dock with him gripped his arms and pulled him back.
There was a gasp, a sigh around the court. One of the jurors said something which was inaudible. Judge Hardie opened his mouth, and then changed his mind and remained silent. Rathbone considered objecting and decided not to. It would only alienate the jury still further.
“Knowing her as you did, Mrs. Barrymore …” Lovat-Smith said it very gently, his voice almost a caress, and Rathbone felt the confidence in him as if it were a warm blanket over the skin. “Do you find it difficult to believe that in Sir Herbert Stanhope,” Lovat-Smith went on, “Prudence at last found a man whom she could both love and admire with all her ardent, idealistic nature, and to whom she could give her total devotion?”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Barrymore replied without hesitation. “He was exactly the sort of man to answer all her dreams. She would think him noble enough, dedicated enough and brilliant enough to be everything she could love with all her heart.” At last the tears would not be controlled anymore, and she covered her face with her hands and silently wept.
Lovat-Smith stepped forward and reached high up with his arm to offer her his handkerchief.
She took it blindly, fumbling to grasp it from his hand.
For once Lovat-Smith was lost for words. There seemed nothing to say that was not either trite or grossly inappropriate. He half nodded, a little awkwardly, knowing that she was not looking at him, and returned to his seat, waving his hand to indicate that Rathbone might now take his turn.
Rathbone rose and walked across to the center of the floor, acutely aware that every eye was on him. He could win or lose it all in the next few moments.
There was no sound except Mrs. Barrymore’s gentle weeping.
Rathbone waited. He did not interrupt her. It was too great a risk. It might be viewed as sympathy; on the other hand, it might seem like indecent haste.
He ached to look around at the jury, and at Sir Herbert, but it would have betrayed his uncertainty, and Lovat-Smith would have understood it as a hunting animal scents weakness. Their rivalry was old and close. They knew each other too well for even a whisper of a mistake to go unnoticed.
Finally Mrs. Barrymore blew her nose very delicately, a restrained and genteel action, and yet remarkably effective. When she looked up her eyes were red, but the rest of her face was quite composed.
“I am very sorry,” she said quietly. “I fear I am not as strong as I had imagined.” Her eyes strayed upward for a moment to look at Sir Herbert on the far side of the court, and the loathing in her face was as implacable as that of any man she might have imagined to have the power she said she lacked.
“There is no need to apologize, ma’am,” Rathbone assured her softly, but with that intense clarity of tone which he knew was audible even in the very back row of the public seats. “I am sure everyone here understands your grief and feels for you.” There was nothing he could do to ameliorate her hatred. Better to ignore it and hope the jury had not seen.
“Thank you.” She sniffed very slightly.
“Mrs. Barrymore,” he began with the shadow of a smile, “I have only a few questions for you, and I will try to make them as brief as possible. As Mr. Lovat-Smith has already pointed out, you naturally knew your daughter as only a mother can. You were familiar with her love of medicine and the care of the sick and injured.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked up at her. “Did you find it easy to believe that she actually performed operations herself?”
Anne Barrymore frowned, concentrating on what was obviously difficult for her.
“No, I am afraid I did not. It is something that has always puzzled me.”
“Do you think that it is possible she exaggerated her own role a trifle in order to be—shall we say, closer to her ideal? Of more service to Sir Herbert Stanhope?”
Her face brightened. “Yes—yes, that would explain it. It is not really a natural thing for a woman to do, is it? But love is something we can all understand so easily.”
“Of course it is,” Rathbone agreed, although he found it increasingly hard to accept as the sole motive for anyone’s actions, even a young woman. He questioned his own words as he said them. But this was not the time to be self-indulgent. All that mattered now was Sir Herbert, and showing the jury that he was as much a victim as Prudence Barrymore and that the affliction to him might yet prove as fatal. “And you do not find it difficult to believe that she wove all her hopes and dreams around Sir Herbert?”
She smiled sadly. “I am afraid it seems
she was foolish, poor child. So very foolish.” She shot a look of anger and frustration at Mr. Barrymore, sitting high in the public gallery, white-faced and unhappy. Then she turned back to Rathbone. “She had an excellent offer from a totally suitable young man at home, you know,” she went on earnestly. “We could none of us understand why she did not accept him.” Her brows drew down and she looked like a lost child herself. “A head full of absurd dreams. Quite impossible, and not to be desired anyway. It would never have made her happy.” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears again. “And now it is all too late. Young people can be so wasteful of opportunity.”
There was a deep murmur of sympathy around the room. Rathbone knew he was on the razor’s edge. She had admitted Prudence created a fantasy for herself, that she misread reality; but her grief was also transparently genuine, and no honest person in the courtroom was untouched by it. Most had families of their own, a mother they could in their own minds put in her place, or a child they could imagine losing, as she had. If he were too tentative he would miss his chance and perhaps Sir Herbert would pay with his life. If he were too rough he would alienate the jury, and again Sir Herbert would bear the cost.
