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“Baron Bernd Ollenheim!” the usher repeated.
Very slowly, Bernd rose to his feet and made his way forward from the gallery, across the floor and up the steps of the witness stand till he turned at the top and faced the court. He was white, his eyes sick with distress. He looked over Rathbone’s head towards Gisela as if she were something that had crept out of a cesspool.
“Would you like a glass of water, sir?” the judge asked him gently. “I can send an usher for one with no difficulty.”
Bernd recalled himself. “No … no, thank you, my lord. I shall be quite in command of myself.”
“If you wish for assistance, you may request it,” the judge assured him.
Rathbone felt like a man stripping another naked. He did it only because the question must be answered now, and finally.
“Baron Ollenheim, I shall not keep you long.” He took a deep breath. “I regret the necessity for calling you at all. I simply wish to ask you either to substantiate or to deny the testimony of Count Lansdorff regarding your son. Is he indeed also the son of Gisela Berentz?”
Bernd had difficulty in speaking. His throat seemed to have closed. He struggled to fill his lungs with air, and then to master the anguish which overwhelmed him.
The entire courtroom was silent in shared distress.
“Yes …” he said at last “Yes, he is. But my wife … my wife has always loved him … not only for my sake, but for his own. No …” He gasped again, his face twisted with the pain of memory—and fear for her now. “No woman could love a child more.”
“We do not doubt it, sir,” Rathbone said quietly. “Nor the agony this must have cost you, both then and now. Is Count Lansdorff also correct that Gisela Berentz wished to destroy the child”—he used the word intentionally, but having seen Robert Ollenheim through Hester’s eyes, it came easily—“but that you forced her to carry it to term and to give birth?”
The silence deafened the room.
“Yes …” Bernd whispered.
“I ask your pardon for the intrusion into what should have been able to remain a purely personal grief,” Rathbone apologized. “And I assure you of our respect for you and your family. I have nothing further I need to ask you. Unless Mr. Harvester has, that is all.”
Harvester rose. He looked wretched.
“No, thank you. I do not believe that Baron Ollenheim has anything relevant to the issue at hand which he could tell us.”
It was a brave attempt to remind the court that the case was one of slander between Zorah and Gisela, but no one cared anymore. The issues were abandonment, abortion and murder.
The day ended in uproar. Police had to be called in to escort Gisela to the carriage and protect her from the fury of the crowd, now surging in on her with an even fiercer rage and potential for violence than they had showed towards Zorah just two days before. They were shouting, pelting Gisela with refuse; some of them even hurled stones. One rock clattered against the carriage roof and ricocheted against the wall beyond. The cabby shouted back at the crowd, afraid for himself and his horse, and lashed his whip over their heads.
Rathbone stood on the outside of Zorah and hustled her away, fearing that she too would be a focus for their wrath. It was she who had instigated this entire collapse of dreams, and she would be hated for it.
Robert Ollenheim had asked his parents for privacy, at least for an hour, and it was Hester who sat in the carriage next to him on the way home to Hill Street. Bernd and Dagmar had stood by helplessly as the footman assisted him up and then Hester after him, but they made no attempt to argue or remonstrate.
He sat immobile, staring ahead as the horses picked up speed. The footman rode on the box. The young man and Hester were alone, moving through the milling, jostling streets.
“It’s not true!” he said over and over again, grating the words between his teeth. “It’s not true! That … woman … is not my …” He could not even bring himself to say the word mother.
Hester put her hand over his, and felt it balled into a fist under the blanket which covered his knees. It was extremely cold in the carriage, and for once he did not resent being tucked up.
“No, she isn’t,” she agreed.
“What?” He turned to look at her, his face puzzled and slack with disbelief. “Didn’t you hear what my father said? He said that woman … that woman …” He took a difficult, jerky breath. “Even before I was born, she didn’t want me! She wanted to have me … destroyed!”
“She isn’t your mother in any sense that matters,” Hester said gravely. “She gave up that right. Dagmar Ollenheim is your mother. She is the one who reared you, who loved you and wanted you. You are the only child she has. You simply have to think of her at any time during all the years you have been alive to know how deeply she loves you. Have you ever doubted it before?”
“No …” He was still having difficulty catching his breath, as if something were crushing his chest. “But that … that other woman is still my mother! I’m part of her!” He glanced at Hester with wide, agonizing eyes. “That’s who I am! I can’t get away from it, I can’t forget it! I came from her body! From her mind!”
“Her body,” Hester corrected. “Not her mind. Your mind and your soul are your own.”
A new horror dawned on him.
“Oh, God! What will Victoria think of me? She’ll know! She’ll read it on some … some sandwich board, hear it from a newsboy in the street. Someone will tell her! Hester … I’ve got to tell her first!” His words tumbled over each other. “Take me to where she lives! I’ve got to be the one to tell her. I can’t let her find out from anyone else. Where does she live? I never even asked her!”
