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“Indeed one could not,” Deverill agreed softly, looking again at the jury.
Rathbone swore under his breath. He had never imagined defeating Deverill would be easy, but the reality of his task was becoming sharper by the minute. Brilliant as Rathbone was, and ruthless, he could not alter the truth, nor would he try.
“What, precisely, was the agreement made with Mr. Trace?” Deverill asked ingenuously.
“Daniel had given his word to sell six thousand P1853 Enfield rifled muskets,” Casbolt replied clearly.
Deverill was supremely satisfied. It glowed in his face. Rathbone knew the jurors saw it, and had judged its importance accordingly. They believed he had scored a major point, even if they did not know what it was. One of them, a man with magnificent side-whiskers, shot a malevolent glance up at Breeland.
Merrit lo
oked as if she had been struck. She moved a fraction closer to Breeland in the dock. The movement was not lost on the jury.
Rathbone knew how to manipulate emotion also, although at times he found it repugnant. He would have used the slave issue, one most Englishmen deplored, even though many of them favored the South. But he was conscious of Hester sitting beside Judith Alberton, and how she would despise him for the moral dishonesty of it. He was angry with himself that he allowed it to hurt.
“Why was he prepared to sell guns to Mr. Trace, sir?” Deverill enquired innocently. “Was he a sympathizer with the Confederate cause?”
“No,” Casbolt answered. “I am not aware that he had a loyalty to either side. The only opinion I heard him express was one of sadness that the issue had come to war at all. In the several months previously he had hoped it would be resolved by negotiation. It was simply that Mr. Trace presented himself and was desperate to purchase. He did not argue his cause greatly. He said the South wanted to be free to decide its own destiny and choose its form of government, but little more than that. It was Mr. Breeland who tried to persuade him that his cause justified the sale of arms to the Union rather than anyone else.”
“So Mr. Trace obtained the sale simply because he was first?” Deverill deduced.
“Yes. He paid half the sum as an evidence of good faith. The second half was to follow upon delivery of the guns and ammunition.”
“And Breeland wished Mr. Alberton to renege on that agreement and sell the guns to him instead?”
“Yes. He was most insistent … to the point of unpleasantness.” Casbolt’s face was twisted with regret, even a degree of self-blame, as if he should have foreseen the tragedy.
Deverill was quick to seize on it. “What sort of unpleasantness? Did he threaten anyone?”
“No … not so far as I am aware.” Casbolt’s voice was soft, his mind very much in the past tragedy. “He accused Daniel of being in favor of slavery, which of course he was not. Breeland was passionate about his cause, both to abolish slavery in America and to keep all the states in the Union, whether they wished it or not. He frequently argued his opinion-his obsession-that the South should not be allowed independence … only he called it secession. I admit, I don’t understand the difference.” This time the faintest smile touched his face.
Deverill opened his eyes very wide. “Nor I, to be frank.” He gestured very slightly towards the dock, but did not look up at it. “But fortunately it is not our concern.” He dismissed it. “In his attempts to change Mr. Alberton’s mind about the guns, did he call upon him at his place of business, or at his home, do you know?”
“Both, he told me, but I know for myself that he called often at his home, because I was there on half a dozen occasions. He was offered hospitality and accepted it.”
Again several jurors shot Breeland a look of loathing.
“There is something peculiarly repellent in the ultimate betrayal of eating at a man’s table and then rising up and murdering him. Every society abhors it,” Deverill said quietly, his voice very low, and yet carrying to every corner of the room.
The judge glanced at Rathbone. He would have objected to the irrelevance of the comment, but it was not irrelevant except legally, and every man and woman in the room knew it. It would only betray his own desperation. He shook his head minutely.
Deverill continued. “During these visits, Mr. Casbolt, did you observe any relationship growing between Breeland and Merrit Alberton?”
Casbolt winced and shivered a little. “Not as much as I should have done.” His voice was tight in his throat, strained with regret. Even sitting several yards away, and looking upwards at him on the stand, Rathbone was moved by the emotion in him. It was too genuine for anyone to doubt it, or be unaffected.
There was a ripple of compassion around the room. A woman sniffed. One of the jurors shook his head slowly and glanced up at Merrit in the dock.
Rathbone turned to Judith, but her expression was hidden by her veil. He saw Philo Trace look towards her, and his emotion also was laid bare to see. Rathbone realized in that moment that Trace loved Judith, silently, without expectation of return. He knew it with a depth of understanding because that was how he loved Hester. The time for her responding to him was gone. Perhaps it was only an illusion that it had ever been.
Deverill had milked the silence for all he could get from it. He resumed his questioning.
“And did you see Miss Alberton return his attentions?” he asked.
“Indeed.” Casbolt cleared his throat. “She is only sixteen. I believed it was an infatuation which would pass as soon as Breeland left to go back to America.”
Instinctively, Rathbone looked up at Merrit and saw the pain and defiance in her face. She leaned a little forward, longing to tell them the truth, how much she truly loved Breeland, but she was not permitted to speak.
Casbolt went on. “He was an officer in an army.” Suddenly anger burst through, raw and hard in his voice. “About to engage in civil war five thousand miles away from England. He was in no position to make an offer to a woman, let alone a child of Merrit’s age! It never occurred to me that he would! I don’t believe it entered her father’s mind either. And if Breeland had had the ill judgment, the effrontery, to do so, Daniel would naturally have refused.”
