Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [54]
He reached out and took the name and address from Gillivray’s hand. It was the last piece necessary before trial.
“If it amuses you,” he said harshly. “Can’t say I ever enjoyed seeing a man hanged, myself. Any man. But you do whatever gives you pleasure!”
6
THE TRIAL OF Maurice Jerome began on the second Monday in November. Charlotte had never before been in a courtroom. Her interest in Pitt’s cases had been intense in the past; indeed, on several occasions she had actively and often dangerously engaged herself in discovering the criminal. But it had always come to an end for her with the arrest; once there was no mystery left, she had considered the matter finished. To know the outcome had been sufficient—she did not wish to see it.
This time, however, she felt a strong need to attend as a gesture of support to Eugenie in what was surely one of the worst ordeals a woman could face—whatever the verdict. Even now, she was not sure what she expected the verdict to be. Usually she had entire confidence in Pitt, but in this case she had sensed an unhappiness in him that was deeper than his usual distress for the tragedy of crime. There was a sense of dissatisfaction, an air of something unfinished—answers he needed to have, and did not.
And yet if it was not Jerome, then who? There was no one else even implicated. All the evidence pointed to Jerome; why should everyone lie? It made no sense, but still the doubts were there.
She had, in her mind, formed something of a picture of Jerome, a little blurred, a little fuzzy in the details. She had to remind herself it was built on what Eugenie had told her, and Eugenie was prejudiced, to say the least. And, of course, on what Pitt had said; perhaps that was prejudiced too? Pitt had been touched by Eugenie as soon as he had seen her. She was so vulnerable; his pity was reflected in his face, his desire to protect her from the truths he knew. Charlotte had watched it in him, and felt angry with Eugenie for being so childlike, so innocent, and so very, very feminine.
But that was not important now. What was Maurice Jerome like? She had gathered that he was a man of little emotion. He displayed neither superficial emotions nor the emotions that smolder beneath an ordinary face, surfacing only in privacy in moments of unbearable passion. Jerome was cold; his appetites were less sensual than intellectual. He possessed a desire for knowledge and the status and power it afforded, for the social distinctions of manner, speech, and dress. He felt proud of his diligence and of possessing skills that others did not. He was proud, too, in an obscure way, of the satisfying totality of such branches of mental discipline as Latin grammar and mathematics.
Was that all merely a superb mask for ungovernable physical hungers beneath? Or was he precisely what he seemed: a chilly, rather incomplete man, too innately self-absorbed for passion of any sort?
Whatever the truth, Eugenie could only suffer from it. The least Charlotte could do was to be there, so that the crowd of inquisitive, accusing faces would contain at least one that was neither, that was a friend whose glance she could meet and know she was not alone.
Charlotte had put out a clean shirt for Pitt, and a fresh cravat, and she sponged and pressed his best coat. She did not tell him that she intended to go as well. She kissed him goodbye at quarter past eight, straightening his collar one last time. Then, as soon as the door closed, she whirled around and ran back to the kitchen to instruct Gracie in meticulous detail on the duties of caring for the house and the children for every day that the trial should last. Gracie assured Charlotte that she would perform every task to the letter, and be equal to any occasion that could arise.
Charlotte accepted this and thanked her gravely, then went to her room, changed into the only black dress she possessed, and put on a very beautiful, extravagant black hat that was a cast-off from Emily. Emily had worn it at some duchess’s funeral, and then, on