Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [180]
Lovat-Smith sat down with a broad smile.
Rathbone bowed, then turned back to Edith.
“I think you are now permitted to continue, Mrs. Sobell. If you please. What was your observation of Cassian’s manner?”
Edith frowned in concentration.
“It was very hard to understand,” she replied, thinking carefully. “He grieved for his father, but it seemed to be very—very adult. He did not cry, and at times he seemed very composed, almost relieved.”
Lovat-Smith rose to his feet, and the judge waved him to sit down again. Rathbone turned to Edith.
“Mrs. Sobell, will you please explain that curious word relieved. Try not to give us any conclusions you may have come to in your own mind, simply your observations of fact. Not what he seemed, but what he said, or did. Do you understand the difference?”
“Yes, my lord. I’m sorry.” Again her nervousness betrayed itself in clenched hands on the witness box rail, and a catch in her voice. “I saw him alone on several occasions, through a window, or from a doorway when he did not know I was there. He was quite at ease, sitting smiling. I asked him if he was happy by himself, thinking he might be lonely, but he told me he liked it. Sometimes he went to my father—his grandfather—”
“Colonel Carlyon?” Rathbone interrupted.
“Yes. Then other times he seemed to go out of his way to avoid him. He was afraid of my mother.” As if involuntarily, she glanced at Felicia, then back to Rathbone again. “He said so. And he was very upset about his own mother. He told me she did not love him—that his father had told him so.”
In the dock Alexandra closed her eyes and seemed to sway as if in physical pain. A gasp escaped her in spite of all her effort at self-control.
“Hearsay,” Lovat-Smith said loudly, rising to his feet. “My lord …”
“That is not permitted,” the judge apologized to Edith. “I think we have gathered from your testimony that the child was in a state of considerable confusion. Is that what you wished to establish, Mr. Rathbone?”
“More than that, my lord: the nature of his confusion. And that he developed close, and ambivalent, relationships with other people.”
Lovat-Smith let out a loud moan and raised his hands in the air.
“Then you had better proceed and do so, Mr. Rathbone,” the judge said with a tight smile. “If you can. Although you have not shown us yet why this has any relevance to the case, and I advise that you do that within a very short time.”
“I promise you that it will become apparent in later testimony, my lord,” Rathbone said, his voice still calculatedly light. But he abandoned the course for the present, knowing he had left it imprinted on the jury’s minds, and that was all that mattered. He could build on it later. He turned back to Edith.
“Mrs. Sobell, did you recently observe a very heated quarrel between Miss Buchan, an elderly member of your household staff, and your cook, Mrs. Emery?”
A ghost of amusement crossed Edith’s face, curving her mouth momentarily.
“I have observed several, more than I can count,” she conceded. “Cook and Miss Buchan have been enemies for years.”
“Quite so. But the quarrel I am referring to happened within the last three weeks, on the back stairs of Carlyon House. You were called to assist.”
“That’s right. Cassian came to fetch me because he was afraid. Cook had a knife. I’m sure she did not intend to do anything with it but make an exhibition, but he didn’t know that.”
“What was the quarrel about, Mrs. Sobell?”
Lovat-Smith groaned audibly.
Rathbone ignored it.
“About?” Edith looked slightly puzzled. He had not told her he was going to pursue this. He wanted her obvious unawareness to be seen by the jury. This case depended upon emotions as much as upon facts.
“Yes. What was the subject of the difference?”
Lovat-Smith groaned even more loudly. “Really, my lord,” he