The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [471]
“Did you suppose Mrs. Carlyon to feel the same?”
“Yes! Yes I did!” Maxim’s face became animated for the first time since the subject had been raised. “I—I still find it hard—”
“Indeed,” Rathbone cut him off. “Did she ever say anything in your hearing, or do anything at all, to indicate that she thought otherwise? Please—please be quite specific. I do not wish for speculation or interpretation in the light of later events. Did she ever express anger or jealousy of Mrs. Furnival with regard to her husband and their relationship?”
“No—never,” Maxim said without hesitation. “Nothing at all.” He had avoided looking across at Alexandra, as if afraid the jury might misinterpret his motives or doubt his honesty, but now he could not stop his eyes from flickering for a moment towards her.
“You are quite certain?” Rathbone insisted.
“Quite.”
The judge frowned, looking closely at Rathbone. He leaned forward as if to say something, then changed his mind.
Lovat-Smith frowned also.
“Thank you, Mr. Furnival.” Rathbone smiled at him. “You have been very frank, and it is much appreciated. It is distasteful to all of us to have to ask such questions and open up to public speculation what should remain private, but the force of circumstances leaves us no alternative. Now unless Mr. Lovat-Smith has some further questions for you, you may leave the stand.”
“No—thank you,” Lovat-Smith replied, half rising to his feet. “None at all.”
Maxim left, going down the steps slowly, and the next witness was called, Sabella Carlyon Pole. There was a ripple of expectation around the court, murmurs of excitement, rustics of fabric against fabric as people shifted position, craned forward in the gallery, jostling each other.
“That’s the daughter,” someone said to Hester’s left. “Mad, so they say. ’Ated her father.”
“I ’ate my father,” came the reply. “That don’t make me mad!”
“Sssh,” someone else hissed angrily.
Sabella came into the court and walked across the floor, head high, back stiff, and took the stand. She was very pale, but her face was set in an expression of defiance, and she looked straight at her mother in the dock and forced herself to smile.
For the first time since the trial had begun, Alexandra looked as if her composure would break. Her mouth quivered, the steady gaze softened, she blinked several times. Hester could not bear to watch her; she looked away, and felt a coward, and yet had she not turned, she would have felt intrusive. She did not know which was worse.
Sabella swore to her name and place of residence, and to her relationship with the accused.
“I realize this must be painful for you, Mrs. Pole,” Lovat-Smith began courteously. “I wish it were possible for me to spare you it, but I regret it is not. However I will try to be brief. Do you recall the evening of the dinner party at which your father met his death?”
“Of course! It is not the sort of thing one forgets.”
“Naturally.” Lovat-Smith was a trifle taken aback. He had been expecting a woman a little tearful, even afraid of him, or at the very least awed by the situation. “I understand that as soon as you arrived you had a disagreement with your father, is that correct?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
“What was that about, Mrs. Pole?”
“He was patronizing about my views that there was going to be trouble in the army in India. As it turns out, I was correct.”
There was a murmur of sympathy around the room, and another sharper one of irritation that she should presume to disagree with a military hero, a man, and her father—and someone who was dead and could not answer for himself; still worse, that the appalling news coming in on the India and China mail ships should prove her right.
“Is that all?” Lovat-Smith raised his eyebrows.
“Yes. It was a few sharp words, no more.”
“Did your mother quarrel with him that evening?”
Hester looked sideways at the dock. Alexandra’s face was tense, filled with anxiety, but Hester believed it was fear for Sabella, not for herself.
“I don’t know. Not in my hearing,” Sabella answered levelly.