The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [472]
“Of course.”
“On what subject, in the last six months, let us say?”
“Particularly, over whether my brother Cassian should be sent away to boarding school or remain at home and have a tutor. He is eight years old.”
“Your parents disagreed?”
“Yes.”
“Passionately?” Lovat-Smith looked curious and surprised.
“Yes,” she said tartly. “Apparently they felt passionately about it.”
“Your mother wished him to remain at home with her, and your father wished him to begin his training for adulthood?”
“Not at all. It was Father who wanted him at home. Mama wanted him to go away to school.”
Several jurors looked startled, and more than one turned to look at Alexandra.
“Indeed!” Lovat-Smith also sounded surprised, but uninterested in such details, although he had asked for them. “What else?”
“I don’t know. I have my own home, Mr. Lovat-Smith. I visited my parents very infrequently. I did not have a close relationship with my father, as I am sure you know. My mother visited me in my home often. My father did not.”
“I see. But you were aware that the relationship between your parents was strained, and on the evening of the unfortunate dinner party, particularly so?”
Sabella hesitated, and in so doing betrayed her partiality. Hester saw the jury’s faces harden, as if something inside had closed; from now on they would interpret a difference in her answers. One man turned curiously and looked at Alexandra, then away again, as if caught peeping. It too was a betraying gesture.
“Mrs. Pole?” Lovat-Smith prompted her.
“Yes, of course I was aware of it. Everyone was.”
“And the cause? Think carefully: knowing your mother, as close to you as she was, did she say anything which allowed you to understand the cause of her anger?”
Rathbone half rose to his feet, then as the judge glanced at him, changed his mind and sank back again. The jury saw it and their faces lit with expectancy.
Sabella spoke very quietly. “When people are unhappy with each other, there is not necessarily a specific cause for each disagreement. My father was very arbitrary at times, very dictatorial. The only subject of quarrel I know of was over Cassian and his schooling.”
“Surely you are not suggesting your mother murdered your father because of his choice of education for his son, Mrs. Pole?” Lovat-Smith’s voice, charming and distinctive, was filled with incredulity only just short of the offensive.
In the dock Alexandra moved forward impulsively, and the wardress beside her moved also, as if it were even conceivable she should leap over the edge. The gallery could not see it, but the jurors started in their seats.
Sabella said nothing. Her soft oval face hardened and she stared at him, not knowing what to say and reluctant to commit an error.
“Thank you, Mrs. Pole. We quite understand.” Lovat-Smith smiled and sat down again, leaving the floor to Rathbone.
Sabella looked at Rathbone guardedly, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wary and miserable.
Rathbone smiled at her. “Mrs. Pole, have you known Mrs. Furnival for some time, several years in fact?”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe that she was having an affair with your father?”
There was a gasp of indrawn breath around the courtroom. At last someone was getting to the crux of the situation. Excitement rippled through them.
“No,” Sabella said hotly. Then she looked at Rathbone’s expression and repeated it with more composure. “No, I did not. I never saw or heard anything to make me think so.”
“Did your mother ever say anything to you to indicate that she thought so, or that the relationship gave her any anxiety or distress of any sort?”
“No—no, I cannot recall that she ever mentioned it at all.”
“Never?” Rathbone said with surprise. “And yet you were very close, were you not?”
For the first time Sabella quite openly looked up towards the dock.
“Yes, we were—we are close.”
“And she never mentioned the subject?”
“No.”
“Thank you.” He turned back to Lovat-Smith with a smile.
Lovat-Smith rose.
“Mrs. Pole, did you kill your father?”
The judge held up his hand to prevent