Hester had a sudden sharp recollection of sitting in the bedroom at Shelburne Hall with Fabia Grey, her crumpled face aged in a single blow as half a lifetime's treasures withered and died in front of her.
"With loss very often comes hatred." Rathbone spoke as if he had felt her thoughts as vividly as she had herself. "We need someone to blame when we cannot cope with the pain except through anger, which is so much easier, at least to begin with."
Instinctively she looked up and met his gaze, and was startled by its penetration. It was both assuring and discomfiting. He was not a man to whom she could ever lie. Thank heaven it would not be necessary!
"You do not need to explain to me, Mr. Rathbone," she said with a faint answering smile. "I have been home long enough to be quite aware that a great many people require their illusions more than the bits and pieces of truth I can tell them. The ugliness needs to have the real heroism along with it to become bearable-the day after day of suffering without complaint, the dedication to duty when all purpose seems gone, the laughter when you feel like weeping. I don't think it can be told-only felt by those who were there."
His smile was sudden and like a flash of light.
"You have more wisdom than I had been led to suppose, Miss Latterly. I begin to hope."
She found herself blushing and was furious. Afterwards she must confront Callandra and ask what she had said of her that he had such an opinion. But then more likely it was that miserable policeman, Monk, who had given Rathbone this impression. For all their cooperation at the end, and their few blazing moments of complete understanding, they had quarreled most of the time, and he had certainly made no secret of the feet that he considered her opinionated, meddlesome and thoroughly unappealing.
Not that she had not expressed her views of his conduct and character very forthrightly first!
Rathbone discussed all that he would ask her, the arguments the prosecuting counsel would raise, and the issues with which he would be most likely to attempt to trap her. He warned her against appearing to have any emotional involvement which would give him the opportunity to suggest she was biased or unreliable.
By the time he showed them out into the street at quarter to eight she was so tired her mind was dazed, and she was suddenly aware again of the ache in her back and the pinching of her boots. The idea of testifying for Menard Grey was no longer the simple and unfearful thing it had seemed when she had promised with such fierce commitment to do it.
"A little daunting, is he not?" Callandra said when they were seated in her carriage and beginning the journey back to dinner.
"Let us hope he daunts them as much," Hester replied, wriggling her feet uncomfortably.”I cannot imagine his being easily deceived." This was such an understatement she felt self-conscious making it, and turned away so Callandra would not see more than the outline of her face against the light of the carriage lamps.
Callandra laughed, a deep, rich sound full of amusement.
"My dear, you are not the first young woman not to know how to express your opinion of Oliver Rathbone."
"Perspicacity and an authoritative manner will not be enough to save Menard Grey!" Hester said with more sharpness than she had intended. Perhaps Callandra would recognize that Hester spoke from a great deal of apprehension for the day after tomorrow, and a growing fear that they would not succeed.
It was the following day that she read in the newspapers of the murder of Octavia Haslett in Queen Anne Street, but since the name of the police officer investigating was not considered of any public interest, and therefore was not mentioned, it did not bring Monk to her mind any more than he already was each time she remembered the tragedy of the Greys-and of her own family.
Dr. Pomeroy was in two minds as to how to treat her request for leave in order to testify. At her insistence he had operated on John Airdrie, and the child seemed to be recovering well;
a little longer and he might not have-he had been weaker than Pomeroy realized. Nevertheless he resented her absence, and yet since he had frequently told her that she was eminently dispensable, he could hardly make too much of an issue of the inconvenience it would cause. His dilemma gave her some much needed amusement, even if it was bitterly flavored.
The trial of Menard Grey was held in the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey, and since the case had been sensational, involving the brutal death of an ex-officer of the Crimean War, the public seats were crowded and every newspaper distributed within a hundred miles had sent its reporters. Outside, the streets were crammed with newsboys waving the latest editions, cabbies depositing passengers, costers' barrows piled high with all manner of goods, pie and sandwich sellers crying their wares, and hot pea soup carts. Running patterers recounted the whole case, with much detail added, for the benefit of the ignorant-or any who simply wished to hear it all again. More people pressed in up Ludgate Hill, along Old Bailey itself, and along Newgate. Had they not been witnesses, Hester and Callandra would have found it impossible to gain entry.
Inside the court the atmosphere was different, darker and with an inexorable formality that forced one to be aware that this was the majesty of the law, that here all individual whim was ironed out and blind, impersonal justice ruled.
Police in dark uniform, top hat, shining buttons and belt; clerks in striped trousers; lawyers wigged and gowned, and bailiffs scurrying to shepherd people here and there. Hester and Callandra were shown into the room where they were to wait until they were called. They were not permitted into the courtroom in case they overheard evidence which might affect their own.
Hester sat silently, acutely uncomfortable. A dozen times she drew breath to speak, then knew that what she was going to say was pointless, and only to break the tension. Half an hour had gone by in stiff awkwardness when the outer door opened, and even before he entered she recognized the outline of the man's shoulders as he stood with his back to them, talking to someone beyond in the corridor. She felt a prickle of awareness, not quite apprehension, and certainly not excitement.
"Good morning, Lady Callandra, Miss Latterly." The man turned at last and came in, closing the door behind him.
"Good morning, Mr. Monk," Callandra replied, inclining her head politely.
"Good morning, Mr. Monk," Hester echoed, with exactly the same gesture. Seeing his smooth-boned face again with its hard, level gray eyes, broad aquiline nose and mouth with its faint scar, brought back all the memories of the Grey case: the anger, confusion, intense pity and fear, the brief moments of understanding each other more vividly than she had ever experienced with anyone else, and sharing a purpose with an intensity that was consuming.
Now they were merely two people who irritated each other and were brought together by their desire to save Menard Grey from further pain-and perhaps a sense of responsibility in some vague way because they had been the ones who had discovered the truth.
"Pray sit down, Mr. Monk," she instructed rather than offered. "Please be comfortable."
He remained standing.
For several moments there was silence. Deliberately she filled her mind with thoughts of how she would testify, the questions Rathbone had warned her the prosecution's lawyer would ask, and how to avoid damaging answers and being led to say more than she intended.