very old. Rathbone ached to be able to protect her, but he was impotent to do anything now, as he had known he would be, and she knew it too.
“Miss Buchan,” Lovat-Smith went on, still courteously. “I assume you know what sodomy is, and you do not use the term loosely?”
She blushed, but did not evade his look.
“Yes sir, I know what it is. I will describe it for you, if you force me.”
He shook his head. “No-I do not force you, Miss Buchan. How do you know this unspeakable act was committed on General Carlyon when he was a child? And I do mean knowledge, Miss Buchan, not supposition, no matter how well reasoned, in your opinion.” He looked up at her, waiting.
“I am a servant, Mr. Lovat-Smith,” she replied with dignity. “We have a peculiar position-not quite people, not quite furniture. We are often party to extraordinary scenes because we are ignored in the house, as if we had not eyes or brains. People do not mind us knowing things, seeing things they would be mortified to have their friends see.”
One of the jurors looked startled, suddenly thoughtful.
“One day I had occasion to return to the nursery unexpectedly, “ Miss Buchan resumed. “Colonel Carlyon had neglected to lock the door, and I saw him in the act with his son. He did not know I saw. I was transfixed with horror- although I should not have been. I knew there was something very seriously wrong, but I did not understand what-until then. I stood there for several seconds, but I left as soundlessly as I had come. My knowledge is very real, sir.”
“You witnessed this gross act, and yet you did nothing?” Lovat-Smith's voice rose in disbelief. “I find that hard to credit, Miss Buchan. Was not your first duty clearly towards your charge, the child, Thaddeus Carlyon?”
She did not flinch.
“I have already told you, there was nothing I could do.”
“Not tell his mother?” He waved an arm up towards the gallery where Felicia sat like stone. “Would she not have been horrified? Would she not have protected her child? You seem, by implication, to be expecting us to believe that Alexandra Carlyon,” he indicated her with another expansive gesture, “a generation later, was so violently distressed by the same fact that she murdered her husband rather than allow it to continue! And yet you say that Mrs. Felicia Carlyon would have done nothing!”
Miss Buchan did not speak.
“You hesitate,” Lovat-Smith challenged, his voice rising. “Why, Miss Buchan? Are you suddenly not so certain of answers? Not so easy?”
Miss Buchan was strong. She had already risked, and no doubt lost, everything. She had no stake left, nothing else could be taken from her but her self-esteem.
“You are too facile, young man,” she said with all the ineffable authority of a good governess. “Women may be as immeasurably different from each other as men. Their loyalties and values may be different also, as may be the times and circumstances in which they live. What can a woman do, in such a position? Who will believe her, if she accused a publicly loved man of such a crime?” She did not once betray that she even knew Felicia was there in the room with them, much less that she cared what Felicia thought or felt. “People do not wish to believe it of their heroes, and both Randolph and Thaddeus Carlyon were heroes, in their own ways. Society would have crucified her as a wicked woman if they did not believe her, as a venally indiscreet one if they did. She would know that, and she chose to preserve what she had. Miss Alexandra chose to save her child, or to try to. It remains to be seen whether or not she has sacrificed herself in vain.”
Lovat-Smith opened his mouth to argue, attack her again, and then looked at the jury and decided better of it.
“You are a remarkable woman, Miss Buchan,” he said with a minute bow. “It remains to be seen whether any further facts bear out your extraordinary vision of events, but no doubt you believe you speak the truth. I have nothing further to ask you.”
Rathbone declined to reexamine. He knew better than to gild the lily.
The court rose for the luncheon adjournment in an uproar.
The first witness of the afternoon was Damaris Erskine. She too looked pale, with dark circles under her eyes as if she had wept herself into exhaustion but had found little sleep. All the time her eyes kept straying to Peverell. He was sitting very upright in his seat next to Felicia and Randolph in the front of the gallery, but as apart from them in spirit as if they were in different rooms. He ignored them totally and stared without movement at Damaris, his eyes puckered in concern, his lips undecided on a smile, as if he feared it might be taken for levity rather than encouragement.
Monk sat two rows behind Hester, in the body of the court behind the lawyers. He did not wish to sit beside her. His emotions were too raw from his confrontation with Her-mione. He wanted a long time alone, but circumstances made that impossible; however, there was a certain alonencss in the crowd of a courtroom, and in centering his mind and all his feelings he could on the tragedy being played out in front of him.
Rathbone began very gently, with the softly cautious voice Monk knew he adopted when he was about to deliver a mortal blow and loathed doing it, but had weighed all the facts, and the decision was irrevocable.
“Mrs. Erskine, you were present at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Furnival on the night your brother was killed, and you have already told us of the order of events as you recall them.”
“Yes,” she said almost inaudibly.
“But I think you have omitted what most undoubtedly was for you the most devastating part of the evening, that is until Dr. Hargrave said that your brother had not died by accident, but been murdered.”
Lovat-Smith leaned forward, frowning, but he did not interrupt.
“Several people have testified,” Rathbone went on, “that when you came down the stairs from seeing young Valentine Furnival, you were in a state of distress bordering on hysteria. Would you please tell us what happened up there to cause this change in you?”
Damaris studiously avoided looking towards Felicia and Randolph, nor did she look at Alexandra, sitting pale- faced and rigid in the dock. She took one or two moments to steel herself, and Rathbone waited without prompting her.
“I recognized-Valentine…” she said at last, her voice husky.
“Recognized him?” Rathbone repeated the word. “What a curious expression, Mrs. Erskine. Was there ever any doubt in your mind as to who he was? I accept that you did not see him often, indeed had not seen him for some years while he was away at boarding school, since you infrequently visited the house. But surely there was only one boy present?”
She swallowed convulsively and shot him a look of pleading so profound there was a murmur of anger around the room and Felicia jerked forward, then sat up again as Randolph's hand closed over her arm.
Almost imperceptibly Peverell nodded.
Damaris raised her chin.
“He is not the Furnivals' natural child: he is adopted. Before my marriage fourteen years ago, I had a child. Now that he is-is of nearly adult height-a young man, not a boy, he…” For a moment more she had to fight to keep control.
Opposite her in the gallery, Chaiies Hargrave leaned forward a little, his face tense, sandy brows drawn down. Beside him, Sarah Hargrave looked puzzled and a flicker of anxiety touched her face.
“He resembles his father,” Damaris said huskily. “So much, I knew he was my son. You see, at the time the only person I could trust to help me was my brother, Thaddeus. He took me away from London, and he saw to the child's being adopted. Suddenly, when I saw Valentine, it all made sense. I knew what Thaddeus had done with my child.”
“Were you angry with your brother, Mrs. Erskine? Did you resent it that he had given your son to the Furnivals to raise?”
“No! No-not at all. They had…”She shook her head, the tears running down her cheeks, and her voice cracking at last.
The judge leaned forward earnestly, his face full of concern.
