The Sealed Letter (33 page)

Hawkins pauses to sip from a glass of water. Fido feels a mad impulse to applaud.

"But I understand that some gentlemen of the jury may still be feeling swayed by the many petty and misleading anecdotes got up by the petitioner's agents and counsel," says Hawkins sternly. "This is why the respondent's counterclaim states that
if
you are led into the error of believing her guilty of misconduct, she wishes you to be made aware of grave neglect and cruelty on the part of her husband which
would
have conduced to that misconduct,
had
it occurred."

His grammar's getting strained, Fido notices. It must be difficult for a barrister to keep up the pretence that he believes his clients. Are lawyers liars by definition? Do liars, then, make good lawyers? She thinks of a world in which all careers will be open to women, and wonders—aware of the absurdity of the thought—whether Helen Codrington would make a good barrister.

"Firstly, neglect," says Hawkins crisply. "The petitioner's insensitivity to, and virtual abandonment of, his charming young bride began as soon as she followed him from Florence to England. She found herself expected to occupy every day with running his household, bearing his children, and nursing his dying father. I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury, that by ignoring his wife's needs for stimulus and amusement, the petitioner left her to seek these things alone, unguarded, exposed to the rumours of a malicious world."

His tone turns hushed. "Those were not the only needs of hers he neglected to fulfill. The last issue of the marriage was born in 1853: some four years later, her patience exhausted and her heart broken, the respondent finally requested the dignity of a room of her own." He pauses to allow the whole audience to register his meaning. "Since the petitioner, as we have been told, did enter his wife's room on occasion—the door not being locked—it may be presumed that it was by his own acquiescence, or even by his own wish, that marital relations did not resume at any point in the seven years that followed. I need hardly remind you, gentlemen, that it is for the spouse of the stronger sex, not the weaker, to demand the exercise of conjugal rights."

Fido watches the jury: the smug faces, the uneasy ones.

"To shed more light on this delicate subject I now call Captain Strickland of the Royal Navy."

Strickland turns out to be a hangdog, red-haired subordinate of Harry's from Malta.

"Did the respondent complain to you bitterly about not seeing her husband from one day to the next?" asks Hawkins. "Ah, yes."

"Did the petitioner ever ask you how many children you had?" A glum nod. "I told him two."

"His reply?"

"I believe he said, 'That's quite enough. Follow my example and have no more.'"

This starts a scandalized ripple in the crowd.

"Did you think he meant simple abstinence," asks Hawkins grimly, "or—I beg the court's indulgence—the use of devices to thwart conception?"

"I don't recall what I thought, exactly," mutters Strickland, scratching his temple.

"Did the petitioner express any shame on the subject?"

"No, no. Pride, if anything."

"Pride!"

Bovill, muttering in Harry's ear, is offered the opportunity to cross-examine, but shakes his head.

It suddenly strikes Fido that the Codringtons are—or rather were—a thoroughly modern couple. Progressive, even, in some ways (even if in others they resemble some stomping crusader and his lecherous chatelaine). The discreet limitation of child-bearing, the separate friendships, the refusal to allow two unique characters to be assimilated into one—are these not ideals Fido and her friends at Langham Place have often invoked when discussing
a new relation between the sexes?

The coincidence turns her stomach. Women like Helen taint the very notion of female independence. Is this what it all slides into in the end—grunting couplings on sofas?

Strickland gives way to a short, busy little man: a naval surgeon called Pickthorn.

Hawkins asks him, "Did they quarrel about the care of the children?"

"Indeed, yes," says Pickthorn, "and in particular Mrs. Watson's interference in their management. She—Mrs. Codrington—told me the admiral threatened to send the girls to England to live with his sister, Lady Bourchier."

The barrister raises his smooth eyebrows at that. "Now, turning to the matter of the bedrooms. What did Mrs. Codrington tell you on one occasion in 1862?"

"That when she attempted to go into the admiral's chamber, he'd put her out of the door, and hurt her in doing so."

"Hurt her," Hawkins repeats, eyes on the jury. "Did you confront the petitioner about this assault?"

"I thought it my duty, as the lady's physician. But he denied having used the least violence."

"In your experience, Dr. Pickthorn, what effects might it have on a woman to be thwarted of the normal outlets?"

"You mean—"

"Conjugal outlets."

"That depends on her constitution," says the doctor gravely. "If cool or sluggish, the answer may be, none. But if she's of a warm constitution, she will suffer from tension, broken sleep, digestive disorders, and emotional disruption."

"How would you characterize the respondent's constitution?"

"Very warm."

He wants her,
Fido realizes. This little surgeon pants for her, and tells himself it's benevolence. It seems as if every man Helen meets is roused by her, in one way or another, and the sad joke is that Harry, once past the point of desiring her himself, couldn't see it.

"So if a man denied his wife her rights over a period of many years," asks Hawkins, "would that man be altogether blameless if her natural passion were to overflow and seek release elsewhere?"

"Not blameless at all."

Bovill has been huddled in whispered consultation with his client. Now he leaps out of his seat to cross-examine. "On the night of this so-called assault, Dr. Pickthorn," he barks, "would you be surprised to learn that the respondent had returned very late from a ball in a state of unnatural excitement brought on by dancing—and strong punch," he adds pointedly, "and that when she persisted in hanging over the petitioner's bed and making provoking comments unworthy of an English lady, he was obliged to very gently remove her from his room?"

The surgeon falters, and shrugs. "What seems gentle to a tall, muscular officer may not seem so to a delicate woman."

Bovill's mouth tightens. "In addition, are you aware of the view of many eminent medical authorities that virtuous women have no need for sensual outlets? That to many wives, the natural cessation of relations after the birth of several children is, if anything, a relief?"

"I am aware of that notion," says Pickthorn stoutly, "and I believe it to be ignorant cant."

Bovill's eyebrows shoot up.

"Are not men and women, for all their differences, made of the same stuff?"

Fido groans inwardly. He sounds like a supporter of the Cause.

As soon as the witness has been dismissed, Hawkins stands up again. "This court has often heard appalling accounts of the brutality of working men towards their wives, but educated gentlemen have their own refined forms of cruelty. They rarely strike with their fists," he says snidely over his shoulder in Harry's direction. "They only assail the tender feminine affections, only lacerate the heart!"

Helen's case is looking much stronger, Fido realizes with a start. The jury may well decide that Harry was at least partly to blame. What kind of life will Helen have won, in that case? No children, a reputation in tatters. But she'll still have her name, her income, a separate household.

Except that I haven't testified yet.

"The petitioner went further," says Hawkins with a flourish, "and revealed the true baseness of his character on October the eleventh, 1856. I now call Miss Emily Faithfull."

She barely hears her name over the roaring in her ears. She wants to run down the aisle, away from the buzzing hive of watchers.

As she steps up into the box, she feels giddy. She scans the crowd for Helen, but the only face she recognizes is—to her horror—her sister Esther's: meaty cheeks and a grave mouth. Fido averts her gaze. How kind, how scrupulously loyal of Esther to make a showing on behalf of the family. But Fido wishes her at the other end of the earth.

She puts her hand on the Book and takes the oath without a qualm. The letter of the truth doesn't matter to her anymore, only the spirit. Somehow she must find her way through the tangled forest.

Hawkins gives her a small, tight smile, as if to congratulate her for having overcome her feminine qualms at last. Fido steels herself against him.

Mechanically, she answers several questions about her proprietorship of the Victoria Press—meant to establish that she's a serious person, she supposes.

"Under what circumstances did you first become acquainted with the Codringtons?"

"In 1854," she says, then clears her throat. "In 1854 I was staying with—" no need to name her sister. "I was staying at Walmer in Kent when I met Mrs. Codrington."

"Ten years ago, you were what age?"

"Just nineteen."

"You'd always lived in a country parsonage, had been educated in very strict principles, and were altogether ignorant of the world?"

"I suppose so." Is that his angle? She waits, then goes on with the account she's prepared. "After Mrs. Codrington introduced me to her husband, I visited them at Eccleston Square, at their joint and repeated request. I stayed there on and off until 1857—not as Mrs. Codrington's companion, as was stated in a newspaper," she adds stiffly, "but as a friend."

"A trusted family friend," says Hawkins, nodding.

He believes I'm still Helen's witness; he thinks I'm her last, best chance.

"How did their marriage seem?"

Here it comes. "They were in the habit of quarrelling. In the very first days of my acquaintance with her—Mrs. Codrington—she admitted she was not happy. Sometimes they wouldn't speak to each other for a week."

"In the autumn of 1856," he asks, "what room were you occupying at Eccleston Square?"

"The large bedroom next to that of the Codringtons."

"You mean they slept together in one room?"

Fido can hardly believe she's spelling out these private details in a witness box. "Sometimes, at that point. It was the room designated as theirs," she says weakly.

"Had they shared it, during the months between the petitioner's return from the Crimea in August, and October of that year?"

"Really, at this distance of time, I can't remember remarking it."
Liar;
she was always aware of where Helen was: only an inch across the pillow or shut away behind the oak-panelled wall.

"When did Mrs. Codrington sleep with you in your room?"

"Whenever the admiral was away." Afraid of being caught out, Fido adds, "Also sometimes when he was home. I am subject to asthma, and sometimes need medical assistance..."
Isn't that what maids are for?
she asks herself, brutally, but Hawkins doesn't probe.

"Now, when Mrs. Codrington was not sleeping with him, where did the admiral spend the night?"

"In his own room."

"You're now referring to a third room, on the other side of yours?"

"No, I—" Oh heavens, she's got in a muddle already. "He'd sleep in that room—the room designated as theirs. While she was in the room beside it, with me."

To her ears that's no clearer, but Hawkins only says, "There is a communicating door between the two rooms?" Fido nods.

"Answer in words, if you please."

"Yes." Of course, everything must show up on the record. Like speaking in stone.

Hawkins's tone is becoming that of a teller of ghost stories. "On nights when Mrs. Codrington was sharing your room, Miss Faithfull, was the door locked?"

"Shut fast, but not locked. Helen—the respondent—used sometimes to pass in and out between the two rooms." Then she wishes she hadn't added that detail. It conjures up visions of casual flittings in the dark.

"Did the petitioner ever come into the room when you and his wife were sharing it?"

She stiffens. "Occasionally he might walk in to address a remark to her, or poke the fire."

One eyebrow goes up. "Did you often have a fire in your bedroom?"

"A concession to my health; I'd had a fever, and my habitual asthma," she explains, absurdly apologetic. "The admiral can be ... a rather fidgeting man; he didn't trust the maid to see to the fire." She ought to have said
the fires
; why would he single out the one in her bedroom, rather than those burning downstairs? It all sounds so peculiar, she can't help defending herself. "I didn't like it, and I told her—Mrs. Codrington—that I wished she wouldn't allow it. But she laughed and said that if the admiral liked to play the housemaid, what did she care?"

Hawkins nods twice, as if to stem her nervous flow of words. "Now for the night of the eleventh," he says portentously. "What time did you and Mrs. Codrington retire to bed?"

Her body's as rigid as a mummy's. "About ten, perhaps? I'd taken medicine," she says, getting the fact out brusquely. "I fell into a deep sleep."

"And woke up at what time?"

"I've no idea." She clears her throat, too loudly. "All I remember is that the fire was low and I saw a white figure leaving the room."

Hawkins frowns slightly. "No no, Miss Faithfull, take it from the beginning."

"I have done so," she says through clenched jaws.

He doesn't understand; he still thinks his star witness just needs a little encouragement. "First the petitioner came in through the communicating door?"

Fido shakes her head. "I woke, and saw a white figure going out the door, and presumed it was the admiral, as no one else was in the habit of coming in, and Mrs.—the respondent—said afterwards that it was he." She's gabbling. It's all the literal truth, so why does it feel like a lie?

Hawkins, frowning again, refers to his notes. "Was he in his nightshirt?"

"His dressing gown, I believe." That's not half as bad. "Really, it was all so very rapid that I could hardly tell what I saw; I was still drowsy from my medicine."