A Dangerous Mourning

chapter 2
Hester Latterly straightened up from the fire she had been sweeping and stoking and looked at the long, cramped ward of the infirmary. The narrow beds were a few feet apart from each other and set down both sides of the dim room with its high, smoke-darkened ceiling and sparse windows. Adults and children lay huddled under the gray blankets in all conditions of illness and distress.

At least there was enough coal and she could keep the place tolerably warm, even though the dust and fine ash from it seemed to get into everything. The women in the beds closest to the fire were too hot, and kept complaining about the grit getting into their bandages, and Hester was forever dusting the table in the center of the room and the few wooden chairs where patients well enough occasionally sat. This was Dr. Pomeroy's ward, and he was a surgeon, so all the cases were either awaiting operations or recovering from them-or, in over half the instances, not recovering but in some stage of hospital fever or gangrene.

At the for end a child began to cry again. He was only five and had a tubercular abscess in the joint of his shoulder. He had been there three months already, waiting to have it operated on, and each time he had been taken along to the theater, his legs shaking, his teeth gritted, his young face white with fear, he had sat in the anteroom for over two hours, only to be told some other case had been treated today and he was to return to his bed.

To Hester's fury, Dr. Pomeroy had never explained either to the child or to her why this had been done. But then Pomeroy regarded nurses in the same light as most other doctors did: they were necessary only to do the menial tasks-washing, sweeping, scrubbing, disposing of soiled bandages, and rolling, storing and passing out new ones. The most senior were also to keep discipline, particularly moral discipline, among the patients well enough to misbehave or become disorderly.

Hester straightened her skirt and smoothed her apron, more from habit than for any purpose, and hurried down to the child. She could not ease his pain-he had already been given all he should have for that, she had seen to it-but she could at least offer him the comfort of arms around him and a gentle word.

He was curled up on his left side with his aching right shoulder high, crying softly into the pillow. It was a desolate, hopeless sound as if he expected nothing, simply could not contain his misery any longer.

She sat down on the bed and very carefully, not to jolt the shoulder, gathered him up in her arms. He was thin and light and not difficult to support. She laid his head against her and stroked his hair. It was not what she was there for; she was a skilled nurse with battlefield experience in horrific wounds and emergency surgery and care of men suffering from cholera, typhus and gangrene. She had returned home after the war hoping to help reform the backward and tradition-bound hospitals in England, as had so many other of the women who had nursed in the Crimea; but it had proved far more difficult than she expected even to find a post, let alone to exert any influence.

Of course Florence Nightingale was a national heroine. The popular press was full of praise for her, and the public adored her. She was perhaps the only person to emerge from the whole sorry campaign covered with glory. There were stories of the hectic, insane, misdirected charge of the Light Brigade right into the mouths of the Russian guns, and scarcely a military family in the country had not lost either a son or a friend in the carnage that followed. Hester herself had watched it helplessly from the heights above. She could still see in her mind's eye Lord Raglan sitting ramrod stiff on his horse as if he had been riding in some English park, and indeed he had said afterwards that his mind had been on his wife at home. It certainly could not have been on the matter at hand, or he could never have given such a suicidal command, however it was worded-and there had been enough argument about it afterwards. Lord Raglan had said one thing-Lieutenant Nolan had conveyed another to Lords Lucan and Cardigan. Nolan was killed, torn to pieces by a splinter from a Russian shell as he dashed in front of Cardigan waving his sword and shouting. Perhaps he had intended to tell Cardigan he was charging the manned guns-not the abandoned position the order intended. No one would ever know.

Hundreds were crippled or slain, the flower of the cavalry a scatter of mangled corpses in Balaclava. For courage and supreme sacrifice to duty the charge had been a high-water mark of history-militarily it was useless.

And there had been the glory of the thin red line at the Alma, the Heavy Brigade who had stood on foot, their scarlet uniforms a wavering line holding back the enemy, clearly visible even from the far distance where the women waited. As one man fell, another took his place, and the line never gave. The heroism would be remembered as long as stories of war and courage were told, but who even now remembered the maimed and the dead, except those who were bereaved, or caring for them?

She held the child a little closer. He was no longer crying, and it comforted her in some deep, wordless place in her own spirit. The sheer, blinding incompetence of the campaign had infuriated her, the conditions in the hospital in Scutari were so appalling she thought if she survived that, kept her sanity and some remnant of humor, then she would find anything in England a relief and encouragement. At least here there would be no cartloads of wounded, no raging epidemic fevers, no men brought in with frostbitten limbs to be amputated, or bodies frozen to death on the heights above Sebastopol. There would be ordinary dirt, lice and vermin, but nothing like the armies of rats that had hung on the walls and fallen like rotting fruit, the sounds of the fat bodies plopping on beds and floors sickening her dreams even now. And there would be the normal waste to clean, but not hospital floors running with pools of excrement and blood from hundreds of men too ill to move, and rats, but not by the thousands.

But that horror had brought out the strength in her, as it had in so many other women. It was the endless pomposity, rule-bound, paper shuffling self-importance, and refusal to change that crippled her spirit now. The authorities regarded initiative as both arrogant and dangerous, and in women it was so totally misplaced as to be against nature.

The Queen might turn out to greet Florence Nightingale, but the medical establishment was not about to welcome young women with ideas of reform, and Hester had found this out through numerous infuriating, doomed confrontations.

It was all the more distressing because surgery had made such giant steps forward. It was ten years, to the month, since ether had been used successfully in America to anesthetize a patient during an operation. It was a marvelous discovery. Now all sorts of things could be done which had been impossible before. Of course a brilliant surgeon could amputate a limb; saw through flesh, arteries, muscle and bone; cauterize the stump and sew as necessary in a matter of forty or fifty seconds. Indeed Robert Liston, one of the fastest, had been known to saw through a thigh bone and amputate the leg, two of his assistant's fingers, and the tail of an onlooker's coat in twenty-nine seconds.

But the shock to the patient in such operations was appalling, and internal operations were out of the question because no one, with all the thongs and ropes in the world, could tie someone down securely enough for the knife to be wielded with any accuracy. Surgery had never been regarded as a calling of dignity or status. In fact, surgeons were coupled with barbers, more renowned for strong hands and speed of movement than for great knowledge.

Now, with anesthetic, all sorts of more complicated operations could be assayed, such as the removal of infected organs from patients diseased rather than wounded, frostbitten or gangrened; like this child she held in her arms, now close to sleep at last, his face flushed, his body curled around but eased to lie still.

She was holding him, rocking very gently, when Dr. Pom-eroy came in. He was dressed for operating, in dark trousers, well worn and stained with blood, a shirt with a torn collar, and his usual waistcoat and old jacket, also badly soiled. It made little sense to ruin good clothes; any other surgeon would have worn much the same.

"Good morning, Dr. Pomeroy," Hester said quickly. She caught his attention because she wished to press him to operate on this child within the next day or two, best of all this afternoon. She knew his chances of recovery were only very moderate-forty percent of surgical patients died of postoperative infection-but he would get no better as he was, and his pain was becoming worse, and therefore his condition weaker. She endeavored to be civil, which was difficult because although she knew his skill with the knife was high, she despised him personally.

"Good morning, Miss-er-eh-" He still managed to look surprised, in spite of the fact that she had been there a month and they had conversed frequently, most often with opposing views. They were not exchanges he was likely to forget. But he did not approve of nurses who spoke before they were addressed, and it caught him awry every time.

"Latterly," she supplied, and forbore from adding, "I have not changed it since yesterday-nor indeed at all," which was on the edge of her tongue. She cared more about the child.

"Yes, Miss Latterly, what is it?" He did not look at her, but at the old woman on the bed opposite, who was lying on her back with her mouth open.

"John Airdrie is in considerable pain, and his condition is not improving," she said with careful civility, keeping her voice much softer than the feeling inside her. Unconsciously she held the child closer to her. "I believe if you will operate quickly it will be his best chance."

"John Airdrie?" He turned back to look at her, a frown between his brows. He was a small man with gingery hair and a very neatly trimmed beard.

"The child," she said with gritted teeth. "He has a tubercular abscess in the joint of his shoulder. You are to excise it.''

"Indeed?" he said coldly. "And where did you take your medical degree, Miss Latterly? You are very free with your advice to me. I have had occasion to remark on it a number of times!"

"In the Crimea, sir," she said immediately and without lowering her eyes.

"Oh yes?" He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets. "Did you treat many children with tubercular shoulders there, Miss Latterly? I know it was a hard campaign, but were we really reduced to drafting sickly five-year-olds to do our fighting for us?" His smile was thin and pleased with itself. He spoiled his barb by adding to it. "If they were also reduced to permitting young women to study medicine, it was a far harder time than we here in England were led to believe."

"I think you in England were led to believe quite a lot that was not true," she retorted, remembering all the comfortable lies and concealments that the press had printed to save the faces of government and army command. "They were actually very glad of us, as has been well demonstrated since." She was referring to Florence Nightingale again, and they both knew it; names were not necessary.

He winced. He resented all this fuss and adulation for one woman by common and uninformed people who knew no better. Medicine was a matter of skill, judgment and intelligence, not of wandering around interfering with established knowledge and practice.

"Nevertheless, Miss Latterly, Miss Nightingale and all her helpers, including you, are amateurs and will remain so. There is no medical school in this country which admits women, or is ever likely to. Good heavens! The best universities do not even admit religious nonconformists! Females would be unimaginable. And who, pray, would allow them to practice? Now will you keep your opinions to yourself and attend to the duties for which we pay you? Take off Mrs. Warburton's bandages and dispose of them-" His face creased with anger as she did not move. "And put that child down! If you wish for children to hold, then get married and have some, but do not sit here like a wet nurse. Bring me clean bandages so I can redress Mrs. Warburton's wound. Then you may see if she will take a little ice. She looks feverish."

Hester was so furious she was rooted to the spot. His statements were monstrously irrelevant, patronizing and complacent, and she had no weapons she dared use against him. She could tell him all the incompetent, self-preserving, inadequate things she thought he was, but it would only defeat her purposes and make an even more bitter enemy of him than he was now. And perhaps John Airdrie would suffer.

With a monumental effort she bit back the scalding contempt and the words remained inside her.

"When are you going to operate on the child?" she repeated, staring at him.

He colored very faintly. There was something in her eyes that discomfited him.

"I had already decided to operate this afternoon, Miss Latterly. Your comments were quite unnecessary," he lied-and she knew it, but kept it from her face.

"I am sure your judgment is excellent," she lied back.

"Well what are you waiting for?" he demanded, taking his hands out of his pockets. "Put that child down and get on with it! Do you not know how to do what I asked? Surely your competence stretphes that far?" He indulged in sarcasm again; he still had a great deal of status to recoup. "The bandages are in the cupboard at the end of the ward, and no doubt you have the key."

Hester was too angry to speak. She laid the child down gently, rose to her feet.

"Is that not it, hanging at your waist?" he demanded.

She strode past him, swinging the keys so wide and hard they clipped his coattails as she passed, and marched along the length of the ward to fetch the bandages.

***

Hester had been on duty since dawn, and by four o'clock in the afternoon she was emotionally exhausted. Physically, her back ached, her legs were stiff, her feet hurt and her boots felt tight. And the pins in her hair were digging into her head. She was in no mood to continue her running battle with the matron over the type of woman who should be recruited into nursing. She wished particularly to see it become a profession which was respected and remunerated accordingly, so women of character and intelligence would be attracted. Mrs. Stansfield had grown up with the rough-and-ready women who expected to do no more than scrub, sweep, stoke fires and carry coals, launder, clean out slops and waste, and pass bandages. Senior nurses like herself kept discipline rigid and spirits high. She had no desire, as Hester had, to exercise medical judgment, change dressings herself and give medicines when the surgeon was absent, and certainly not to assist in operations. She considered these young women who had come back from the Crimea to overrate themselves greatly and be a disruptive and highly unwelcome influence, and she said so.

This evening Hester simply wished her good-night and walked out, leaving her surprised, and the lecture on morals and duty pent up unspoken inside her. It was very unsatisfying. It would be different tomorrow.

It was not a long journey from the infirmary to the lodging house where Hester had taken rooms. Previously she had lived with her brother, Charles, and his wife, Imogen, but since the financial ruin and death of their parents, it would be quite unfair to expect Charles to support her for longer than the first few months after she returned from the Crimea early in order to be with the family in its time of bereavement and distress. After the resolution of the Grey case she had accepted the help of Lady Callandra Daviot to obtain the post at the infirmary, where she could earn sufficient to maintain herself and could exercise the talents she possessed in administration and nursing.

During the war she had also learned a good deal about war correspondence from her friend Alan Russell, and when he died in the hospital in Scutari, she had sent his last dispatch to his newspaper in London. Later, when his death had not been realized in the thousands of others, she did not amend the error but wrote the letters herself, and was deeply satisfied when they were printed. She could no longer use his name now she was home again, but she wrote now and then, and signed herself simply as one of Miss Nightingale's volunteers. It paid only a few shillings, but money was not her primary motive; it was the desire to express the opinions she held with such intensity, and to move people to press for reform.

When she reached her lodgings, her landlady, a spare, hardworking woman with a sick husband and too many children, greeted her with the news that she had a visitor awaiting her in the parlor.

"A visitor?" Hester was surprised, and too weary to be pleased, even if it was Imogen, who was the only person she could think of. "Who is it, Mrs. Home?"

"A Mrs. Daviot," the landlady replied without interest. She was too busy to be bothered with anything beyond her duties. "Said she'd wait for you."

"Thank you." Hester felt an unexpected lift, both because

she liked Callandra Daviot as well as anyone she knew, and because characteristically she had omitted to use her title, a modesty exercised by very few.

Callandra was sitting in the small, well-worn parlor by the meager fire, but she had not kept on her coat, even though the room was chill. Her interesting, individual face lit up when Hester came in. Her hair was as wild as always, and she was dressed with more regard for comfort than style.

"Hester, my dear, you look appallingly tired. Come and sit down. I'm sure you need a cup of tea. So do I. I asked that woman, poor creature-what is her name?-if she would bring one."

"Mrs. Home.'' Hester sat down and unbuttoned her boots. She slipped them off under her skirt with an exquisite relief and adjusted the worst of the pins in her hair.

Callandra smiled. She was the widow of an army surgeon, now very much past her later middle years, and she had known Hester some time before the Grey case had caused their paths to cross again. She had been born Callandra Grey, the daughter of the late Lord Shelburne, and was the aunt of the present Lord Shelburne and of his younger brother.

Hester knew she would not have come simply to visit, not at the end of a hard day when she was aware Hester would be tired and not in the best frame of mind for company. It was too late for genteel afternoon calling, and far too early for dinner. Hester waited expectantly.

"Menard Grey comes to trial the day after tomorrow,'' Callandra said quietly. "We must testify on his behalf-I presume you are still willing?"

"Of course!" There was not even a second's doubt.

"Then we had better go and meet with the lawyer I have employed to conduct his defense. He will have some counsel for us concerning our testimony. I have arranged to see him in his rooms this evening. I am sorry it is so hasty, but he is extremely busy and had no other opportunity. We may have dinner first, or later, as you please. My carriage will return in half an hour; I thought it unsuitable to leave it outside." She smiled wryly; explanation was not necessary.

'' Of course.'' Hester sank deeper into her chair and thought of Mrs. Home's cup of tea. She would have that well before she thought of changing her clothes, putting her boots on again, and traipsing out to see some lawyer.

But Oliver Rathbone was not "some lawyer"; he was the most brilliant advocate practicing at the bar, and he knew it. He was a lean man of no more than average height, neatly but unremarkably dressed, until one looked closely and saw the quality of the fabric and, after a little while, the excellence of the cut, which fitted him perfectly and seemed always to hang without strain or crease. His hair was fair and his face narrow with a long nose and a sensitive, beautifully shaped mouth. But the overriding impression was one of controlled emotion and brilliant, all-pervading intelligence.

His rooms were quiet and full of light from the chandelier which hung from the center of an ornately plastered ceiling. In the daylight they would have been equally well illuminated by three large sash windows, curtained in dark green velvet and bound by simple cords. The desk was mahogany and the chairs appeared extremely comfortable.

He ushered them in and bade them be seated. At first Hester was unimpressed, finding him a little too concerned for their ease than for the purpose of their visit, but this misapprehension vanished as soon as he addressed the matter of the trial. His voice was pleasing enough, but the preciseness of his diction made it memorable so that even his exact intonation remained with her long afterwards.

"Now, Miss Latterly," he said, "we must discuss the testimony you are to give. You understand it will not simply be a matter of reciting what you know and then being permitted to leave?"

She had not considered it, and when she did now, that was precisely what she had assumed. She was about to deny it, and saw in his face that he had read her thoughts, so she changed them.

"I was awaiting your instructions, Mr. Rathbone. I had not judged the matter one way or the other."

He smiled, a delicate, charming movement of the lips.

"Quite so." He leaned against the edge of his desk and regarded her gravely. "I will question you first. You are my witness, you understand? I shall ask you to tell the events of your family's tragedy, simply, from your own point of view. I do not wish you to tell me anything that you did not experience yourself. If you do, the judge will instruct the jury to disregard it, and every time he stops you and disallows what you say, the less credence the jury will give to what remains. They may easily forget which is which."

"I understand," she assured him. "I will say only what I know for myself."

"You may easily be tempted, Miss Latterly. It is a matter in which your feelings must be very deep." He looked at her with brilliant, humorous eyes. "It will not be as simple as you may expect."

"What chance is there that Menard Grey will not be hanged?" she asked gravely. She chose deliberately the harshest words. Rathbone was not a man with whom to use euphemisms.

"We will do the best we can," he replied, the light fading from his face."But I am not at all sure that we will succeed.''

"And what would be success, Mr. Rathbone?"

"Success? Success would be transportation to Australia, where he would have some chance to make a new life for himself-in time. But they stopped most transportation three years ago, except for cases warranting sentences over fourteen years-" He paused.

"And failure?" she said almost under her breath. "Hanging?"

"No," he said, leaning forward a little. "The rest of his life somewhere like the Coldbath Fields. I'd rather be hanged, myself."

She sat silent; there was nothing to say to such a reality, and trite words would be so crass as to be painful. Callandra, sitting in the corner of the room, remained motionless.

"What can we do that will be best?" Hester said after a moment or two. "Please advise me, Mr. Rathbone."

"Answer only what I ask you, Miss Latterly," he replied. "Do not offer anything, even if you believe it will be helpful. We will discuss everything now, and I will judge what will suit our case and what, in the jury's minds, may damage it. They did not live through the events; many things that are perfectly clear to you may be obscure to them." He smiled with a bleak, personal humor that lit his eyes and curved the corners of his abstemious mouth. "And their knowledge of the war may be very different from yours. They may well consider all officers, especially wounded ones, to be heroes. And if we try too clumsily to persuade them otherwise, they may resent the destruction of far more of their dreams than we are aware of. Like Lady Fabia Grey, they may need to believe as they do."

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.

"Has Mr. Rathbone advised you?" she said without thinking.

His eyebrows rose. "I have testified in court before, Miss Latterly." His voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Even occasionally in cases of considerable importance. I am aware of the procedure."

She was annoyed with herself for having left herself open to such a remark, and with him for making it. Instinctively she dealt back the hardest blow that she could.

"I see a great deal of your recollection must have returned since we last met. I had not realized, or of course I should not have commented. I was endeavoring to be helpful, but it seems you do not require it."

The color drained from his face leaving two bright spots of

pink on his cheekbones. His mind was racing for an equal barb to return.

"I have forgotten much, Miss Latterly, but that still leaves me with an advantage over those who never knew anything in the beginning!" he said tartly, turning away.

Callandra smiled and did not interfere.

"It was not my assistance I was suggesting, Mr. Monk," Hester snapped back. "It was Mr. Rathbone's. But if you believe you know better than he does, I can only hope you are right and indeed you do-not for your sake, which is immaterial, but for Menard Grey's. I trust you have not lost sight of our purpose in being here?"

She had won that exchange, and she knew it.

"Of course I haven't," he said coldly, standing with his back to her, hands in his pockets. "I have left my present investigation to Sergeant Evan and come early in case Mr. Rathbone wished to see me, but I have no intention of disturbing him if he does not."

"He may not know you are here to be seen," she argued.

He turned around to face her. "Miss Latterly, can you not for one moment refrain from meddling in other people's affairs and assume we are capable of managing without your direction? I informed his clerk as I came in."

"Then all civility required you do was say so when I asked you!" she replied, stung by the charge of interfering, which was totally unjust-or anyway largely-or to some extent!"But you do not seem to be capable of ordinary civility."

"You are not an ordinary person, Miss Latterly." His eyes were very wide, his face tight. "You are overbearing, dictatorial, and seem bent to treat everyone as if they were incapable of managing without your instruction. You combine the worst elements of a governess with the ruthlessness of a workhouse matron. You should have stayed in the army-you are eminently suited for it."

That was the perfect thrust; he knew how she despised the army command for its sheer arrogant incompetence, which had driven so many men to needless and appalling deaths. She was so furious she choked for words.

"I am not," she gasped. "The army is made up of men- and those in command of it are mostly stubborn and stupid-like you. They haven't the faintest idea what they are doing,

but they would rather blunder along, no matter who is killed by it, than admit their ignorance and accept help." She drew breath again and went on. "They would rather die than take counsel from a woman-which in itself wouldn't matter a toss. It's their letting other people die that is unforgivable."

He was prevented from having to think of a reply by the bailiff coming to the door and requesting Hester to prepare herself to enter the courtroom. She rose with great dignity and swept out past him, catching her skirt in the doorway and having to stop and tweak it out, which was most irksome. She flashed a smile at Callandra over her other shoulder, then with fluttering stomach followed the bailiff along the passageway and into the court.

The chamber was large, high ceilinged, paneled in wood and so crowded with people they seemed to press in on her from every side. She could feel a heat from their bodies as they jostled and craned to see her come in, and there was a rustle and hiss of breath and a shuffle of feet as people fought to maintain balance. In the press benches pencils flew, scratching notes on paper, making outlines of faces and hats.

She stared straight ahead and walked up the cleared way to the witness box, angry that her legs were trembling. She stumbled on the step, and the bailiff put out his hand to steady her. She looked around for Oliver Rathbone, and saw him immediately, but with his white lawyer's wig on he looked different, very remote. He regarded her with the distant politeness he would a stranger, and it was surprisingly chilling.

She could hardly feel worse. There was nothing to be lost by reminding herself why she was here. She allowed her eyes to meet Menard Grey's in the dock. He was pale, all the fresh color gone from his skin. He looked white, tired and very frightened. It was enough to give her all the courage she needed. What was her brief, rather childish moment of loneliness in comparison?

She was passed the Bible and swore to her name and that she would tell the truth, her voice firm and positive.

Rathbone came towards her a couple of steps and began quietly.

"Miss Latterly, I believe you were one of the several wellborn young women who answered the call of Miss Florence Nightingale, and left your home and family and sailed to the Crimea to nurse our soldiers out there, in the conflict?"

The judge, a very elderly man with a broad, fragile tempered face, leaned forward.

"I am sure Miss Latterly is an admirable young lady, Mr. Rathbone, but is her nursing experience of any relevance to this case? The accused did not serve in the Crimea, nor did the crime occur over there.''

"Miss Latterly knew the victim in the hospital in Scutari, my lord. The roots of the crime begin there, and on the battlefields of Balaclava and Sebastopol."

"Do they indeed? I had rather thought from the prosecution that they began in the nursery at Shelburne Hall. Still- continue, please." He leaned back again in his high seat and stared gloomily at Rathbone.

"Miss Latterly," Rathbone prompted briskly.

Carefully, measuring each word to begin with, then gradually gathering confidence as the emotion of memory overtook her, she told the court about the hospital in which she had served, and the men she had come to know slightly, but as well as their injuries made possible. And as she spoke she became aware of a cessation of the jostling among the crowd. More faces were quickened in interest; even Menard Grey had raised his head and was staring at her.

Rathbone came out from behind his table and paced back and forth across the floor, not waving his arms or moving quickly to distract attention from her, but rather prowling, keeping the jury from becoming too involved in the story and forgetting it all had to do with a crime here in London, and a man on trial for his life.

He had been through her receipt of her brother's heartbroken letter recounting her parents' death, and her return home to the shame and the despair, and the financial restriction. He elicited the details without ever allowing her to repeat herself or sound self-pitying. She followed his direction with more and more appreciation for the skill with which he was building a picture of mounting and inevitable tragedy. Already the faces of the men in the jury were becoming strained with pity, and she knew how their anger would explode when the last piece was fitted into the picture and they understood the truth.

She did not dare to look at Fabia Grey in the front row, still

dressed in black, or at her son Lovel and his wife, Rosamond, beside her. Each time her eyes roamed unintentionally towards them she averted them sharply, and looked either at Rathbone himself or at any anonymous face in the crowd beyond him.

In answer to his careful questions she told him of her visit to Callandra at Shelburne Hall, of her first meeting with Monk, and of all that had ensued. She made some slips, had to be corrected, but never once did she offer anything beyond a simple answer.

By the time he had come to the tragic and terrible conclusion, the faces of the jury were stunned with amazement and anger, and for the first time they were able to look at Menard Grey, because they understood what he had done, and why. Perhaps some even felt they might, had fortune been so cruel to them, have done the same.

When at last Rathbone stepped back and thanked her with a sudden, dazzling smile, she found her body was aching with the tension of clenched muscles and her hands were sore where her nails had unconsciously dug into the palms.

The counsel for the prosecution rose to his feet and smiled bleakly. "Please remain where you are, Miss Latterly. You will not mind if we put to the test this extremely moving story of yours?" It was a rhetorical question; he had no intention whatsoever of permitting such a testimony as hers had been to stand, and she felt the sweat break out on her skin as she looked at his face. At this moment he was losing, and such a thing was not only a shock to him in this instance, but of a pain so deep as to be almost physical.

"Now Miss Latterly, you admit you were-indeed still are- a woman rather past her first youth, without significant background, and in drastically impoverished circumstances-and you accepted an invitation to visit Shelburne Hall, the country home of the Grey family?"

"I accepted an invitation to visit Lady Callandra Daviot," Hester corrected.

"At Shelburne Hall," he said sharply. "Yes?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. And during that visit you spent some time with the accused, Menard Grey?"

She drew breath to say "Not alone,'' and just in time caught

Rathbone's eye, and let out her breath again. She smiled at the prosecutor as if the implication had missed her.

"Of course. It is impossible to stay with a family and not meet all the members who are in residence, and to spend time with them." She was sorely tempted to add that perhaps he did not know such things, and forebore carefully. It would be a cheap laugh, and perhaps bought very dearly. This was an adversary to whom she could give no ground.

"I believe you now have a position in one of the London infirmaries, is that so?"

"Yes."

"Obtained for you by the same Lady Callandra Daviot?"

"Obtained with her recommendation, but I believe on my own merit."

"Be that as it may-with her influence? No; please do not look to Mr. Rathbone for guidance. Just answer me, Miss Latterly."

"I do not require Mr. Rathbone's assistance," she said, swallowing hard. "I cannot answer you, with or without it. I do not know what passed between Lady Callandra and the governors of the infirmary. She suggested I apply there, and when I did, they were satisfied with my references, which are considerable, and they employed me. Not many of Miss Nightingale's nurses find it difficult to obtain a position, should they desire it."

"No indeed, Miss Latterly." He smiled thinly. "But not many of them do desire it, as you do-do they? In fact, Miss Nightingale herself comes from an excellent family who could provide for her for the rest of her life.''

"That my family could not, and that my parents are both dead, is the foundation of the case that brings us here, sir," she said with a hard note of victory in her voice. Whatever he thought or felt, she knew the jury understood that, and it was they who decided, after all each counsel could say.

"Indeed," he said with a flicker of irritation. Then he proceeded to ask her again how well she had known the victim, and to imply very subtly but unmistakably that she had fallen in love with him, succumbed to his now well-established charm, and because he had rejected her, wished to blacken his name. Indeed he skirted close to suggesting she might have collaborated to conceal the crime, and now to defend Menard Grey.

She was horrified and embarrassed, but when the temptation to explode in fury came too close, she looked across at Menard Grey's face and remembered what was truly important.

"No, that is untrue," she said quietly. She thought of accusing him of sordidness, but caught Rathbone's eye again and refrained.

Only once did she see Monk. She felt a tingle of pleasure, even sweetness, to recognize the outrage in his expression as he glared at the counsel for the prosecution.

When the prosecution suddenly changed his mind and gave up, she was permitted to remain in the courtroom, since she was no longer of importance, and she found room to sit and listen while Callandra testified. She too was first questioned by Rathbone and then, with more politeness than he had used before, by the counsel for the prosecution. He judged the jury rightly that they would not view with sympathy any attempt to bully or insult an army surgeon's widow-and a lady. Hester did not watch Callandra, she had no fear for her; she concentrated on the faces of the jurymen. She saw the emotions flicker and change: anger, pity, confusion, respect, contempt.

Next Monk was called and sworn. She had not noticed in the waiting room how well he was dressed. His jacket was of excellent cut, and only the best woolen broadcloth hung in quite that way. What vanity. How, on police pay, did he manage such a thing? Then she thought with a flicker of pity that probably he did not know himself-not now. Had he wondered? Had he perhaps been afraid of the vanity or the ruth-lessness the answer might reveal? How terrible it must be to look at the bare evidence of yourself, the completed acts, and know none of the reasons that made them human, explainable in terms of fear and hopes, things misunderstood, small sacrifices made, wounds compensated for-always to see only what resulted, never what was meant. This extravagant coat might be pure vanity, money grasped for-or it might be the mark of achievement after long years of saving and working, putting in extra duty when others were relaxing at home or laughing in some music hall or public house.

Rathbone began to question him, talking smoothly, knowing the words were powerful enough and emotion from him would heap the impact too high, too soon. He had called his witnesses in this order so he might build his story as it had happened, first the Crimea, then Hester's parents' death, then the crime. Detail by detail he drew from Monk the description of the flat in Mecklenburg Square, the marks of struggle and death, his own slow discovery piece by piece of the truth.

Most of the time Rathbone had his back to her, facing either Monk or the jury, but she found his voice compelling, every word as clear as a cut stone, insistent in the mind, unfolding an irresistible tragedy.

And she watched Monk and saw the respect and once or twice the momentary flicker of dislike cross his face as he answered. Rathbone was not treating him as a favored witness, rather as someone half an enemy. His phrases had a sharp turn to them, an element of antagonism. Only watching the jury did she understand why. They were utterly absorbed. Even a woman shrieking in the crowd and being revived by a neighbor did not break their attention. Monk's sympathy for Menard Grey appeared to be dragged from him reluctantly, although Hester knew it was acutely real. She could remember how Monk had looked at the time, the anger in him, the twisting pain of pity, and the helplessness to alter anything. It had been in that moment she had liked him with absolute completeness, an inner peace that shared, without reservation, and a knowledge that the communication was total.

When the court rose at the end of the afternoon, Hester went with the crowd that pushed and shoved on every side, onlookers rushing home in the jam of carts, wagons and carriages in the streets, newspaper writers hurrying to get the copy in before the presses started to roll for the first editions in the morning, running patterers to compose the next verse of their songs and pass the news along the streets.

She was outside on the steps in the sharp evening wind and the bright gas lamps looking for Callandra, from whom she had become separated, when she saw Monk. She hesitated, uncertain whether to speak to him or not. Hearing the evidence over again, recounting it herself, she had felt all the turmoil of emotions renewed, and her anger with him had been swept away.

But perhaps he still felt just as contemptuous of her? She

stood, unable to decide whether to commit herself and unwilling to leave.

He took the matter out of her hands by walking over, a slight pucker between his brows.

"Well, Miss Latterly, do you believe your friend Mr. Rathbone is equal to the task?"

She looked at his eyes and saw the anxiety in him. The sharp retort died away, the irrelevancies as to whether Rathbone was her friend or not. Sarcasm was only a defense against the fear that they would hang Menard Grey.

"I think so," she said quietly. "I was watching the jurors' faces while you were testifying. Of course I do not know what is yet to come, but up until now, I believe they were more deeply horrified by the injustices of what happened, and our helplessness to prevent it, than by the murder itself. If Mr. Rathbone can keep this mood until they go to consider their verdict, it may be favorable. At least-" She stopped, realizing that no matter what the jurors believed in blame, the fact remained undeniable. They could not return a verdict of not guilty, regardless of any provocation on earth. The weighing lay with the judge, not with them.

Monk had perceived it before her. The bleak understanding was in his eyes.

"Let us trust he is equally successful with his lordship," he said dryly. "Life in Coldbath Fields would be worse than the rope."

"Will you come again tomorrow?" she asked him.

"Yes-in the afternoon. The verdict will not be in till then. Will you?"

"Yes-" She thought what Pomeroy would have to say. "But I will not come until late either, if you really do not believe the verdict will come in early. I do not wish to ask for time from the infirmary without good reason."

"And will they consider your desire to hear the verdict to be a good reason?" he said dryly.

She pulled a small face, not quite a smile. "No. I shall not phrase my request in quite those terms."

"Is it what you wished-the infirmary?" Again he was as frank and direct as she recalled, and his understanding as comfortable.

"No-" She did not think of prevaricating. "It is full of incompetence, unnecessary suffering, ridiculous ways of doing things which could so easily be reorganized, if only they would give up their petty self-importances and think of the end and not the means." She warmed to the subject and his interest. "A great deal of the trouble lies with their whole belief of nursing and the nature of people who should work in it. They pay only six shillings a week, and some of that is given in small beer. Many of the nurses are drunk half the time. But now the hospital provides their food, which is better than their eating the patients' food, which they used to. You may imagine what type of men and women it attracts! Most of them can neither read nor write." She shrugged expressively. "They sleep just off the wards, there are far too few basins or towels for them, and nothing more than a little Conde's fluid and now and again soap to wash themselves- even their hands after cleaning up waste."

His smile became wider and thinner, but there was a gleam of sympathy in his eyes.

"And you?" she asked. "Are you still working for Mr. Runcorn?" She did not ask if he had remembered more about himself, that was too sensitive and she would not probe. The subject of Runcorn was raw enough.

"Yes. "He pulled a face.

"And with Sergeant Evan?" She found herself smiling.

"Yes, Evan too." He hesitated. He seemed about to add something when Oliver Rathbone came down the steps dressed for the street and without his wig and robes. He looked very trim and well pleased.

Monk's eyes narrowed, but he refused to comment.

"Do you think we may be hopeful, Mr. Rathbone?" Hester asked eagerly.

"Hopeful, Miss Latterly," he replied guardedly. "But still far from certain.''

"Don't forget it is the judge you are playing to, Rathbone,'' Monk said tartly, buttoning his jacket higher. "And not Miss Latterly, or the gallery-or even the jury. Your performance before them may be brilliant, but it is dressing and not substance." And before Rathbone could reply he bowed fractionally to Hester, turned on his heel, and strode off down the darkening street.

"A man somewhat lacking in charm," Rathbone said

sourly. "But I suppose his calling requires little enough. May I take you somewhere in my carriage, Miss Latterly?"

"I think charm is a very dubious quality," she said with deliberation. "The Grey case is surely the finest example of excessive charm we are likely ever to see!"

"I can well believe that you do not rate it highly, Miss Latterly," he retorted, his eyes perfectly steady but gleaming with laughter.

"Oh-" She longed to be equally barbed, as subtly rude, and could think of nothing whatsoever to say. She was completely unsure whether the amusement in him was at her, at himself, or at Monk-or even whether it contained unkindness or not. "No-" She fumbled for words. "No. I find it unworthy of trust, a spurious quality, all show and no substance, glitter without warmth. No thank you; I am returning with Lady Callandra-but it is most courteous of you to offer. Good day, Mr. Rathbone."

"Good day, Miss Latterly." He bowed, still smiling.