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“Sick?” Doris said with a smile. “Yer’ll get used ter it. An’ don’t think yer ‘avin’ the cot, cos yer ain’t Marge is sick for real. She gets it Any’ow she was ‘ere first”
Early the following morning Hester was taken to a magistrate’s court and remanded in custody. From there she was taken to the prison at Newgate and placed in a cell with two pickpockets and a prostitute. Within an hour she was sent for and told that her lawyer had come to speak with her.
She felt a wild surge of hope as if the long nightmare were over, the darkness dispelled. She shot to her feet and almost fell over in her eagerness to get through the door and along the bare stone passage to the room where Rathbone would be.
“Now, now,” the wardress said sharply, her hard, blunt face tightening. “Just be’ave yerself. No call to get excited. Talk, that’s all. Come wi’ me, stay be’ind me and speak when yer spoken to.” And she turned on her heel and marched away with Hester at her elbow.
They stopped in front of a large metal door. The wardress produced a huge key from the chain at her belt and placed it in the lock and turned it. The door swung silently under the pressure of her powerful arms. Inside was painted white, gaslit and relatively cheerful. Oliver Rathbone was standing behind the chair at the far side of the plain wooden table. There was an empty chair on the nearer side.
“Hester Latterly,” the wardress said with a half smile at Rathbone. It was a sickly gesture, as if she were undecided whether to try to be charming with him or whether he was an enemy, like all the inmates. She looked at his immaculate clothes, his polished boots and neat hair, and opted for charm. Then she saw the look on his face at the sight of Hester, and something within her froze. The smile was a dead thing, fixed and horrible.
“Knock when you want to get out,” she said coldly, and then as soon as Hester was inside, banged the door so the reverberations of metal on stone jarred in the head.
Hester was too close to tears to speak.
Rathbone came around the table and took both her hands in his. The warmth of his fingers was like a light in darkness, and she clung to him as tightly as she dared.
He stared into her face for only a few moments, gauging the fear in her, then as suddenly let her go and pushed her gently back into the chair closest to her.
“Sit down,” he ordered. “We must not waste the time we have.”
She obeyed, fumbling with her skirts to arrange them so she could pull the chair comfortably to the table.
He sat opposite her, leaning forward a little. “I have already been to see Co
“What about Griselda, Mary’s daughter?”
“She barely spoke. She was present, but seemed to defer to him in everything and, frankly, to be in a state of considerable distress.” He stopped, searching her face as if to judge from it how he should continue.
“Is that a polite way of saying she was not able to apply her mind?” she asked. She could not afford euphemisms.
“Yes,” he conceded. “Yes, I suppose it is. Grief takes many forms, not a few of them unattractive, but she did not seem so much grieved as frightened-at least, that is the impression I received.”
“Of Murdoch?”
“I am afraid I am not receptive enough to be certain. I thought not, but then I also felt that he made her nervous… or anxious? I have no clear impression. I’m sorry.” He frowned. “But it is all of little importance now. I failed to persuade him to dismiss the matter. I am afraid it will proceed, and my dear, you must prepare yourself for it. I will do everything I can to see that it is settled as rapidly and discreetly as possible. But you must help me by answering everything you can with the utmost clarity.” He stopped. His eyes were steady and seemed to look through all her defenses as if he could see not only her thoughts but the mounting fear inside her. A day ago she would have found that intrusive; she would have been angry at his presumption. Now she clung to it as if it were the only chance of rescue in a cold quicksand that was growing deeper by the moment.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she said desperately.
“It will do,” he insisted with a faint smile. “It is simply that we do not have all the facts. It is my task to learn at least enough of them to prove that you have committed no crime.”
No crime. Of course she had committed no crime. Perhaps she had overlooked something, and if she had not, then Mary Farraline might still be alive. But certainly she had not taken the brooch. She had never seen it before. A lift of hope brightened inside her. She met Rathbone’s eyes and he smiled, but it was a small, bleak gesture, a matter of determination rather than confidence.
Beyond the bare room in which they were sitting they could hear the sounds of slamming doors, heavy and resonating, iron against stone. Someone called out, and the sound echoed, even though the words were indistinguishable.
‘Tell me again precisely what happened from the time you entered the Farraline house in Edinburgh,” he instructed.
“But I-” she began, then saw the gravity in his face, and obediently recounted everything she could remember from the time she had stepped into the kitchen and met the butler, McTeer.
Rathbone listened intently. It seemed to Hester as if everything else in the world became distant except the two of them sitting opposite each other, leaning across the wooden table in desperate concentration. She thought that even with her eyes closed, she would see his face as it was now, every detail of it etched on her mind, even the silver flecks in his hair where it sprang smoothly from his temples.
He interrupted her for the first time. “You rested?”
“Yes-why?”
“Apart from your time in the library, was that the first occasion in which you were alone in the house?”
She perceived his meaning immediately.
“Yes.” She spoke with difficulty. “I suppose they will say I could have gone back to the dressing room and taken the brooch then.”
“I doubt it. It would be an extraordinarily dangerous thing to do. Mrs. Farraline was probably in her bedroom…”
“No-no, when I saw her, it was in a boudoir, a sitting room some distance from her bedroom, I think. Although I suppose I am not sure. Certainly it was some way from the dressing room.”
“But the maid could have come into the dressing room,” he argued. “In fact, her duties immediately prior to such a long journey would almost certainly have taken her there a number of times, checking that she had everything packed, all the necessary linen was clean, pressed, folded, placed where it should have been. Is that a time you would risk going in, if you were not supposed to be there?”
“No… no it isn’t!” Then her spirits fell again immediately. “And when I rested in the afternoon my valise was in the room with me. No one could have put the pin into it there.”
“That is not the point, Hester,” he said patiently. “I am trying to think what they will say, what opportunity you had to find the pin and take it We must ascertain where it was kept.”
“Of course,” she said eagerly. “She may have kept it in a jewel case in her bedroom. It would be much more sensible than having it in the dressing room.” She looked at his face, and saw a gentleness in it which gave her a curious prickle of pleasure, but there was no lightness in him which corresponded to hers. Surely if Mary had kept it in her room, that was almost proof Hester could not have taken the brooch?
He looked almost guilty, like someone who must disillusion a child.