The Sealed Letter Part 28

"But what I can't follow-forgive my stupidity, gentlemen," says Mrs. Watson, "is why we need to find the creature at all. Shouldn't we rather rejoice that her failure to testify to those audacious slurs on the admiral's character proves her a coward as well as a liar?"

The solicitor sighs, absent-mindedly crumpling his lapel. "Any jury is a microcosm of the public, madam, and the public is not logical. Rumours and allegations linger like bad odours."

"Or rather," contributes Bovill, "they stick like mud in a carpet, until they're beaten out!"

"There's a wild one going round at the Rag Club," mentions William, "that my brother's smuggled this Faithfull woman out of the country-or worse."

Harry stares at him, injured that he hasn't heard this before.

Bird shakes his head. "The paradox is that unless Mrs. Codrington's counsel produce their missing witness, we can't actually disprove her affidavit."

"It's patently absurd," Harry bursts out. "If you knew Miss Faithfull-she's simply not the kind of woman one would dream-" Remembering the presence of Mrs. Watson, who's another of those women whom no man would attempt to molest, he decides to drop that line of argument. "I swear, I never went into that room when my wife and Miss Faithfull were sleeping there, except on a couple of occasions, to see to the fire."

"What on earth for?"

All heads turn to the general.

"I mean to say," says William, addressing his brother, "that's the maid's job, isn't it?"

Harry feels his cheeks heat up. "I had acceded to separate rooms, at Helen's request, but I didn't take that to mean I wasn't allowed to address a few remarks to her, on domestic affairs."

"Ah, so the fire was an excuse," Bird murmurs.

"I might have sat on the edge of their bed once or twice, in the course of conversation," snaps Harry. "But I defy Fido-Miss Faithfull," he corrects himself awkwardly, "to look me in the eye and say I ever tried to lay a hand on her."

"Could she have formed a personal grudge against you, Admiral?" asks Bovill.

"On what basis? When she was living with our family, I considered her a friend." It sounds weak, to his own ears; yet again, he's coming across as an idiot.

"Ah, but she was little more than a girl in those days," remarks Bovill. "Perhaps, now that she's become a strong-minded reformeress, she disapproves of our s.e.x on principle?"

"Gentlemen, forgive my interrupting, but I believe you're in danger of overlooking the obvious," says Mrs. Watson. "From all I've heard, and my own encounter with this person, she is Mrs. Codrington's gull. Her tool. Perhaps the appalling story of the, ah, attempt, is entirely your wife's invention, Admiral, and Miss Faithfull only parrots it."

Harry stares at her.

"None knows better than I, after all," says Mrs. Watson, eyes on the carpet, "how Helen can take advantage of the strongest sentiments of female friends.h.i.+p."

"I believe she's. .h.i.t on the truth," Harry murmurs to his brother.

"Well, whatever the woman's convoluted motives," says Bovill irritably, "if we can only find her and drag her into the witness box, I'll make mincemeat of her."

"We don't need an address to send her a message; wherever she may be, she'll be reading the English papers," observes the solicitor. "Is there anything we could offer her by way of a lure?" After a second, "Or a threat?"

"I've already called her a panderess," Bovill points out. "What arrows are left in our quiver?"

"Apprentices beaten and starved, at this famous press of hers?" suggests William facetiously. "Men-friends? Some by-blow, fostered back in Surrey?-begging your pardon, Mrs. Watson."

"No need," she murmurs. "I hardly know how to put this, gentlemen, but-"

"Go on," Bird tells her.

Mrs. Watson puts her hand to her cheek. "First I must exonerate myself from any imputation of coa.r.s.eness ... Due to pastoral duties and extensive travel, I have more experience of the underbelly of society than perhaps a gentlewoman ought."

"Speak freely, do," says Harry, hiding his irritation.

"Well. Let me just intimate," looking down at her hands, "that a sinister construction could could be put on the behaviour of a woman who, night after night, for months, usurps a husband's place in his wife's bed." be put on the behaviour of a woman who, night after night, for months, usurps a husband's place in his wife's bed."

n.o.body says a word. Harry feels a painful jab in his chest. He takes a breath. "You don't mean-"

Mrs. Watson's fingers are over her face. "Don't make me say a word more."

It's his brother who breaks the silence. "By Jove, you're on to something, Mrs. Watson. That might just fly."

Bovill is nodding eagerly. "I could certainly drop a few hints along those lines, intimating that I'll shout it to the four winds if Miss Faithfull doesn't come to court at once."

"This is ridiculous," says Harry, almost to himself.

"The knack will be, to say it without saying it; anything explicit could rebound in our faces," the barrister goes on. "Admiral, are you by any chance familiar with the story of 'The Purloined Letter'?"

Harry scowls at him. "I'm not a lover of fiction."

"Very instructive, Mr. Poe's stories, from the legal point of view. A government minister, aiming to gain power over a certain royal personage, has stolen a letter from her," Bovill tells them all. "The thing is, he doesn't show it to her husband and destroy her honour, because his-the minister's-power lies in the possession and not the use of the letter-rather, in its permanent potential potential for use." for use."

"But I never thought of such bizarre possibilities." The words explode from Harry. "Are we to believe, or to expect an Englishjury to believe, that as well as indulging in relations with two different men, my wife would-" His throat locks.

William shrugs. "Really bad women can move from vice to vice, like b.u.t.terflies in a flowerbed."

"She was brought up in India and and Italy," Bird points out. He pats Harry's wrist. "But don't torment yourself, Admiral: no one in this room is claiming that any such debaucheries really occurred." Italy," Bird points out. He pats Harry's wrist. "But don't torment yourself, Admiral: no one in this room is claiming that any such debaucheries really occurred."

His chest refuses to unknot.

"Why don't you let Bovill hint tomorrow that you might might have had such suspicions-so the Wednesday newspapers, by repeating it, will scare Miss Faithfull into taking the first boat back to London to defend herself?" have had such suspicions-so the Wednesday newspapers, by repeating it, will scare Miss Faithfull into taking the first boat back to London to defend herself?"

There's to be no end to the shame poured on Harry's head, then; no end to the lewd laughter prompted by the name Codrington, which his ancestors-all descended from a spear-carrier of Henry the Fifth's-pa.s.sed down to him unstained. When Sir Edward was accused of exceeding his orders in starting the battle of Navarino, Harry remembers, he'd sat down calmly to draw up a narrative of proceedings that would clear his name. The truth was s.h.i.+eld enough for all those bluff generations. Sir Edward's son has the misfortune to live in modern times, when, it seems, it takes lies to set one free.

After a long moment, he nods. "If you all think it worth trying."

"Very good," says the solicitor soothingly.

Bovill is musing aloud. "If someone had only written something down at the time Miss Faithfull was living at Eccleston Square ... It wouldn't even need to be read aloud: the very fact of such suspicions having been consigned to paper would tell against her. I don't suppose you kept a diary, Admiral?" he asks in a curious tone, head on one side.

"I never have, apart from a s.h.i.+p's log."

"Or a letter to some trusted a.s.sociate on the subject of your wife and her bosom friend?" suggests Mrs. Watson. "If you'd even confided your fears in me, in Malta..."

"You can't testify twice, madam," Bird reminds her quietly.

Harry's finally catching on. He knows what answer the faces turned towards him require. "Well, I dare say it's possible I did jot something down at the time, and have forgotten. I could look through my papers," he concedes, his stomach leaden.

"Anything at all," says Bird. "A brief memorandum, for instance, signed and dated and sealed ... I'm sure it would have been sealed, as you wouldn't have wanted a servant to read it."

"Of course, the admiral might very properly have consigned such a doc.u.ment to the trusted hands of, say, his brother," says Bovill with a twinkle.

"Mm, that would be much the best," says Bird, "as the general, unlike the admiral, could appear as a witness and testify to the circ.u.mstances of its composition."

"Certainly," says William.

"If I wrote anything down, I very well might have given such a thing to my brother," says Harry woodenly.

Mrs. Watson rewards him with a dazzling smile.

In his bedroom at the Rag Club, Harry takes a few pages of notepaper from the back of his writing box. "These are rather yellow. Could they pa.s.s for seven years old?"

"They say Vice-Admiral Henry J. Codrington, Vice-Admiral Henry J. Codrington, though," William points out. "You were only a captain in '57, weren't you?" though," William points out. "You were only a captain in '57, weren't you?"

Harry grunts at his own stupidity and screws up the pages.

"Plain paper will do. Here's some in the drawer."

To put the task off for a moment, Harry pours more brandy for his brother.

"Have another tot yourself, won't you?"

He shakes his head. "It doesn't suit my const.i.tution. Clouds my head." Silence fills the room, like stale air. "I don't like dragging you into this,Will..."

"Stuff and nonsense. Besides," his brother adds, pragmatic, "I won't be testifying to anything but the fact of receiving a sealed envelope from your hands, which will be perfectly true."

"The perjury's all mine, then," says Harry grimly.

"Buck up. You won't be in the witness box. Just write this memorandum whatsit, and Bovill will see to the rest."

"These sleights of hand revolt me. What Father would have thought-" Harry breaks off, his voice shaking.

"Oh, to the devil with our sainted father." William's red about the cheekbones; it must be the brandy. "You've always carried him about like some idol, a figure of awe and reproach. But to my mind, his career would have benefitted from a sprinkling of diplomacy."

"You can spout such things-his heir, his favourite?"

"That old theme?" His brother rolls his eyes. "I tell you, he loved us all the same. The morning he got your letter after Acre, he wept, Jane says, wept into his porridge, out of pride in his young chip-off-the-old-block. I'm sure he's looking down from a better place, now, hoping you win your divorce, even at the cost of a little sleight of hand."

Harry sits, mulling all this over, while William drains his gla.s.s. Could his brother be right? He doubts it; his conscience is in a queasy state.

He takes a piece of plain stationery and smooths it out on the desk. "Something we hadn't considered yet," he murmurs. "Will an English jury understand a glancing allusion to this sort of vice?"

"Oh, the more up-to-snuff men will be delighted to explain it to the others, when they're locked up in their room," says William with a snort of amus.e.m.e.nt. "Anyone who's read Baudelaire, or-what's that old poem about the two lords' wives that still goes the rounds? They ask no joys beyond each other's smock..." They ask no joys beyond each other's smock..."

Harry winces, and returns his gaze to the blank page. "It's all nonsense, though."

"No doubt," William a.s.sures him. "My own dear wife insists on sleeping with her friends, whenever they visit."

"What I mean is, Fido-the woman-did stir up some trouble at one time, took Helen's side. I'd go so far as alienation of affections, alienation of affections, even, if we're to use legal jargon," Harry makes himself say. This is like picking a scab, but he can't stop. "These all-engrossing pa.s.sions of theirs can be d.a.m.ned inconvenient, can even come between man and wife, I don't deny that. But to go beyond, and fancy a monster behind every bush-" even, if we're to use legal jargon," Harry makes himself say. This is like picking a scab, but he can't stop. "These all-engrossing pa.s.sions of theirs can be d.a.m.ned inconvenient, can even come between man and wife, I don't deny that. But to go beyond, and fancy a monster behind every bush-"

"Yes, yes. It's after midnight," William reminds him, tapping the page.

"I'll begin in a moment." He stares at the paper, the subtle nap of it. "I know I've been mistaken before. After all, I thought Helen quite used up by motherhood," he says, hot-faced. "She seemed-to be frank, Will, she was as unresponsive to me as a dead fish."

A grimace from his brother.

"I a.s.sumed that all she wanted from men was flattery-and how wrong I was! Which makes me wonder, now, if it's theoretically-if it's within the realm of possibility that I might have been so blind as to miss other horrors going on under my very nose, in the very next room..."

"Enough! You may sit up all night trying to spook yourself," says William, standing up and stretching, "but I want my bed."

Harry stares at the page till his eyes unfocus. "What shall I put?"

"Bovill says in all likelihood it won't even be read," William tells him. "Just make a start and some suitably stern expressions will come to you. Goodnight."

Harry puts the pen down and wipes his sweating hands.

"What's the matter now?"

"It's my first attempt at forgery, after all," he says, trying for a jocular tone.

"It's not forgery when you're signing your own name," William tells him, making for the door.

On the second day of the pet.i.tioner's case, Bovill wears an air of mild cheer. "I will now dispose of the respondent's countercharges-libels, rather-against the good name of the pet.i.tioner. Specifically, her claim that if if the adultery occurred, her husband conduced to it by neglect and cruelty. Now, a foreigner with a less than perfect grasp of the subtleties of British law might call this a strange defence from a woman who maintains her complete innocence." His tone's neutral, but he waits for the laugh. "But leaving that rather obvious point aside, let us consider how the pet.i.tioner is said to have mistreated his wife so badly that she was obliged to flee into another gentleman's arms. Oh, excuse me," he tells the jury, "I mean, of course, into the arms of not less than two other gentlemen." the adultery occurred, her husband conduced to it by neglect and cruelty. Now, a foreigner with a less than perfect grasp of the subtleties of British law might call this a strange defence from a woman who maintains her complete innocence." His tone's neutral, but he waits for the laugh. "But leaving that rather obvious point aside, let us consider how the pet.i.tioner is said to have mistreated his wife so badly that she was obliged to flee into another gentleman's arms. Oh, excuse me," he tells the jury, "I mean, of course, into the arms of not less than two other gentlemen."

This causes waves of mirth.

Harry's eyelids keep sagging. How embarra.s.sing it would be if he were to doze off during proceedings of such importance to him. But he barely slept last night, in his narrow bed at the club, and when he did he was tormented by dreams of Helen. Not the snappish woman he shared a house with until just two weeks ago, but a dancing Helen in the glittering gauzes of an odalisque.

"Two of our witnesses-Mrs. Nichols and Mrs. Watson-have attested to the pet.i.tioner's exemplary treatment of his wife," Bovill reminds the jury. "He found her extravagance, her tantrums, and her flightiness distressing, but he bore with them all. Far from neglecting her, he maintained perfect trust in her honour while she was flitting all over the island with various officers. Even before their departure for Malta in 1857, when she demanded a separate bedroom, he had at no point insisted on his marital rights. What husband in this courtroom-in the country!-could match such forbearance?"

I sound like a doormat, thinks Harry, head down. thinks Harry, head down. Or a eunuch. Or a eunuch.

His barrister's tone turns outraged. "The respondent's counsel may accuse the pet.i.tioner, with the grim hindsight a courtroom offers, of uxoriousness-but what is that but husbandly love so perfect it borders on excess? They may even argue that he must have guessed the true role that Mildmay and Anderson played in his wife's life-but the truth is that this veteran of Her Majesty's wars is of such an upright character that he can barely comprehend duplicity in his fellow man, let alone in the softer s.e.x."

Harry wants to groan aloud. Some myopic Quixote; a feeble-minded Christian soldier. Is it really vital to his case to strip him of every vestige of manliness?

"Beset by official cares, reluctant to suspect any real ill of the mother of his children," Bovill goes on, "the pet.i.tioner nonetheless did share his concerns with others, notably the Watsons but also-very properly-his wife's widowed father, Mr. Christopher Webb Smith. If I may read the crucial sentence from a letter that venerable merchant of Florence sent his son-in-law in November of 1863, that is, last year-" Bovill clears his throat.

I can only express my hope that my daughter will alter her conduct and avoid disgracing her husband, children, and family, in time to save herself from ruin.