William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

the court was adjourned Oliver Rathbone was on his way out when Lovat-Smith caught up with him, his dark face sharp with curiosity. There was no avoiding him, and Rathbone was only half certain he wanted to. He had a need to speak with him, as one is sometimes compelled to probe a wound to see just how deep or how painful it is.
    “What in the devil’s name made you take this one?” Lovat-Smith demanded, his eyes meeting Rathbone’s, brilliant with intelligence. There was a light in the back of them which might have been a wry kind of pity, or any of a dozen other things, all equally uncomfortable. “What are you playing at? You don’t even seem to be trying. There are no miracles in this, you know. She did it!”
    Somehow the goad lifted Rathbone’s spirits; it gave him something to fight against. He looked back at Lovat-Smith, a man he respected, and if he were to know him better, might even like. They had much in common.
    “I know she did,” he said with a dry, close little smile. “Have I worried you, Wilberforce?”
    Lovat-Smith smiled with answering tightness, his eyes bright. “Concerned me, Oliver, concerned me. I should not like to see you lose your touch. Your skill hitherto has been one of the ornaments of our profession. It would be … disconcerting”—he chose the word deliberately—“to have you crumble to pieces. What certitude then would there be for any of us?”
    “How kind of you,” Rathbone murmured sarcastically. “But easy victories pall after a while. If one always wins, perhaps one is attempting only what is well within one’s capabilities—and there lies a kind of death, don’t you think?That which does not grow may well be showing the first signs of atrophy.”
    They were passed by two lawyers, heads close together. They both turned to look at Rathbone, curiosity in their faces, before they resumed their conversation.
    “All probably true,” Lovat-Smith conceded, his eyes never leaving Rathbone’s, a smile curling his mouth. “But though it is fine philosophy, it has nothing to do with the Carlyon case. Are you going to try for diminished responsibility? You’ve left it rather late—the judge will not take kindly to your not having said so at the beginning. You should have pleaded guilty but insane. I would have been prepared to consider meeting you somewhere on that.”
    “Do you think she’s insane?” Rathbone enquired with raised eyebrows, disbelief in his voice.
    Lovat-Smith pulled a face. “She didn’t seem so. But in view of your masterly proof that no one thought there was an affair between Mrs. Furnival and the general, not even Mrs. Carlyon herself, by all accounts, what else is there? Isn’t that what you are leading to: her assumption was groundless, and mad?”
    Rathbone’s smile broadened into a grin. “Come along, Wilberforce. You know better than that! You’ll hear my defense when the rest of the court does.”
    Lovat-Smith shook his head, a furrow between his black eyebrows.
    Rathbone gave him a tiny mock salute with more bravado than he felt, and took his leave. Lovat-Smith stood on the spot on the great courtroom steps, deep in thought, seemingly unaware of the coming and going around him, the crush of people, the chatter of voices.
        Instead of going home, which perhaps he ought to have done, Rathbone took a hansom and went out to Primrose Hill to take supper with his father. He found Henry Rathbone standing in the garden looking at the young moon pale in the sky above the orchard trees, and half listening to the birdsongas the late starlings swirled across the sky and here and there a thrush or a chaffinch gave a warning cry.
    For several moments they both stood in silence, letting the peace of the evening smooth out the smallest of the frets and wrinkles of the day. The bigger things, the pains and disappointments, took a firmer shape, less angry. Temper drained away.
    “Well?” Henry Rathbone said eventually, half turning to look at Oliver.
    “I suppose as well as could be expected,” Oliver replied. “Lovat-Smith thinks I have lost my grip in taking the case at all. He may be right. In the cold light of the courtroom it seems a pretty wild attempt. Sometimes I even wonder if I believe in it myself. The public image of General Thaddeus Carlyon is impeccable, and the private one almost as good.” He remembered vividly his father’s anger and dismay, his imagination of pain, when he had told him of the abuse. He did not