William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

that of any man she might have imagined to have the power she said she lacked.
    “There is no need to apologize, ma’am,” Rathbone assured her softly, but with that intense clarity of tone which he knew was audible even in the very back row of the public seats. “I am sure everyone here understands your grief and feels for you.” There was nothing he could do to ameliorate her hatred. Better to ignore it and hope the jury had not seen.
    “Thank you.” She sniffed very slightly.
    “Mrs. Barrymore,” he began with the shadow of a smile, “I have only a few questions for you, and I will try to makethem as brief as possible. As Mr. Lovat-Smith has already pointed out, you naturally knew your daughter as only a mother can. You were familiar with her love of medicine and the care of the sick and injured.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked up at her. “Did you find it easy to believe that she actually performed operations herself?”
    Anne Barrymore frowned, concentrating on what was obviously difficult for her.
    “No, I am afraid I did not. It is something that has always puzzled me.”
    “Do you think that it is possible she exaggerated her own role a trifle in order to be—shall we say, closer to her ideal? Of more service to Sir Herbert Stanhope?”
    Her face brightened. “Yes—yes, that would explain it. It is not really a natural thing for a woman to do, is it? But love is something we can all understand so easily.”
    “Of course it is,” Rathbone agreed, although he found it increasingly hard to accept as the sole motive for anyone’s actions, even a young woman. He questioned his own words as he said them. But this was not the time to be self-indulgent. All that mattered now was Sir Herbert, and showing the jury that he was as much a victim as Prudence Barrymore and that the affliction to him might yet prove as fatal. “And you do not find it difficult to believe that she wove all her hopes and dreams around Sir Herbert?”
    She smiled sadly. “I am afraid it seems she was foolish, poor child. So very foolish.” She shot a look of anger and frustration at Mr. Barrymore, sitting high in the public gallery, white-faced and unhappy. Then she turned back to Rathbone. “She had an excellent offer from a totally suitable young man at home, you know,” she went on earnestly. “We could none of us understand why she did not accept him.” Her brows drew down and she looked like a lost child herself. “A head full of absurd dreams. Quite impossible, and not to be desired anyway. It would never have made her happy.” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears again. “And now it is all too late. Young people can be so wasteful of opportunity.”
    There was a deep murmur of sympathy around the room. Rathbone knew he was on the razor’s edge. She had admitted Prudence created a fantasy for herself, that she misread reality; but her grief was also transparently genuine, and no honest person in the courtroom was untouched by it. Most had families of their own, a mother they could in their own minds put in her place, or a child they could imagine losing, as she had. If he were too tentative he would miss his chance and perhaps Sir Herbert would pay with his life. If he were too rough he would alienate the jury, and again Sir Herbert would bear the cost.
    He must speak. The rustle of impatience was beginning; he could hear it around him.
    “We all offer you not only our sympathy but our understanding, ma’am,” he said clearly. “How many of us in our own youth have not let slip what would have been precious. Most of us do not pay so very dearly for our dreams or our misconceptions.” He walked a few paces and turned, facing her from the other direction. “May I ask you one thing more? Do you find yourself able to believe that Prudence, in the ardor of her nature and her admiration of noble ideals and the healer’s art, may have fallen in love with Sir Herbert Stanhope, and being a natural woman, have desired of him more than he was free to give her?”
    He had his back to Sir Herbert, and was glad of it. He preferred not to see his client’s face as he speculated on such emotions. If he had, his own thoughts might have intruded, his own anger and guilt.
    “And that, as with so many of us,” he continued, “the wish may have been father to the thought that in truth he returned her feelings, when in fact he felt for her only the respect and the regard due to a dedicated and courageous