William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

said with satisfaction.

CHAPTER

22
    O N T UESDAY THE TRIAL reopened with Coniston looking considerably more relaxed, as if the end of a long and weary journey were almost reached. There was something in his face that could even have been sympathy for Rathbone.
    Pendock brought them to order very quickly.
    “Have you a witness, Sir Oliver?” he asked.
    “Yes, my lord,” Rathbone replied. “I call the accused, known as Dinah Lambourn.”
    Pendock looked slightly startled, as if he considered it a mistake, but he made no comment.
    Dinah was brought down from the dock. Carefully, her whole body trembling, she climbed the steps to the witness stand, gripping the rails as if she was afraid of falling. Indeed, she might have been. She looked ashen; her face seemed to have no blood beneath the alabaster skin.
    Rathbone walked out into the center of the court and looked up at her. How long would he have to keep her here? He must speak with Winfarthing before he put him on the stand. Any lawyer who did less than that was a fool. He trusted Hester, but he still needed his own preparation.
    “You lived with Joel Lambourn for fifteen years as his wife?” he asked, his voice a little strained.
    “Yes,” she replied.
    “Did you ever marry him?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?” It seemed a brutal question, but he wanted the jury to understand her and be in no doubt whatsoever that she had always known of Zenia Gadney.
    “Because he was already married to Zenia, his wife from before we met,” she answered.
    “And he did not put her aside in order to marry you?” He tried to put surprise into his voice without cruelty, but it was impossible. He winced at the sound of it.
    “I didn’t ever ask him to,” she replied. “I knew Zenia had had a bad accident and the pain had caused her to become addicted first to alcohol, and then to opium. She finally recovered from the gin, but never completely from the opium. There was a time when the one thing she clung to, and which saved her from suicide, was the fact that Joel did not abandon her. I loved him, I always will. I would not ask him to do something he believed to be cruel and wrong. I wouldn’t want him to be a man who wished to.”
    “And was it not wrong to live with you, then?” he asked but only because he knew Coniston would if he did not.
    “He didn’t ask me to live with him,” she replied. “I chose to. And yes, I suppose society would say that was wrong. I really don’t care very much.”
    “You don’t care for right and wrong, or you don’t care what society thinks of you?” Rathbone asked.
    “I suppose I care,” she replied with the ghost of a smile. “About society, I mean. But not enough to give up the only man I ever loved. We offended propriety, or we would have done, had they known. But we hurt no one else. Perhaps even they would not have cared a great deal. Thousands of people have mistresses or lovers. Thousands more make use of women of the street. As long as it is private, no one minds very much.”
    What she said was perfectly true, but he wished she had not been quite so candid—although possibly Coniston would have made the same point if she had not. Now there was very little left for him to say.
    Rathbone knew he must keep the questions going all morning. Better anything than silence, and Pendock putting the case to the jury. Had Hester really persuaded Winfarthing to come? What would he do if the man refused to testify?
    “Were you happy?” he asked, looking up at Dinah.
    Coniston rose to his feet. “My lord, my learned friend is yet again wasting the court’s time. If it will help to move the proceedings along, I shall willingly stipulate that the accused and Dr. Lambourn had an ideal life together, and until the last few weeks of his life they were as happy as any other husband and wife. There is no need whatever to call a procession of witnesses to that effect.”
    “I had no intention of doing so, my lord,” Rathbone said indignantly.
    Pendock was impatient. “Then please come to the point that you do wish to make, Sir Oliver.”
    Rathbone kept his temper with difficulty. He must not allow himself to be distracted by anger or pride. “Yes, my lord.” He looked up at Dinah again. “Did Dr. Lambourn speak with you about his work, specifically that report he was asked to write on the sale and labeling of opium?”
    “Yes, he did. It was something he cared about very deeply. He wanted to have all patent medicines clearly