A Breach Of Promise Part 20

"I meant medically speaking!" G.o.dwin snapped with surprising ferocity. "Physically she was exactly like any other woman."

"Then why did she dress like a man," Sacheverall shouted, waving his arms, "behave like a man, and in every way affect to be a man? For G.o.d's sake, she even proposed marriage to a woman!"

"No, she didn't!" Rathbone was on his feet too, shouting back. "That is precisely my case! She didn't! Mrs. Lambert was so keen to have her daughter make what seemed an excellent match that she a.s.sumed Melville's affection and regard for Miss Lambert was romantic, whereas it was, in fact, exactly what Melville claimed it was: a profound friends.h.i.+p!" He spoke without having thought of it first, something he had sworn never to do in court, but even as he heard his voice he was certain it was the truth. Now, with the clarity of hindsight, it all seemed so apparent. Melville's pa.s.sion and his silence- her silence-were all so easily understood. Of course he- she-had laughed when Rathbone had asked if the relations.h.i.+p with Isaac Wolff was h.o.m.os.e.xual. He remembered now how oblique Melville's answers had been. He remembered a score of things, tiny things, the burning level eyes, the fairness of Melville's skin, the small, strong hands, a lack of masculinity in movement and gesture. The husky voice could have been man's or woman's.

He thought ruefully that that must have cost an effort, an aching throat to keep the pitch permanently so unnaturally low.

She must have enjoyed Zillah's company, one of her own s.e.x to befriend. No wonder the relations.h.i.+p was peculiarly precious to her.

Sacheverall was furious, but for once he had no ready answer.

"She was still unnatural!" he said loudly and angrily. His face was red, and he jerked around in gestures too large to have dignity or meaning. He had lost control of the case. Nothing was as he had meant it to be. When he had come in that morning he had had victory in the grasp of his fingers. Now it had all exploded into tragedy and then absurdity.

"She was perverted, perhaps insane-"

"She was not-" Rathbone began angrily, but Sacheverall cut across him.

"She took advantage of Mr. Lambert's generosity for the most obvious reasons, to advance her career, if you can call it that!" He jabbed his finger in the air; his voice was almost a shriek. "She deceived him, lied to him at every turn-then deceived Miss Lambert and abused her feelings for the same cra.s.s, greedy reasons, and..."

Zillah was recovered now, sitting motionless, the tears streaming down her cheeks, although her face did not twist or crumple. She had the curious gift of being able to weep and remain beautiful.

Barton Lambert rose to his feet.

"Be quiet!" he commanded so loudly that Sacheverall stopped in the middle of his sentence, his face slack with surprise. "He dressed as a man, in that he did deceive me," Lambert went on, lowering his voice only slightly. "I never for an instant suspected he was not one. But I was not deceived in his ..." He corrected himself: "Her skill. He was still one of the finest architects in Europe, and I'll swear you'll not see a better one in your lifetime!"

Sacheverall burst into laughter, derisive, jeering, an ugly sound.

McKeever slammed his gavel down like a gunshot.

"Mr. Sacheverall!" All his pa.s.sionate distaste of the man was in his face. "Control yourself, sir! This is not a humorous matter!"

Sacheverall stopped laughing instantly.

"It is not, my lord! It is disgusting!" His wide mouth curled exaggeratedly. He still waved his arms as he spoke. "Every decent person in this room must be as confused and offended as I am by this unnatural creature, perverse, deceitful and an insult to all decent women who honor their gender by living up to the highest standards of modesty, decency and-and-are proud to be women!" His gesture embraced the gallery. "Who would not for an instant, a fraction of an instant, deny their womanhood with its sacred duties and blessings, or choose to be different!" He flung his arms out again and turned to face them. "What woman among you is not proud to be wife and mother? Do you want to dress in trousers and pretend to be a man? Do you want to deny who you are, what you are, and spit in the face of the G.o.d who made you and ordained you to this-this holy calling?"

"For heaven's sake, sit down!" It was Zillah who hissed at him, glaring through eyes still filled with tears.

He leaned forward, staring at her intently. "My dear Zillah." He lowered his voice until it was tender, almost intimate. "I can hardly imagine the suffering you must be enduring. You have been most cruelly abused. You are the victim in all this insanity, this twisted and terrible masquerade." He moved one hand as if to touch her, then changed his mind. "I cannot say how much I admire your courage and your dignity throughout this ordeal," he went on softly but quite clearly, his eyes intent on hers. "Your refusal to indulge in anger is truly the mark of a most beautiful character. You have a n.o.bility which must awaken a sense of wonder in all of us, a reverence ..."

"Mr. Sacheverall," she replied coldly, and moving back an inch. "I have lost a dear friend today, in the most terrible circ.u.mstances, and I do not care what you think of me, nor do I care for your sympathy. Please do not keep thrusting your opinions upon me. I am sure the court does not care either."

He was startled. It was the last thing he had expected to hear. However, he took it with good grace, determined it was due to her distress and perhaps natural.

"I did not mean to embarra.s.s you," he apologized, turning back to the front of the court. "My emotions made me speak too soon." Before she could answer that, he looked to Rathbone. "I shall consult with my client, of course," he said with a chill. "But I think Mrs. Lambert will feel that her daughter's character has been vindicated in every way with today's revelations. No possible fault can attach to her in anyone's mind. The matter of cost will be dealt with from Mr.-Miss Melville's estate. I imagine that rests with her solicitor."

Barton Lambert jerked forward as if to speak, and Delphine pulled him back again sharply.

McKeever glared around the room and it fell silent.

"I should like to hear more fully what drove Miss Melville to this extraordinary step. And I think we should give Mr. Isaac Wolff the opportunity to clear his name and the question of his own reputation. I call him to testify."

There was a moment's silence, then the usher gathered his wits and called rather loudly for Isaac Wolff.

It took only a few moments for Wolff to come from the back of the court. He stumbled as he climbed the steps up to the witness stand again.

"Mr. Wolff," McKeever said in his soft voice. There was absolute silence in the room. No one in the gallery fidgeted or whispered. The jurors sat with eyes fixed on Wolff, their faces stiff with pity and embarra.s.sment. Neither Rathbone nor Sacheverall stirred. Everyone strained to catch McKeever's words.

"Mr. Wolff, I am sorry to call you again when you must be feeling your bereavement most deeply," he said. "But I feel you are perhaps the only one able to offer us a proper explanation. Why did Killian Melville spend her life dressed as a man and to all outward purposes living the life of a man? Before you answer"-he smiled very slightly; it was an inner necessity which drove him, an emotion he could not stifle, and certainly one devoid of any shred of humor-"I offer you the court's unqualified apology for its accusation of s.e.xual vice, or any kind of crime on your part or, of course, upon Miss Melville's."

A shadow of very bitter humor flashed in Wolff's eyes but did not touch his lips.

"Thank you, my lord." His voice was too flat to carry grat.i.tude. He did not look at anyone in particular as he summoned the words to answer. His gaze seemed to be over the heads of the gallery, but his vision inward, into memory. "Actually, her name was Keelin. Her mother was half Irish. She simply changed the spelling a little to sound more masculine."

The court waited.

He took a few moments to master his composure. "She was brilliant," he began quietly, but his voice was raw. "Even as a child she was fascinated by beautiful buildings of all sorts. Her father was a keen scholar and the family spent much time in the Mediterranean-Italy, Greece, Egypt, Palestine. Keelin would walk for hours among the ruins of the greatest cities on earth. She has sketches of the Roman Forum, the Baths of Caracalla, the Colosseum, of course. And in the rest of Italy of the great triumphs of the Renaissance, the exquisite simplicity of the Tuscan villas, of Alberti, of Michelangelo's domes and basilicas."

Everyone in the room was listening with eyes intent upon Wolff's face. Rathbone looked at them discreetly. Their faces were filled with emotion as their imaginations journeyed with him, dreaming, thinking.

"But she loved the eastern architecture also," Wolff went on. "She admired the mosques of Turkey, the coolness and the light. She was fascinated with the dome of the Blue Mosque and how the ventilation was so superb the smoke from the candles never made a mark on the ceiling." A shadow of memory softened the harshness of his grief for a moment. "She talked about it endlessly. I don't think she was even aware of whether I was listening or not."

No one moved or made the slightest sound of interruption. McKeever's face was intent.

"And when her father went to Egypt"-Wolff was absorbed in memory-"she went as well. It was a whole new dimension of architecture, more ancient than anything else she had even imagined. She stood in the ruins of Karnak as if she had seen a revelation. Even the light was different. I remember her saying that so often. She always built for light-" He stopped abruptly as emotions overwhelmed him. He stood with his head high but his face averted. He was not ashamed, but it should have been a private thing.

McKeever looked around the room slowly, bidding them await Wolff's ability to begin again without further losing his composure.

Rathbone glanced at Barton Lambert. He seemed like a man in a dream, his eyes almost glazed, his expression hovering between pity and incomprehension. Beside him, Delphine seemed touched with something which could even have been fear, or perhaps it was only the light and shadow distorting her anger. Undoubtably she was still furious.

"Would you like the usher to fetch you a gla.s.s of water?" McKeever offered Wolff, then, without waiting for his reply, nodded to the usher to do so.

"No ... thank you, my lord." Wolff collected himself. He breathed in deeply. "Keelin was always drawing, but she had no interest in being an artist, though naturally it was what her father suggested. She drew only to catch the structures, to see on paper the finished work. She had no interest in drawing for its own sake. She would design her own buildings, not simply record other people's, no matter how marvelous they were. She was a creator, not a copier."

A bitter smile touched his mouth. "But of course no school of architecture was going to accept a female pupil for any serious study. But she wouldn't be thwarted. She found an architectural student who was attracted to her and borrowed his books and papers, asked him about the lectures he attended." A wry expression pa.s.sed fleetingly across his face, an unreadable mixture of irony, tenderness and pain. "Eventually she took a job as an a.s.sistant to a professor, clearing up for him, copying notes for him, all the time absorbing everything he taught the men. She did this for years, and eventually realized that even though she could have pa.s.sed the examinations she would still never be taken seriously as an architect, never given work as long as she was a woman. She had beautiful hair, soft, s.h.i.+ning brown and gold. She cut it off...." In the gallery a woman gasped and closed her eyes, her hands clenched, her imagination of the cost of it clear in her face.

One of the jurors shook his head slowly and bunked away tears. Perhaps his own wife or daughter had hair he loved.

"She pa.s.sed herself off as a boy," Wolff said, his voice catching for the first time. "Just to attend a particular lecture of a visiting professor and be treated as a student, not a servant, to be able to ask questions and be addressed directly in answer." He blinked several times, and his voice dropped a tone. "It worked. People thought she was very young, but they did not question that she was a man. She came home and cried all night. Then she made her decision, and from then on she called herself Killian, and to everyone except me, she was a man."

There was a murmur around the room. Several people s.h.i.+fted position with a creak of whalebone, a squeak of leather, a rustle of fabric. No one spoke unless it was in a whisper so soft it was inaudible above the movement.

"It has happened to others in the past," Wolff continued. "Women have had to pose as men in order to use the talents G.o.d gave them because our prejudice would not permit them to be themselves. There are two routes open to those who will not be stifled. They can do as many Renaissance painters and composers of music did, have their work put forward, but under their brother's or their father's names ... or else do as army surgeon Barry did here in England, and dress as a man.

How she contrived that and carried it off in everyday life, I don't know. But she did. Some may have known her secret, but the authorities never learned until after her death. And she was one of the best surgeons, a pioneer in technique. Keelin spoke of her often"-he could not mask the trembling of his voice any longer-"with admiration for her courage and her brilliance, and rage that she should have had to mask her s.e.x all her adult life, deny half of herself in order to realize the other half. If sometimes she hated us for doing this to her, I think we have deserved it."

McKeever stared at him, his mouth tightened very slightly, and he inclined his head in a fraction of a nod.

Rathbone felt brushed with guilt himself. He was part of the establishment. He remembered sharply another case of a woman who wanted to study medicine, and certainly had proved on the Crimean battlefields that she had the skills and the nerve, but had been prevented because of her s.e.x. That too had ended in tragedy.

The jurors were uncomfortable. One elderly man blew through his mustache loudly, a curiously confused sound of anger and disgust, but his face betrayed his sense of confusion. He did not know what he thought, except that it was acutely unpleasant, and he resented it. He was there to pa.s.s judgment on others, not to be judged.

Another sat frowning heavily, seemingly troubled by his thoughts, his face filled with deep, unsettling pity.

Two more faced each other for moral support and nodded several times.

A fifth shook his head, biting his lips.

"Thank you, Mr. Wolff," McKeever said quietly. "I think you have explained the matter as far as it is possible for us. I am obliged to you. It cannot have been either easy or pleasant for you, but I believe you have done us a service, and perhaps you have dealt Keelin Melville some measure of justice, albeit too late. I have no further questions. You may step down."

As he was leaving the court, outside in the hallway, Rathbone heard footsteps hurrying behind him, and when he turned he was caught up by Barton Lambert.

"Sir Oliver!" Lambert was out of breath, and he looked profoundly agitated. He caught hold of Rathbone's arm.

"Yes, Mr. Lambert," Rathbone said coldly. He did not dislike the man-in fact, he had considered him basically both honest and tolerant-but he was burning with an inner anger and confusion, and a great degree of guilt. He did not want to have to be civil to anyone, least of all someone who was part of the tragedy and might, all too understandably, be seeking some relief from his own burden. Rathbone had none to offer.

"When did-when did you know?" Lambert said earnestly, his face creased, his eyes intent. "I could never be-I..." He stopped. He was too patently telling the truth to be doubted.

"The same moment you did, Mr. Lambert," Rathbone replied. "Perhaps I should have guessed, rather than a.s.sume the relations.h.i.+p with Wolff was an immoral or illegal one. Perhaps you should have. We didn't, and it is too late now to undo our destruction of her life or recall the talent we have cut off forever."

They were both of them oblivious to others in the hallway.

"If she'd told me the truth!" Lambert protested, his hands sawing in the air. "If she'd just trusted us!"

"We would what?" Rathbone asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I... well, for G.o.d's sake, I wouldn't have sued her!"

Rathbone laughed with a startlingly bitter sound. "Of course you wouldn't! You would have appeared ridiculous. You would have been been ridiculous. But if she had come to you as a woman with those new, extraordinary designs for buildings, all light and curves, would you have put up the money to build them?" ridiculous. But if she had come to you as a woman with those new, extraordinary designs for buildings, all light and curves, would you have put up the money to build them?"

"I ... I ..." Lambert stopped, staring at Rathbone, his cheeks white. He was too innately honest a man to he, even to himself, now the truth was plain. "No ... I doubt it... no, no, I suppose not. I thought hard as it was. He was ... she was ... so revolutionary. But by G.o.d, Rathbone, they were beautiful!" he said with a sudden, fierce pa.s.sion, his eyes brilliant, his face translucent, alight with will and conviction.

"They still are," Rathbone said quietly. "The art is the same. It remains within the creator if it stands or falls."

"By G.o.d, you're right!" Lambert exploded savagely. "Heaven help us all... what a bigoted, shortsighted, narrow, self-seeking lot we are!" He stood in the corridor with his shoulders hunched, his jaw tight, his fists clenched in front of him.

"Sometimes," Rathbone agreed. "But at least if we can see it, there is hope for us."

"There's no b.l.o.o.d.y hope for Melville! We've finished that!" Lambert spat back at him.

"I know." Rathbone did not argue his own guilt. It was academic. Lambert's greater guilt did not absolve anyone else. "Now, if you will excuse me, Mr. Lambert, I have people I desire to inform, and regrettably, other cases." He left Lambert standing staring after him and hurried towards the doors, pus.h.i.+ng past people, ignoring them. There was no purpose to be served anymore, but he wanted to tell Monk personally rather than leave him to read it in the newspapers.

Monk was shattered by the news, although he too felt that he should at least have considered the possibility, but it had never occurred to him. He made no trite or critical comments to Rathbone, who was apparently already castigating himself too fiercely. And for once Monk felt a sharp compa.s.sion for him. He understood guilt very well; it was a familiar emotion since rediscovering himself after the accident. It is a uniquely distressing experience to see yourself only through the eyes of others, too often those you have injured in some way, to know irrefutably what you have done but not why you did it, not the mitigating circ.u.mstances, the beliefs you held at the time which made your actions seem reasonable then.

After Rathbone had gone, he took a hansom to Tavistock Square to tell Hester and-if he was interested-Gabriel Sheldon the outcome.

He was welcomed at the door by the maid, Martha Jackson, and immediately remembered the impossible job he had promised her he would do. It was not the fruitless work that he dreaded, or even the waste of time he could have spent earning very necessary money, but the fact that anything he discovered, even supposing he was able to, would be distressing. Then he would have to make the decision what to tell her and what to tell Hester, who would be less easily deceived.

"Good evening, Miss Jackson," he said with forced cheerfulness. "The case of Mr. Melville"-he did not need to explain the truth here on the doorstep; it was simpler to say "Mr."-"has concluded very tragically, and in a way we could not have guessed. I should like to tell Miss Latterly-and Lieutenant Sheldon, if he cares to know."

She looked surprisingly hara.s.sed, and less than interested herself. She stood in the doorway, hesitating as to how she should answer.

"Is something wrong, Miss Jackson?" He felt a sudden wave of apprehension and realized with surprise how much Melville's death had disturbed him. The whole story left him with a sense of loss he did not know how to dispel.

"No!" she said too firmly. She made herself smile, and it was so painful he became more worried. "No..." she went on. "Lieutenant Sheldon is not very well today. He had a poor night, that is all. Please come in, Mr. Monk. I shall inform Miss Latterly that you are here. I hope you won't mind if you have to wait a little while? The withdrawing room is quite warm."

"Of course not," he answered; it was the only possible thing to say. He had called uninvited. He followed her obediently into the pleasant, rather ordinary withdrawing room, and she left him to possess himself in patience.

The wait was indeed long, about half an hour, and when Hester finally arrived she too looked tired and a little fl.u.s.tered, her attention not wholly with him.

"Martha told me the Melville case is over," she said, coming in and closing the door behind her. She met his eyes and then saw the tragedy in them. Her expression changed. Now she was filled with apprehension and pity. "Is he ruined? Could Oliver not do anything for him? What happened? Did he change his plea?"

"I suppose so ... in effect, yes." He found the words suddenly difficult to say. "He killed himself. Isaac Wolff found him last night."

Her face crumpled as if she had been physically hit.

"Oh, William... I'm so sorry!" She closed her eyes tightly. "How d.a.m.nable! Why do we do that to people? If he loved another man, what business is it of ours? We'll all answer to G.o.d in one way or another. If we are not hurting each other, isn't that enough?"

"He wasn't h.o.m.os.e.xual," he said with a jerky laugh. "He committed a greater offense than that, in most people's view."

She opened her eyes. "What?" Then the tears spilled over. "What did he do? Jilt Zillah Lambert? He never accused her of anything. He was scrupulous not to. That was Oliver's problem. What did he do?"

"He deceived the world ... man and woman," he replied. "Totally effectively. All except Isaac Wolff ... he knew. But the rest of them were completely fooled ... all taken in. They can't forgive that. Some of the women might be laughing, a very few, secretly, but none of the men."

"I don't know what you are talking about. You aren't making any sense."

"Killian Melville was a woman."

"What did you say?" she protested.

"You heard what I said. Keelin was her real name, and she was a woman." The anger rang through his voice. "She dressed as a man because no one would allow her even to study architecture, let alone practice it, as a woman. She fooled everyone, except Isaac Wolff, who loved her."

"How terrible!" Her face was filled with amazement and anguish.

For a moment he did not understand. Surely Hester, of all people, could not be so quick to judge automatically and cruelly. His sense of disillusion was so sharp for an instant he could think of nothing else. It was not the Hester he knew, who was so close that her loyalty and her compa.s.sion were part of the framework of his world.

Hester was not even looking at him. "It must have been there every day," she said softly. "Pulling at her both ways, until it tore her apart. She was a woman, she loved Isaac Wolff, but she could never marry him. Even by being with him she risked branding him as a criminal." She focused her gaze, meeting Monk's eyes demandingly. "Can you imagine it? Can you imagine the scenes between them? She mast have been terrified for him, not knowing which way to turn. And he would have loved her enough to take love, take time together, the sharing of dreams, great things, aspirations and the wonder of thought and idea and pa.s.sion." She winced as she said it, her eyes bright. "And little things that hurt, the small disappointments." Her voice cracked. "The sudden ache for no reason, the tiredness, the confusion, just the need not to be alone ... and the jokes, the silly things that make you laugh, something beautiful, a splash of sunlight, a particular flower, a kind act, the ironies and the absurdities, the little victories which can mean so much."

Her voice shook. She took a long, slow breath. Her lips trembled. "And she couldn't! Every time she was with him put them both in danger from prying eyes, people with cruel and inquisitive minds. No wonder she sought friends.h.i.+p with Zillah Lambert. It was at least a moment of sharing something, to see pretty things, a woman's things, perfume, silks, gowns, all the things she couldn't afford ever to have herself. Imagine what she risked if she had ever, even once, worn a dress!"

He started to speak and then stopped.

"Why do we do that?" Suddenly she was savage, her voice thick with emotion. She stared at him as if demanding an answer. "Why do we make rules about what a person should be... I mean rules that don't matter? Why shouldn't a woman be an architect, or a doctor, or anything else? What are we so frightened of?" She lashed out with her arm. "And why do we make men pretend they aren't afraid or don't make mistakes, like women and children? Of course they do. We all know they do, we just cover it up or look the other way. It's much easier to admit you were wrong, and go back and do the right thing, than it is to go on adding evasion to evasion, one invention after another to conceal the last, and then you probably aren't fooling anybody, except those who want to be fooled."

He did not interrupt, knowing she needed to say it all. Anyway, he agreed with her.

She scowled at him. "Look at Gabriel and Perdita." She clenched her hands. "He's been taught to be brave, never to explain, never to ask for help. He's been given a hero's image to live up to, and he's riddled with guilt because he thinks he can't. And she's been taught to be helpless and stupid because that's what men want, and all she should do is be a sweet-natured, obedient ornament." Her face was puckered, all her muscles tight. "And she has to sit by and watch him hurt, because he thinks he should be looking after her, and he can't even look after himself."

She drew breath. "And that idiot Athol Sheldon b.u.mbles around telling them it would all be all right if they just behaved normally and forgot the grief and pain and the horror as if it never happened and all those people never died. It's a mockery of the reality of life. It makes me so angry I could..."