A Lady in the Smoke (32 page)

“Will you please state your name and place of residence?”

I kept my voice calm and clear and soft: “Lady Elizabeth Fraser, of Kellham Park in Levlinshire.”

“Are you the only child of the late Earl of Kellham, Lord Samuel Fraser?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Lady Elizabeth, Mr. Wilcox rescued you from the railway disaster, did he not?”

I replied readily. “Another gentleman—I don't know his name—helped my mother and me escape the compartment. But, yes, Mr. Wilcox came to us in the field, checked on my mother, and stitched up the gash on my forehead.”

“It would be very unusual if you did not feel a certain warmth toward him—indeed, a certain degree of personal loyalty to him, for what he had done for you and your mother.”

I could hear James's voice reminding me how to add in the words that I wanted the jury to hear. “Yes, profound gratitude, certainly.”

His head jerked faintly as he realized what I'd done. “Er—yes. And that feeling has brought you here to observe the trial, both yesterday and today. You are an interested party.”

I didn't quibble. “Yes.”

“Now, I would like to ascertain what you know of Mr. Wilcox's character. What have you gathered over the course of your acquaintance? Do you know, for example, who his family is? Where he is from? Whether he did well in school, or had any particular ambitions?”

I knew the answers to all those questions, but a warning bell was ringing in my head. If I admitted all I knew, it would be clear that this man was not merely my mother's surgeon. I shook my head regretfully and answered with complete honesty. “I can only testify from my own observation that he was already muddy and wet when he came to help us in the field; and that he worked continuously from midnight to nearly five in the morning in the scullery, during which time I helped him. He stitched up well over a dozen people and set broken bones. I can truthfully affirm nothing else about his character or his education from my own experience. I'm sorry.”

He paused, and by the faintest tightening of the muscles around his eyes, I saw that he was temporarily nonplussed. I felt a brief victory but told myself not to relax my guard. He was as wily as a snake-oil man.

“Would you ever consider such a man as Mr. Wilcox an eligible suitor?”

Oh, dear god.

I kept my eyes on Sir Solmes and made my voice soft and gentle, even a bit abashed. “I'm sure he's a fine man, Sir Solmes, but we're of very…different classes. Society would never consider such a match suitable for eith—”

“But the two of you were closeted together in the scullery,” he leaned forward, his eyes locked on mine, “for an entire night.”

James moved ever so faintly, and I knew what he wanted. He wanted the same sort of lack of defensiveness with which Paul had declared himself apprenticed rather than university-trained. I nodded, as if I were grateful that Sir Solmes understood how exhausting it had been. “Yes, it was a terribly long night. Mr. Wilcox worked as quickly as he could, but some of the patients had to lie on the scullery floor for hours, and the poor maid had to keep the water boiling for us the whole time.”

There were a few murmurs in the courtroom. But I kept my eyes fixed on Sir Solmes.

His voice sharpened. “The night of the accident your attention was occupied with the patients, of course. But isn't it true that after that night, your attentions were turned wholly toward each other? That on Saturday, you and Mr. Wilcox had a private dinner together in a room,
alone,
with wine? And then, on Sunday, did he not take you out to another hotel—the Polk Hotel—at a very late hour, where you remained without a chaperone?” His voice had risen. “Do you mean to pretend that his behavior was appropriate to your station, and to his?”

I fought down a retort and kept my voice quiet. “On Saturday, I simply brought him a tray that the kitchen maid had prepared—”

He pressed on, as if he'd already heard the answer he wanted: “Is it not true that Mr. Wilcox was conducting a flirtation with you? A very persistent flirtation, verging on seduction?”

Now there were sounds of disgust from the room, and I felt my calm unravel. “One of his patients at the Polk Hotel was bleeding inwardly, and—”

His voice hardened: “The truth is that under the guise of performing his God-given duty as a medical man, he took you to the Polk Hotel in order to seduce you into forgetting yourself—into giving away your virtue, the most precious possession a young lady has!”

There were audible gasps, and I felt myself shrivel before the ruthlessness in his face.

“Sir Solmes.” Judge Merriwether's voice cut through the noise in the courtroom. “Have a care. I appreciate your avid desire to discover the truth, but Lady Elizabeth is not some serving maid that you can browbeat in my courtroom.”

I breathed again and looked up at the judge. He was leaning over his bench toward Sir Solmes. “You have interrupted her three times by my count. Please allow her to speak.”

The room became silent enough that I could hear the clatter of hooves and wheels against the cobbles outside.

After a moment, Sir Solmes nodded agreeably. “Yes, sir. I beg your pardon, Lady Elizabeth. We all wish to hear what you have to say.”

The judge gave me a small nod. “You may answer when you're ready.”

I looked at the jury. Several of them had their lips pursed in disgust at the thought of what I'd done. One was sneering at me in contempt. But to my surprise, the others—at least half of them—were watching me with expressions that suggested they were holding their judgments in abeyance.

My panic began to subside.

It would do no good to confirm or deny the pieces of Sir Solmes's sordid little story. I needed to tell them mine.

I don't want you to lie—and you don't have to,
James had said.

And then came Anne's voice, like a lifeline:
The truth—however plain or imperfect—is enough
.

I let myself recall how cold and frightened I'd felt in that wretched field, and I held the picture of the broken, burning train in my mind. Then I turned and spoke to the jurors from as truthful a place as I could find in my heart:

“I was asleep when the train crashed, and the first thing I felt was my head hitting the wall opposite. Then, before I could even put up my hands, I was thrown backward, like a marble being rattled around an empty tin. I lost consciousness, and when I awoke, the man who'd been in the carriage with us was gone, having left my mother and me behind. I could hear the roar of the fire, and black smoke was pouring into the carriage. My mother was collapsed beside me on the floor, and when I finally roused her, we tried to make our way into the corridor, but the floor had given way, and with the smoke and the bits of burning ash, we could barely breathe.” I paused. “The only reason we're alive is there was a man searching the carriages, looking for people who were still inside. He carried Mama and me to stairs, and from there, I managed to get us out to the field where I found a rock to lean against. My mother fainted, then; and I—I had no choice but to watch the horrible spectacle.” I swallowed convulsively. “There were dozens of people climbing out of doors and windows, leaving the train any way they could, and making their way through the flames and smoke. Some of the men were going back into carriages, trying to bring people out. There were horses burning alive in the stock cars, and I could hear them screaming and pounding with their hooves. The fire trucks came, but all they could manage was to keep the fire from spreading to the field. I watched the whole thing, until”—my voice began to shake and tears began to sting my eyes—“until I saw a man walking toward me with a girl in his arms. She was only about six or seven years old, and I think she must have been his daughter because he was holding her tenderly against his chest, like this”—I raised my arms in front of me and curved them close—“as if she was very precious to him.” My tears were spilling over now, and I had to force the words out. “But her hair was burnt, and her arm was nothing more than black ash, and she was dead. And then I couldn't watch anymore.”

Through the blur, I could see the jurors' faces were sober, even stricken.

I wiped the tears from my eyes with my gloved hands. “I don't know how long it was before Mr. Wilcox appeared. He must've been out there in the field for hours before he got to us. His coat was soaked and covered with dirt and ash. He examined my mother first; then he stitched up my forehead.” I touched the scar. “He carried my mother to the wagon that got us to the Travers Inn. I think she would've died if we'd been out there in the rain and wind much longer. She's not strong.” My tears had stopped, and I took a deep breath to steady my voice. “That night when I woke up in the hotel, it was around midnight. At first, I didn't even know where I was. I opened my door and saw maids running up and down, fetching blankets and trays with tea and soup and such. I heard someone say that Mr. Wilcox was downstairs in the scullery, treating people, but that he had no one to help him. So I went.” I sought the eyes of the jurors, one by one. “Surely you can understand that I wanted to help.” Three of the jurors were nodding. “I'm not brave—truly, I'm not—but I walked into the scullery and saw him—and then I realized that the patient on the table was the very same man who'd helped my mother and me out of that carriage. He had a terrible gash on his shoulder, and Mr. Wilcox was trying to stitch him up and keep the chloroform over his nose and adjust the light, all at the same time—and—well, I've no training in nursing, but even
I
could hold a lamp.” I saw the sympathy in the men's faces. “I wasn't the only one. Every person who could stand up and walk helped that night. There was the maid who kept the water boiling, and another one who brought us towels and sheets to make bandages. Mrs. Mowbray was making soup and tea and toast all night, running trays up and down stairs.” I paused, my voice softened. “We all did what we could. And Mr. Wilcox did more than anyone.”

The room was still but for the faint scratching of the newspapermen's pencils in their notebooks.

Sir Solmes cleared his throat, but I remained turned toward the jury, determined to meet the eyes of each man one by one. “I was one of the lucky ones,” I said quietly. “I was all right, mostly. So I had to help, with whatever needed to be done, wherever and whatever time of day or night it was. So when Mr. Wilcox was called to the Polk Hotel to see a patient who was bleeding inwardly—his name was Mr. Nagle; he was a railway servant—I went with him, to help, if I could. Because I hold his life—I hold
anyone's
life—sacred, and”—I turned at last to Sir Solmes, and kept my voice very gentle—“I depended upon my reputation as a lady to prevent any misunderstanding of my motives.”

Sir Solmes's cheeks were red, and his eyes were like gray stones. He was furious at having been muzzled through my recital.

I kept my gaze away from Paul and sought James. He gave me the faintest nod, a glimmer of a smile. There was a movement in the row behind him that caught my eye; Mr. Flynn was easing back in his seat, his expression dumbfounded.

After a moment, the judge spoke. His voice was kind: “Are you finished, Lady Elizabeth?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

Sir Solmes merely inclined his head slightly and took a step backward. “Your sense of duty is admirable, and you've given us a profoundly moving account of a tragic event.” He turned to address the jury. “However—although Mr. Wilcox helped many people that night and the following day, it is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether he was responsible for bringing about the death of Mr. Benedict, which is at issue here.” He bowed to the judge. “I've no further questions.”

James stood up. “Lady Elizabeth, to your knowledge, did Mr. Wilcox lose any patients that night in the kitchen?”

“As far as I know, he did not. They were all alive when we finished, just before dawn.”

“Thank you. Nothing further for this witness.”

I stepped down, feeling drained, as though I'd emptied myself of all thoughts and feelings. I felt Paul's eyes on me—felt everyone's eyes on me—but I kept mine fixed on the floor as I made my way back to my seat and sat down. My uncle was looking at me in some wonder, but—bless him—he said nothing, only drew my shaking hand into his and gave it a reassuring squeeze before he turned his attention back to the courtroom.

Sir Solmes had already recovered his aplomb. “My lord, I call Dr. Morris.”

Dr. Morris's fine leather soles clicked softly on the way to the witness stand.

“Thank you for taking time away from your patients to be here,” Sir Solmes said, after Dr. Morris was sworn in. “First, could you please tell us your qualifications?”

“I am a university man. I went to Eton, then to Oxford. I'm a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and I trained with Sir Charles Hastings. As a
physician
”—Dr. Morris put the fingers of his right hand together, as if holding a pen—“I am charged with the practice of physic—that is, internal medicine.
Surgeons,
such as Mr. Wilcox, are quite often good men, but they are supposed to practice upon the external body—broken bones, skin disorders and the like, rather than internal organs such as the spine.”

“Do you believe Mr. Benedict to have been injured by Mr. Wilcox's care?”

He nodded. “I do. Based upon my investigation, Mr. Wilcox's treatment of Mr. Benedict did irreparable harm.”

“Could you please be specific?”

“His most important mistake is that he refused to bleed Mr. Benedict immediately. When I saw the poor man, I took eight leeches' worth, and his irritability diminished within minutes. His pulse dropped, and he fell at once into a comfortable sleep.”

“What about the contusion on his hip?”