The Jury (39 page)

“Lovely,” agreed Marjorie. She moved towards the door. “I'd better get the paper. There's something about the trial in it.” She disappeared. A peal of thunder announced that she was leaping upstairs, and a second peal advertised her descent. “Here we are. Judge's summing-up.”

“Not a very nice case for
you
to read, I must say,” said Mrs Coates primly.

“Do they give the verdict?” asked Mrs Henstroke.

“No,” said Marjorie. “Nothing in the Stop Press about it. But the summing-up's over, it seems. It took an hour and fifty minutes.”

“That means …” began Mrs Coates. But she stopped herself. That means that Roger'll be home tonight. Any time now.

Mrs Henstroke, visited by precisely the same thought, began wondering how she could excuse herself from staying the night.

OLIVER' Smemory of that golden episode, now ten years or more away, was not unmixed with pain. For his prediction had been fulfilled: Jane in due time had dissolved the alliance in order to become the wife of a young man in Huddersfield, and while recognizing the inevitable and for Jane's sake rejoicing in it, there still occurred moments, fugitive featherweight moments, when she came, wantonly, unexpectedly, to haunt his imagination. If at such times he was tempted to self-pity, he hastened to remind himself that everything has its price, and that the sensible thing to do is to pay up and look pleasant. There was no question about its having been worth the price. It was worth it for its own sake, and worth it for the sake of what it had done for his marriage. And now, glancing at the surprised expectant faces of his fellow-jurors, he was wondering how he could reveal Molly to them, how convince them that what they were calling impossible had occurred in his own life.

“When I say my own experience,” he said, with an apologetic smile, “I mean it. There
are
women capable of that. And … well… my wife is one of them.”

The confession was greeted with an embarrassed silence, punctuated by a deprecating cough from the Major and an indeterminate noise from Charles Underhay. Each one of the
eleven was conscious of an eagerness to hear more, though in Clare and Blanche a strong disapproval was at war with that eagerness; and as for poor Lucy, she couldn't bring herself to look at the man who could talk calmly about such wickedness as that. How different from her Edward! For Edward would never, no never … it was not to be thought of. On the heels of this reflection came the odd notion that if Mother had been wicked enough to put up with Father's wickedness, the Prynnes would now perhaps have been a happy and united family. But that was absurd, because you couldn't be happy and wicked too, or if you could it was a different sort of happiness, in fact a wicked sort.

For the first time during this discussion something like warmth had come into the appraising eyes of Bonaker. “Now that's very interesting,” he said.

“The Judge dropped a pretty broad hint about that point,” remarked Roger Coates. “He as good as said, in the summing-up, that the prisoner was a liar.”

“Very interesting indeed,” said Bonaker, with an appreciative nod at Oliver. “Perhaps you agree with me, sir, that there's a good deal of doubt in this case after all?”

“I believe you're right,” answered Oliver, emerging from his personal embarrassment. “Evidence isn't good enough.”

“Too risky,” said Arthur Cheed. A great load slipped from his mind. He was exultant. “A damned sight too risky,” he exclaimed exuberantly. Conscious of indignant stares, he changed colour and murmured confusedly: “Beg pardon. Ladies present.”

Bonaker attacked the foreman. “Point is, don't you see, there's
doubt”
He leaned on the table and gazed fixedly at Charles, awaiting his answer. “Never mind whether he wanted to get rid of the poor woman or not. That's neither here nor there. Point is, did he put poison in that stuff? And if you think he did, can you be
sure
he did?”

Charles stared at distance, the fingers of his right hand playing a tattoo on the shining surface of the table. “One can't of course be positively sure, in a case like this.”

“Put it this way,” said Bonaker, speaking with irritating slowness and still gazing with rapt and sympathetic attention at the foreman. “Is it out of the question for you …
on
the
evidence …
on
the evidence,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Is it out of the question for you,
on
the evidence, that the late Mrs Strood met her death some other way?”

Deeply as he resented being put on the defensive like this, Charles saw no way of escape. And he was honest enough not to let resentment colour his answer. “Well, no. I couldn't say that. There
are
other possibilities, one must confess. Nevertheless——”

“Then there's doubt,” concluded Bonaker. “If you can't be sure he did it, if it's not out of the question for you—
on
the evidence, mind—that she met her death some other way, from some other hand, then I say there's doubt. And reasonable doubt.”

Major Forth, opening his mouth to speak, got as far as his preliminary “Er … um …” when Bonaker's voice, gathering volume but no speed, went over him like a steamroller. “Now you, sir! Mr Coates, I believe?”

“That's my name,” agreed Mr Coates defiantly.

“Well, Mr Coates, let me ask you this. Can you be sure— sure, mind you!
… on
the evidence … that the prisoner … put poison … into that stuff? And,
on
the evidence, is it quite out of the question for you, is it quite out of the question, that the late Mrs Strood …” The sentence moved massively to its long-awaited conclusion. Roger Coates sat in sulky silence for a moment, and, just as he was beginning his answer, “Don't hurry yourself, Mr Coates,” said Bonaker kindly. “We've plenty of time. No hurry at all. For my part,” he announced, with a cheerful glance at the company, “I don't mind staying here all night. Not the least objection in the world.”

THE young fellow of forty-five who attended Mr Strood during his last illness was a newcomer to Budleigh Parva, and, knowing himself capable of better things, he had no intention of staying there longer than he could help. The villagers didn't take to him, because he was always in a hurry and would never stay chatting with them about this and that
(as old Dr Welch had been wont to do), and therefore, though he had several times heard of 'the Vicar's trouble' from some of his humbler patients, he was content to invest the phrase with a vaguely medical connotation and leave it at that. Time enough to inquire about the Vicar's trouble when he was summoned, in his professional capacity, to the Vicarage: to which summons, when it came, he responded with no quickening of curiosity, innocent of the knowledge that his prospective patient was the father of that Roderick Strood who was on the point of being convicted for poisoning his wife. He found the old gentleman in bed, weak but resolute, and sustained by a patience which the medical man, who had a pigeon-hole for every phenomenon, attributed to the mental vagueness of senility. A careful examination made it clear to him that the mechanism was running down. He made a silent calculation: If I can get him through the winter. … Delivering a guarded verdict, he detected the first gleam of anxiety in his patient's eyes. Poor old chap: he's afraid. In spite of his precious Kingdom of Heaven. Doesn't want to go there: they never do, poor devils.

“Yes, you've had a bad little turn, Mr Strood. But you've come through it very well for a man of your age.”

“When can I get up?”

The doctor shook his head, smiling to hide both his compassion and his astonishment. “You mustn't dream of such a thing. We've got to take things slowly, very slowly.”

“But the telephone's downstairs,” said Mr Strood. “If I can't get up …”

“Please understand,” said the doctor earnestly (for this babble about telephones suggested a wandering mind), “you mustn't get out of bed on any pretext whatever. We'll make you as comfortable as possible. I'll send a nurse along——”

“Nonsense,” said Mr Strood. “My old servant's the only nurse I want.”

Science shrugged its shoulders. “As you wish. But I would advise a nurse. However, we'll see how you are in a day or two.”

“And I can't get up?”

“On no account. Perhaps when the warm weather comes …”

“Ah,” sighed Mr Strood. He smiled benevolently on his adviser. “But I needn't last so long as that. A few days more, and I shall be ready.” He closed his eyes, saying: “It won't be more than a few days now, please God.” And when next he opened his eyes he was alone again, and the last light of a December day was fading from the room. How long is it since they began? It's three days, or is it four? He seemed to have lost count, and with that realization his anxiety returned, and his hand, stealing out of bed, groped for the bell-rope. He heard the distant sound of the bell, and set himself to the the task of waiting. Was it three days or four? And how long now …? He must not get out of bed. That would never do. But his fingers, prying under the pillow, counted Perry-man's letters. There were three of them, and the first had said (he had them all by heart): The trial began today. Two more since then, one every day, that meant … what did it mean? Ah, here was Sarah at last.

“Sarah my dear, which day is this?”

“Thursday, sir.”

“Yes, yes. But which day … how many days …?”

“It's the fourth day, sir. Won't be long now.” Sarah came close to the bedside. “Everything'll be all right. Don't you make no mistake about that.”

“I've been asleep, Sarah.”

“Have you, dearie?”

“Yes,” he said proudly. “Ever since the doctor went.” That's ten minutes ago, thought Sarah. “I suppose you didn't hear anything while I was asleep?”

“Hear anything? What should I hear?” She was wilfully obtuse.

“No, I expect not,” said Mr Strood. He smiled at Sarah, with the submissive patience of a child. She, eleven years his junior, suddenly saw him as a little boy. And him seventy-five, she thought, startled by her strange fancy.

Presently he spoke again. “And you didn't hear anything just now … the telephone?”

“I heard your bell ring,” said Sarah firmly. “That's all I heard.”

“Yes, it must have been that.” Suddenly he longed to be alone. “I think perhaps I shall sleep a little more.”

With Sarah gone, he lapsed again into day-dreaming, to be roused from time to time, jerked into trembling wakefulness, by the master-thought which he was labouring to avoid. He listened to his heart-beats, saying persuasively: A little longer, a little longer. Four days: I can't leave him yet. The third day he rose again from the dead. But this is the fourth day, and Perryman said … The thought of Perryman, whom he had never seen, was a benediction buoying him up. Perryman, invisible as God himself, had been a voice speaking in his inward ear. Perryman had promised to tell him at once, whatever happened; and in the arms of that promise he now fell asleep, to dream that he was walking alone in a large city. One of the houses suddenly burst into flames, and there, straight in front of him, planted in the middle of the pavement, was a scarlet fire-alarm box. He smashed the glass with his hand, a bell began ringing, and with that sound in his ears he pitched forward into consciousness of the bed, the bedroom, and the telephone-bell.

Hearing at last the sound for which she had been waiting all day, Sarah felt a sickness rise in her throat. Days before, and on her own initiative (for she was determined not to endure a crisis every time the butcher or the baker chose to ring up), she had given instructions that only London calls were to be put through. This, then, could have only one meaning: it was something about Master Roderick at last. If those lawyer people in London hadn't been so stupid as to pretend he'd poisoned his poor young wife, Sarah could have hardened her heart against Master Roderick, who, if half what the papers said was true, had been a very naughty boy, such as you couldn't hardly believe. But as it was …

As she lifted the receiver from the telephone she became aware of Mr Strood standing at the head of the stairs.

“Oh, sir, you didn't ought …” This'll be his death, she thought. “Yes, this is the Vicarage. Is that Mr Perryman? Yes. Yes. …”

WHILE Mark's call was being put through to Budleigh Parva, Mr A. J. K. Simpson, whose exposition of the New Physics had so greatly interested the Vicar of that parish, sat in a tea-shop near Blackfriars, wondering whether he should wait any longer for his friend Bonaker. It was something too indefinite to be called an appointment, for his expectation was founded on nothing more solid than a postcard, written in his own spider-crawling calligraphy, to the effect that if Bonaker had time and inclination to look in at such and such a teashop next Thursday afternoon, between five and five-thirty, he and Simpson could have a cup of tea together. Answer had been neither expected nor received, Simpson's habit of scribbling invitations at the last moment having accustomed him to their being ignored. Since that chance encounter in the train, which for an hour had so luminously re-created his boyhood, he had told himself at intervals that he really must fix up something with old Bonaker, a lunch, a dinner, anything, so that they could have the long eager talk, crammed with reminiscence, which they had oddly failed to have on that summer morning six months ago. Simpson did not remember that it was so long as six months ago, and would anyhow have shrunk from taking so exact a measure of his negligence. He fancied it was some time in the summer, and hastily left it at that. But six months it was, and during the first of them, when (if ever) he should have renewed contact with Bonaker, there had been a tide in the affairs of Simpson, which Simpson, rather to his own astonishment, had taken at the full. Gilian had brought matters to a head by calmly announcing that she was going to set about having some children. Not marriage necessarily: that was a minor point. But children she would have, and marriage was probably, on the whole, the tidiest arrangement. Simpson recognized the remark as an ultimatum. He and she had been secret lovers for eighteen months, and only his infantile loyalty to sister Eleanor, who kept house for him, had prevented
his consolidating the alliance. To put her meaning beyond doubt, Gilian added that since there were at least ten million potential fathers in Great Britain, she anticipated no difficulty in realizing her wish. She was married within three weeks, and to Simpson. And Eleanor, with a smile of disdain for such conventional behaviour, made the best of it in her own fashion.