The Silence (21 page)

George Poulson’s notes, cont’d

Well! We were all struck of a heap, as you might say, by the judge’s words, for we had it settled in our minds as to what the verdict must be.

We all knew, even without Mrs Burlap’s description or Dr Brodworthy’s explanation, that Isobel Acton had stirred poison into her husband’s coffee. No one had explained where the poison had come from, but any country household – cottage or mansion – has stuff for keeping down vermin.

But here was the judge – and him a gentleman who should know about these things – pretty much telling us that Isobel Acton was innocent.

And this is where I come to the bad part – the part I never spoke about to a soul, not even my dad who’s so loyal, not even to Eliza – well, certainly not to Eliza, for she’s one for a bit of gossip my Eliza. And we were told, very solemn and stern, that everything that happened and was discussed in the jury room had to remain absolutely secret – even years after the trial. It’s a criminal offence to tell any of it, they said.

So I’m not going to speak about it, not ever, but what I am doing is making a proper record while it’s still all clear in my mind. If anything were to happen in the future, I might be very glad to show these pages and to say –
this
is the truth of what happened. Please God that won’t ever be necessary, but I’m writing it down anyway.

We went off to the jury room, which I should mention was my father’s cheese larder, which my mother had swept out for the purpose, and my father had covered up the cheeses and carried in twelve chairs. We were a bit bemused, but we took our seats, determined to deal with the matter as best we could. Only we hadn’t got further than sitting down, when the judge came in. Very different he looked without his wig and his robes – a bit frowning around the eyes from glaring at criminals that’d be, but weak around the mouth. It’s odd how you can tell a person’s character from their mouth – more than the eyes, I think, for all they say the eyes are the windows of the soul. Anyway, the judge had a weak mouth, and it was a bit fleshy as well – what they call sensuous as if he enjoyed the good things in life.

He had a bit of a furtive air to him, as if he didn’t want anyone to come in and catch him, although you don’t think of judges being furtive.

He stood at the end of the table and, speaking quietly, said, ‘Gentlemen, it’s slightly unorthodox for me to be here, but this trial is under my authority so in the interests of justice, I’ve decided I can allow myself a visit to you.’

(One of the others said later that this meant the old boy was bending the rules to suit himself).

‘I spoke in court about there being no evidence against this lady, Isobel Acton,’ said the judge. ‘Nor is there. I know the law very well indeed, and I can assure you of that. That is why I am exercising my discretion in visiting the jury room in order to privately direct you to look favourably on giving a verdict of Not Guilty.’

There was a silence, during which none of us knew quite what to say. It’s not every day you sit in a cheese larder and are told by a judge that you must let a murderess go scot free. For murderess she was, I never had any doubt as to that.

How I had the courage to speak up, I have no idea, but I said, ‘Well, sir, it seems to me that it’s for us twelve to decide among ourselves what we think and what we’ll say. But thanking you kindly for your advice.’

He gave me one of those looks that make you quake in your boots when you’re young, and you’ve stolen apples from somebody’s orchard and been caught by the constable. But I managed to meet his look squarely, for he might be a judge and an important person, but I was a Poulson and my family had held its head high in Caudle Moor for a good many generations.

He said, ‘Mr . . . Poulson, is it? Well, Mr Poulson, there are responsibilities in life, and some of us have greater responsibilities than others.’ Then he looked at us one by one, for all the world like a man inspecting a collection of insects or butterflies he was about to skewer with pins. He said, ‘Some of you here have particularly heavy responsibilities – things you would be glad to have help with.’

That was when I began to get the strong sense of something going on below the surface. A bit like when you stand on soggy ground and know there’s an underground river directly below – except that this wouldn’t be a river, it would be a sewage channel, stinking and rotten.

‘You’re an interesting set of jurymen,’ said the judge. ‘I’ve looked at your different professions and ways of living.’

(The man who later said the judge was bending the rules to his own purposes, also said it wasn’t right for the judge to have done this, but I don’t know about that.)

‘Mr McCardle, you’re a farmer, I think,’ said the judge, looking along the table to the man at the far end of it.

‘I am, sir,’ said McCardle.

‘Farming can be a hard life if a man has mortgaged some of his lands,’ said the judge, ‘particularly if those mortgages are held by people who might call them in at a moment’s notice. That’d be a hard thing for his sons, wouldn’t it?’

No one spoke, but McCardle looked a bit sick and I remembered my father telling me once that McCardle had indeed mortgaged some of his acres, and was struggling so much to meet the payments he might lose the land.

‘And Mr Coppin, you own a small chandler’s business, and live on the premises with your elderly father.’

Albert Coppin, as good and decent a man as ever drew breath, said stoutly that that was right, and belatedly added, ‘sir’.

‘I hear it’s your great worry that he sometimes wanders in his wits and strays around the village.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘I dare say as a dutiful son, you’d employ a help of some kind to watch him. If,’ said the judge, ‘you had the means.’

Albert did not speak, and the judge turned his attention to the rest of us. I remember I thought, well at least he won’t have anything on
me.
For The Pheasant’s prosperous, and everything in my life is ordinary and honest.

He did look at me, but then his look passed on to Mr Billock, seated opposite.

‘Mr Billock, you have a sweet shop.’

Mr Billock, famed for his humbugs which were like huge sugary bumble bees and beloved by all the children, said with nervous pride that he did indeed.

‘And a family.’

It was not quite a question, but it was not quite a statement, either, and it was clear that Billock did not know how to respond. But he said, begging pardon, sir, your honour, but there must be a mistake. Several of us exchanged puzzled glances at that, for it was well known Billock had no family at all, being a widower these twenty years, and having no sisters or brothers.

The judge said, ‘Are you sure there is no family, Billock? No daughter living quietly with her mother? But no matter. And I know you are a pillar of the church and a sidesman at St Mary’s.’ He looked at each of us again, carefully and slowly, and we waited. But he only said, ‘I think that is all, gentlemen. I await your verdict.’

We had a real old brangle after that. Most of us were for a verdict of Guilty, but the three men the judge had singled out – McCardle, Coppin and Billock – stood firm for Not Guilty. Nothing we could say would budge them.

They all insisted they were holding by what the judge had said, and there was nothing else going on. McCardle said it was a question of loyalty and of looking after your own, and Albert Coppin gave this his support, Ned Billock, when pressed, said a man’s life was his own, which, as somebody else pointed out, did not get us much further. One or two people would have liked to ask about that sly hint that Billock had a daughter somewhere, but nobody quite had the courage.

Somebody else said the judge oughtn’t to have talked to us like that, and it was tampering with the law of the land. Someone said the jury system went back to Magna Carta, but McCardle said he couldn’t see what Magna Carta had to do with what was happening in Caudle Moor today, and as far as he was concerned, they could take Magna Carta and hang it on the washing-line.

Albert Coppin said, ‘Oh bugger Magna Carta, what’s that got to say to anything? I’m staying with Not Guilty – the judge is right. There’s no real evidence to prove she did it.’ He stuck his lower lip out obstinately, and one or two more, who had been looking thoughtful, said they thought Not Guilty was the fairest verdict as well. You had to look at the thing from all aspects.

‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘There’s only one aspect, isn’t there? Whether she killed Simeon Acton or not.’

They seemed unsure of what they meant, then a neighbour of Billock’s, a man who kept the draper’s shop, and who was known to read poetry in his spare time, said, ‘It’s very final, hanging. It’s a solemn thing to make a judgement on.’

McCardle said this was very true, and we were none of us Solomons, to which Albert Coppin said he couldn’t see that Solomon had any more to do with this than Magna Carta.

The draper disregarded this, and went on speaking. ‘The thing is that you can’t say you’ve made a mistake after you’ve sent a person to the gallows. Supposing we found later on – years and years, even – that there was something to prove someone else did the murder.’

There was a vague murmur of agreement and people looked hopeful. I began to suspect there were a few more guilty secrets in the room than was comfortable, and that several people feared the judge might ferret them out. A nasty piece of work, that judge, not someone you’d want to make an enemy of.

Three hours later the original majority of Guilty had dwindled to eleven Not Guilties and one Guilty. And I was the one still holding to Guilty.

I’d have stuck it out. I really would. I don’t know what would have happened – whether there would have had to be a second trial or what, but I really would have clung to my belief in Isobel’s guilt. I had no guilty secrets for cold-voiced, lecherous-lipped men to uncover.

But later that night I took the others up to the room where we were to sleep. Juries aren’t allowed to go back to their homes while they’re considering a verdict – I hadn’t known that, but we’d been told it was the law. We weren’t even allowed to speak to anyone. So my father had set up truckle beds and mattresses in the big room being used as the courtroom, and we were going to sleep there, like boys in one of those posh schools.

I had gone along to the kitchen to collect a tray of food to take up for our supper, which my mother was going to leave ready. She had been in a great fluster and flurry all week, baking a ham, stewing tomatoes for chutney, determined that no guest under her roof would go hungry, even if they were under her roof for the macabre purpose of pronouncing the death sentence on that hussy, Isobel Acton. So our supper consisted of fresh-cut ham, sausage patties, home-made chutney, a Cheshire cheese, and a dish of ripe pears. We weren’t allowed any strong drink, which Albert Coppin said was a pity, for if you were forced to spend a night in a public house, you’d expect to enjoy a drop of beer. But my father sent in a large flagon of lemonade and a canister of tea, so we foraged very sufficient, as the saying is.

Anyway, I was crossing the landing when the judge came out of his room. He was staying at The Pheasant as well, of course, there being nowhere else in the neighbourhood, and him having to be on hand.

He barred my way and I knew at once he had been listening for me.

‘Mr Poulson,’ he said, and looked at the tray. ‘I see your father is giving the jury a substantial supper.’

‘Yes.’

‘A very generous host, your father.’

‘All in the way of business.’ After a moment, I added, ‘sir’. I refused to call him Your Honour outside the courtroom.

‘And a very lucrative business as well, I believe.’

‘We do well enough.’

‘There was a time when The Pheasant did not do very well, though,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t remember that – you’d be very young at the time.’

‘I don’t—’

‘And at that time your father – that good, honest, innkeeper sought a loan.’ He stepped nearer, and spoke more softly. ‘And do you know where he went for that money?’ said the judge in his ugly voice.

‘I dare say it’d be the bank.’

‘Nothing so conventional. Your father, that respected innkeeper, went to Mr Simeon Acton. Only it wasn’t Mr Acton with all his head-in-the-clouds philanthropy who gave him money. It was his wife, the lady who’s standing trial for her life now.’

I stared at him. ‘Isobel Acton gave my father money?’

‘She did indeed. You may ask your father about it and he’ll tell you it’s the truth.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You have my word on it. Your father once did Isobel Acton a favour. She repaid it.’

‘What favour? Because if you’re suggesting my father was up to any no-good nonsense with Mrs Acton—’

‘Oh no,’ he said, at once. ‘At that time, the no-good nonsense, as you call it, was with me.’

‘You?’ That was when I knew I’d been right about those fleshy sensuous lips.

‘Yes. You see, Mr Poulson – George, isn’t it? – you see, George, for a few years I bedded Isobel Acton more times than your father served pints of ale downstairs. I’d travel up here and stay at Acton House as a family friend. Only I was a great deal more than a friend to Isobel.’ For a moment his lips gleamed with memory, then he went on.

‘On the afternoon your father came to the house, to ask Simeon for a loan, he caught me with Isobel in circumstances that could not be misunderstood. Well,’ said the judge, with a shrug, ‘I wasn’t going to have some country yokel talking about that. Linking my name with the Acton bitch – perhaps even causing a divorce. I have considerable standing in legal circles. My wife’s father is a baronet. I wasn’t going to risk losing any of that.’

I said, slowly, ‘So my father got his loan, but it didn’t come from Simeon.’

‘Simeon never knew anything about it.’

‘A bribe,’ I said. ‘To ensure my father wouldn’t tell what he’d seen.’

‘Yes. I was the one who actually provided the money. Your father repaid it to Isobel over the next couple of years. She kept it, of course, the acquisitive bitch. Fair payment, I suppose. Still, a fair exchange for what I’d had, and she’d always been very willing.’ Again, the memory showed in his eyes. ‘But then all that Susskind brood were willing,’ he said. ‘So now, George, if you stand out for a verdict of Guilty, I swear before God I will let it be known that your father made regular payments to the Acton woman. Quite large sums, they were. And if people hear about those payments, they’ll wonder why. They’ll wonder if your father had been paying Isobel for certain services. Or perhaps if there was something in his life that he didn’t want people knowing about – that he was paying to be kept quiet.’