Journal entry, that same day

SIR WILLIAM REYNOLDS HAS BEEN AND GONE — A BRIEF VISIT, with the sole purpose of informing me that I am to be called before the Bar as a witness for the prosecution. The magistrate intends me to testify to the finding of the maid's body and all that ensued thereafter however little I may relish the office. That my old friend suffers for me, and my divided loyalties, I read in his eyes; but Sir William is a man of iron where he believes himself to be right, and my feeble efforts at prevarication availed me nothing.

“I shall be struck dumb by the grandeur of the room, and the assemblage,” I protested. “Can not you present my experiences on my behalf?”

Sir William's kind brown eyes could not meet my own. “It is impossible, my dear. You alone discovered the handkerchief and Marguerite, and the scrap of paper within her bodice.” A brief smile played over his grave countenance. “Had you been less curious, my dear, or sent your active wits to sleep, we might not have you in this pickle.”

And so I shall enter the House of Lords, and seat myself in the ranks reserved for witnesses, below those marked out for peeresses in the gallery — and I must speak before all assembled, without disgrace. Though it is no more than I expected, I am sick at heart; to face Isobel and Lord Scargrave in the box, and pronounce what must be damning to their cause, is a hideous fate. And yet, what choice have I? I shall be sworn, and must speak the truth as I recall it, though friendship — nay, human decency — would argue otherwise.

Sir William departed not long after, having business of a pressing nature. As I waved him down the marble steps to his carriage, he shook his head over the Payne family seal, swathed in black and mounted on the facade of the house over each of the long windows. Thus Scargrave House proclaims Tom Hearst's death — but another in an increasing cause for mourning.

No further ceremony shall mark the Lieutenant's passing, however; as a suicide, he is to be buried tomorrow at a crossroads some distance west of the city, with a stake driven through his heart. I shudder to think it; for such a man — riven with faults as he may have been — to end in the most indifferent of earth, without benefit of clergy or memorial marker, is in every way horrible. His brother is to accompany the body. The poor batman Jack Lewis — quite downcast and morose — goes along as well, and the good Mr. Cranley; a singular mark of that barrister's devotion to the family's concerns that I must believe is intended to comfort silly Fanny Delahoussaye.

Mr. Cranley looks increasingly worried whenever he calls; and from his few words, I have learned that his defence is to rely solely on the notion that Fitzroy Payne's letter was stolen and Isobel's handkerchief purloined. For; in truth, he has no other suspects— and though I would dearly love Lord Harold Trowbridge to be arraigned, I cannot say upon what charge. There is no evidence to tie any but the Earl and the Countess to these murders; and so I toss and turn in bed of nights, and wonder greatly at what may be the purpose in collusion between Madame Delahoussaye and that man. But today, I bethought myself of Frank.

My brother Francis is a post captain in the Royal Navy these two years past, and is presently stationed at Rams-gate, about the coastal defences. I cannot think with Frank to prevent it, that the French under Buonaparte are likely to invade our little island; and in the meanwhile, as he assembles his Sea Fencibles[47] about Pegwell Bay, my dear brother might just as readily occupy himself in determining the use of a private deep-water port in the Barbadoes. That Lord Harold has recently visited France, and is bent upon acquiring such a port in the Indies, must give one pause; there is intrigue here, and Frank is sure to parse out the meaning. I wrote to him this morning, and am impatient for his reply.

And now I must see to my wardrobe, for assuredly I possess nothing grand enough for the witness-bar of the Royal Gallery. And what am I to say? Only the truth, Sir William told me this morning, as he stepped into his carriage — but what he believes to be true, and what I know to be false, are one and the same.

Chapter 23

A Deadly Contest of Wills

9 January 1803

HOWEVER UNFORTUNATE THE CIRCUMSTANCES, I MAY justly say that the display of British might that is the House of Lords, fully assembled for trial — a thing that happens not above once in a generation — has not its equal for solemnity and grandeur. The youngest barons proceeded first, and the august file closed with the most ancient of dukes, all shepherded by heralds and the Garter at Arms — two hundred-odd men, arrayed in robes that signified their ranks in the peerage, filing two by two into benches ranged on either side of the Royal Gallery's Bar. On the high dais sat a chair meant for the Lord High Steward.

Below it were the seats reserved for peeresses; here should Isobel have sat, had fortune been kinder. These gave way to Mr. Cranley and Sir William's place, and then to the witnesses’ seats, in one of which I found myself. Lizzy Scratch was to my right, looking well-scrubbed and defiantly in her element, despite the incongruity of her position; I feared her spirits should take a theatrical turn, once called before the Bar. Dr. Philip Pettigrew sat to my left, and beside him the cherubic scholar of Cambridge, Dr. Percival Grant.

Madame Delahoussaye and her daughter were lodged above, in the spectators’ gallery; the briefest of glances revealed their seats to my indifferent eye. Miss Fanny had adopted the dubious mystery of a quantity of black silk veiling about her blond curls; it was sheer enough to disclose a flash of blue eyes and white teeth, while enshrouding her in all the discretion her interesting circumstances demanded. I knew her to be wishing for a greater part in the drama — or a wider stage, at least, for the parading of her costume; and would gladly have exchanged my place for hers.

A solemn bell tolled the hour; all rose; and a Proclamation of Silence was issued by the Serjeant at Arms. The Clerk of the Crown then knelt to present the Commission under the Great Seal to the Lord High Steward, who returned it to him; at which point the Clerk read its substance aloud, at interminable length, and we were treated to a declaration of “God Save the King!”

We must then endure the Certiorari and Return, a summary of the House of Lords’ authority to preside over the case, with each and every peer a judge of fact and of law; much precedent was stated for their office, and many mouldy precepts of common law dredged before the assembly; but at last, when I had almost despaired of my sanity, we were informed of the decision of the Assizes to try Fitzroy Payne and the Countess for murder.

“The Jurors for our Lord the King upon their oaths present that the most noble lady Isobel Amelie Collins Payne, Countess of Scargrave, a peeress of the realm, on the twelfth day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and two, in the Parish of Scargrave, did kill and murder Frederick William Payne, seventh Earl of Scargrave. We further find that the most noble Fitzroy Gerald Payne, Viscount Payne, Earl of Scargrave, a peer of the realm, on the twenty-fourth day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and two, in the Parish of Scargrave, did kill and murder one Marguerite Dumas, maidservant, native of the Barbadoes.”

At that point, following the proclamation by the Serjeant at Arms, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod brought in first the Countess, and then the Earl, and escorted them severally to the Bar, where they knelt until the Lord High Steward allowed them to rise.