ears. She wants to run down the aisle, away from the buzzing hive of watchers.
As she steps up into the box, she feels giddy. She scans the crowd for Helen, but the only face she recognizes is—to her horror—her sister Esther's: meaty cheeks and a grave mouth. Fido averts her gaze. How kind, how scrupulously loyal of Esther to make a showing on behalf of the family. But Fido wishes her at the other end of the earth.
She puts her hand on the Book and takes the oath without a qualm. The letter of the truth doesn't matter to her anymore, only the spirit. Somehow she must find her way through the tangled forest.
Hawkins gives her a small, tight smile, as if to congratulate her for having overcome her feminine qualms at last. Fido steels herself against him.
Mechanically, she answers several questions about her proprietorship of the Victoria Press—meant to establish that she's a serious person, she supposes.
"Under what circumstances did you first become acquainted with the Codringtons?"
"In 1854," she says, then clears her throat. "In 1854 I was staying with—" no need to name her sister. "I was staying at Walmer in Kent when I met Mrs. Codrington."
"Ten years ago, you were what age?"
"Just nineteen."
"You'd always lived in a country parsonage, had been educated in very strict principles, and were altogether ignorant of the world?"
"I suppose so." Is that his angle? She waits, then goes on with the account she's prepared. "After Mrs. Codrington introduced me to her husband, I visited them at Eccleston Square, at their joint and repeated request. I stayed there on and off until 1857—not as Mrs. Codrington's companion, as was stated in a newspaper," she adds stiffly, "but as a friend."
"A trusted family friend," says Hawkins, nodding.
He believes I'm still Helen's witness; he thinks I'm her last, best chance.
"How did their marriage seem?"
Here it comes. "They were in the habit of quarrelling. In the very first days of my acquaintance with her—Mrs. Codrington—she admitted she was not happy. Sometimes they wouldn't speak to each other for a week."
"In the autumn of 1856," he asks, "what room were you occupying at Eccleston Square?"
"The large bedroom next to that of the Codringtons."
"You mean they slept together in one room?"
Fido can hardly believe she's spelling out these private details in a witness box. "Sometimes, at that point. It was the room designated as theirs," she says weakly.
"Had they shared it, during the months between the petitioner's return from the Crimea in August, and October of that year?"
"Really, at this distance of time, I can't remember remarking it." Liar; she was always aware of where Helen was: only an inch across the pillow or shut away behind the oak-panelled wall.
"When did Mrs. Codrington sleep with you in your room?"
"Whenever the admiral was away." Afraid of being caught out, Fido adds, "Also sometimes when he was home. I am subject to asthma, and sometimes need medical assistance..." Isn't that what maids are for? she asks herself, brutally, but Hawkins doesn't probe.
"Now, when Mrs. Codrington was not sleeping with him, where did the admiral spend the night?"
"In his own room."
"You're now referring to a third room, on the other side of yours?"
"No, I—" Oh heavens, she's got in a muddle already. "He'd sleep in that room—the room designated as theirs. While she was in the room beside it, with me."
To her ears that's no clearer, but Hawkins only says, "There is a communicating door between the two rooms?" Fido nods.
"Answer in words, if you please."
"Yes." Of course, everything must show up on the record. Like speaking in stone.
Hawkins's tone is becoming that of a teller of ghost stories. "On nights when Mrs. Codrington was sharing your room, Miss Faithfull, was the door locked?"
"Shut fast, but not locked. Helen—the respondent—used sometimes to pass in and out between the two rooms." Then she wishes she hadn't added that detail. It conjures up visions of casual flittings in the dark.
"Did the petitioner ever come into the room when you and his wife were sharing it?"
She stiffens. "Occasionally he might walk in to address a remark to her, or poke the fire."
One eyebrow goes up. "Did you often have a fire in your bedroom?"
"A concession to my health; I'd had a fever, and my habitual asthma," she explains, absurdly apologetic. "The admiral can be ... a rather fidgeting man; he didn't trust the maid to see to the fire." She ought to have said the fires; why would he single out the one in