parsimony, meaning, in layman's terms," Hawkins tells the jury, "that the simplest of two explanations is usually correct. Now, given that the co-respondent was standing by the waterside, don't you agree that he might very well have loosened his clothing in order to perform a natural function? If the court will permit—is micturition not a simpler, and therefore more likely, cause than adultery?"
A female laugh, very shrill, just behind Helen's head.
Rowe shakes his head. "I can't see an officer doing something like that in front of a fellow officer's wife."
This provokes gales of merriment.
I'll never be quite English, thinks Helen. This stuffy idiot truly believes that to make water in front of a woman is worse than to have her.
The judge calls a recess, now, and most of the crowd rear up and shuffle out the back doors. Some keep their seats, Helen notices, and pull out packages of sandwiches. Few pauses beside her. "May I offer you some refreshment?" he asks tiredly.
She shakes her head. "It's going rather badly, isn't it?" she asks in as brave a tone as she can muster.
"Oh, early yet."
Helen drifts out into Westminster Hall with the dregs of the crowd. Through her thick veil, she cranes up at the bare, gigantic timbers, hung with faded banners, like something out of a Nordic saga. But instead of massive heroes, the hall is crammed with bewigged lawyers and their clients, and always the shuffling, chattering crowd that spills from one or other of the courts.
She has a pie from a stall. She can always eat, no matter what troubles beset her. Once, in the days of courtship, Harry told her that the life force sprang up very strong in her. She wonders what he'd call it now: vulgarity?
The first witness after the recess is the one Helen's been dreading: Emily Watson. It occurs to Helen that every friend one makes in life is a liability: one has let her past the walls, allowed her to matter, and one must keep her as a friend forever or she'll become an enemy.
Oh Fido, Fido.
The grey-haired lady makes quite a production of unpeeling her glove so her skin can touch the Book as she takes the oath; Helen's fingers tighten with rage. "My name is Emily Watson, wife to the Reverend Joshua Watson," says the witness with modest satisfaction. She aims a sudden, quick smile into the crowd: that must be for her beloved Harry, thinks Helen.
"When did you first meet the respondent in Malta?" asks Bovill.
"In July 1861. For several nights Helen and I—forgive me, that's what I always called her—were in attendance on an invalid in pecuniary distress, a Mrs. Coxon."
"What estimate did you form of the respondent's character on that occasion?"
Here Mrs. Watson makes a show of hesitating. "A touch too free in her manners, I dare say. A certain spirit of wildness about her."
"Subsequently you became friends with Mrs. Codrington, despite your reservations?" asks Bovill.
"Very good friends. I pride myself on believing the best of people, even if sometimes I suffer for it," she remarks, smoothing her iron chignon.
Helen nibbles her thumb through her cotton glove. How could I ever have harboured this snake in my bosom?
"And how did the couple live together at this time?"
"Outwardly contentedly—but privately, quite otherwise." The sigh of a tragedy queen. "We—the reverend and I—took it as our mission to bring about a better state of feeling between them. The admiral confided his sorrows to us, as in a brother and sister, and I did my utmost to counsel his wife."
Bovill is nodding. "How did the admiral treat her at this time?"
"With exemplary attention and kindness. Admixed with the occasional silent reproof," Mrs. Watson tells him. "He was anxious about dear Helen's debts; her gay demeanour; her carelessness of the world's opinion."
"The impropriety of her behaviour with men?"
She throws up her wrinkled hands. "That's a strong term."
The woman's coyness makes Helen want to scream.
"I would prefer frivolity," she says squeamishly. "The admiral assumed—all three of us did at first—that she was only foolish, not wicked. Dear Helen had not found in motherhood the normal womanly fulfillment, and I formed the belief that she was ... well, taking refuge in flights of fantasy."
"How do you mean, fantasy?" asks Bovill.
"Exaggerating her own charms, you see," says Mrs. Watson with compassion, "and imagining herself an object of fascination to every bachelor on the island."
Jealous hag!
"And indeed, to others in the home country: she spoke very foolishly of attentions she claimed the Prince of