"She burst out in violent agitation," says Mrs. Watson, "and told me that the climax of evil had been reached."
The audience stirs with loud enjoyment.
The judge glares down at them. "Is it going to be necessary for me to clear this courtroom?"
They settle down like cowed schoolchildren.
"The climax of evil," indeed! Helen knows she sometimes puts things strongly, but she'd never resort to such a penny-dreadful phrase.
"Were those her very words?" asks Bovill, as if struck by the same doubt.
"I cannot recall precisely how she put it," admits Mrs. Watson, "as the fact of the matter was so shocking to my sensibilities."
"Naturally. Did she give you any ... details?"
"Oh yes. She told me that Mildmay had escorted her to my house half an hour before, but instead of bringing her in, he'd persuaded her to go up the lane at the back, where the dreadful deed was accomplished."
Bovill's mouth opens but nothing comes out.
"I was paralyzed with horror," Mrs. Watson rushes on. "Helen put her head between her hands and said, 'Do you scorn me, Emily? Do you shrink from me? I am lost.'"
"And did you in fact shrink from her?"
Mrs. Watson hesitates. Deciding on a politic reply, thinks Helen. "At first, yes," she assures the barrister. "But then I asked myself who was I that I should cast her out into the darkness? She was weeping at my feet, scrubbing at her dress like a lunatic. So I said, 'Helen, if you are truly penitent—as the Lord said to the Magdalen—go and sin no more.'" Her eyes are shining.
Could she possibly believe her own rigmarole? Helen wonders. Memory is unreliable, especially as one ages. Could it be that Emily Watson mistakes these grand scenes for how it was? No, the explanation must be simpler: a courtroom turns nobodies to tyrants for an hour, giving them a stage on which to spin their most inventive lies.
Mrs. Watson rushes on. "I made her promise to break off this unholy connection with Mildmay, and send back the rings and lockets he'd given her. Then the tea was ready and we went down," she finishes, anticlimactically.
Bovill seems at a loss as to what to ask his witness, for a moment. "Did you tell Reverend Watson about her confession?"
"Not at the time, because his doctor had instructed me to shield him from anything conducive to anxiety. Of course this made my trial all the heavier." She puts her handkerchief to her eye.
"Did she, to your knowledge, return Mildmay's gifts?"
"I thought she had," says Mrs. Watson grimly, "but she'd only locked them up in her bureau. Gradually, over the months that followed, little hints told me that she'd not broken off her intrigue with him at all!"
"And you quarrelled?"
Again, Mrs. Watson squirms at the word. "Not openly. Excessive loyalty is my weakness."
Helen wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her till something cracks.
"But I had withdrawn my heart from her, in private," Mrs. Watson assures Bovill. "We had one painful discussion, early the following year. I heard a rumour that she'd been calling Admiral Codrington's visits to my house too frequent; claiming there was an undue intimacy between us. Well, I broached the subject candidly; I reminded her that my friendship with the admiral had been formed with her full compliance and for her good. She accused me of having a Jesuitical influence over her children, of attempting to usurp her position as mother and as wife!"
Yes, Helen does remember that row; she allows herself a narrow smile.
"I asked her to deny the rumour in writing," says Mrs. Watson, "but she retorted that an honest woman didn't need a ticket of virtue! And when I made a delicate allusion to her own tarnished honour, she began to shriek in a frenzy: 'Send for my husband! You may as well tell him my secret and ruin me at once!' Then she flung herself on her knees and begged me to forgive her. I parted the hair on her brow and said, 'Oh Helen, darling, is this my return for all my love to you?'"
Helen is bewildered by this woman's gall; stray facts and purest fiction are mixed fluently in every sentence. What she's describing is their real, prickly friendship, but as if recalled in a delirium. Something occurs to Helen now: I'm the most exciting thing that's ever happened to her.
Bovill has been taking rapid notes with a scratchy pen. Now he peers at them. "Did the respondent ever write this letter