The Crimson Rooms (60 page)

So on Monday morning we went back
to the court in Aylesbury to witness the inexorable process of Stephen Anthony Wheeler being sentenced to death.

With remorseless precision, Judge Weir punched out advice to the jury. “Defense case . . . Wheeler devoted to his wife . . . no plausible motive for killing her . . . much play put on spurious bits of evidence such as a hat left with the picnic blanket. Although there is some evidence that Mrs. Wheeler had other admirers, one of whom was generous enough to buy her an expensive wedding gift, there is no evidence at all that anyone else with sinister intent was on the hill that day or had access to Wheeler’s gun.

“The evidence we’ve heard of Wheeler’s war record is that he fought bravely and was respected by his fellows. He was certainly an able marksman. But you should not be swayed by either of these considerations. We are dealing with events that took place nearly six years after the war ended.

“The prosecution has told you that Wheeler was the owner of both gun and gloves. They have told you that Mrs. Wheeler’s life was insured. You might agree with the defense, however, that it is far-fetched to suppose that a man with Wheeler’s experience in insurance could believe that he might profit from his wife’s death at his own hands. However, he seems to have been a jealous man, a rigid man, and one who would probably take no small exception to the idea of his wife’s having admirers other than himself. And poor little Stella Wheeler seems to have attracted a good deal of attention while on the dance floor and indeed as a waitress.

“However, when all is said and done it is not for you to be certain of Wheeler’s motive, but it is your task to be sure that he and none other murdered Stella Wheeler.”

At the end of just two hours, the jury returned a unanimous verdict. The judge pronounced that Wheeler had cold-bloodedly, and with malice aforethought, murdered his wife of less than one month by shooting her through the heart with his own service revolver and in these circumstances the only possible punishment was death by hanging.

Wheeler’s head went up. As he was led from the courtroom, he smiled lovingly at his mother, who sobbed, a handkerchief pressed to her mouth in a tight ball, as if it wasn’t polite to show so much feeling in so public a place.

I
n the days between the end of Wheeler’s trial
and the date of his execution, set for Friday, August 15 (the day after my birthday), I found that everything had changed.

In the first place, I could not tolerate the prospect of living indefinitely in Clivedon Hall Gardens. Perhaps the outcome of Wheeler’s trial was in some way connected with this decision: the fact that he had not allowed us to save him made me all the more determined to save myself. Besides, in the brief spell—the week between tea at Fortnum’s with Nicholas and discovering his signature in Hyde Park police station—when I had tried to envisage myself as the wife of a rich and successful man, one image I had particularly relished was the leaving of Clivedon Hall Gardens. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself close the front door, run down the white steps, and walk away. So I told Mother that I would move in with Meredith and Edmund for a trial period, in Pimlico, and in the meantime I would help her find a lodger or two. To my great surprise (and slight mortification), she didn’t put up any further fight—I suspect she was relieved that thus punished she had done sufficient penance for concealing James’s letter from me.

We heard, through Meredith, who met Sylvia at art class, that Sir David Hardynge was reconsidering his decision to stand for Parliament. He was drawn, said Sylvia, to more philanthropic activities and thought that politics might be a distraction. If this was the only price he was prepared to pay for what he’d done it seemed inadequate, and I was sickened by the knowledge he might yet elude retribution. But for the time being, I was distracted by Sylvia’s other news, from my point of view even more sensational. Her engagement to
the tall one
(as Meredith insisted on describing Nicholas) was over. Sylvia said that he had disappointed her, kept her waiting too long, and she’d called it off. So heartbroken was Thorne, according to Sylvia, that he intended to leave London altogether and return to his hometown of Reading. Death to his career.

A fortnight later, a letter duly arrived, postmarked Reading. I burned it. Wheeler was to hang and I wanted nothing to do with Hardynge or Nicholas, who had been his creature. Then I spent fruitless minutes trying to rescue the letter from the flames, but when at last I’d salvaged a few scraps, I thrust them back: Hardynge’s influence was so far-reaching, so insidious, I told myself, I could never trust Nicholas again. In fact, at Breen & Balcombe, we thought it expedient to get the Marchant children out of the clutches of the Good Samaritan’s as soon as possible, in case Hardynge took it into his head to wreak his revenge on us for bringing him to court by the devious means of having those little girls migrated to Canada. But after a flurry of letters, payments from the
Daily Mail
fund, and a cursory visit by Miss Hands, assistant matron, to Caractacus Court, we received notification that the children would be released. A qualified lawyer was required to be present. Breen sent me.

Leah and I met outside the gates of the home at a quarter to two on a blustery Thursday afternoon, a week before Wheeler’s execution. She was looking very trim in a neat gray coat (cast off, she told me, from one of her new ladies, who she charred for) and her best hat with cherries. When I offered to shake hands, she ignored me but I told myself it was not so much that she was choosing to slight me as that her whole being yearned toward the release of her children, and she would allow herself no distraction. As we crossed the yard, I noticed that she avoided treading on the painted squares of hopscotch.

The door was answered by the ubiquitous Miss Hands, who informed us apologetically that there were yet more papers to sign before the children could be released. Miss Buckley had not chosen to be present (she was out on charitable business, according to Miss Hands), so we were shown into a cubbyhole of an office (bare walls, presumably to ensure that I was not tempted to steal information from them), where I read out loud a document stating that Mrs. Marchant was a fit parent and would bring the children up in a moral Christian environment, and Leah put her cross on the dotted line.

Miss Hands glanced at me so often from under untrimmed eyebrows that I suspected she had been given dire warnings by her superior. Or perhaps she remembered the horror of our last visit when she had attempted to tear the children from their mother’s arms; perhaps she wanted to speak but didn’t have the courage. As we left the office, I gave her Breen & Balcombe’s card, which she scrunched in her hand and thrust into a pocket. Then we were directed to a row of hard chairs in the hall and told to wait while Miss Hands disappeared upstairs. A clock ticked on a wall to the right, and beyond was the institutional mutter of a hundred children and their female teachers.

Leah was supernaturally still, her spine tilted toward the stairs, and I realized that this was the first time I had troubled myself to regard her as a woman worthy of respect rather than as a weak and reluctant client. She, after all, in the face of overwhelming odds, had remained unswerving in her devotion to her children. To her mind, sheer force of will would prevail in the end.

A door opened and then came the sound of feet on a corridor above. First to appear on the landing were the little girls with their tightly bound hair, hands clasped, dressed not in uniform this time but in summer frocks, long outgrown. Each wore new shoes, courtesy of the
Daily Mail
, and carried a small parcel. Next came Miss Hands; then a woman in a nurse’s uniform, who clutched a fat baby.

For a moment, the group paused. Then Miss Hands gave the youngest girl a gentle prod with her knee and she moved down a step. Leah stood up. The children came slowly, one step at a time, their eyes fixed on their mother. When they reached the bottom, they waited as she crossed the space between them. Even when she held them they didn’t respond, but I noticed the youngest had taken a fistful of her mother’s skirt and wound it around her wrist.

The baby, when passed to Leah, cried lustily and arched his back. I tucked my briefcase under my arm and held the little girls’ hands. At the gates of the home, mother and children were photographed and Leah made an incoherent speech of gratitude to the reporter, and then we bundled into a waiting taxicab. The baby, plump after weeks with an indulgent foster parent, and with a dazzling crop of blond curls, hurled himself about in his mother’s arms while the girls sat one on either side of her and fixed me with unblinking eyes. They did not smile or respond to their mother’s questions. The youngest, Cathy, had not released hold of Leah’s skirt. Meanwhile, I pointed out sights along the way, the trees of Regents Park, and look, behind this road is Arbery Street where I work, and there’s St. Pancras Station. The children swiveled their eyes obediently but didn’t comment. Leah struggled with the baby and from time to time squeezed the shoulder of one or other of her daughters.

At Caractacus Court, Mrs. Sanders had laid on a substantial tea. Her spotless overall was removed when the kettle was boiled and she wore a brooch of tiny mosaic pieces pinned to her collar, which Cathy could not resist touching. I admired Mrs. Sanders for her thoroughness, the absolute commitment she gave to a task even as mundane as filling a teapot. She gave me the impression that her life consisted of a series of unwieldy packages, each of which had to be dealt with and dispatched before another was opened. It was reassuring to believe that the Marchant family was her latest package.

The children’s eyes were full of wonder as they took in the jam, the fairy cakes, the lemonade. Sometimes they looked at each other, sometimes at Mrs. Sanders, sometimes at their mother, who dandled her baby on her lap and pressed bread and jam into his mouth.

I drank a cup of tea, ate a slice of bread and butter, and became aware that my status had changed from officious intruder to honored guest, and that a speech had been prepared. “We ’ope you will call again anytime, Miss Gifford,” said Mrs. Sanders, “to see ’ow we are all getting on. It’s a rare thing to find someone who doesn’t give up on people like us.”

These words, which should have been a balm to my soul, were salt on a wound. To my mind, the fact that Leah had been reunited with her children was inextricably linked to Wheeler’s fate: the Hardynge machine and its instrument, Nicholas, had sprung to the assistance of Breen & Balcombe in the Marchant case because it suited them to do so. By another flick of his fingers, Hardynge might have ordained an entirely different outcome.

Afterward, they all crowded into the courtyard to wave me good-bye. I produced chocolate for the girls and kissed Charlie, whose cheek left a sticky smudge on my lip. When I stooped to embrace her, the oldest child, Ellen, suddenly put her thin arms around my neck and squeezed hard.

M
y birthday, on August 14,
coincided with our next meeting of women lawyers. As the Law Society restaurant did not run to birthday cake, my friends clubbed together and bought me a pink concoction from the ABC tearooms. Altogether, the day promised to be far more festive than usual. That night in Clivedon Hall Gardens, there was to be a party, arranged by Meredith, to include the new lodger, Miss Griffiths, who had been recommended by an acquaintance at church, taught the piano (the prospect of music in the house delighted Grandmother), was overwhelmingly grateful to be offered a room, and on all three counts was therefore considered to be
ideal
by Mother. Prudence made no comment but cast wounded glances at Meredith and bit her lip to prevent unaccustomed tears falling. At the weekend, Meredith, Edmund, and I were to move out but in between these two dates—my birthday and the new flat—was the horrifying fact of Wheeler’s execution.