David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

‘Mrs Buckley, forgive me if I just take you through some of the details of your friendship with Christopher Montague.’

Rosalind Buckley was wearing a long dress of very deep grey, with a small black hat. The colours suited her. She looked like a widow in mourning.

‘You had known Mr Montague for some fifteen months before he died, is that correct?’

‘It is,’ said Rosalind Buckley in a firm voice.

‘And could you remind us what plans the two of you had made for your future?’ Pugh was at his silkiest, talking as if he had just met Mrs Buckley sitting next to him at a fashionable dinner party.

‘We were going to live together in Italy,’ she said. ‘Christopher, Mr Montague I mean, was going to write there.’

‘You were going to live there out of wedlock? Or out of wedlock as long as your husband was alive?’

The newspapermen looked at each other in amazement. Yet another possibility crossed their minds, far faster than it struck anybody else in the public gallery.

‘We were,’ said Rosalind Buckley, staring at the floor beneath the witness box.

‘Were you planning to have children with Mr Montague, Mrs Buckley? Bastard children born on a foreign shore?’

‘Objection, my lord, objection.’ Sir Rufus Fitch had been reflecting over the weekend that he had let Pugh get away with far too much. Today would be different. ‘The question is purely hypothetical. It has no bearing on the case.’

‘Mr Pugh?’ The judge turned to the defence.

‘It is our contention, my lord, that such questions may have featured more and more heavily in Mr Montague’s mind in the period before his death.’

‘Objection overruled. But I warn you, Mr Pugh, that I shall expect some evidence from you that this was the case.’

‘Yes, my lord, I believe we shall be able to satisfy you on that score. I have no more questions for Mrs Buckley for the moment. With your permission, my lord, I would like to call Miss Alice Bridge.’

The judge grunted and fiddled with his pens.

‘I, Alice Bridge, do solemnly swear that the evidence I shall give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

Powerscourt looked around the visitors in the public gallery. Was the formidable Mrs Bridge in court? Pugh was several steps ahead of him. He had already spotted Mrs Bridge from Powerscourt’s description, staring at the proceedings through her lorgnette, her vast bosom protruding into the courtroom. He edged a pace or two to his left, blocking out all sight of mother.

‘Miss Bridge,’ Pugh began, ‘I believe you too were a friend of Christopher Montague?’

The girl blushed slightly. ‘I was.’

‘And how long had your friendship been going on?’

‘A little over four months.’ Alice Bridge had brought a diary to court in case she needed it, a diary that detailed every single meeting she ever had with Christopher Montague.

‘Would you have described yourself as a passing acquaintance? A friend you might bump into from time to time? Or was it more substantial than that?’

Powerscourt looked round. Mrs Bridge was twisting herself into contortions as she tried to catch her daughter’s eye. But Charles Augustus Pugh’s broad well-tailored back stood between her and her daughter.

‘It was more substantial than that, sir.’ Alice Bridge was speaking quite confidently now.

‘Would you have said that you were intimate with Mr Montague, that you were lovers?’ Pugh was speaking very slowly, looking closely at the jury.

‘I would,’ said Alice Bridge proudly, now staring in triumph at the grey figure of Rosalind Buckley.

‘Had Christopher Montague, and I don’t need to remind you, Miss Bridge, that you are under oath here . . .’ Pugh paused so the jury could appreciate what he knew was coming next. ‘. . . had he asked you to marry him?’

Alice Bridge did not hesitate. ‘He had. We were planning to marry in St James’s, Piccadilly, sir.’

There was a mighty snort at the back of the court. Mrs Bridge had risen to her feet and was trying to make her way forward to the witness box. ‘What nonsense, child,’ she began. The judge smashed his gavel on to his desk.

‘Silence in court! Remove that woman! At once! She is interfering with the course of justice!’

Two officers of the court moved swiftly. ‘I am her mother, she’s only a child . . .’ Mrs Bridge’s voice just reached the front of the court as she was led away.

‘This is not your drawing room, madam!’ Mr Justice Browne was furious. ‘It is a court of law!’ He paused and wiped his brow with a large blue handkerchief. ‘Mr Pugh.’

‘So,’ said Pugh, ‘you were planning to marry. Were you also planning to have children, Miss Bridge? Children who would have been legitimate rather than bastards?’

‘We were.’ Alice Bridge’s replies were firmer with the removal of her mother.

‘One final question for you, Miss Bridge.’ Pugh was caressing her with his eyes, the fingers of his right hand playing another imaginary piano concerto on his gown. ‘As far as you know, had Mr Montague told Mrs Buckley about your relationship?’

‘He had,’ said the girl.

‘How can you be sure?’ asked Pugh.

‘Mr Montague showed me bits of the letters she wrote him. She said he’d betrayed her, that her life was ruined.’

‘Thank you, Miss Bridge. No further questions.’

Sir Rufus had the sense that he was being outmanoeuvred again. He rose slowly to his feet. ‘Miss Bridge,’ he began, ‘would you describe yourself as a truthful person?’

‘Objection, my lord.’ Pugh realized he might be able to throw Fitch off balance if he protested right at the beginning of the cross-examination. ‘Unfair line of questioning.’

‘Objection overruled. Sir Rufus.’ The judge looked stern. Up in the press area one or two of the reporters were looking at the two women. Lucky Montague, they thought to themselves. Not just one beautiful woman, but two.

‘I put it to you, Miss Bridge, that your entire story is pure fantasy, the kind of thing young girls have daydreams about, the kind of thing they enjoy reading about in the magazines and popular fiction. Is that not so?’

The girl did not blush. She did not look down. She was, for once, her mother’s daughter. She felled Fitch with six words, looking him up and down as if he had come to clean the coal cellar. ‘No, Sir Rufus, it is not.’

She smiled at Pugh. Fitch felt he should beat a retreat. ‘No further questions,’ he said and sat down grumpily in his chair.

This, Pugh, knew, was the trickiest bit of all. Mrs Buckley was recalled to the witness stand.

‘Mrs Buckley, you have heard the statement from Miss Bridge. Is it true?’

There was a long pause. A whole series of emotions, fear, doubt, anger passed across her face. Pugh hoped the jury were watching carefully. At last Rosalind Buckley spoke.

‘No,’ she said quietly.

‘Really?’ said Pugh, looking carefully at the jury. ‘Are you sure?’

There was another long pause. Then the words came out in a rush.

‘I mean it’s true and it isn’t. I did know Christopher, Mr Montague I mean, was seeing this other person.’ She stopped and looked round the courtroom to stare at Alice Bridge. ‘I knew it was only an infatuation, I knew it would pass. I may have written him some letters, I’m not sure. I knew he would come back to me in the end.’

‘And if he didn’t, Mrs Buckley?’

‘I knew he would come back to me in the end.’

Pugh paused. Three of the newspapermen who worked for the evening editions crept slowly from the courtroom to file their reports.

‘Mrs Buckley, I wish to ask you about the period of time you spent in Rome before you were married, when you were still Miss Rosalind Chambers.’