Never Land the First Fish

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Part 2

Julia was dismissed back to the dock, and the warder brought Gills back into the room. He took his place in the dock and was sworn in, speaking his vow to tell the truth in a loud firm voice.

Mr Rutledge asked him about his reason for visiting the Soddenfields and then about what happened when he arrived. Gills described knocking on the door, hearing screaming and shouting from the back, and breaking down the door at a woman's cry for help.

"I shoved Lord Athol away from the woman he was assaulting. I knew it must be his wife, but her face was unrecognizable, nothing but a bleeding bruise with frightened eyes. I sent her out to the buggy, punched Athol a couple of times to dissuade him from following, and took the lady away."

"With what object, Lord Joseph?" Mr Rutledge asked.

"To save her life, man! My only thought was to get her somewhere her injuries could be treated, and where she could be safe from Lord Athol's pursuit and his vengeance. I thought I could get help for her in Bristol. From Wellbridge, perhaps. He was her cousin and powerful enough to keep Lord Athol away from her. But she was too badly injured. We had to stop before we got more than a couple of villages away."

"You thought Lord Athol would pursue her. But he was dead."

"I did not know that," Gills explained. "He was not dead when I left him. I hoped he'd sleep off his drink, but I was sure he'd set up the hunt the next day, and I fretted at having to stay at the inn where we took refuge, but Lady Julia was too badly injured to move. She wouldn't let me bring her a doctor. The innkeeper's wife where we stopped treated her. She can testify to how badly Lady Julia had been beaten."

Rutledge nodded at his clerk, who took a sheaf of papers up to the front of the courtroom. "Your Honours," Rutledge addressed them, "I place in evidence a deposition from Mr Thomas Bredon, innkeeper of the Golden Crown in Shepton Winshet, concerning Lord Joseph's and Lady Julia's arrival, stay, and departure. Also, a deposition from his wife, concerning Lady Julia's injuries."

The Chief Justice looked over his glasses at the lawyer. "Three copies, Mr Rutledge?" On receiving an affirmative, he gestured for the papers to be handed out to the three judges. They read through while the court waited, then conferred quietly with one another.

Whispers became mutters until the room was a hum of conversation, then the Chief Justice banged his gavel and everyone was silence. "The evidence supports Lord Joseph's testimony so far. Mr Rutledge, you have supplied a copy to the Prosecutor?"

Rutledge had done so while the judges were reading. He said so, and the Chief Justice spoke to the court. "Let the court record show that Lord Joseph Gildeforte and Lady Julia stayed at Golden Crown in Shepton Winshet under the guise of brother and sister, and in separate rooms, and that Lady Julia had the marks of a brutal beating. Carry on, Mr Rutledge."

Rutledge took Gills through the rest of the flight: how they evaded people who were asking for Julia, how Gills found out from the harbour master where Maddox's ship was docked, and how he crept aboard, carrying Julia with the help of the coachman from the inn, and put her to bed in a cabin, before falling asleep.

Rutledge had depositions for that, too. One from the harbour master and one from the coachman.

"When I woke up, we were at sea. And Maddox wouldn't turn back. Bloody sod. He was meant to be at the Wellbridge party for at least another three days!"

Rutledge's questioning continued, covering the voyage and moving on to their experiences in New York. Emily knew most of that, and found her attention drifting, until the barrister handed over to the prosecutor.

"Is it not true, Lord Joseph, that you left the inn to evade constables sent to arrest Lady Julia?"

Gills agreed. "I did not know at the time they were constables, but I knew they had been sent to find Lady Julia. I thought Athol sent them."

The prosecutor smirked. "I put it to you, Lord Joseph, that you fled to Lord Maddox's ship with the intention of leaving England, after realising that Lord Athol's body had been discovered where you left it."

Gills shook his head. "The first I knew of Athol's death was when Maddox told me, after we were already at sea."

He couldn't be shaken on that, and the prosecutor must have seen the jury was becoming restless, because he moved on to question after question about who nursed Lady Julia when she was sick on the ship, who paid for her clothes and accommodation, where she slept, where Gills slept.

He asked Gills the same question about intimacy as he had asked Julia, and received a version of the same answer. However much he smirked, sneered, implied, and accused, Gills remained calm and answered with the truth. If not quite the whole truth. Emily had noticed the loophole in both Julia's answer about whether they were lovers and the one Gills gave.

They had not been physically intimate while she was half dead from a beating, dismally seasick, or back on land recovering from the brutalities of her marriage. Nor would any true gentleman have solicited the gift of her favours under such circumstances. Gills certainly had not, and he had no intention of doing so.

Julia paid for her own accommodation and clothing, when she repaid the loans that he and Maddox had given her. "We would have been happy to make a gift of them, but Julia was determined to be independent," he explained, his pride in her easy to hear.

Julia had her own cabin on the ship. She had her own room at the hotel and slept in it alone. She then moved to a respectable boarding house, which did not allow men, and afterwards shared accommodation with Miss Kilbrierry.

Eventually, the Chief Justice put an end to the repetitions. "If you have no new questions, I will allow Lord Joseph to step down, and hand back to Mr Rutledge to call his next witness."

The prosecutor looked as if he was about to protest, but thought better of it. "No further questions, Your Honour."