One giggle sounded, in the back row, probably the same adenoidal snigger
that had punctuated the trial from the start. There was no other
laughter. Only a hush. The same kind of hush, Warner thought, that
might have held the crowd in shock and incredulity, hundreds of years
ago, if some candidate for an Inquisition bonfire had ventured to poke a
little fun at the officiating priest. And T.J. was in fact performing
certain priestly functions. _So what am I then? Advocatus diaboli?_ He
saw Terence Mann's hand clench spasmodically and fall in a droop.
Hunter said somberly, when the moment was right: "I have no objection to
your odd sense of humor, Miss Blake, if you are enjoying it. But I would
like a responsive answer."
"Mr. Hunter, I did not think of James Doherty as a child. At any rate I
tried not to. Apparently I rated his intelligence more highly than you
do. I did not think that his religious beliefs had to be coddled and
protected, or avoided the way you might avoid too much comment on a
child's make-believe. Therefore in that letter to him I asked him about
his beliefs, as one might ask any adult, and I wrote a little about my
own ideas. It can't be called an attack unless you feel that the mere
mention of an unreligious idea is an attack on religion. I'm aware that
a lot of people do feel that way. They take all dissent as if it were an
unkind criticism of themselves. Maybe Doherty did too, but I didn't
think so at the time."
Could she have won that round, or partly won it? It seemed to Cecil
Warner that her voice had recovered some steadiness and coolness.
Fielding looked somewhat impressed, as well as Helen Butler, LaSalle,
and maybe Miss Wainwright. But the others were annoyed, or puzzled, or
not listening. And about Fielding it was never possible to be sure.
"He's 'Doherty' to you now? Not 'Jimmy' any more, just 'Doherty'?"
She turned her face to the Judge with a look of blindness. "Must I
answer that?"
"You need not," said Judge Mann. "I think you might withdraw the
question, Mr. Hunter."
But even at that moment--the Judge manifestly friendly, Hunter showing
up badly as his antagonism became too obviously personal and
overdramatized--even at that more or less favorable moment Warner felt a
change in Callista, a retreat or a weakening, as though before his eyes
she had slipped further away from him, almost out of sight and hearing.
He might, he supposed, be exaggerating her look of increased exhaustion,
a fault in his own powers of observation. The pain slid down his arm
again, compelling some part of his mind to mumble: _Heart?--and
irrelevant?_ Callista was not necessarily in flight, not necessarily
losing her desire to live. A better part of his mind recalled a better
voice, speaking with a nearly incomprehensible sweetness: "_Living is
journeying, and love's a region we can enter for a while._"
"I withdraw my question. Miss Blake, as the author of these letters, I
take it you are the one person best qualified to explain this sentence:
'You are already a prisoner, and I wish I might set you free.'"
"Oh--oh--explain it by what follows, can't you? I think when I wrote
that I wasn't referring to Ann."
"Well, not exactly, Miss Blake. The words I see on this page are: 'No, I
don't hate Ann, I was not thinking only of Ann when I wrote that.'
_Only_, Miss Blake--that seems to say pretty plainly that you're at
least including Ann Doherty in what you wrote about your Jimmy being a
prisoner. Doesn't it?"
"All right--if you wish."
"It's no question of what I wish, Miss Blake."
"I think it is--I think you--no, never mind, I don't mean that. Go ahead
and ask your question--what do you want to know?"
"I am asking for your interpretation of that sentence: 'You are already
a prisoner, and I wish I might set you free'--insofar as it does refer
to Ann Doherty."
Her voice had gone dull and flat, hard to hear from Warner's place: "No
interpretation except the obvious one. His marriage trapped him,
confined him." Warner's ears had begun a faint ringing; he undid the top
button of his shirt--a little better. "I suppose marriage does that for
anyone, man or woman, and usually the restrictions are voluntarily
accepted, welcomed, or so people like to think. I suppose that's all I
meant."
"But the rest of the sentence, Miss Blake--'I wish I might set you
free'--what did you mean by that?"
"Why, the--the separation--what I've said repeatedly--I think I wrote
about that in the very next paragraph, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did," said Hunter in a dull and abstracted voice that
curiously echoed her own. "So you did. 'You are already a prisoner, and
I wish I might set you free.'" He came out of his abstraction briskly.
"Well--no more about that? Nothing you wish to add?"
"Nothing."
"I see. 'Are we savages to be held in line by magic words mumbled in the
mouth of a priest?'--do you want to comment on that sentence from your
letter, Miss Blake? Explain, perhaps, why it's not to be taken as an
attack on James Doherty's religion?"
"Genuine faith can't be attacked, Mr. Hunter, because it hasn't anything
to do with reason. Religious people sometimes admit that themselves, if
they've done any thinking about it. I remember hoping rather foolishly
that he would be able to see my side of the question. As for what I
wrote there, it's a--a comment on superstition. If you heard it in
ordinary conversation it wouldn't trouble you much. It's important now
only because you've decided to try me for irreligion as well as murder."
"No, Miss Blake, I am still concerned with your attitude toward law, as
it bears on your credibility and on the issues of this trial. Now I
hear that the marriage sacrament to you is a superstition proper to
savages--that's what you meant, isn't it?"
"Marriage is a legal status. A marriage certificate is a legal document.
When you talk about the sacrament of marriage you're expressing a
religious view that has no legal meaning."
"Oh, well--"
"Ask any lawyer."
"Why, as an amateur lawyer, Miss Blake, you happen to be perfectly
right. But that isn't quite the point, is it? It seems to me that in
tossing off a comment like that to James Doherty on the subject of his
marriage to Ann Doherty you were placing yourself pretty far above the
law as well as above religion. Heard now, under these circumstances,
doesn't it sound pretty arrogant even to you?"
"Not nearly as arrogant as the first premises of a true believer or a
prosecuting attorney--"
The break in her voice had been unmistakable. Warner knew that if he
stood up then and spoke, he would only be compounding disaster by
drawing more attention to it. _When did I lose her? When did she go
away? A little while ago she still desired to live._ He tried to recast
the outline of his closing speech--more emphasis here, less there. And
perhaps in redirect some of the damage could be repaired. _The defense
never rests._
"I suppose I must leave it at that," Hunter said. "But maybe I ought to
remind you, Miss Blake, that I could have no interest in making any
personal attack against you, as you seem to feel I'm doing. I am simply
a servant of the State, with a duty to perform."
"No," she said emptily, "that's not quite true. Impartiality isn't any
part of the system. You hate and fear me because--"
"Miss Blake," said Judge Mann sharply, "for your own sake there must be
no such expressions of personal feeling. It's perfectly true that
impartiality is hard to achieve, because we're all human. But in a law
court we do try to achieve it. This procedure, this sometimes clumsy
mechanism of a trial--it's an attempt at fairness, objectivity, the best
we can do under the present conditions of society. Now I must warn you,
and very urgently: simply answer the prosecutor's questions as plainly
as you can, unless the Court rules you need not answer, and don't try to
go beyond those questions. That rule--in fact the whole procedure--is
for your own protection."
Directly to the Judge, and quietly, but also as though she had not
really taken in his words at all, Callista said: "I never wanted her to
die."
Warner saw Judge Mann turn to him, distress momentarily plain to read,
as though the Judge and not the defense were most in need of help. "Mr.
Warner, if you wish a recess--"
"No!" said Callista, and that was a cry. "I want this to be finished.
I'm perfectly able to answer the questions, but I can't go away and come
back to it, I can't do that. No recess now, please!"
"Your Honor, I think--so long as my client feels able to continue and
wishes to--but--reserving the privilege of asking for a recess later
if--"
"Yes, certainly, Mr. Warner. Whenever you want to request it."
Hunter said, gently and mildly, no longer half-crouched like a man
readying himself to rape, but standing some distance from the witness
stand, almost careless in his quiet--"You never wanted her to die,
Callista?"
"No, I--yes, when--nobody ever answered Pilate."
"Yes some of the time, no some of the time--that would be natural,
perfectly human, wouldn't it, Callista?"
"I suppose...."
"Does it mean, Callista, that you've remembered what happened in that
lapse of memory--the thing you couldn't tell Mr. Lamson?"
"Yes."
Warner understood he had risen. But there were no words. She must know
that he would come to her if he could; but she would not look at him
now--only at Hunter, and without hostility, but with somber recognition,
as if suddenly after much bewilderment she understood why he was there
and what purposes he might serve.
"What happened, Callista?"
"I heard her take the bottle from the shelf, and the sound of a glass. I
heard her come to my door, and knock, and say that she'd poured a drink
for me. I lay still. I deceived myself a little, I think--I tried to
imagine it was not the poison, then I tried to tell myself she would not
drink it. But for a few seconds or minutes the strongest part of me was
the part that held me there, willing that she should drink it. When she
was gone, and I knew what had happened, that self, that part of me, was
no longer in command. Then I became--whatever else I am, and have been
since then. Now I'll answer no more questions, even from those I love."