Turf or Stone (23 page)

The woman magistrate had been whispering. The chairman put another question: ‘Mrs Probert, did you ever, to your knowledge, wilfully aggravate your husband?’

‘Never.’

‘All right. Go on.’

‘Once he pushed a dead and rotten rat into my neck when I was in bed, and followed it up by dragging me across the floor and pouring a jug of cold water over my head and shoulders. I was very ill afterwards; he thought I should have a miscarriage and from that time until the premature birth of my child he did not physically ill-treat me. But he continued to plague me in every way he could imagine – he poured liniment among my clothes. When my child was born I nearly died and three days afterwards, when I was still in danger of my life, he stood outside my door for a quarter of an hour shouting that the child was not his and he would strangle it if he got in. He kept banging on the door and kicking it. I am convinced that had the baby or myself died then he would have been directly responsible. The nurse who was with me agreed and advised me to get away if possible.’

Mary drew a deep breath and wiped her forehead which was shining with perspiration.

‘As soon as I was strong enough to walk, which was not until three months later, I ran away with the child. I intended to find work but I miscalculated my strength, and all my plans failed. I was benighted and forced to spend the night at the Three Magpies. The next morning, Mr Kilminster rode over and persuaded me to return to my husband.’

Phoebe looked at Easter. The terrible smile, ferocious yet mocking, was playing over his mouth. Mary was turning her head from side to side like a person in extreme agony, who finds relief in the monotony of movement.

‘Your husband is groom to Mr Kilminster?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on.’

‘I can’t… for a minute. Oh God!’

She suddenly covered her face with her hands.

The woman magistrate turned crimson. Phoebe heard a murmur of sympathy behind her.

‘Try to continue,’ said the magistrates’ clerk gently, after a pause which revealed that Mary sobbed. She controlled herself, standing rigid, her uncovered face revealing the shining channels left by tears.

‘I went back… my husband was not always at home… I had a lover. We were happy.’

A word was passed to the chairman from the woman magistrate. He nodded: ‘Can you tell us the name of this man?’

‘I would rather not.’

The chairman deliberated.

‘Very well.’

The woman magistrate appeared to insist.

‘Will you write it down?’

The magistrates’ clerk rose, and approached the desk. The chairman leant forward and they whispered.

‘You need not reveal the name,’ the chairman proclaimed, sitting back.

Easter burst out laughing.

‘Silence!’

A kind of spasm shook the lady in grey. She opened her mouth astonished, and again her cheeks flushed a deep bluish crimson.

‘Go on with your tale,’ said the chairman.

‘Brute,’ muttered a voice behind Phoebe. Her neighbour turned, glared and then leant forward eagerly.

‘I was not aware that my husband knew about this,’ Mary continued.

‘You thought you were deceiving him successfully?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long did this affair continue?’

‘Until last November the fifth. That day I had been watching the fireworks on the lawn. The servants were invited,’ she said deliberately. ‘My husband was there. I went up to our rooms about nine o’clock and went straight to bed. My husband came in about eleven and wakened me. He was half drunk. He said “Wake up, I’ve some news for you.”

‘I said, “What is it?”

‘He said, “We’re going away.”

‘I said I should not go with him. He replied that I would like it, that we had both worked hard, and now we should have our fun. I asked him what he was going to do if he threw up his job, and he told me he had put his money into a pork business – a shop. I said: “What do you mean? You haven’t any money to spare.”

‘Then he put his arm round my neck and said he had plenty of money. I could not make out where it came from, and I asked him how he earned it. He said: “I have not earned it, you have. But as your body is my property, the money was paid over to me for the loan of it. Your friend gave me two pound a week for you, and I’ve saved it all up.” He was quite quiet until he had finished speaking, and then he suddenly seemed as if he had gone mad. He said he would teach me, and hit my ears until I fell down on the floor. I screamed. He stuffed his handkerchief in my mouth and said he would strangle me if I moved. I ran to
the door, but he had locked it. The key was hanging on the nail but I couldn’t get near it. He chased me round the table. At last he dived under it, catching me by the ankle. I fell down and he carried me to the bed. He held me. He kept saying that if I woke the baby he would knock me out, but if the child slept I’d be all right. The child was crying all the time, in the next room. I thought he was mad. Presently he left go of me, took a pair of scissors from his pocket and cut off one side of my hair close to my scalp, saying that he wished he had a red hot poker to make a mark on my back. He threw the hair out of the window. I dared not struggle with him, and at last I fainted. When I came round he had gone, and the door was locked outside. I broke it open with a skewer, rushed into the next room and found the child sitting up crying. I must have been beside myself, for I rushed downstairs carrying Shannon in my nightdress. I remember trying to get out of the door into the garden and shouting for help. I was terrified he would come back. Mr Kilminster found me clinging to the stairs. He took me to the library and gave me brandy. The next morning I laid information against my husband.’

She ceased.

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

The chairman conferred with the magistrates’ clerk, who requested that Mary would remove her hat. She did so. The man with the crinkly hair tickled his face abstractedly with a pencil, as he looked at the outline of her head.

‘Not much damage done
there
,’ he reflected.

The reporter thought it was a plum of a case. They
were usually so boring, one knew everything beforehand. He did not think everything had come out.

‘Has anything occurred between you and your lover since that date?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘Your motive in seeking this separation is to get away from both men with your child?’

‘Yes, and begin again if possible.’

The magistrates’ clerk turned towards Easter: ‘Do you want to ask any questions?’

‘Yes,’ he said. He flung his voice at Mary: ‘When we went for a walk and I chucked stones at you, had you been saying to me before, all along the road, that you wished to God you’d never married me because I was only a groom?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you refuse to rub that liniment on my arm when I poured it in the drawer among your clothes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that all you want to ask?’ the clerk inquired, as Easter drew himself up.

‘No,’ he replied. He leant forward again, speaking very slowly.

‘Is it true you haven’t seen that bloke – your lover – since November the fifth?’

‘I have seen him – yes.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘A damned lie,’ he remarked. ‘That’s all.’

‘You must be careful what you say here,’ exclaimed the magistrates’ clerk.

‘Ay,’ said Easter laconically, ‘that’s a fact.’

Phoebe’s eyes, full of despair and pain, met his. He looked away.

Mary was asked if she had any witnesses. She had. Elaine Marshall was called. The sharp-faced nurse took her place in the witness box and swore to speak the truth. She opened the Bible and daintily kissed an inner page, for fear of germs.

‘Are you a district nurse?’

‘Yes, sir, that’s my profession.’

‘Allright, say what you want to say.’

The nurse proceeded composedly: ‘I was called in to Mrs Probert’s confinement two years ago last June. It was a premature child and Mrs Probert was very ill – in acute danger. Three nights after the child was born Mr Probert came to the door cursing and using the most filthy language I have ever heard. I think he was drunk. He was kicking the panels and carrying on like a madman. Mrs Probert was terribly upset. I went out and forced him away with Mr Kilminster’s help. I believe Mr Kilminster locked him in the harness room and threatened to send for the police.’

‘Do you imagine that this occurrence endangered Mrs Probert’s life?’

‘I certainly do. The next day she was so ill that we sent for another nurse.’

‘Who is “we”?’

‘Mr Kilminster and I.’

‘I see. Is that all?’

‘No, sir. The day after her husband cut off her hair Mrs Probert came down to show me.’

‘Were there any marks on her?’

‘Yes. Her shoulders were bruised, as if she had been held down by force.’

‘No marks of blows?’

‘Not actually. Her hair was ruined. She had very lovely hair.’

Easter did not question this witness, who cast him one venomous glance before she stepped from the box and made her way to the back of the court.

The next was Matt. While he was taking the oath the woman magistrate blushed for the third time. His wan face made her feel sentimental, and what a generous, noble man the nurse made him out to be!

Matt looked utterly lifeless. Phoebe was beyond attending to his testimony. Her strained eyes were immovably fixed on Easter.

‘Do you employ Easter Probert as groom?’

‘I did, but he left last week after receiving the summons.’

‘Do you consider he has a good character?’

‘I did,’ he again replied.

‘Would you give him one?’

‘No.’

‘What has made you change your opinion?’

‘If I have changed it, it has no bearing on the case, I assure you.’

‘Well, go on.’ The magistrates regarded him dubiously.

Matt substantiated Mary’s story of the night of November the fifth. The olive-skinned magistrate stared down his nose. The atmosphere was charged with unbearable suspense. The Bench, Matt, Mary, Phoebe,
were all expecting an explosion from the dock. Mary, feeling sick and languid, leant against the back of her chair. Matt’s inert gaze was fixed on the pewter inkpot. Again Easter declined to question the witness. He looked at Matt, he looked at Phoebe. He looked again at Matt and saw him with unabated hatred… stepping down from the witness box. He’d have him, in spite of all… this was the minute! Now then, Easter, tear out that eye and wrench away that tooth! He leant forward snarling like a dangerous animal, all his veins swollen, his ears singing with passion.

‘Good Lord, I could never send a woman back to that!’ thought the skinny reporter.

‘I want to say something!’

‘You can say it from where you are.’

Silence.

A hoarse indistinct word Easter let fall, and paused again. To Phoebe came the thought of a minister racked by experience, preaching on the casting out of devils. Easter’s face worked. His eyelids descended and he clenched his teeth until black hollows showed under his cheekbones. Phoebe gazed and gazed at the harsh out-thrust profile painted white against the rose-coloured centre of the pointed window.

‘If you have anything to say, say it. Don’t keep the magistrates waiting.’

He looked at the magistrates, one after another, and with a gesture utterly strange to him raised one hand to his forehead.

‘No, I haven’t nothing to say. I pleaded guilty, didn’t I? Oh, get it over, I want to get out!’

The six magistrates were interested enough in the case to dispute over their decision. The lady in grey, who continued to blush at intervals, as if some uncomfortable thought lurked within her secret mind, shared the reporter’s conviction that everything had not been heard. It was a pity, she explained, that a name had been withheld. The black-browed magistrate for some reason felt a boldly expressed sympathy towards the brutal husband, but on talking it over with the others, he came to the conclusion that Probert would be none the happier for remaining yoked to his mate. He therefore threw in his word with the rest.

‘And, of course, there’s the child,’ the chairman added.

A separation order was granted with fifteen shillings a week maintenance.

Driving his car towards the station, the black-browed magistrate overtook Miss Kilminster walking beside Probert. He was not inquisitive, but he wished he knew what they were saying. He saw the groom turn away, leaving Phoebe standing still under the dull slag wall. This parting was not casual; the magistrate believed he observed a poignant and final glance pass between them.

The first fifteen shillings were paid over, the second never. The following week Tom Queary was brought before a special meeting of the magistrates, charged with the murder of Easter, and committed for trial at the next Chepsford Assizes. He reserved his defence. It was related in court that Queary had attacked Easter with a pike, which he had driven into his eye. Easter died instantly.

When Phoebe heard of it she began to cry dreadfully and heavily, in a deathly senseless manner, as if every sob would kill her.

Deborah Kay Davies won the Wales Book of the Year Award with her story collection
Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful
. She has also published a collection of poems, Things You
Think I Don’t Know
and a novel,
True Things About Me
. She lives in Cardiff.

Cover image by Peggy Whistler

The Library of Wales is a Welsh Assembly Government project designed to ensure that all of the rich and extensive literature of Wales which has been written in English will now be made available to readers in and beyond Wales. Sustaining this wider literary heritage is understood by the Welsh Assembly Government to be a key component in creating and disseminating an ongoing sense of modern Welsh culture and history for the future Wales which is now emerging from contemporary society. Through these texts, until now unavailable, out-of-print or merely forgotten, the Library of Wales brings back into play the voices and actions of the human experience that has made us, in all our complexity, a Welsh people.

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Raymond Williams Chair in the Cultural History of Wales,

Swansea University