“No, it won’t,” said the judge. “But you plainly said, ‘Not this murder, another murder.’ Whose murder were you talking about, if not the one that concerns us here today?”
I flushed but held my ground. “My neighbor’s, sir.”
At this, Father finally broke free from the table. “I must apologize, sir. My daughter and her governess were just leaving. I assure you that—”
“Yes, yes.” The judge waved an impatient hand. “But what in the world’s she talking about? Are you on another case at the moment? Your neighbor?”
“If you let me come down, I can explain it to you,” I volunteered. A judge could certainly call for an inquest.
The judge’s lips twisted and it took him a long time to answer. “No, Miss Hardcastle, that won’t be necessary. Mr. Hardcastle, we’ll talk about this after court.”
“Thank you, my lord. Very sorry, sir.”
“Miss Hardcastle, if it’s all right with you, can we continue with this murder?”
“Objection!” cried the Defense Counsel before I could answer.
“Overruled,” said Judge Fox wearily. “Miss Hardcastle, what say you?”
“Oh, yes, my lord. Of course. You may proceed.”
“Thank you,” the judge said. “The Defense may call its next witness.” The judge banged his gavel, and Miss Judson bundled everything up and fairly shoved me out of the gallery.
v
I was in disgrace. I knew that as soon as Miss Judson marched me from the courtroom and down the steps to the cab stand to reclaim our bicycles without so much as a word. I was a little afraid to look at her, but finally stole a glance as she was mounting her bicycle. Beneath her straw hat, her face was flushed scarlet. Was she embarrassed? Or angry?
“But the judge—” I said.
“Home.” She pointed ominously in that direction. I pedaled silently back to Gravesend, trying to figure out why she was so upset. I hadn’t intended to interrupt the trial, and it wasn’t as if the judge had called her out. And what was I supposed to do, anyway, when he’d started asking me questions?
Father didn’t come home until late. He sent word that he was dining at the club with another solicitor. It had been planned for days, but it still felt like an undeserved rebuke. I sulked through my cold supper in the kitchen, amid a scattered array of brass fixtures and loose pieces of the cast iron hob, which Cook, on a perpetual quest to improve its efficiency, had disassembled again. The hob seemed to be winning.
“I ruined Father’s trial,” I said.
Huffing like a steam engine, Cook extracted herself from the oven compartment, culminating in a grease-smeared and ruddy face. She looked like a chimney sweep. “Ruined? Fah. Don’t exaggerate.” She reached for her spanner and gave the unit a couple of alarming thwacks that could not possibly have been helpful.
Cook’s Christian name was Harriet Stansberry, although I’d never heard her called anything but Cook. I was six years old before I realized she even had another name. Father’s favorite dish was something we called Stansberry pie, and I had once suffered a week of botanical confusion trying to classify the elusive stansberry, which did not appear in any field guide, taxonomy, or recipe book that I could find.* Ongoing feud with the hob aside, Cook’s pastries were unimpeachable, but her comfort was sometimes as cold as her suppers.
“Himself works late a lot,” she said now. “Don’t assume it’s your fault.”
“You weren’t there,” I said, poking glumly at my slab of cold ham. “You didn’t see the judge.”
When Father finally did return, long after I was supposed to be in bed, he summoned Miss Judson to his study immediately. That was very bad, indeed; when I was truly in trouble, it was Miss Judson who received the lecture. I had made the mistake before of interrupting to defend her, and knew better than to burst in and plead her case, so instead I eavesdropped anxiously from the water closet behind Father’s office. The wall was conveniently (or inconveniently, depending on your perspective) thin, and with his voice raised to courtroom volume, it was all too easy to hear everything he said.
“What happened today was absolutely inexcusable,” he began. Was he pacing, as he sometimes did in court? Or standing firm at his desk? “I shall spare you a description of the indignity of being dressed down by one of Her Majesty’s judges for the behavior of my daughter in the courtroom.”
“Oh, dear,” Miss Judson said. I cringed in my hiding spot, grateful neither of them could see me. “Mr. Hardcastle, I’m sure Myrtle did not intend to disrupt the proceedings, much less embarrass you.”
“It’s never her intent!” Father exclaimed. “She just has a knack for it. I’m beginning to see it not as an isolated incident, but as a symptom of a larger problem.”
“Oh, sir?” For a hopeful moment I thought perhaps she planned to Socratic Method Father, but that hope was swiftly dashed.
“Snooping about the neighborhood at the crack of dawn?” His sharp voice made me shrink even lower on the commode. “Disturbing a sleeping household on no more than the behavior of a cat? Then interrupting a trial! You don’t see other girls doing such things! How do you explain this behavior, Miss Judson?”
Miss Judson’s voice was as clear and authoritative as any barrister’s. “First of all, Myrtle isn’t other girls,” she said. “She’s a unique individual, and your daughter. I doubt you’d find another child of twelve with a keener, more eager mind.” I sat a little straighter at this bolstering character evidence.
“But this preoccupation with death and murder—it can’t be natural.”
“Sir, I would urge you to look at that another way.” Miss Judson’s voice had softened a bit, and I had to press my ear against the paneling to hear. “She’s a sensitive girl who was exposed to death at an early age. You yourself entered the field of prosecution shortly after the loss of Mrs. Hardcastle. Does it surprise you that Myrtle acted in kind?”
“Are you blaming me for her morbidity?”
“She’s not morbid! She’s curious about your work, and, if I may say, sir, her mother’s medical studies. She has combined them into one singular passion, which is more than can be said for most young people. Did you know you wished to be a solicitor when you were twelve?”
I heard the thump of Father sitting heavily in his armchair. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a solicitor at thirty,” he admitted. “But girls Myrtle’s age should be doing needlework and riding ponies and thinking about dresses—not dead neighbors. I expect you to put a stop to this immediately.”