“Of course it had an effect on me. I didn’t see why she should have my children.”

“As well as the family fortune.”

“I had no control over that.”

“No? Would it not be fair to say that by kidnapping her heir you thereby wrested control of it?”

“No, I had no choice.” Stop. Crowther had said not to say that. He’d said, be active, madam. Make everything a choice, a mother returned, a mother desperate. “I had to act. I—”

“And what,” he interrupted her, “are we doing here, if not in direct consequence of those actions? A wresting of control by the only means available: the taking of a child who knew nothing of the storms that raged above him, who neither caused them nor stirred them. The boy has been heir since his birth. This didn’t seem to prevent you deserting him. What changed on your return? To whom he was heir. That was the only difference – and yet you claim this had no bearing on you. You claim to have suddenly wanted your children, all of them; yet kidnapped only him. What sense can we make of this? There is but one explanation: jealousy and spite, madam. A total disregard for the well-being of your children in an effort to wring punishment about the ears of your sister. These human emotions are not foreign to this court. Indeed, our learned judge will be all too familiar with such behaviour. Reason and rational, the facts, rarely play a part in the actions that bring people to these rooms. Jealousy, spite, revenge, the wish to cause harm – these are the motivations, more often than not, and they were the motivations that drove you, that day, to demand to see the child you had deserted, to snatch him and to refuse to give him back. You are not fit to be a mother to anyone, let alone a child of such vital importance who has known his aunt for a great deal of his life, who could not have remembered you at all, who would have continued to live a life free of confusion and upset had you not snatched him. You are not fit to be a mother, madam. Your actions have shown that. What mother ties her crippled son to a chair? What mother kidnaps a child and refuses to give him back?”

“She took everything,” cried Enid.

“No, madam. She was given everything. It is you who are trying to take.”

“My Lord.” Crowther was out of his chair. “Such attacks cannot be tolerated. See, Miss Enid Campbell; My Lord, this assassination cannot go on. These are not facts, these are accusations.”

“Sit down, Crowther,” barked Lord Merrivale, “and Mr Smithson, contain yourself. Someone get Miss Enid Campbell a hankie.”