The afternoon light had shifted by the time the hearing resumed, and it fell across the long table in a band of pale gold. I opened my leather case once more. I lifted out two documents, and I laid them on the table with care. The first was the power of attorney I had signed years ago, in a hospital room, when I was ill. The second was the partnership agreement Nelson and I had signed on the day we founded the company, sixty years ago, in an office above the river in Vienna.
"This," I said, holding up the first document, "is the power of attorney my son has used to justify selling my boats. I signed it when I was ill in hospital, and I signed it for one reason only: so that someone could make medical decisions for me if I could not make them for myself. It is two pages long. I will read the whole of it to you now, so that there is no doubt about what it says, and what it does not say."
I read it slowly, word by word, and the room listened, and the clerk wrote down every word as I spoke it. "I, Theodora Haversham, being of sound mind, appoint my son, Landon Haversham, to make medical decisions on my behalf, in the event that I am unable to make such decisions myself. This authority extends to medical treatment only, and to no other matter. It does not extend to financial decisions, to the sale of property, to the sale of any vessel, or to any business of the Haversham Danube Line. This authority ends when I am able to make my own decisions again."
I set the paper down, and I looked at the room. "Medical treatment only," I said. "Not financial decisions. Not the sale of property. Not the sale of any vessel. Those words are in the document, in plain English, and my son read them, because he was standing beside my hospital bed when I signed it. He knew what it said. And he used it anyway, to authorise the sale of the Wachau Queen and the Vienna Star, two boats that did not belong to him, to a buyer who paid a fraction of their value."
Landon's lawyer rose. "Mrs. Haversham was ill," he said. "She was confused. She may not remember what she signed, or what she intended. A document signed in a sickroom is not a reliable record of a person's wishes."
I looked at him, and I felt the old steadiness rise in me. "I was ill," I said. "I was not confused. I remember that day clearly. I remember the nurse who brought me the paper. I remember the doctor who stood at the foot of my bed and told me I would recover. And I remember my son, standing beside me, saying, 'Mother, this is only for the doctors, so they can look after you.' He knew. He said it himself."
Then I lifted the second document, the partnership agreement, and I held it up, and the paper was yellowed at the edges, and the ink was faded, but the signatures at the bottom were still clear, mine and Nelson's, written side by side. "This is the partnership agreement," I said. "Nelson Haversham and I signed it on the day we founded the Haversham Danube Line. It says that the fleet of the company cannot be sold, in whole or in part, without the signatures of both founders. Nelson is gone. His signature cannot be given. No one else can give it for him. Not my son. Not a power of attorney. Not any paper, signed in any hospital, for any reason. The sale of the Wachau Queen and the Vienna Star was unlawful from the first moment, because it was made without the signatures the agreement requires, and without my consent, and without my knowledge."
The hearing chair leaned forward and took both documents, and read them, slowly, and the room waited, and the only sound was the turning of paper and the distant horn of a boat on the river. Then the chair looked up, and spoke to Landon's lawyer. "These documents are clear," the chair said. "The power of attorney covers medical decisions only. The partnership agreement requires both founders' signatures. Is there any argument you wish to make against what is written here?"
The lawyer hesitated, and he looked at Landon, and Landon looked at the table, and the lawyer sat down without speaking. I saw Rhys, in the seats behind us, lower his head into his hands, and I saw Zane put a hand on his shoulder, and I thought of how many years Rhys had sat at the head of our board, and how far he had fallen from the man he had once been, and I felt sorry for him, though I did not forgive him.
The clerk marked both documents as evidence, and tied tags to them, and set them beside the logbook and the bank records on the table before the chair, and the four piles of paper sat there together, and they told the whole story, from beginning to end, in ink and in stamps and in signatures. I sat down, and Wesley took my hand, and I looked out of the tall windows at the river, and I thought of Nelson, and of the day we had signed that agreement, and I knew that the promise had held, all these years, and that it was holding still, in this room, in this hour, in the plain words on the yellowed paper.
Chapter 32
— Fenella Takes the Stand