The Honour of the Clintons Part 9

THE SOCIETY TRIAL. FULL REPORT.

VERDICT.

It filled a whole page, and a column besides.

The Squire read steadily; his face, set to a frowning censure, showed gleams of surprise, and every now and then his lips forced an expression of disgust. He was not a rapid reader, and it was half an hour before he put down the paper, and after looking into the fire for a minute, took up another from the floor. At that moment the door opened, and a large elderly man with a mild and pleasant face came into the room. He was dressed in a dark pepper-and-salt suit, with a white tie, and shut the door carefully behind him.

"Ah, my dear Tom!" said the Squire. "You had Nina's telegram, I suppose. I sent it down to you directly it came."

"Yes," said the Rector. "I was surprised that it should all have been over so quickly. How is your foot this morning, Edward?"

"Oh, all right. At least, it isn't all right. I had a horrible night--never slept a wink. I've got the papers here. The woman ought to have got penal servitude. Yes, it was over quickly. It was all as plain as possible, and I'm glad she did herself no good by her monstrous lies. The gross impudence of it! Evidently she'll stick at nothing. But I forgot. You haven't seen the evidence. Here, read this! Would it be believed that she could have put up such a defence?

That bit there!"

The Rector deliberately fixed a pair of gold-rimmed gla.s.ses on to his nose, and took the paper, looking up occasionally from his reading as his brother interjected remarks, which interrupted but did not seem to irritate him.

"I don't quite understand, Edward," he said, when he had finished the pa.s.sage to which his attention had been drawn. "She says the pearls she sold were given to her by somebody, but the name is not mentioned.

Apparently there was a wrangle about it."

"Oh, my dear Tom," said the Squire, "can't you see what it all means?

It is as plain as the nose on your face. A wicked, baseless scandal."

The Rector returned to the newspaper, but his air of bewilderment remained.

"Oh well," said the Squire with an impatient glance at him. "You don't live in the world where these things are talked about. I don't either, thank G.o.d. But one hears things. This infamous woman has posed as the--the friend--the mistress--yes, actually wanted it to be thought that she was the mistress, of---- No, I'm not going to say it; I won't sully my lips, or put ideas into your head. It's untrue, absolutely untrue, and people in that position are defenceless. She ought not to bring in their names even in idle talk. I'm very glad indeed that there was a strong stand made in the court."

The Rector had re-read the pa.s.sage, and looked up with a slight flush on his cheeks--almost the look that an innocent girl might have shown if some shameful suggestion had come home to her. "It is not----" he hazarded.

"Oh, not here," the Squire took him up. "Paris. But it is all the more abominable. I don't believe a word of it. And even if it were true---- But is it a likely story?"

"I hope not," said the Rector gravely.

"Oh, these things do happen; I don't deny that. One can't judge these people quite the same as ourselves. But what a preposterous idea!

Pearls worth thousands! And at the very time when this necklace of Lady Sedbergh's was missing, and she was practically seen taking it!

Joan saw her. I'm glad they didn't worry Joan too much over her evidence. I'm glad it's over for the child. It's annoyed me most infernally to be tied by the leg here, and not knowing what might be going on, where I couldn't direct or advise. However, she did very well--gave her answers simply and stuck to them, and there was no more of that impudent suggestion about young Trench, I'm glad to say, except that they tried to make out he had put it all into her head. He's quite a decent fellow, that woman's counsel. Herbert Birkett knows him. It's pretty plain that he was only making the best of a bad job--couldn't expect to get the woman off, especially after she had put herself out of court in the way she did."

"I see," said the Rector, who had been reading steadily while this speech was being delivered, "that there was evidence from several people that she had worn a pearl necklace, before the time Lady Sedbergh's was stolen."

"Yes, and if you'll read further, you'll see that her maid declares that it was a sham one. She told her so herself. They tried to make out that she wanted to put her off the scent. But that won't wash.

The maid gave her evidence very well. You'll see it towards the end.

It is what clinched it. She had seen the diamond star in the woman's jewel-box. Of course she has made away with it somehow, since; but the maid described it exactly. She had had it in her hands, and there was an unusual sort of catch, which she couldn't have heard about. She told her young man, and he went to the police. Oh, it's _proved_. It isn't only circ.u.mstantial evidence, it's d.a.m.ning proof. And she's got far less than her deserts. A year's imprisonment! She ought to have had ten years' hard labour."

"They seem to have convicted her on the theft of the diamond star alone."

"Yes, I don't quite understand why, except that there is no conceivable doubt as to that. I suppose her impudent lie about the necklace saved her, as far as that goes. It led them to drop the charge, as they had got her on the other. I must read the evidence again."

The Rector put the paper aside, and took off his gla.s.ses. "Poor woman!" he said, with a sigh. "Her life ruined! But it is well for her that she has been found out. Her punishment will balance the account against her; she will get another start."

"Not in this country," said the Squire vindictively. "She is done for.

n.o.body will look at her again. I think one can say that much, at any rate. Society is disgracefully loose now-a-days; but there are some things it can't stomach. I'm glad to think that this woman is one of them. We shall hear no more of Mrs. Amberley."

"Ah, well," said the Rector, after a pause. "The world is not made up of what is called Society. Thank G.o.d there are men and women who will not turn away from a repentant sinner. Who knows but what this poor woman may win her soul out of the disgrace that has befallen her?"

"Oh, my dear Tom!" said the Squire. "You live in the clouds. A woman like that hasn't got a soul."

Mrs. Clinton and Joan, with d.i.c.k and Virginia, returned to Kencote that evening. The Squire received his wife and daughter as if they had been playing truant, and intimated that now they had come home they had better put everything that had been happening out of their heads. They had seen for themselves what came of mixing with those sort of people, and he hoped that the lesson had not been wasted. The whole affair had given him an infinity of worry, and had no doubt brought on the attack from which he was suffering. It was all over now, and he didn't want to hear another word about it. In fact, it was not to be mentioned in the house. Did Joan understand that? He would not have her and Nancy talking about it. They had plenty of other things to talk about. Did she understand that?

Joan said that she quite understood it, and went off to give Nancy a full account of her experiences.

"My dear, she looked awful," she said. "She was wonderfully dressed, and had got herself up so that only a woman could have known that she was got up at all. But she looked as old as the hills. Honestly, I felt sorry for her, although I hated her for what she said to me before. But she was fighting for her life, and she made a brave show."

"But she couldn't say anything, could she? I thought the counsel did it all."

"Yes, that was the worst of it--for her. She had to stand there while they fought over her, and look all the time as if she didn't care.

Awful! Poor thing, she's in prison now, and I should think she's glad of it."

"I don't know in the least what happened, except that she was sent to prison for a year. Father kept all the papers in his room."

"I don't know much either. Directly I had given my evidence mother took me away."

"We'll get hold of a paper."

"No, we mustn't. Mother asked me not to."

"What a bore! What was it like, giving your evidence? Were you alarmed?"

"No, not much. It wasn't worse than the other place. It wasn't so bad. Sir Edward Logan, the Sedberghs' counsel, was awfully sweet. He made me say exactly what I had seen, and when Sir Herbert Jessop--that was _her_ man--tried to worry me into saying that Bobby Trench had put it all into my head, he got up and objected."

"Did he try to----"

"No. He was quite nice about it, really. I suppose he had to try and make it out different, somehow. He left off directly our counsel objected, and the old Judge said I had given my evidence very well and clearly. I don't think he really believed that I was making it all up."

"You didn't hear what anybody else said?"

"Not a word. Except when I was in the witness-box myself, I might just as well have been at home."

"I wonder what the papers said about you. I wish we could see them."

What those of the papers had said which gave their readers a description as well as a report of what had occurred, was that Miss Joan Clinton had appeared in the witness-box in a simple but becoming costume, which some of them described, and given her evidence clearly and modestly. Some of them said that she was pretty, and one, with a special appeal to the nonconformist conscience, said that it was a pity to see a young lady who from her appearance could not long since have left the schoolroom, and who looked and spoke as if she had been well brought up, involved in the sordid life of what was known as the higher circles, brought to light by these proceedings. The Squire had read this comment with a snort of indignation. But for the quarter from which it came he would have recognised it as coinciding with his own frequently expressed opinion. As it was, he considered it an impertinent reflection upon himself and his order.

When d.i.c.k came up to see him that evening he did not insist that the subject should not be mentioned again. He asked him why he had not come in on his way from the station. "There has been n.o.body to tell me a thing," he said with some irritation. "I only know what I have read in the papers. Upon my word, the woman's brazen insolence! Was that why they dropped the charge of stealing the necklace, d.i.c.k?"

"The other was dead certain," said d.i.c.k.

"Ah, that's what I thought. But people don't think--er----"

"He _did_ give her pearls," said d.i.c.k, with a matter-of-course air of inner knowledge. "And plenty of people have seen her wearing them, though she never seems to have worn them in London."