London Pride Or When the World Was Younger Part 47

"Execrable wretch! would you attempt to detain her by violence? Come, madam," said Denzil, turning coldly to Angela, "there is a door on those stairs which will let you out into the air.

"The door will not open at your bidding!" Fareham said fiercely.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed Angela up in his arms before the other could prevent him, and carried her triumphantly to the first landing-place, which was considerably below that treacherous gap between stair and stair. He had the key of the garden door in his pocket, unlocked it, and was in the open air with his burden before Denzil could overtake him.

He found himself caught in a trap. He had his coach-and-six and armed postillions waiting close by, and thought he had but to leap into it with his prey and spirit her off towards Bristol; but between the coach and the door one of Sir John's pickets was standing, who the moment the door opened whistled his loudest, and brought Constable and man and another armed servant running helter-skelter round an angle of the house, and so crossing the very path to the coach.

"Fire upon him if he tries to pa.s.s you!" cried Denzil.

"What! And shoot the lady you have professed to love!" exclaimed Fareham, drawing himself up, and standing firm as a rock, with Angela motionless in his arms.

He dropped her to her feet, but held her against his left shoulder with an iron hold, while he drew his sword and made a rush for the coach. Denzil sprang into his path, sword in hand, and their blades crossed with a shrill clash and rattle of steel. They fought like demons, Fareham holding Angela behind him, sheltering her with his body, and swaying from side to side in his sword-play with a demoniac swiftness and suppleness, his thick dark brows knitted over eyes that flamed with a fiercer fire than flashed from steel meeting steel. A shriek of horror from Angela marked the climax, as Denzil fell with Fareham's sword between his ribs. There had been little of dilettante science, or graceful play of wrist in this encounter. The men had rushed at each other savagely, like beasts in a circus, and whatever of science had guided Fareham's more practised hand had been employed automatically. The spirit of the combatants was wild and fierce as the rage that moves rival stags fighting for a mate, with bent heads and tramping hoofs, and clash of locked antlers reverberating through the forest stillness.

Fareham had no time to exult over his prostrate foe; Sir John and his servants, Constable and underlings, surrounded him, and he was handcuffed and hauled off to the coach that was to have carried him to a sinner's paradise, before any one had looked to Denzil's wound, or discovered whether that violent thrust below the right lung had been fatal. Angela sank swooning in her father's arms.

CHAPTER XXVI.

IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH.

The summer and autumn had gone by-an eventful season, for with it had vanished from the stage of politics one who had played so dignified and serious a part there. Southampton was dead, Clarendon disgraced and in exile. The Nestor and the Ulysses of the Stuart epic had melted from the scene. Down those stairs by which he had descended on his way to so many a splendid festival, himself a statelier figure than Kings or Princes, the Chancellor had gone to banishment and oblivion. "The lady" had looked for the last time, a laughing Jezebel, from a palace window, exultant at her enemy's fall; and along the river that had carried such tragic destinies eastward to be sealed in blood, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, had drifted quietly out of the history he had helped to make. The ballast of that grave intellect was flung overboard so that the ship of fools might drift the faster.

But in Westminster Hall, upon this windy November morning, n.o.body thought of Clarendon. The business of the day was interesting enough to obliterate all considerations of yesterday. The young barristers, who were learning their trade by listening to their betters, had been shivering on their benches in the Common Pleas since nine o'clock, in that chilly corner where every blast from the north or north-east swept over the low wooden part.i.tion that enclosed the court, or cut through the c.h.i.n.ks in the panelling. The students and juniors were in their usual places, sitting at the feet of their favourite Common-law Judge; but the idlers who came for amus.e.m.e.nt, to saunter about the hall, haggle for books with the second-hand dealers along the south wall, or flirt with the milliners who kept stalls for bands and other legal finery on the opposite side, or to listen on tiptoe, with an ear above the panelled enclosure, to the quips and cranks or fierce rhetoric of a famous advocate-these to-day gravitated with one accord towards the south-west corner of the Hall, where, in the Court of King's Bench, Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, of Fareham, Hants, was to be tried by a Buckinghamshire jury for abduction, with fraud, malice, and violence, and for a.s.sault, with intent to murder.

The rank of the offender being high, and the indictment known to involve tragic details of family history, there had been much talk of the cause which was on the paper for to-day; and, as a natural consequence, besides the habitual loungers and saunterers, gossips, and book-buyers, there was a considerable sprinkling of persons of quality, who perfumed the not too agreeable atmosphere with pulvilio and Florentine iris powder, and the rustle of whose silks and brocades was audible all over the Hall. Not often did such gowns sweep the dust brought in by plebeian feet, nor such Venetian point collars rub shoulders with the frowsy Norwich drugget worn by hireling perjurers or starveling clerks. The modish world had come down upon the great Norman Hall like a flock of pigeons, sleek, iridescent, all fuss and flutter; and among these unaccustomed visitors there was prodigious impatience for the trial to begin, and a struggle for good places that brought into full play the primitive brutality which underlies the politeness of the civillest people.

Lady Sarah Tewkesbury had risen betimes, and, in her anxiety to secure a good place, had come out in her last night's "head," which somewhat damaged edifice of ginger-coloured ringlets and Roman pearls was now visible above the wooden part.i.tion of the King's Bench to the eyes of the commonalty in the hall below, her ladyship being accommodated with a seat among the lawyers.

One of these was a young man in a shabby gown and rumpled wig, but with a fair complexion and tolerable features-a stranger to that court, and better known at Hicks's Hall, and among city litigators, with whom he had already a certain repute for keen wits and a plausible tongue-about the youngest advocate at the English Bar, and by some people said to be no barrister at all, but to have put on wig and gown two years ago at Kingston a.s.sizes and called himself to the Bar, and stayed there by sheer audacity. This young gentleman, Jeffreys by name, having deserted the city and possible briefs in order to hear the Fareham trial, was inclined to resent being ousted by an obsequious official to make room for Lady Sarah.

"Faith, one would suppose I was her ladyship's footman and had been keeping her seat for her," he grumbled, as he reluctantly rose at the Usher's whispered request, and edged himself sulkily off to a corner where he found just standing-room.

It was a very hard seat which Mr. Jeffreys had vacated, and her ladyship, after sitting there over two hours, nodding asleep a good part of the time, began to feel internal sinkings and flutterings which presaged what she called a "swound," and necessitated recourse to a crystal flask of strong waters which she had prudently brought in her m.u.f.f. Other of Lady Fareham's particular friends were expected-Sir Ralph Masaroon, Lady Lucretia Topham, and more of the same kidney; and even the volatile Rochester had deigned to express an interest in the case.

"The man was mistaken in his metier," he had told Lady Sarah, when the scandal was discussed in her drawing-room. "The role of seducer was not within his means. Any one could see he was in love with the pale sister-in-law by the manner in which he scowled at her; but it is not every woman who can be subjugated by gloom and sullenness, though some of 'em like us tragical. My method has been to laugh away resistance, as my wife will acknowledge, who was the cruellest she I ever tackled, and had baffled all her other servants. Indeed she must have been in Butler's eye when he wrote-

'That old Pyg-what d'ye call him-malion That cut his mistress out of stone, Had not so hard a hearted one.'

Even Lady Rochester will admit I conquered without heroics," upon which her ladyship, late mistress Mallett, a beauty and a fortune, smiled a.s.sent with all the complacency of a six-months' bride. "To see a man tried for an attempted abduction is a sight worth a year's income," pursued Rochester. "I would travel a hundred miles to behold that rare monster who has failed in his pursuit of one of your obliging s.e.x!"

"Do you think us all so easily won?" asked Lady Sarah, piqued.

"Dear lady, I can but judge by experience. If obdurate to others you have still been kind to me."

Lady Sarah had nearly emptied her flask of Muscadine before Masaroon elbowed his way to a seat beside her, from which he audaciously dislodged a coffee-house acquaintance, an elderly lawyer upon whom fortune had not smiled, with a condescending civility that was more uncivil than absolute rudeness.

"We'll share a bottle in h.e.l.l after the trial, mon ami," he said; and on seeing Lady Sarah's look of horror, he hastened to explain that Heaven, h.e.l.l, and Purgatory, were the cant names of three taverns which drove a roaring trade in strong drinks under the very roof of the Hall.

"The King's Attorney-general is prosecuting," answered Sir Ralph, replying to a question from Lady Sarah, whose inquiries betrayed that dense ignorance of legal technicalities common even to accomplished women. "It is thought the lady's father would have been glad for the matter to be quashed, his fugitive daughter being restored to his custody-albeit with a damaged character-and her elder sister having run away from her husband."

"I will not hear you slander my dearest friend," protested Lady Sarah. "Lady Fareham left her husband, and with good cause, as his after-conduct showed. She did not run away from him."

"Nay, she had doubtless the a.s.sistance of a carriage-and-six. She would scarce foot it from London to Dover. And now she is leading grand train in Paris, and has taken almost as commanding a place as her friend Madame de Longueville, penitent and retired from service."

"Hyacinth, under all her appearance of silliness, is a remarkably clever woman," said Lady Sarah, sententiously; "but, pray, Sir Ralph, if Mistress Angela's father has good reason for not prosecuting his daughter's lover-indeed I ever thought her an underhand hussy-why does not Sir Denzil Warner-who I hear has been at death's door-pursue him for a.s.sault and battery?"

"Nay, is so still, madam. I question if he be yet out of danger. The gentleman is a kind of puritanical Quixote, and has persistently refused to swear an information against Fareham, whereby I doubt the case will fall through, or his lordship get off with a fine of a thousand or two. We have no longer the blessing of a Star Chamber, to supply state needs out of sinners' pockets, and mitigate general taxation; but his Majesty's Judges have a capacious stomach for fines, and his Majesty has no objection to see his subjects' misdemeanours trans.m.u.ted into coin."

And now the business of the day began, the panelled enclosure being by this time crowded almost to suffocation; and Lord Fareham was brought into court.

He was plainly dressed in a dark grey suit, and looked ten years older than when Lady Sarah had last seen him on his wife's visiting day, an uninterested member of that modish a.s.sembly. His eyes were deeper sunken under the strongly marked brows. The threads of iron-grey in his thick black hair were more conspicuous. He carried his head higher than he had been accustomed to carry it, and the broad shoulders were no longer bent in the Stafford stoop. The spectators could see that he had braced himself for the ordeal, and would go through the day's work like a man of iron.

Proclamation was made for silence, and for information, if any person could give any, concerning the misdemeanour and offence whereof the defendant stood impeached; and the defendant was bid to look to his challenges, and the Jury, being gentlemen of the county of Bucks, were called, challenged, and sworn.

The demand for silence was so far obeyed that there followed a hush within the enclosure of the court; but there was no cessation of the buzz of voices and the tramp of footsteps in the hall, which mingled sounds seemed like the rise and fall of a human ocean, as heard within that panelled sanctuary.

The lawyers took snuff, shuffled on their seats, nudged each other and whispered now and then, during the reading of the indictment; but among Lady Fareham's friends, and the quality in general, there was a breathless silence and expectancy; and Lady Sarah would gladly have run her hat-pin into a snuffy old Serjeant close beside her, who must needs talk behind his hand to his pert junior.

To her ladyship's unaccustomed ears that indictment, translated literally from the Latin original, sounded terrible as an impeachment in the subterranean halls of the Vehm Gericht, or in the most select and secret council in the Venetian Doge's Palace.

The indictment set forth "that the defendant, Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, on the 4th day of July, in the 18th year of our sovereign lord the King that now is, at the parish of St. Nicholas in the Vale, in the county of Bucks, falsely, unlawfully, unjustly, and wickedly, by unlawful and impure ways and means, contriving, practising, and intending the final ruin and destruction of Mrs. Angela Kirkland, unmarried, and one of the daughters of Sir John Kirkland, Knight-the said lady then and there being under the custody, government, and education of the said Sir John Kirkland, her father-he, the said Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, then and there falsely, unlawfully, devilishly, to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect, his most wicked, impious, and devilish intentions aforesaid-the said Richard Revel, Lord Fareham (then and long before, and yet, being the husband of Mrs. Hyacinth, another daughter of the said Sir John Kirkland, Knight, and sister of the said Mrs. Angela), against all laws as well divine as human, impiously, wickedly, impurely, and scandalously, did tempt, invite, and solicit, and by false and lying pretences, oaths, and affirmations, unlawfully, unjustly, and without the leave, and against the will of the aforesaid Sir John Kirkland, Knight, in prosecution of his most wicked intent aforesaid, did carry off the aforesaid Mrs. Angela, she consenting in ignorance of his real purpose, about the hour of twelve in the night-time of the said 4th day of July, in the year aforesaid, and at the aforesaid, parish of St. Nicholas in the Vale, in the county of Bucks aforesaid, out of the dwelling-house of the said Sir John Kirkland, Knight, did take and convey to his own house in the county of Oxford, and did then and there detain her by fraud, and did there keep her hidden in a secret chamber known as the Priest's Hole in his own house aforesaid, at the hazard of her life, and did oppose her rescue by force of arms, and with his sword, unlawfully, murderously, and devilishly, and in the prosecution of his wicked purpose did stab and wound Sir Denzil Warner, Baronet, the lady's betrothed husband, from which murderous a.s.sault the said Sir Denzil Warner, Baronet, still lies in great sickness and danger of death, to the great displeasure of Almighty G.o.d, to the ruin and destruction of the said Mrs. Angela Kirkland, to the grief and sorrow of all her friends, and to the evil and most pernicious example of all others in the like case offending; and against the peace of our said sovereign lord the King, his crown and dignity."

The defendant having pleaded "Not guilty," the Jury were charged in the usual manner and with all solemnity.

"If you find him 'guilty' you are to say so; if you find him 'not guilty' you are to say so, and no more, and hear your evidence."

The Attorney-General confined himself to a brief out-line of the tragic story, leaving all details to be developed by the witnesses, who were allowed to give their evidence with colloquial freedom and expansiveness.

The first witness was old Reuben, the steward from the Manor Moat, who had not yet emerged from that mental maze in which he had found himself upon beholding the change that had come to pa.s.s in the great city, since the well-remembered winter of the King's execution, and the long frost, when he, Reuben, was last in London. His evidence was confused and confusing; and he drew upon himself much good-natured ridicule from the junior who opened the case. Out of various muddle-headed answers and contradictory statements the facts of Lord Fareham's unexpected appearance at the Manor Moat, his account of his lady's illness, and his hurried departure, carrying the young madam with him on horseback, were elicited, and the story of the ruse by which Mrs. Angela Kirkland had been beguiled from her home was made clear to the comprehension of a superior but rustic jury, more skilled in discriminating the points of a horse, the qualities of an ox, or the capacity of a hound, than in differentiating truth and falsehood in a story of wrong-doing.

Sir John Kirkland was the next witness, and the aspect of the man, the n.o.ble grey head, fine features, and soldierly carriage, the old-fashioned habit, the fashion of an age not long past, but almost forgotten, enlisted the regard and compa.s.sion of Jury and audience.

"Let me perish if it is not a ghost from the civil wars!" whispered Sir Ralph to Lady Sarah. "Mrs. Angela might well be romanesque and unlike the rest of us, with such a father."

A spasm of pain convulsed Fareham's face for a moment, as the old Cavalier stood up in the witness-box, towering above the Court in that elevated position, and, after being sworn, took one swift survey of the Bench and Jury, and then fixed his angry gaze upon the defendant, and scarcely shifted it in the whole course of his examination.

"Now, Gentlemen of the Jury," said the Attorney-General, "we shall tell you what happened at Chilton Abbey, to which place the defendant, under such fraudulent and lying pretences as you have heard of from the last witness, conveyed the young lady. Sir John, I will ask you to acquaint the Jury as fully and straightforwardly as you can with the circ.u.mstances of your pursuit, and the defendant's reception of you and your intended son-in-law, Sir Denzil Warner, whose deposition we have failed to obtain, but who could relate no facts which are not equally within your own knowledge."

"My words shall be straight and plain, sir, to denounce that unchristian wretch whom, until this miserable business, I trusted as if he had been my son. I came to my house, accompanied by my daughter's plighted husband, within an hour after that villain conveyed her away; and on hearing my old servant's story was quick to suspect treachery. Nor was Sir Denzil backward in his fears, which were more instantaneous than mine; and we waited only for the saddling of fresh horses, and rousing a couple of grooms from their beds, fellows that I could trust for prudence and courage, before we mounted again, following in that wretch's track. We heard of him and his victim at the Inn where they changed horses, she going consentingly, believing she was being taken in this haste to attend a dying sister."

"And on arriving at the defendant's house what was your reception?"

"He opposed our entrance, until he saw that we should batter down his door if he shut us out longer. We were not admitted until after I had sent one of my servants for the nearest Constable; and before we had gained an entrance into his house he had contrived to put away my daughter in a wretched hiding-place, planned for the concealment of Romish Priests or other recusants and malefactors, and would have kept her there, I believe, till she had perished in that foul cavern, rather than restore her to her father and natural guardian."

"That is false, and you know it!" cried Fareham. "My life is of less account to me than a hair of her head. I hid her from you, to save her from your tyranny, and the hateful marriage to which you would have compelled her."