Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/Divorce a vinculo - Part 2
DIVORCE A VINCULO; or, THE TERRORS OF
SIR CRESSWELL CRESSWELL.
(Continued from p. 101.)
ow would Flora take it? There was a good deal to be said for this new theory of keeping two human beings chained up together only so long as they themselves chose to wear the fetters; but it was clear enough, even to me, that the female mind wouldn’t give up the notion of the eternity of the marriage bond without a severe struggle. Look at the wedding ring, and its circular form
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How smooth, and round, and never-ending it is; made, too, of metal—of enduring, uncorroding gold!
Now the British feminine theory is, that women are angels. This, however, must be a loose way of talking; for, as far as I am aware, it is difficult to bring an angel into Court and institute a comparison. Certainly, as far as we know anything about the matter, women have much the advantage. Speaking as an individual, I have no opinion of that combination of heads and wings which painters and sculptors have imagined as typical of the angelic nature. It is an unsatisfactory sort of mixture at the best; and at the worst it would be an awful idea to have the partner of your toils, and the sharer of your joys, buzzing about you in true Caudle mood, and humming her sweet reproaches into your overwrought ear. I should always be afraid by day lest Mrs. Jones should settle on my nose, and at night she might perhaps singe her dove-like pinions in the candle. One might put her in a cage, indeed; but what a sad thought if she was to hurt her sweet nose against the bars; besides, what would Sir Cresswell say?
This, I think, is fairly put; but, at the same time, I feel very sure that any suggestion for curtailing the eternity of the marriage-bond will not meet with the approval of the British female, especially in the middle rank of English life: on the whole, women have got on pretty well under the old system, and like things to proceed in the regular way, and without disturbance of the old ideas. If the Irish bricklayer in the lane round the comer is in the habit of knocking his Norah Creina down every Sunday morning, and executing a pas—which certainly cannot be called a shadow-dance—upon her prostrate form, my dear little friend Mrs. Cozyville still continues to decorate her own humming-bird’s nest with Spartan firmness. The Irish girl must take her chance, and bear her own cross, as she, Sophy Cozyville, must bear hers. Poor Norah has drawn a bad number in the man-lottery—worse luck! She, Sophy, has her own trials: didn’t she take that big husband of hers to Madame Elise’s but the other day, and point out to him the sweetest little bonnet after which her soul lusted, but of which she was resolved to deny herself the acquisition upon economical grounds; and did that hulking fellow take the hint? Not he; although she had not faintly indicated several sources, connected with C.’s personal expenses, on which such a saving might have been effected that the transaction with Madame E. might have been completed without imprudence. To be sure, she had declared that “she wouldn’t hear of such a thing for the world!” but C. might have been magnanimous for once, and taken a spring into the sacrificial gulf without craning. The stupid fellow simply drew her to his heart behind the door of the back drawing-room in Madame’s establishment. Sophy came out of the contest, kissed, praised, and angry, and immediately bought a “straw” in the Arcade for 7s. 6d., and made C. carry it home in the paper. All women have their trials. It is not, however, necessary to summon Nemesis in the presence of Sir Cresswell, nor to invoke from his lips the dreadful fiat, “As you were!”
I think I have noticed since “The Divorce Court” has become a fact, a great falling-off in the popularity of doctrines connected with the Rights of Women. I remember well the time when the sweet sufferers would sit for hours at the feet of any grim Gamaliel, who would explain to them the nature of their wrongs, and descant upon her own spasmodic struggles to escape from the intolerable agonies of the married state. He must have been a bold man, indeed, who would have tried any nonsense with any of them. It was only necessary to be in their company for five minutes, and you would at once come to the conclusion, that had they been men, in place of gaunt angels, they would have spent their lives in one perennial stream of hot water. They would have been actively engaged in Chancery suits and actions for libel: they would have had their heads punched: they would have been perpetual principals in the preliminaries of duels which never came off: and you would have constantly seen their names paraded in the newspapers in connection with “correspondence which we have been requested to publish.”
In the midst of disputes of this nature I feel perfectly convinced most of these avenging angels would have spent their lives had they been denuded of their angelic character, and converted into gross men. Nay! I cannot think, even as it is, that their husbands make what sailors call “fair weather” of it. I can only judge of other men by myself, and I am sure I would as soon think of flinging my shoe at the head of Tom Sayers, the Champion, as of commencing hostilities against any member of that heroic band. I should feel that my penultimate resource was my boot-room and a short clay—my last, the razor. Even at the last moment I should, however, be pained with the uncomfortable thought, that the “rash act” would be pointed out to my Lucretia’s friends as conclusive evidence of my disturbed intellect, and of the cruel sufferings she so long endured without a complaint—without a murmur! “Ah! if the world had known!” Doves and Lambs! But this is hard upon a poor fellow down amongst his boots, and waiting patiently for an interview with the coroner!
The denunciations of this class of angel against the Marriage Bond have, as I have observed, been lately at a severe discount. The real sufferers, moreover, have never swerved in their allegiance—the flesh and blood Marys, and Ellens, and Elizas, who have taken their lot patiently, and done their best to hide from the knowledge of their friends the frenzy and brutality of the Georges, and Philips, and Thomases. The very women—true angels, these ones—who ought to make the complaint, and to rejoice at the rupture of the Gordian knot—hate you if you make it for them, and hug the chain which has worn into their tender arms. I have known a woman married for years to a fellow whom all we men knew to be a drunken beast: her life was, practically, spent in a tap-room, yet was she a person of refined and cultivated tastes: his fortune and well-nigh her own were spent in follies of the grossest kind; but, at last, drunkenness fairly got the best of it amongst the sister-band of vices. Cursing and filth became her daily portion—yet she never wavered in her care and tendance of the drunkard until, at last, his soul staggered away one morning into the next world—between an oath and a dram. The widow cried her eyes out over his vinous remains, and caused them to be interred in great state with an eulogy engraved in marble of the public and private virtues of this most intolerable brute. After his death poor Lizzy Heath—I speak of her by her maiden name—went into mourning, and wore widow’s weeds until her own poor heart was at rest. She might have married a second time if she had pleased—but she would never listen to wooer’s voice again;—not upon the very legitimate grounds that she had made trial of man’s love, and found it a brandy bottle, but because she would never be unfaithful to her drunken spouse of seraphic memory. I verily believe she treasured up the brandy bottle with which he had killed himself as a sacred relic of the dear deceased. Sir Cresswell won’t see many petitioners of this class in his Court.
Thoughts such as these passed through my head as I was walking down Regent Street and preparing my mind for an interview with Flora, in the course of which it was my intention to introduce mention of the Divorce Court in a jaunty way—just as a man might speak of a pleasant evening with Robert-Houdin, or the last Pantomime. It was all stuff, of course—this institution could never affect my own relations with the angel-world, but I confess that what I had seen, and especially the tenor of my communications with my friend Lamb, had somewhat shaken my confidence in the eternity of existing relations between N and M. Hitherto we had only known of Death, but now it was Death and Sir Cresswell. What, if I should become a disreputable man upon town once more? Why should I be better than my neighbour—or dear Flora more constant than my neighbour’s wife? We might shake hands and part to-morrow. Lamb and Rackem would get up a case which would restore liberty to either party to the contract. What an odd sensation to be in Regent Street at 4 p.m. with a cigar in my mouth, and my hands in my pockets—to go out and come in when I liked—nobody to trouble me with comments—or to interfere, by so much as a look, with my proceedings. “I will be free as air. I will be lord of my own presence—just like that foreign gentleman in the light grey paletôt with the velvet facings. I am sure no loving eye ventures to pry too curiously into his proceedings.” Nay, I might in my turn become a wooer again—we middle-aged men know all about women and their ways—we have such advantages over the boys, that it is almost dastardly to enter the lists against them. After all, why should the forty-year men dash from their lips the enchanted cup which Houris will force upon them? The boys in their turn will succeed to our present attractions—and have their day. Vive la joie! Shall it be Annie, or Lucy, or little Therèse who may be positively said to be expanding into ripe and delicious womanhood at Arles—by the banks of the rapid Rhone—on my behalf? Surely, when she said last summer, “Oui! Monsieur J., je vous aime, et même beaucoup!” that little Gallic fairy could not be laughing at me! No, that was out of the question. But then there is Annie Lorie, down in Perthshire—she too is waiting for me like the Spirit of the Waterfall—pale as a moonbeam, but warm and soft, and full of tricks as a kitten. I will not break her young heart. Annie shall be blest. And Therèse! what will become of her? She will be dragged to the Mairie by some beast of a French captain with red hands—or by a pale mesmeric humbug who calls himself a physician. Could I cut myself into pieces, they should all be happy: but it is clear that the British Legislature has only proceeded one step—one faltering insufficient step—in the right direction. There is a good deal in the theory of Polygamy. so it be rightly applied. But, hey-day, what is this? Six o’clock. I must hurry home, or Flora will be kept waiting for dinner, and I shall get into a scrape.
It will be unnecessary to give the dialogue between the soother of my existence, and myself, at any great length; but it will, I think, be sufficient to set out the sum of the arguments I employed. I confess that at the hearing my own propositions did not tell as well as they appear to do when arranged fairly in order as below. The contest was an unequal one. When Serjeants Boozey and Spigot are engaged in hot argument at the bar—Boozey’s firm soul is never diverted from its set purpose by the personal charms of Spigot. Should Spigot even allow a diamond drop to trickle down his learned cheek—Boozey would not care a button about it. The emotions with which his rival’s soul was distracted, would be nothing to him, or he might even suppose that here was an attempt to tamper with the jury. If Spigot should interrupt the flow of his eloquence, in an irregular way, he would fix his hands the more firmly on his dogmatic hips and solicit the intervention of the Bench in restraint of his antagonist. Now, it is not so easy to maintain the rivulet of logic within its proper banks when you are arguing with an exceedingly pretty woman.
And Flora is a pretty woman, although she has pleaded guilty to xxviii. for the last x years; but I have frequently noticed that it is the case with our fair countrywomen, that when they have been twenty-eight years of age for about twelve years, their ripe autumn is even more attractive than the primrose-time of sweet seventeen. When they have stood at twenty-eight for about four years, they fall off, and then pick up again by some wonderful process of Nature’s animal chemistry. We do not, indeed, so immediately connect them with the notion of Fawns, Fairies, Flowers, and other such trivial conceits, but something far better has taken the place of these mere moonbeams of the mind. Does not the enraptured poet speak of the Widow Malone as—
an armful of joy?
By Paphos and Cnidus I swear that those rounded, but still symmetric forms—those bright intelligent eyes, rich with the rogueries of x years—are better worth than the puling sentimentalities of the boarding-schools for young ladies. Who would spend his days with an Italian greyhound, or as gentleman of the bed-chamber to a Canary bird? I missed some of my very best points by allowing my eye to revel over the polished smoothness of Flora’s arm. She has a way of resting her elbow—it is white and dimpled—on the chair; she then permits the hand to drop forward, so that her cheek rests upon the back of it—just where my masculine knuckles would be—and the taper-fingers hanging down complete the work of fascination. Even the late Sir William Follett would, I think, have been puzzled to show cause against Flora, when she has taken up this—her favourite—position, and has brought the artillery of her eyes fairly into action.
As nearly as I can remember, I spoke as follows:
“Marriage, my dearest Flora, was an institution ordained for the happiness—not the misery—of the human race. If it be asserted that reciprocal affection constitutes the best reason for contracting such an union as the one indicated—and I am sure my Flora would never defend the meretricious mockery of money marriages—surely it follows as the natural correlative of this argument, that reciprocal aversion is a sound reason for dissolving the bond. The priest and the magistrate can give the person—they can give no more. Our affections are our own. It is not every one who has been so blest—so doubly and trebly blest—in a wife as I have been; but put the case that I had blundered into a marriage with Margaret Dobbs. That Daisy; that Pearl, would soon to me have been but Hateful Peg. Should I have been compelled to Peg on to the end of the chapter! (Flora intimated that such would have been my duty.) What! to feel one’s home a Lazaret—never to hear words other than those of whining and reproach, to be kept working all one’s life like a horse in a mill, for an object one loathed and despised. What if Peg took to physicking herself, or to acrid theology, or to jealousy, or to dram-drinking, or even to simple ‘nagging’” (Flora suggested that I should pray for strength), “but,” I continued, “the result would be, that I should be miserable and Peg not happy. (I may here be permitted to remark parenthetically, that I was well aware that Flora entertained a most deeply-rooted aversion to Miss Dobbs, hence I had selected that lady for illustration.) But carry the matter one step further. Suppose, Flora, that during the period when Peg had me on the rack, and was screwing me up with all the tenderness of a sincere Dominican, I had met you either in the first blushing unconsciousness of your youthful beauty, or still worse, now, when the rosebud has kept its early promise, and the mature and lovely woman stands confessed before me in all her glowing charms; should I have been bound down to my Hobson’s choice?” (Flora intimated that, under such circumstances, she should have regarded a glance of admiration as an insult); “but, Flora, put the case, only put the case—that your bright glance had rested on me, not wholly as an object to excite disgust—suppose, just suppose, my own dearest girl, that you had pitied me, and surely so gentle a being (I have always observed that ladies like to he called ‘beings’) as my Flora would have pitied the sufferings which her own beauty had provoked; we all know to what feeling pity is akin! Here, then, are three creatures—forgive me, Flora—one creature, Peg Dobbs: a mere man, that is myself: and a bright angel, I need not say who that is—all wretched. At this moment, Sir Cresswell glides down, to his Court in his brougham, like a beneficent genius on a sunbeam, and sets us all free. Do you suppose that such an union as that between Hateful Peg and myself could be hallowed to all eternity? No; she was inflicted upon me, like an ulcer of which I was to get rid as best I could—but not with her—no! not with her was I to lead the bitter life for ever and for aye.” (By Heavens, at this moment a tear stole out from the silken fringe of Flora’s eye, and I felt myself an unmitigated rascal.) “But let us take the other side of the question; let us suppose you, my Flora, bound by a few inconsiderate words to some wretched brute; such an animal as we men know other man can be!” (At this point I resolved to pitch into my own side without stint or mercy.) “Is there to be no remedy? Are all the sweet emotions of your soul to be the daily food for the mockery of some drunken Caliban, who might even—I tremble to think of it—raise his hand against your gentle head? The thought distracts me. Ay, and a woman may be made miserable enough, even though her husband does not, like a madman, actually forget his manhood, and strike her whom he was bound to protect from all harm at the cost of his own miserable life. Imagine yourself, Flora, married to a pompous fool; or to a man of cold, unsympathising nature, one who would not appreciate your high intellectual gifts, or bask in the radiance of your playful smile. Imagine yourself a cog in a Baker Street machine—the wife of an eminent solicitor—the mother of eight children—all as measly as young pigs, and treated as though you were not fit to direct him; not he, you.” (Flora told me not to be ‘nasty,’ when I spoke of the young pigs—but the latter part of the sentence was not without weight.) “Surely here a judicial separation would be mercy to both parties; and a dissolution a foretaste of Paradise. Yes! I could bear the thought of my own sufferings in connection with Miss Dobbs; but the idea of my Flora wrongly mated is more than I can endure.”
The Case according to the Petitioner’s statement.
I need not insist further upon the argument I employed. I had resolved to go so far as to maintain that incompatibility of temper—that is, the mere fact that two human beings were miserable together, was enough to justify them in seeking for a rupture of the chain which galled without restraining them; but there should be perfect parity on both sides, and in all respects. Flora, sweet soul! seemed to me to be an average representative of British feminine feeling on such matters. The woman, happy in her marriage, esteems it as blasphemy to hint at any termination of so happy a union; her poor sister who is kicked, thumped, scorned, derided, and generally kept down, is not so firm in her views. The happy ones will keep their toiling sisters on the gridiron, at all events; the unhappy ones sometimes wriggle about a little, and think that a woman’s lot is so hard under existing arrangements that it might be no great sin if the curb-chain was loosed off a link or two.
It was very odd, and quite contrary to my expectation; but when I mentioned to Flora that I had casually met with Lamb, she took it so well that I was emboldened to proceed one step further, and mention what I had seen at Madame Léocadie Lareine’s. She was most curious about the dresses; and when I described to her the robe à-la-divorcée with its three flounces, my Flora almost sprang from her chair with excitement, and informed me, that three flounces had not been worn for at least two years. She was evidently drawing inferences unfavorable to Madame Lareine’s skill as an artiste, but I could not help thinking that the French lady might have her reasons for not sending a mourning wife into court attired in the very newest fashion. Flora also wanted to know all about Mrs. Baxter,—was she pretty?—How was her hair done?—How old was she?—had she good teeth?—did she seem pained at her position?—was she a bold thing? I managed matters with such dexterity that my beloved girl actually pressed me to attend the meeting the next day at the office of Lamb and Rackem, and to be present at the great trial itself.
The Case according to the Respondent’s statement.
Flora was full of the Divorce Court all night—not but what she considered it a very shocking thing—but I placed the matter before her in so many ways that curiosity maintained its hold of her sweet imagination, and I was aroused from a most delightful dream at 6.50 a.m., the next morning by her own taper fingers, and informed that if I wanted to he in time for that odious place, I must display energy of character. Now I had been dreaming of fat oysters, and by one of those strange vagaries in which the human soul, when half-slumbering, appears to delight, had supposed myself to be gifted with submarine faculties, and to be spending an hour or two down amongst the oyster-beds off the Essex coast. From the very lips of one of these delicate crustaceæ—who indeed had fired up at the bare suggestion—I was receiving the must positive assurances that there was nothing in the stories about the oyster-disease which had been lately palmed on the world. A little scarlet fever there might be among the young ones—nothing more. He was about to treat the charge as libellous, and take the propagators of this scandal into court. Did I think that Mr. Edwin James was the best hand in such cases, or would it be better at once to secure the services of the Attorney-General? It was at this point that my Flora broke in on my half-life, and drove me to my shower-bath in a February morning, and the stern realities of human existence. I felt that it was better to yield implicit obedience to the still small voice of my admirable consort, or it might be that Sir Cresswell would have a word to say to me, and be indisposed to admit as a plea of confession and avoidance my story about the oysters,—which was, however, I protest, true to the letter.
At a few minutes before nine o’clock I reached the offices in Great George Street, and even at this early hour found the Divorce World wide awake. A number of clerks were copying out letters and filling up forms in a lower room—what forms! and what letters!—and I was informed by one of these young gentlemen that the two partners were at breakfast in Mr. Lamb’s private room, but L. had left word that on my arrival I was to be shown up-stairs.
Mr. Lamb introduced me at once to the sterner member of the firm. Mr. Rackem was a tall man with high cheek bones, and a double eye-glass. His trousers were made of some gray mixture, and short for him. He wore high-lows, and had a cast in his eye. He was just the sort of man you would expect to find presiding over the Kentish Fire at an Orange meeting in the famous county of Derry. There was a look of “No Surrender” about him, which suggested very forcibly the idea that you would rather have that gentleman for you than against you, if any little ruffle had occurred in the placid lake of your domestic existence. My friend Lamb was the very opposite of all this. He had, I think, gathered flesh since we had last met; and I was not quite satisfied at first with a look about the corner of his eye, which seemed to me to be somewhat indicative of cunning; but then, of course, a man’s features do take a colour from his usual pursuits; and whom I considered the class of clients with which poor Lamb had to deal, I could not but admit that he had great need of caution and circumspection. Mr. Lamb was making a light breakfast off chocolate and Lady’s Fingers: Mr. Rackem was devouring slices of cold boiled beef with an appetite worthy of a coalheaver.
“I shall be happy, sir,” he said, in a deep hollow voice, after he had satisfied the cravings of nature, “to give you all the information in my power on the delicate subject which you are now investigating. The spread of frivolity and immorality amongst Englishwomen of the present day is awful.”
“Amongst the men, you mean,” broke in Lamb. “Never have I known such a crop of broken hearts—such a series of outrages upon the delicate susceptibilities of female nature as at present.”
“No, sir,—amongst the women. Oh! for the good old days when the robust acorn-fed help-mates—then help-mates indeed—of our Saxon forefathers, after days of severe toil, laid down their robust limbs by the sides of their loving masters, and were worthy of their confidence, and true to their own lofty calling. When I see a modern English lady of fashion mincing into her brougham—when I reflect upon those diminutive bonnets, and those exaggerated crinolines, I give you my assurance, sir, as an honest man, knowing what I do know”—here Mr. Rackem brought down his clenched fist with a tremendous thwack upon the table—“I tremble—yes, sir, I tremble.”
“Pooh, pooh, Rackem, it is the business of women to look pretty; that’s their first duty in life, and what do you say to the clubs and the Derby days?”
“There is a Satire of Juvenal, sir,—" said Rackem.
Lamb answered in song with the rich mellow voice which I remembered so well:—
“Your Polly has never been false she declares
Since the last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs.”
At this moment the door was thrown open, and a clerk announced:—
“Mrs. Barber.”
The lady was good enough to recognise me as having been present on the previous day at Madame Lareine’s. As she entered the room in the I costume of the Divorcée, she turned her candid blue eyes in a playful, girlish way upon Mr. Lamb, and said:—
“Will this do, Mr. Lamb?”
“No, madam, it will not do. I am very confident that Madame Lareine never sent you that veil; and I tell you frankly, the crinoline must be smaller; but we need not dwell upon this point just now, for Jobson v. Jobson and Boyce will occupy the whole day, and your most interesting case cannot possibly come on for hearing until to-morrow. We have plenty of business before us, however. You may not be aware of the fact, Mrs. Barber, but the most important part of these inquiries takes place in the office of the solicitor. It is not always right to tell Sir Cresswell everything. My friend, Dr. Dodge, has been good enough, for once, to sink the question of professional etiquette, and will be here presently; but meanwhile we can handle one of the chief points of the case—the incident of the hair at Brussels. I want Mr. Rackem’s opinion as to the probable line of defence which will be taken on the other side.”
Mrs. Barber settled her drapery in such a way as to display a very elegant little hand, perfectly gloved, and looking at us all, in a bashful manner, said:—
“It was when we were stopping at Brussels, you mean, Mr. Lamb. Oh! I am sure I shall never be able to tell the Court about that. Oh! no—never—never—but it was so cruel—so very, very cruel of Mr. Barber, for I had just been attending to him that morning;—he was rather poorly, and I had quite drenched my pocket-handkerchief with eau-de-Cologne, for his poor head was aching so.”
“Headache, eh?” said Lamb. “What was amiss?”
“Oh! dear Mr. Lamb, you must not be hard upon poor Augustus—but he had been dining out the night before—if I must tell the truth—and hadn’t come home till three in the morning. I had sat up waiting for him all night by dear baby’s little cradle, thinking of other days: but of course, Mr. Lamb, you won’t let anything be said about that—when he started up and swore at me, and said, oh! such frightful, frightful words, and then he seized me by the hair, and dragged me about the room—and, let me see, what happened next?—I was so overcome.”
Mrs. Barber, I thought, looked towards my friend Lamb for a suggestion; but that gentleman maintained a rigid silence.
“Oh, yes, I remember: he took a pair of shears, or it might have been a large carving-knife, from the table—for I know there had been a dreadful piece of beef for breakfast—”
Rackem groaned.
—“and he brandished them over my head, and I thought he was going to kill me, and I implored him to let me say my prayers, and kiss baby once more before he did it; but he tore me about the room, and at last he said he knew I was proud of my hair, which was such a story—I only took pains about it, because there had been a time when he used to say he thought it pretty, and I wanted to please him, and now he would cut it off—so he dragged me back, and cut off all my hair.”
“What do you say to this, Rackem?” said Lamb: “awful cruelty!—they can’t have anything to say to that.”
“I could say a good deal to it,” replied Rackem. “I have been accustomed to deal with these incidents from the other point of view. Was any one in the room, Mrs. Barber, when this occurred?”
Mrs. Barber looked towards Lamb, but couldn’t remember. She didn’t like to speak about the maid who was carrying in the breakfast things.
“Did you scream, or call for help? because the alleged cruelty took place in a room in a public hotel, so that you could easily have summoned assistance.”
Mrs. Barber replied eagerly, but was checked by Mr. Lamb, with a “Not so hasty, Ma’am. Every answer is a chess-move.”
“I couldn’t have cried for help; for when Augustus was dragging me about the room my head struck against a console, and I fainted away.”
The two solicitors looked at each other.
“Mrs. Barber must not faint, Rackem; I seldom recommend fainting.”
“No—o—o! not safe, Lamb! it may be necessary to speak to other points of detail.”
“Oh! I don’t mean that I fainted dead away: I turned very sick; but I knew what Augustus was about—of course I did—else how should I know that he called me a horrid minx?”
Lamb smiled at her blandly.
“Your hair seems to have grown again very luxuriantly, madam,” said Rackem.
Mrs. Barber, in a playful way, stroked her remarkably glossy waves of hair, and smiled.
“Perhaps we had better shave the lady,” said Rackem; “it would produce an effect, I think, upon the jury, if at the critical moment Mrs. Barber was to tear off her wig in their faces, and burst into an agony of tears.”
“I’m sure I shan’t,” said Mrs. Barber, “cut off my hair to obtain all the divorces in the world: besides, it would be so naughty—so deceitful!”
Rackem raised his brows, and looked at Lamb. After a moment’s reflection he turned to Mrs. Barber, and said:—
“How do you think, madam, that incident will tell when described thus? You must not be offended with me for putting the matter plainly to you, for it is better you should hear it from me, than for the first time from the counsel cross-examining you. What will the jury think when they are told that your picture of alleged cruelty is a total misrepresentation?—that your husband had taken you to Brussels for your own pleasure, because he always endea- voured to gratify your smallest whim?—that upon one occasion you were sitting in the most luxurious room of the most luxurious hotel of that famous city, he surrounding you, as usual, with every comfort you could desire;—that in a playful mood he stole behind you, having taken your own scissors from your own work-box, and cut off just the end of your hair, enough to garnish a little locket? I will tell you what, Lamb,” concluded Mr. Rackem, emphatically, “were I handling the point for the other side, I would produce the locket in Court with Mr. and Mrs. Barber’s initials interlaced, and with an inscription upon it, of
Thine—
Ever thine!
Brussels, such a date.
and I would give the locket to a clerk to wear for a few days under his flannel waistcoat, so as to take off the brightness of the gold. Observe, there is no corroboration on either side. Good morning, Mrs. Barber.”
As Mr. Rackem retired, the door was again opened, and the clerk announced—
“Dr. Dodge!” Gamma.