Part 9 (2/2)
”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.”
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