Public feeling in Marlshire was much excited about the Caresfoot
tragedy, and, when it became known that Lady Bellamy had attempted to
commit suicide, the excitement was trebled. It is not often that the
dullest and most highly respectable part of an eminently dull and
respectable county gets such a chance of cheerful and interesting
conversation as these two events gave rise to. We may be sure that the
godsend was duly appreciated; indeed, the whole story is up to this
hour a favourite subject of conversation in those parts.
Of course the members of the polite society of the neighbourhood of
Roxham were divided into two camps. The men all thought that Angela had
been shamefully treated, the elder and most intensely respectable
ladies for the most part inclined to the other side of the question. It
not being their habit to look at matters from the same point of view in
which they present themselves to a man’s nicer sense of honour, they
could see no great harm in George Caresfoot’s stratagems. A man so
rich, they argued, was perfectly entitled to buy his wife. The marriage
had been arranged, like their own, on the soundest property basis, and
the woman who rose in rebellion against a husband merely because she
loved another man, or some such romantic nonsense, deserved all she
got. Gone mad, had she?—well, it was a warning! And these aristocratic
matrons sniffed and turned up their noses. They felt that Angela, by
going mad and creating a public excitement, had entered a mute protest
against the recognized rules of marriage sale- and-barter as practised
in this country—and Zululand. Having daughters to dispose of, they
resented this, and poor Angela was for years afterwards spoken of among
them as that “immoral girl.”
But the lower and more human strata of society did not sympathize with
this feeling. On the contrary, they were all for Angela and the dog
Aleck who was supposed to have chocked that “carroty warmint,” George.
The inquest on George’s body was held at Roxham, and was the object of
the greatest possible interest. Indeed, the public excitement was so
great that the coroner was, perhaps insensibly, influenced by it, and
allowed the inquiry to travel a little beyond its professed object of
ascertaining the actual cause of death, with the result that many of
the details of the wicked plot from which Angela had been the principal
sufferer became public property. Needless to say that they did not
soothe the feelings of an excited crowd. When Philip, after spending
one of the worst half-hours of his life in the witness-box, at length
escaped with such shreds of reputation as he had hitherto possessed
altogether torn off his back, his greeting from the mob outside the
court may fairly be described as a warm one. As the witnesses’ door
closed behind him, he found himself at one end of a long lane, that was
hedged on both sides by faces not without a touch of ferocity about
them, and with difficulty kept clear by the available force of the five
Roxham policemen.
“Who sold his daughter?” shouted a great fellow in his ear.
“Let me come, there’s a dear man, and have a look at Judas,” said a
skinny little woman with a squint, to an individual who blocked her
view.
The crowd caught at the word. “Judas!” it shouted, “go and hang
yourself! Judas! Judas!”
How Philip got out of that he never quite knew, but he did get out
somehow.
Meanwhile, Sir John Bellamy was being examined in court, and,
notwithstanding the almost aggressive innocence of his appearance, he
was not having a very good time. It chanced that he had fallen into the
hands of a rival lawyer, who hated him like poison, and had good reason
to hate him. It is wonderful, by the way, how enemies do spring up
round a man in trouble like dogs who bite a wounded companion to death,
and on the same principle. He is defenceless. This gentleman would
insist on conducting the witnesses’ examination on the basis that he
knew all about the fraud practised with reference to the supposed death
of Arthur Heigham. Now, it will be remembered that Sir John, in his
last interview with Lady Bellamy, had declared that there was no tittle
of evidence against him, and that it would be impossible to implicate
him in the exposure that must overtake her. To a certain extent he was
right, but on one point he had overshot himself, for at that very
inquest Mr. Fraser stated on oath that he (Mr. Fraser) had spoken of
Arthur Heigham’s death in the presence of Sir John Bellamy, and had not
been contradicted.
In vain did Sir John protest that Mr. Fraser must be mistaken. Both the
jury and the public looked at the probabilities of the matter, and,
though his protestations were accepted in silence, when he left the
witness-box there was not a man in court but was morally certain that
he had been privy to the plot, and, so far as reputation was concerned,
he was a ruined man. And yet legally there was not a jot of evidence
against him. But public opinion required that a scapegoat should be
found, and it was now his lot to figure as that unlucky animal.
By the time he reached the exit into the street, the impression that he
had had a hand in the business had, in some mysterious way,
communicated itself to the mob outside, many a member of which had some
old grudge to settle with “Lawyer Bellamy,” if only chance put an
opportunity in their way. As he stepped through the door, utterly
ignorant of the greeting which awaited him, his ears were assailed by
an awful yell, followed by a storm of hoots and hisses.
Sir John turned pale, and looked for a means of escape; but the
policeman who had let him out had locked the door behind him, and all
round him was the angry mob.
“Here comes the —— that started the swim,” roared a voice, as soon as
there was a momentary lull.
“Gentlemen——” piped Sir John, with all the pippin hue gone from his
cheeks, and rubbing his white hands together nervously.
“Yah! he poisoned his own poor wife!” shouted a woman with a baby.
“Ladies——” went on Sir John, in agonized tones.
“Pelt him!” yelled a sweet little boy of ten or so, suiting the action
to the word, and planting a rotten egg full upon Sir John’s imposing
brow.
“No, no,” said the woman who had nicknamed Philip “Judas.” “Why don’t
you drop him in the pond? There’s only two feet of water, and it’s soft
falling on the mud. You can pelt him _afterwards_.”
The idea was received with acclamation, and notwithstanding his own
efforts to the contrary, backed as they were by those of the five
policemen, before he knew where he was, Sir John found himself being
hustled by a lot of sturdy fellows towards the filthy duck-pond, like
an aristocrat to the guillotine. They soon arrived, and then followed
the most painful experience of all his life, one of which the very
thought would ever afterwards move him most profoundly. Two strong men,
utterly heedless of his yells and lamentations, took him by the heels,
and two yet stronger than they caught him by his plump and tender
wrists, and then, under the directions of the woman with the squint,
they began to swing him from side to side. As soon as the lady
directress considered that the impetus was sufficient, she said, “Now!”
and away he went like a swallow, only to land, when his flying powers
were exhausted, plump in the middle of the duck-pond.
Some ten seconds afterwards, a pillar of slimy mud arose and staggered
towards the bank, where a crowd of little boys, each holding something
offensive in his right hand, were eagerly awaiting its arrival. The
squint-eyed woman contemplated the figure with the most intense
satisfaction.
“He sold me up once,” she murmured; “but we’re quits now. That’s it,
lads, let him have it.”
But we will drop a veil over this too painful scene. Sir John Bellamy
was unwell for some days afterwards; when he recovered he shook the
dust of Roxham off his shoes for ever.