THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION
"I know, Mrs. Catesby, I'm not much of a chap," said Brasset, "but
what's a feller to do? I did drop a hint to Fitz, you know."
"Fitz!!" The art of the _littérateur_ can only render a scorn so
sublime by two marks of exclamation.
"What did Fitz say?" I ventured to inquire.
"Scowled like blazes," said Brasset, miserably. "Thought the
cross-grained, three-cornered devil would eat me. Beg pardon, Mrs.
Catesby."
The noble Master subsided into his glass of beer in the most lamentably
ineffectual manner.
I cleared my voice in the consciousness that I had an uncle a judge.
"Brasset," said I, "will you kindly inform the court what are the
specific grounds of complaint against this much-maligned and
unfortunate--er--female?"
"Don't make yourself ridiculous, Odo!"
"Odo, you know perfectly well!"
It was a dead heat between Mrs. Arbuthnot and the Great Lady.
"Order, order," said I, sternly. "This scene belongs to Brasset. Now,
Brasset, answer the question, and then perhaps something may be done."
It was not to be, however. The nephew of my uncle failed lamentably to
exact obedience to the chair.
"My dear Odo," said Mary Catesby, in what I can only describe as her
Albert Hall manner, with her voice going right up to the top like a
flag going up a pole, "do you mean to tell _me_----?"
"That you don't know how Mrs. Fitz has been carrying on!" the Madam
chipped in with really wonderful cleverness.
"I don't, upon oath," said I, solemnly. "You appear to forget that I
have been giving my time to the nation during this abominable autumn
session."
"So he has, poor dear," said the partner of my joys.
"Like a good citizen," said Mary Catesby, most august of Primrose Dames.
"Thank you, Mary, I deserve it. But am I to understand that Mrs. Fitz
has flung her cap over the mill, or that she has taken to riding
astride, or is it that she continues to affect that scarlet coat which
last season hastened the end of the Dowager?"
"No, Arbuthnot." It was the voice of Brasset, vibrating with such deep
emotion that it can only be compared to the _Marche Funèbre_ performed
upon a cathedral organ. "But it was only by God's mercy that last
Tuesday morning she didn't override Challenger."
"Allah is great," said I.
"Upon my solemn word of honour," said the noble Master, speaking from
the depths, "she was within two inches of the old gal's stern."
"Parkins," said a voice from the breakfast table, "bring another glass
of beer for his lordship."
To be perfectly frank, liquid sustenance was no longer a vital
necessity to the noble Master. He was already rosy with indignation at
the sudden memory of his wrongs. Only one thing can induce Brasset to
display even a normal amount of spirit. That is the welfare of the
sacred charges over which he presides for the public weal. He will
suffer you to punch his head, to tread on his toe, or to call him
names, and as likely as not he will apologise sweetly for any
inconvenience you may have incurred in the process. But if you
belittle the Crackanthorpe Hounds or in any way endanger the humblest
member of the Fitzwilliam strain, woe unto you. You transform Brasset
into a veritable man of blood and iron. He is invested with pathos and
dignity. The lightnings of heaven flash from beneath his long-lashed
orbs; and from his somewhat narrow chest there is bodied forth a far
richer vocabulary than the general inefficiency of his appearance can
possibly warrant in any conceivable circumstances.
Mere feminine clamour was silenced by Brasset transformed. His blue
eyes glowed, his cheeks grew rosier, each particular hair of his
perfectly charming little blond moustache--trimmed by Truefitt once a
fortnight--stood up on end like quills upon the fretful porpentine. In
lieu of pink abasement was tawny denunciation.
"I'll admit, Arbuthnot," said the Man of Blood and Iron, "I looked at
the woman as no man ought to look at a lady."
"Didn't you say 'damn,' Lord Brasset?" piped a demure seeker after
knowledge.
"I may have done, Mrs. Arbuthnot, I admit I may have done."
"I think that ought to go down on the depositions," said I, with an
approximation to the manner of my uncle, the judge, that was very
tolerable for an amateur.
"I _honour_ you for it, Lord Brasset. Don't you, Mary?"
"Endeavour not to embarrass the witness," said I. "Go on, Brasset."
"Brasset, here's your beer," said Jodey, rising from the table and
personally handing the Burton brew with vast solemnity.
"I may have damned her eyes," proceeded the witness, "or I mayn't have
done. You see, she was within two inches of the old gal, and I may
have lost my head for a bit. I'll admit that no man ought to damn the
eyes of a lady. Mind, I don't say I did. And yet I don't say I
didn't. It all happened before you could say 'knife,' and I'll admit I
was rattled."
"The witness admits he was rattled," said I.
"So would you have been, old son," the witness continued
magniloquently. "Within two inches, upon my oath."
"Were there reprisals on the part of the lady whose eyes you had damned
in a moment of mental duress?"
"_Rather_. She damned mine in Dutch."
Sensation.
"How did you know it was Dutch, Lord Brasset?" piped a seeker of
knowledge.
"By the behaviour of the hounds, Mrs. Arbuthnot."
"How did they behave?"
"The beggars bolted."
Sensation.
"My aunt!" said the occupant of the breakfast table with solemn
irrelevance.
"So would you," said the noble Master. "I never heard anything like
it. In my opinion there is no language like Dutch when it comes to
cursing. And then, before I could blink, up went her hand, and she
gave me one over the head with her crop."
Sensation.
"Upon my solemn word of honour. I don't mind showing the mark to
anybody."
"Where is it, Lord Brasset?"
Mrs. Arbuthnot rose from her chair in the ecstatic pursuit of
first-hand information. Her eyes were wide and glowing like those of
her small daughter, Miss Lucinda, when she hears the story of "The
Three Bears."
"Show _me_ the scar, Reggie," said a Minerva-like voice.
"Let's see it, Brasset," said the occupant of the breakfast table,
kicking over a piece of Chippendale of the best period and incidentally
breaking the back of it.
The somewhat melodramatic investigations of a thick layer of Rowland's
Macassar oil and a thin layer of fair hair disclosed an unmistakable
weal immediately above the left temple of the noble martyr in the cause
of public duty.
"If it don't beat cockfighting!" said Jodey in a tone of undisguised
admiration.
"If it hadn't been for the rim of my cap," said the noble martyr in
response to the public enthusiasm, "it must have laid my head clean
open."
"In my opinion," said Mary Catesby, speaking _ex cathedra_, "that woman
is a perfect devil. Reggie, if you only show firmness you can count
upon support. They may stand that sort of thing in a Continental
circus, but we don't stand it in the Crackanthorpe Hunt."
"Firmness, Brasset," said I, anxious, like all the world, to echo the
oracle.
The little blond moustache was subjected to inhuman treatment.
"It's all very well, you know, but what's the use of being firm with a
person who is just as firm as yourself?"
The Great Lady snorted.
"For three years, Reggie, you have filled a difficult office passably
well. Don't let a little thing like this be your undoing."
"All very well, Mrs. Catesby, but I can't hit her over the head, can I?"
"No, but what about Fitz?" said a voice from the breakfast table.
"Ye-es, I hadn't thought of that."
"And I shouldn't think of it if I were you," said I, cordially. "Fitz
with all his errors is a heftier chap than you are, my son."
Brasset's jaw dropped doubtfully--it is quite a good jaw, by the way.
"Practise the left a bit, Brasset," was the advice of the breakfast
table. "I know a chap in Jermyn Street who has had lessons from Burns.
We might trot up and see him after lunch. Bring a Bradshaw, Parkins.
And I think we had better send a wire."
"I wasn't so bad with my left when I was up at Trinity," said Brasset.
Mrs. Arbuthnot shuddered audibly. She has long been an out-and-out
admirer of the noble Master's nose. Certainly its contour has great
elegance and refinement.
"Brasset," said I, "let me urge you not to listen to evil
communications. If you were Burns himself you would do well to play
very lightly with Fitz. He was my fag at school, and although
sometimes there was occasion to visit him with an ash plant or a
toasting fork in the manner prescribed by the house regulations at that
ancient seat of learning, I shouldn't advise you or anybody else to
undertake a scheme of personal chastisement."
"Certainly not, Reggie," said Mary Catesby, in response to Mrs.
Arbuthnot's imploring gaze. "Odo is perfectly right. Besides, you
must behave like a gentleman. It is the woman with whom you must deal."
"Well, I can't hit her, can I?" said Brasset, plaintively.
"If a cove's wife hit me over the head with a crop," said the voice of
youth, "I should want to hit the cove that had the wife that hit me,
and so would Odo. I see there's a train at two-fifteen gets to town at
five."
Brasset's eyes are as softly, translucently blue as those of Miss
Lucinda, but in them was the light of battle. He no longer tugged at
his upper lip, but stroked it gently. To those conversant with these
mysteries this portent was sinister.
"Is Genée on at the Empire?" said he.
"Parkins knows," said Jodey.
Parkins did know.
"Yes, my lord," said that peerless factotum, "she is."
In parenthesis, I ought to mention that Parkins is the _pièce de
resistance_ of our modest establishment. Not only is he highly
accomplished in all the polite arts practised by man, but also he is a
walking compendium of exact information.
"How's this?" said Jodey, proceeding to read aloud the telegram he had
composed with studious care. "Dine self and pal Romano's 7.30. Empire
afterwards. Book three stalls in centre."
"Wouldn't the side be better?" said Brasset. "Then you are out of the
draught."
Before this important correction could be made Mary Catesby lifted up
her voice in all its natural majesty.
"Reginald Philip Horatio," said the most august of her sex, "as one who
dressed dolls and composed hymns with your poor dear mother before she
made her imprudent marriage, I forbid you absolutely to fight with such
a man as Nevil Fitzwaren. It is not seemly, it is not Christian, and
Nevil Fitzwaren is a far more powerful man than yourself."
"Science will beat brute force at any hour of the day or night," was
the opinion of the breakfast table.
Mrs. Catesby fixed the breakfast table with her invincible north eye.
"Joseph, pray hold your tongue. This is very wrong advice you are
giving to a man who is rather older and quite as foolish as yourself."
The Bayard of the breakfast table rebutted the indictment.
"The advice is sound enough," said he. "My pal in Jermyn Street has
won no end of pots as a middle-weight, and he'll soon have a go at the
heavies now he's taken to supping at the Savoy. He'll put Brasset all
right. He's as clever as daylight, a pupil of Burns. I tell you what,
Mrs. C., if Brasset leads off with a left and a right and follows up
with a half-arm hook on the point, in my opinion he'll have a walk
over."
"Reggie, I forbid you _absolutely_," said the early collaborator with
the noble Master's mother. "It is so uncivilised; besides, if Nevil
Fitzwaren happened to be the first to lead off with a half-arm hook on
the point, we should probably require a new Master. And that would be
so awkward. It was always a maxim of my dear father's that foxes were
the only things that profited by a change of mastership in the middle
of December."
"Your dear father was right, Mary," said I, gravely.
"Dear father was infallible. But seriously, Reggie, if anything
happened to you we should really have nobody to take the hounds now
that for some obscure reason they have made Odo a member of Parliament."
"If a cove's wife hit me," came the refrain from the breakfast table in
a kind of drone, "I should want to hit the cove that had the wife that
hit me. See that this wire is sent, Parkins, and tell Kelly that I am
running up to town by the 2.15 and shall stay the night."
"Jodey, don't be a fool," said I. "Brasset, I want to say this. I
hope you are listening, Mary, and you too, Irene. Where Fitz and his
wife are concerned, we have all got to play lightly."
I summoned all the earnestness of which I am capable. Even Mary
Catesby was impressed by such an air of conviction.
"I fail to see," said she, "why we should be so especially considerate
of the feelings of the Fitzwarens, when they are the last to consider
the feelings of others."
"You can take it from me, Mary, that Fitz and his wife are not to be
judged altogether by ordinary standards. They are extraordinary
people."
"Tell me what you mean by the term extraordinary?" said my
inquisitorial spouse.
"Does it really require explanation, _mon enfant_?"
"It means," said the plain-spoken Mary, "that Nevil Fitzwaren is an
extraordinarily reckless and dissolute type of fellow, and that Mrs.
Nevil is an extraordinarily unpleasant type of woman."
I am the first to admit that that ineffectual thing, the mere human
male, is not of the calibre openly to dissent from a considered
judgment of the Great Lady. But to the amazement of men and doubtless
of gods, for once in a way her opinion was publicly challenged.
You could have heard a pin drop in the room when the occupant of the
breakfast table took up the gage.
"Fitz is a bad hat." Joseph Jocelyn De Vere removed the pipe from his
lips. "Everybody knows it. But Mrs. Fitz is a thousand times too good
for the cove that's married her."
Such an expression of opinion left his sister open-mouthed. Mary
Catesby lowered her chin and her eyelashes at an indiscretion so
portentous.
"The Fitzwarens," said that great authority, "are a very old family,
and Nevil has the education, if not the instincts, of a gentleman, but
as for this circus rider he has brought from Vienna, she has neither
the birth, the education nor the instincts of a lady."
This tremendous pronouncement would have put most people out of action
at once. But here was a man of mettle.
"She's tophole," said that Bayard. "I've never seen her equal. If you
ask my opinion there's not a chap in the Hunt who is fit to open a gate
for Mrs. Fitz."
The young fellow had fairly got the bit between his teeth and no
mistake.
"One doesn't ask your opinion, Joseph," said Mary Catesby, with a
bluntness that would have felled a bullock. "Why should one, pray? I
know no person less fitted to express an opinion on any subject."
"I've followed her line anyhow, and I've been proud to follow it. She
can ride cunning, too, mind you. I've never seen her equal anywhere,
and don't suppose I ever shall."
"No one questions her riding. She was born and bred in a circus. But
a more unmitigated female bounder never jumped through a hoop in pink
tights."
It was below the belt, and not only Jodey but Brasset, who, inefficient
as he is in most things, is unmistakably a sportsman of the first
class, also felt it to be so.
"Mrs. Fitz has foreign ways," said the noble Master, "but she can be as
nice as anybody when she likes. I've known her be awfully civil."
"She is not without charm," said I, feeling that it was up to me to
play up a bit.
"She's _it_," said Jodey. "She's the sort of woman that would make a
chap----"
"Shoot himself," chirruped the noble Master.
Disgust and indignation are mild terms to apply to Mrs. Catesby's wrath.
"Pair of boobies! You are as bad as he is, Reggie. But it was always
so like your poor mother to take things lying down."
"Oh, come now, Mrs. Catesby, haven't I said all along that she had no
right to hit me over the head with her crop?"
"The safest place in which to hit you, anyway." The Great Lady was in
peril of losing her temper.
The question of Mrs. Fitz was a very vexed one in the Crackanthorpe
Hunt. It had already divided that proud institution into two sections:
i.e. the thick and thin supporters of that lady and those who would not
have her at any price. It need excite no remark in the minds of the
judicious that the male followers of the Hunt, almost to a man,
admired, as much as they dared in the circumstances, a very remarkable
personality; while its feminine patrons, with a unanimity quite without
precedent in that august body, were conspiring to humiliate, as deeply
as it lay in their power, a personage who had set three counties by the
ears.
The Great Lady proceeded to temper her wrath with some extremely
dignified pathos.
"It is a mystery to me," said she, "how men who call themselves
gentlemen can attempt to defend a creature who offered a public affront
to the Duke and dear Evelyn."
"I presume you mean the affair of the bazaar?" said I.
"I do; a lamentable fracas. Dear Evelyn never left her bed for a
fortnight."
"Dear me! Are we to understand that actual physical violence was
offered to her Grace?"
"Don't be childish, Odo! I was present and saw everything, and I can
answer for it that no such thing as violence was used."
"Then why did the great lady take to her bed?"
"Through sheer vexation. And really one doesn't wonder. It was
nothing less than a public insult."
"Tell me, Mary, precisely in three words what did happen at the bazaar.
All the world agrees that it was a desperate affair, yet nobody seems
to know exactly what it was that occurred."
Mrs. Catesby enveloped herself in that mantle of high diplomacy that
she is pleased so often to assume.
"No, my dear Odo, I don't think it would be kind to the Duke and dear
Evelyn to say actually what did occur. To my mind it is not a thing to
be spoken of, but I may tell you this--it has been mentioned at
Windsor!"
It was clear from the Great Lady's demeanour that at this announcement
we were all expected to cross ourselves. Only Mrs. Arbuthnot did so,
however.
"Oh, Mary!" The china-blue eyes swam with ecstasy.
"If you wish to convey to us, my dear Mary," said I, "that a royal
commission has been appointed to inquire into the subject, all
experience tends to teach that there will be less prospect than ever of
finding out what did happen at the bazaar."
"Tell us what really did happen at the bazaar, Mrs. Catesby," said
Brasset. "I am sorry I wasn't there."
"No, Reggie, I am _much_ too fond of dear Evelyn to disclose the truth
to a living soul. But I may tell you this: the incident was far worse
than has been reported."
"I understand," said I, solemnly lying, at the instance of the
histrionic sense, "that Windsor earnestly desired that the incident,
whatever it was, should be minimised as much as possible."
The bait was gobbled, hook and all.
"How did you come to hear that, Odo? Even I was not told that."
"Who told you _that_, Odo?" Mrs. Arbuthnot twittered breathlessly.
"There was a rumour the other day in the House."
"The idle gossip of the lobbies," the Great Lady was moved to affirm.
But we were straying away from the point. And the point was, in what
manner was public decency to mark its sense of outrage at the conduct
of Mrs. Fitz?