"They draw a nourishment
Out of defamings, grow upon disgraces;
And, when they see a virtue fortified
Strongly above the battery of their tongues,
Oh, how they cast to sink it!"
One of the most interesting cases in the Law Courts that winter was
_Perivale_ v. _Brown Smith_, a claim of £10,000 damages on account of a
gross libel published in a paper of which the defendant was editor and
proprietor.
Brown Smith pleaded justification, and it was said that he was going to
make a good fight, and that he would produce witnesses who had met the
lady and gentleman on their travels as Mr. and Mrs. Randall.
The case came on late in November, when there were a good many people
in town, staying for the weeks before Christmas, or passing through;
and the court was packed with smart clothes and well-known faces.
Conspicuous among these curious impertinents were two well-known
figures in the little world of Belgravia and Mayfair: Lady Morningside,
whose ample person, clothed in black satin and chinchilla, filled a
considerable space on the privileged seats; and the spare and wiry
form of "the most honourable," her husband, a man whose weather-beaten
countenance, trim whiskers and keen eye, cut-away coat and Bedford
cords, indicated the indomitable sportsman.
Eye-glasses and opera-glasses glittered across the fog, and the point
to which they were chiefly directed was the figure of Lady Perivale, in
a neat black gown, with cape and toque of Russian sable, seated in the
well of the court, with Arthur Haldane sitting beside her.
There was much whispering among the eye-glasses about the lady and her
companion.
"She is as handsome as ever," said one; "I was told she had gone off
dreadfully. Rather audacious to bring this action, ain't it?"
"Rather a dangerous move, I should think."
"Oh! she's got Sir Joseph Jalland. He always wins when there's a pretty
woman to orate about. You'll see, he'll make the jury shed tears."
"What odds will you give me against that fat man in the corner being
the first to weep?"
"Hush! It's going to begin."
Mr. Waltham, Sir Joseph's junior, opened the pleadings in an undertone,
which sent all the picture-hats distracted. They thought they were
losing the fun. And then a thrill ran round the Court as Sir Joseph
Jalland rose in his might, adjusted his pince-nez, trifled with the
leaves of his brief, and then slowly began to unfold his case. The
deep, grave voice made all the aigrets shiver, and every lorgnette and
binocular was turned to him.
"This greatly injured lady--this lady, whose life of blameless purity,
life spent in an exalted sphere--in the sheltered haven of a congenial
marriage, this lady whose spotless character should have shielded her
from the lightest breath of slander, has been made a target for the
salaried traducer of a venomous rag that calls itself a newspaper, and
has been allowed to drivel its poisonous paragraphs week after week,
secure in its insignificance, and a disgrace to the Press to which it
pretends to belong," flinging down the _South London Bon Ton_ on the
desk before him, with a movement of unutterable loathing, as if his
hand recoiled instinctively from the foul contact. "She has been made
the subject of a slander so futile, so preposterous, that one marvels
less at the malice of the writer than at his imbecility. A woman of
gentle birth and exalted position, hemmed round and protected by all
those ceremonial ramparts that are at once the restraint and privilege
of wealth and social status, is supposed to have roamed the Continent
with her paramour, braving public opinion with the brazen hardihood of
the trained courtesan."
This and much more, in its proper place and sequence, did Sir Joseph's
deep voice give to the listening ears of the Court, before he summoned
his first witness, in the person of the plaintiff, Grace Perivale.
Her evidence was given in a steady voice and with perfect self-control.
"Did you ever travel on the Continent with Colonel Rannock?"
"Never."
"Were you in Corsica in the January of this year?"
"No."
"Or in Algiers in February?"
"No."
"Will you be so good as to say where you were living during January and
February last?"
"I was at my villa near Porto Maurizio from November last year until
the beginning of April in this year."
Sir Joseph had no more questions to ask. The defendant's counsel
exercised his right to cross-examine the witness, who stood facing the
Court, calm and proud, but deadly pale.
"Were these paragraphs in the--er"--looking at his brief--"_Bon Ton_,
the first you had heard of a scandal associating your name with Colonel
Rannock's, Lady Perivale?" he asked blandly.
"It was the first time such a scandal had appeared in print."
"But the scandal was not unfamiliar to you?"
"No."
"You had heard of it before?"
"Yes."
"On several occasions?"
"I was told that such a thing had been said."
"And that your friends believed it?"
"Not one!" the witness answered indignantly. "No friend of mine
believed one word of the story!"
She flushed and paled again as she spoke. She shot one involuntary
glance towards the man who was so much more than a friend, and who had
almost believed that slander.
"You will admit, I think, Lady Perivale, that the story had been common
talk for a long time before this society journal got hold of it?"
"I know nothing about common talk."
"That will do, Lady Perivale," said the counsel.
Lady Perivale's butler and maid were the next witnesses.
They had been with their mistress at Porto Maurizio from November to
April, during which period she had never been absent from the villa for
twenty-four hours.
The defendant's counsel cross-examined both witnesses, and made a
praiseworthy--but unsuccessful--attempt to cast ridicule and doubt
upon the two old servants, whom he tried hard to place before the jury
as overpaid and venal hirelings, willing to perjure themselves to any
extent for their employer. He gratified his professional vanity by
letting off two or three forensic bon-mots, and succeeded in raising
a laugh or two at the expense of the country-bred Abigail and the
dignified London butler; but the endeavour to weaken their testimony
was an ignominious failure.
"That, my lord, would complete my case," said Sir Joseph Jalland,
"were it not essential that the falsehood and the folly of the slander
in this scurrilous rag," striking the _Bon Ton_ with his open hand,
"should be stamped out at once and for ever; and in order that this may
be effectually done--to prove indubitably that Lady Perivale was not
with Colonel Rannock during his Continental wanderings last winter, I
shall produce the person who was with him."
Miss Kate Delmaine stepped into the box, admirably dressed, like Lady
Perivale, in a black cloth gown, and wearing a sable toque almost of
the same fashion. A murmur of surprise ran round the Court, an excited
whispering and twittering, which the usher hastened to suppress.
Seen in that November gloom, the witness looked like Grace Perivale's
double.
Kate Delmaine! There were some among the wigs and gowns, and some among
the smart audience who remembered her in her brief career, a girl of
startling beauty, whose dazzling smile had beamed across the footlights
at the Spectacular Theatre for a season or two. They had seen, admired,
and forgotten her. She rose before them like the ghost of their youth.
"Will you tell me where you were living last February, Miss Delmaine?"
Sir Joseph began quietly, when her carmine lips had hovered over the
Book: "from the 7th to the 25th?"
"I was at the Mecca Hotel, in Algiers."
"Alone?"
"No. Colonel Rannock was with me."
"You were in Corsica and in Sardinia before that, I believe?"
"Yes."
"Also with Colonel Rannock?"
"Yes."
"In what capacity were you travelling with him?"
The phrase produced a faint titter, and the younger of the smart young
ladies became suddenly occupied with their muffs and lace handkerchiefs.
"We were travelling as Mr. and Mrs. Randall, if that's what you want to
know!" Miss Delmaine replied, with a look that challenged the Court to
think the worst of her.
"That is precisely what I want to know. You were going about with
Colonel Rannock as his wife--under the _nom de guerre_ of Randall?"
"Yes."
"Good! Pray, Miss Delmaine, can you tell me where Colonel Rannock is at
this present time?"
The witness had given her evidence in an agitated and angry manner
from the beginning. The bloom on her cheeks was hectic, and not rouge,
as the smart young women thought. Her eyes were unnaturally bright,
splendid eyes, that flashed angry fire. She had stood up boldly in her
place, defying the world's contempt; but it seemed as if the effort had
been too much for her. She looked distractedly round the court, turned
white as ashes, and fell in a dead faint, before she had answered the
counsel's question, which was irrelevant, and might not have been
allowed.
There was the usual rush with glasses of water and smelling-salts, and
the witness was carried out of court.
The Court then adjourned for luncheon. The picture-hats all waited,
sniffed salts and eau de Cologne, nibbled chocolates, hungry, and
yawning for want of air, but determined to see it out.
There was bitter disappointment for the curious impertinents when,
on the judge returning to his seat, Sir Joseph Jalland informed his
lordship that Mr. Brown Smith had offered an ample apology for the
offensive article in his paper, and that his client had no desire to
continue the action in a vindictive manner.
The judge highly approved of this course.
"If Lady Perivale brought this action in order to clear her character
of a most unmerited aspersion, she has been completely successful, and
can afford to be lenient," said his lordship, with feeling.
The defendant was to publish his apology, both in his own paper and
such other papers as Sir Joseph should name. He was to destroy every
number of his paper still unsold, and to call in any numbers remaining
in the hands of the retail trade, and was further to give one hundred
guineas to any charitable institution selected by the plaintiff.
Only to Lady Perivale's solicitors and to Mr. Faunce was it known
that the defendant would not be out of pocket either by this hundred
guineas, or for the costs of the action, against which a considerable
sum had been paid into his banking account by Mr. Faunce, before the
libel--written by that very Faunce, in collaboration with one of the
ladies who did the _Bon Ton_ gossip--appeared in Mr. Brown Smith's
popular journal.
Faunce had said there would be a libel when it was wanted, and Faunce,
who was an old friend of Brown Smith's, had produced the libel. Nobody
was any the worse, and Society was deeply humiliated at discovering
how cruelly it had misjudged a charming member of its own privileged
body. Lady Morningside and her husband made their way to Lady Perivale
directly the judge left his seat, and the old Marquis, with an
old-fashioned gallantry that recalled "Cupid" Palmerston, bent over
Grace's ungloved hand and kissed it: a demonstration that thrilled the
smart hats and eye-glasses.
Cards and letters of friendly congratulation poured in upon Lady
Perivale at Grosvenor Square that evening--letters from the people who
had cut her, making believe that the aloofness had been all on her side.
"And now, dear, after this plucky assertion of yourself, I hope you are
not going to shut yourself from your old friends any more. It has been
so sad to see No. 101 empty all the season, and not even to know where
you were to be found," concluded one of those false friends.
Grace flung the letters into her waste-paper basket with angry scorn.
"To think people can dare to pretend they did not know I was in town,
when I drove in the park nearly every day!" she exclaimed.
"I hope you are satisfied, madam," said Faunce, when he called upon
Lady Perivale the day after the trial.
No one had seen Faunce in court, though Faunce had seen and heard all
that happened there. His work had been finished before the case came
on, and the family solicitors in Bedford Row took all the credit of the
successful result, and congratulated Lady Perivale upon their acumen in
retaining Sir Joseph Jalland.
"I hope you are satisfied, madam," Faunce said modestly, when he called
in Grosvenor Square, in response to Lady Perivale's request.
"I am more than satisfied with your cleverness in bringing the wretched
business to an issue," she said; "and now all I hope is that I may be
able to forget it, and that I shall never hear Colonel Rannock's name
again."
"I hope you will not, madam--not in any unpleasant connection," Faunce
answered gravely.
"I must refer you for your professional charges to my lawyers, Mr.
Faunce," pursued Grace. "But I must beg you to accept the enclosed as a
token of my sincere gratitude for the trouble you have taken, and as a
souvenir of your success." She handed him an envelope.
"I assure you, Lady Perivale, I do not require anything beyond the
ordinary payment for my time and trouble."
"Oh, but you must take this, to please me," she answered. "I want you
to remember that I value your services at more than their professional
price."
She gave him her hand at parting, as she had given it at the end of
their first interview, and he thought more of that cordial handshake
than of her present, which he found to be a cheque for £500.
In the third week in December there was a very quiet wedding at St.
George's, Hanover Square, a marriage which was celebrated at half-past
eight o'clock in the morning, and at which the only witnesses were
Susan Rodney and Mr. George Howard, newly returned from Pekin--a
wedding so early and so quiet as to escape the most invincible of the
society paragraphists, the insatiable pens that had been writing about
this very marriage as an imminent event.
The bride's dark-grey cloth gown, sable-bordered travelling-cloak, and
black chip hat offered no suggestion of wedding raiment. The breakfast
was a _parti carré_ in the dining-room at Grosvenor Square; and the
married lovers were able to leave Charing Cross at eleven by the
Continental Express without provoking any more notice from the crowd
than the appearance of a beautiful woman, perfectly dressed for the
business in hand, and leading the most perfect thing in brown poodles,
must inevitably attract. The honeymooners were established at their
hotel in Cairo before the paragraphists had wind of the marriage.