Dawn: Chapter 67
Chapter 67
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.