The Return of Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

by Lillian de la Torre

  Appearing at Court on the occasion, she flaunted herself in white sattin encrusted with Brussels point and embroidered with a Duke’s ransom in pearls. She would give the world something to talk about!

  They talked with a will. They talked of Captain Hart, jilted on the Jamaica station. They talked of Mr. Eadwin Maynton sulking at home. They were still talking several years later when the old Duke suddenly died—of his Duchess’s obstreperous behaviour, said some with a frown, of her amorous charms, said others with a snigger.

  It was at this juncture that one morning in the year ’78 a crested coach drew rein in Bolt Court and a lady descended. From an upper window I looked down on her modish tall powdered head and her furbelowed polonaise of royal purple brocade.

  I turned from the window with a smile. “What, sir, you have an assignation with a fine lady? Am I de trop?”

  “You are never de trop, Bozzy. Pray remain, and let us see what this visitation portends.”

  The Duchess of Kingsford swept in without ceremony.

  “Pray forgive me, Dr. Johnson, my errand is to Mr. Boswell. I was directed hither to find him—I must have Mr. Boswell!”

  “And you shall have Mr. Boswell,” I cried warmly, “tho’ it were for wager of battle!”

  “You have hit it, sir! For my honour, perhaps my life, is at stake! You shall defend me, sir, in my need—and Dr. Johnson,” she added with a sudden flashing smile, “shall be our counsellor.”

  “If I am to counsel you, Madam, you must tell me clearly what is the matter.”

  “Know then, gentlemen, that in the winter last past, my dear husband the Duke of Kingsford died, and left me inconsolable—inconsolable, yet not bare, for in token of our undying devotion, he left me all that was his. In so doing, he cut off his nephew Eadwin with a few guineas, and therein lies the difficulty. For Mr. Eadwin is no friend to me. He has never spared to vilify me for a scheaming adventuress. And now he has hit upon a plan—he thinks—in one motion to disgrace me and deprive me of my inheritance. He goes about to nullify my marriage to the Duke.”

  “How can this be done, your Grace?”

  “He has resurrected the old gossip about Captain Hart, that we were secretly married at Linton long ago. The whole town buzzes with the tale, and the comedians lampoon me on the stage as Milday Bigamy.”

  “What the comedians play,” observed Dr. Johnson drily, “is not evidence. Gossip cannot harm you, your Grace—unless it is true.”

  “It is false. There was no such marriage. There might have been, it is true (looking pensive) had he not abandoned me, as Aeneas abandoned Dido, and put to sea in the Dangerous—leaving me,” she added frankly, “to make a better match.”

  “Then where is the difficulty?”

  “False testimony is the difficulty. Aunt Hammer is dead, and the clergyman is dead. But his widow is alive, and Eadwin has bought her. Worst of all, he has suborned Ann Crannock, my confidential woman that was and she will swear to the wedding.”

  “Are there marriage lines?”

  “Of course not. No marriage, no marriage lines.”

  “And the Captain? Where is he?”

  “At sea. He now commands a first-rate, the Challenger, and wins great fame, and much prize money, against the French. I am well assured I am safe in that quarter.”

  “Then,” said I, “this accusation of bigamy is soon answered. But I am not accustomed to appear at the Old Bailey.”

  “The Old Bailey!” cried she with scorn. “Who speaks of the Old Bailey? Shall a Duchess be tried like a greasy bawd at the Old Bailey? I am the Duchess of Kingsford! I shall be tried by my Peers!”

  “If you are Mrs. Aurelius Hart?”

  “I am not Mrs. Aurelius Hart! But if I were—Aurelius’s brothers are dead in the American war, his father the Earl is no more, and Aurelius is Earl of Westerfell. As Duchess or as Countess, I shall be tried by my Peers!”

  Flushed and with flashing eyes, the ci-devant. Maid of Honour looked every inch a Peeress as she uttered these words.

  “’Tis for this I must have Mr. Boswell. From the gallery in the House of Lords I recently heard him plead the cause of the heir of Douglas: in such terms of melting eloquence did he defend the good name of Lady Jane Douglas, I will have no other to defend mine!”

  My new role as the Duchess’s champion entailed many duties that I had hardly expected. There were of course long consults with herself and her solicitor, a dry, prosy old stick named Pettigree. But I had not counted on attending her strolls in the park, or carrying her bandboxes from the milliner’s.

  “And to-morrow, Mr. Boswell, you shall squire me to the ridotto.”

  “The masquerade! Your Grace jests!”

  “Far from it, sir. Eadwin Maynton seeks to drive me under ground, but he shall not succeed. No, sir; my heart is set on it, and to the ridotto I will go!”

  To the ridotto we went. The Duchess was regal in a domino of Roman purple over a gown of lavender lutestring, and wore a half-mask with a valance of provocative black lace to the chin. I personated a wizard, with my black gown strewn with cabbalistick symbols, and a conical hat to make me tall.

  It was a ridotto al fresco, in the groves of Vauxhall. In the soft May evening, we listened to the band of musick in the pavilion; we took a syllabub; we walked in the allées to hear the nightingale sing. It was pleasant strolling beneath the young green of the trees by the light of a thousand lamps, watching the masquers pass: a Boadicea in armour, a Hamlet all in black, an Indian Sultana, a muscular Harlequin with a long-nosed Venetian mask, a cowled monk—

  “So, Milady Bigamy!” The voice was loud and harsh. “You hide your face, as is fit, but we know you for what you are!”

  Passing masquers paused to listen. Pulling the mask from her face, the Duchess whirled on the speaker. A thin swarthy countenance glowered at her under the monk’s cowl.

  “Eadwin Maynton!” she said quietly. “Why do you pursue me? How have I harmed you? ’Twas your own folly that alienated your kind uncle.”

  “’Twas your machinations!” He was perhaps inebriated, and intent on making a scene. More listeners arrived to enjoy it.

  “I have irrefutable evidences of your double dealing,” he bawled, “and when it comes to the proof, I’ll un-duchess you, Milady Bigamy!”

  “This fellow is drunk. Come, Mr. Boswell.”

  The Duchess turned away contemptuously. Mr. Eadwin seized her arm and swung her back. The next minute he was flat on the ground, and a menacing figure in Harlequin’s patches stood over him.

  “What is your pleasure, Madam?” asked the Harlequin calmly. “Shall he beg pardon?”

  “Let him lie,” said the Duchess. “He’s a liar, let him lie.”

  “Then be off!”

  Maynton made off, muttering.

  “And you, ladies and gentlemen, the comedy is over.”

  Behind the beak-nosed mask, light eyes of ice-blue raked the gapers, and they began to melt away.

  “I thank you, my friend. And now, as you say, the comedy is over,” smiled the Duchess.

  “There is yet a farce to play,” said the Harlequin. “The Fatal Marriage.” He lifted his mask by its snout, and smiled at her. “Who, unless a husband, shall protect his lady wife?”

  The Duchess’s face stiffened.

  “I do not know you.”

  “What, forgot so soon?” His glance laughed at her. “Such is the fate of the sailor!”

  “Do not mock me, Aurelius. You know we are nothing to one another.”

  “Speak for yourself, Bellona.”

  “I will speak one word, then: Good-bye.”

  She reached me her hand, and I led her away. Captain Hart watched us go, his light eyes intent, and a small half-smile upon his lips.

  That was the end of Milady Duchess’s ridotto. What would come of it?

  Nothing good, I feared. My fears were soon doubled. Returning from the river one day in the Duchess’s carriage, we found ourselves passing by Mr. Eadwin Moynton’s lodgi
ng. As we approached, a man issued from the door, an erect figure in nautical blue, whose ruddy countenance wore a satisfied smile. He turned away without a glance in our direction.

  “Aurelius calling upon Eadwin!” cried the Duchess, staring after him. “What are they plotting against me?”

  To this I had no answer.

  Time was running out. The trial was looming close. In Westminster Hall, carpenters were knocking together scaffolding to prepare for the shew. At Kingsford House, Dr. Johnson was quoting Livy, I was polishing my oration, and old Pettigree was digging up learned instances.

  “Keep up your heart, your Grace,” said the solicitor earnestly in his rusty voice, “for should the worst befall, I have instances to shew that the penalty is no longer death at the stake—”

  “At the stake!” gasped the Duchess.

  “No, your Grace, certainly not, not death by burning. I shall prove it, but meerly branding on the hand—”

  “Branding!” shrieked the Duchess. Her white fingers clutched mine.

  “No alibi,” fretted old Pettigree, “no testimony from Linton on your behalf, Captain Hart in the adverse camp—no, no, your Grace must put your hope in me!”

  At such Job’s comfort Dr. Johnson could scarce repress a smile.

  “Hope rather,” he suggested, “in Mr. Boswell, for if these women lie, it must be made manifest in cross-examination. I shall be on hand to note what they say, as I once noted the Parliamentary debates from the gallery; and it will go hard but we shall catch them out in their lies.”

  Bellona Chamleigh lifted her head in a characteristick wilful gesture.

  “I trust in Mr. Boswell, and I am not afraid.”

  Rising early on the morning of the fateful day, I donned my voluminous black advocate’s gown, and a lawyer’s powdered wig that I had rented from Tibbs the perruquier for a guinea. I thought that the latter well set off my dark countenance, with its long nose and attentive look. Thus attired, I posted myself betimes outside Westminster Hall to see the procession pass.

  At ten o’clock it began. First came the factotums and the functionaries, the yeoman-usher robed, heralds in tabards, sergeants-at-arms with maces in their hands. Then the Peers paced into view, walking two and two, splendid in their crimson velvet mantles and snowy capes of ermine powdered with black tail-tips. Last came the Lord High Steward, his long crimson train borne up behind him, and so they passed into Westminster Hall.

  When I entered at last, in my turn as a lowly lawyer, the sight struck me with something like awe. The noble hall, with its soaring roof, was packed to the vault with persons of quality seated upon tier after tier of scaffolding. Silks rustled, laces fluttered, brocades glowed, high powdered foretops rose over all. Around three sides of the level floor gathered the Peers in their splendid robes.

  All stood uncovered as the King’s Commission was read aloud and the white staff of office was ceremoniously handed up to the Lord High Steward where he sat under a crimson canopy. With a sibilant rustle, the packed hall sat, and the trial began.

  “Oyez, oyez, oyez! Bellona, duchess-dowager of Kingsford, come into court!”

  She came in a little procession of her own, her ladies of honour, her chaplain, her physician and her apothecary attending; but every staring eye saw her only. Old Pettigree had argued in vain that deep mourning was the only wear; she would have none of it. She walked in proudly in white sattin embroidered with, pearls, that very court-dress she had flaunted as old Kingsford’s bride: “In token of my innocence,” she told old Pettigree.

  With a deep triple reverence she took her place on the elevated platform that served for a dock, and stood with lifted head to listen to the indictment.

  “Bellona, duchess-dowager of Kingsford, you stand indicted by the name of Bellona, wife of Aurelius Hart, now Earl of Westerfell, for that you, in the eleventh year of our sovereign lord King George the Third, being then married and the wife of the said Aurelius Hart, did marry and take to husband Philip Piercy, Duke of Kingsford, feloniously and with force and arms—”

  Though it was the usual legal verbiage to recite that every felony was committed “with force and arms,” the picture conjured up of little Bellona, like a highwayman, clapping a pistol to the old Duke’s head and marching him to the altar, was too much for the Lords. Laughter swept the benches, and the lady at the bar frankly joined in.

  “How say you? Are you guilty of the felony whereof you stand indicted, or not guilty?”

  Silence fell. Bellona sobered, lifted her head, and pronounced in her rich voice: “Not guilty!”

  “Culprit, how will you be tried?”

  “By God and my Peers.”

  “Oyez, oyez, oyez! All manner of persons that will give evidence on behalf of our sovereign lord the King, against Bellona, duchess-dowager of Kings-ford, let them come forth, and they shall be heard, for now she stands at the bar upon her deliverance.”

  Thereupon Edward Thurlow, Attorney General, came forth, formidable with his bristling hairy eyebrows and his growling voice like distant thunder.

  He began with an eloquent denunciation of the crime of bigamy, its malignant complection, its pernitious example, et caetera, et caetera. That duty performed, he drily recited the story of the alleged marriage at Linton as, he said, his witnesses would prove it.

  “And now, my Lords, we will proceed to call our witnesses. Call Margery Amys.”

  Mrs. Amys, the clergyman’s widow, was a tall stick of a woman well on in years, wearing rusty bombazine and an old-fashioned lawn cap tied under her nutcracker chin. She put a gnarled hand on the Bible the clerk held out to her.

  “Hearken to your oath. The evidence you shall give on behalf of our sovereign lord the King’s majesty, against Bellona duchess-dowager of Kings-ford, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.”

  The old dame mumbled something, and kissed the book. But when the questions began, she spoke up in a rusty screech, and graphically portrayed a clandestine marriage at Linton church in the year ’71.

  “They came by night, nigh upon midnight, to the church at Linton, and desired of the late Mr. Amys that he should join them two in matrimony.”

  Q. Which two?

  A. Them two, Captain Hart and Miss Bellona Chamleigh.

  Q. And did he so unite them?

  A. He did so, and I stood by and saw it done.

  Q. Who was the bride?

  A. Miss Bellona Chamleigh.

  Q. Say if you see her now present?

  A. (pointing) That’s her, her in white.

  The Duchess stared her down contemptuously.

  As I rose to cross-examine, I sent a glance to the upper tier, where sat Dr. Johnson. He was writing, and frowning as he wrote; but no guidance came my way. Making up with a portentous scowl for what I lacked in matter, I began:

  Q. It was dark at midnight?

  A. Yes, sir, mirk dark.

  Q. Then, Mrs. Amys, how did you see the bride to know her again?

  A. Captain Hart lighted a wax taper, and put it in his hat, and by that light they were married, and so I know her again.

  Q. (probing) You know a great deal, Madam. What has Mr. Eadwin Maynton give you to appear on his behalf?

  A. Nothing, sir.

  Q. What has he promised you?

  A. Nothing neither.

  Q. Then why are you here?

  A. (piously) I come for the sake of truth and justice, sir.

  And on that sanctimonious note, I had to let her go.

  “Call Ann Crannock!”

  Ann Crannock approached in a flurry of curtseys, scattering smiles like sweetmeats. The erstwhile confidential woman was a plump, round, rosy little thing, of a certain age, but still pleasing, carefully got up like a stage milkmaid in snowy kerchief and pinner. She mounted the platform with a bounce, and favoured the Attorney General with a beaming smile.

  The Duchess hissed something between her teeth. It sounded like “Judas!”

  The cler
k with his Bible hastily stepped between. Ann Crannock took the oath, smiling broadly, and Thurlow commenced his interrogation:

  Q. You were the prisoner’s woman?

  A. Yes, sir, and I love her like my own child.

  Q. You saw her married to Captain Hart?

  A. Yes, sir, the pretty dears, they could not wait for very lovesickness.

  Q. That was at Linton in July of the year 1771?

  A. Yes, sir, the third of July, for the Captain sailed with the Jamaica squadron on the fourth. Ah, the sweet poppets, they were loth to part!

  Q. Who married them?

  A. Mr. Amys, sir, the vicar of Linton. We walked to the church together, the lady’s Aunt Mrs. Hammer, and I myself, and the sweet lovebirds. The clock was going towards midnight, that the servants might not know.

  Q. Why must not the servants know?

  A. Sir, nobody was to know, lest the Captain’s father the Earl cut him off for marrying a lady without any fortune.

  Q. Well, and they were married by Mr. Amys. Did he give a certificate of the marriage?

  A. Yes, sir, he did, he wrote it out with his own hand, and I signed for a witness. I was happy for my lady from my heart.

  Q. You say the vicar gave a certificate. (Thurlow sharply raised his voice as he whipped out a paper.) Is this it?

  A. (clasping her hands and beaming with pleasure) O sir, that is it. See, there is my handwriting. Well I mind how the Captain kissed it and put it in his bosom to keep!

  “’Tis false!”

  The Duchess was on her feet in a rage. For a breath she stood so in her white sattin and pearls; then she sank down in a swoon. Her attendants instantly raised her and bore her out among them. I saw the little apothecary hopping like a grasshopper on the fringes, flourishing his hartshorn bottle.

  The Peers were glad enough of an excuse for a recess, and so was I. I pushed my way to the lobby in search of Dr. Johnson. I was furious. “The jade has lied to us!” I cried as I beheld him. “I’ll throw up my brief!”

  “You will do well to do so,” murmured the Attorney General at my elbow. He still held the fatal marriage lines.