The Story of My Life, volumes 1-3

by Augustus J. C. Hare

"I was so afraid of doing mischief, I scarcely knew what to say, but the general point I urged was that I had heard from a Catholic priest to whom I had spoken on the subject that the accusation of poison originated with the Abbess, who had told my informant that Miss Hare had said so to her!—and that my informant was ready to hold her to these words."

I do not think that any words could describe my misery at this time—"battered and fretted into great sorrow of heart," as Carlyle would say. It was naturally of far more consequence to me than to any one else to screen the miserable Francis, whom I alone had cared for and helped during the long years of his prison life, and who was now—as a last resource—consenting to extort what was equivalent to hush-money from me—either hush-money to save the family from the exposure of his own past life, or a provision for life from the Roman Catholic conspirators, if they were successful in the scheme to which he lent himself. Yet I possessed nothing, and even if I could have brought myself to let the Roman Catholics so far triumph, I could not have allowed my adopted mother to impoverish herself by the purchase of their silence. And all the time there was the unutterable weariness of contradicting all the false reports, of making over and over again the statement that if my sister were poisoned, then Francis, who had never seen her during her illness, was innocent of her death, but that if she were not poisoned, then the moral cause of it must be attributed to him; and mingled through the whole were silent bursts of indignant misery over the cruel sufferings which Esmeralda had undergone, and the calumnious falsehood of her friends, with anguish over her so recent death.

When it became quite evident that the only real object of the conspiracy was to extort money from me, because I was supposed to be, as Mrs. Dunlop expressed it, "the richest of the family," I did all I could to save family scandal by offering to withdraw the letter to Mrs. Montgomery altogether. My solicitor made every possible offer on my part, but was always answered that they must have "pecuniary compensation,"—in fact, it was always made a question of buying back the letter to Mrs. Montgomery. The conspirators, as Mrs. Dunlop said, were "resolved to prosecute," and wished to use the letter to Mrs. Montgomery because "it was more convenient to use than anything else." They would listen to nothing, consider nothing. Is it not Whyte-Melville who says, "I never knew but one woman who could understand reason, and she wouldn't listen to it?"

When we knew that the trial was inevitable, we did what we could to prepare for it. I was strongly advised to put the case entirely into the hands of my sister's solicitor, who was already acquainted with all the dark page of Francis' past life, rather than to give it to my adopted mother's respectable, old-fashioned solicitor, who was totally unacquainted with it. I afterwards regretted this course, as the one remark made by the latter, "that the Abbess should now be allowed to deliver her message," showed greater perspicuity than anything which was done by the former. He, on the contrary, insisted that there should be no communication at all with Pierina till just before the trial, and begged that I would not see her at all; he also allowed himself entirely to lose sight of the servants, in spite of my repeated entreaties. His plan seems to have consisted in ferreting out all the proofs of what Francis' conduct had been for many years past, and of the way in which he preyed upon his sister during the last year of his life, as shown by his own letters and my sister's accounts, which were in our hands.

In the "declaration of the action for libel" it was set forth as the necessary "injury" that it had caused Francis to be avoided by all his friends and acquaintances. Upon this we sued for particulars. Francis returned a list of the persons whom he declared to have been led to avoid him—"Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Dunlop, Mr. Monteith, Mrs. Monteith, Marchioness of Lothian, and Miss Bowles," a list which included the very persons (several of whom he had not known before) who were at that time in constant communication with him, and were bringing on and subscribing for the action, which was nominally on his behalf. On Tuesday, July 28, the Roman Catholic lawyer asked permission to fix the day for the trial. This courtesy was not refused. He fixed the day instantly and summoned his witnesses, but he did not let us know till Saturday, August 1, that the trial was to be on Monday, August 3, when, owing to the want of a London post on Sunday, it was most difficult, almost impossible, to summon the witnesses on our side.

On Friday, July 31, my acting solicitor went to Monsignor Paterson and took down his deposition as to Pierina's account to him of the death-bed. Monsignor Paterson then deposed that "the message" had been given by my sister in the form already described, and that my sister had also said she was "poisoned, and knew that she died of poison." Upon receiving this evidence, my solicitor naturally felt sure of his cause. He then went to see the Abbess Pierina in Mecklenburgh Square, when, to his utter amazement, she totally denied ever having received the message; but (being terrified by threats as to the "legal consequences" which might accrue to her) she did not then say that the message had been given to the servants and by them delivered to her to give to Francis.

On Saturday afternoon, August 1, Monsignor Paterson again saw Pierina, and, to his amazement, was informed that the message which he had so positively declared to have been given to the Abbess was not what Miss Hare said to her, but what Miss Hare had said to the maids, who had told her. Monsignor Paterson wrote this immediately to my solicitor, who (owing to the want of London post on Sunday) only received it in court.

On Saturday, August 1, the announcement came that the trial would take place at Guildford on Monday the 3rd. On Monday morning Mary Stanley and I drove early to the Waterloo station to go down to Guildford. There were so many passengers for the trial that a special train was put on. At the station I was close to Mr. Monteith, who had come from Scotland to represent his wife, and young Gerard, who was to open the prosecution, but there was no speech between us. Sir Alexander Taylor went down with us, and at Guildford we were joined by many other friends.

The heat of that day was awful, a broiling sun and not a breath of air. We had a little room to meet in at the hotel. Almost immediately I was hurried by my solicitor to the room where our senior counsel, the great Hawkins, was breakfasting at the end of a long table. He complained of the immense mass of evidence he had had to go through. He said—what I knew—that such a trial must expose terrible family scandals—that it would be a disgrace not to snatch at any chance of bringing it to a close—that probably the judge would give it for private investigation to some other Queen's counsellor—that, in fact, it was never likely to be a trial.

When I came down from Mr. Hawkins, Mary Stanley and I were taken to court. There were so many cases to be tried, that ours could not come on for some time. As Leycester Penrhyn was there, who was chairman of the Quarter Sessions at Guildford, we were given places on the raised daïs behind the judge, and there we all sat waiting through many hours. In that intensely hot weather, the court-house, with its high timber roof and many open windows, was far cooler than the outer air, and we did not suffer from the heat. But the judge, Baron Martin, whom I have heard described as far more at home on a racecourse than on the judgment-seat, was suffering violently from diarrhœa, was most impatient of the cases he had to try, and at last snatched his wig from his head and flung it down upon the ground beside him.