Miser Farebrother: A Novel (vol. 3 of 3)

by B. L. Farjeon

CHAPTER XI.

THE TRIAL AND VERDICT—EXTRACTED FROM A POPULAR DAILY PAPER.

"The trial of Phœbe Farebrother for the murder of her father, commonly known as Miser Farebrother, terminated last evening, and will be long remembered as one of the most remarkable and painful in criminal records. The extraordinary interest exhibited by the public in the case is only partially due to the murder itself and to the relations which existed between the unhappy prisoner and the deceased; chiefly it may be set down to the youth and beauty of the young woman who was accused of a crime so horrible and atrocious. As she stood in the dock it was almost impossible to believe that a being so lovely and gentle could harbour a thought that was not innocent and pure, and the demeanour of those who were present at the trial was sufficient to prove that popular sympathy was enlisted on her side. Fitting it is—and especially fitting in this case—that justice should be blind.

"Now that the trial is over, the verdict given, and the sentence pronounced, we propose to devote some brief attention to those features in it which rendered it remarkable. The case is one of circumstantial evidence, and turned no less upon the statements of those who testified uncompromisingly against the prisoner than upon the statements of her friends, whose sorrowful evidence weighed heavily against her.

"The household of Miser Farebrother, in the lifetime of the unfortunate man, was eminently cold and cheerless. Love occupied no place therein. A man of wealth and means, all the avenues of enjoyment were open to him, but he cared only for the accumulation of money. This may be said to have been his one object, and he devoted to it all his energies. An attempt was made to prove that he was of an affectionate and tender nature, and that his behaviour toward his child was that of a loving father, but this view of his character may be unhesitatingly dismissed. It renders the crime no less heinous; that he was ruthlessly murdered is an established fact.

"He had earned the sobriquet of 'miser,' and he was entitled to it. A miser he was, whose supreme passion was that of accumulating wealth. His business—that of a money-lender—was in keeping with his ambition, and enabled him to compass it. Had he been animated by sentiments of a nobler kind they would have found vent in action which would have won for him esteem and gratitude; but he did good neither openly nor by stealth. That the two persons who served him, Mrs. Pamflett and her son, Jeremiah Pamflett, should speak well of him is natural and to their credit. Were it left to them to write his epitaph mankind would be deceived—as it is in many instances by words graven on tombstones.

"He led in Parksides practically a lonely existence, and it would be difficult to imagine a more mournful picture than that of a motherless child brought up amidst such surroundings. Spacious as are the grounds of Parksides, they were allowed to run to waste; with the exception of his house-keeper and her son he had not a friend; he received no visitors, and neither dispensed nor accepted hospitality of any kind; his child had no child companions, and between her and her father's servants existed a feeling of strong antipathy; he made no effort to provide her with any sort of education; in the great house they occupied the light of home never shone. His daughter, however, was not entirely without friends. Her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Lethbridge, and their two children, lived in London, and for some years past Phœbe Farebrother has been in the habit of visiting their house, and of participating, through them, in ordinary and moderate enjoyments. We may at once admit that the character borne by Mr. and Mrs. Lethbridge is unimpeachable—and this, despite the evidence given by Mrs. Pamflett and her son, in which may be discerned a distinct bias against them as designing persons, whose aim was to extort money from the murdered man. No direct testimony to the establishment of this view is forthcoming, and the general repute of the Lethbridges is a contradiction of it. A feeling of bitterness appears to have existed for years between these parties; on one side, Miser Farebrother and Mrs. and Jeremiah Pamflett; on the other, Miser Farebrother's unhappy daughter and her relatives in London. This was the state of affairs when Phœbe Farebrother, a few weeks before her father's death, left his house, and found her way to her aunt's home in London, where she was received with open arms.

"There are side issues to which we do not intend to refer at any length; these issues relate to Miser Farebrother's desire that his daughter should marry a man of his choosing, and to her having already set her affections upon a man of whom her father did not approve. In connection with these opposing desires is an incident which will presently be mentioned.

"It has been elicited that on the night of Miser Farebrother's murder, and for some time previous, the Lethbridges were in pecuniary difficulties, to extricate them from which a sum of money was immediately required. A puzzling feature in the whole of this sad case is the absolute frankness which the Lethbridges have displayed as to their position and the movements of the prisoner up to the hour when the warrant for her arrest was issued. So far as can be seen there has been no concealment whatever of anything within their knowledge, and this is the more strange because much of their evidence told directly against the prisoner.

"There seemed to be only one way of obtaining the money required to extricate the Lethbridges from their difficulties, and that was by a successful application to Miser Farebrother. There is no evidence that they asked their niece to appeal to her father in their behalf; they positively deny having done so, and she herself says that no word fell from their lips to that effect. When she left their house in London with the intention of proceeding to Parksides, she did so without their knowledge. There can be no doubt that she was actuated by a wish to help them. From the moment she left them until she returned the next morning in a state of prostration, physically and mentally, they are in darkness as to what occurred, and can throw no light whatever upon her movements. During that night Miser Farebrother met his death. At the trial three articles were brought in evidence against the prisoner. The first is a brooch presented to her on her last birthday by Mrs. Pamflett. This brooch was found in the grounds of Parksides, near to the body of the murdered man. There is conflicting testimony upon the subject of this brooch. Mr. and Mrs. Lethbridge and their daughter, Miss Fanny Lethbridge, have no recollection of having seen the brooch from the time the prisoner left Parksides to take up her residence with them. They cannot swear that on the fatal night she did not wear it; but Miss Lethbridge is positive that her cousin did not bring it with her from Parksides. The two young women slept together, and not a word passed between them with respect to this ornament. Miss Lethbridge's statement, therefore, is based upon an assumption. The prisoner avers that when she quitted her father's house she did not take the brooch with her. On the other hand, Mrs. Pamflett swears positively that the prisoner did take it away with her. The house-keeper made repeated examinations of the room in Parksides in which the prisoner slept, and never saw the brooch after she left. Here, then, we have a positive oath against a vague assumption, and this sworn evidence is strengthened by the fact of the brooch having been found close to the body of her master. If the prisoner did not wear it on the night of the murder, how could it have got into the grounds?