The Lady of Lynn

by Walter Besant

This was a week or two after the event. I suppose that Lord Fylingdale was making himself assured as to the strength of his position and his rights. However, we were not to wait very long.

"I am of opinion," said the vicar, after many discussions on the case thus drawn out, "that we should lay the facts before some counsel learned in the law, and ascertain our position. If we are to contest the claim in court, we have, at least, the money to spend upon it."

"We will spend," said the captain, "our last penny upon it." He meant the last penny of his ward's fortune, in which, as you will hear, he was quite wrong, because he had now no power to spend any of it.

It was, therefore, determined that the vicar should undertake the journey to London; that my father should accompany him; that they should not only obtain the advice and opinion of a lawyer, but that they should ascertain, through the bookseller, my father's cousin, or any other person, what they could concerning the private life of his lordship. "There is no saying what we may discover," said the vicar. "How, if there is another wife still living? Even a noble lord cannot have two wives at the same time."

It seems strange that one must make greater preparations for a journey to London by land than a voyage to Lisbon by sea. As regards the latter, my kit is put together in an hour or two, and I am then ready to embark. But as regards the former, these two travellers first considered the easiest way; then the cost of the journey, and that of their stay in London; then the departure of others, so as to form a company against highway robbers; they then arranged for the halting and resting-places; hired their horses, for they were to ride all the way; engaged a servant; made their wills, and so at last were ready to begin the journey. Their company consisted of two or three riders to merchants of London, who travel all over the country visiting the shop-keepers in the interests of their masters. They are excellent fellow-travellers, being accustomed to the road, having no fear of highwaymen, knowing the proper charges that should be made at the roadside inns, and knowing, as well, what each house can be best trusted to provide, the home brewed ale being good at one house, and the wine at another—and so forth. They reckoned five days for the journey if the weather continued fine—it was then July, and the height of summer. The vicar thought that perhaps a week or ten days would suffice for their business in town, and therefore we might expect them back in three weeks. Captain Crowle would have gone with them, but was fearful of losing his ward. For the first time in his life he barred and bolted his doors at night, and if he went abroad he left his house in the custody of his gardener, a stout country lad who would make a sturdy fight in case of any attempt at violence. But violence was not a weapon which was in favour with his lordship. And if it had been, the whole town would have risen in defence of Molly.

For three weeks, therefore, we waited. I, for my part, in greater anxiety than the rest, because my ship had now received her cargo, and I feared that we should have to weigh anchor and slip down the river before the return of our messengers. And at this time when we knew not what would happen or what we should do many wild schemes came into my head. We would carry the girl away; we would foreclose her mortgages, sell her lands, and carry her fortune with her; we would sail in one of her own ships across the Atlantic and make a new home for her in the American colonies. However, in the end we had, as you shall learn, to accept misfortune and to resign ourselves to what promised to be a lifelong penalty inflicted for no sins of Molly's—who was as free from sin as any woman, not a saint, can hope to be—but by the wickedness of a man whose life and ways were far removed from Molly, and might have been supposed to be incapable of afflicting her in any way.

Our friends, therefore, started on their journey, arriving in due time at London, when they began their business without delay. Briefly, they were recommended to a very learned counsel, old, and in great practice, whose opinions were more highly valued than those perhaps of any other lawyer. He was avaricious, and it was necessary to pay him a very handsome fee before he would consider the case. When he accepted the fee he gave it his most careful consideration. His opinion was as follows:

"The fact that there was a marriage between A. and some woman—B. or another—is undoubted. The evidence of the parish clerk may be set aside except to prove this fact, because it does not appear that the bride removed her domino. It might, however, become a part of B.'s case that the clergyman did not witness the removal of the domino. What the clerk saw was a woman dressed in a pink silk cloak with a hood over her head, and a domino concealing her face, who signed the name of Mary Miller. For the same reason the evidence of John Pentecrosse rests only on the dress of the bride, and may therefore be taken as worth that and no more.

"At the same time the dress of the bride is important. A. had no intimation of B.'s refusal to keep her promise. At six o'clock, as is allowed, he presented himself. If B. was not there, how should he be able, at a moment's notice, to procure a woman to personate her, wearing a cloak of the same colour as B.'s, and ready to sign her name falsely? The theory is impossible, for it demands a whole chain of fortuitous occurrences and coincidences, as that A. should find a woman of abandoned character accidentally near the church, ready to commit this crime, dressed as B. was expected to dress, and considered worthy of trust with so great a secret. On the other hand we have evidences of an apparently conclusive kind. B.'s guardian, who was taking the morning air in his garden, says positively that no one left the house. B.'s mother and her black servant declare that B. was in the kitchen with them all the morning. This, I say, seems at first conclusive. But the court would probably hold that a mother's evidence is likely to be in the supposed interests of her child, while a negress would be expected, if she were attached to her mistress, to give any evidence that she thought likely to be of service or was directed to give.

"The case is remarkable, and, so far as I know, without precedent. It is supported on either side by flat assertions which are either true or deliberate perjuries. As regards the bad character of A., I think it would have very little weight. Setting aside, that is, his evil reputation, which might perhaps taint his evidence, and also setting aside the partiality of a mother, which might also, perhaps, taint her evidence, we have the broad and simple facts that A. had no warning of B.'s intention to keep away; that he presented himself according to arrangement; that he was met by a woman dressed exactly as had been arranged with B.; that they were married; and that the register was signed by the woman in the name of B.