Page 24 of The Heroic Mr Darcy’s Bad Manners
The atmosphere at Limerick House was much improved, even though speculations ran rampant in every newspaper, and they were still not certain whether there would be a new trial. The shocking revelation was the talk of town. The Matlocks received the brunt of the public ire, widening the chasm between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy. He would never reacquaint himself with the Limericks and Glentworths when his own family were disgraced by their actions. His pride would never allow it.
It was a good thing that the colonel was their second son. Yet in a moment of dark despair, he offered Jane the opportunity to withdraw from their engagement.
Jane would hear none of it and more or less demanded that the banns be read as soon as possible. She was not about to abandon him in his time of need when he had remained by her side through her family’s fall from grace. “For better or for worse,” she gently reminded her dear colonel.
Everything was proceeding in their favour until one day, when her father came home sporting an expression of consternation.
“Pray! What is the matter? Did the court deny us a new trial?” Elizabeth hastened to her father’s side and offered to fetch him a glass of port.
He accepted and requested that Elizabeth join him in the study. He sat down at Limerick’s desk, steepled his fingers, and glanced unseeingly into the air. Dread settled in Elizabeth’s stomach as her father’s contemplations lasted much longer than she was comfortable with. At last, his eyes seemed to settle on her.
“The strangest thing happened at my attorney’s office today,” her father admitted, sending another frisson of unease down her spine. “A Scottish gentleman, the owner of Stonehaven Castle, has written to Mr Gardiner. He asserts that he bought a forged scarab from the Campbells no more than five years ago.”
Elizabeth nodded; this was good news. “Was it one of our Banchory cousins?” she asked. It may not be helpful if the witness was a relation, even a remote one, because his integrity might be called into question.
“No. I am certain it was not one of our relations. The gentleman wished to remain anonymous, and we both know that it is not in any Bennet’s nature to allow anyone else to take credit for our accomplishments.”
“As it should be.” She smiled wryly.
“Further investigations have proved that they are still producing counterfeits to this day. They only changed their market. A shipment has been discovered, destined for France. I dare say the Prince Regent would wish it would continue as he harbours no qualms against fooling the French.
“ I am stunned that after nigh on twenty-three years I have a decent chance of clearing Catherine’s name. I know it will not bring her back, yet I cannot help but think that I should have done more at the time…”
Elizabeth was about to excuse him. At the time he had been a young man of barely one-and-twenty. Too young to be burdened with such a task. Then she remembered that was almost the same age as Mr Darcy had come into his inheritance, with the responsibility of not only a vast estate but also a grieving young sister. She loved her father dearly—enough to realise he was not without faults, of which some were more grievous than others, but love was unconditional in its purest form. Instead of offering him empty platitudes, she rose, circled his desk to give him a warm hug, and left him to his thoughts.
The court accepted their petition to reopen the trial, which was set to be held on the fifteenth of May. Jane was determined to wed very soon after it ended. She was only willing to postpone it for that long to allow her father and Uncle Henry to participate. The last day of May was finally agreed upon.
#
The Old Bailey, Friday 15 th May 1812, before The Right Hon. Claudius Stephen Hunter, Lord-Mayor of the city of London.
Elizabeth followed a vexed Lord Glentworth elbowing and pushing his way forwards through the staring mass of simpletons and doorway idlers gathered before the Justice-Hall. The trial of John Bellingham, who had shot the prime minister two days earlier, was to begin later in the day. The aggravated spectators had assembled at the Old Bailey for hours in advance for a chance to spit, curse, and scowl at the perpetrator. A frightened Elizabeth kept her head low whilst trying not to lose sight of her family.
The crush was no less unbearable inside, and the next moment she stood face to face with the Mr Campbell who had accosted her at Lady Jersey’s Christmas ball.
Mr Campbell effectively blocked her path and hissed, “Your father is delusional if he supposes this travesty of a court case will clear his name. The only advantage will be the name of Campbell resurrected to its former veneration. Your treasonous aunt is burning in hell, as she deserves.” He paused and raised his chin. “You may quote me to your father.”
“I certainly shall not deign to repeat such rubbish,” Elizabeth cried.
“Eilís?” Grandmother Bennet was at her side and laced their arms in a broad but short united front. “What is the meaning of this? You are blocking the entrance.”
“He!” Elizabeth exclaimed and glared at the interloper. “He would not let me pass and has been spouting nonsense.”
Her grandmother stepped forwards, but the nincompoop moved to stop her when Elizabeth felt a comforting hand on her back.
“Move!” the Marquess of Limerick shouted so loudly the entire hall quieted.
The scoundrel dared not oppose her uncle with all the attention directed at him, and he allowed them to pass.
“Who was that man?” Elizabeth whispered in her grandmother’s ear.
“The baronet Catherine married had a son from a previous marriage, and that was he. The Campbells have been shunned in good society ever since the counterfeit became known. I suppose the young man blames Catherine for his misfortunes.”
That certainly explained a great deal, and Elizabeth could not but be grateful for Mr Darcy’s timely rescue at Lady Jersey’s ball. Mr Campbell’s intent had likely not been to force her to wed him but to destroy her reputation. Thank heavens for Mr Darcy!
They found their seats in the first row and waited for the trial to begin.
The court’s Mr Baron Graham opened the case. “Lady Campbell was tried by the second Middlesex Jury before Mr Baron Hotham. The court proceeded to pass sentence as follows. Guilty, death.”
The courtroom erupted in a melee of shouts before the judge called the room to order. He had to threaten to evict them all before the spectators quieted.
Fiona Alcorn was sworn.
“I am Fiona Alcorn. I was Lady Campbell’s lady’s maid and had accompanied her on her visit to Mrs MacLeod on that fateful morning. Upon our return, Viscount Crawford, now Lord Matlock, the magistrate Mr Castleton, and the officer Robert Dawson were cataloguing a number of items I had never seen before.”
“How long had you been in Lady Campbell’s employ?”
“Nearly two years.”
“Describe to the jury what you witnessed in the dressing room or any other chamber at Lady Campbell’s disposal.”
“I never saw anything of note. There was the usual attire, some jewellery, and shoes. Cosmetics and the like. She did not smoke the pipe,” she assured the court with disgust. “Nor had I seen the metal, the vials with aqua-fortis, or moulds ever before in her possession.”
“What about Egyptian artefacts? A scarab or any other jewellery?”
“She had none,” the maid replied with conviction.
“The prisoner pleaded she was with child. I see that a jury of matrons were sworn in, who returned with a verdict the forewoman delivered. In their opinion, if she was with child, it was very young, for she had not felt the quickening.”
“I believe Lady Campbell spoke the truth, but it was as the matrons declared, too young to have quickened.”
“Why did you not witness, madam?” Lord Glentworth’s barrister thundered.
“I was never called, and the distance from Dollar to London was quite out of my reach. Immediately after Lady Campbell’s arrest, I was offered a position with the Duchess of Argyll. You could not expect me to refuse, though it has weighed heavily upon me these past three-and-twenty years that she was burnt at the stake. I dare say if her innocence was not enough to save her, a child should have been.”
The crowd murmured their acquiescence whilst Elizabeth gasped in horror and turned to her grandmother. “She was burnt alive?”
“No, Elizabeth. They strangled her first, then waited half an hour to be certain she was dead before they lit the fire.”
“You were there?”
“Certainly. I could not abandon my child at her most trying moment. We were all there, your father and Henry, to offer what we could of solace and prayer. She was so frightened I hardly kept my composure.”
Elizabeth felt tears well in her eyes. “How you must have suffered!”
“I did not suffer—I grieved, I raged, and I felt bereft. I still do at times. But I could not allow myself to wallow in misery. I had a bereaved son to care for, and soon after an agglomeration of granddaughters to dote upon. Later, my brother needed me to keep his house. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to be of use to my dear relations. The loss is permanent, but others filled the gaping void, little by little, until the sorrow became bearable.”
Miss Alcorn left the stand, and Lord Matlock was called and sworn in.
The earl cleared his throat. “My presence was requested by the local magistrate who wanted me to join him as an independent witness to his search of the lady’s private quarters. We entered her bedchamber but found nothing of note. Proceeding to Lady Campbell’s dressing room, we found that she was in the act of making shillings and sixpences.”
“Why did a rich lass make sixpences when she could’ve made ten-pound notes?” someone mumbled amongst the spectators.
Lord Matlock disregarded the question and continued his narrative. “We confiscated the moulds, two tobacco pipes for melting the metal, copper, pewter, tin, lead, aqua-fortis, sandpaper, cork, a polishing board, and other finishing implements like crumbled Cheshire cheese used to colour the coins to make them look old.”
“Did you question why you found proof of coining when she was accused of counterfeiting Egyptian artefacts?”
“I did not. I supposed it was irrelevant which kind of counterfeiting we discovered as long as we found proof to support the assertion.”
“’Tis cause coining’s treason. Ye wanted ’er to ’ang!” someone shouted from the upper tier.
The judge quieted the shouting and gestured for Lord Matlock to continue his narrative.
“The lady returned twenty minutes later. We tied her hands and searched the contents of her reticule. We found two good shillings and a good half-crown immediately, but after ripping out the lining, we found a bad sixpence.”
“Did anything at all pass between you and Lady Campbell that could possibly induce her to hope that if she told the truth, it would be better for her. Even a means of escaping?”
“No. I guarded her against it. The first question she asked me was what I thought they would do to her. I replied that it was impossible for me to answer such a question and that it was a pity that she, as a lady, would give way to such business as coining.”
“Did she ever deny the accusations?”
“Yes. She pleaded her innocence and said she had never been concerned in any kind of counterfeit. I showed her the scarab that Lord Carnarvon had purchased at Robert Romani’s hosier shop in Friday Street, Cheapside. The signature on the receipt proved that the scarab had come from Lady Campbell. She denied any knowledge, and that was nearly all the conversation we had.”
Mr Castleton, the magistrate at the time, had long since passed, and a summary from his testimony in 1789 was read by a barrister. It coincided with Lord Matlock’s rendition of events.
“How long would you say it took from the magistrate’s arrival before the search of Lady Campbell’s suite commenced?” Lord Matlock was asked.
“I would say about an hour.”
“Would you deem that enough time to move the items you discovered into the accused’s quarters?”
“Perhaps, but we only postponed the search because we were waiting for the lady to arrive home.”
“Yet, you did not wait until she returned.”
Lord Matlock looked uncomfortable. “No. I believe the magistrate wanted to be finished with it to allow him to return home before nightfall.”
“You may step down, Lord Matlock.”
Four witnesses were called who all gave Lady Campbell a good character.
The judge rubbed his chin and appeared impatient to finish this postmortem conundrum.
“Miss Alcorn’s testimony would have saved Lady Campbell from her death sentence, but it does not prove her innocence. Her husband, Sir Arthur Campbell, died in May 1811 and cannot be questioned. I have a scarab delivered from a gentleman who prefers to remain anonymous. He asserts in his letter that it was purchased from the Campbells only five years ago, but without his testimony I cannot change the verdict.”
A gentleman rose to Elizabeth’s left. “It was I,” rang out a deep and familiar baritone voice.
“Step forwards, Mr Darcy.”
The gentleman was sworn in before the questions proceeded.
Elizabeth stared at Mr Darcy, unabashed. His back was turned, so she was safe from notice though not unaware of the telling glance that passed between her sister and grandmother. It had been months since they had last been together at Darcy House, and she believed he had avoided her company because of the scandal. So why was he here? What could he mean by it?
“Inform the jury how you came to be in possession of this scarab,” Lord Glentworth’s barrister implored.
“It was part of a shipment about to set sail from Stonehaven Harbour—”
“I thought the port was destroyed by a storm?” Lord Matlock’s barrister interrupted.
“It was, but not in its entirety. You can dock small vessels on what is left, which is where my ship was when Campbell’s sailors dropped a crate, and that scarab was one of the items that fell out when it broke. It was slightly damaged in the accident. As you can see, there is a chip on the left side. Sir Arthur offered it to me for a pittance of what it was worth. At the time I reckoned it was due to the damage. Not before this winter, when rumours began circulating about counterfeited Egyptian artefacts, did I begin to suspect foul play.
“My conscience demanded that I investigate my suspicions. First, I searched for and found Lady Campbell’s lady’s maid. Because of my recent purchase I had reason to believe that the forgery had continued long after Lady Campbell’s unfortunate demise. I understand that she was tried in September 1789, after only five months of marriage. She could not, within that abbreviated time span, have made all the items that I have since discovered to have been shipped from Stonehaven Harbour to the port of Le Havre. To be certain, I enquired of Miss Alcorn how much luggage Lady Campbell had brought to Dollar upon her marriage, and it was not substantial beyond her wardrobe and personal items. My conclusion was that Lady Campbell was innocent.”
It seemed to Elizabeth that Mr Darcy had gone to a great deal of trouble to find a lady’s maid twenty-three years after her last known position and discover the smuggling route of seasoned contrabandists. The task must have occupied him for… Good gracious! This is why he left town so abruptly after the disastrous dinner at his house. Colonel Fitzwilliam said he had travelled to one of his lesser estates to resolve a problem. But why had he not said so? Elizabeth answered her own question: Because if Lord Matlock had known, he would surely have done everything in his power to stop him…
“Do you know how many shipments have been sent to France?”
“No, not precisely, but it was indicated at least two shipments a year, though none has left since Sir Arthur died last May…”
“I believe we have enough to decide, unless you have anything further to add, Mr Darcy.”
“No, My Lord.”
The judge concluded by advising the jury to take all the facts into their most serious consideration. “If you have any doubt, give the accused the benefit of that doubt. But if you conceive Lady Campbell guilty of the crime alleged against her, in that case you find her guilty.”
The jury, after two minutes of consultation in the box, expressed a wish to retire, and a sworn officer of the court accompanied them to the jury room.
“Do you believe the jury will be out long?” Elizabeth probed her grandmother whilst keeping Mr Darcy in the periphery of her vision. He was approached by an incensed Lord Matlock but remained calm when answering his uncle’s accusations.
“No, I surmise it will not take long to acquit Catherine. I only wish we had had a Mr Darcy twenty-three years ago…”
Her obstinate eyes strayed to the aforementioned gentleman, and she watched her father approach him. Lord Matlock left in a fury whilst Lord Glentworth shook hands with Mr Darcy, and they spoke quietly between themselves. At a moment of contemplating something her father said, he turned to her, and for the briefest of moments, their eyes met.
Her grandmother must have heard her sharp intake of breath because she was studying her with interest. But Mr Darcy wore such a wistful, tired expression she could not help the compassion swelling in her breast. Then it struck her! He had witnessed against his own relations, in favour of her family. What could he mean by it? Of course, his sense of justice and obligation must have been his concern. Even if it was to the detriment of himself…
She must think of something to say because her grandmother’s gaze was becoming intolerable.
“I am shocked,” Elizabeth whispered. “How very noble of Mr Darcy to suffer such detriments to his own family for the sake of ours.”
“Certainly, but in my experience, young men do not sacrifice their good name merely because it is just. I believe he has made you his study—and not to find blemishes, mind you. I sensed a deep connection that you so vehemently denied. Do you have an understanding with the gentleman?”
Elizabeth’s heart hammered as if to escape the confinement of her chest. She was about to deny its fondest wish without betraying the sentiment so utterly without hope of fruition. “No. Blemishes are easily discovered. I must suppose his disappointment at my lack of any spurred him to find other faults.”
Her grandmother frowned. “Mr Darcy must be the exception, then. A most excellent example of a respectable and admirable man.”
Elizabeth was inclined to agree and nodded her head.
“How unfortunate, though I never perceived him as one of those violent young lovers who would rant and storm on behalf of their heart’s intended. He is reserved, to be sure, and likes to carry his own way. Even though I cannot account for this blessing, I am inclined to accept it as his sacrifice is much in our favour.”
Elizabeth was quite relieved her grandmother had not questioned her about her sentiments. She had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not.
The jury was out for just fourteen minutes, and on their return to court, their countenances indicated acquittal.
Their names were called, their verdict was asked for in its usual form, and the foreman announced the decision. “Not guilty upon the indictment of counterfeit.” The Recorder passed the sentence of the third Middlesex jury before Sir James Mansfield in a solemn manner.
The Glentworths and Limericks rose. No one felt the need to celebrate but had to forge through the crush to leave. Elizabeth had hoped to secure a moment of Mr Darcy’s time, if only to express her gratitude, but her lithe frame had not the strength to withstand the sturdy men who elbowed their way to the door. She left just in time to see Mr Darcy step into his carriage and drive away.
She understood better his haste when Lord Matlock nudged her out of his way and shouted his nephew’s name. She would not think his retreat an act of cowardice but a wise decision to move the confrontation that would surely unfold to a more private quarter.
Her father took hold of her arm and pulled her out of the swarming masses.
“We owe Mr Darcy our gratitude. I hope, at the very least, that you invited him to dine with us?” Elizabeth entreated.
“I did,” her father replied, sending a surge of hope through Elizabeth.
“He declined and professed he would not want to importune us with an unpalatable guest from a family that would only remind us of our loss. I pointed out to him that I already count Colonel Fitzwilliam as a Glentworth in everything but name, but he could not be moved. It led me to believe that he was speaking about more than the miscarriage of justice. But I suppose such a busy man may be occupied by his other business and only returned to town for the trial. I had the impression that he was to leave at dawn on the morrow, and that may account for him not wanting to spend a late night with us.”
Elizabeth, who had thought their disgrace was keeping him away, could not help but believe it was for her sake he had declined. How was she to inform him that her feelings had undergone such a material change when he perpetually shunned her company? Or might she, instead of seeing too little, have fancied too much?
The rest of the day was spent in solemn contemplations, but already the next day proved that a burden had been lifted from Lord Glentworth’s shoulders. Her mother coming giggling down the passage was the first sign that something had shifted.