Читать книгу Buried Alive + The Old Wives' Tale + The Card (3 Classics by Arnold Bennett) - Arnold Bennett - Страница 46

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When Alice was called, and when she stood up in the box, and, smiling indulgently at the doddering usher, kissed the book as if it had been a chubby nephew, a change came over the emotional atmosphere of the court, which felt a natural need to smile. Alice was in all her best clothes, but it cannot be said that she looked the wife of a super-eminent painter. In answer to a question she stated that before marrying Priam she was the widow of a builder in a small way of business, well known in Putney and also in Wandsworth. This was obviously true. She could have been nothing but the widow of a builder in a small way of business well known in Putney and also in Wandsworth. She was every inch that.

"How did you first meet your present husband, Mrs. Leek?" asked Mr. Crepitude.

"Mrs. Farll, if you please," she cheerfully corrected him.

"Well, Mrs. Farll, then."

"I must say," she remarked conversationally, "it seems queer you should be calling me Mrs. Leek, when they're paying you to prove that I'm Mrs. Farll, Mr.----, excuse me, I forget your name."

This nettled Crepitude, K.C. It nettled him, too, merely to see a witness standing in the box just as if she were standing in her kitchen talking to a tradesman at the door. He was not accustomed to such a spectacle. And though Alice was his own witness he was angry with her because he was angry with her husband. He blushed. Juniors behind him could watch the blush creeping like a tide round the back of his neck over his exceedingly white collar.

"If you'll be good enough to reply----" said he.

"I met my husband outside St. George's Hall, by appointment," said she.

"But before that. How did you make his acquaintance?"

"Through a matrimonial agency," said she.

"Oh!" observed Crepitude, and decided that he would not pursue that avenue. The fact was Alice had put him into the wrong humour for making the best of her. She was, moreover, in a very difficult position, for Priam had positively forbidden her to have any speech with solicitors' clerks or with solicitors, and thus Crepitude knew not what pitfalls for him her evidence might contain. He drew from her an expression of opinion that her husband was the real Priam Farll, but she could give no reasons in support--did not seem to conceive that reasons in support were necessary.

"Has your husband any moles?" asked Crepitude suddenly.

"Any what?" demanded Alice, leaning forward.

Vodrey, K.C., sprang up.

"I submit to your lordship that my learned friend is putting a leading question," said Vodrey, K.C.

"Mr. Crepitude," said the judge, "can you not phrase your questions differently?"

"Has your husband any birthmarks--er--on his body?" Crepitude tried again.

"Oh! Moles, you said? You needn't be afraid. Yes, he's got two moles, close together on his neck, here." And she pointed amid silence to the exact spot. Then, noticing the silence, she added, "That's all that I know of."

Crepitude resolved to end his examination upon this impressive note, and he sat down. And Alice had Vodrey, K.C., to face.

"You met your husband through a matrimonial agency?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Who first had recourse to the agency?"

"I did."

"And what was your object?"

"I wanted to find a husband, of course," she smiled. "What do people go to matrimonial agencies for?"

"You aren't here to put questions to me," said Vodrey severely.

"Well," she said, "I should have thought you would have known what people went to matrimonial agencies for. Still, you live and learn." She sighed cheerfully.

"Do you think a matrimonial agency is quite the nicest way of----"

"It depends what you mean by 'nice,'" said Alice.

"Womanly."

"Yes," said Alice shortly, "I do. If you're going to stand there and tell me I'm unwomanly, all I have to say is that you're unmanly."

"You say you first met your husband outside St George's Hall?"

"Yes."

"Never seen him before?"

"No."

"How did you recognize him?"

"By his photograph."

"Oh, he'd sent you his photograph?"

"Yes."

"With a letter?"

"Yes."

"In what name was the letter signed?"

"Henry Leek."

"Was that before or after the death of the man who was buried in Westminster Abbey?"

"A day or two before." (Sensation in court.)

"So that your present husband was calling himself Henry Leek before the death?"

"No, he wasn't. That letter was written by the man that died. My husband found my reply to it, and my photograph, in the man's bag afterwards; and happening to be strolling past St. George's Hall just at the moment like--"

"Well, happening to be strolling past St. George's Hall just at the moment like--" (Titters.)

"I caught sight of him and spoke to him. You see, I thought then that he was the man who wrote the letter."

"What made you think so?"

"I had the photograph."

"So that the man who wrote the letter and died didn't send his own photograph. He sent another photograph--the photograph of your husband?"

"Yes, didn't you know that? I should have thought you'd have known that."

"Do you really expect the jury to believe that tale?"

Alice turned smiling to the jury. "No," she said, "I'm not sure as I do. I didn't believe it myself for a long time. But it's true."

"Then at first you didn't believe your husband was the real Priam Farll?"

"No. You see, he didn't exactly tell me like. He only sort of hinted."

"But you didn't believe?"

"No."

"You thought he was lying?"

"No, I thought it was just a kind of an idea he had. You know my husband isn't like other gentlemen."

"I imagine not," said Vodrey. "Now, when did you come to be perfectly sure that, your husband was the real Priam Farll?"

"It was the night of that day when Mr. Oxford came down to see him. He told me all about it then."

"Oh! That day when Mr. Oxford paid him five hundred pounds?"

"Yes."

"Immediately Mr. Oxford paid him five hundred pounds you were ready to believe that your husband was the real Priam Farll. Doesn't that strike you as excessively curious?"

"It's just how it happened," said Alice blandly.

"Now about these moles. You pointed to the right side of your neck. Are you sure they aren't on the left side?"

"Let me think now," said Alice, frowning. "When he's shaving in a morning--he get up earlier now than he used to--I can see his face in the looking-glass, and in the looking-glass the moles are on the left side. So on him they must be on the right side. Yes, the right side. That's it."

"Have you never seen them except in a mirror, my good woman?" interpolated the judge.

For some reason Alice flushed. "I suppose you think that's funny," she snapped, slightly tossing her head.

The audience expected the roof to fall. But the roof withstood the strain, thanks to a sagacious deafness on the part of the judge. If, indeed, he had not been visited by a sudden deafness, it is difficult to see how he would have handled the situation.

"Have you any idea," Vodrey inquired, "why your husband refuses to submit his neck to the inspection of the court?"

"I didn't know he had refused."

"But he has."

"Well," said Alice, "if you hadn't turned me out of the court while he was being examined, perhaps I could have told you. But I can't as it is. So it serves you right."

Thus ended Alice's performances.