Mrs. B. “I suppose that was so; but, indeed, sir, it wasn’t my fault. Mr. Barber seemed so fond of me, and said that it would be such an agreeable surprise to my parents—”
Dr. D. “Never mind that now, madam, unless, indeed, my learned friend, Dr. Lobb, desires to have Mr. Barber’s observations on the occasion in extenso, in which case—”
Dr. Lobb declined this obliging offer.
Dr. D. “Now, madam, will you tell the Jury how you were married?”
Mrs. B. “Oh, yes, sir! I remember very well; I wore a white muslin with blue spots, and a leghorn with a sprig of white lilac, and I took Eliza’s brown visite.”
Dr. D. “I don’t allude to your dress, madam.”
By the Court. Stay a minute, Dr. Dodge. I don’t think I have that last answer quite correctly. ‘I tore a white muslin into blue spots, and a leghorn pig got at the white lilac, and paid Eliza a visit?’ Surely that can’t be correct. What had the pigs to do with Mrs. Barber’s marriage? And who is Eliza? Mr. Battledore didn’t open anything about Eliza—nor about the pigs either—and, besides, who ever heard of a leghorn pig?”
Dr. Lobb endeavoured to take advantage of this opening by a feeble attempt at jocularity; but it turned out that he was mistaken in his tactics, for the old Judge liked to have all the joking to himself, and told Dr. Lobb, somewhat peevishly, that if he had any technical objection to the question to make it at once; if not, not to interrupt the examination—so there was an end of him.
With some little trouble, and a slight interference on Sir Cresswell’s part, this matter was put to rights, and the old Judge seemed quite happy and comfortable now he had something to put in his notes. The examination proceeded.
Dr. D. “Now, Mrs. Barber—that there may be no further misunderstanding, I will put the question in a more precise way—were you married by banns or by licence?”
Mrs. B. (too eager to give her husband credit whenever possible). “Oh! by licence, of course. I will say that for Mr. Barber, he wouldn’t have attempted to insult me with banns. Indeed I know he went himself to Doctors’ Commons for the licence. I must do him the justice to say that.”
Mrs. Barber, poor soul, could not see what was obvious enough to the eyes of every person in Court, that her answer went a good way to establishing a case of perjury against her husband. The attempt to shield him was equally creditable to her, as though she had not been enticed into the pitfall dug for her simple feet by the crafty civilian.
Dr. D. “Now, Mrs. Barber, I must beg of you to direct your attention to the incidents that occurred before your marriage with Mr. Barber. You met him, I believe, for the first time in the ride in Hyde Park?”
Mrs. B. “Yes: I was riding there one morning, when Mr. Barber came up to me, and said he hoped mamma and papa were quite well.”
By the Court. “Did Mr. Barber run by the side of your horse, or are we to take it, madam, that Mr. Barber was on horseback too?”
Mrs. B. “Yes. I was a good deal astonished; but I supposed he knew the family; so I said that mamma’s cold was better—but that poor papa had something with a Greek name which made him very uncomfortable, especially after dinner, and Mr. Barber said he ought to be cupped every day at four o’clock, and if that did not answer, the only thing was to try the Spa waters.”
By the Court. “But, Dr. Dodge, all this does not amount to sævitia. The issue is sævitia. I need not tell you that.”
Dr. D. “Well—well—madam, I need not trouble you for the particulars of that conversation. Let us confine ourselves to facts. What followed?”
Mrs. B. “Mr. Barber proposed to me to have a canter; and when we were going at full speed he asked me if I believed in first love, and the union of souls, and I was so confused, because my net had fallen off, and my back hair was streaming out, that I don’t know what I answered: but I remember he said that it was ‘wonderful!’ and from that moment forward he would confine himself to four cigars a-day, and devote himself to my happiness.”
In order to avoid the more tedious form of question and answer until we get to the sævitia, the very pith and marrow of the issue to be tried, let it be sufficient to record that Mrs. Barber’s evidence fully confirmed the opening statement of her learned counsel with regard to the manner in which she, a mere child, had been entrapped into marriage by Mr. Barber’s machinations. It also appeared, that when the young couple, after the performance of the ceremony, had arrived at Mr. Montresor’s house, and Mr. Barber was asking for the blessing, Mr. M. was so enraged, that he caught up the poker, and chased his son-in-law several times round the loo-table in the front drawing-room, down into the hall, and again down the kitchen-stairs into the scullery, in which place Mr. Barber at length succeeded in barricading himself. Subsequent negotiations, until the arrival of the family solicitor, were carried on through the key-hole; and Mrs. Barber was checked, with some little difficulty, in a description of the effect produced on the mind of the cook by the sudden and forcible invasion of her peculiar dominions. Suffice it to say, that after a while, thanks to the judicious interference of Mr. Roper, the solicitor, it was arranged that Mrs. Barber’s money was to be settled on herself; Mr. Montresor was induced to lay aside the poker; and in due course the happy couple departed for Box Hill. It appeared, however, that even on the first day of that inauspicious union, Mr. Barber departed somewhat from his virtuous resolutions, and smoked all the afternoon “like a chimney”—a soothing process which he considered necessary for the restoration of his nerves, shattered as they had been by the form as well as substance of his first interview with the family of his amiable bride. From Box Hill the young couple had gone to Hastings, where occurred the disgusting incident of Mr. Barber’s appropriation of the bride’s purse.
