Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [70]
“There she be!” she screeched, her knotty red fingers trembling, “the ‘arlot and Jezebel of Scargrave! The woman as has blood stained deep into ‘er skin! The murderess and whore the good Earl took in, to ‘is peril! Pore Margie suffered to the death for the telling of it, but ‘er life is not in vain! May God's vengeance be swift and ‘ard for the cunning woman as has forgot ‘is ways!”
Isobel stopped as though turned to stone. Her remarkable eyes were bewildered and one hand went to her throat—her first gesture in moments of anxiety. As the woman's tirade waned, my friend began to sway, and I saw that she should faint. Fitzroy Payne sprang into the crowd with an unaccustomed energy, bent upon seizing the harridan and forcing her from the room; but he was restrained at the last by Tom Hearst.
“Leave Lizzy Scratch to her gin, Fitzroy,” the Lieutenant cautioned; “she is a witness Sir William would call, and must remain.”
For his part, Sir William spoke severely to the woman, who looked somewhat cowed by his words, and thereafter confined herself to muttering over the steaming drink she held between two fingerless mitts. Supported by the magistrate, Isobel moved on, myself in her wake, and gained the dubious safety of a hard wooden chair.
There was a curious discomfort attached to a position so far forward from the remainder of the assembly; one felt as though the eyes of the entire town were boring into the back of one's head with virulent animosity. But it could not be helped; we had arrived, and must suffer our two hours upon the block.
1. Our notion of a defendant being innocent until proven guilty is relatively recent. Until 1848, a magistrate was not charged with a presumption of innocence on the part of the defendant, or with the objective consideration of evidence, but merely with constructing a case against the accused. Until 1837, a lawyer for the accused was not allowed to query witnesses or cross-examine them, and not until the turn of the century was the accused allowed to testify on his or her own behalf.—Editor's note.
2. Evangelicalism was a reformist movement within the Church of England that arose in the late eighteenth century. Somewhat Calvinistic in its bent, it opposed moral laxity and frivolity of most kinds, particularly among the clergy. Though Jane Austen approved of clergymen taking their duties seriously, she considered Evangelicals excessive in their ardor.—Editor's note.
27 December 1802, coat.
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THE EVIDENCE REGARDING THE DEATH OF FREDERICK, LORD Scargrave, was to be first presented, and the London physician, Dr. Philip Pettigrew, took his seat by the coroner's side. He looked even younger in the light of day than he had appeared by the late Earl's bedside; a broad-shouldered man, of short stature, his eyes cool and grey behind gold spectacles. Placing his hand upon the Bible, he was duly sworn, and gazed out upon the assembled countryfolk with admirable equanimity. To my dismay, I observed Fanny Delahoussaye smile prettily at him, when his eyes chanced to fall her way. In a flagrant disregard for mourning, she had insisted upon donning a new bonnet of peacock blue, with matching feathers.
Mr. Eliahu Bott gave a dry little cough and picked up his quill. “You are Dr. Philip Pettigrew, of Sloane Street, London?”
“I am.”
Thereafter followed a tedious recitation of the good man's apprenticeships and learning, surprisingly lengthy in one who appeared little more than two-and-thirty; his intimate familiarity with gastric complaints, poisons, and ailments of the bowels; and the history of his relations with the late Earl.
“I was called to attend Lord Scargrave some three years past, in a matter of dyspepsia brought