England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction; Mystery fiction
Interrogated as to her relations with the prisoner, Mrs. Beauly
indignantly denied that she or Mr. Macallan had ever given the deceased
lady the slightest cause for jealousy. It was impossible for Mrs.
Beauly to leave Scotland, after visiting at the houses of her cousin’s
neighbors, without also visiting at her cousin’s house. To take any
other course would have been an act of downright rudeness, and would
have excited remark. She did not deny that Mr. Macallan had admired her
in the days when they were both single people. But there was no further
expression of that feeling when she had married another man, and when
he had married another woman. From that time their intercourse was
the innocent intercourse of a brother and sister. Mr. Macallan was a
gentleman: he knew what was due to his wife and to Mrs. Beauly--she
would not have entered the house if experience had not satisfied her of
that. As for the evidence of the under-gardener, it was little better
than pure invention. The greater part of the conversation which he had
described himself as overhearing had never taken place. The little that
was really said (as the man reported it) was said jestingly; and she had
checked it immediately--as the witness had himself confessed. For the
rest, Mr. Macallan’s behavior toward his wife was invariably kind
and considerate. He was constantly devising means to alleviate her
sufferings from the rheumatic affection which confined her to her bed;
he had spoken of her, not once but many times, in terms of the sincerest
sympathy. When she ordered her husband and witness to leave the room, on
the day of her death, Mr. Macallan said to witness afterward, “We must
bear with her jealousy, poor soul: we know that we don’t deserve it.” In
that patient manner he submitted to her infirmities of temper from first
to last.
The main interest in the cross-examination of Mrs. Beauly centered in
a question which was put at the end. After reminding her that she had
given her name, on being sworn, as “Helena Beauly,” the Lord Advocate
said:
“A letter addressed to the prisoner, and signed ‘Helena,’ has been read
in Court. Look at it, if you please. Are you the writer of that letter?”
Before the witness could reply the Dean of Faculty protested against
the question. The Judges allowed the protest, and refused to permit the
question to be put. Mrs. Beauly thereupon withdrew. She had betrayed
a very perceptible agitation on hearing the letter referred to, and on
having it placed in her hands. This exhibition of feeling was variously
interpreted among the audience. Upon the whole, however, Mrs. Beauly’s
evidence was considered to have aided the impression which the mother’s
evidence had produced in the prisoner’s favor.
The next witnesses--both ladies, and both school friends of Mrs. Eustace
Macallan--created a new feeling of interest in Court. They supplied the
missing link in the evidence for the defense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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