The Willows at Christmas (25 page)

Madam,” said the Judge Purposeful, are you quite ready for cross-examination?”

‘I am, sir,” said Mrs Ffleshe in a weak and trembling voice, “as ready as I can ever be after what this — this gentleman has done to me. But I shall do my best.”

“We’re wiv you, ducks!” cried a female voice in the crowd. “You tell ‘em!” cried another.

Mrs Ffleshe looked sadly in their direction and acknowledged their support with a brief smile that was heartbreaking for the simple courage it showed.

“Dear madam,” began Lord Malice, looming high.

“O, My Lord,” whispered Mrs Ffleshe.

“Will you
—”

“I will!”

“Madam, I know you are overwrought,” said the Judge Perspicacious, “but please try to wait till Counsel’s question is complete.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mrs Ffleshe meekly, her adoring eyes upon Lord Malice.

“I repeat, Mrs Ffleshe, will you tell the Court in your own words how you first came to be at Toad Hall?”

“I came to help
him,
to save him from himself, after he forced my mother, a weak and defenceless lady of advanced age, a nanny by vocation, a lover of children, a woman of sympathy, to work for him all hours of the day and night. I came and was made subjugate myself, forced to do unspeakable things…”

“Dearest lady, if it is too painful for you to mention these unspeakable things then we can take them as read and put the prisoner to ordeal at once.

“Painful, yes; impossible, no! Somebody must have the courage to speak out. I had to clean out grates…”

There was a gasp at this from the better class of ladies in the crowd.

“…and haul in coals …”

“The cad!” cried a gentleman.

“…and scrub the flagstone floors with a toothbrush!”

“That be the next best thing to torture be that!” said a Village lady.

“And this with only one meal a week and that eaten outside in the rain! My mother grew frail with worry and yet still she dared not complain for fear he would do again what he did before, which — which
—
”

As Mrs Ffleshe kept up this farrago of nonsense the crowd began to hurl ever worse insults at Toad, while his attempts to defend himself were all cut short by Lord Mallice and the Judges together.

“O, my dear madam,” said Lord Malice with feeling, “I am sure I speak for all when I say that never has a court in this land had to listen to such a catalogue of cruelty to a lady of such ineffable
—
such charmingly
—
such
—
”

“And yet, My Lord,” cried Mrs Ffleshe with passion, readying herself for her
pièce de re’sistance,
“I now beg and plead with the Court not to punish him, but to let him free, for he knows not what he does!”

“What!” cried Lord Mallice astonished, and seemingly overwhelmed. “Is the witness saying that after everything that this … this …”

“Scum?” cried someone from the crowd.

“Slug?” cried another.

“Socialist!” cried a third. that after everything this … gentleman has done, you still have it in your great heart to forgive him?”

“I have, my sweet Lord
—
set him free!”

“O, madam,” said Lord Malice, “I have never heard so affecting a plea. It is as if a little babe, having been struck down by a drunken and cruel brute, yet stands up in her holy innocence and cries ‘Papa, I forgive you!”‘

Lord Mallice, to whom tears were as alien as a monsoon in the Sahara, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and affected to wipe away a tear.

“My Lord Pitiless,” he said, handing him his kerchief, “use mine, I beg you!” For that Judge was now weeping openly at what he had heard, as were many of the crowd.

Throughout this last tirade Toad had wisely said nothing. But there was a look of incredulity on his face born first of Mrs Ffleshe’s brazen lies, and second that the crowd should have been taken in by them.

“Toad of Toad Hall,” said the Judge Perspicacious, “the charges against you are so serious and the evidence we have heard so strong that of itself it condemns you to penal servitude for seventy-five years with no remission after you have been executed, but I suppose we must hear your side of the story for form’s sake.

“Lord Mallice, pray ask the prisoner the Dolorous Question and may the Court know that upon his reply will his ordeal depend. But please, I beg you, let us make it brief.”

“I understand, My Lord,” said Lord Mallice, looking at his pocket watch and seeing it was nearly time for lunch.

“Mr Toad, I must now ask you the Dolorous Question. Are you ready?”

“Well, I mean to say, old chap,” spluttered Toad, “I might be ready if I knew exactly
what
the Dolorous Question was.”

“I shall ask it and we shall see if you do,” said Lord Malice acidly.

A silence fell on the Court so profound that the pattering of a mouse’s feet might be heard, and indeed
was
heard.

“Well then, Mr Toad, did you, or did you not?” asked Lord Mallice.

“I beg your pardon?” asked Toad.

“Did you, or did you not?”

“Did I
what?”
asked the exasperated Toad.

The gasp from the crowd and the Judges’ shaking heads indicated that this was not the reply most favourable to him.

“I say again,” cried Lord Malice, “did you —?”

“Well, I
might
have done, I suppose,” essayed the reluctant Toad once more.

Three ladies and a bishop’s wife fainted, and two gentlemen too, while a third, whose voice had been heard before, cried out, “You’re not only a cad, but a bounder too!”

“But then again I might not have done,” said Toad, trying to recover lost ground, “because — because
—”

He was now grasping at straws and not finding many “Because what?” asked Lord Mallice, a triumphant look in his eye such as a scorpion sports when it has its prey vulnerable before it and believes it cannot get away.

“Because,” said Toad, his voice calm now, “I
had
to.” This astonishing assertion caught Lord Mallice unawares, and the Judges too. All four opened their mouths in blank astonishment.

“Yes,” said Toad, “not only that, but I am certain,
positively
certain, that there is not a gentleman or a lady in this Court who in such a circumstance might not have done the same!”

“He
is
a villain!” cried a voice. “That’s quite certain.”

“But a clever one!” observed the Judge Perspicacious.

“Very!” said Purposeful.

“But not quite clever enough,” observed Pitiless. “My case rests, My Lords,” said Lord Malice. “May we now proceed to trial by ordeal?”

“But I have something else to say’ said the desperate Toad.

“You have said it, prisoner, and most eloquently, for which reason we are giving you the opportunity for ordeal sooner rather than later.”

“That is very kind, My Lord, but
—”
said Toad, his voice faltering.

At the word “ordeal” the two gentlemen in the pit had begun to remove the drapes and sheets and the crowd fell utterly silent once more, fascinated by the emergence into view of the machines infernal.

The two gentlemen, still masked, stood to attention by the rack and said, “Permission to speak,
sir!”

“Granted.”

“Deathwatch reporting for duty, sir!”

“And Beadle,
sir!
All present, working and ready,
sir!”
They shouted so loud that dust fell from the hammerbeam roof above.

“Proceed,” said the Judge Pitiless.

One of the constables guarding Toad opened the gate from the dock and Toad was ushered down. To his great credit he did not struggle, or shout, and showed no fear.

Instead he said, “My lords, ladies and gentlemen!”

“That is enough, prisoner, your silence will be more eloquent than your words.”

“Shall we rack ‘im, spit ‘im, hang ‘im or burn ‘im,
sir?”

“Clerk, do the statutes ordain an order for the trials?”

“They do, My Lords, my word they do. The entire proceedings are void and defunct if the trials proceed in the wrong order, which is to say for example, that racking is after spitting which comes before tining but not after pronging, any one of which if carried out too soon or too late gives the prisoner right of protest.”

“We see,” said the three Judges simultaneously.

“Which is the first ordained trial?”

“I would not advise axing,” said the Parish Clerk, “for that is so serious a mis-ordering that the prisoner gets off scot-free after it, always providing he can pick himself up off the ground to make his protest, as it were. The first, since you ask, is boiling.”

“Boiling let it be!” said Pitiless.

Deathwatch and Beadle grasped Toad by the arms and hoisting him clean off his legs bore him to a great vat of water beneath which a small fire was sending out feeble flames. As they dropped him in with a splash, there was a sudden gasp from the crowd.

Toad had closed his eyes when he was put in but opened them after a moment and splashed about a little.

“Hmm. It is rather tepid, in the manner of the Ritz, in Paris,” he observed, as one who was a connoisseur of such things.

“Wot’s tepid?” asked one of the crowd, speaking for many.

“Not quite hot enough, nor quite cold enough,” replied Toad helpfully.

Toad looked at the Judges and they looked at him, and then all of them looked expectantly at Messrs Deathwatch and Beadle.

“We ‘ad trouble with the logs wot is damp, me ludships,
sir!”
said Deathwatch.

“The prisoner is excused the boiling,” said the Judge Purposeful. “Parish Clerk, what’s next?”

“Racking, My Lords, which is to say stretching and pulling.”

“Rack him,” said Pitiless.

Deathwatch and Beadle, anxious to show that their equipment could perform rather better this time, hoisted the now dripping Toad out of the vat of tepid water and laid him on the rack, putting each of his wrists through a harsh metal loop.

“The left side’s not quite tight enough,” said Toad. Then, after a moment or two, he added, “No, that’s the
right,
my man
—
I said the
left.
But come to think of it the right’s not too good either. My dear chap, why don’t you simply let me hold on to it
—
for I once played the pianoforte and my grip is really quite good
—
and then you can fasten my feet and we will all see if it works.”

“‘E’s a cool one,” said a member of the crowd with admiration.

“A bounder but a calm bounder,” said the one who had called him cad.

Deathwatch and Beadle struggled a little more at Toad’s wrists before turning to his feet and discovering, to their embarrassment, that the rack was much too long for its victim.

“‘E’s too short, sir, and in consequence even if he ‘olds on wiv ‘is hands one end ‘is feet cannot be attached at the other end,
sir!”

While they were debating the matter, Toad sat up and wandered off to have a closer look at some of the other appliances, which drew even more admiring remarks from the crowd. Some of the ladies who had fainted now began to give him coy and admiring glances. One asked for his autograph, which he gave with a flourish.