It was on a Tuesday that Mr. Caldigate made his visit to the Home Office, and on the Thursday he returned to Cambridge. On the platform whom should he meet but his brother-in-law Squire Babington, who had come into Cambridge that morning intent on hearing something further about his nephew. He, too, had read a paragraph in his newspaper, ‘The Snapper,’ as to Crinkett and Euphemia Smith.
‘Thomas Crinkett, and Euphemia Smith, who gave evidence against Mr. John Caldigate in the well-known trial at the last Cambridge assizes, have been arrested at Plymouth just as they were about to leave the country for New Zealand. These are the persons to whom it was proved that Caldigate had paid the enormous sum of twenty thousand pounds a few days before the trial. It is alleged that they are to be indicted for perjury. If this be true, it implies the innocence of Mr. Caldigate, who, as our readers will remember, was convicted of bigamy. There will be much in the whole case for Mr. Caldigate to regret, but nothing so much as the loss of that very serious sum of money. It would be idle to deny that it was regarded by the jury, and the judge, and the public as a bribe to the witnesses. Why it should have been paid will now probably remain for ever a mystery.’
The squire read this over three times before he could quite understand the gist of it, and at last perceived thought that he perceived,— that if this were true the innocence of his nephew was incontestable But Julia, who seemed to prefer the paternal mansion at Babington to her own peculiar comforts and privileges at Plum-cum-Pippins, declared that she didn’t believe a word of it; and aunt Polly, whose animosity to her nephew had somewhat subsided, was not quite inclined to accept the statement at once. Aunt Polly expressed an opinion that newspapers were only born to lie, but added that had she seen the news anywhere else she would not have been a bit surprised. The squire was prepared to swear by the tidings. If such a thing was not to be put into a newspaper, where was it to be put? Aunt Polly could not answer this question, but assisted in persuading her husband to go into Cambridge for further information.
‘I hope this is true,’ said the Suffolk squire, tendering his hand cordially to his brother-in-law. He was a man who could throw all his heart into an internecine quarrel on a Monday and forget the circumstance altogether on the Tuesday.
‘Of what are you speaking?’ asked the squire of Folking, with his usual placid look, partly indifferent and partly sarcastic, covering so much contempt of which the squire from Suffolk was able to read nothing at all.
‘About the man and the woman, the witnesses who are to be put in prison at Plymouth, and who now say just the contrary to what they said before.’
‘I do not think that can be true,’ said Mr. Caldigate.
‘Then you haven’t seen the “Snapper”?’ asked Mr. Babington, dragging the paper out of his pocket. ‘Look at that.’
They were now in a cab together, going towards the town, and Mr. Caldigate did not find it convenient to read the paragraph. But of course he knew the contents. ‘It is quite true,’ he said, ‘that the persons you allude to have been arrested, and that they are up in London. They will, I presume, be tried for perjury.’
‘It is true?’
‘There is no doubt of it.’
‘And the party are splitting against each other?’ asked Mr. Babington eagerly.
‘Two of them have already sworn that what they swore before was false.’
‘Then why don’t they let him out?’
‘Why not, indeed?’ said Mr. Caldigate.
‘I should have thought they wouldn’t have lost a moment in such a case. They’ve got one of the best fellows in the world at the Home Office. His name is Brown. If you could have seen Brown I’m sure he wouldn’t have let them delay a minute. The Home Office has the reputation of being so very quick.’
In answer to this the squire of Folking only shook his head. He would not even condescend to say that he had seen Brown, and certainly not to explain that Brown had seemed to him to be the most absurdly-cautious and courteously-dilatory man that he had ever met in his life. In Trumpington Street they parted, Mr. Caldigate proceeding at once to Folking, and Mr. Babington going to the office of Mr. Seely the attorney. ‘He’ll be out in a day or two,’ said the man of Suffolk, again shaking his brother-in-law’s hand; ‘and do you tell him from me that I hope it won’t be long before we see him at Babington. I’ve been true to him almost from the first, and his aunt has come over now. There is no one against him but Julia, and these are things of course which young women won’t forget.’
Mr. Caldigate almost became genial as he accepted this assurance, telling himself that his brother magistrate was as honest as he was silly.
Mr. Babington, who was well known in Cambridge asked many questions of many persons. From Mr. Seely he heard but little. Mr. Seely had heard of the arrest made at Plymouth, but did not quite know what to think about it. If it was all square, then he supposed his client must after all be innocent. But this went altogether against the grain with Mr. Seely. ‘If it be so, Mr. Babington,’ he said, ‘I shall always think the paying away of that twenty thousand pounds the greatest miracle I ever came across.’ Nevertheless, Mr. Seely did believe that the two witnesses had been arrested on a charge of perjury.
The squire then went to the governor of the jail, who had been connected with him many years as a county magistrate. The governor had heard nothing, received no information as to his prisoner from any one in authority; but quite believed the story as to Crinkett and the woman. ‘Perhaps you had better not see him, Mr. Babington,’ said the governor, ‘as he has heard nothing as yet of all this. It would not be right to tell him till we know what it will come to.’ Assenting to this, Mr. Babington took his leave with the conviction on his mind that the governor was quite prepared to receive an order for the liberation of his prisoner.
He did not dare to go to Robert Bolton’s office, but he did call at the bank. ‘We have heard nothing about it, Mr. Babington,’ said the old clerk over the counter. But then the old clerk added in a whisper, ‘None of the family take to the news, sir; but everybody else seems to think there is a great deal in it. If he didn’t marry her I suppose he ought to be let out.’
‘I should think he ought,’ said the squire, indignantly as he left the bank.
Thus fortified by what he considered to be the general voice of Cambridge, he returned the same evening to Babington. Cambridge, including Mr. Caldigate, had been unanimous in believing the report. And if the report were true, then, certainly, was his nephew innocent. As he thought of this, some appropriate idea of the injustice of the evil done to the man and to the man’s wife came upon him. If such were the treatment to which he and she had been subjected,— if he, innocent, had been torn away from her and sent to the common jail, and if she, certainly innocent, had been wrongly deprived for a time of the name which he had honestly given her,— then would it not have been right to open to her the hearts and the doors at Babington during the period of her great distress? As he thought of this he was so melted by ruth that a tear came into each of his old eyes. Then he remembered the attempt which had been made to catch this man for Julia — as to which he certainly had been innocent,— and his daughter’s continued wrath. That a woman should be wrathful in such a matter was natural to him. He conceived that it behoved a woman to be weak, irascible, affectionate, irrational, and soft-hearted. When Julia would be loud in condemnation of her cousin, and would pretend to commiserate the woes of the poor wife who had been left in Australia, though he knew the source of these feelings, he could not be in the least angry with her. But that was not at all the state of his mind in reference to his son-in-law Augustus Smirkie. Sometimes, as he had heard Mr. Smirkie inveigh against the enormity of bigamy and of this bigamist in particular, he had determined that some ‘odd-come-shortly,’ as he would call it, he would give the vicar of Plum-cum-Pippins a moral pat on the head which should silence him for a time. At the present moment when he got into his carriage at the station to be taken home, he was not sure whether or no he should find the vicar at Babington. Since their marriage, Mr. Smirkie had spent much of his time at Babington, and seemed to like the Babington claret. He would come about the middle of the week and return on the Saturday evening, in a manner which the squire could hardly reconcile with all that he had heard as to Mr. Smirkie’s exemplary conduct in his own parish. The squire was hospitality itself, and certainly would never have said a word to make his house other than pleasant to his own girl’s husband. But a host expects that his corns should be respected, whereas Mr. Smirkie ............