Trial of Mary Blandy. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Cranstoun thought the course comparatively clear. His position was that Miss Murray had been his mistress, and that although he had promised to marry her if she would change her religion for his own purer Presbyterian faith, and as the lady refused to do so, he was entirely freed from his engagement. With cynical impudence he explained his previous admission of the marriage as due to a desire to "amuse" her relatives and save her honour. In October, 1746, his wife, by the advice of her friends and in accordance with Scots practice, raised in the Commissary Court at Edinburgh an action of declarator of marriage against her perfidious spouse, and the case was still pending before the Commissaries when Lord Mark Kerr, as we have seen, "gave away" his grand-nephew to the Blandys.

      The old attorney was justly incensed at the unworthy trick of which he had been the victim. He had designed, indeed, on his own account, a little surprise for his son-in-law in the matter of the mythical dower, but that was another matter; so, in all the majesty of outraged fatherhood, he sought an interview with his treacherous guest. That gentleman, whose acquaintance with "tight corners" was, doubtless, like Mr. Waller's knowledge of London, extensive and peculiar, rose gallantly to the occasion. A firm believer in the £10,000 dot, he could not, of course, fully appreciate the moral beauty of Mr. Blandy's insistence on the unprofitableness of deceit; but, taxed with being a married man, "As I have a soul to be saved," swore he, "I am not, nor ever was!" The lady had wilfully misrepresented their equivocal relations, and the proceedings in the Scottish Courts meant, vulgarly, blackmail. Both families knew the true facts, and Lord Mark's interference was the result of an old quarrel between them, long since by him buried in oblivion, but on account of which his lordship, as appeared, still bore him a grudge. The action would certainly be decided in his favour, when nothing more would be heard of Miss Murray and her fraudulent claims. The affair was, no doubt, annoying, but such incidents were not viewed too seriously by people of fashion—here the captain would delicately take a pinch, and offer his snuff-box (with the Cranstoun arms: gules, three cranes argent) to the baffled attorney.

      On the receipt of Lord Mark's letter, Mrs. Blandy, womanlike, believed the worst: "her poor Polly was ruined." But her sympathies were so far enlisted on behalf of the fascinating intended that she eagerly clutched at any explanation, however lame, which would put things upon the old footing. She proved a powerful advocate; and, in the end, Mr. Blandy, accepting his guest's word, allowed the engagement to continue in the meantime, until the result of the legal proceedings should be known. He was as loath to forego the chance of such an aristocratic connection as was his wife to part from so "genteel" a friend; while Mary Blandy—well, the damsels of her day were not morbidly nice in such matters, more than once had the nuptial cup eluded her expectant lips, enfin, she was nearing her thirtieth year: such an opportunity, as Mr. Bunthorne has it, might not occur again. With the proverbial blindness of those unwilling to see, the old man did nothing further in regard to Lord Mark Kerr's communication; that nobleman, annoyed at the indifference with which his well-meant warning had been received, forbade his kinsman the house, and the Blandys were thus deprived of their only means of knowledge as to the doings of their ambiguous guest.

      For the movements of that gentleman from this time until the first "date" in the case, August, 1750, we must rely mainly upon the narrative given by his fair fiancée in her Own Account, and, unfortunately, after the manner of her sex, she is somewhat careless of dates. This first visit of Cranstoun lasted "five or six months"—from the autumn of 1747 till the spring of 1748—when he went to London on the footing that Mary, with her father's permission, should "stay for him" till the "unhappy affair" with his soi-disant spouse was legally determined. Pending this desired result, the lovers maintained a vigorous correspondence.

      Sometime after his departure, Mrs. Blandy and her daughter went on a visit to Turville Court, the house of a friend named Mrs. Pocock, of whom we shall hear again. While there, the old lady became suddenly, and as was at first feared fatally, ill. Her constant cry, according to Mary, was, "Let Cranstoun be sent for," and no sooner had that insignificant warrior posted from Southampton to the sick-room than the patient began to mend. She declared, now that he had come, she would soon be well, and refused to take her medicines from any hand but his. Mr. Blandy, also summoned in haste, was much out of humour at "the great expense" incurred, and proposed forthwith to take his wife home, where "neither the physician's fees nor the apothecary's journeys could be so expensive"; and whenever the invalid was able to travel, the whole party, including the indispensable captain, returned to Henley. On the strength of the old lady's continued illness, Cranstoun contrived to "put in" another six months' free board and lodging under the Blandys' hospitable roof, until his regiment was "broke" at Southampton, when he set out for London. During this visit, says Mary, her father was sometimes "very rude" to his guest, which, in the circumstances, is not surprising.

      Meanwhile, on 1st March, 1748, the Commissary Court had decreed William Henry Cranstoun and Anne Murray to be man and wife and the child of the marriage to be their lawful issue, and had decerned the captain to pay the lady an annuity of £40 sterling for her own aliment and £10 for their daughter's, so long as she should be maintained by her mother, and further had found him liable in expenses, amounting to £100. The proceedings disclose a very ugly incident. Shortly after leaving his wife, as before narrated, Cranstoun wrote to her that his sole chance of promotion in the Army depended on his appearing unmarried, and with much persuasion he at length prevailed upon her to copy a letter, framed by him, to the effect that she had never been his wife. Once possessed of this document in her handwriting, the little scoundrel sent copies of it to his own and his wife's relatives in Scotland, whereby she suffered much obloquy and neglect, and when that unhappy lady raised her action of declarator, with peculiar baseness he lodged the letter in process. Fortunately, she had preserved the original draft, together with her faithless husband's letters thereanent. This judgment was, for the gallant defender, now on half-pay, a veritable débâcle, and we may be sure that the confiding Blandys would have heard no word of it from him; but Mrs. Cranstoun, having learned something of the game her spouse was playing at Henley, herself wrote to Mr. Blandy, announcing the decision of the Commissaries and sending for his information a copy of the decree in her favour. This, surely, should have opened the eyes even of a provincial attorney, but Cranstoun, while admitting the fact, induced him to believe, the wish being father to the thought, that the Court of first instance, as was not unprecedented, had erred, and that he was advised, with good hope of success, to appeal against the judgment to the Court of Session. Finally to dispose of the captain's legal business, it may now be said that the appeal was in due course of time dismissed, and the decision of the Commissaries affirmed. Thus the marriage was as valid as Scots law could make it. True, as is pointed out by one of his biographers, he might have appealed to the House of Lords, "but did not, as it seldom happens that they reverse a decree of the Lords of Session!" Nowadays, we may assume, Cranstoun would have taken the risk. The result of this protracted litigation was never known to Mr. Blandy.

      In the spring of 1749, "a few months" after Cranstoun's departure, Miss Blandy and her mother went to London for the purpose of taking medical advice as to the old lady's health, which was still unsatisfactory. They lived while in town with Mrs. Blandy's brother, Henry Stevens, the Serjeant, in Doctors' Commons. Cranstoun, with whom Mary had been in constant correspondence, waited upon the ladies the morning after their arrival, and came daily during their visit. On one occasion, Mary states, he brought his elder brother, the reigning baron, to call upon them. This gentleman was James, sixth Lord Cranstoun, who had succeeded to the title on the death of his father in 1727. What was his lordship's attitude regarding the "perplexing affair" in Scotland she does not inform us; but Mr. Serjeant Stevens refused to countenance the attentions of the entangled captain. Mrs. Blandy wept because her brother would not invite Cranstoun to dinner, and it was arranged that, to avoid "affronts," she should receive the captain's visits in her own room. But her friend Mrs. Pocock of Turville Court had a house in St. James's Square. "Hither Mr. Cranstoun perpetually came," says Mary, "when he understood that I was there;" so they were able to dispense with the Serjeant's hospitality. One day she and her mother were bidden to dine at Mrs. Pocock's, to meet my Lord Garnock (the future Lord Crauford). Cranstoun and their hostess called for them in a coach, and in the Strand whom should the party encounter but Mr. Blandy, come to town on business. СКАЧАТЬ