Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages | Page 3

I
have told you already, a power among natives. Strickland whispered a rather coarse
vernacular proverb to the effect that he was abreast of all that was going on, and went
into the Court armed with a gut trainer's-whip.
The Mohammedan was the first witness, and Strickland beamed upon him from the back
of the Court. The man moistened his lips with his tongue and, in his abject fear of
'Estreekin Sahib', the fakir went back on every detail of his evidence--said he was a poor
man, and God was his witness that he had forgotten everything that Bronckhorst Sahib
had told him to say. Between his terror of Strickland, the Judge, and Bronckhorst he
collapsed weeping.
Then began the panic among the witnesses. Janki, the ayah, leering chastely behind her
veil, turned grey, and the bearer left the Court. He said that his Mamma was dying, and
that it was not wholesome for any man to lie unthriftily in the presence of 'Estreekin
Sahib'.
Biel said politely to Bronckhorst, 'Your witnesses don't seem to work. Haven't you any
forged letters to produce?' But Bronckhorst was swaying to and fro in his chair, and there

was a dead pause after Biel had been called to order.
Bronckhorst's Counsel saw the look on his client's face, and without more ado pitched his
papers on the little green-baize table, and mumbled something about having been
misinformed. The whole Court applauded wildly, like soldiers at a theatre, and the Judge
began to say what he thought.
* * * * *
Biel came out of the Court, and Strickland dropped a gut trainer's-whip in the veranda.
Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting Bronckhorst into ribbons behind the old Court cells,
quietly and without scandal. What was left of Bronckhorst was sent home in a carriage;
and his wife wept over it and nursed it into a man again. Later on, after Biel had managed
to hush up the counter-charge against Bronckhorst of fabricating false evidence, Mrs.
Bronckhorst, with her faint, watery smile, said that there had been a mistake, but it wasn't
her Teddy's fault altogether. She would wait till her Teddy came back to her. Perhaps he
had grown tired of her, or she had tried his patience, and perhaps we wouldn't cut her any
more, and perhaps the mothers would let their children play with 'little Teddy' again. He
was so lonely. Then the station invited Mrs. Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorst
was fit to appear in public, when he went Home and took his wife with him. According to
latest advices, her Teddy did come back to her, and they are moderately happy. Though,
of course, he can never forgive her the thrashing that she was the indirect means of
getting for him.
* * * * *
What Biel wants to know is, 'Why didn't I press home the charge against the Bronckhorst
brute, and have him run in?'
What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is, 'How did my husband bring such a lovely, lovely
Waler from your station? I know all his money affairs; and I'm certain he didn't buy it.'
What I want to know is, 'How do women like Mrs. Bronckhorst come to marry men like
Bronckhorst?'
And my conundrum is the most unanswerable of the three.

IRREMEDIABLE
By Ella D'Arcy
(Monochromes, London: John Lane, 1893)
A young man strolled along a country road one August evening after a long delicious
day--a day of that blessed idleness the man of leisure never knows: one must be a bank
clerk forty-nine weeks out of the fifty-two before one can really appreciate the exquisite
enjoyment of doing nothing for twelve hours at a stretch. Willoughby had spent the

morning lounging about a sunny rickyard; then, when the heat grew unbearable, he had
retreated to an orchard, where, lying on his back in the long cool grass, he had traced the
pattern of the apple-leaves diapered above him upon the summer sky; now that the heat
of the day was over he had come to roam whither sweet fancy led him, to lean over gates,
view the prospect, and meditate upon the pleasures of a well-spent day. Five such days
had already passed over his head, fifteen more remained to him. Then farewell to
freedom and clean country air! Back again to London and another year's toil.
He came to a gate on the right of the road. Behind it a footpath meandered up over a
grassy slope. The sheep nibbling on its summit cast long shadows down the hill almost to
his feet. Road and fieldpath were equally new to him, but the latter offered greener
attractions; he vaulted lightly over the gate and had so little idea he was taking thus the
first step towards ruin that he began