A Victorian Romance
by Steven Schechter
Chapter 5: He Left Nothing Behind
conclusion
“Lady Beatrice. Lady Beatrice... Hullo?” The new ladies’ maid was having trouble waking Beatrice. “M’lady. M’lady.”
Beatrice was groggy. “What hour is it?”
“Your husband is home,” the maid said.
“What hour is it!?”
“After one o’clock.” The young woman helped Beatrice as she struggled to rouse herself.
In the drawing room, Richard sat stonily, still in his traveling clothes. Beatrice appeared in the doorway. “My love!” she exclaimed and glided to his side. She kissed him. “I thought you were due in tomorrow.”
“I arrived yesterday.”
“But you didn’t come home,” she said with a lightness, and then more seriously, “You don’t look well. Are you ill?”
“You are right. I am not well.” He paused a moment. “Percy met me at the station.”
“I see, your wife is second by a day! But I forgive you.” She took out a book from the pocket of her dress. “I have a present for you I ordered from the booksellers, your favorite: Tennyson, Idylls of the King.”
“I am troubled, Beatrice.”
Her annoyance showed plainly. “Yes, I can see that.”
“Please, answer me one question.”
“If it is in my power.”
“Only you can,” he said and paused. “Are you loyal to me?”
She laughed, “What a question!”
“That is not a very modest answer.”
“Am I not your wife? It is my study to make you happy.” She hoped in vain to see a smile. “Must you have such a long face? I would like to know that you are glad to see me.”
“Percy had a story to tell me,” said Richard, his voice catching as he looked away. “Would that I had never returned to England and set eyes on you!”
She stared at him.“Is Percy well?”
Richard recovered himself. “He informed me that you spend your nights with another man.”
She was frozen for a moment then hurled the book at him. “How dare you say such a thing to me!”
“Does he speak the truth?”
“You’re mad!” Beatrice shouted, “You know that Percy is jealous of me! He loves you like a woman!”
“Does he speak the truth?” he asked softly.
“Of course not! Stop it, Richard, or you will ruin my love for you. Stop it now!”
Richard’s fist split the table before him with a crash, followed by a long silence. Beatrice knew her career was over.
“I realized that Percy would not lie to me,” said Richard. “I myself watched your window last night, hating myself for it.” His eyes were full of tears. “You were with someone. The man you pretend to hate.”
Beatrice was white as a ghost, watching him. “From the beginning, you have worn a mask,” he said, looking into her face. “But how is a man to know?”
“It was for you. To protect us,” she said in a small voice. “For us.”
“You are foul!” After a long moment, Richard stood. “You will not see me again.” He wiped at his tears.` He wanted to turn away from her, leave her, but something held him. The child in him, wishing for some impossible thing. “I am returning to Asia. God willing, I will die there.”
* * *
SCANDAL ROCKS THE NATION! read a newsposter on the steps by the Westminster bridge. UNPARALLELED REVELATIONS! read another outside Parliament. “Crimes of the century!’ shouted the news hawker, “Murder and noble infidelities!”
The public was mesmerized. “No-one talks of anything but the Belham affair!” complained a social butterfly, “It’s disgusting!”
NOT OF SOUND MIND. The Times reported that Lady Beatrice had suffered a breakdown but provided few details. No-one outside the family had seen Beatrice since the scandal had broken.
Two days after Richard returned from Ireland, Digby was delivered to Newgate prison so badly beaten that he was expected to die shortly. For days he drifted in and out of consciousness, until one morning he felt someone shaking him awake. A woman’s face came into focus. “M’lady,” Digby said. His speech and breathing were labored. “It is good of you ... to visit me.”
Margaret was brisk. “Digby, there is something you must do before you die.”
Digby’s chest rose and fell with his breathing. “Am I dying?”
She nodded. William had accompanied Margaret, standing by with a small box in his hands.
“Beatrice?...” Digby did not finish the question.
“She goes about on her hands and knees,” Margaret said without affect. “We are obliged to feed her.”
The small exchange tired him. “I am sorry... to hear that.” If he was to die, Digby did not want that Beatrice should live without him.
Margaret placed a document in Digby’s hands. “I have brought a pen for you to sign. Read it if you wish.” Digby tried to read, but the words swam in and out of focus. William placed a small pillow under his head.
“I can’t manage,” said Digby “What is it?”
“A confession,” said Margaret. “That you brutally forced yourself upon Lady Beatrice. Then blackmailed her into submission and ruin.” She paused a moment. “The murder of Lord Thomas Beauton was yours alone against which Lady Beatrice cried out.” As she spoke, William set out an inkwell and pen. “That you and you alone persecuted Lord Charles Beauton for your own ends.”
Digby breathed loudly for a few moments. “Of course... m’lady.”
William dipped the pen and put it in Digby’s hand. He assisted Digby in making a mark, then took the pen and inkwell away. Digby was quickly tiring. “The Guv’nor...?”
“Lord Belham has had a stroke. He will not last the week.”
“I am sorry... to hear that.”
She regarded him. “You destroyed worlds, Digby. Worlds.” The brisk tone had not changed. “And for what? The money does no good now.” Digby had kept the necklace, and Margaret was under the impression that money was at the center of this adventure.
Digby’s speech firmed up a bit. “It was not... for money, m’lady.”
“Yes, for the woman, also.” Margaret allowed.
“I had to earn... her love.”
Margaret might be looking at an unpleasant creature in the zoo. “You mean lust of the flesh. But there is no flesh in the hereafter, Digby. You haven’t chosen very wisely, have you?”
His chest rose and fell with loud rasping breaths. “On the contrary... m’lady.” A cough wracked his body. He caught his breath and began again. “I thank life for nothing... but that pleasure... It was so sweet to me... that... I drank it all up... Left nothing behind... for any other man...”
She looked down at him. Then pulled the pillow from beneath his head and put it over his face. A bit of resistance and it was over.
Margaret and William stopped at the end of the hallway, where two guards stood up from their game of cards. “He appears not to be breathing,” said Margaret matter-of-factly. The guards did little bows.
* * *
After the first week or so, the Belham scandal became focused almost solely on the question of Beatrice’s sanity. In November, the Times reported that the family had engaged a Dr. William Gull, England’s foremost expert in female insanity, to examine Lady Beatrice and report his findings to the Home Secretary’s office.
The doctor deposed that Beatrice was suffering from “a lesion of mind originating in the spinal cord, a hereditary condition passed from mother to daughter, often skipping a generation.” This condition had “rendered her nervous system decidedly incapable of enduring emotional stress.” Brutalization at Digby’s hands, Dr. Gull explained, had “wholly unbalanced her mind... producing a remarkable defect of the intellect, of her knowing and reasoning faculties.”
The scandal sheets had a field day with the subject, relishing their depiction of the “madwoman in the attic.” Binging, starving, howling, crawling about on all fours and eating coal or cinders. The London Illustrated News related tales of “gross indecencies,” suggesting that Beatrice was lost to any notion of modesty or feminine propriety. These “penny dreadfuls” attracted passersby with lurid illustrations on the front page. The Star of Venus suggestively pictured Beatrice roaming the house in the wee hours in nothing but a cloak and boots. Male servants, they reported, had been instructed to lock their rooms at night.
Yet this diagnosis carried with it a respite for the Belham family. Beatrice had been pronounced “unfit to plead,” and so the family name would not be dragged through the courts. In brief, the stain of insanity was a survivable scandal. The immediate family would live under a cloud, to be sure; however, other high-ranking officials carrying the Belham name would not be expected to step down. Beatrice’s female cousins would be able to find husbands in their class. Life would go on, even for Lord Arthur. Margaret had not told Digby the truth about Arthur. Doctors said he might walk again, might regain his speech. As for Lady Beatrice, Dr. Gull agreed to stay on and instruct the staff in caring for the girl.
There was also considerable public sympathy for the family, due in large part to Lady Margaret’s assiduous management of the story. The Times helped in these efforts by publishing Digby’s confession and generally placing the guilt at Digby’s feet. He was a monster, a demon who had violated Beatrice and brought about her complete breakdown. This sat more comfortably with society than to picture a woman as an active agent of evil.
But this view was not unanimous. DOCTOR GULLED! shouted the newsposter of the Daily Telegraph, reflecting the view of an angry and vocal minority that Beatrice’s insanity was a ruse to contain the damage to the family name. The girl was “shamming,” they said, feigning a mental disorder, likely at the instruction of her aunt. Her history of mental illness had likely been conjured out of thin air. Instead of being punished, Beatrice was reportedly enjoying her freedom at home. GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER! proclaimed the Manchester Guardian.
* * *
On January 11th, the question of Beatrice’s insanity became academic. LADY BEATRICE TO CHISWICK! read a Times newsposter on the steps of the Westminster bridge. She had been committed to an insane asylum on the western fringes of London.
The Times did not make much of the event, but the penny press could be counted on for something more sensational. The Police Illustrated News continued its series, claiming that Beatrice had been tricked by her aunt. The woman had committed Beatrice against her will, they claimed, in order to mollify public outrage. They told the story by dividing the front page into four illustrated panels:
In the upper left, Beatrice is lured from her bedroom by a message that there is someone downstairs wishing to see her.
Clockwise, the girl is grabbed by a couple of brutes as her aunt, cold and unfeeling, looks on. The girl cries for her father: “Papa!!... Papa!!”
Lord Arthur, upstairs in a wheelchair, hears the girl’s screams and weeps. He is a wreck, ruined, but no father loved a daughter more.
The girl is taken away. As the carriage drives off, Beatrice has thrust herself through the window almost to her waist, reaching her arms out for her lost home.
Copyright © 2023 by Steven Schechter
