ORLEY FARM.
[To ens Enrroa or THE " Specreroa."3
SIR,—Having discovered, after a recent re-reading of the famous Orley Farm case, indubitable proof of Lady Mason's innocence, I hasten to place it before your readers. Lady Mason, it will be remembered, was indicted for perjury by her stepson, Sir Joseph Mason, of Groby Park, on the sworn statement of Bridget Bolster, one of the witnesses of the disputed will. The action, as all the world remembers, went in favour of Lady Mason, but was revived twenty years later in this terrible form because a partnership deed had been discovered witnessed by the same signatories of the disputed will. Now Bridget Bolster swore stoutly that she had never witnessed more than one legal document in her life, and therefore could not have witnessed the disputed will. This misapprehension of Bridget's was unfortunately confirmed by the hallucination of Lady Mason herself—common to young mothers sorrowing for the untimeous decease of their spouses—who imagined that she had herself committed •this felony, and made confession thereof to Sir Peregrine Orme. Now the proof to which I wish to call your readers' attention is this: by common consent the partnership deed was witnessed and signed by Bridget Bolster, and delivered after execution to the party concerned. If, then, the counterpart discovered twenty years after the trial was signed by Bridget Bolster, then it is clear the latter must have sworn falsely when she declared that she had only witnessed one legal document in her life; or, alternatively, if it was not signed by Bridget Bolster, then Lady Mason could have had no signature whereon to found her forgery, so then it was physically impossible for Lady Mason to have forged the witnesses' signatures to the disputed codicil. Q.E.D. Doubtless the jury in the second trial appreciated all this, for, as is well known, they gave Lady Mason acquittal of the charge. This is, of course, all ancient history, but it is pleasant even at this late hour to exonerate one of the most charming characters in fiction from the scorn and con- tumely of the evilly disposed. Mea, maxima cu/pa. In my hot youth I too, as Lady Mason's junior counsel, wrongly believed her to be guilty; and holding that it was the counsel's duty to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on a client's behalf, did her some disservice in her cause. Since then, however, I have become a politician, and know better.— [We are grateful to Sir Felix Graham for coming to life again out of the pages of Trollops in order to send his charming jeu d'esprit to the Spectator.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
