Vesna McMaster - Know

‘Do you know this man?’

‘Know?’ Her eyes open wide, and her fingertips touch her sternum in affronted shock.

The man indicated raises an eyebrow at her. ‘Why, I’ve known you since you were born, and Mary knotted the lace for your christening gown. Of course you know me!’

She turns to him, a stiffened pillar of moral indignation. ‘Why, Sir, were one to play fast and loose with language, one might carelessly term an acquaintance, even a family friend, as such. However, one ought not do so.’

The questioner pushes his wig to one side and scratches his head. ‘Lady Knowell, I was not implying criminal conversation.’ A faint shriek erupts from Lady Knowell, which he ignores and continues: ‘I was ascertaining whether this gentleman is…an acquaintance of yours. Which it appears he is.’

Lady Knowell stands smouldering, apparently fuelled entirely by the furious palpitations of her fan.

The gown-donating ‘acquaintance’ grunts and inclines his head in exasperation. ‘Your Honour, all the issue is that my gout being very bad that day, I was recumbent at the time her Ladyship’s father entered. I was not “lying in wait”, nor would I have been able, or desirous of, leaping up upon his entrance. That her Ladyship then tripped over Jacob, my old dog, and Jacob’s yelp startled the maid, who dropped the coal-scuttle down the stairs, that landed on the papers that my Ladyship had come to collect, is an unfortunate incident entirely beyond my control or desire.’

‘Yet the destruction of the papers has deprived me of twelve acres of land, it seems.’ Lady Knowell’s lips have not appeared to move, so perhaps it is the fan that is speaking.

The ‘acquaintance’ shuffles corpulently. ‘My Lady, it is…’

‘You will address the Bench.’

‘Your Honour, it is not at all clear that my Ladyship’s Uncle had indeed bequeathed the twelve acres. Mary – my wife, your Honour – said her Ladyship had said this was his intent, but none else heard it from his lips.’

The judge sniffs. ‘Nor are like to now, lest the dead speak.’ He drums his fingers on the bench and mutters into his chest, ‘Land, wills, pettifogging feuds…I studied Justinian and Cicero to adjudicate over cow-byres and carts in a mouldy courthouse…’ He checks himself. ‘Sirrah, what of the estate? Ought else but the twelve acres?’ he asks, waving to the clerk.

‘All in dispute, you Honour. Creditors.’ The clerk taps an unholy pile of bills and writs.

‘Well sure then the twelve acres must first satisfy the creditors, before the balance comes to dispute. Good God what do I deal with.’ He waves his hand as if to brush the issue away metaphorically.

Lady Knowell’s voice cuts icily into the fug. ‘Hour honour has been misinformed. The twelve acres were in trust from my mother, his sister. They come to me direct, not subject to his depredations of my Uncle’s gambling habits.’

‘That,’ says the judge with grim satisfaction ‘is not how the Law operates. A deed of trust cannot be excluded from the trustee’s estate.’

‘Aye, your Honour.’ Lady Knowell’s fan stops. ‘But neither may a woman dispose of her property to a trust less than twelve months before her marriage. As you know, this would rob her husband of the property. It is theft.’

He squints at her. ‘And of what relevance is that in this case, Madam? Or are we venturing into a pleasant diversion on property law to pass some more time in this salubrious company?’

‘My mother re-married two weeks before she passed.’ She brandishes a document before her, like a priestess issuing a malediction. ‘Here is the proof!’

A satisfying gasp escapes the clerk and onlookers. The judge’s eyebrow disappears under his wig in surprise. He motions for the paper to be brought over, and peruses it briefly. Some spark of interest re-kindles in his fish-like gaze.

‘To summarise the situation, your late mother enters a clandestine marriage, having hidden her assets from her future spouse in an illegal deed of trust. As we know, the party named here, James Knapton Esquire, suddenly lost his estates to an unwise investment in South Sea stock, and thence falling into a decline, gave up the ghost.’ The clerk cannot refrain another gasp as he recognises the name of the suddenly-discovered spouse. ‘Your mother (rest her soul) met with that unfortunate accident with the coach-and-four but a week later, and then your uncle himself followed, apparently drunk to death, though he was but young and fit. And the twelve acres would descend to your good Ladyship, were it not for the misplacement of the old dog Jacob and the coal scuttle. And the gout of your family acquaintance.’

One flip of the fan. ‘I have been beset with personal misfortune, which your Lordship should surely pity and redress rather than re-rehearse so brutally in public.’ She takes out a heavily-embroidered handkerchief and dabs her eye.

The judge’s humour has been quite restored. He almost laughs outright, and mutters again into his gown. ‘Ah, mea culpa for bewailing my fate. There’s entertainment yet. Why, this hussy’s like as not to have shuffled off three souls to claw back some fields. Court intrigue is no bloodier.’ He raises his pen to make the record. But before he can do so, a commotion at the courtroom door. A flurry of exclamations, and a bemired, pale, but determined man of about Lady Knowell’s age stumbles into the courtroom.

The unfortunate clerk screams ‘Mr Knapton!’ and tumbles forward into his inkpot in a dead faint.

‘Yes, it is I. I come to claim my acres, my life, and my second wife!’ He strides over to Lady Knowell, who regards him with unadulterated horror.