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She is a great schoolmistress, as many a poor fellow knows, that hath held his hand out to her ferule, and whimpered over his lesson before her awful chair. The first expedition in which Mr. Esmond had the honor to be engaged, rather resembled one of the invasions projected by the redoubted Captain Avory or Captain Kidd, than a war between crowned heads, carried on by generals of rank and honor.
Long ago, when he was little more than a boy, he had met Horace Avory and his wife in an out-of-the-way fishing village in Wales. Avory's treatment of the small timid woman had roused pity and resentment in Toffy's mind.
But his wife timid, and all too gentle could only wince under the things he said, or let her big eyes suddenly brim over with tears. Toffy began to writhe under the cruel speeches which Avory made to her; he never saw for an instant that there was a fault anywhere save with the husband.
The trial took place at the Old Bailey, three days later, April 27th, 1895, before Mr. Justice Charles. Mr. C.F. Gill and A. Gill with Mr. Horace Avory appeared for the Public Prosecutor. Mr. Wilde was again defended by Sir Edward Clarke, Mr. Charles Mathews and Mr. Travers Humphreys, while Mr. J.P. Grain and Mr. Paul Taylor were counsel for the other prisoner.
Avory at their neighbour's house, Canon Wrottesley felt one of those shocks which in all their painfulness can only be realized, perhaps, by those who hold a conspicuous position in a very small society. When the world is narrowed down to quite a little place its weight is felt more heavily than when its interests and its knowledge are dispersed over a wider area.
'The scandal cannot now be prevented, said Canon Wrottesley. 'I heard myself from Mr. Lawrence this morning telling me the whole story. My love, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled; Mrs. Avory must send for her own relations, if she has any, to help her out of this regrettable business. I cannot allow you to appear in the matter at all.
She drove over to Hulworth, her plain and rather austere face showing very little expression upon it, and she reached the big ugly house to find Toffy sitting over a smouldering fire in the drawing-room, his hair rumpled up from his forehead and his head buried in his hands, and Mrs. Avory upstairs still suffering from slight concussion of the brain.
Amory interposed. "No," he said. "I prefer not. They are rarely clean." Gregory looked at him in dismay. "Mother!" he exclaimed. "Janet," whispered Mrs. Avory, who knew her youngest son, "take Gregory away, and keep him out of sight till they go." "But we," Mr. Amory resumed, "will examine the caravan. I suppose there was no inventory." "No," said Mrs. Avory.
What is your name?" she asked Gregory. "Gregory Bruce Avory," said he. "Take Mr. Bruce Avory to the Pink Room, and get him some hot water." "Yes, my lady," said Simpkins, and Gregory grew another inch all over. And then Aunt May led the others upstairs. Gregory finished his washing first, and walked to the dining-room, which opened on to the lawn, and was very bright and sweet-smelling.
One day in late June the Avories and the Rotherams and Horace Campbell were sitting at tea under the cedar talking about a great tragedy that had befallen. For Mrs. Avory had just heard that Mrs. Dudeney their regular landlady at Sea View, in the Isle of Wight, where they had lodgings every summer for years and years, and where they were all ready to go next month as usual Mrs.
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