The litigation seemed interminable and had in fact
been complicated; but by the decision on the appeal
the judgement of the divorce-court was confirmed as
to the assignment of the child. The father, who,
though bespattered from head to foot, had made good
his case, was, in pursuance of this triumph, appointed
to keep her: it was not so much that the mother’s
character had been more absolutely damaged as that
the brilliancy of a lady’s complexion (and this
lady’s, in court, was immensely remarked) might
be more regarded as showing the spots. Attached,
however, to the second pronouncement was a condition
that detracted, for Beale Farange, from its sweetness—an
order that he should refund to his late wife the twenty-six
hundred pounds put down by her, as it was called,
some three years before, in the interest of the child’s
maintenance and precisely on a proved understanding
that he would take no proceedings: a sum of which
he had had the administration and of which he could
render not the least account. The obligation thus
attributed to her adversary was no small balm to Ida’s
resentment; it drew a part of the sting from her defeat
and compelled Mr.
Farange perceptibly to lower his
crest. He was unable to produce the money or to
raise it in any way; so that after a squabble scarcely
less public and scarcely more decent than the original
shock of battle his only issue from his predicament
was a compromise proposed by his legal advisers and
finally accepted by hers.
His debt was by this arrangement remitted to him and
the little girl disposed of in a manner worthy of
the judgement-seat of Solomon. She was divided
in two and the portions tossed impartially to the disputants.
They would take her, in rotation, for six months at
a time; she would spend half the year with each.
This was odd justice in the eyes of those who still
blinked in the fierce light projected from the tribunal—a
light in which neither parent figured in the least
as a happy example to youth and innocence. What
was to have been expected on the evidence was the
nomination, in loco parentis, of some proper
third person, some respectable or at least some presentable
friend. Apparently, however, the circle of the
Faranges had been scanned in vain for any such ornament;
so that the only solution finally meeting all the difficulties
was, save that of sending Maisie to a Home, the partition
of the tutelary office in the manner I have mentioned.
There were more reasons for her parents to agree to
it than there had ever been for them to agree to anything;
and they now prepared with her help to enjoy the distinction
that waits upon vulgarity sufficiently attested.
Their rupture had resounded, and after being perfectly
insignificant together they would be decidedly striking
apart. Had they not produced an impression that
warranted people in looking for appeals in the newspapers
for the rescue of the little one—reverberation,
Copyrights
What Maisie Knew from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
