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Confession by W. Gilmore Simms

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Confession




For these I had then no name. The feelings were vague and indefinable,
but not the less unpleasant. I did not fancy for a moment that I
was wronged, or likely to be wronged, but I felt that he was doing
wrong. Then, too, I had my misgivings of what the world would
think! I did not fancy that he had any design to wrong me; but
there seemed to me a cruel want of consideration in his conduct.
But what annoyed me most was, that Julia should receive him at such
periods He was thoughtless, enthusiastic in art, and thoughtless,
perhaps, in consequence of his enthusiasm. But I expected that
she should think for both of us in such a case. Women, alone, can
be the true guardians of appearances where they themselves are
concerned; and it was matter of painful surprise to me that she
should not have asked herself the question: "What will the neighbors
think, during my husband's absence, to see a stranger, a young
man, coming to visit me with periodical regularity, morning after
morning?"

That she did not ask herself this question should have been a very
strong argument to show me that her thoughts were all innocent.
But there is a terrible truth in what Caesar said of his wife's
reputation: "She must be free from suspicion." She must not only do
nothing wrong, but she must not suffer or do anything which might
incur the suspicion of wrong doing. There is nothing half so sensible
to the breath of calumny, as female reputation, particularly in
regions of high civilization, where women are raised to an artificial
rank of respect, which obviates, in most part, the obligations of
their dependence upon man, but increases, in due proportion, some
of their responsibilities to him. Poor Julia had no circumspection,
because she had no feeling of evil. I believe she was purity itself;
I equally believe that William Edgerton was quite incapable of evil
design. But when I came from my office, the first morning that he
had thus passed at my house in my absence, and she told me that
he had been there, and how the time had been spent, I felt a pang,
like a sharp arrow, suddenly rush into my brain. Julia had no
reserve in telling me this fact. It was a subject she seemed pleased
to dwell upon. She narrated with the earnest, unseeing spirit of a
self-satisfied child, the sort of conversation which had taken place
between them--praised Edgerton's taste, his delicacy, his subdued,
persuasive manners, and showed herself as utterly unsophisticated
as any Swiss mountain-girl who voluntarily yields the traveller a
kiss, and tells her mother of it afterward. I listened with chilled
manners and a troubled mind.

"You are unwell, Edward," she remarked tenderly, approaching and
throwing her arms around my neck, as she perceived the gradual
gathering of that cloud upon my brows.

"Why do you think so, Julia?"

"Oh, you look so sad--almost severe, Edward, and your words are so
few and cold. Have I offended you, dear Edward?"

I was confused at this direct question. I felt annoyed, ashamed.
I pleaded headache in justification of my manner--it did ache, and
my heart, too, but not with the ordinary pang; and I felt a warm
blush suffuse my cheek, as I yielded to the first suggestion which
prompted me to deceive my wife.

A large leading step was thus taken, and progress was easy afterward.

Oh! sweet spirit of confidence, thou only true saint, more needful
than all, to bind the ties of kindred and affection! why art thou
so prompt to fly at the approach of thy cold, dark enemy, distrust?
Why dost thou yield the field with so little struggle? Why, when
the things, dearest to thee of all in the world's gift--its most
valued treasure, its purest, sweetest, and proudest trophies--why,
when these are the stake which is to reward thy courage, thy
adherence, to compensate thee for trial, to console thee for loss
and outrage--why is it that thou art so ready to despond of the
cause so dear to thee, and forfeit the conquest by which alone thy
whole existence is made sweet. This is the very suicide of self.
Fearful of loss, we forsake the prize, which we have won; and
hearkening to the counsel of a natural enemy, eat of that bitter
fruit which banishes for ever from our lips the sweet savor which
we knew before, and without which, no savor that is left is sweet.






CHAPTER XX.

PROGRESS OF THE EVIL SPIRIT.





If I felt so deeply annoyed at the first morning visit which William
Edgerton paid to my wife, what was my annoyance when these visits
became habitual. I was miserable but could not complain. I was
ashamed of the language of complaint on such a subject. There is
something very ridiculous in the idea of a jealous husband--it has
always provoked the laughter of the world; and I was one of those
men who shrunk from ridicule with a more than mortal dread. Besides,
I really felt no alarm. I had the utmost confidence in my wife's
virtue. I had not the less confidence in that of Edgerton. But I
was jealous of her deference--of her regard--for another. She was,
in my eyes, as something sacred, set apart--a treasure exclusively my
own! Should it be that another should come to divide her veneration
with me? I was vexed that she should derive satisfaction from another
source than myself. This satisfaction she derived from the visits
of Edgerton. She freely avowed it.

"How amiable--how pleasant he is," she would say, in the perfect
innocence of her heart; "and really, Edward, he has so much talent!"

These praises annoyed me. They were as so much wormwood to my spirit.
It must be remembered that I was not myself what the world calls
an amiable man. I doubt if any, even of my best friends, would
describe me as a pleasant one. I was a man of too direct and
earnest a temperament to establish a claim, in reasonable degree,
to either of these characteristics. I was, accordingly, something
blunt in my address--the tones of my voice were loud--my manner
was all empressement, except when I was actually angry, and then
it was cold. hard, dry, inflexible. I was the last person in the
world to pass for an amiable. Now, Julia, on the other hand, was
quiet, subdued, timorous--the tones of a strong, decided voice
startled her--she shrunk from controversy--yielded always with
a happy grace in anticipation of the conflict, and showed, in all
respects, that nice, almost nervous organization which attaches
the value of principles and morals to mere manners, and would be
as much shocked, perhaps, at the expression of a rudeness, as at
the commission of a sin. Not that such persons would hold a sin to
be less criminal or innocuous than would we ourselves; but that
they regard mere conduct as of so much more importance.

When, therefore, she praised William Edgerton for those qualities
which I well knew I did not possess, I could not resist the annoyance.
My self-esteem--continually active--stimulated as it had been
by the constant moral strife, to which it had been subjected from
boyhood--was continually apprehending disparagement. Of the purity
of Julia's heart, and the chastity of her conduct, the very freedom
of her utterance was conclusive. Had she felt one single improper
emotion toward William Edgerton, her lips would never have voluntarily
uttered his name, and never in the language of applause. On this
head I had not then the slightest apprehension. It was not jealousy
so much as EGOISME that was preying upon me. Whatever it was,
however, it could not be repressed as I listened to the eulogistic
language of my wife. I strove, but could not subdue, altogether,
the evil spirit which was fast becoming predominant within me. Yet,
though speaking under its immediate influence, I was very far from
betraying its true nature. My egoisme had not yet made such advances
as to become reckless and incautious. I surprised her by my answer
to her eulogies.

"I have no doubt he is amiable--he is amiable--but that is not
enough for a man. He must be something more than amiable, if he
would escape the imputation of being feeble--something more if he
would be anything!"

Julia looked at me with eyes of profound and dilating astonishment.
Having got thus far, it was easy to advance. The first step is half
the journey in all such cases.

"William Edgerton is a little too amiable, perhaps, for his own
good. It makes him listless and worthless. He will do nothing at
pictures, wasting his time only when he should be at his business."

"But did I not understand you, Edward, that he was a man of fortune,
and independent of his profession?" she answered timidly.

"Even that will not justify a man in becoming a trifler. No man
should waste his time in painting, unless he makes a trade of it."

"But his leisure, Edward," suggested Julia, with a look of increasing
timidity.

"His leisure, indeed, Julia;--but he has been here all day--day
after day. If painting is such a passion with him, let him abandon
law and take to it. But he should not pursue one art while processing
another. It is as if a man hankered after that which he yet lacked
the courage to challenge and pursue openly.'

"I don't think you love pictures as you used to, Edward," she
remarked to me, after a little interval passed in unusual silence.

"Perhaps it is because I have matters of more consequence to
attend to. YOU seem sufficiently devoted to them now to excuse my
indifference."

"Surely, dear Edward, something I have done vexes you. Tell me,
husband. Do not spare me. Say, in what have I offended?"

I had not the courage to be ingenuous. Ah! if I had!

"Nay, you have not offended," I answered hastily--"I am only worried
with some unmanageable thoughts. The law, you know, is full of
provoking, exciting, irritating necessities."

She looked at ne with a kind but searching glance. My soul seemed
to shrink from that scrutiny. My eyes sunk beneath her gaze.

"I wish I knew how to console you, Edward: to make you entirely
happy. I pray for it, Edward. I thought we were always to be
so happy. Did you not promise me that you would always leave your
cares at your office--that our cottage should be sacred to love
and peace only?"

She put her arms about my neck, and looked into my face with such
a sweet, strange, persuasive smile--half mirth, half sadness--that
the evil spirit was subdued within me. I clasped her fervently in
my embrace, with all my old feelings of confidence and joy renewed.
At this moment the servant announced Mr. Edgerton, and with
a start--a movement--scarcely as gentle as it should have been, I
put the fond and still beloved woman from my embrace!






CHAPTER XXI.

CHANGES OF HOME.





From this time my intercourse with William Edgerton was, on my part,
one of the most painful and difficult constraint. I had nothing to
reproach him with; no grounds whatever for quarrel; and could not,
in his case--regarding the long intimacy which I had maintained with
himself and father, and the obligations which were due from me to
both--adopt such a manner of reserve and distance as to produce
the result of indifference and estrangement which I now anxiously
desired. I was still compelled to meet him--meet him, too, with
an affectation of good feeling and good humor, which I soon found
it, of all things in the world, the most difficult even to pretend.
How much would I have given could he only have provoked me to anger
on any ground--could he have given me an occasion for difference
of any sort or to any degree--anything which could have justified
a mutual falling off from the old intimacy! But William Edgerton
was meekness and kindness itself. His confidence in me was of
the most unobservant, suspicionless character; either that, or
I succeeded better than I thought in the effort to maintain the
external aspects of old friendship. He saw nothing of change in my
deportment. He seemed not to see it, at least; and came as usual,
or more frequently than usual, to my house, until, at length, the
studio of my wife was quite as much his as hers--nay, more; for,
after a brief space, whether it was that Julia saw what troubled me,
or felt herself the imprudence of Edgerton's conduct, she almost
entirely surrendered it to him. She was not now so often to be seen
in it.

This proceeding alarmed me. I dreaded lest my secret should be
discovered. I was shocked lest my wife should suppose me jealous.
The feeling is one which carries with it a sufficiently severe
commentary, in the fact that most men are heartily ashamed to be
thought to suffer from it. But, if it vexed me to think that she
should know or suspect the truth, how much more was I troubled
lest it should be seen or suspected by others! This fear led to
new circumspection. I now affected levities of demeanor and remark;
studiously absented myself from home of an evening, leaving my wife
with Edgerton, or any other friend who happened to be present; and,
though I began no practices of profligacy, such as are common to
young scapegraces in all times, I yet, to some moderate extent,
affected them.

A tone of sadness now marked the features of my wife. There was
an expression of anxiety in her countenance, which, amid all her
previous sufferings, I had never seen there before. She did not
complain; but sometimes, when we sat alone together, I reading,
perhaps, and she sewing, she would drop her work in her lap, and
sigh suddenly and deeply, as if the first shadows of the upgathering
gloom were beginning to cloud her young and innocent spirit, and
force her apprehensions into utterance. This did not escape me, but
I read its signification, as witches are said to read the Bible,
backward. A gloomier fancy filled my brain as I heard her unconscious
sigh.

"It is the language of regret. She laments our marriage. She
could have found another, surely, who could have made her happier.
Perhaps, had Edgerton and herself known each other intimately
before!--"

Dark, perverse imagining! It crushed me. I felt, I can not tell,
what bitterness. Let no one suppose that I endured less misery than
I inflicted. The miseries of the damned could not have exceeded
mine in some of the moments when these cruel conjectures filled my
mind. Then followed some such proofs as these of the presence of
the Evil One:--

"You sigh, Julia. You are unhappy."

"Unhappy? no, dear Edward, not unhappy! What makes you think so?"

"What makes you sigh, then?"

"I do not know. I am certainly not unhappy. Did I sigh, Edward?"

"Yes, and seemingly from the very bottom of your heart. I fear,
Julia, that you are not happy; nay, I am sure you are not! I feel
that I am not the man to make you happy. I am a perverse--"

"'Nay, Edward, now you speak so strangely, and your brow is stern,
and your tones tremble! What can it be afflicts you? You are angry
at something, dear Edward. Surely, it can not be with me."

"And if it were, Julia, I am afraid it would give you little
concern."

"Now, Edward, you are cruel. You do me wrong. You do yourself wrong.
Why should you suppose that it would give me little concern to see
you angry? So far from this, I should regard it as the greatest
misery which I had to suffer. Do not speak so, dearest Edward--do
not fancy such things. Believe me, my husband, when I tell you
that I know nothing half so dear to me as your love--nothing that
I would not sacrifice with a pleasure, to secure, to preserve THAT!"

"Ah! would you give up painting?"

"Painting! that were a small sacrifice! I worked at it only because
you used to like it."

"What, you think I do not like it now?"

"I KNOW you do not."

"But you paint still?"

"No! I have not handled brush or pencil for a week. Mr. Edgerton
was reproaching me only yesterday for my neglect."

"Ah, indeed! Well, you promised him to resume, did you not? He is
a rare persuader! He is so amiable, so mild--you could not well
resist."

It was from her face that I formed a rational conjecture of the
expression that must have appeared in mine. Her eyes dilated with
a look of timid wonder, not unmixed with apprehension. She actually
shrunk back a space; then, approaching, laid her hand upon my wrist,
as she exclaimed:--

"God of heaven, Edward, what strange thought is in your bosom?
what is the meaning of that look? Look not so again, if you would
not kill me!"

I averted my face from hers, but without speaking. She threw her
arms around my neck.

"Do not turn away from me, Edward. Do not, do not, I entreat you!
You must not--no! not till you tell me what is troubling you--not
till I soothe you, and make you love me again as much as you did
at first."

When I turned to her again, the tears--hot, scalding tears--were
already streaming down my cheeks.

"Julia, God knows I love you! Never woman yet was more devotedly
loved by man! I love you too much--too deeply--too entirely! Alas,
I love nothing else!"

"Say not that you love me too much--that can not be! Do I not love
you--you only, you altogether? Should I not have your whole love
in return?"

"Ah, Julia! but my love is a convulsive eagerness of soul--a passion
that knows no limit! It is not that my heart is entirely yours:
it is that it is yours with a frenzied desperation. There is a
fanaticism in love as in religion. My love is that fanaticism. It
burns--it commands--where yours would but soothe and solicit."

"But is mine the less true--the less valuable for this, dear Edward?"

"No, perhaps not! It may be even more true, more valuable; it may
be only less intense. But fanaticism, you know, is exacting--nothing
more so. It permits no half-passion, no moderate zeal. It insists
upon devotion like its own. Ah, Julia, could you but love as I do!"

"I love you all, Edward, all that I can, and as it belongs in my
nature to love. But I am a woman, and a timid one, you know. I am
not capable of that wild passion which you feel. Were I to indulge
it, it would most certainly destroy me. Even as it sometimes appears
in you, it terrifies and unnerves me. You are so impetuous!"

"Ah, you would have only the meek, the amiable!"

And thus, with an implied sarcasm, our conversation ended. Julia
turned on me a look of imploring, which was naturally one of
reproach. It did not have its proper influence upon me. I seized
my hat, and hurried from the house. I rushed, rather than walked,
through the streets; and, before I knew where I was, I found myself
on the banks of the river, under the shade of trees, with the soft
evening breeze blowing upon me, and the placid moon sailing quietly
above. I threw myself down upon the grass, and delivered myself up
to gloomy thoughts. Here was I, then, scarcely twenty-five years
old; young, vigorous; with a probable chance of fortune before me;
a young and lovely wife, the very creature of my first and only
choice, one whom I tenderly loved, whom, if to seek again, I should
again, and again, and only, seek! Yet I was miserable--miserable
in the very possession of my first hopes, my best joys--the very
treasure that had always seemed the dearest in my sight. Miserable
blind heart! miserable indeed! For what was there to make me
miserable? Absolutely nothing--nothing that the outer world could
give--nothing that it could ever take away. But what fool is it
that fancies there must be a reason for one's wretchedness? The
reason is in our own hearts; in the perverseness which can make of
its own heaven a hell! not often fashion a heaven out of hell!

Brooding, I lay upon the sward, meditating unutterable things,
and as far as ever from any conclusion. Of one thing alone I
was satisfied--that I was unutterably miserable; that my destiny
was written in sable; that I was a man foredoomed to wo! Were
my speculations strange or unnatural! Unnatural indeed! There
is a class of surface-skimming persons, who pronounce all things
unnatural which, to a cool, unprovoked, and perhaps unprovokable
mind, appear unreasonable: as if a vexed nature and exacting
passions were not the most unreasonable yet most natural of all
moral agents. My woes may have been groundless, but it was surely
not unnatural that I felt and entertained them.

Thus, with bitter mood, growing more bitter with every moment of
its unrestrained indulgence, I gloomed in loneliness beside the
banks of that silvery and smooth-flowing river. Certainly the
natural world around me lent no color to my fancies. While all
was dark within, all was bright without. A fiend was tugging at
my heart; while from a little white cottage, a few hundred yards
below, which grew flush with the margin of the stream, there stole
forth the tender, tinkling strains of a guitar, probably touched
by fair fingers of a fair maiden, with some enamored boy, blind and
doting, hovering beside her. I, too, had stood thus and hearkened
thus, and where am I--what am I!

I started to my feet. I found something offensive in the music.
It came linked with a song which I had heard Julia sing a hundred
times; and when I thought of those hours of confidence, and felt
myself where I was, alone--and how lone!--bitterer than ever were
the wayward pangs which were preying upon the tenderest fibres of
my heart.

In the next moment I ceased to be alone. I was met and jostled by
another person as I bounded forward, much too rapidly, in an effort
to bury myself in the deeper shadow of some neighboring trees. The
stranger was nearly overthrown in the collision, which extorted a
hasty exclamation from his lips, not unmingled with a famous oath
or two. In the voice. I recognised that of my friend Kingsley--the
well-known pseudo-Kentucky gentleman, who had acted a part so
important in extricating my wife from her mother's custody. I made
myself known to him in apologizing for my rudeness.

"You here!" said he; "I did not expect to meet you. I have just
been to your house, where I found your wife, and where I intended
to stop a while and wait for you. But Bill Edgerton, in the meanwhile,
popped in, and after that I could hear nothing but pictures and
paintings, Madonnas, Ecce Homos, and the like; till I began to fancy
that I smelt nothing but paint and varnish. So I popped out, with
a pretty blunt excuse, leaving the two amateurs to talk in oil
and water-colors, and settle the principles of art as they please.
Like you, I fancy a real landscape, here, by the water, and under
the green trees, in preference to a thousand of their painted
pictures."

It may be supposed that my mood underwent precious little improvement
after this communication. Dark conceits, darker than ever, came
across my mind. I longed to get away, and return to that home from
which I had banished confidence!--ah, only too happy if there still
lingered hope! But my friend, blunt, good-humored, and thoughtless
creature as he was, took for granted that I had come to look at
the landscape, to admire water-views by moonlight, and drink fresh
draughts of sea-breeze from the southwest; and, thrusting his arm
through mine, he dragged me on, down, almost to the threshold of
the cottage, whence still issued the tinkle, tinkle, of the guitar
which had first driven me away.

"That girl sings well. Do you know her--Miss Davison? She's soon
to be married, THEY say (d--n 'they say,' however--the greatest
scandal-monger, if not mischief-maker and liar, in the world!)--she
is soon to be married to young Trescott--a clover lad who sniffles,
plays on the flute, wears whisker and imperial on the most cream-colored
and effeminate face you ever saw! A good fellow, nevertheless, but
a silly! She is a good fellow, too, rather the cleverest of the
twain, and perhaps the oldest. The match, if match it really is to
be, none of the wisest for that very reason. The damsel, now-a-days,
who marries a lad younger than herself, is laying up a large stock
of pother, which is to bother her when she becomes thirty--for even
young ladies, you know, after forty, may become thirty. A sort of
dispensation of nature. She sings well, nevertheless."

I said something--it matters not what. Dark images of home were in
my eyes. I heard no song--saw no landscape The voice of Kingsley
was a sort of buzzing in my ears.

"You are dull to-night, but that song ought to soothe you. What a
cheery, light-hearted wench it is! Her voice does seem so to rise
in air, shaking its wings, and crying tira-la! tira-la! with an
enthusiasm which is catching! I almost feel prompted to kick up my
heels, throw a summerset, and, while turning on my axis, give her
an echo of tira-la! tira-la! tira-la! after her own fashion."

"You are certainly a happy, mad fellow, Kingsley!" was my faint,
cheerless commentary upon a gayety of heart which I could not share,
and the unreserved expression of which, at that moment, only vexed
me.

"And you no glad one, Clifford. That song, which almost prompts me
to dance, makes no impression on you! By-the-way, your wife used
to sing so well, and now I never hear her. That d---d painting,
if you don't mind, will make her give up everything else! As for
Bill Edgerton, he cares for nothing else out his varnish, trees,
and umber-hills, and streaky water. You shouldn't let him fill
your wife's mind with this oil-and-varnish spirit--giving up the
piano, the guitar, and that sweeter instrument than all, her own
voice. D--n the paintings!--his long talk on the subject almost makes
me sick of everything like a picture. I now look upon a beautiful
landscape like this. as a thing that is shortly to be desecrated--taken
in vain--scratched out of shape and proportion upon a deal-board,
and colored after such a fashion as never before was seen in the
natural world, upon, or under, or about this solid earth. D--n the
pictures, I say again!--but, for God's sake, Clifford, don't let
your wife give up the music! Make her play, even if she don't like
it. She likes the painting best, but I wouldn't allow it! A wife is
a sort of person that we set to do those things that we wish done
and can't do for ourselves. That's my definition of a wife. Now, if
I were in your place, with my present love for music and dislike
of pictures, I'd put her at the piano, and put the paint-saucers,
and the oil, and the smutted canvass, out of the window; and
then--unless he came to his senses like other people--I'd thrust
Bill Edgerton out after them! I'd never let the best friend in the
world spoil my wife."

Letter: Gender roles in the Cinderella story

Doctors assure us that wherever you find an elderly, pompous old writer long past his prime you will find a bottle of scotch nearby. If only that were the case. Hilly hid mine after I fell up the stairs when I came home from the Garrick yesterday, and I've had to make do with a bottle of Blue Nun I found in the maid's parlour. Not that I am an alcoholic. Dipsomaniacs are a breed of the lower orders you meet on street corners: people like myself are bon viveurs who happen to like a drink. Or 12.

My primary observation is that drinking makes the daily grind of dealing with people so much easier. You drink a pint of whisky and become the life and soul of the party. You then start insulting people, before sweating heavily and wetting yourself involuntarily. You will usually find that everyone quickly avoids you, thereby relieving you of the need to make conversation. This is why I prefer to do much of my drinking at home. It saves so much time.

There are a great many drinks on the market - spirits, wines and beers - and I've probably drunk them all. Usually in some kind of combination with one another. Mixing cocktails is one of my favourite hobbies. Here's one I invented last week for my great sycophant, Christopher Hitchens.

The Hitch

One bottle of Babycham

One bottle of absinthe

Five shots of Angostura very bitters

Two tablespoons of bile

Two or three glasses of this tincture can give you a lifetime of self-satisfaction.

At some time you will probably be forced to invite people to your home and they may expect a drink. My advice is to offer them the cheapest tipple you can find; my local off-licence does a ghastly Mosel at 70p a bottle. I've never cared for even the best wines, and this should guarantee those poncing off you neither ask for top-ups nor stay long, thereby leaving you more money and time for the pub.

It is well known that only the very dullest of petit-bourgeois minds fail to over-imbibe on a daily basis, so I regard hangovers as a price worth paying for my brilliance. That said, I have found ways of coping with this metaphysical malaise. The first is to fuck someone; preferably somebody else's wife, but if your own is the only one around then she will do. The second is to read a book by that little shit Mart; it will either remind you you're not that bad a writer or give you some sleep.

The one downside to drinking is that it can make you fat. This is remedied by cutting out food entirely and drinking all spirits without mixers. My weight has gone down to 19st with this diet. There isn't much more to say, but as I'm being paid by the column I'd better repeat myself. And now that I'm dead, there's no harm in Bloomsbury repackaging the same material several times in the same collection.

I don't really like wine. Gin is for pansies, though a snifter with water doesn't go amiss. Liqueurs are best left to patent-shoed Wops. Or Americans. Champagne is an overrated girl's drink, though it can be drunk with any food; as such, it's a perfect breakfast drink because a scotch before 10am is very non-U.

I loathe pubs with loud music, but my utmost detestation is reserved for sanctimonious ex-topers. There's nothing worse than a man who doesn't drink. I once tried not drinking for several hours and my wives and mistresses said how dull it was that I was conscious and they were spared removing my soiled trousers from my bloated legs.

Whisky is my favourite tipple, though I recommend never giving it to a Welshman as it's wasted on someone with an IQ of less than 80. Have I mentioned that I'm partial to a Macallan? Gosh is that the time? Hilly's coming to change my IV drip before I fall unconscious again. The publisher can bloody well pad out the rest of the book with a pointless quiz without me.

Q: Who will buy this?

A: No one.

The digested read digested: The old pub bore.

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Jury clears judge of libelling mother
Sales of 'misery memoirs' fall after they boomed beyond all expectations since Dave Pelzer wrote A Child Called It

Constance Briscoe wins Ugly libel case

A judge who was sued for libel by her mother over allegations of childhood cruelty and neglect in her bestselling "misery memoir" won her case yesterday.

Constance Briscoe burst into tears at the high court in London as a jury unanimously cleared her and publishers Hodder & Stoughton over the claims in Ugly, which her mother Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, 74, had alleged were a "piece of fiction".

During the 10-day trial, Briscoe, 51, who was one of the first black women judges in the UK, told the court her mother repeatedly beat her with a stick for bed-wetting and called her a "dirty little whore", a "potato-head" and "miss piss-a-bed".

She described trying to kill herself by drinking diluted bleach after failing to get taken into care, and told the jury she used a university grant to have plastic surgery to remove the "ugliness" her mother had taunted her over.

Briscoe, of Clapham, south London, also said that when she was nine, her mother had deliberately cut her on the inside of her arm with a knife in a row over the preparation of a chicken.

Ugly, published in 2006, has sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK. Briscoe and Hodder & Stoughton had denied libel and said the book was substantially true. Andrew Caldecott QC, for Briscoe, said the events occurred between 1964 and 1975.

Briscoe-Mitchell, from Southwark, south-east London, left court without making any immediate comment about her legal defeat. During the trial she had denied all the allegations of verbal and physical abuse and claimed she and her daughter had enjoyed a loving relationship within a happy family.

Her counsel, William Panton, told the jury Briscoe was "spinning a yarn", claiming his client had struggled to bring up her 11 children and had provided for them equally to the best of her ability.

Outside court, Briscoe told reporters she was "very happy" with the jury's verdict, which came after more than a day of deliberation.

"It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me," she said. "Now I just want to get on with my career. I would like to thank all my readers who have sent me messages of support, including the very many children who provided helpful advice.

"I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial but whilst child abuse may be committed behind closed doors it should never be swept under the carpet."

Hodder & Stoughton said it was pleased with the verdict. "We are very proud to be Constance Briscoe's publisher," a statement said. "Her books Ugly and Beyond Ugly have touched hundreds of thousands of readers, many of them children. Sadly, as we know from the news over the past few weeks, child abuse is all too common and nothing and no one should ever stand in the way of the truth."

Asked during the trial why she wrote the book, Briscoe said: "I didn't believe for a split second that I owed my mother a bond of silence. I don't. I had a story to tell and that story really is that I, someone who from dirt poverty, from absolutely nowhere, with absolutely no assistance whatsoever, who faced adversity at every turn, could come through."

The court heard she had cleaned offices for two hours every day before school until her studies took her to Newcastle University, the criminal bar and, eventually, to become one of the country's few black women judges.

"I wanted to say to whoever read the book ... you can be whatever you want to be," Briscoe said. "You just have to believe in yourself ... you do not have to be posh or privileged to be at the Bar.

"You just need to believe in yourself and I truly, truly believe that my book has done an enormous amount of good."

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