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Confession by W. Gilmore Simms

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Confession




"Five, four, six!" cried Philip, loudly, with tones of evident
exultation. I felt a sense like that of suffocation, which was
unrelieved even by the seemingly unnatural laughter of my companion.
He did laugh, but in a manner to render less strange and unnatural
that in which he had before indulged. Even as he laughed he rose
and possessed himself of the dice which the other had thrown down.

"The stakes are mine," cried Cleveland, extending his hand toward
the handkerchief.

"No!" said Kingsley, with a voice of thunder, and as he spoke,
he handed me the kerchief of money, which I grasped instantly, and
thrust with some difficulty into my bosom. This was done instinctively;
I really had no thoughts of what I was doing. Had I thought at all
I should most probably have refused to receive it.

"How!" exclaimed Cleveland, his face becoming suddenly pale. "The
cast is mine--fifteen to twelve!"

"Ay, scoundrel, but the game I played for is mine! As for the
cast, you shall try another which you shall relish less. Do you
see these?"

He showed the dice which he had gathered from the table. The
gambler made an effort to snatch them from his hands.

"Try that again," said Kingsley, "and I lay this hickory over your
pate, in a way that shall be a warning to it for ever."

By this time several persons from the neighboring tables and the
adjoining rooms, hearing the language of strife, came rushing in.
Kingsley beheld their approach without concern. There were several
old gamblers among them, but the greater number were young ones.

"Gentlemen," said Kingsley, "I am very glad to see you. You come
at a good time. I am about to expose a scoundrel to you."

"You shall answer for this, sir," stammered Cleveland, in equal
rage and confusion.

"Answer, shall I? By Jupiter! but you shall answer too! And you
shall have the privilege of a first answer, shall you?"

"Mr. Kingsley, what is the meaning of this?" was the demand of a
tall, dark-featured man, who now made his appearance from an inner
room, and whom I now learned, was, in fact, the proprietor of the
establishment.

"Ah! Radcliffe--but before another word is wasted put your fingers
into the left breeches pocket of that scoundrel there, and see what
you will find."

Cleveland would have resisted. Kingsley spoke again to Radcliffe,
and this time in stern language, which was evidently felt by the
person to whom it was addressed.

"Radcliffe, your own credit--nay, safety--will depend upon your
showing that you have no share in this rogue's practice. Search
him, if you would not share his punishment."

The fellow was awed, and obeyed instantly. Himself, with three
others, grappled with the culprit. He resisted strenuously, but in
vain. He was searched, and from the pocket in question three dice
were produced.

"Very good," said Kingsley; "now examine those dice, gentlemen, and
see if you can detect one of my initials, the letter 'K,' which I
scratched with a pin upon each of them."

The examination was made, and the letter was found, very small and
very faint, it is true, but still legible, upon the ace square of
each of the dice.

"Very good," continued Kingsley; "and now, gentlemen, with your
leave--"

He opened his hand and displayed the three dice with which Cleveland
had last thrown.

"Here you see the dice with which this worthy gentleman hoped
to empty my pockets. These are they which he last threw upon the
table. He counted handsomely by them! I threw, just before him,
with those which you have in your hand. I had contrived to mark
them previously, this very evening, in order that I might know them
again. Why should he put them in his pocket, and throw with these?
As this question is something important, I propose to answer it to
your satisfaction as well as my own; and, for this reason, I came
here, as you see, prepared to make discoveries."

He drew from his pocket, while he spoke, a small saddler's hammer and
steel-awl. Fixing with the sharp point of the awl in the ace spot
of the dice, he struck it a single but sudden blow with the hammer,
split each of the dice in turn, and disclosed to the wondering, or
seemingly wondering, eyes of all around, a little globe of lead in
each, inclining to the lowest numeral, and necessarily determining
the roll of the dice so as to leave the lightest section uppermost.

"Here, gentlemen," continued Kingsley, "you see by what process I
have lost my money. But it is not in the dice alone. Look at these
cards. Do you note this trace of the finger-nail, here, and there,
and there--scarcely to be seen unless it is shown to you, but clear
enough to the person that made it, and is prepared to look for it.
Radcliffe, your fellow, Philip, has been concerned in this business.
You must dismiss him, or your visiters will dismiss you. Neither
myself nor my friends will visit you again--nay, more, I denounce
you to the police. Am I understood?"

Radcliffe assented without scruple, evidently not so anxious for
justice as for the safety of his establishment. But it appeared
that there were others in the room not so well pleased with the
result. A hubbub now took place, in which three or four fellows
made a rush upon Kingsley--Cleveland urging and clamoring from the
rear, though without betraying much real desire to get into the
conflict.

But the assailants had miscalculated their forces. The youngsters
in the establishment, regarding Kingsley's development as serving
the common cause, were as soon at his side as myself. The scuffle
was over in an instant. One burly ruffian was prostrated by a
blow from Kingsley's club; I had my share in the prostration of a
second, and some two others took to their heels, assisted in their
progress by a smart application from every foot and fist that
happened to be convenient enough for such a service.

But Cleveland alone remained. Why he had not shared the summary fate
of the rest it would be difficult to say, unless it was because he
had kept aloof from the active struggle to which he had egged them
on. Perhaps, too, a better reason--he was reserved for some more
distinguishing punishment. Why he had shown no disposition for
flight himself, was answered as soon as Kingsley laid down his club,
which he did with a laugh of exemplary good-nature the moment he
had felled with it his first assailant. The flight of his allies
left the path open between himself and Cleveland, and, suddenly
darting upon him, the desperate gambler aimed a blow at his breast
with a dirk which he had drawn that instant from his own. He
exclaimed as he struck:--

"Here is something that escaped your search. Take this! this!"

Kingsley was just lifting up the cap, which he had worn that night,
from the table to his brows. Instinctively he dashed it into the
face of his assassin, and his simple evolution saved him. The
next moment the fearless fellow had grappled with his enemy, torn
the weapon from his grasp, and, seizing him around the body as if
he had been an infant, moved with him to an open window looking out
upon a neighboring court. The victim struggled, yelled for succor,
but before any of us could interpose, the resolute and powerful man
in whose hold he writhed and struggled vainly, with the gripe of
a master, had thrust him through the opening, his heels, in their
upward evolutions, shattering a dozen of the panes as he disappeared
from sight below. We all concluded that he was killed. We were
in an upper chamber, which I estimated to be twenty or thirty feet
from the ground. I was too much shocked for speech, and rushed
to the window, expecting to hehold the mangled and bloody corpse
of the miserable criminal beneath. The laughter of Radclifle half
reassured me.

"He will not suffer much hurt," said he; "there is something to
break his fall."

I looked down, and there the unhappy wretch was seen squatting and
clinging to the slippery shingles of an old stable, unhurt, some
twelve feet below us, unable to reascend, and very unwilling to adopt
the only alternative which the case presented---that of descending
softly upon the rank bed of stable-ordure which the provident care
of the gardener had raised up on every hand, the recking fumes of
which were potent enough to expel us very soon from our place of
watch at the window. Of the further course of the elegant culprit
we took no heed. The ludicrousness of his predicament had the
effect of turning the whole adventure into merriment among those
who remained in the establishment; and availing ourselves of the
clamorous mirth of the parties, we made our escape from the place
with a feeling, on my part, of indescribable relief.

Chapter XXXI

How the Game was Played

"WELL, we may breathe awhile," said Kingsley, as we found ourselves
once more in the pure air, and under the blue sky of midnight. "We
have got through an ugly task with tolerable success. You stood by
me like a man, Clifford. I need not tell you how much I thank you."

"I heartily rejoice that you are through with it, Kingsley; but I
am not so sure that we can deliberately approve of everything that
we may have been required by the circumstances of the case to do."

"What! you did not relish the playing? I respect your scruples,
but it does not follow that it must become a habit. You played to
enable a friend to get back from a knave what he lost as a fool,
and to punish the knavery that he could not well hope to reform. I
do not see, considering the amount of possible good which we have
done, that the evil is wholly inexcusable."

"Perhaps not; but this heap of money which I have in my bosom--should
you have taken it?"

"And why not? Whose should it be, if not mine?"

"You took with you but one hundred dollars. I should say you have
more than a thousand here."

"I trust I have," said he coolly. "What of that? I won it fairly,
and he played fairly, until the last moment when everything was at
stake. His false dice were then called in--and would you have me
yield to his roguery what had been the fruits of a fair conflict?
No! no! friend of mine! no! no! all these things did I consider
well before I took you with me to-night. I have been meditating
this business for a week, from the moment when a friendly fellow
hinted to me that I was the victim of knavery."

"But that wallet of money, Kingsley? You assured me that you were
pennyless."

"All! that wallet bedevilled Mr. Latour Cleveland, as it seems to
have bedevilled you. There, by the starlight, look at the contents
of this precious wallet, and see how much further your eyes can
pierce into the mystery of my proceedings.'"

He handed me the wallet, which I opened. To my great surprise, I
found it stuffed with old shreds of newspaper, bits of rag, even
cotton, but not a cent of money.

"There! ara you satisfied? You shall have that wallet, with all
its precious contents, as a keepsake from me. It will remind you of
a strange scene. It will have a history for you when you are old,
which you will tell with a chuckle to your children."

"Children!" I involuntarily murmured, while my voice trembled, and
a tear started to my eye. That one word recalled me back, at once,
to home, to my particular woes--to all that I could have wished
banished for ever, even in the unwholesome stews and steams of a
gaming-house. But Kingsley did not suffer me to muse over my own
afflictions. He did not seem to hear the murmuring exclamation of
my lips. He continued:--

"I have no mysteries from you, and you need, as well as deserve,
an explanation. All shall be made clear to you. The reason of this
wallet, and another matter which staggered you quite as much--my
audacious bet of a cool hundred--your own disconsolate hundred--as
a first stake! I have no doubt you thought me mad when you heard
me."

I confessed as much. He laughed.

"As I tell you, I had studied my game beforehand, even in its
smallest details. By this time, I knew something of the play of
most gamblers, and of Mr. Latour Cleveland, in particular. These
people do not risk themselves for trifles. They play fairly enough
when the temptation is small. They cheat only when the issues are
great. I am speaking now of gamesters on the big figure, not of
the petty chapmen who pule over their pennies and watch the exit
of a Mexican, with the feelings of one who sees the last wave of a
friend's handkerchief going upon the high seas. My big wallet and
my hundred dollar bet, were parts of the same system. The heavy
stake at the beginning led to the inference that I had corresponding
resources. My big wallet lying by me, conveniently and ostentatiously,
confirmed this impression. The cunning gambler was willing that I
should win awhile. His policy was to encourage me; to persuade me
on and on, by gradual stimulants, till all was at stake. Well! I
knew this. All was at stake finally, and I had then to call into
requisition all the moral strength of which I was capable, so that
eye and lip and temper should not fail me at those moments when I
would need the address and agency of all.

"The task has been an irksome one; the trial absolutely painful.
But I should have been ashamed, once commencing the undertaking,
not to have succeeded. He, too, was not impregnable. I found out
his particular weakness. He was a vain man; vain of his bearing,
which he deemed aristocratic; his person, which he considered very
fine. I played with these vanities. Failing to excite him on the
subject of the game, I made HIMSELF my subject. I chattered with
him freely; so as to prompt him to fancy that I was praising his
style, air, appearance; anon, by some queer jibe, making him half
suspicious that I was quizzing him. My frequent laughter, judiciously
disposed, helped this effect; and, to a certain extent, I succeeded.
He became nervous, and was excited, though you may not have seen
it. I saw it in the change of his complexion, which became suddenly
quite bilious. I found, too, that he could only speak with some
effort, when, if you remember, before we began to play, his tongue,
though deliberate, worked pat enough. I felt my power over him
momently increase; and I sometimes won where he did not wish it.
I do verily believe that he ceased to see the very marks which he
himself had made upon the cards. Nervous agitation, on most persons,
produces a degree of blindness quite as certainly as it affects
the speech. Well, you saw the condition of our funds when you
re-appeared. I had determined to bring the business to a close.
I had marked the dice, actually before his face, while we took a
spell of rest over a bottle of porter. I had scratched them quietly
with a pin which I carried in my sleeve for that purpose, while
he busied himself with a fidgety shuffling of the cards. My leg,
thrown over one angle of the table, partly covered my operations,
and I worked upon the dice in my lap. You may suppose the etching
was bad enough, doing precious little credit to the art of engraving
in our country. But the thing was thoroughly done, for I had worked
myself into a rigorous sort of philosophic desperation which made
me as cool as a cucumber. To seem to empty the contents of the
wallet into my lap was my next object, and this I succeeded in,
without his suspecting that my movement was a sham only. The purse
thus made up, I emphatically told him was all I had--this was the
truth--and then came the crisis. His trick was to be employed
now or never. It was employed, but he had become so nervous, that
I caught a sufficient glimpse of his proceedings. I saw the slight
o'hand movement which he attempted, and--you know the rest. I regard
the money as honestly mine--so far as good morals may recognise the
honesty of getting money by gambling;--and thinking so, my dear
Clifford, I have no scruple in begging you to share it with me.
It is only fit that you, who furnished all the capital--you see I
say nothing of the wallet which should, however, be priceless in
our eyes--should derive at least a moiety of the profit. It is
quite as much yours as mine. I beg you so to consider it."

I need not say, however, that I positively refused to accept this
offer. I would take nothing but the hundred which I had lent him,
and placed the handkerchief with all its contents into his hands.

"And now, Clifford, I must leave you. You have yet to learn another
of my secrets. I take the rail-car at daylight in the morning. I
am off for Alabama; and considering my Texan and Mexican projects,
I leave you, perhaps, for ever."

"So soon?"

"Yes, everything is ready. There need be no delay. I have no wife
nor children to cumber me. My trunks are already packed; my resolve
made; my last business transacted I have some lands in Alabama
which I mean to sell. This done, I am off for the great field of
performance, south and southwest. You shall hear of me, perhaps may
wish to hear FROM me. Here is my address, meanwhile, in Alabama.
I shall advise you of my further progress, and shall esteem highly
a friendly scrawl from you. If you write, do not fail to tell me
what you may hear of Mr. Latour Cleveland, and how he got down from
the muck-heap. Write me all about it, Clifford, and whatever else
you can about our fools and knaves, for though I leave them without
a tear, yet, d--n 'em, I keep 'em in my memory, if it's only for
the sake of the old city whom they bedevil."

Enough of our dialogue that night. Kingsley was a fellow of every
excellent and some very noble qualities. We did not sympathize in
sundry respects, but I parted from him with regret; not altogether
satisfied, however, that there were not some defects in that reasoning
by which he justified our proceedings with the gamblers. I turned
from him with a sad, sick heart. In his absence the whole feeling
of my domestic doubts and difficulties rushed back upon me freshly
and with redoubled force.

"Children!" I murmured mournfully, as I recalled one of his remarks;
"children! children! these, indeed, were blessings; but if we only
had love, truth, peace. If that damning doubt were not there!--that
wild fear, that fatal, soul-petrifying suspicion!"

I groaned audibly as I traversed the streets, and it seemed as
if the pavements groaned hollowly in answer beneath my hurrying
footsteps. In a moment more I had absolutely forgotten the recent
strife, the strange scene, the accents of my friend; for but that
one.

"Children! children! These might bind her to me; might secure
her erring affections; might win her to love the father, when he
himself might possess no other power to tempt her to love. Ah! why
has Providence denied me the blessing of a child?"

Alas! it was not probable that Julia should ever have children. This
was the conviction of our physician. Her health and constitution
seemed to forbid the hope; and the gloomy despair under which I
suffered was increased by this reflection. Yet, even at that moment,
while thus I mused and murmured, my poor wife had been unexpectedly
and prematurely delivered of an infant son--a tiny creature, in
whom life was but a passing gleam, as of the imperfect moonlight,
and of whom death took possession in the very instant of its birth.






CHAPTER XXXII.

SUDDEN LESSON AND NEW SUSPICIONS.





While I had been wasting the precious hours of midnight in a
gaming-house, my poor Julia had undergone the peculiar pangs of a
mother! While I had been reproaching her in my secret soul for a
want of ardency and attachment, she had been giving me the highest
proof that she possessed the warmest. These revelations, however,
were to reach me slowly; and then, like those of Cassandra, they
were destined to encounter disbelief.

Leaving Kingsley, I turned into the street where my wife's mother
lived. But the house was shut up--the company gone. I had not
been heedful of the progress of the hours. I looked up at the tall,
white, and graceful steeple of our ancient church, which towered
in serene majesty above us; but, in the imperfect light I failed
to read the letters upon the dial-plate. At that moment its solemn
chimes pealed forth the hour, as if especially in answer to my quest.
How such sounds speak to the very soul at midnight! They seem the
voice from Time himself, informing, not man alone, but Eternity,
of his progress to that lone night, in which his minutes, hours,
days, and years, are equally to be swallowed up and forgotten.

Sweet had been those bells to me in boyhood. Sad were they to me
now. I had heard them ring forth merry peals on the holydays of
the nation; and peals on the day of national mourning; startling
and terrifying peals in the hour of midnight danger and alarm;
but never till then had they spoken with such deep and searching
earnestness to the most hidden places of my soul. That 'one, two,
three, four,' which they then struck, as they severally pronounced
the thrilling monotones, seemed to convey the burden of four impressive
acts in a yet unfinished tragedy. My heart beat with a feeling of
anxiety, such as overcomes us, when we look for the curtain to rise
which is to unfold the mysterious progress of the catastrophe.

That fifth act of mine! what was it to be? Involuntarily my lips
uttered the name of William Edgerton! I started as if I had trodden
upon a viper. The denouement of the drama at once grew up before
my eyes. I felt the dagger in my grasp; I actually drew it from my
bosom. I saw the victim before me--a smile upon his lips--a fire
in his glance--an ardor, an intelligence, that looked like exulting
passion; and my own eyes grew dim. I was blinded; but, even in the
darkness, I struck with fatal precision. I felt the resistance,
I heard the groan and the falling body; and my hair rose, with a
cold, moist life of its own, upon my clammy and shrinking temples.

I recovered from the delusion. My dagger had been piercing the empty
air; but the feeling and the horror in my soul were not less real
because the deed had been one of fancy only. The foregone conclusion
was in tny mind, and I well knew that fate would yet bring the
victim to the altar.

I know not how I reached my dwelling, but when there I was soon
brought to a sober condition of the senses. I found everything in
commotion. Mrs. Delaney, late Clifford, was there, busy in my wife's
chamber, while her husband, surly with such an interruption to his
domestic felicity, even at the threshold, was below, kicking his
heels in solemn disquietude in the parlor. The servants had been
despatched to bring her and to seek me, in the first moments of
my wife's danger. She had consciousness enough for that, and Mrs.
Delaney had summoned the physician. He too--the excellent old man,
who had assisted us in our clandestine marriage--he too was there;
sad, troubled, and regarding me with looks of apprehension and rebuke
which seemed to ask why I was abroad at that late hour, leaving my
wife under such circumstances. I could not meet his glance with a
manly eye. They brought me the dead infant--poor atom of mortality--no
longer mortal; but I turned away from the spectacle. I dared not
look upon it. It was the form of a perished hope, ended in a dream!
And such a dream! The physician gave me a brief explanation of the
condition of things.

"Your wife is very ill. It is difficult to say what will happen.
Make up your mind for the worst. She has fever--has been delirious.
But she sleeps now under the effect of some medicine I have given
her. She will not sleep long; and everything will depend upon her
wakening. She must be kept very quiet."

I asked if he could conjecture what should bring about such an
event. "Though delicate, Julia was not out of health. She had been
well during the evening when I left her."

"You have left her long. This is a late hour, Mr. Clifford, for
a young husband to be out. Nothing but matter of necessity could
excuse--"

I interrupted him with some gravity:--

"Suppose then it was a matter of necessity--of seeming necessity,
at least."

He observed my emotion.

"Do not be angry with me. I assisted your dear wife into the world,
Clifford. I would not see her hurried out of it. She is like a
child of my own; I feel for her as such."

I said something apologetic, I know not what, and renewed my
question.

"She has been alarmed or excited, perhaps; possibly has fallen
while ascending the stair. A very slight accident will sometimes
suffice to produce such a result with a constitution such as hers.
She needs great watchfulness, Clifford; close attention, much
solicitude. She needs and deserves it, Clifford."

I saw that the old man suspected me of indifference and neglect. Alas!
whatever might be my faults in reference to my wife, indifference
was not among them. What he had said, however, smote me to the
heart. I felt like a culprit. I dared not meet his eye when, at
daylight, he took his departure, promising to return in a few hours.

My excellent mother-in-law was more capable and copious in her
details. From her I learned that Julia, though anxious to depart
for some time before, had waited for my return until the last of
her guests were about to retire. Among these happened to be Mr.
William Edgerton!"

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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