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Confession by W. Gilmore Simms

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Confession




"DEAR EDWARD: If you can spare a moment from your numerous clients,
and are not in a great hurry to make your deposites, you will
suffer me to see you at the office before two o'clock. Yours
affectionately, J. B. CLIFFORD."

"Very affectionately!"! exclaimed. It might be nothing more than
a pleasantry which he intended by the offensive passages in his
note; but the whole tenor of his character and conduct forbade this
conviction.

"No! no!" I muttered to myself, as the doubt suggested itself to
my mind; "no! no! it is the old insolence--the insolence of pride,
of conscious wealth--of power, as he thinks, to crush! But he is
mistaken. He shall find defiance. Let him but repeat those sarcasms
and that sneer which are but too frequent on his lips when he speaks
to me, and I will answer him, for the first time, by a narration
which shall sting him to the very soul, if he has one!"

This resolution was scarcely made when the image of Julia Clifford--the
sweet child--a child now no longer-the sweet woman--interposed,
and my temper was subdued of its resolve, though its bitterness
remained unqualified.

And what of Julia Clifford? I have said but little of her for some
time past, but she has not been forgotten. Far from it. She was
still sufficiently the attraction that drew me to the dwelling of
my selfish uncle. In the three years that I had been at the mercantile
establishment, her progress, in mind and person, had been equally
ravishing and rapid. She was no more the child, but the blooming
girl--the delicate blossom swelling to the bud--the bud bursting into
the flower--but the bloom, and the beauty, and the innocence--the
rich tenderness, and the dewy sweet, still remained the same through
all the stages of her progress from the infant to the woman. Wealth,
and the arrogant example of those about her, had failed to change
the naturally true and pure simplicity of her character. She was
not to be beguiled by the one, nor misguided by the other, from the
exquisite heart which was still worthy of Eden. When I was admitted
to the bar at twenty-one, she was sixteen--the age in our southern
country when a maiden looks her loveliest. But I had scarcely felt
the changes in the last three years which had been going on in
her. I beheld beauties added to beauties, charms to charms; and she
seemed every day to be the possessor of fresh graces newly dropped
from heaven; but there was no change. Increased perfection does
not imply change, nor does it suffer it.

It was my custom, as the condescending wish of my uncle expressed,
that I should take my Sunday dinner with his family. I complied
with this request, and it was no hard matter to do so. But it was
a sense of delight, not of duty, that made me comply; and, but
for Julia, I feel certain that I should never have darkened the
doors, which opened to admit me only through a sense of duty. But
the attraction--scarcely known to myself--drew me with singular
punctuality; and I associated the privilege which had been accorded
me with another. I escorted the ladies to church; sometimes, too,
when the business of my employers permitted, I spent an evening
during the week with the family; and beholding Julia I was not
over-anxious to perceive the indifference with which I was treated
by all others.

But let me retrace my steps. I subdued my choler so far as to go,
with a tolerable appearance of calmness if not humility, to the
interview which my uncle had been pleased to solicit. I need not
repeat in detail what passed between us. It amounted simply to
a supercilious offer, on his part, of lodging and board, until I
should be sufficiently independent to open the oyster for myself.
I thanked him with respect and civility, but, to his surprise,
declined to accept his offer.

"Why, what do you propose to do ?" he demanded.

"Do what I have been doing for the three past years; work for
myself, and pay my board from the proceeds of my own labor."

"What, you go back to the merchants, do you? You are wiser than
I thought. The law would not give you your bread here for twenty
years in this city."

"You are mistaken, uncle," I said, good humoredly--"it is from the
law that I propose to get my bread."

"Indeed!--You are even more sanguine than I thought you. But, pray,
upon what do you base your expectations?--the talents, I suppose."

I felt the rankling of this well-known and offensive sneer, but
replied simply to the point:--

"No, sir, upon assurances which you will probably think far more
worthy of respect. I have already been employed by Mr. Edgerton
as an attorney, at a salary of six hundred dollars."

"Ah, indeed! Well, you are a fortunate fellow, I must say, to get
such a helping hand at the outset. But you may want some small
amount to begin with--you can not draw upon Mr. Edgerton before
services are rendered, and if fifty or a hundred dollars, Edward--"

"I thank you, sir;--so far from wanting money, I should be almost
able to lend some. I have saved some two hundred from my mercantile
salary"

I enjoyed the ghastly grin which rose to his features. It was
evident that he was not pleased that I should be independent. He
had set out with the conviction, when my father died, that my
support and education would devolve upon him, and though they did
not, yet it was plain enough to me that he was not unwilling that
such should be the impression of the community. I had disarmed
him entirely by the simplest process, and, mortified at being
disappointed, he was disposed to hate the youth who had baffled
him. It was the strangest thing in the world that such should be
the feeling of any man, and that, too, in reference to so near a
relation; but the case is nevertheless true. I saw it in his looks
that moment--I felt it in his accents. I KNEW that such was the real
feeling in his soul. There are motives which grow from vanities,
piques, rivalries, arid the miserable ostentations of a small spirit,
which act more terribly upon the passions of man, than even the
desire of gain or the love of woman. The heart of Mr. Clifford,
was, after its particular fashion, a blind heart, like my own.

"Well, I am glad you are so well off. You will dine with us on
Sunday, I suppose?"

My affirmative was a matter of course; and, on Sunday, the evident
gratification of Julia when she saw me, amply atoned for all her
father's asperities and injustice. She had heard of my success--and
though in a sneer from the lips of her father it was not the
less productive of an evident delight to her. She met me with the
expression of this delight upon all her features.

"I am so glad, so very glad, and so surprised, too, Cousin Edward,
at your success. And yet you kept it all to yourself. You might
have told ME, at least, that you were studying law. Why was it
that I was never allowed to know of your intention?"

"Your father knew it, Julia."

"Yes, so he says now. He says you told him something about it when
you first went into a store; but he did not think you in earnest."

"Not in earnest! He little knew me, Julia."

"But your telling him, Edward, was not telling me. Why did you not
tell me?"

"You might not have kept my secret, Julia. You know what naughty
things are said of your sex, touching your inability to keep a
secret."

"Naughty things, indeed--naughty and untrue! I'm sure, I should
have kept your secret, if you desired it. But why should it be a
secret?"

"Why, indeed!" I muttered, as the shadow of my perverseness passed
deeply over my heart. "Why, unless to protect myself from the sneers
which would stifle my ambition, and the sarcasm which would have
stung my heart,"

"But you have no fear of these from me, Cousin Edward," she said
gently, and with dewy eyes, while her fingers slightly pressed upon
my wrist.

"I know not that, Cousin Julia, I somehow suspect everything and
everybody now. I feel very lonely in the world--as if there was a
destiny at work to make my whole life one long conflict, which I
must carry on without sympathy or succor."

"Oh, these are only notions, Edward."

"Notions!" I exclaimed, giving her a bitter smile as I spoke, while
my thoughts reverted to the three years of unremitting and almost
uncheered labor through which I had passed.

"Yes, notions only, Cousin Edward. You are full of such notions.
You every now and then start up with a new one; and it makes you
gloomy and discontented--"

"I make no complaints, Julia."

"No, that is the worst of it. You make no complaints, I think,
because you do not wish to be cured of them. You prefer nursing
your supposed cause of grief, with a sort of solitary pleasure--the
gratification of a haughty spirit, that is too proud to seek for
solace, and to find it."

Julia had in truth touched upon the true nature of my misanthropy
--of that self vexing and self-torturing spirit which too effectually
blinds the heart.

"But could I find it, Julia?" I asked, looking into her eyes with
an expression which I began to feel was something very new to mine.

"Perhaps--I think--you could," was the half-tremulous answer, as
she beheld the peculiar expression of my glance. The entrance of
Mrs. Clifford, was, perhaps, for the first time, rather a relief
to us both.

"And so you are a lawyer, Edward? Well, who would have thought of
it? It must be a very easy thing to be made a lawyer."

Julia looked at me with eyes that reddened with vexation. I felt
my gorge rising; but when I reflected upon the ignorance, and
the unworthy nature of the speaker, I overcame the disposition to
retort, and smilingly replied:--

"It's not such hard work as bricklaying, certainly."

"Ah," she answered, "if it were only half so profitable. But Mr.
Clifford says that a lawyer now is only another name for a beggar--a
sort of genteel beggar. The town's overrun with them--half of them
live upon their friends."

"I trust I shall not add to the number of this class, Mrs. Clifford."

"Oh, no! I know YOU never will, Cousin Edward," exclaimed Julia,
with a flush upon her cheeks at her own temerity.

"Really, Julia," said her mother, "you are very confident. How do
you know anything about it?"

The sharp glances of rebuke which accompanied this speech daunted
the damsel for a moment, and her eyes were suddenly cast in confusion
upon the ground; but she raised them with boldness a moment after,
as she replied:--

"We have every assurance, mother, for what I say, in the fact that
Cousin Edward has been supporting himself at another business, while
actually pursuing the study of law for these three years; and that
very pride about which father spoke today, is another assurance--"

"Bless my stars, child, you have grown very pert on a sudden, to
talk about guaranties and assurances, just as if you was a lawyer
yourself. The next thing we hear, I suppose, will be that instead
of being busy over the 'Seven Champions' and the last fashions,
you, too, will he turning over the leaves of big law-books, and
carrying on such studies in secret to surprise a body, as if there
was any merit or good in doing such things secretly."

Julia felt that she had only made bad worse, and she hung her head
in silence. For my part, though I suppressed my choler, the pang was
only the more keenly felt for the effort to hide it. In my secret
soul, I asked, "Will the day never come when I, too, will be able
to strike and sting?" I blushed an instant after, at the small and
mean appetite for revenge that such an inquiry implied. But I came
to the support of Julia.

"Let me say, Mrs. Clifford, that I think--nay, I know--that Julia
is right in her conjecture. The guaranty which I have given to my
friends, by the pride and industry which I have shown, should be
sufficient to convince them what my conduct shall be hereafter.
I know that I shall never trespass upon their feelings or their
pockets. They shall neither blush for nor lose by their relationship
with Edward Clifford."

"Well said! well spoken! with good emphasis and proper action.
Forrest himself could scarce have done it better!"

Such was the exclamation of Mr. Clifford, who entered the room
at this moment. His mock applause was accompanied by a clamorous
clapping of his hands. I felt my cheeks burn, and my blood boil.
The truth is, I was not free from the consciousness that I had
suffered some of the grandiloquent to appear in my manner while
speaking the sentence which had provoked the ridicule of my uncle.
The sarcasm acquired increase of sting in consequence of its being
partially well-merited. I replied with some little show of temper,
which the imploring glances of Julia did not altogether persuade
me to suppress. The "blind heart" was growing stronger within
me, from the increasing conviction of my own independence. In this
sort of mimic warfare the day passed off as usual. I attended the
family to church in the afternoon, took tea, and spent the evening
with them--content to suffer the "stings and arrows"--however
outrageous, of my exemplary and Christian aunt and uncle, if permitted
to enjoy the presence and occasional smiles of the true angel,
whose influence could still temper my feelings into a humane and
patient toleration of influences which they yet burned to trample
under foot.






CHAPTER V.

DEBUT.





A brief interval now passed over, after my connection begun with
Mr. Edgerton, in which time the world went on with me more smoothly,
perhaps, than ever. My patron--for so this gentleman deserves
to be called--was as indulgent as I could wish. He soon discerned
the weaknesses in my character, and with the judgment of an old
practitioner, he knew how to subdue and soften, without seeming to
perceive them. I need not say that I was as diligent and industrious,
and not less studious, while in his employ, than I had been in that
of my mercantile acquaintance. The entire toils of the desk soon
fell upon my shoulders, and I acquired the reputation among my
small circle of acquaintance, of being a very good attorney for a
young beginner. It is true, I was greatly helped by the continued
perusal of an admirable collection of old precedents, which a long
period of extensive practice had accumulated in the collection of
my friend. But to be an attorney, simply, was not the bound of my
ambition. I fancied that the forum was, before all others, my true
field of exertion. The ardency of my temper, the fluency of my speech,
the promptness of my thought, and the warmth of my imagination, all
conspired in impressing on me the belief that I was particularly
fitted for the arena of public disputation. This, I may add, was
the opinion of Mr. Edgerton also; and I soon sought an occasion
for the display of my powers.

It was the custom at our bar--and a custom full of danger--for
young beginners to take their cases from the criminal docket.
Their "'prentice han'," was usually exercised on some wretch from
the stews, just as the young surgeon is permitted to hack the
carcass of a tenant of the "Paupers' Field," the better to prepare
him for practice on living and more worthy victims. Was there a
rascal so notoriously given over to the gallows that no hope could
possibly be entertained of his extrication from the toils of the
evidence, and the deliberations of a jury, he was considered fair
game for the young lawyers, who, on such cases, gathered about him
with all the ghostly and keen propensities of vultures about the
body of the horse cast out upon the commons.

The custom was evil, and is now, I believe, abandoned. It led to
much irreverence among thoughtless young men--to an equal disregard
of that solemnity which should naturally attach to the court
of justice, and to the life of the prisoner arraigned before it.
A thoughtless levity too frequently filled the mind of the young
lawyer and his hearers, when it was known that the poor wretch
on trial was simply regarded as an agent, through whose miserable
necessity, the beginner was to try his strength and show his skill
in the art of speech-making. It was my fortune, acting rather in
compliance with the custom than my own preference, to select one
of these victims and occasions for my debut. I could have done
otherwise. Mr. Edgerton freely tendered to me any one of several
cases of his own, on the civil docket, in which to make my appearance;
but I was unwilling to try my hand upon a case in which the penalty
of ill success might be a serious loss to my friend's client, and
might operate to the injury of his business; and, another reason
for my preference was to be found--though not expressed by me--in
the secret belief which I entertained that I was peculiarly gifted
with the art of appealing to the passions, and the sensibilities
of my audience.

Having made my determination, I proceeded to prepare myself by a due
consideration of the case at large; the history of the transaction,
which involved the life of my client--(the allegation was for
murder)--and of the testimony of the witnesses so far as it had
been suggested in the EXPARTE examination before the grand jury.
I reviewed the several leading principles on the subject of the
crime; its character, the sort of evidence essential to conviction,
and certainly, to do myself all justice, as effectually prepared
myself for the duties of the trial as probably any young man of
the time and community was likely to have done. The case, I need
not add, was hopelessly against me; the testimony conclusive; and
I had nothing to do but to weigh its character with keen examination,
pick out and expose its defects and inconsistencies, and suggest
as plausible a presumption in favor of the accused, as could be
reasonably made out from the possibilities and doubts by which all
human occurrences are necessarily attended. Something, too, might
be done by judicious appeals to the principle of mercy, assuming
for the jury a discretion on this subject which, by the way, they
have no right to exercise.

I was joined in the case by my friend, young Edgerton. So far our
boyish fortunes had run together, and he was not unwilling, though
against his father's counsel, to take the same occasion with me for
entering the world in company. The term began; the case was one of
the last on the criminal docket, and the five days which preceded
that assigned for the trial, were days, I am constrained to confess,
of a thrilling and terrible agitation to my mind. I can scarcely
now recall the feelings of that week without undergoing a partial
return of the same painful sensations. My soul was striving as
with itself, and seeking an outlet for escape. I panted, as if for
breath--my tongue was parched--my lips clammy--my voice, in the
language of the poet, clove to the roof of my throat. Altogether,
I have never felt such emotions either before or since.

I will not undertake to analyze them, or account for those conflicting
sensations which make us shrink, with something like terror, from
the very object which we desire. At length the day came, and the
man; attended by his father, William Edgerton, and myself, took our
places, and stood prepared for the issue. I looked round me with a
dizzy feeling of uncertainty. Objects appeared to swim and tremble
before my sight. My eyes were of as little service to me then as
if they had been gazing to blindness upon the sun. Everything was
confused and imperfect. I could see that the courthouse was filled
to overflowing, and this increased my feebleness. The case was one
that had occasioned considerable excitement in the community, It
was one of no ordinary atrocity. This was a sufficient reason why
the audience should be large. There was yet another. There were
two new debutants. In a community where popular eloquence is, of
all others, perhaps the most desirable talent, this circumstance
was well calculated to bring many listeners. Besides, something
was expected from both Edgerton and myself. We had not reached our
present position without making for ourselves a little circle, in
which we had friends to approve and exult, and enemies to depreciate,
and condemn.

The proceedings were at length opened by the attorney-general, the
witnesses examined, and turned over to us for cross-examination.
This part of the duty was performed by my associate. The business
fairly begun, my distraction was lessened. My mind, driven to a
point, made a decisive stand; and the sound of Edgerton's voice,
as he proposed his questions, served still more to dissipate my
confusion. I furnished him with sundry questions, and our examination
was admitted to be quite searching and acute. My friend went through
his part of the labor with singular coolness. He was in little or
no respect excited. He, perhaps, was deficient in enthusiasm. If
there was no faltering in what he said, there was no fine phrensy.
His remarks and utterance were subdued to the plainest demands
of the subject. They were shrewd and sensible, not particularly
ingenious, nor yet deficient in the proper analysis of the evidence.
He acquitted himself creditably.

It was my part to reply to the prosecuting attorney; but when I
rose, I was completely confounded. Never shall I forget the pang of
that impotence which seemed to overspread my frame, and to paralyze
every faculty of thought and speech. I was the victim to my
own ardor. A terrible reaction of mind had taken place, and I was
prostrated. The desire to achieve greatness--the belief that it
was expected from me--the consciousness that hundreds of eyes were
then looking into mine with hungering expectation, overwhelmed me!
I felt that I could freely have yielded myself for burial beneath
the floor on which I stood. My cheeks were burning, yet my hands
were cold as ice, and my knees tottered as with an ague. I strove
to speak, however; the eyes of the judge met mine, and they looked
the language of encouragement--of pity. But this expression only
increased my confusion. I stammered out nothing but broken syllables
and incoherent sentences. What I was saying, I know not--how long
I presented this melancholy spectacle of imbecility to the eyes of
my audience, I know not. It may have been a few minutes only. To
me it seemed an age; and I was just endued with a sufficient power
of reflection to ask myself whether I had not better sit down at
once in irreversible despair, when my wandering and hitherto vacant
eyes caught a glance-a single glance--of a face opposite.

It was that of my uncle! He was perched on one of the loftiest
benches, conspicuous among the crowd--his eyes keenly fixed upon
mine, and his features actually brightened by a smile of triumphant
malice and exultation.

That glance restored me. That single smile brought me strength. I
was timid, and weak, and impotent no longer. Under the presence
of habitual scorn, my habitual pride and independence returned to
me. The tremors left my limbs. The clammy huskiness which had loaded
my tongue, and made it cleave to the roof of my mouth, instantly
departed; and my whole mind returned to my control as if beneath the
command of some almighty voice. I now saw the judge distinctly--I
could see the distinct features of every juryman; and with the pride
of my restored consciousness, I retorted the smile upon my uncle's
face with one of contempt, which was not without its bitterness.

Then I spoke, and spoke with an intenseness, a directness of purpose
and aim--a stern deliberateness--a fire and a feeling--which
certainly electrified my hearers with surprise, if with no more
elevated emotions. That one look of hostility had done more for
my mind than could have been effected in my behalf by all the kind
looks and encouraging voices of all the friends in creation.

After a brief exordium, containing some general proposition on the
subject of human testimony, which meant no more than to suggest
the propriety of giving to the prisoner the benefit of what was
doubtful and obscure in the testimony which had been taken against
him--I proceeded to compare and contrast its several parts. There
were some inconsistencies in the evidence which enable me to make
something of a case. The character of the witnesses was something
more than doubtful and that, too, helped, in a slight degree,
my argument. This was rapid, direct, closely wound together,
and proved--such was the opinion freely expressed by others,
afterward--that I had the capacity for consecutive arrangement of
facts and inferences in a very remarkable degree. I closed with
an appeal in favor of that erring nature, which, even in our own
cases, led us hourly to the commission of sins and errors; and
which, where the individual was poor, wretched, and a stranger,
under the evil influences of destitution, vicious associations, and
a lot in life, which, of necessity, must be low, might well persuade
us to look with an eye of qualified rebuke upon his offences.

This was, of course, no argument, and was only to be considered
the natural close of my labors. Before I was half through I saw
my uncle rise from his seat, and hastily leave the court-room; and
then I knew that I was successful--that I had triumphed, through
that stimulating influence of his hate, over my own fears and
feebleness. I felt sure that the speech must be grateful to the
rest of my hearers, which HE could not stay to hear; and in this
conviction, the tone of my spirits became elevated--the thoughts
gushed from me like rain, in a natural and unrestrainable torrent
of language--my voice was clear and full, far more so than I had
ever thought it could be made--and my action far more animated,
perhaps, than either good taste or the occasion justified. The
criminal was not acquitted; but both William Edgerton and myself
were judged to have been eminently successful.

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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