Miss Alice Crosse, aged 20, daughter of the parish clergyman of Ockham, has afforded abundant food for gossip during the last ten days. The young lady had formed an attachment to Master George Smith, aged 18, a groom in her father's service. As Mr. Crosse considered the young gentleman from the stable scarcely suited to be the husband of his daughter, he turned him out of the house.
Miss Crosse, however, appears to have a will of her own, while Master Smith seems to be more fool than rogue. The young lady planned an elopement; but the lovers were followed and arrested, and last week Master Smith found himself before the Wandsworth police magistrate, charged with the abduction of his young mistress.
Miss Crosse told the story of her elopement with extraordinary candour:
"I think I proposed to leave the house. I arranged it. He was sent away at a minute's notice. I saw him in the passage when he was leaving, and I merely told him to come the night after to my bedroom window. I lit papers in the window, and he came up outside. I put my things out of the window, and then I got out myself. I scrambled out somehow, as I had no assistance. I was slipping, and he held me."
The pair walked together to the station — some five miles and a half along the road — and took a mail train to London, the fare paid by Miss Crosse. From Waterloo they went to a coffee-house in the City, and then to Doctors' Commons to apply for a marriage licence. They could not obtain one without her father's consent, and so proceeded to Wandsworth, where they took lodgings at Mrs. Wiggins's, having seen a card in her window.
Mrs. Wiggins described how she had questioned the young people, doubting whether they were truly man and wife — they looked more like brother and sister — yet being quite sure all the while that the young lady was a "real lady." The magistrate had no doubt that Miss Crosse had given her full consent to the elopement, but questioned whether, in law, a young lady under age was competent to do so. He adjourned the case, admitted the defendant to bail, and the poor boy was led from court by his sureties "in a half-fainting and hysterical condition."
Miss Crosse was entitled to considerable property, and had proposed to her lover that as soon as she came into possession of it they should set up a business together. When the magistrate's examination concluded, her friends wished her to go home with them, but she resolutely refused. At last she consented to remain with the family of Mr. Inspector Lovelace, on the promise that she would hold no communication with her lover.
Smith, however, discovered her abode and proved his devotion by repeatedly walking up and down before the inspector's house. The inspector urged him to desist, but Smith defied him, declaring that nothing short of his "dear one" wishing him away would move him. Miss Crosse accordingly appeared and told him to go — and go he did.
On the Wednesday, Smith appeared once more at the police-court, but no one came forward to press a charge. He was discharged, his money returned to him, and he departed the court to loud cheers from the spectators. The solicitor acting for the Rev. Mr. Crosse admitted that, after hearing the evidence, his client had resolved to withdraw from the prosecution — the young lady having returned home of her own free will, and being, as he was obliged to confirm, as intact as on the day she had left.
A contemporary has discovered some amusing coincidences in the affair. The Earl of Lovelace bestowed the living of Ockham upon the fugitive's father; Inspector Lovelace first discovered the runaways' retreat; and the house in which they lodged was most appropriately situated in Love-lane.
The story has since been terminated most dramatically — by the marriage of the parties at Wandsworth, with the consent of the bride's father. After the first inquiry, the young lady had returned home and was said to have bidden an eternal farewell to her lover. The romance appeared to be at an end. Yet the finale was still to come. Finding his daughter truly attached to Smith, and resolved to marry him upon coming of age, Mr. Crosse wisely relented. The ceremony was performed at Wandsworth, the scene concluding with Mr. Smith saluting his admiring friends from a first-floor window, daintily dressed in black with white waistcoat and kid gloves.
The Times observes that it was surely a great pity Mr. Crosse did not from the first make such inquiries as would have satisfied him of the true state of affairs — sparing himself and his family the pain of a public scandal which, after this brilliant sequel, will doubtless become the theme of admiring comment in many a servants' hall.