Free The Nightingale Shore Murder by Rosemary Cook

continues:
    â€˜That on numerous occasions in and since the month of November 1885 the said Offley Bohun Shore has committed adultery with a woman whose name is unknown to your Petitioner at Number 23 Haymarket in the County of Middlesex.
    Your Petitioner therefore humbly prays that your Lordship will be pleased to dissolve her marriage with the said Offley Bohun Shore and that she may have such further and other relief in the premises as to your Lordship may seem meet.’
    The Petition is signed in a bold hand ‘Anna Maria Shore’, and the signature underlined decisively in black ink.
    Offley Shore’s response to his wife’s petition was presented to the Court by his solicitors on 2 nd February, and must have come as something of a surprise to Anna. Nearly eight years after their separation, and in spite of her conviction that he was having an affair with another woman, Offley was not going to make it easy for her to divorce him.
    â€˜The Respondent Offley Bohun Shore by Frederick Foss his Solicitor of No. 3 Abchurch Lane in the City of London in answer to the Petition filed in this cause saith
    That he denies that he deserted your Petitioner
    That he further denies that he committed adultery as set forth in the said Petition.
    Wherefore the Respondent humbly prays that the Court will be pleased to reject the prayer of the said Petition.’
    In the face of what must have been fairly incontrovertible evidence – as it would surely be obvious to any observer whether or not he had been living with his wife for the last eight years – Offley Shore was denying everything. Anna would have to fight him in court if she wanted to pursue her freedom. And clearly she did: with her solicitors, Goodhart and Medcalf, she set about finding further grounds to convince the Court that her marriage had irretrievably broken down, whatever her husband might say. At a hearing on 11 th March, her solicitors were granted permission to amend the original Petition for dissolution of the marriage, by inserting a new paragraph, 3a, which added:
    â€˜That on numerous occasions during the years 1883 and 1884 the said Offley Bohun Shore committed adultery with a woman whose name is unknown to your Petitioner at Number five Jermyn Street in the County of Middlesex.’
    What searches, accusations and investigations took place between mid-January and early March to arrive at this new accusation can only be imagined. Had Anna known all along that Offley had had more than one affair, but originally planned to cite only the most recent? Or was this a new and painful discovery for her? Perhaps it was actually a relief: she needed to prove his adultery definitively, if she wanted to be free of Offley, since his long desertion of the family was not enough in the eyes of the law.
    The amended Petition with the new accusation was sent to Offley Shore’s solicitors, and a hearing date was fixed for 27 th March. It must have been an intimidating occasion. The Right Honourable Sir James Hannen, the President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court, heard oral evidence from Anna and from witnesses on her behalf – and his decision was to adjourn the hearing for further evidence. The details of the Shore marriage were to be examined in pitiless detail.
    The final hearing was on 13 th April. Further evidence was taken in support of Anna’s Petition, and the two solicitors spoke for their clients. Probably to Anna’s enormous relief – and fury, given what he had put her through – Offley did not attend the Court this time to defend his cause. The Court decided that she had sufficiently proved her Petition, and that the Respondent had been guilty of ‘
adultery coupled with the desertion of the Petitioner without reasonable excuse for upwards of two years
.’ A decree nisi was granted, with the decree absolute to follow in six months. It might have given a further measure of