CHAPTER XIII.
"And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!" The deep-pitched words fellslowly on Marcella's ears, as she sat leaning forward in the gallery ofthe Widrington Assize Court. Women were sobbing beside and behind her.Minta Hurd, to her left, lay in a half-swoon against her sister-in-law,her face buried in Ann's black shawl. For an instant after Hurd's deathsentence had been spoken Marcella's nerves ceased to throb--the longexhaustion of feeling stopped. The harsh light and shade of the ill-litroom; the gas-lamps in front of the judge, blanching the ranged faces ofthe jury; the long table of reporters below, some writing, but mostlooking intently towards the dock; the figure of Wharton opposite, inhis barrister's gown and wig--that face of his, so small, nervous,delicate--the frowning eyebrows a dark bar under the white of thewig--his look, alert and hostile, fixed upon the judge; the heads andattitudes of the condemned men, especially the form of a fair-hairedyouth, the principal murderer of Charlie Dynes, who stood a little infront of the line, next to Hurd, and overshadowing his dwarf'sstature--these things Marcella saw indeed; for years after she couldhave described them point by point; but for some seconds or minutes hereyes stared at them without conscious reaction of the mind on theimmediate spectacle.
In place of it, the whole day, all these hours that she had been sittingthere, brushed before her in a synthesis of thought, replacing thestream of impressions and images. The crushing accumulation of hostileevidence--witness after witness coming forward to add to the damningweight of it; the awful weakness of the defence--Wharton's irritationunder it--the sharpness, the useless, acrid ability of hiscross-examinations; yet, contrasting with the legal failure, thepersonal success, the mixture of grace with energy, the technicalaccomplishment of the manner, as one wrestling before hisequals--nothing left here of the garrulous vigour and brutality of thelabourers' meeting!--the masterly use of all that could avail, the fewquiet words addressed at the end to the pity of the jury, and byimplication to the larger ethical sense of the community,--all this shethought of with great intellectual clearness while the judge's sonorousvoice rolled along, sentencing each prisoner in turn. Horror and pitywere alike weary; the brain asserted itself.
The court was packed. Aldous Raeburn sat on Marcella's right hand; andduring the day the attention of everybody in the dingy building had beenlargely divided between the scene below, and that strange group in thegallery where the man who had just been elected Conservative member forEast Brookshire, who was Lord Maxwell's heir, and Westall's employer,sat beside his betrothed, in charge of a party which comprised not onlyMarcella Boyce, but the wife, sister, and little girl of Westall'smurderer.
On one occasion some blunt answer of a witness had provoked a laughcoming no one knew whence. The judge turned to the gallery and looked upsternly--"I cannot conceive why men and women--women especially--shouldcome crowding in to hear such a case as this; but if I hear anotherlaugh I shall clear the court." Marcella, whose whole conscious naturewas by now one network of sensitive nerve, saw Aldous flush and shrinkas the words were spoken. Then, looking across the court, she caught theeye of an old friend of the Raeburns, a county magistrate. At thejudge's remark he had turned involuntarily to where she and Aldous sat;then, as he met Miss Boyce's face, instantly looked away again. Sheperfectly--passionately--understood that Brookshire was very sorry forAldous Raeburn that day.
The death sentences--three in number--were over. The judge was a veryordinary man; but, even for the ordinary man, such an act carries withit a great tradition of what is befitting, which imposes itself on voiceand gesture. When he ceased, the deep breath of natural emotion could befelt and heard throughout the crowded court; loud wails of sobbing womenbroke from the gallery.
"Silence!" cried an official voice, and the judge resumed, amid stifledsounds that stabbed Marcella's sense, once more nakedly alive toeverything around it.
The sentences to penal servitude came to an end also. Then a ghastlypause. The line of prisoners directed by the warders turned right aboutface towards a door in the back wall of the court. As the men filedout, the tall, fair youth, one of those condemned to death, stopped aninstant and waved his hand to his sobbing sweetheart in the gallery.Hurd also turned irresolutely.
"Look!" exclaimed Ann Mullins, propping up the fainting woman besideher, "he's goin'."
Marcella bent forward. She, rather than the wife, caught the last lookon his large dwarf's face, so white and dazed, the eyes blinking underthe gas.
Aldous touched her softly on the arm.
"Yes," she said quickly, "yes, we must get her out. Ann, can you lifther?"
Aldous went to one side of the helpless woman: Ann Mullins held her onthe other. Marcella followed, pressing the little girl close against herlong black cloak. The gallery made way for them; every one looked andwhispered till they had passed. Below, at the foot of the stairs, theyfound themselves in a passage crowded with people--lawyers, witnesses,officials, mixed with the populace. Again a road was opened for Aldousand his charges.
"This way, Mr. Raeburn," said a policeman, with alacrity. "Stand back,please! Is your carriage there, sir?"
"Let Ann Mullins take her--put them into the cab--I want to speak to Mr.Wharton," said Marcella in Aldous's ear.
"Get me a cab at once," he said to the policeman, "and tell my carriageto wait."
"Miss Boyce!"
Marcella turned hastily and saw Wharton beside her. Aldous also sawhim, and the two men interchanged a few words.
"There is a private room close by," said Wharton, "I am to take youthere, and Mr. Raeburn will join us at once."
He led her along a corridor, and opened a door to the left. They entereda small dingy room, looking through a begrimed window on a courtyard.The gas was lit, and the table was strewn with papers.
"Never, never more beautiful!" flashed through Wharton's mind, "withthat knit, strenuous brow--that tragic scorn for a base world--thatroyal gait--"
Aloud he said:
"I have done my best privately among the people I can get at, and Ithought, before I go up to town to-night--you know Parliament meets onMonday?--I would show you what I had been able to do, and ask you totake charge of a copy of the petition." He pointed to a long envelopelying on the table. "I have drafted it myself--I think it puts all thepoints we can possibly urge--but as to the names--"
He took out a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket.
"It won't do," he said, looking down at it, and shaking his head. "As Isaid to you, it is so far political merely. There is a very strongLiberal and Radical feeling getting up about the case. But that won'tcarry us far. This petition with these names is a demonstration againstgame preserving and keepers' tyranny. What we want is the co-operationof a _neighbourhood_, especially of its leading citizens. However, Iexplained all this to you--there is no need to discuss it. Will you lookat the list?"
Still holding it, he ran his finger over it, commenting here and there.She stood beside him; the sleeve of his gown brushed her black cloak;and under his perfect composure there beat a wild exultation in hispower--without any apology, any forgiveness--to hold her there, alonewith him, listening--her proud head stooped to his--her eye followinghis with this effort of anxious attention.
She made a few hurried remarks on the names, but her knowledge of thecounty was naturally not very serviceable. He folded up the paper andput it back.
"I think we understand," he said. "You will do what you can in the onlyquarter"--he spoke slowly--"that can really aid, and you willcommunicate with me at the House of Commons? I shall do what I can, ofcourse, when the moment comes, in Parliament, and meanwhile I shallstart the matter in the Press--our best hope. The Radical papers arealready taking it up."
There was a sound of steps in the passage outside. A policeman openedthe door, and Aldous Raeburn entered. His quick look ran over the twofigures standing beside the table.
"I had some difficulty in finding a cab," he explained, "and we had toget some brandy; but she came round, and we got her off
. I sent one ofour men with her. The carriage is here."
He spoke--to Marcella--with some formality. He was very pale, but therewas both authority and tension in his bearing.
"I have been consulting with Miss Boyce," said Wharton, with equaldistance of manner, "as to the petition we are sending up to the HomeOffice."
Aldous made no reply.
"One word, Miss Boyce,"--Wharton quietly turned to her. "May I ask youto read the petition carefully, before you attempt to do anything withit? It lays stress on the _only_ doubt that can reasonably be felt afterthe evidence, and after the judge's summing up. That particular doubt Ihold to be entirely untouched by the trial; but it requires carefulstating--the issues may easily be confused."
"Will you come?" said Aldous to Marcella. What she chose to think theforced patience of his tone exasperated her.
"I will do everything I can," she said in a low, distinct voice toWharton. "Good-bye."
She held out her hand. To both the moment was one of infinite meaning;to her, in her high spiritual excitement, a sacrament of pardon andgratitude--expressed once for all--by this touch--in Aldous Raeburn'spresence.
The two men nodded to each other. Wharton was already busy, putting hispapers together.
"We shall meet next week, I suppose, in the House?" said Wharton,casually. "Good-night."
* * * * *
"Will you take me to the Court?" said Marcella to Aldous, directly thedoor of the carriage was shut upon them, and, amid a gaping crowd thatalmost filled the little market-place of Widrington, the horses movedoff. "I told mamma, that, if I did not come home, I should be with you,and that I should ask you to send me back from the Court to-night."
She still held the packet Wharton had given her in her hand. As thoughfor air, she had thrown back the black gauze veil she had worn allthrough the trial, and, as they passed through the lights of the town,Aldous could see in her face the signs--the plain, startling signs--ofthe effect of these weeks upon her. Pale, exhausted, yet showing inevery movement the nervous excitement which was driving her on--hisheart sank as he looked at her--foreseeing what was to come.
As soon as the main street had been left behind, he put his head out ofthe window, and gave the coachman, who had been told to go to Mellor,the new order.
"Will you mind if I don't talk?" said Marcella, when he was again besideher. "I think I am tired out, but I might rest now a little. When we getto the Court, will you ask Miss Raeburn to let me have some food in hersitting-room? Then, at nine o'clock or so, may I come down and see LordMaxwell and you--together?"
What she said, and the manner in which she said it, could only add tohis uneasiness; but he assented, put a cushion behind her, wrapped therugs round her, and then sat silent, train after train of close andanxious thought passing through his mind as they rolled along the darkroads.
When they arrived at Maxwell Court, the sound of the carriage broughtLord Maxwell and Miss Raeburn at once into the hall.
Aldous went forward in front of Marcella. "I have brought Marcella," hesaid hastily to his aunt. "Will you take her upstairs to yoursitting-room, and let her have some food and rest? She is not fit forthe exertion of dinner, but she wishes to speak to my grandfatherafterwards."
Lord Maxwell had already hurried to meet the black-veiled figurestanding proudly in the dim light of the outer hall.
"My dear! my dear!" he said, drawing her arm within his, and patting herhand in fatherly fashion. "How worn-out you look!--Yes,certainly--Agneta, take her up and let her rest--And you wish to speakto me afterwards? Of course, my dear, of course--at any time."
Miss Raeburn, controlling herself absolutely, partly because of Aldous'smanner, partly because of the servants, took her guest upstairsstraightway, put her on the sofa in a cheerful sitting-room with abright fire, and then, shrewdly guessing that she herself could notpossibly be a congenial companion to the girl at such a moment, whatevermight have happened or might be going to happen, she looked at herwatch, said that she must go down to dinner, and promptly left her tothe charge of a kind elderly maid, who was to do and get for herwhatever she would.
Marcella made herself swallow some food and wine. Then she said that shewished to be alone and rest for an hour, and would come downstairs atnine o'clock. The maid, shocked by her pallor, was loth to leave her,but Marcella insisted.
When she was left alone she drew herself up to the fire and tried hardto get warm, as she had tried to eat. When in this way a portion ofphysical ease and strength had come back to her, she took out thepetition from its envelope and read it carefully. As she did so her liprelaxed, her eye recovered something of its brightness. All the pointsthat had occurred to her confusedly, amateurishly, throughout the day,were here thrown into luminous and admirable form. She had listened tothem indeed, as urged by Wharton in his concluding speech to the jury,but it had not, alas! seemed so marvellous to her then, as it did now,that, _after_ such a plea, the judge should have summed up as he did.
When she had finished it and had sat thinking awhile over the decliningfire, an idea struck her. She took a piece of paper from Miss Raeburn'sdesk, and wrote on it:
"Will you read this--and Lord Maxwell--before I come down? I forgot thatyou had not seen it.--M."
A ring at the bell brought the maid.
"Will you please get this taken to Mr. Raeburn? And then, don't disturbme again for half an hour."
And for that time she lay in Miss Raeburn's favourite chair, outwardlyat rest. Inwardly she was ranging all her arguments, marshalling all herforces.
When the chiming clock in the great hall below struck nine, she got upand put the lamp for a moment on the mantelpiece, which held a mirror.She had already bathed her face and smoothed her hair. But she looked atherself again with attention, drew down the thick front waves of hair alittle lower on the white brow, as she liked to have them, and oncemore straightened the collar and cuffs which were the only relief to herplain black dress.
The house as she stepped out into it seemed very still. Perfumed breathsof flowers and pot-pourri ascended from the hall. The pictures along thewalls as she passed were those same Caroline and early Georgian beautiesthat had so flashingly suggested her own future rule in this domain onthe day when Aldous proposed to her.
She felt suddenly very shrinking and lonely as she went downstairs. Theticking of a large clock somewhere--the short, screaming note of MissRaeburn's parrot in one of the ground-floor rooms--these sounds and thebeating of her own heart seemed to have the vast house to themselves.
No!--that was a door opening--Aldous coming to fetch her. She drew achildish breath of comfort.
He sprang up the stairs, two or three steps at a time, as he saw hercoming.
"Are you rested--were they good to you? Oh! my precious one!--how paleyou are still! Will you come and see my--grandfather now? He is quiteready."
She let him lead her in. Lord Maxwell was standing by his writing-table,leaning over the petition which was open before him--one hand upon it.At sight of her he lifted his white head. His fine aquiline face wasgrave and disturbed. But nothing could have been kinder or more courtlythan his manner as he came towards her.
"Sit down in that chair. Aldous, make her comfortable. Poor child, howtired she looks! I hear you wished to speak to me on this most unhappy,most miserable business."
Marcella, who was sitting erect on the edge of the chair into whichAldous had put her, lifted her eyes with a sudden confidence. She hadalways liked Lord Maxwell.
"Yes," she said, struggling to keep down eagerness and emotion. "Yes, Icame to bring you this petition, which is to be sent up to the HomeSecretary on behalf of Jim Hurd, and--and--to _beg_ of you and Aldous tosign it, if in any way you can. I know it will be difficult, but Ithought I might--I might be able to suggest something to you--toconvince you--as I have known these people so well--and it is veryimportant to have your signatures."
How crude it sounded--how mechanical! She felt that she had not yetc
ommand of herself. The strange place, the stately room, theconsciousness of Aldous behind her--Aldous, who should have been on herside and was not--all combined to intimidate her.
Lord Maxwell's concern was evident. In the first place, he waspainfully, unexpectedly struck by the change in the speaker. Why, whathad Aldous been about? So thin! so frail and willowy in her blackdress--monstrous!
"My dear," he said, walking up to her and laying a fatherly hand on hershoulder, "my dear, I wish I could make you understand how gladly Iwould do this, or anything else, for you, if I honourably could. I woulddo it for your sake and for your grandfather's sake. But--this is amatter of conscience, of public duty, both for Aldous and myself. Youwill not surely _wish_ even, that we should be governed in our relationsto it by any private feeling or motive?"
"No, but I have had no opportunity of speaking to you about it--and Itake such a different view from Aldous. He knows--everybody mustknow--that there is another side, another possible view from that whichthe judge took. You weren't in court to-day, were you, at all?"
"No. But I read all the evidence before the magistrates with great care,and I have just talked over the crucial points with Aldous, who followedeverything to-day, as you know, and seems to have taken special note ofMr. Wharton's speeches."
"Aldous!"--her voice broke irrepressibly into another note--"I thoughthe would have let me speak to you first!--to-night!"
Lord Maxwell, looking quickly at his grandson, was very sorry for him.Aldous bent over her chair.
"You remember," he said, "you sent down the petition. I thought thatmeant that we were to read and discuss it. I am very sorry."
She tried to command herself, pressing her hand to her brow. But alreadyshe felt the irrevocable, and anger and despair were rising.
"The whole point lies in this," she said, looking up: "_Can_ we believeHurd's own story? There is no evidence to corroborate it. I grantthat--the judge did not believe it--and there is the evidence of hatred.But is it not possible and conceivable all the same? He says that he didnot go out with any thought whatever of killing Westall, but that whenWestall came upon him with his stick up, threatening and abusing him,as he had done often before, in a fit of wild rage he shot at him.Surely, _surely_ that is conceivable? There _is_--there _must_ be adoubt; or, if it is murder, murder done in that way is quite, quitedifferent from other kinds and degrees of murder."
Now she possessed herself. The gift of flowing persuasive speech whichwas naturally hers, which the agitations, the debates of these weeks hadbeen maturing, came to her call. She leant forward and took up thepetition. One by one she went through its pleas, adding to them here andthere from her own knowledge of Hurd and his peasant's life--presentingit all clearly, with great intellectual force, but in an atmosphere ofemotion, of high pity, charged throughout with the "tears of things." Toher, gradually, unconsciously, the whole matter--so sordid, commonplace,brutal in Lord Maxwell's eyes!--had become a tragic poem, a thing offear and pity, to which her whole being vibrated. And as she conceivedit, so she reproduced it. Wharton's points were there indeed, but sowere Hurd's poverty, Hurd's deformity, Hurd as the boyish victim of atyrant's insults, the miserable wife, the branded children--emphasised,all of them, by the occasional quiver, quickly steadied again, of thegirl's voice.
Lord Maxwell sat by his writing-table, his head resting on his hand, oneknee crossed over the other. Aldous still hung over her chair. Neitherinterrupted her. Once the eyes of the two men met over her head--adistressed, significant look. Aldous heard all she said, but whatabsorbed him mainly was the wild desire to kiss the dark hair, so closebelow him, alternating with the miserable certainty that for him at thatmoment to touch, to soothe her, was to be repulsed.
When her voice broke--when she had said all she could think of--sheremained looking imploringly at Lord Maxwell.
He was silent a little; then he stooped forward and took her hand.
"You have spoken," he said with great feeling, "most nobly--mostwell--like a good woman, with a true compassionate heart. But all thesethings you have said are not new to me, my dear child. Aldous warned meof this petition--he has pressed upon me, still more I am sure uponhimself, all that he conceived to be your view of the case--the view ofthose who are now moving in the matter. But with the best will in theworld I cannot, and I believe that he cannot--though he must speak forhimself--I cannot take that view. In my belief Hurd's act was murder,and deserves the penalty of murder. I have paid some attention to thesethings. I was a practising barrister in my youth, and later I was fortwo years Home Secretary. I will explain to you my grounds veryshortly."
And, bending forward, he gave the reasons for his judgment of the caseas carefully and as lucidly as though he were stating them to afellow-expert, and not to an agitated girl of twenty-one. Both in wordsand manner there was an implied tribute, not only to Marcella, butperhaps to that altered position of the woman in our moving world whichaffects so many things and persons in unexpected ways.
Marcella listened, restlessly. She had drawn her hand away, and wastwisting her handkerchief between her fingers. The flush that had sprungup while she was talking had died away. She grew whiter and whiter. WhenLord Maxwell ceased, she said quickly, and as he thought unreasonably--
"So you will not sign?"
"No," he replied firmly, "I cannot sign. Holding the conviction aboutthe matter I do, I should be giving my name to statements I do notbelieve; and in order to give myself the pleasure of pleasing you, andof indulging the pity that every man must feel for every murderer's wifeand children, I should be not only committing a public wrong, but Ishould be doing what I could to lessen the safety and security of onewhole class of my servants--men who give me honourable service--and twoof whom have been so cruelly, so wantonly hurried before their Maker!"
His voice gave the first sign of his own deep and painful feeling on thematter. Marcella shivered.
"Then," she said slowly, "Hurd will be executed."
Lord Maxwell had a movement of impatience.
"Let me tell you," he said, "that that does not follow at all. There is_some_ importance in signatures--or rather in the local movement thatthe signatures imply. It enables a case to be reopened, which, in anyevent, this case is sure to be. But any Home Secretary who could decidea murder case on any other grounds whatever than those of law and hisown conscience would not deserve his place a day--an hour! Believe me,you mistake the whole situation."
He spoke slowly, with the sharp emphasis natural to his age andauthority. Marcella did not believe him. Every nerve was beginning tothrob anew with that passionate recoil against tyranny and prejudice,which was in itself an agony.
"And you say the same?" she said, turning to Aldous.
"I cannot sign that petition," he said sadly. "Won't you try and believewhat it costs me to refuse?"
It was a heavy blow to her. Amply as she had been prepared for it, therehad always been at the bottom of her mind a persuasion that in the endshe would get her way. She had been used to feel barriers go down beforethat ultimate power of personality of which she was abundantlyconscious. Yet it had not availed her here--not even with the man wholoved her.
Lord Maxwell looked at the two--the man's face of suffering, the girl'sstruggling breath.
"There, there, Aldous!" he said, rising. "I will leave you a minute. Domake Marcella rest--get her, for all our sakes, to forget this a little.Bring her in presently to us for some coffee. Above all, persuade herthat we love her and admire her with all our hearts, but that in amatter of this kind she must leave us to do--as before God!--what wethink right."
He stood before her an instant, gazing down upon her with dignity--nay,a certain severity. Then he turned away and left the room.
Marcella sprang up.
"Will you order the carriage?" she said in a strangled voice. "I will goupstairs."
"Marcella!" cried Aldous; "can you not be just to me, if it isimpossible for you to be generous?"
"Just!" she repeated, with
a tone and gesture of repulsion, pushing himback from her. "_You_ can talk of justice!"
He tried to speak, stammered, and failed. That strange paralysis of thewill-forces which dogs the man of reflection at the moment when he musteither take his world by storm or lose it was upon him now. He had neverloved her more passionately--but as he stood there looking at her,something broke within him, the first prescience of the inevitabledawned.
"_You_," she said again, walking stormily to and fro, and catching ather breath--"_You_, in this house, with this life--to talk ofjustice--the justice that comes of slaying a man like Hurd! And I mustgo back to that cottage, to that woman, and tell her there is _no_hope--none! Because _you_ must follow your conscience--you who haveeverything! Oh! I would not have your conscience--I wish you aheart--rather! Don't come to me, please! Oh! I must think how it can be.Things cannot go on so. I should kill myself, and make you miserable.But now I must go to _her_--to the _poor_--to those whom I _love_, whomI carry in my heart!"
She broke off sobbing. He saw her, in her wild excitement, look roundthe splendid room as though she would wither it to ruin with one fiery,accusing glance.
"You are very scornful of wealth," he said, catching her wrists, "butone thing you have no right to scorn!--the man who has given you hisinmost heart--and now only asks you to believe in this, that he is notthe cruel hypocrite you are determined to make him!"
His face quivered in every feature. She was checked a moment--checked bythe moral compulsion of his tone and manner, as well as by his words.But again she tore herself away.
"_Please_ go and order the carriage," she said. "I cannot bear any more.I _must_ go home and rest. Some day I will ask your pardon--oh! forthis--and--and--" she was almost choked again--"other things. But now Imust go away. There is some one who will help me. I must not forgetthat!"
The reckless words, the inflection, turned Aldous to stone.Unconsciously he drew himself proudly erect--their eyes met. Then hewent up to the bell and rang it.
"The brougham at once, for Miss Boyce. Will you have a maid to go withyou?" he asked, motioning the servant to stay till Miss Boyce had givenher answer.
"No, thank you. I must go and put on my things. Will you explain to MissRaeburn?"
The footman opened the door for her. She went.