Complete works of hall c.., p.595
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 595
“You saw her day and night while she was at your house?”
“Aw, yes, Sir, last thing at night and first thing in the morning.”
“And you know nothing that conflicts with what she says that she never had a child and therefore could not have killed it?”
“‘Deed no, Sir, nothing whatever.”
She had answered in a tremulous voice which the Deemster found deeply affecting. Once or twice she had lifted her weak eyes to his with a pitiful look of supplication, and he had had to turn his own eyes away.” I should do it myself,” he thought.
“And now, Mrs. Collister,” said Gell, “if you were here this morning you heard what the Attorney-General said that your daughter had been of a lawless disposition and had run away from home without apparent reason. Is there any truth in that?”
“Bessie was always a good girl, Sir. It was lies the gentleman was putting on her.”
“Is the prisoner your husband’s daughter?”
“No, Sir,” the old woman faltered, “his step -daughter.”
“Is it true that her step -father has always been hard on her?”
The old woman hesitated, then faltered again, “Middling hard anyway.”
“Don’t be afraid. Remember, your daughter’s liberty, perhaps her life, are in peril. Tell the Jury what happened on the day she left home.”
Then nervously, fearfully, looking round the Court-house as if in terror of being seen or heard, the old woman told the story of the first Saturday in August.
“So your husband deliberately shut the girl out of the house in the middle of the night, knowing well she had nowhere else to go to?”
“Yes, if you plaze, Sir.”
“It’s a lie a scandalous lie!” cried somebody at the back of the court.
“Who’s that?” asked the Governor, and he was told by the Inspector of Police (who was already laying hold of the interrupter) that it was the husband of the witness.
“A respectable man’s character is being sworn away,” cried Dan. “Put me in the box and I’ll swear it’s a lie.”
In the tumult that followed the Deemster raised his hand.
“This Court has been fenced,” he said severely, “and if anybody attempts to brawl here...”
“Then let me be sworn. I’m only a plain Manxman, blood and bone, but I can tell the truth as well as some that make a bigger mouth.”
“Behave yourself!”
“Give me a chance to save my character and fix the disgrace of these bad doings where it belongs.”
“I give you fair warning …”
“Put the saddle on the right horse, Dempster. He’s near enough to yourself, anyway.”
“Silence!”
“Why doesn’t he come out into the open, not hide behind the skirts of a girl with a by-child?”
“Remove that man to the cells, and keep him there until the trial is over.”
“What?” cried Dan, in a loud voice.
“Remove him!” cried the Deemster, in a voice still louder, and at the next moment, Dan, shaking his fist at the prisoner and cursing her, was hustled out of Court.
When the tempestuovis scene was over and silence had been restored, the witness was trembling and covering her face in her hands and Hudgeon was on his feet to cross-examine her.
“I think your father was the late John Corteen, the Methodist?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He was a good man, wasn’t he?”
“As good a man as ever walked the world, Sir.”
“He had a reputation for strict truthfulness isn’t that so!”
“‘Deed it is, Sir. The old Dempster would take his word without asking him to swear to it.”
“You were much attached to him, were you not?”
The old woman wiped her eyes, which were wet but shining.
“That’s truth enough, Sir.”
“And now he’s dead and I daresay you sometimes pray for the time when you’ll see him again?”
“Morning and night, every day of my life since I closed the man’s dying eyes for him.”
The advocate turned his gleaming eyes to the Jury and the side of his powerful face to the witness.
“You are a Methodist yourself, aren’t you?”
“Such as I am, Sir.”
“And as a Methodist you are taught to believe that truth is sacred and that a lie (no matter under what temptation told) is a thing of the devil and no good can come of it?”
The old woman faltered something that was barely heard, and then the big advocate turned quickly round on her, and said in a stern voice, looking full into her timid eyes, “Mrs. Collister, as you are a Christian woman and expect to meet your father some day, will you swear that when your daughter returned home on the fifth of April you did not see at a glance that she was about to become the mother of a child?”
The old woman shuddered as if she had been smitten by an in- visible hand, breathed audibly, tried to speak, stopped, then closed her eyes, swayed a little and laid hold of the bar in front of her.
“Inspector, see to the witness quickly,” cried the Deemster.
At the next moment the old woman was being helped out of the witness-box and borne towards the door, where, realising what she had done for her daughter, she broke into a fit of weeping, which rent the silence of the Court until the door had closed behind her.
“In that cry,” said the advocate, “the Jury has heard the answer to my question. It is proof enough that the prisoner had a child, and that her mother knew it.”
“If so, it is proof of something else,” cried Gell (he had leapt to his feet and was speaking in a thrilling voice),” that a strong man can find it in his heart to use his great forensic skill to crush a poor weak woman who is fighting for the life of her child. All his life through he has been doing the same thing driving people into prison and dragging them to the gallows. He has made his name and grown rich and fat on it. God save me from a life like that! I am only a young lawyer and he is an old one, but may I live in poverty and die in the streets rather than outrage my humanity and degrade my profession by using the lures of the procurator and the arts of the hangman.”
There was a sensation in Court. One of the younger advocates was heard to say, “My God, who thought Alick Gell was a fool?” And another who remembered the “Fanny” case in the Douglas police-courts, said, “He’s got a bit of his own back, anyway.”
When the commotion subsided, Hudgeon, with a face of scarlet, appealed to the Court:
“Your Honour, I ask your protection against this outrageous slander.”
“Since you appeal to me,” said the Deemster (whose own face was aflame),” I can only say that you deserved every word of it.”
Hudgeon tried to speak, but could not, his voice being choked in his throat. And seeing that the Attorney-General had come back to Court (he had just returned with Cain the constable, who was carrying a parcel) he picked up his bag and fled.
Cell’s time had come at last the great moment he had been waiting for so long. Although he had been shaken for an instant by Mrs. Collister’s silence he was not afraid now. He was going to play his last and greatest card put the prisoner in the box to demolish for ever the monstrous accusation that had been intended to ruin the life of an innocent woman. The Deemster trembled as he saw Gell look round the Court with a confident smile before he called his witness.
Bessie, whose big eyes had flamed with fury during her mother’s cross-examination, passed with a firm step from the dock to the witness-box. In answer to Gell’s questions she repeated the evidence she had given before the High Bailiff, only more emphatically and with a certain note of defiance.
When the Attorney-General rose to cross-examine her, it was observed that he, too, had an air of confidence, as if something had become known to him since morning.
“Do you adhere to your plea?” he asked.
“Indeed I do. Why shouldn’t I?” said Bessie.
“Think again before it is too late. Do you still say that you have never had a child, and therefore never killed and never buried one?”
“Certainly I say so,” said Bessie.” I don’t know what you are talking of.”
“Constable,” said the Attorney, turning to Cain, “open your parcel.”
There was a whispering among the spectators in Court, while the constable was cutting the string and opening the brown-paper parcel. The Deemster was shuddering, Gell’s lower lip was trembling, and Fenella (who was sitting, as before, in front of the dock) was breathing deeply. The prisoner alone was unmoved. The sun (it was now going round to the West) was shining down on her from the lantern light. It lit up with pitiful vividness her thin white face with its look of confidence and contempt.
“Do you know what this is?” asked the Attorney, holding up a portion of a white silk scarf.
Bessie started as if she had seen a ghost. Then, recovering herself and turning her eyes away, she said, remembering what Gell had told her, “I know nothing about it.”
“You have never seen it before?”
“I know nothing about it.”
The Attorney-General put the scarf outstretched on the table in front of him, and held up a narrower strip of the same material.
“Do you know anything about this, then?”
Bessie gasped and was silent for a moment. Then she said again, but with a stammer, “I know nothing about it.”
“Will you swear that it never belonged to you?”
A stabbing memory came back to Bessie. She remembered what she had heard about” a remnant” when the constables were ranging her room, and seeing no way of escape by further denial she said, “Oh yes, I remember it now. I found it on the road when I was on my way home and bound it about my hat to keep it from blowing off in the wind.”
The silence which had fallen upon the Court was broken by an audible drawing of breath. Gell, who had risen and leaned forward, dropped back.
“But if you found it on the road, how do you account for the fact that it has your name stamped on the corner of it? See Bessie.”
Bessie was speechless for another moment. Then she said, “Bessie is a common name, isn’t it?”
“But how do you account for the further fact that these two pieces fit each other exactly?” asked the Attorney laying the narrow strip by the broader portion.
Bessie became dizzy and confused.
“I can’t account for it. I know nothing about it,” she said.
The Deemster, who was breathing with difficulty, asked the Attorney what he suggested by the exhibits. The Attorney answered, “The larger piece, your Honour, is the scarf which the body of the child was found in, while the narrower one was discovered in the prisoner’s room, and the suggestion is that, taken together, they form a chain of convincing evidence that she is guilty of the crime with which she is charged.”
Gell leapt to his feet. He had recognised the scarf as a present of his own on Bessie’s last birthday, and his great faith in the girl was breaking down, yet in a husky voice he said, “Give her time, your Honour. She may have some explanation.”
The Deemster signified assent, and then Gell, stepping closer to the witness-box, said, “Be calm and think again. Don’t answer hastily. Everything depends on your reply. Are you sure the scarf was not yours and that you lost the larger piece of it? Think carefully, I beg, I pray.”
The advocate was losing himself, yet nobody protested. At length Bessie, with the wild eyes of a captured animal, broke into violent cries.
“Oh, why are you all torturing me? Wasn’t it enough to torture my mother? I know nothing about it.”
Gell dropped back to his seat. There was a profound silence. The great clock of the Castle was heard to strike four. The Deemster felt as if every stroke were beating on his brain. At length he said, “A new fact has been introduced by the prosecution and it is only right that the defence should have time to consider it. It is now four o’clock. The Court will adjourn until morning. It is not for me to anticipate the evidence which the accused may give when the Court resumes, but if in the interval she can remember anything which will put a new light on the serious fact the Attorney-General has just disclosed, nothing she has said in her agitation to-day shall prejudice what she may say to-morrow.”
He paused for a moment and then (with difficulty maintaining an equal voice) he added, “It sometimes happens that a young woman in the position of the accused mistakes concealment for the much more serious crime of murder.”
He paused again and then said, “Whatever the facts in this unhappy case may prove to be, if I may speak to that mystery of a woman’s heart which is truly said to be sacred even in its shame, I will say, ‘Tell the truth, the whole truth; it will be best for you, best for everybody.’”
“The Court stands adjourned until eleven in the morning,” said the Governor. “Meantime, let the advocate for the defence see the accused and give her the benefit of his legal advice and assistance. Jailer, look to the Jury that they are properly lodged in the Castle, and see that they hold no communication with persons outside.”
IV
The Judges, the advocates and the spectators were gone, and Gell was alone in the Court-house. He was like a drowning man in an empty sea, clinging to an upturned boat.
Time after time he gathered up his papers and put them in his bag, then took them out again and spread them before him. At length, rising with a haggard face, he went downstairs with a heavy step.
At the door to the private entrance he came upon Fenella, who was waiting for her father. Her eyes were red as if she had been weeping, but they were blazing with anger also.
“Are you going down to her as the Governor suggested?”
“I cannot! I dare not!” he replied. And then, as if struck by a sudden thought he said,” But won’t you go?”
“You wish me to speak to her instead of you?”
“Won’t you? If she has anything to say she’ll say it more freely to a woman.”
Fenella looked at him for a moment.
“Very well, I’ll go if you are willing to take the consequences.”
“The consequences? To me? That’s nothing, nothing whatever. Go to her, for God’s sake. I’ll wait here for you.”
In the Deemster’s room the Governor was putting on his military overcoat. He was not too well satisfied with himself, and as the only means of self -justification he was nursing a dull anger against Stowell.
“Well, we can only go on with it. There’s nothing else to do now. Unfortunate damnably unfortunate!”
A few minutes later, Stowell, sitting at the table in wig and gown, heard the clash of steel outside (a company of the regiment quartered in the town were acting as a guard of honour) and saw through the window the Governor’s big blue landau passing over the bridge that crossed the harbour.
Gell would be with Bessie in her cell by this time. She was guilty. He must see that she was guilty. What a shock! What a disillusionment! All his high-built faith in the girl wrecked and broken!
At last he unrobed and went down the empty staircase. On opening the door to the courtyard he was startled to see Gell pacing to and fro with downcast head among the remains of some tombs of old kings which lay about in the rank grass.
“Ah, is it you?” said Gell, looking up at the sound of Stowell’s footsteps. “You were good to her, old fellow. I can’t help thanking you.”
Stowell mumbled some reply and then said he thought Gell would have been with Bessie.
“I daren’t go,” said Gell. “But Fenella has gone instead of me.”
“Fenella?”
Stowell felt as if something were creeping between his skin and his flesh. Fenella and Bessie those two and the dread secret!
“My poor girl!” said Gell.” If she has anything to say to confess it won’t hurt so much to say it to somebody else. But of course she hasn’t she can’t have.”
Stowell felt as if he had been suddenly deprived of the power of speech. Yes, Bessie would confess everything to Fenella. Not merely the birth of her child but also the name of her fellow-sinner Fenella’s desire to punish the guilty man would drag that out of her. Perhaps the confession was going on at that very moment. What a shock for Fenella too! All her high-built faith in him wrecked and broken!
“Well, let us hope...”
“Yes, that is all we can do.”
And then the two men parted, Gell returning to his pacing among the tombs of the dead kings and Stowell going out by the Deemster’s door.
A few of the spectators at the trial were waiting to see the Deemster off, but he scarcely saw their salutations and did not respond to them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE TWO WOMEN – THE TWO MEN
ON being taken back to her cell Bessie had burst into a fit of hysteria.
“The brutes! They’re only trying to catch me out that they may kill me. Why don’t they do it then? Why don’t they finish me? This waiting is the worst.”
Her face was blue with rage, her voice was coarse and husky, her mouth was full of ugly and vulgar words all the traces of her common upbringing coming uppermost.
At length, out of breath and exhausted, she broke into sobs. This quietened her and after a while she asked what had become of her mother.
Fenella, who was alone with her (the woman warder having gone home ill), answered that some good women had carried her mother away and were going to take care of her.
“And where is...”
“Mr. Gell? Upstairs. He sent me down to speak to you.”
“I won’t speak to anyone. They’re all alike. They’re only torturing me.”
Fenella reproved the girl tenderly. Could she not see that the Deemster himself was trying to help her? He had adjourned the Court to give her another chance, and if she could only explain away the evidence of the scarf...
“I won’t explain anything. Why can’t you leave me be?”
“You heard what the Deemster said, Bessie? Tell the truth; the whole truth; it will be best for you; best for everybody.”
