The Legacy of Cain
by
Wilkie Collins
Part 1 out of 8
Etext by James Rusk (jrusk@cyberramp.net)
Italics are indicated by the underscore character
The Legacy of Cain
by Wilkie Collins
To
MRS. HENRY POWELL BARTLEY:
Permit me to add your name to my name, in publishing this novel.
The pen which has written my books cannot be more agreeably
employed than in acknowledging what I owe to the pen which has
skillfully and patiently helped me, by copying my manuscripts for
the printer.
WILKIE COLLINS.
Wimpole Street, 6th December, 1888.
--------
THE LEGACY OF CAIN.
First Period: 1858-1859.
EVENTS IN THE PRISON, RELATED BY THE GOVERNOR.
----
CHAPTER I.
THE GOVERNOR EXPLAINS.
At the request of a person who has claims on me that I must not
disown, I consent to look back through a long interval of years
and to describe events which took place within the walls of
an English prison during the earlier period of my appointment
as Governor.
Viewing my task by the light which later experience casts on it,
I think I shall act wisely by exercising some control over
the freedom of my pen.
I propose to pass over in silence the name of the town in which
is situated the prison once confided to my care. I shall observe
a similar discretion in alluding to individuals--some dead, some
living, at the present time.
Being obliged to write of a woman who deservedly suffered
the extreme penalty of the law, I think she will be sufficiently
identified if I call her The Prisoner. Of the four persons
present on the evening before her execution three may be
distinguished one from the other by allusion to their vocations
in life. I here introduce them as The Chaplain, The Minister,
and The Doctor. The fourth was a young woman. She has no claim
on my consideration; and, when she is mentioned, her name may
appear. If these reserves excite suspicion, I declare beforehand
that they influence in no way the sense of responsibility which
commands an honest man to speak the truth.
CHAPTER II.
THE MURDERESS ASKS QUESTIONS.
The first of the events which I must now relate was the
conviction of The Prisoner for the murder of her husband.
They had lived together in matrimony for little more than
two years. The husband, a gentleman by birth and education,
had mortally offended his relations in marrying a woman of
an inferior rank of life. He was fast declining into a state
of poverty, through his own reckless extravagance, at the time
when he met with his death at his wife's hand.
Without attempting to excuse him, he deserved, to my mind, some
tribute of regret. It is not to be denied that he was profligate
in his habits and violent in his temper. But it is equally true
that he was affectionate in the domestic circle, and, when moved
by wisely applied remonstrance, sincerely penitent for sins
committed under temptation that overpowered him. If his wife
had killed him in a fit of jealous rage--under provocation,
be it remembered, which the witnesses proved--she might have
been convicted of manslaughter, and might have received a light
sentence. But the evidence so undeniably revealed deliberate
and merciless premeditation, that the only defense attempted
by her counsel was madness, and the only alternative left to
a righteous jury was a verdict which condemned the woman to
death. Those mischievous members of the community, whose topsy-
turvy sympathies feel for the living criminal and forget the dead
victim, attempted to save her by means of high-flown petitions
and contemptible correspondence in the newspapers. But the Judge
held firm; and the Home Secretary held firm. They were entirely
right; and the public were scandalously wrong.
Our Chaplain endeavored to offer the consolations of religion
to the condemned wretch. She refused to accept his ministrations
in language which filled him with grief and horror.
On the evening before the execution, the reverend gentleman laid
on my table his own written report of a conversation which had
passed between the Prisoner and himself.
"I see some hope, sir," he said, "of inclining the heart of this
woman to religious belief, before it is too late. Will you read
my report, and say if you agree with me?"
I read it, of course. It was called "A Memorandum," and was thus
written:
"At his last interview with the Prisoner, the Chaplain asked
her if she had ever entered a place of public worship. She
replied that she had occasionally attended the services at
a Congregational Church in this town; attracted by the reputation
of the Minister as a preacher. 'He entirely failed to make
a Christian of me,' she said; 'but I was struck by his eloquence.
Besides, he interested me personally--he was a fine man.'
"In the dreadful situation in which the woman was placed, such
language as this shocked the Chaplain; he appealed in vain to the
Prisoner's sense of propriety. 'You don't understand women,' she
answered. 'The greatest saint of my sex that ever lived likes to
look at a preacher as well as to hear him. If he is an agreeable
man, he has all the greater effect on her. This preacher's voice
told me he was kind-hearted; and I had only to look at his
beautiful eyes to see that he was trustworthy and true.'
"It was useless to repeat a protest which had already failed.
Recklessly and flippantly as she had described it, an impression
had been produced on her. It occurred to the Chaplain that he
might at least make the attempt to turn this result to her own
religious advantage. He asked whether she would receive
the Minister, if the reverend gentleman came to the prison.
'That will depend,' she said, 'on whether you answer some
questions which I want to put to you first.' The Chaplain
consented; provided always that he could reply with propriety
to what she asked of him. Her first question only related to
himself.
"She said: 'The women who watch me tell me that you are
a widower, and have a family of children. Is that true?'
"The Chaplain answered that it was quite true.
"She alluded next to a report, current in the town, that
the Minister had resigned the pastorate. Being personally
acquainted with him, the Chaplain was able to inform her that
his resignation had not yet been accepted. On hearing this, she
seemed to gather confidence. Her next inquiries succeeded each
other rapidly, as follows:
"'Is my handsome preacher married?'
"'Yes.'
"'Has he got any children?'
"'He has never had any children.'
"'How long has he been married?'
"'As well as I know, about seven or eight years.
"'What sort of woman is his wife?'
"'A lady universally respected.'
"'I don't care whether she is respected or not. Is she kind?'
"'Certainly!'
"'Is her husband well off?'
"'He has a sufficient income.'
"After that reply, the Prisoner's curiosity appeared to be
satisfied. She said, 'Bring your friend the preacher to me,
if you like'--and there it ended.
"What her object could have been in putting these questions,
it seems to be impossible to guess. Having accurately reported
all that took place, the Chaplain declares, with heartfelt
regret, that he can exert no religious influence over this
obdurate woman. He leaves it to the Governor to decide whether
the Minister of the Congregational Church may not succeed, where
the Chaplain of the Jail has failed. Herein is the one last hope
of saving the soul of the Prisoner, now under sentence of death!"
In those serious words the Memorandum ended. Although not
personally acquainted with the Minister I had heard of him, on
all sides, as an excellent man. In the emergency that confronted
us he had, as it seemed to me, his own sacred right to enter
the prison; assuming that he was willing to accept, what I myself
felt to be, a very serious responsibility. The first necessity
was to discover whether we might hope to obtain his services.
With my full approval the Chaplain left me, to state the
circumstances to his reverend colleague.
CHAPTER III.
THE CHILD APPEARS.
During my friend's absence, my attention was claimed by a sad
incident--not unforeseen.
It is, I suppose, generally known that near relatives are
admitted to take their leave of criminals condemned to death.
In the case of the Prisoner now waiting for execution, no person
applied to the authorities for permission to see her. I myself
inquired if she had any relations living, and if she would like
to see them. She answered: "None that I care to see, or that care
to see me--except the nearest relation of all."
In those last words the miserable creature alluded to her only
child, a little girl (an infant, I should say), who had passed
her first year's birthday by a few months. The farewell interview
was to take place on the mother's last evening on earth; and
the child was now brought into my rooms, in charge of her nurse.
I had seldom seen a brighter or prettier little girl. She was
just able to walk alone, and to enjoy the first delight of moving
from one place to another. Quite of her own accord she came to
me, attracted I daresay by the glitter of my watch-chain. Helping
her to climb on my knee, I showed the wonders of the watch, and
held it to her ear. At that past time, death had taken my good
wife from me; my two boys were away at Harrow School; my domestic
life was the life of a lonely man. Whether I was reminded of the
bygone days when my sons were infants on my knee, listening to
the ticking of my watch--or whether the friendless position of
the poor little creature, who had lost one parent and was soon to
lose the other by a violent death, moved me in depths of pity not
easily reached in my later experience--I am not able to say. This
only I know: my heart ached for the child while she was laughing
and listening; and something fell from me on the watch which I
don't deny might have been a tear. A few of the toys, mostly
broken now, which my two children used to play with are still
in my possession; kept, like my poor wife's favorite jewels, for
old remembrance' sake. These I took from their repository when
the attraction of my watch showed signs of failing. The child
pounced on them with her chubby hands, and screamed with
pleasure. And the hangman was waiting for her mother--and,
more horrid still, the mother deserved it!
My duty required me to let the Prisoner know that her little
daughter had arrived. Did that heart of iron melt at last? It
might have been so, or it might not; the message sent back kept
her secret. All that it said to me was: "Let the child wait till
I send for her."
The Minister had consented to help us. On his arrival at
the prison, I received him privately in my study.
I had only to look at his face--pitiably pale and agitated--to
see that he was a sensitive man, not always able to control
his nerves on occasions which tried his moral courage. A kind,
I might almost say a noble face, and a voice unaffectedly
persuasive, at once prepossessed me in his favor. The few words
of welcome that I spoke were intended to compose him. They failed
to produce the impression on which I had counted.
"My experience," he said, "has included many melancholy duties,
and has tried my composure in terrible scenes; but I have never
yet found myself in the presence of an unrepentant criminal,
sentenced to death--and that criminal a woman and a mother.
I own, sir, that I am shaken by the prospect before me."
I suggested that he should wait a while, in the hope that time
and quiet might help him. He thanked me, and refused.
"If I have any knowledge of myself," he said, "terrors of
anticipation lose their hold when I am face to face with
a serious call on me. The longer I remain here, the less worthy
I shall appear of the trust that has been placed in me--the trust
which, please God, I mean to deserve."
My own observation of human nature told me that this was wisely
said. I led the way at once to the cell.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MINISTER SAYS YES.
The Prisoner was seated on her bed, quietly talking with
the woman appointed to watch her. When she rose to receive us,
I saw the Minister start. The face that confronted him would,
in my opinion, have taken any man by surprise, if he had first
happened to see it within the walls of a prison.
Visitors to the picture-galleries of Italy, growing weary of
Holy Families in endless succession, observe that the idea of
the Madonna, among the rank and file of Italian Painters, is
limited to one changeless and familiar type. I can hardly hope
to be believed when I say that the personal appearance of
the murderess recalled that type. She presented the delicate
light hair, the quiet eyes, the finely-shaped lower features
and the correctly oval form of face, repeated in hundreds on
hundreds of the conventional works of Art to which I have
ventured to allude. To those who doubt me, I can only declare
that what I have here written is undisguised and absolute truth.
Let me add that daily observation of all classes of criminals,
extending over many years, has considerably diminished my faith
in physiognomy as a safe guide to the discovery of character.
Nervous trepidation looks like guilt. Guilt, firmly sustained by
insensibility, looks like innocence. One of the vilest wretches
ever placed under my charge won the sympathies (while he was
waiting for his trial) of every person who saw him, including
even the persons employed in the prison. Only the other day,
ladies and gentlemen coming to visit me passed a body of men at
work on the road. Judges of physiognomy among them were horrified
at the criminal atrocity betrayed in every face that they
noticed. They condoled with me on the near neighborhood of so
many convicts to my official place of residence. I looked out of
the window and saw a group of honest laborers (whose only crime
was poverty) employed by the parish!
Having instructed the female warder to leave the room--but
to take care that she waited within call--I looked again at
the Minister.
Confronted by the serious responsibility that he had undertaken,
he justified what he had said to me. Still pale, still
distressed, he was now nevertheless master of himself. I turned
to the door to leave him alone with the Prisoner. She called me
back.
"Before this gentleman tries to convert me," she said, "I want
you to wait here and be a witness."
Finding that we were both willing to comply with this request,
she addressed herself directly to the Minister. "Suppose I
promise to listen to your exhortations," she began, "what do
you promise to do for me in return?"
The voice in which she spoke to him was steady and clear;
a marked contrast to the tremulous earnestness with which he
answered her.
"I promise to urge you to repentance and the confession of
your crime. I promise to implore the divine blessing on me in
the effort to save your poor guilty soul."
She looked at him, and listened to him, as if he was speaking to
her in an unknown tongue, and went on with what she had to say as
quietly as ever.
"When I am hanged to-morrow, suppose I die without confessing,
without repenting--are you one of those who believe I shall be
doomed to eternal punishment in another life?"
"I believe in the mercy of God."
"Answer my question, if you please. Is an impenitent sinner
eternally punished? Do you believe that?"
"My Bible leaves me no other alternative."
She paused for a while, evidently considering with special
attention what she was about to say next.
"As a religious man," she resumed, "would you be willing to make
some sacrifice, rather than let a fellow-creature go--after
a disgraceful death--to everlasting torment?"
"I know of no sacrifice in my power," he said, fervently, "to
which I would not rather submit than let you die in the present
dreadful state of your mind."
The Prisoner turned to me. "Is the person who watches me waiting
outside?"
"Yes."
"Will you be so kind as to call her in? I have a message for
her."
It was plain that she had been leading the way to the delivery of
that message, whatever it might be, in all that she had said up
to the present time. So far my poor powers of penetration helped
me, and no further.
The warder appeared, and received her message. "Tell the woman
who has come here with my little girl that I want to see the
child."
Taken completely by surprise, I signed to the attendant to wait
for further instructions.
In a moment more I had sufficiently recovered myself to see the
impropriety of permitting any obstacle to interpose between the
Minister and his errand of mercy. I gently reminded the Prisoner
that she would have a later opportunity of seeing her child.
"Your first duty," I told her, "is to hear and to take to heart
what the clergyman has to say to you."
For the second time I attempted to leave the cell. For the second
time this impenetrable woman called me back.
"Take the parson away with you," she said. "I refuse to listen
to him."
The patient Minister yielded, and appealed to me to follow his
example. I reluctantly sanctioned the delivery of the message.
After a brief interval the child was brought to us, tired and
sleepy. For a while the nurse roused her by setting her on her
feet. She happened to notice the Minister first. Her bright eyes
rested on him, gravely wondering. He kissed her, and, after a
momentary hesitation, gave her to her mother. The horror of the
situation overpowered him: he turned his face away from us. I
understood what he felt; he almost overthrew my own self-command.
The Prisoner spoke to the nurse in no friendly tone: "You can
go."
The nurse turned to me, ostentatiously ignoring the words that
had been addressed to her. "Am I to go, sir, or to stay?"
I suggested that she should return to the waiting-room. She
returned at once in silence. The Prisoner looked after her as
she went out, with such an expression of hatred in her eyes that
the Minister noticed it.
"What has that person done to offend you?" he asked.
"She is the last person in the whole world whom I should have
chosen to take care of my child, if the power of choosing had
been mine. But I have been in prison, without a living creature
to represent me or to take my part. No more of that; my troubles
will be over in a few hours more. I want you to look at my little
girl, whose troubles are all to come. Do you call her pretty? Do
you feel interested in her?"
The sorrow and pity in his face answered for him.
Quietly sleeping, the poor baby rested on her mother's bosom. Was
the heart of the murderess softened by the divine influence of
maternal love? The hands that held the child trembled a little.
For the first time it seemed to cost her an effort to compose
herself, before she could speak to the Minister again.
"When I die to-morrow," she said, "I leave my child helpless
and friendless--disgraced by her mother's shameful death. The
workhouse may take her--or a charitable asylum may take her." She
paused; a first tinge of color rose on her pale face; she broke
into an outburst of rage. "Think of _my_ daughter being brought
up by charity! She may suffer poverty, she may be treated with
contempt, she may be employed by brutal people in menial work.
I can't endure it; it maddens me. If she is not saved from that
wretched fate, I shall die despairing, I shall die cursing--"
The Minister sternly stopped her before she could say the next
word. To my astonishment she appeared to be humbled, to be even
ashamed: she asked his pardon: "Forgive me; I won't forget myself
again. They tell me you have no children of your own. Is that a
sorrow to you and your wife?"
Her altered tone touched him. He answered sadly and kindly: "It
is the one sorrow of our lives."
The purpose which she had been keeping in view from the moment
when the Minister entered her cell was no mystery now. Ought I to
have interfered? Let me confess a weakness, unworthy perhaps of
my office. I was so sorry for the child--I hesitated.
My silence encouraged the mother. She advanced to the Minister
with the sleeping infant in her arms.
"I daresay you have sometimes thought of adopting a child?" she
said. "Perhaps you can guess now what I had in my mind, when
I asked if you would consent to a sacrifice? Will you take this
wretched innocent little creature home with you?" She lost her
self-possession once more. "A motherless creature to-morrow,"
she burst out. "Think of that."
God knows how I still shrunk from it! But there was no
alternative now; I was bound to remember my duty to the excellent
man, whose critical position at that moment was, in some degree
at least, due to my hesitation in asserting my authority. Could
I allow the Prisoner to presume on his compassionate nature, and
to hurry him into a decision which, in his calmer moments, he
might find reason to regret? I spoke to _him_. Does the man live
who--having to say what I had to say--could have spoken to
the doomed mother?
"I am sorry to have allowed this to go on," I said. "In justice
to yourself, sir, don't answer!"
She turned on me with a look of fury.
"He shall answer," she cried.
I saw, or thought I saw, signs of yielding in his face. "Take
time," I persisted--"take time to consider before you decide."
She stepped up to me.
"Take time?" she repeated. "Are you inhuman enough to talk of
time, in my presence?"
She laid the sleeping child on her bed, and fell on her knees
before the Minister: "I promise to hear your exhortations--I
promise to do all a woman can to believe and repent. Oh, I know
myself! My heart, once hardened, is a heart that no human
creature can touch. The one way to my better nature--if I have
a better nature--is through that poor babe. Save her from
the workhouse! Don't let them make a pauper of her!" She sank
prostrate at his feet, and beat her hands in frenzy on the floor.
"You want to save my guilty soul," she reminded him furiously.
"There's but one way of doing it. Save my child!"
He raised her. Her fierce tearless eyes questioned his face
in a mute expectation dreadful to see. Suddenly, a foretaste
of death--the death that was so near now!--struck her with
a shivering fit: her head dropped on the Minister's shoulder.
Other men might have shrunk from the contact of it. That true
Christian let it rest.
Under the maddening sting of suspense, her sinking energies
rallied for an instant. In a whisper, she was just able to put
the supreme question to him.
"Yes? or No?"
He answered: "Yes."
A faint breath of relief, just audible in the silence, told me
that she had heard him. It was her last effort. He laid her,
insensible, on the bed, by the side of her sleeping child.
"Look at them," was all he said to me; "how could I refuse?"
CHAPTER V.
MISS CHANCE ASSERTS HERSELF.
The services of our medical officer were required, in order to
hasten the recovery of the Prisoner's senses.
When the Doctor and I left the cell together, she was composed,
and ready (in the performance of her promise) to listen to
the exhortations of the Minister. The sleeping child was left
undisturbed, by the mother's desire. If the Minister felt tempted
to regret what he had done, there was the artless influence
which would check him! As we stepped into the corridor, I gave
the female warder her instructions to remain on the watch, and
to return to her post when she saw the Minister come out.
In the meantime, my companion had walked on a little way.
Possessed of ability and experience within the limits of
his profession, he was in other respects a man with a crotchety
mind; bold to the verge of recklessness in the expression of
his opinion; and possessed of a command of language that carried
everything before it. Let me add that he was just and merciful
in his intercourse with others, and I shall have summed him up
fairly enough. When I joined him he seemed to be absorbed in
reflection.
"Thinking of the Prisoner?" I said.
"Thinking of what is going on, at this moment, in the condemned
cell," he answered, "and wondering if any good will come of it."
I was not without hope of a good result, and I said so.
The Doctor disagreed with me. "I don't believe in that woman's
penitence," he remarked; "and I look upon the parson as a poor
weak creature. What is to become of the child?"
There was no reason for concealing from one of my colleagues
the benevolent decision, on the part of the good Minister,
of which I had been a witness. The Doctor listened to me with
the first appearance of downright astonishment that I had ever
observed in his face. When I had done, he made an extraordinary
reply:
"Governor, I retract what I said of the parson just now. He
is one of the boldest men that ever stepped into a pulpit."
Was the doctor in earnest? Strongly in earnest; there could be
no doubt of it. Before I could ask him what he meant, he was
called away to a patient on the other side of the prison. When
we parted at the door of my room, I made it a request that my
medical friend would return to me and explain what he had just
said.
"Considering that you are the governor of a prison," he replied,
"you are a singularly rash man. If I come back, how do you know
I shall not bore you?"
"My rashness runs the risk of that," I rejoined.
"Tell me something, before I allow you to run your risk,"
he said. "Are you one of those people who think that the tempers
of children are formed by the accidental influences which happen
to be about them? Or do you agree with me that the tempers of
children are inherited from their parents?"
The Doctor (as I concluded) was still strongly impressed by
the Minister's resolution to adopt a child whose wicked mother
had committed the most atrocious of all crimes. Was some serious
foreboding in secret possession of his mind? My curiosity to hear
him was now increased tenfold. I replied without hesitation:
"I agree with you."
He looked at me with his sense of humor twinkling in his eyes.
"Do you know I rather expected that answer?" he said, slyly.
"All right. I'll come back."
Left by myself, I took up the day's newspaper.
My attention wandered; my thoughts were in the cell with
the Minister and the Prisoner. How would it end? Sometimes, I was
inclined to doubt with the Doctor. Sometimes, I took refuge in
my own more hopeful view. These idle reflections were agreeably
interrupted by the appearance of my friend, the Chaplain.
"You are always welcome," I said; "and doubly welcome just now.
I am feeling a little worried and anxious."
"And you are naturally," the Chaplain added, "not at all disposed
to receive a stranger?"
"Is the stranger a friend of yours?" I asked.
"Oh, no! Having occasion, just now, to go into the waiting-room,
I found a young woman there, who asked me if she could see you.
She thinks you have forgotten her, and she is tired of waiting. I
merely undertook, of course, to mention what she had said to me."
The nurse having been in this way recalled to my memory, I felt
some little interest in seeing her, after what had passed in
the cell. In plainer words, I was desirous of judging for myself
whether she deserved the hostile feeling which the Prisoner had
shown toward her. I thanked the Chaplain before he left me, and
gave the servant the necessary instructions. When she entered
the room, I looked at the woman attentively for the first time.
Youth and a fine complexion, a well-made figure and a natural
grace of movement--these were her personal attractions, so far
as I could see. Her defects were, to my mind, equally noticeable.
Under a heavy forehead, her piercing eyes looked out at persons
and things with an expression which was not to my taste.
Her large mouth--another defect, in my opinion--would have
been recommended to mercy, in the estimation of many men, by
her magnificent teeth; white, well-shaped, cruelly regular.
Believers in physiognomy might perhaps have seen the betrayal
of an obstinate nature in the lengthy firmness of her chin.
While I am trying to describe her, let me not forget her dress.
A woman's dress is the mirror in which we may see the reflection
of a woman's nature. Bearing in mind the melancholy and
impressive circumstances under which she had brought the child
to the prison, the gayety of color in her gown and her bonnet
implied either a total want of feeling, or a total want of tact.
As to her position in life, let me confess that I felt, after
a closer examination, at a loss to determine it. She was
certainly not a lady. The Prisoner had spoken of her as if
she was a domestic servant who had forfeited her right to
consideration and respect. And she had entered the prison, as
a nurse might have entered it, in charge of a child. I did what
we all do when we are not clever enough to find the answer to
a riddle--I gave it up.
"What can I do for you?" I asked.
"Perhaps you can tell me," she answered, "how much longer I am
to be kept waiting in this prison."
"The decision," I reminded her, "doesn't depend on me."
"Then who does it depend on?"
The Minister had undoubtedly acquired the sole right of deciding.
It was for him to say whether this woman should, or should not,
remain in attendance on the child whom he had adopted. In the
meanwhile, the feeling of distrust which was gaining on my mind
warned me to remember the value of reserve in holding intercourse
with a stranger.
She seemed to be irritated by my silence. "If the decision
doesn't rest with you," she asked, "why did you tell me to stay
in the waiting-room?"
"You brought the little girl into the prison," I said; "was it
not natural to suppose that your mistress might want you--"
"Stop, sir!"
I had evidently given offense; I stopped directly.
"No person on the face of the earth," she declared, loftily, "has
ever had the right to call herself my mistress. Of my own free
will, sir, I took charge of the child."
"Because you are fond of her?" I suggested.
"I hate her."
It was unwise on my part--I protested. "Hate a baby little more
than a year old!" I said.
"_Her_ baby!"
She said it with the air of a woman who had produced an
unanswerable reason. "I am accountable to nobody," she went on.
"If I consented to trouble myself with the child, it was in
remembrance of my friendship--notice, if you please, that I say
friendship--with the unhappy father."
Putting together what I had just heard, and what I had seen in
the cell, I drew the right conclusion at last. The woman, whose
position in life had been thus far an impenetrable mystery to me,
now stood revealed as one, among other objects of the Prisoner's
jealousy, during her disastrous married life. A serious doubt
occurred to me as to the authority under which the husband's
mistress might be acting, after the husband's death. I instantly
put it to the test.
"Do I understand you to assert any claim to the child?" I asked.
"Claim?" she repeated. "I know no more of the child than you do.
I heard for the first time that such a creature was in existence,
when her murdered father sent for me in his dying moments.
At his entreaty I promised to take care of her, while her vile
mother was out of the house and in the hands of the law.
My promise has been performed. If I am expected (having brought
her to the prison) to take her away again, understand this: I am
under no obligation (even if I could afford it) to burden myself
with that child; I shall hand her over to the workhouse
authorities."
I forgot myself once more--I lost my temper.
"Leave the room," I said. "Your unworthy hands will not touch
the poor baby again. She is provided for."
"I don't believe you!" the wretch burst out. "Who has taken
the child?"
A quiet voice answered: "_I_ have taken her."
We both looked round and saw the Minister standing in the open
doorway, with the child in his arms. The ordeal that he had gone
through in the condemned cell was visible in his face; he looked
miserably haggard and broken. I was eager to know if his merciful
interest in the Prisoner had purified her guilty soul--but at
the same time I was afraid, after what he had but too plainly
suffered, to ask him to enter into details.
"Only one word," I said. "Are your anxieties at rest?"
"God's mercy has helped me," he answered. "I have not spoken in
vain. She believes; she repents; she has confessed the crime."
After handing the written and signed confession to me, he
approached the venomous creature, still lingering in the room
to hear what passed between us. Before I could stop him, he spoke
to her, under a natural impression that he was addressing
the Prisoner's servant.
"I am afraid you will be disappointed," he said, "when I tell you
that your services will no longer be required. I have reasons for
placing the child under the care of a nurse of my own choosing."
She listened with an evil smile.
"I know who furnished you with your reasons," she answered.
"Apologies are quite needless, so far as I am concerned. If you
had proposed to me to look after the new member of your family
there, I should have felt it my duty to myself to have refused.
I am not a nurse--I am an independent single lady. I see by your
dress that you are a clergyman. Allow me to present myself as
a mark of respect to your cloth. I am Miss Elizabeth Chance. May
I ask the favor of your name?"
Too weary and too preoccupied to notice the insolence of
her manner, the Minister mentioned his name. "I am anxious,"
he said, "to know if the child has been baptized. Perhaps you
can enlighten me?"
Still insolent, Miss Elizabeth Chance shook her head carelessly.
"I never heard--and, to tell you the truth, I never cared to
hear--whether she was christened or not. Call her by what name
you like, I can tell you this--you will find your adopted
daughter a heavy handful."
The Minister turned to me. "What does she mean?"
"I will try to tell you," Miss Chance interposed. "Being
a clergyman, you know who Deborah was? Very well. I am Deborah
now; and _I_ prophesy." She pointed to the child. "Remember what
I say, reverend sir! You will find the tigress-cub take after
its mother."
With those parting words, she favored us with a low curtsey,
and left the room.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DOCTOR DOUBTS.
The Minister looked at me in an absent manner; his attention
seemed to have been wandering. "What was it Miss Chance said?"
he asked.
Before I could speak, a friend's voice at the door interrupted
us. The Doctor, returning to me as he had promised, answered
the Minister's question in these words:
"I must have passed the person you mean, sir, as I was coming
in here; and I heard her say: 'You will find the tigress-cub
take after its mother.' If she had known how to put her meaning
into good English, Miss Chance--that is the name you mentioned,
I think--might have told you that the vices of the parents are
inherited by the children. And the one particular parent she had
in her mind," the Doctor continued, gently patting the child's
cheek, "was no doubt the mother of this unfortunate little
creature--who may, or may not, live to show you that she comes
of a bad stock and inherits a wicked nature."
I was on the point of protesting against my friend's
interpretation, when the Minister stopped me.
"Let me thank you, sir, for your explanation," he said to
the Doctor. "As soon as my mind is free, I will reflect on what
you have said. Forgive me, Mr. Governor," he went on, "if I leave
you, now that I have placed the Prisoner's confession in your
hands. It has been an effort to me to say the little I have said,
since I first entered this room. I can think of nothing but that
unhappy criminal, and the death that she must die to-morrow."
"Does she wish you to be present?" I asked.
"She positively forbids it. 'After what you have done for me,'
she said, 'the least I can do in return is to prevent your being
needlessly distressed.' She took leave of me; she kissed
the little girl for the last time--oh, don't ask me to tell
you about it! I shall break down if I try. Come, my darling!"
He kissed the child tenderly, and took her away with him.
"That man is a strange compound of strength and weakness,"
the Doctor remarked. "Did you notice his face, just now? Nine
men out of ten, suffering as he suffered, would have failed
to control themselves. Such resolution as his _may_ conquer
the difficulties that are in store for him yet."
It was a trial of my temper to hear my clever colleague
justifying, in this way, the ignorant prediction of an insolent
woman.
"There are exceptions to all rules," I insisted. "And why are
the virtues of the parents not just as likely to descend to
the children as the vices? There was a fund of good, I can tell
you, in that poor baby's father--though I don't deny that he was
a profligate man. And even the horrible mother--as you heard just
now--has virtue enough left in her to feel grateful to the man
who has taken care of her child. These are facts; you can't
dispute them."
The Doctor took out his pipe. "Do you mind my smoking?" he asked.
"Tobacco helps me to arrange my ideas."
I gave him the means of arranging his ideas; that is to say,
I gave him the match-box. He blew some preliminary clouds of
smoke and then he answered me:
"For twenty years past, my friend, I have been studying
the question of hereditary transmission of qualities; and I have
found vices and diseases descending more frequently to children
than virtue and health. I don't stop to ask why: there is no end
to that sort of curiosity. What I have observed is what I tell
you; no more and no less. You will say this is a horribly
discouraging result of experience, for it tends to show that
children come into the world at a disadvantage on the day of
their birth. Of course they do. Children are born deformed;
children are born deaf, dumb, or blind; children are born with
the seeds in them of deadly diseases. Who can account for the
cruelties of creation? Why are we endowed with life--only to end
in death? And does it ever strike you, when you are cutting your
mutton at dinner, and your cat is catching its mouse, and your
spider is suffocating its fly, that we are all, big and little
together, born to one certain inheritance--the privilege of
eating each other?"
"Very sad," I admitted. "But it will all be set right in another
world."
"Are you quite sure of that?" the Doctor asked.
"Quite sure, thank God! And it would be better for you if you
felt about it as I do."
"We won't dispute, my dear Governor. I don't scoff at comforting
hopes; I don't deny the existence of occasional compensations.
But I do see, nevertheless, that Evil has got the upper hand
among us, on this curious little planet. Judging by my
observation and experience, that ill-fated baby's chance of
inheriting the virtues of her parents is not to be compared with
her chances of inheriting their vices; especially if she happens
to take after her mother. _There_ the virtue is not conspicuous,
and the vice is one enormous fact. When I think of the growth of
that poisonous hereditary taint, which may come with time--when
I think of passions let loose and temptations lying in ambush--I
see the smooth surface of the Minister's domestic life with
dangers lurking under it which make me shake in my shoes. God!
what a life I should lead, if I happened to be in his place,
some years hence. Suppose I said or did something (in the just
exercise of my parental authority) which offended my adopted
daughter. What figure would rise from the dead in my memory, when
the girl bounced out of the room in a rage? The image of her
mother would be the image I should see. I should remember what
her mother did when _she_ was provoked; I should lock my bedroom
door, in my own house, at night. I should come down to breakfast
with suspicions in my cup of tea, if I discovered that my adopted
daughter had poured it out. Oh, yes; it's quite true that I might
be doing the girl a cruel injustice all the time; but how am I to
be sure of that? I am only sure that her mother was hanged for
one of the most merciless murders committed in our time. Pass
the match-box. My pipe's out, and my confession of faith has come
to an end."
It was useless to dispute with a man who possessed his command of
language. At the same time, there was a bright side to the poor
Minister's prospects which the Doctor had failed to see. It was
barely possible that I might succeed in putting my positive
friend in the wrong. I tried the experiment, at any rate.
"You seem to have forgotten," I reminded him, "that the child
will have every advantage that education can offer to her, and
will be accustomed from her earliest years to restraining and
purifying influences, in a clergyman's household."
Now that he was enjoying the fumes of tobacco, the Doctor was
as placid and sweet-tempered as a man could be.
"Quite true," he said.
"Do you doubt the influence of religion?" I asked sternly.
He answered, sweetly: "Not at all"
"Or the influence of kindness?"
"Oh, dear, no!"
"Or the force of example?"
"I wouldn't deny it for the world."
I had not expected this extraordinary docility. The Doctor had
got the upper hand of me again--a state of things that I might
have found it hard to endure, but for a call of duty which put
an end to our sitting. One of the female warders appeared with
a message from the condemned cell. The Prisoner wished to see
the Governor and the Medical Officer.
"Is she ill?" the Doctor inquired.
"No, sir."
"Hysterical? or agitated, perhaps?"
"As easy and composed, sir, as a person can be."
We set forth together for the condemned cell.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MURDERESS CONSULTS THE AUTHORITIES.
There was a considerate side to my friend's character, which
showed itself when the warder had left us.
He was especially anxious to be careful of what he said to
a woman in the Prisoner's terrible situation; especially in
the event of her having been really subjected to the influence
of religious belief. On the Minister's own authority, I declared
that there was every reason to adopt this conclusion; and in
support of what I had said I showed him the confession. It only
contained a few lines, acknowledging that she had committed
the murder and that she deserved her sentence. "From the planning
of the crime to the commission of the crime, I was in my right
senses throughout. I knew what I was doing." With that remarkable
disavowal of the defense set up by her advocate, the confession
ended.
My colleague read the paper, and handed it back to me without
making any remark. I asked if he suspected the Prisoner of
feigning conversion to please the Minister.
"She shall not discover it," he answered, gravely, "if I do."
It would not be true to say that the Doctor's obstinacy had
shaken my belief in the good result of the Minister's
interference. I may, however, acknowledge that I felt some
misgivings, which were not dispelled when I found myself in
the presence of the Prisoner.
I had expected to see her employed in reading the Bible. The good
book was closed and was not even placed within her reach.
The occupation to which she was devoting herself astonished and
repelled me.
Some carelessness on the part of the attendant had left on
the table the writing materials that had been needed for her
confession. She was using them now--when death on the scaffold
was literally within a few hours of her--to sketch a portrait of
the female warder, who was on the watch! The Doctor and I looked
at each other; and now the sincerity of her repentance was
something that I began to question, too.
She laid down the pen, and proceeded quietly to explain herself.
"Even the little time that is left to me proves to be a weary
time to get through," she said. "I am making a last use of the
talent for drawing and catching a likeness, which has been one
of my gifts since I was a girl. You look as if you didn't approve
of such employment as this for a woman who is going to be hanged.
Well, sir, I have no doubt you are right." She paused, and tore
up the portrait. "If I have misbehaved myself," she resumed,
"I make amends. To find you in an indulgent frame of mind is of
importance to me just now. I have a favor to ask of you. May
the warder leave the cell for a few minutes?"
Giving the woman permission to withdraw for a while, I waited
with some anxiety to hear what the Prisoner wanted of me.
"I have something to say to you," she proceeded, "on the subject
of executions. The face of a person who is going to be hanged
is hidden, as I have been told, by a white cap drawn over it.
Is that true?"
How another man might have felt, in my place, I cannot, of
course, say. To my mind, such a question--on _her_ lips--was
too shocking to be answered in words. I bowed.
"And the body is buried," she went on, "in the prison?"
I could remain silent no longer. "Is there no human feeling left
in you?" I burst out. "What do these horrid questions mean?"
"Don't be angry with me, sir; you shall hear directly. I want
to know first if I am to be buried in the prison?"
I replied as before, by a bow.
"Now," she said, "I may tell you what I mean. In the autumn
of last year I was taken to see some waxworks. Portraits of
criminals were among them. There was one portrait--" She
hesitated; her infernal self-possession failed her at last. The
color left her face; she was no longer able to look at me firmly.
"There was one portrait," she resumed, "that had been taken after
the execution. The face was so hideous; it was swollen to such
a size in its frightful deformity--oh, sir, don't let me be seen
in that state, even by the strangers who bury me! Use your
influence--forbid them to take the cap off my face when I am
dead--order them to bury me in it, and I swear to you I'll meet
death tomorrow as coolly as the boldest man that ever mounted the
scaffold!" Before I could stop her, she seized me by the hand,
and wrung it with a furious power that left the mark of her grasp
on me, in a bruise, for days afterward. "Will you do it?" she
cried. "You're an honorable man; you will keep your word. Give me
your promise!"
I gave her my promise.
The relief to her tortured spirit expressed itself horribly in
a burst of frantic laughter. "I can't help it," she gasped; "I'm
so happy."
My enemies said of me, when I got my appointment, that I was too
excitable a man to be governor of a prison. Perhaps they were not
altogether wrong. Anyhow, the quick-witted Doctor saw some change
in me, which I was not aware of myself. He took my arm and led me
out of the cell. "Leave her to me," he whispered. "The fine edge
of my nerves was worn off long ago in the hospital."
When we met again, I asked what had passed between the Prisoner
and himself.
"I gave her time to recover," he told me; "and, except that she
looked a little paler than usual, there was no trace left of
the frenzy that you remember. 'I ought to apologize for troubling
you,' she said; 'but it is perhaps natural that I should think,
now and then, of what is to happen to me to-morrow morning. As
a medical man, you will be able to enlighten me. Is death by
hanging a painful death?' She had put it so politely that I felt
bound to answer her. 'If the neck happens to be broken,' I said,
'hanging is a sudden death; fright and pain (if there is any
pain) are both over in an instant. As to the other form of death
which is also possible (I mean death by suffocation), I must own
as an honest man that I know no more about it than you do.' After
considering a little, she made a sensible remark, and followed it
by an embarrassing request. 'A great deal,' she said, 'must
depend on the executioner. I am not afraid of death, Doctor.
Why should I be? My anxiety about my little girl is set at rest;
I have nothing left to live for. But I don't like pain. Would you
mind telling the executioner to be careful? Or would it be better
if I spoke to him myself?' I said I thought it would come with
a better grace from herself. She understood me directly; and we
dropped the subject. Are you surprised at her coolness, after
your experience of her?"
I confessed that I was surprised.
"Think a little," the Doctor said. "The one sensitive place in
that woman's nature is the place occupied by her self-esteem."
I objected to this that she had shown fondness for her child.
My friend disposed of the objection with his customary readiness.
"The maternal instinct," he said. "A cat is fond of her kittens;
a cow is fond of her calf. No, sir, the one cause of that
outbreak of passion which so shocked you--a genuine outbreak,
beyond all doubt--is to be found in the vanity of a fine feminine
creature, overpowered by a horror of looking hideous, even after
her death. Do you know I rather like that woman?"
"Is it possible that you are in earnest?" I asked.
"I know as well as you do," he answered, that this is neither a
time nor a place for jesting. The fact is, the Prisoner carries
out an idea of mine. It is my positive conviction that the worst
murders--I mean murders deliberately planned--are committed by
persons absolutely deficient in that part of the moral
organization which _feels_. The night before they are hanged they
sleep. On their last morning they eat a breakfast. Incapable of
realizing the horror of murder, they are incapable of realizing
the horror of death. Do you remember the last murderer who was
hanged here--a gentleman's coachman who killed his wife? He had
but two anxieties while he was waiting for execution. One was to
get his allowance of beer doubled, and the other was to be hanged
in his coachman's livery. No! no! these wretches are all alike;
they are human creatures born with the temperaments of tigers.
Take my word for it, we need feel no anxiety about to-morrow.
The Prisoner will face the crowd round the scaffold with
composure; and the people will say, 'She died game.' "
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MINISTER SAYS GOOD-BY.
The Capital Punishment of the Prisoner is in no respect connected
with my purpose in writing the present narrative. Neither do
I desire to darken these pages by describing in detail an act
of righteous retribution which must present, by the nature of it,
a scene of horror. For these reasons I ask to be excused, if
I limit what I must needs say of the execution within the compass
of a few words--and pass on.
The one self-possessed person among us was the miserable woman
who suffered the penalty of death.
Not very discreetly, as I think, the Chaplain asked her if she
had truly repented. She answered: "I have confessed the crime,
sir. What more do you want?" To my mind--still hesitating between
the view that believes with the Minister, and the view that
doubts with the Doctor--this reply leaves a way open to hope of
her salvation. Her last words to me, as she mounted the steps of
the scaffold, were: "Remember your promise." It was easy for me
to be true to my word. At that bygone time, no difficulties were
placed in my way by such precautions as are now observed in
the conduct of executions within the walls of the prison. From
the time of her death to the time of her burial, no living
creature saw her face. She rests, veiled in her prison grave.
Let me now turn to living interests, and to scenes removed from
the thunder-clouds of crime.
. . . . . . .
On the next day I received a visit from the Minister.
His first words entreated me not to allude to the terrible event
of the previous day. "I cannot escape thinking of it," he said,
"but I may avoid speaking of it." This seemed to me to be the
misplaced confidence of a weak man in the refuge of silence. By
way of changing the subject, I spoke of the child. There would be
serious difficulties to contend with (as I ventured to suggest),
if he remained in the town, and allowed his new responsibilities
to become the subject of public talk.
His reply to this agreeably surprised me. There were no
difficulties to be feared.
The state of his wife's health had obliged him (acting under
medical advice) to try the influence of her native air. An
interval of some months might elapse before the good effect of
the change had sufficiently declared itself; and a return to the
peculiar climate of the town might bring on a relapse. There had
consequently been no alternative to but resign his charge. Only
on that day the resignation had been accepted--with expressions
of regret sincerely reciprocated by himself. He proposed to leave
the town immediately; and one of the objects of his visit was to
bid me good-by.
"The next place I live in," he said, "will be more than a hundred
miles away. At that distance I may hope to keep events concealed
which must be known only to ourselves. So far as I can see, there
are no risks of discovery lurking in this place. My servants
(only two in number) have both been born here, and have both told
my wife that they have no wish to go away. As to the person who
introduced herself to me by the name of Miss Chance, she was
traced to the railway station yesterday afternoon, and took
her ticket for London."
I congratulated the Minister on the good fortune which had
befriended him, so far.
"You will understand how carefully I have provided against being
deceived," he continued, "when I tell you what my plans are. The
persons among whom my future lot is cast--and the child herself,
of course--must never suspect that the new member of my family
is other than my own daughter. This is deceit, I admit; but it is
deceit that injures no one. I hope you see the necessity for it,
as I do."
There could be no doubt of the necessity.
If the child was described as adopted, there would be curiosity
about the circumstances, and inquiries relating to the parents.
Prevaricating replies lead to suspicion, and suspicion to
discovery. But for the wise course which the Minister had decided
on taking, the poor child's life might have been darkened by
the horror of the mother's crime, and the infamy of the mother's
death.
Having quieted my friend's needless scruples by this perfectly
sincere expression of opinion, I ventured to approach the central
figure in his domestic circle, by means of a question relating
to his wife. How had that lady received the unfortunate little
creature, for whose appearance on the home-scene she must have
been entirely unprepared?
The Minister's manner showed some embarrassment; he prefaced what
he had to tell me with praises of his wife, equally creditable no
doubt to both of them. The beauty of the child, the pretty ways
of the child, he said, fascinated the admirable woman at first
sight. It was not to be denied that she had felt, and had
expressed, misgivings, on being informed of the circumstances
under which the Minister's act of mercy had been performed.
But her mind was too well balanced to incline to this state of
feeling, when her husband had addressed her in defense of his
conduct. She then understood that the true merit of a good action
consisted in patiently facing the sacrifices involved. Her
interest in the new daughter being, in this way, ennobled by
a sense of Christian duty, there had been no further difference
of opinion between the married pair.
I listened to this plausible explanation with interest, but, at
the same time, with doubts of the lasting nature of the lady's
submission to circumstances; suggested, perhaps, by the
constraint in the Minister's manner. It was well for both of us
when we changed the subject. He reminded me of the discouraging
view which the Doctor had taken of the prospect before him.
"I will not attempt to decide whether your friend is right or
wrong," he said. "Trusting, as I do, in the mercy of God, I look
hopefully to a future time when all that is brightest and best
in the nature of my adopted child will be developed under my
fostering care. If evil tendencies show themselves, my reliance
will be confidently placed on pious example, on religious
instruction, and, above all, on intercession by prayer. Repeat
to your friend," he concluded, "what you have just heard me say.
Let him ask himself if he could confront the uncertain future
with my cheerful submission and my steadfast hope."
He intrusted me with that message, and gave me his hand. So we
parted.
I agreed with him, I admired him; but my faith seemed to want
sustaining power, as compared with his faith. On his own showing
(as it appeared to me), there would be two forces in a state of
conflict in the child's nature as she grew up--inherited evil
against inculcated good. Try as I might, I failed to feel
the Minister's comforting conviction as to which of the two
would win.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GOVERNOR RECEIVES A VISIT.
A few days after the good man had left us, I met with a serious
accident, caused by a false step on the stone stairs of
the prison.
The long illness which followed this misfortune, and my removal
afterward (in the interests of my recovery) to a milder climate
than the climate of England, obliged me to confide the duties of
governor of the prison to a representative. I was absent from
my post for rather more than a year. During this interval no news
reached me from my reverend friend.
Having returned to the duties of my office, I thought of writing
to the Minister. While the proposed letter was still in
contemplation, I was informed that a lady wished to see me. She
sent in her card. My visitor proved to be the Minister's wife.
I observed her with no ordinary attention when she entered
the room.
Her dress was simple; her scanty light hair, so far as I could
see it under her bonnet, was dressed with taste. The paleness of
her lips, and the faded color in her face, suggested that she was
certainly not in good health. Two peculiarities struck me in
her personal appearance. I never remembered having seen any other
person with such a singularly narrow and slanting forehead as
this lady presented; and I was impressed, not at all agreeably,
by the flashing shifting expression in her eyes. On the other
hand, let me own that I was powerfully attracted and interested
by the beauty of her voice. Its fine variety of compass, and its
musical resonance of tone, fell with such enchantment on the ear,
that I should have liked to put a book of poetry into her hand,
and to have heard her read it in summer-time, accompanied by
the music of a rocky stream.
The object of her visit--so far as she explained it at
the outset--appeared to be to offer her congratulations on
my recovery, and to tell me that her husband had assumed
the charge of a church in a large town not far from
her birthplace.
Even those commonplace words were made interesting by
her delicious voice. But however sensitive to sweet sounds
a man may be, there are limits to his capacity for deceiving
himself--especially when he happens to be enlightened by
experience of humanity within the walls of a prison. I had,
it may be remembered, already doubted the lady's good temper,
judging from her husband's over-wrought description of her
virtues. Her eyes looked at me furtively; and her manner,
gracefully self-possessed as it was, suggested that she had
something of a delicate, or disagreeable, nature to say to me,
and that she was at a loss how to approach the subject so as to
produce the right impression on my mind at the outset. There was
a momentary silence between us. For the sake of saying something,
I asked how she and the Minister liked their new place of
residence.
"Our new place of residence," she answered, "has been made
interesting by a very unexpected event--an event (how shall
I describe it?) which has increased our happiness and enlarged
our family circle."
There she stopped: expecting me, as I fancied, to guess what she
meant. A woman, and that woman a mother, might have fulfilled
her anticipations. A man, and that man not listening attentively,
was simply puzzled.
"Pray excuse my stupidity," I said; "I don't quite understand
you."
The lady's temper looked at me out of the lady's shifting eyes,
and hid itself again in a moment. She set herself right
in my estimation by taking the whole blame of our little
misunderstanding on her own innocent shoulders.
"I ought to have spoken more plainly," she said. "Let me try
what I can do now. After many years of disappointment in
my married life, it has pleased Providence to bestow on me
the happiness--the inexpressible happiness--of being a mother.
My baby is a sweet little girl; and my one regret is that
I cannot nurse her myself."
My languid interest in the Minister's wife was not stimulated
by the announcement of this domestic event.
I felt no wish to see the "sweet little girl"; I was not even
reminded of another example of long-deferred maternity, which
had occurred within the limits of my own family circle. All my
sympathies attached themselves to the sad little figure of the
adopted child. I remembered the poor baby on my knee, enchanted
by the ticking of my watch--I thought of her, peacefully and
prettily asleep under the horrid shelter of the condemned
cell--and it is hardly too much to say that my heart was
heavy, when I compared her prospects with the prospects of
her baby-rival. Kind as he was, conscientious as he was, could
the Minister be expected to admit to an equal share in his love
the child endeared to him as a father, and the child who merely
reminded him of an act of mercy? As for his wife, it seemed
the merest waste of time to put her state of feeling (placed
between the two children) to the test of inquiry. I tried
the useless experiment, nevertheless.
"It is pleasant to think," I began, "that your other daughter--"
She interrupted me, with the utmost gentleness: "Do you mean
the child that my husband was foolish enough to adopt?"
"Say rather fortunate enough to adopt," I persisted. "As your own
little girl grows up, she will want a playfellow. And she will
find a playfellow in that other child, whom the good Minister has
taken for his own."
"No, my dear sir--not if I can prevent it."
The contrast between the cruelty of her intention, and the
musical beauty of the voice which politely expressed it in those
words, really startled me. I was at a loss how to answer her,
at the very time when I ought to have been most ready to speak.
"You must surely understand," she went on, "that we don't want
another person's child, now we have a little darling of our own?"
"Does your husband agree with you in that view?" I asked.
"Oh dear, no! He said what you said just now, and (oddly enough)
almost in the same words. But I don't at all despair of
persuading him to change his mind--and you can help me."
She made that audacious assertion with such an appearance of
feeling perfectly sure of me, that my politeness gave way under
the strain laid on it. "What do you mean?" I asked sharply.
Not in the least impressed by my change of manner, she took from
the pocket of her dress a printed paper. "You will find what
I mean there," she replied--and put the paper into my hand.
It was an appeal to the charitable public, occasioned by the
enlargement of an orphan-asylum, with which I had been connected
for many years. What she meant was plain enough now. I said
nothing: I only looked at her.
Pleased to find that I was clever enough to guess what she meant,
on this occasion, the Minister's wife informed me that the
circumstances were all in our favor. She still persisted in
taking me into partnership--the circumstances were in _our_
favor.
"In two years more," she explained, "the child of that detestable
creature who was hanged--do you know, I cannot even look at
the little wretch without thinking of the gallows?--will be old
enough (with your interest to help us) to be received into the
asylum. What a relief it will be to get rid of that child! And
how hard I shall work at canvassing for subscribers' votes! Your
name will be a tower of strength when I use it as a reference.
Pardon me--you are not looking so pleasantly as usual. Do you see
some obstacles in our way?"
"I see two obstacles."
"What can they possibly be?"
For the second time, my politeness gave way under the strain
laid on it. "You know perfectly well," I said, "what one of
the obstacles is."
"Am I to understand that you contemplate any serious resistance
on the part of my husband?"
"Certainly!"
She was unaffectedly amused by my simplicity.
"Are you a single man?" she asked.
"I am a widower."
"Then your experience ought to tell you that I know every weak
point in the Minister's character. I can tell him, on your
authority, that the hateful child will be placed in competent and
kindly hands--and I have my own sweet baby to plead for me. With
these advantages in my favor, do you actually suppose I can fail
to make _my_ way of thinking _his_ way of thinking? You must have
forgotten your own married life! Suppose we go on to the second
of your two obstacles. I hope it will be better worth considering
than the first."
"The second obstacle will not disappoint you," I answered;
"I am the obstacle, this time."
"You refuse to help me?"
"Positively."
"Perhaps reflection may alter your resolution?"
"Reflection will do nothing of the kind."
"You are rude, sir!"
"In speaking to you, madam, I have no alternative but to speak
plainly."
She rose. Her shifting eyes, for once, looked at me steadily.
"What sort of enemy have I made of you?" she asked. "A passive
enemy who is content with refusing to help me? Or an active enemy
who will write to my husband?"
"It depends entirely," I told her, "on what your husband does.
If he questions me about you, I shall tell him the truth."
"And if not?"
"In that case, I shall hope to forget that you ever favored me
with a visit."
In making this reply I was guiltless of any malicious intention.
What evil interpretation she placed on my words it is impossible
for me to say; I can only declare that some intolerable sense of
injury hurried her into an outbreak of rage. Her voice, strained
for the first time, lost its tuneful beauty of tone.
"Come and see us in two years' time," she burst out--"and
discover the orphan of the gallows in our house if you can!
If your Asylum won't take her, some other Charity will. Ha, Mr.
Governor, I deserve my disappointment! I ought to have remembered
that you are only a jailer after all. And what is a jailer?
Proverbially a brute. Do you hear that? A brute!"
Her strength suddenly failed her. She dropped back into the chair
from which she had risen, with a faint cry of pain. A ghastly
pallor stole over her face. There was wine on the sideboard;
I filled a glass. She refused to take it. At that time in
the day, the Doctor's duties required his attendance in
the prison. I instantly sent for him. After a moment's look at
her, he took the wine out of my hand, and held the glass to
her lips.
"Drink it," he said. She still refused. "Drink it," he
reiterated, "or you will die."
That frightened her; she drank the wine. The Doctor waited for a
while with his fingers on her pulse. "She will do now," he said.
"Can I go?" she asked.
"Go wherever you please, madam--so long as you don't go upstairs
in a hurry."
She smiled: "I understand you, sir--and thank you for your
advice."
I asked the Doctor, when we were alone, what made him tell her
not to go upstairs in a hurry.
"What I felt," he answered, "when I had my fingers on her pulse.
You heard her say that she understood me."
"Yes; but I don't know what she meant."
"She meant, probably, that her own doctor had warned her as
I did."
"Something seriously wrong with her health?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"Heart."
CHAPTER X.
MISS CHANCE REAPPEARS.
A week had passed, since the Minister's wife had left me,
when I received a letter from the Minister himself.
After surprising me, as he innocently supposed, by announcing
the birth of his child, he mentioned some circumstances connected
with that event, which I now heard for the first time.
"Within an easy journey of the populous scene of my present
labors," he wrote, "there is a secluded country village called
Low Lanes. The rector of the place is my wife's brother. Before
the birth of our infant, he had asked his sister to stay for
a while at his house; and the doctor thought she might safely
be allowed to accept the invitation. Through some error in
the customary calculations, as I suppose, the child was born
unexpectedly at the rectory; and the ceremony of baptism was
performed at the church, under circumstances which I am not able
to relate within the limits of a letter: Let me only say that
I allude to this incident without any sectarian bitterness of
feeling--for I am no enemy to the Church of England. You have no
idea what treasures of virtue and treasures of beauty maternity
has revealed in my wife's sweet nature. Other mothers, in her
proud position, might find their love cooling toward the poor
child whom we have adopted. But my household is irradiated by the
presence of an angel, who gives an equal share in her affections
to the two little ones alike."
In this semi-hysterical style of writing, the poor man
unconsciously told me how cunningly and how cruelly his wife
was deceiving him.
I longed to exhibit that wicked woman in her true character--but
what could I do? She must have been so favored by circumstances
as to be able to account for her absence from home, without
exciting the slightest suspicion of the journey which she had
really taken, if I declared in my reply to the Minister's letter
that I had received her in my rooms, and if I repeated the
conversation that had taken place, what would the result be? She
would find an easy refuge in positive denial of the truth--and,
in that case, which of us would her infatuated husband believe?
The one part of the letter which I read with some satisfaction
was the end of it.
I was here informed that the Minister's plans for concealing
the parentage of his adopted daughter had proved to be entirely
successful. The members of the new domestic household believed
the two children to be infant-sisters. Neither was there any
danger of the adopted child being identified (as the oldest child
of the two) by consultation of the registers.
Before he left our town, the Minister had seen for himself that
no baptismal name had been added, after the birth of the daughter
of the murderess had been registered, and that no entry of
baptism existed in the registers kept in places of worship.
He drew the inference--in all probability a true inference,
considering the characters of the parents--that the child had
never been baptized; and he performed the ceremony privately,
abstaining, for obvious reasons, from adding her Christian name
to the imperfect register of her birth. "I am not aware,"
he wrote, "whether I have, or have not, committed an offense
against the Law. In any case, I may hope to have made atonement
by obedience to the Gospel."
Six weeks passed, and I heard from my reverend friend once more.
His second letter presented a marked contrast to the first. It
was written in sorrow and anxiety, to inform me of an alarming
change for the worse in his wife's health. I showed the letter
to my medical colleague. After reading it he predicted the event
that might be expected, in two words:--Sudden death.
On the next occasion when I heard from the Minister, the Doctor's
grim reply proved to be a prophecy fulfilled.
When we address expressions of condolence to bereaved friends,
the principles of popular hypocrisy sanction indiscriminate lying
as a duty which we owe to the dead--no matter what their lives
may have been--because they are dead. Within my own little
sphere, I have always been silent, when I could not offer to
afflicted persons expressions of sympathy which I honestly felt.
To have condoled with the Minister on the loss that he had
sustained by the death of a woman, self-betrayed to me as
shamelessly deceitful, and pitilessly determined to reach her own
cruel ends, would have been to degrade myself by telling
a deliberate lie. I expressed in my answer all that an honest man
naturally feels, when he is writing to a friend in distress;
carefully abstaining from any allusion to the memory of his wife,
or to the place which her death had left vacant in his household.
My letter, I am sorry to say, disappointed and offended him. He
wrote to me no more, until years had passed, and time had exerted
its influence in producing a more indulgent frame of mind. These
letters of a later date have been preserved, and will probably be
used, at the right time, for purposes of explanation with which
I may be connected in the future.
. . . . . . .
The correspondent whom I had now lost was succeeded by
a gentleman entirely unknown to me.
Those reasons which induced me to conceal the names of persons,
while I was relating events in the prison, do not apply to
correspondence with a stranger writing from another place. I may,
therefore, mention that Mr. Dunboyne, of Fairmount, on the west
coast of Ireland, was the writer of the letter now addressed to
me. He proved, to my surprise, to be one of the relations whom
the Prisoner under sentence of death had not cared to see, when
I offered her the opportunity of saying farewell. Mr. Dunboyne
was a brother-in-law of the murderess. He had married her sister.
His wife, he informed me, had died in childbirth, leaving him
but one consolation--a boy, who already recalled all that was
brightest and best in his lost mother. The father was naturally
anxious that the son should never become acquainted with
the disgrace that had befallen the family.
The letter then proceeded in these terms:
"I heard yesterday, for the first time, by means of an old
newspaper-cutting sent to me by a friend, that the miserable
woman who suffered the ignominy of public execution has left
an infant child. Can you tell me what has become of the orphan?
If this little girl is, as I fear, not well provided for, I only
do what my wife would have done if she had lived, by offering to
make the child's welfare my especial care. I am willing to place
her in an establishment well known to me, in which she will be
kindly treated, well educated, and fitted to earn her own living
honorably in later life.
"If you feel some surprise at finding that my good intentions
toward this ill-fated niece of mine do not go to the length of
receiving her as a member of my own family, I beg to submit some
considerations which may perhaps weigh with you as they have
weighed with me.
"In the first place, there is at least a possibility--however
carefully I might try to conceal it--that the child's parentage
would sooner or later be discovered. In the second place (and
assuming that the parentage had been successfully concealed),
if this girl and my boy grew up together, there is another
possibility to be reckoned with: they might become attached
to each other. Does the father live who would allow his son
ignorantly to marry the daughter of a convicted murderess? I
should have no alternative but to part them cruelly by revealing
the truth." The letter ended with some complimentary expressions
addressed to myself. And the question was: how ought I to answer
it?
My correspondent had strongly impressed me in his favor; I could
not doubt that he was an honorable man. But the interest of
the Minister in keeping his own benevolent action secure from
the risk of discovery--increased as that interest was by
the filial relations of the two children toward him, now publicly
established--had, as I could not doubt, the paramount claim
on me. The absolutely safe course to take was to admit no one,
friend or stranger, to our confidence. I replied, expressing
sincere admiration of Mr. Dunboyne's motives, and merely
informing him that the child was already provided for.
After that, I heard no more of the Irish gentleman.
It is perhaps hardly necessary to add that I kept the Minister in
ignorance of my correspondence with Mr. Dunboyne. I was too well
acquainted with my friend's sensitive and self-tormenting nature
to let him know that a relative of the murderess was living, and
was aware that she had left a child.
A last event remains to be related, before I close these pages.
During the year of which I am now writing, our Chaplain added
one more to the many examples that I have seen of his generous
readiness to serve his friends. He had arranged to devote his
annual leave of absence to a tour among the English Lakes, when
he received a letter from a clergyman resident in London, whom he
had known from the time when they had been school-fellows. This
old friend wrote under circumstances of the severest domestic
distress, which made it absolutely necessary that he should
leave London for a while. Having failed to find a representative
who could relieve him of his clerical duties, he applied to
the Chaplain to recommend a clergyman who might be in a position
to help him. My excellent colleague gave up his holiday-plans
without hesitation, and went to London himself.
On his return, I asked if he had seen anything of some
acquaintances of his and of mine, who were then visitors to
the metropolis. He smiled significantly when he answered me.
"I have a card to deliver from an acquaintance whom you have not
mentioned," he said; "and I rather think it will astonish you."
It simply puzzled me. When he gave me the card, this is what
I found printed on it:
"MRS. TENBRUGGEN (OF SOUTH BEVELAND)."
"Well?" said the Chaplain.
"Well," I answered; "I never even heard of Mrs. Tenbruggen,
of South Beveland. Who is she?"
"I married the lady to a foreign gentleman, only last week, at
my friend's church," the Chaplain replied. "Perhaps you may
remember her maiden name?"
He mentioned the name of the dangerous creature who had first
presented herself to me, in charge of the Prisoner's
child--otherwise Miss Elizabeth Chance. The reappearance of this
woman on the scene--although she was only represented by her
card--caused me a feeling of vague uneasiness, so contemptibly
superstitious in its nature that I now remember it with shame.
I asked a stupid question:
"How did it happen?"
"In the ordinary course of such things," my friend said. "They
were married by license, in their parish church. The bridegroom
was a fine tall man, with a bold eye and a dashing manner. The
bride and I recognized each other directly. When Miss Chance had
become Mrs. Tenbruggen, she took me aside, and gave me her card.
'Ask the Governor to accept it,' she said, 'in remembrance of
the time when he took me for a nursemaid. Tell him I am married
to a Dutch gentleman of high family. If he ever comes to Holland,
we shall be glad to see him in our residence at South Beveland.'
There is her message to you, repeated word for word."
"I am glad she is going to live out of England."
"Why? Surely you have no reason to fear her?"
"None whatever."
"You are thinking, perhaps, of somebody else?"
I was thinking of the Minister; but it seemed to be safest not
to say so.
-------
My pen is laid aside, and my many pages of writing have been
sent to their destination. What I undertook to do, is now done.
To take a metaphor from the stage--the curtain falls here on
the Governor and the Prison.
Second Period: 1875.
THE GIRLS AND THE JOURNALS.
CHAPTER XI.
HELENA'S DIARY.
We both said good-night, and went up to our room with a new
object in view. By our father's advice we had resolved on keeping
diaries, for the first time in our lives, and had pledged
ourselves to begin before we went to bed.
Slowly and silently and lazily, my sister sauntered to her end of
the room and seated herself at her writing-table. On the desk lay
a nicely bound book, full of blank pages. The word "Journal" was
printed on it in gold letters, and there was fitted to the covers
a bright brass lock and key. A second journal, exactly similar in
every respect to the first, was placed on the writing-table at my
end of the room. I opened my book. The sight of the blank leaves
irritated me; they were so smooth, so spotless, so entirely ready
to do _their_ duty. I took too deep a dip of ink, and began the
first entry in my diary by making a blot. This was discouraging.
I got up, and looked out of window.
"Helena!"
My sister's voice could hardly have addressed me in a more weary
tone, if her pen had been at work all night, relating domestic
events. "Well!" I said. "What is it?"
"Have you done already?" she asked.
I showed her the blot. My sister Eunice (the strangest as well as
the dearest of girls) always blurts out what she has in her mind
at the time. She fixed her eyes gravely on my spoiled page, and
said: "That comforts me." I crossed the room, and looked at
her book. She had not even summoned energy enough to make a blot.
"What will papa think of us," she said, "if we don't begin
to-night?"
"Why not begin," I suggested, "by writing down what he said,
when he gave us our journals? Those wise words of advice will be
in their proper place on the first page of the new books."
Not at all a demonstrative girl naturally; not ready with her
tears, not liberal with her caresses, not fluent in her talk,
Eunice was affected by my proposal in a manner wonderful to see.
She suddenly developed into an excitable person--I declare she
kissed me. "Oh," she burst out, "how clever you are! The very
thing to write about; I'll do it directly."
She really did it directly; without once stopping to consider,
without once waiting to ask my advice. Line after line, I heard
her noisy pen hurrying to the bottom of a first page, and getting
three-parts of the way toward the end of a second page, before
she closed her diary. I reminded her that she had not turned the
key, in the lock which was intended to keep her writing private.
"It's not worth while," she answered. "Anybody who cares to do it
may read what I write. Good-night."
The singular change which I had noticed in her began to
disappear, when she set about her preparations for bed. I noticed
the old easy indolent movements again, and that regular and
deliberate method of brushing her hair, which I can never
contemplate without feeling a stupefying influence that has
helped me to many a delicious night's sleep. She said her prayers
in her favorite corner of the room, and laid her head on the
pillow with the luxurious little sigh which announces that she
is falling asleep. This reappearance of her usual habits was
really a relief to me. Eunice in a state of excitement is Eunice
exhibiting an unnatural spectacle.
The next thing I did was to take the liberty which she had
already sanctioned--I mean the liberty of reading what she had
written. Here it is, copied exactly:
"I am not half so fond of anybody as I am of papa. He is always
kind, he is always right. I love him, I love him, I love him.
"But this is not how I meant to begin. I must tell how he talked
to us; I wish he was here to tell it himself.
"He said to me: 'You are getting lazier than ever, Eunice.'
He said to Helena: 'You are feeling the influence of Eunice's
example.' He said to both of us: 'You are too ready, my dear
children, to sit with your hands on your laps, looking at nothing
and thinking of nothing; I want to try a new way of employing
your leisure time.'
"He opened a parcel on the table. He made each of us a present
of a beautiful book, called 'Journal.' He said: 'When you have
nothing to do, my dears, in the evening, employ yourselves in
keeping a diary of the events of the day. It will be a useful
record in many ways, and a good moral discipline for young
girls.' Helena said: 'Oh, thank you!' I said the same, but not
so cheerfully.
"The truth is, I feel out of spirits now if I think of papa; I am
not easy in my mind about him. When he is very much interested,
there is a quivering in his face which I don't remember in past
times. He seems to have got older and thinner, all on a sudden.
He shouts (which he never used to do) when he threatens sinners
at sermon-time. Being in dreadful earnest about our souls, he is
of course obliged to speak of the devil; but he never used to hit
the harmless pulpit cushion with his fist as he does now. Nobody
seems to have seen these things but me; and now I have noticed
them what ought I to do? I don't know; I am certain of nothing,
except what I have put in at the top of page one: I love him,
I love him, I love him."
. . . . . . .
There this very curious entry ended. It was easy enough to
discover the influence which had made my slow-minded sister
so ready with her memory and her pen--so ready, in short, to
do anything and everything, provided her heart was in it, and
her father was in it.
But Eunice is wrong, let me tell her, in what she says of myself.
I, too, have seen the sad change in my father; but I happen to
know that he dislikes having it spoken of at home, and I have
kept my painful discoveries to myself. Unhappily, the best
medical advice is beyond our reach. The one really competent
doctor in this place is known to be an infidel. But for that
shocking obstacle I might have persuaded my father to see him.
As for the other two doctors whom he has consulted, at different
times, one talked about suppressed gout, and the other told him
to take a year's holiday and enjoy himself on the Continent.
The clock has just struck twelve. I have been writing and copying
till my eyes are heavy, and I want to follow Eunice's example and
sleep as soundly as she does. We have made a strange beginning
of this journalizing experiment. I wonder how long it will go on,
and what will come of it.
SECOND DAY.
I begin to be afraid that I am as stupid--no; that is not a nice
word to use--let me say as simple as dear Eunice. A diary means
a record of the events of the day; and not one of the events of
yesterday appears in my sister's journal or in mine. Well, it
is easy to set that mistake right. Our lives are so dull (but
I would not say so in my father's hearing for the world) that
the record of one day will be much the same as the record of
another.
After family prayers and breakfast I suffer my customary
persecution at the hands of the cook. That is to say, I am
obliged, being the housekeeper, to order what we have to eat.
Oh, how I hate inventing dinners! and how I admire the enviable
slowness of mind and laziness of body which have saved Eunice
from undertaking the worries of housekeeping in her turn! She
can go and work in her garden, while I am racking my invention
to discover variety in dishes without overstepping the limits
of economy. I suppose I may confess it privately to myself--how
sorry I am not to have been born a man!
My next employment leads me to my father's study, to write under
his dictation. I don't complain of this; it flatters my pride to
feel that I am helping so great a man. At the same time, I do
notice that here again Eunice's little defects have relieved her
of another responsibility. She can neither keep dictated words
in her memory, nor has she ever been able to learn how to put
in her stops.
After the dictation, I have an hour's time left for practicing
music. My sister comes in from the garden, with her pencil and
paint-box, and practices drawing. Then we go out for a walk--a
delightful walk, if my father goes too. He has something always
new to tell us, suggested by what we pass on the way. Then,
dinner-time comes--not always a pleasant part of the day to me.
Sometimes I hear paternal complaints (always gentle complaints)
of my housekeeping; sometimes my sister (I won't say the greedy
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