Part 44 (1/2)

'I am certain on the point,' said the Attorney. 'I beg your Lords.h.i.+p's pardon for my interruption.'

'Oh! Sir, who has a better right to interrupt?' He turned again to Jenny, whom he devoured with his eyes. Truly if ever any man was in love it was Lord Brockenhurst.

'If I were acquitted,' she went on. 'Indeed, I believe I should be acquitted--but the case would not be ended by that acquittal. Suppose, my Lord--I put a case--it need not be mine'--she plucked at the lace of her handkerchief as if deeply agitated--'I say, it need not be my own case--I suppose a case. Such a charge is brought against a person--perhaps innocent. She is acquitted--But the charge remains. It will then be brought against the real criminal. Out of revenge every thief in St. Giles's would crowd in to give evidence. That person's fate would be certain. She would be--she would be--your Lords.h.i.+p will spare me the word.' Again she covered her eyes. Then she lifted her head again and went on. 'I know that the--person--is guilty--She deserves nothing short of what the law provides. Yet reflect, my Lord. Born among rogues: brought up among rogues: without education and moral principles, or honour, or religion, can one wonder if such a person turns to crime? And can you wonder, my Lord'--again she sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands--'can you wonder if the daughter should resolve to save the mother's life, by taking--upon herself--the guilt--the confession--the consequences of the crime?'

She was silent save for a sob that convulsed her frame. His Lords.h.i.+p heard with humid eyes. When she had finished he rose with tears that streamed down his face. For a while he could not speak. Then he turned to Mr. Dewberry.

'Sir,' he said, 'tell me--tell me--what she means.'

'She means, my Lord, to plead Guilty and to take the consequences. By so doing she will save her mother--yes, my Lord, her mother--even at the sacrifice of her own life.'

'Oh!' he cried, 'it must not be! Great Heavens! It must not be.

Jenny--Jenny--thou art, I swear, an angel.'

'No, my Lord, no angel.'

'Yes, an angel! Hear me, Jenny. I will stand by thee. The world shall know--the world that loves thee--By ---- the world shall know what a treasure it possesses in the incomparable Jenny Wilmot. As an actress thou art without an equal. As a child--as a daughter--history records no greater heroism. Thou shalt be written down in history beside the woman who saved her father from starvation and the woman who saved her husband from the traitor's block. I can endure it no longer, Jenny. To-morrow when my spirits are less agitated, I will come again.' He stooped and kissed her bowed head and so left us.

A common or vulgar actress when the man for whom she had been playing had gone, would have laughed or in some way betrayed herself. Not so Jenny. She waited a reasonable time after his Lords.h.i.+p's departure and then lifted her head, placed her handkerchief--still dry--to her eyes and stood up.

'Mr. Dewberry,' she said, 'do you agree with me in the line I have resolved to take?'

'Madame, I do,' he replied emphatically.

'And you, Will?'

I hesitated, because I perceived that she had been playing a part. Yet an innocent part. She did not, certainly, desire to bring her mother and sister to a shameful end: but, at the same time, she did not wish it to be known that she had really paid for the property and ordered its removal to her own house: she did not regard the landlady of the Black Jack with all the filial affection (not to speak of respect) which her emotion undoubtedly conveyed to his Lords.h.i.+p: on the other hand, it would serve her own case--as well as her estimable mother--better that she should be regarded as a voluntary victim to save a parent than that she should be acquitted in order to give place to her mother who would certainly be convicted.

'I agree, Jenny--I agree,' I answered.

'Sir,' said Mr. Dewberry as we walked away, 'I have often heard Miss Jenny Wilmot described as an incomparable actress. I am now convinced of the fact.'

CHAPTER XVI

THE SNARE WHICH THEY DIGGED FOR OTHERS

The same day on leaving Jenny, the Turnkey who conducted me to the gate, offered me congratulations--rather gruff and even forced--on the turn things had taken.

'I a.s.sure you, Sir,' he said with feeling, 'that we know generally beforehand what will happen, and we'd quite made up our minds as to your case, spite of Madame's interest. There didn't seem any doubt. Some of us are a bit disappointed: we don't like, you see, for anyone to slip out. Well: there's always disappointments. Would you like to cast an eye on your friends--them that hatched that pretty plot? Come this way, then. I wouldn't like to be in their shoes if it comes to Pillory--and it will.'

So he led me out of the pa.s.sage into one of the yards. At the sight of the place my heart sank to think how I had myself trodden those flagstones and stepped from side to side of those dismal walls. The place was the Master's side: there were twenty prisoners or more in it.

One or two were sitting on the stone bench drinking beer and smoking tobacco: one was playing a game of fives by himself. My two princ.i.p.al witnesses, the Bishop and his friend the Captain, were walking side by side, both in irons. Mr. Probus sat in a corner his head hanging down: taking no notice of anything. Mr. Merridew walked by himself with an a.s.sumption of being in the wrong place by accident and with an air of importance, the prisoners making way for him right and left, for the terror of his name accompanied him even into Newgate.

The turnkey called him. 'Merridew,' he said, with familiarity. 'Come and see the young gentleman you tried to hang. Now he'll hang you. That's curious, isn't it? Here we go up,' he turned to me with a philosophic smile, 'and here we go down.'

'Sir,' Mr. Merridew obeyed the call and approached me, bowing with great humility. His cringing salute was almost as nauseous as the impudent brutality which he had shown in the Thieves' Kitchen. 'Sir, I am pleased to make your honoured acquaintance. I hardly expected, in this place where I am confined by accident----'

'Oh! Sir, I did not come here to make your acquaintance, believe me.'

'Sir, I am pleased to have speech with you, even in this place, and if only to remove a misunderstanding which seems to have arisen regarding my part in the late unhappy business. If you will kindly remember, Sir, I merely testified to what I saw, being an accidental eye-witness. The night was dark: there was a scuffle. You will bear me out, Sir--so far--a scuffle--whether you were attacking that fellow'--he pointed to the Bishop who with his friend the Captain was now looking on--'or that other fellow'--he indicated the Captain--'villains both, Sir,--both--who, but for my mistaken kindness, would have been hanged long ago--I cannot exactly say. I may have been--perhaps--we all make mistakes--too ready to believe the other side, and what they said.