One of many visits to the gloomy, stone-built, county gaol where Hallam
was waiting his trial--for all applications for the granting of bail had
been set aside--Millicent had insisted upon going alone, but without
avail.
"No, Miss Milly, you may insist as long as you like; but until I'm
berried, I'm going to keep by you in trouble, and I shall go with you."
"But Thibs, my dear, dear old Thibs," cried Millicent, flinging her arms
about her neck, "don't you see that you will be helping me by staying
with Julie?"
"No, my dear, I don't; and, God bless her! she'll be as happy as can be
with her grandpa killing slugs, as I wish all wicked people were the
same, and could be killed out of the way."
"But, Thibs, I order you to stay!"
"And you may order, my dear," said Thisbe stubbornly. "You might order,
and you might cut off my legs, and then I'd come crawling like the
serpent in the Scripters--only I hope it would be to do good."
"Oh, you make me angry with you, Thisbe. Haven't I told you that Miss
Heathery has been pressing to come this morning, and I refused her?"
"Why, of course you did, my dear," replied Thisbe contemptuously. "Nice
one she'd be to go with you, and strengthen and comfort you! Send her
to your pa's greenhouse to turn herself into a pot, and water the plants
with warm water, and crying all over, and perhaps she'd do some good;
but to go over to Lindum! The idea! Poor little weak thing!"
"But, Thisbe, can you not see that this is a visit that I ought to pay
alone?"
"No, miss."
"But it is: for my husband's sake."
"Every good husband who had left his wife in such trouble as you're in
would be much obliged to an old servant for going with you all that long
journey. There, miss, once for all--you may go alone, if you like, but
I shall follow you and keep close to you all the time, and sit down at
the prison gate."
"Oh, hush, Thibs!" cried Millicent, with a spasm of pain convulsing her
features.
"Yes, miss, I understand. And now I'm going. I shan't speak a word to
you; I shan't even look at you, but be just as if I was a nothing, and
all the same I'm there ready for you to hear, and be a comfort in my
poor way, so that you may lean on me as much as you like; and, please
God, bring us all well out of our troubles. Amen."
Poor Thisbe's words were inconsequent, but they were sincere, and she
followed her mistress to the coach, and then through the hilly streets
of the old city, and finally, as she had suggested, seated herself upon
a stone at the prison gates while her mistress went in.
The sound of lock and bolt chilled Millicent; the aspect of the gloomy,
high-walled enclosure, with the loose bricks piled on the top to show
where the wall had been tampered with, and to hinder escape, the very
aspect, too, of the governor's house, with its barred windows to keep
prisoners out, as the walls were to keep them in--a cage within a cage--
made her heart sink, and when after traversing stone passages, and
hearing doors locked and unlocked, she found herself in the presence of
her husband, her brain reeled, a mist came before her eyes, and for a
while her tongue refused to utter the words she longed to speak.
"Humph!" said Hallam roughly. "You don't seem very glad to see me."
Her reproachful eyes gave him the lie; and, looking pale, anxious, and
terribly careworn, he began to pace the floor.
The careful arrangement of the hair, the gentlemanly look, seemed to
have given place to a sullen, half-shrinking mien, and it was plain to
see how confinement and mental anxiety had told upon him.
In a few minutes, though, he had thrown off a great deal of this, and
spoke eagerly to his wife, who, while tender and sympathetic in word and
look, seemed ever ready to spur him on to some effort to free himself
from the clinging stain.
This had been her task from the very first. Cast down with a feeling of
degradation and sorrow, when the arrest had been made, she had, as we
know, recoiled.
She had made every effort possible; had gone to her husband for advice
and counsel, and had ended at his wish by taking the money Miss Heathery
offered, to pay a good attorney to conduct his case; but on the first
hearing, she was informed by the lawyer that a gentleman was down from
town, a barrister of some eminence, who said that he had been instructed
to defend Mr Hallam, and he declined to give any further information.
The despair that came over Millicent was terrible to witness; but she
mastered these fits of despondency by force of will and the feverish
energy with which she set to work. She visited Hallam, questioning,
asking advice, instruction, and bidding him try to see his way out of
the difficulty, till he grew morose and sullen, and seemed to find
special pleasure in telling her that it was "all the work of that
parson."
In her feverish state, in the despair with which she had bidden herself
do her duty to her wronged, her injured husband, she took all this as
fact, and shutting herself up at Miss Heathery's, refused to read the
letters Bayle sent to her, or to give him an interview.
It was as if a savage spirit of hate and revenge had taken possession of
her, and with blind determination she went on her way, praying for
strength to make her worthy of the task of defending her injured
husband, and for the overthrow of the cruel enemies who were fighting to
work his ruin.
And now she was having the last interview with Hallam, for the
authorities had interfered, she had had so much latitude, and he had
given her certain instructions which made her start.
"Go to him?" she said, looking up wonderingly.
"Yes, of course," he said sharply; "do you wish me to lose the slightest
chance of getting off?"
"But, Robert, dear," she said innocently, but with the energy that
pervaded her speaking, "why not go bravely to your trial? The truth
must prevail."
"Oh, yes," he said cynically; "it is a way it has in courts of law."
"Don't speak like that, love. I want you to hold up your head bravely
in the face of your detractors, to show how you have been tricked and
injured, that this man Crellock, whom you have helped, has proved a
villain--deceiving, robbing, and shamefully treating you."
"Yes," he said; "I should like to show all that."
"Then don't send me to Sir Gordon. I feel that there is no mercy to be
expected from either him or Mr Bayle. They both hate you."
"Most cordially, dear. By all that's wearisome, I wish they would let
me have a cigar here."
"No, no; think of what you are telling me to do," she cried eagerly, as
she saw him wandering from the purpose in hand. "You say I must go to
Sir Gordon?"
"Yes. Don't say it outright, but give him to understand that if he will
throw up this prosecution of his, it will be better for the bank. That
I can give such information as will pay them."
"You know so much about Stephen Crellock?" she said quickly.
"Yes; I can recover a great deal, I am sure."
"And I am to show him how cruelly he has wronged you?"
"Yes, of course."
"You desire me to do this; you will not trust to your innocence, and the
efforts of the counsel?"
"Do you want to drive me mad with your questions?" he cried savagely.
"If you decline to go, my lawyer shall see Sir Gordon."
"Robert!" she said reproachfully, but with the sweet gentleness of her
pitying love for the husband irritated, and beyond control of self in
his trouble, apparent in her words.
"Well, why do you talk so and hesitate?" he cried petulantly.
"I will go, dear," she said cheerfully, "and I will plead your cause to
the uttermost."
"Yes, of course. It will be better that you should go. He likes you,
Millicent; he always did like you, and I dare say he will listen to you.
I don't know but what it might be wise to knock under to Bayle. But
no: I hate that fellow. I always did from the first. Well, leave that
now. See Sir Gordon; tell him what I say, that it will be best for the
bank. You'll win. Hang it, Millicent, I could not bear this trial: it
would kill me."
"Robert!"
"Ah, well, I'm not going to die yet, and it would be very sad for my
handsome little wife to be left a widow if they hang me, or to exist
with a live husband serving one-and-twenty years in the bush."
"Robert, you will break my heart if you speak like that," panted
Millicent.
"Ah, well, we must not do that," he cried laughingly. "Look here,
though; this barrister who is to defend me, I know him--Granton, Q.C.
Did your father instruct him?"
"No: he could not. Robert, we are frightfully poor."
"Ah! it is a nuisance," he said, "thanks to my enemies; but we'll get
through. Now then, who has instructed this man?"
"I cannot tell, dear."
"I see it all," he said; "it's a plan of the enemy. They employ their
own man, and he will sell me, bound hand and foot, to the Philistines."
"Oh! Robert, surely no one would be so base."
"I don't know," he said. "They want to win. It's Sir Gordon's doing.
No, it's Christie Bayle. I'd lay a thousand pounds he has paid the
fellow's fees."
"Then, Robert, you will not trust him; you will refuse to let him defend
you. Husband, my brave, true, innocent husband," she cried, with her
pale face flushing, "defend yourself!"
"Hush! Go to Sir Gordon at once. Say everything. I must be had out of
this, Milly. I cannot stand my trial." She could only nod her
acquiescence, for a gaoler had entered to announce that the visit was at
an end.
Then, as if in a dream, confused, troubled in spirit, and hardly seeing
her way for the mist before her eyes, Millicent Hallam followed the
gaoler back along the white stone passages and through the clanging
gates, to be shut out of the prison and remain in a dream of misery and
troubled thought, conscious of only one thing, and that one that a
gentle hand had taken her by the arm and led her back to where they
waited for the conveyance to take them home.
"These handsome men; these handsome men!" sighed Thibs, as she sat by
Julia's bed that night, tired with her journey, but reluctant to go to
her own resting-place--a mattress upon the floor. "Oh! how I wish
sometimes we were back at the old house, and me scolding and stubborn
with poor old missus, and in my tantrums from morning to night. Ah!
those were happy days."
Thisbe shook her head, and rocked herself to and fro, and sighed and
sighed again.
"My old kitchen, and my old back door, and the big dust-hole! What a
house it was, and how happy we used to be! Ah! if we could only change
right back and be there once more, and Miss Milly not married to no
handsome scamp. Ah! and he is; Miss Milly may say what she likes, and
try to believe he isn't. He is a scamp, and I wish she had never seen
his handsome face, and we were all back again, and then--Oh!--Oh! Oh!--
Oh!--Oh!" cried hard, stubborn Thisbe as she sank upon her knees by the
child's bedside, sobbing gently and with the tears running down her
cheeks, "and then there wouldn't be no you. Bless you! bless you! bless
you!"
She kissed the child as a butterfly might settle on a flower, so tender
was her love, so great her fear of disturbing the little one's rest.
"Oh! dear me, dear me!" she said, rising and wiping the tears from her
hard face and eyes, "well, there's whites and blacks, and ups and downs,
and pleasures and pains, and I don't know what to say--except my
prayers; and the Lord knows what's best for us after all."
Ten minutes after, poor Thisbe was sleeping peacefully, while, with
burning brow, Millicent was pacing her bed-room, thinking of the
morrow's interview with Sir Gordon Bourne.