THE TRIAL FOR LIFE.
If you condemn me, fie upon your law!
There is no right in the decrees of judges
I stand for justice! Answer! Shall I have it?--SHAKESPEARE.
The awful contrast that there was between her appearance of the fairest
freedom and her reality of the darkest bondage!
But she scarcely realized such a contrast until that morning, when she
arose and threw open her south window and looked out upon her own
beautiful home valley, now fresh with the verdure of early spring, and
radiant with the light of the young day. A luminous haze like sifted
gold-dust hung around the mountain tops; a dewy freshness sparkled on
their wooded sides; and the river lay like a clear mirror below.
"Must she leave all this for the terrors of the court-room?" she
inquired, with a shudder of her shrinking heart. And for a moment she
felt that even the gloom of the prison might have better prepared her to
meet the horrors of a trial for life, than this peaceful, bright home
staying had done.
Yes, the contrast between her surroundings and her impending ordeal
seemed an awful mockery of fate!
She knew that the court would open for the spring term that day; but she
did not know that she would be wanted so soon.
They were all at breakfast that morning in the cheerful front parlor.
Mr. and Mrs. Berners, their protege Raphael, their little adopted
baby-boy Cromartie, who always sat in a high chair beside his
benefactress, Beatrix Pendleton who was resolved to stay with Sybil to
the last, and Tabitha Winterose who sat at the head of the table to
serve out the coffee and tea, because Sybil had said that everything
tasted better coming from "Old Tabby's" hand--these were all gathered
around the table, when Sheriff Fortescue was announced and entered the
room.
"You have come for me!" said Sybil, in a low, terrified tone, as she
arose from her seat before any one else could move or speak.
"Resume your seat, Mrs. Berners, and finish your breakfast. There is no
hurry," answered the old gentleman, as calmly as he could.
Then he saluted the party, shook hands with Mr. Berners, and accepted
the seat offered him by Joe.
"She is wanted this morning?" inquired Mr. Berners, in a low voice.
The sheriff bowed gravely in assent.
Sybil had been kindly pressed to resume her seat and finish her
breakfast. She sank back into her chair indeed, but could not eat
another morsel. Nor could any one else at the table, not even poor
little Cro', who saw by the faces of all around that something terrible
had happened, or was about to do so.
The meal was at an end. The breakfast party arose in trepidation.
"Is she wanted now, immediately?" hastily inquired Lyon Berners.
The sheriff again bowed in assent, but added:
"I do not wish to hurry her."
"I will not keep you waiting, Mr. Fortescue," said Sybil, trying to
steady her voice, as she prepared to leave the room.
But here little Cro', who had been watching every body anxiously, found
out by some process of his own that the terrible thing which was going
to happen threatened Sybil, and he slid down from his high chair at the
risk of breaking his limbs, and ran to her and clung to her dress.
"Take him away, Miss Tabby! Sybil is going to Blackville, Cro', and she
will bring Cro' some candy, when she comes back," she said, tenderly
placing the child in Miss Winterose's arms.
Mr. Berners told Joe to have the carriage brought around and to prepare
to drive it, and then he gave his arm to Sybil, who really needed its
support in going up to her chamber.
Beatrix followed her.
Raphael walked up and down the length of the breakfast-room, in
uncontrollable agitation.
Miss Tabby clasped the child to her bosom, and rocking him and herself
to and fro, wept and sobbed bitterly.
"And as for me, I feel like a hangman," muttered old Mr. Fortescue to
himself as he stood looking moodily out of the window.
Mr. Fortescue had not been high sheriff very long, and was new to the
ghastly duties of his office, to be sure, he might have easily deputed
this irksome task to another, but he chose to perform it himself, lest
that others should not do it so kindly.
In a few moments Sybil returned, ready for her drive.
She was dressed--her dress was afterwards minutely described in the
county paper, and also in many others that reported the trial--she was
dressed then in a light gray suit throughout, bonnet, mantle, and gown
being of the same material, and even gloves and veil of the same hue; a
pale blush rose relieved the neutral shade of her bonnet, and a ribbon
of the same delicate tint fastened her small linen collar.
Beatrix Pendleton, in a black silk suit, with a black lace bonnet and
shawl, followed her.
Beatrix, with the warm approbation of her brother, had determined to sit
in the dock, beside Sybil. She, the falsely accused lady, should not go
there unsupported by the presence of another lady.
"Good-bye, Raphael! good-bye, Miss Tabby! I hope to be back this
evening. Good-bye, dear little Cro'! Sybil will bring you something
good, when she comes," said Mrs. Berners, with all the cheerfulness she
could command.
But Raphael turned pale as death when he silently gave her his hand.
Miss Tabby could not speak, for hysterical sobs.
Little Cro' cried outright.
To shorten this trying scene, Mr. Berners drew his wife's arm within his
own and led her to the carriage. He had just settled her in the back
seat, when little Nelly rushed past everybody, and ran up the steps, and
crouched breathless and palpitating at the feet of her mistress.
"Yes; let her stay, Lyon," said Sybil, lifting the faithful little
creature to her lap.
Mr. Berners next helped Miss Pendleton to a seat beside his wife, then
entered the carriage and took his place opposite Sybil, while Mr.
Fortescue got in and sat down in the fourth seat, facing Beatrix.
And Joe got his order to drive on towards Blackville.
Scarcely a word was spoken for the first mile. It was Sybil who broke
the silence.
"Will my counsel meet me at the court, Mr. Fortescue?" she inquired.
"They are waiting for you, Madam. Mr. Worth has arrived, and is in
earnest consultation with Mr. Sheridan," gently replied Mr. Fortescue.
"How long do you think the trial will last, Mr. Fortescue?" tremblingly
inquired Sybil.
"It is quite impossible to form an opinion, madam," replied the Sheriff.
"My dear Sybil," said Lyon Berners, "let us hope and trust that the
trial will be short, and the result acquittal. Keep up your courage."
But he who gave her this advice found his own heart fast failing him. He
could fearlessly have met his fate in his own person; but in the person
of his beloved wife--
Fortunately for our unhappy party, it was not generally known that the
accused lady would be put on trial this day; so when they drove into
Blackville, they found no more than the usual little crowd about the
hotel and the court-house.
The carriage was drawn up before the last-named building.
The two gentlemen got out and assisted their companions to alight.
As they were about to enter the court-house, Sybil lifted her hand to
draw her gray veil before her face; but Beatrix stayed her.
"Don't do it, my dear Sybil. You have no reason to veil your face, or
bend your head, or even lower your eyes, before the gaze of any one
alive!" she said, proudly, for her friend.
Sybil felt the force of these words, and indeed her own pride seconded
their advice.
"I will take you first to my room, where your counsel are waiting to
speak with you," said old Mr. Fortescue, drawing Sybil's hand through
his arm, and leading her, followed by her husband and her friend, into
the sheriff's office.
There they found Mr. Sheridan standing at a long table covered with
green baize and laden with papers.
With him was a gentleman whose grandeur and beauty of person and manner
must have deeply impressed any beholder, under any circumstances. "The
form of Apollo and the front of Jove," had been said of him; and if it
had been added that he possessed the intellectual power of a Cicero, and
shared the divine spirit of Christ, it would have been equally true.
"Mr. Worth, late of the Washington Bar, now admitted to practice here
for your benefit, Mrs. Berners," said Mr. Sheridan, presenting his
colleague, after he himself had greeted the party.
Sybil lifted her glance to meet the gaze of the pure, sweet, strong
spirit that looked forth on her from Ishmael Worth's beautiful eyes.
Sybil Berners might have been presented to half the weak-minded kings
and vain queens on their mouldering old European thrones, without the
slightest trepidation; but before this glorious son of the soil, this
self-made man of the people, this magnate of the American Bar, this
monarch of noble Nature's crowning, this magnificent Ishmael Worth, her
spirit bowed in sincere homage, and she lowered her eyes and courtsied
deeply, before she offered him her hand.
Holding that little hand between his own, he spoke a few strong,
reviving words to her.
He told her, in the first place, that he had spent the whole night in
making himself master of her case; that his firm faith in her innocence
would give him great power as her advocate; that he would do his best
for her sake; but that while doing his best, they must lean on Divine
Providence for support and deliverance, who, in his own good
time--later, if not sooner--would vindicate the innocent.
And as he uttered these words, looking down in her face, he infused into
her soul comfort and courage, and patience to meet the worst this first
day of trial might bring.
But no one knew better than Mr. Worth the almost utter hopelessness of
the cause he had undertaken to defend; and that was no small sacrifice
for an eminently successful barrister like Ishmael Worth, who had never
in the course of his professional career lost a single case, to withdraw
himself from his own bar and business, and take much trouble to get
admitted to practice at another, for the sake of defending an utter
stranger, in whose case there seemed not more than one chance in a
thousand of success.
But if there had not been even that one slight chance, still the
magnanimity and tenderness of Ishmael Worth's nature would have brought
him to the accused lady's side, her defender to the death.
Something like this passed through the mind of Lyon Berners as he
grasped the hand of Mr. Worth, and warmly thanked him.
And then the sheriff drew Sybil's arm within his own to lead her on.
Lyon Berners offered his arm to Beatrix Pendleton, and followed them.
The counsel brought up the rear.
Thus the little procession entered the court-room. The presiding judge,
Joseph Ruthven, sat on the bench, with two associate judges, the one on
his right hand, the other on his left. A few lawyers and law officers
sat or stood around in groups. On the judge's extreme right, a little
below the bench, two long seats were occupied by witnesses for the
prosecution; on the extreme left was the jury-box; in the intermediate
space in front of the bench, stood the prisoner's dock, the witness's
stand, and the counsel's tables. The remaining portion of the room,
nearest the front doors, was filled up with the spectators' seats. But
very few spectators were present; only some dozen villagers who had
nothing better to do than to loiter there, and some score of farmers who
had that morning come to market, and had dropped in to see what might be
going on at the court.
Great was their excitement when they saw Mrs. Berners led in by the
sheriff, and followed by her friends. They had not expected her trial
would come on so soon. Indeed, an absurd rumor had prevailed that she
would not be brought to trial at all. But now here she was, sure enough,
and they stared at her with dilated eyes and open mouths.
Sybil impulsively put up her hand to drop her veil; but remembering
Beatrix Pendleton's words, she refrained, and turned and swept her proud
eye round upon the gazers, whose lids fell under her glance.
She was not put into the dock, but offered a chair at the table with her
counsel. She bowed to the bench before taking her seat. On her right sat
her husband; on her left, her friend Beatrix Pendleton, near her
counsel. She was very much agitated, but a pressure from the hand of her
husband, a glance from the eyes of Ishmael Worth, helped to reassure
her.
Nor must the fidelity of another friend, a poor little four-footed
friend, be forgotten. Little Nelly had faithfully followed her mistress,
and now lay curled up at her feet.
Meanwhile the preliminary forms of the trial proceeded. The jurymen were
sworn in and took their seats. Then Mr. Sheridan touched his client's
hand to call her attention, while the clerk of arraigns, standing up
with an open document in his hands directed the accused to listen to
the reading of the indictment.
Sybil raised her head and became attentive, while that officer read
aloud the terrible instrument, setting forth that Sybil Berners of Black
Hall, in the county of Blank, being instigated thereto by diabolical
agency, did, with malice aforethought, on the night of the thirty-first
of October ultimo, feloniously break into the chamber of Rosa Blondelle,
then residing at Black Hall, in the county of Blank, and there did
unlawfully and maliciously stab, kill, and murder the said Rosa
Blondelle, etc., etc., etc.
During the reading of this indictment, charging her with a crime at once
so base and so atrocious, Sybil's emotions were all revolutionized. No
longer unmerited shame and terror had power to bend her soul. The fiery
spirit of her race arose within her; the "burning blood" boiled in her
veins; a fierce indignation flashed from her dark eyes, like lightning
from a midnight cloud; bitter scorn curled her beautiful lips.
When told to stand up, to hold up her hand, and to answer whether she
were guilty or not guilty of the felony laid to her charge, she answered
haughtily:
"Not guilty, of course, as every one here knows, or should know. No more
guilty than were many of the queens and princesses of old, who were
martyred for crimes that we in these days know they never committed."
She had exceeded the forms of law, and said more than was necessary; but
her heart was on fire, and she could not help it; and no one interrupted
her.
"How will you be tried?" proceeded the clerk of arraigns, trying to
avoid the beautiful, terrible eyes that were gazing on him.
"By God and--my peers, if indeed I have any peers here," answered this
arrogant young Berners, sweeping her full eyes scornfully over the
rustic occupants of the jury box, and then resuming her seat.
Her words and manner did her no good; their only effect upon the jury
was to convince them that Mrs. Berners had inherited all the furious
passions of her forefathers, and that she was an excessively
high-tempered and high-spirited young lady, quite capable of doing a
very rash deed.
"Patience, patience, my dearest one," whispered her husband, as he
passed his arm behind her.
"I cannot be patient or prudent, Lyon, under such insults. I cannot, if
they kill me," she fiercely whispered back.
"Hush, hush," he said, softly patting her shoulder.
And then both became quiet, while the business of the trial proceeded.
The State's Attorney, Charles Coldman, took the bill of indictment from
the hand of the clerk, and proceeded to open the case. Mr. Coldman was
not the friend of the accused, neither was he her enemy. He did not
belong to the old aristocracy of the State, neither had he distinguished
himself in any manner. A successful lawyer he was, in so far as he had
attained his present position, but no farther. He had never been
admitted within the exclusive circles of Black Hall, or shared its
hospitalities. And if this exclusion did not make him the enemy of the
lady of that manor, it certainly did not embarrass him with any of those
old associations of friendship and intimacy, such as might have
distressed him, had he been, like nearly all the other members of the
Blackville bar, the frequent guest of her father and her husband.
Thus the State's Attorney could deal with the lady of Black Hall, as he
would deal with any other person on trial at that court.
He opened the indictment, and gave the theory of the crime. Here was no
complication, he said, and no uncertainty. The case was so clear, that
it need occupy the court but a little time. He then, in a grand,
eloquent, and highly colored style, described the murder. He drew a
moving-picture of the lovely young victim, whose fair image many who
were present, he said, would recall with tears of pity; he described her
accepting the invitation of the jealous mistress of Black Hall, and
drawn within its dread doors, as a bird is enticed into the trap which
is to be its destruction. He showed her on that fatal Hallow Eve
reposing in her chamber, sleeping the sleep of innocence in fancied
security. He painted, in lurid colors, the form of the murderess
stealing down the stairs that led to her victim's room, "in the dead
waste and middle of the night," creeping to the innocent sleeper's
bedside, and plunging the fatal dagger in her peaceful, unsuspicious
bosom. He described the startled look and cry of the victim, shocked
from calm repose by a violent and bloody death; the scene of confusion,
horror, and terror that ensued; the dying words of Rosa Blondelle,
charging Sybil Berners with her death. He adverted to the guilty flight
of the murderess and the desperate means she and her friends had taken
even to the immolating of other lives, to secure her escape; until at
length, unable to hold out against the authorities any longer, she had
surrendered at discretion, and made a merit of giving herself up to
justice. All this, he concluded, he should undertake to prove to the
gentlemen of the jury.
He then proceeded to call the witnesses for the prosecution. The first
witness called to the stand was--Sybil's best friend, Captain Clement
Pendleton of Pendleton Park.
He came forward slowly, with a pale, stern face. He would rather have
lost his power of speech, than have used it for her detriment. But he
was known to have been present at the death of Rosa Blondelle, and he
was therefore subpoenaed to attend the trial as a witness for the
prosecution.
Being duly sworn, he testified that he had been startled by loud screams
from the room below his chamber; and that on rushing down into that
room, he had found Mrs. Rosa Blondelle bleeding from a wound in her
chest, and supported in the arms of Mr. Lyon Berners, who was in the act
of bearing her across the room to the sofa, on which he then laid her.
"Was there any one else in the room?" inquired the prosecuting attorney,
seeing that the witness had paused.
"Mrs. Berners was there."
"Describe her appearance."
"She was very much agitated, as was quite natural."
"Had she anything in her hand?".
"Yes," answered Clement Pendleton, who never added a word against Sybil
that he could honestly keep back.
"Witness, you are here to tell the _whole_ truth, without reservation.
What was it that the prisoner held in her hand?"
"A dagger--the dagger," added poor Clement Pendleton recklessly; "with
which the unknown assassin had killed Mrs. Blondelle."
"Stay, stay! we are going a little too fast here. Are you prepared to
swear that you know, of your own knowledge, that some person other than
the prisoner at the bar 'killed Mrs. Blondelle?'"
Captain Pendleton was a soldier and no lawyer, yet he saw at once how
his faith in Sybil's innocence had led him to the false step of stating
inferences for facts. So he explained:
"I spoke in accordance with my own firm convictions."
"Ah, but I fancy your own conviction will not prevent that of the
prisoner," commented the State's Attorney, with a grim humor.
"And now, Captain Pendleton," he continued, "as you are sworn to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I must trouble
you to answer the questions here put to you, by stating exactly such
facts as came under your personal observation only."
And then he resumed the examination of the witness, and drew from him a
relation of all the fatal circumstances that occurred in the library at
Black Hall, on the night of the tragedy, among them the guilty
appearance of Sybil Berners with the reeking dagger in her crimsoned
hand, and the dying declaration of the murdered woman, charging Sybil
Berners with her death.
He would have gone on and told Sybil's own explanation of her
appearance, but was stopped there by the State's Attorney, at whose
request the presiding Judge instructed him that such declarations on the
part of the accused, could not be received in evidence.
And so he was told to withdraw.
I will not weary my readers with any detailed account of this trial. A
slight sketch of the principal points will he sufficient for our
purpose.
There were some half dozen more witnesses who had been present at the
death of Rosa Blondelle, and who, being duly sworn, corroborated the
testimony of Captain Pendleton.
Then the Scotch nurse, Jennie McGruder, was called to the stand.
Her testimony bore very heavily upon the accused.
She told how, on the night of the murder, she had, according to her
custom, carefully searched both the bed chamber and the nursery that
constituted Mrs. Blondelle's apartments; that finding no intruder there,
she had securely fastened all the windows and all the doors of the two
rooms, with the exception of the door leading to the staircase
communicating with Mrs. Berners' apartments, which were immediately
above those of Mrs. Blondelle. This door was always left unfastened, as
it was thought perfectly safe to leave it so.
She told how, while she was with the child in the nursery that same
night, she was startled by hearing piercing screams from the adjoining
bedroom; that she had rushed there in time to see the deceased Rosa
Blondelle running wildly from the room, followed by the prisoner, Sybil
Berners, who had a dagger in her hand.
She also corroborated the testimony of the other witnesses as to the
fatal words of the dying woman charging the prisoner with her death.
After this witness came a number of others who testified to the
ill-feeling which existed between the prisoner and the deceased.
These witnesses were all in turn severely cross-examined by the counsel
for the defence, but, as the State's Attorney had said, their testimony
was so clear and simple that it was impossible to involve them in any
self-contradiction.
The State's Attorney had also been very careful to call the attention of
the jury to each condemning point of the fatal evidence against the
accused.
And here the examination of witnesses on the part of prosecution closed,
and the court adjourned.
Sybil was conducted into the sheriff's room, where refreshments were
provided by that kind-hearted officer for herself and her friends, and
where everything possible was done and said to support her under the
terrible ordeal of her trial. Being still under bail, as she would be to
the end of her trial, she was then permitted to return home with her
friends for the night.
One little touching event must be recorded here, as it showed the
thoughtful tenderness of her nature. Even in the midst of her anguish of
anxiety in regard to the awful issues in the result of this trial, she
remembered baby Cro' and his small interests; and she stopped in the
village to procure for him that "something good" which she had promised.
But to do the orphan justice, he was gladder to see Sybil than to get
what she brought him.
Miss Tabby caught her in her arms, and wept over her.
Raphael did not weep, nor even speak; but he clasped her hands, and
looked at her with a silent grief more eloquent that words or tears. It
was a period of agony to all concerned; and Sybil was indebted to opium
for all the sleep she got that night.