JANE KELLY ON HER TRIAL.
The morning on which Jane Kelly was to have her hearing, found Madame De
Marke punctual. The judge, who recognized her real position, was
comparatively deferential; for wealth, even when allied with
degradation, is not without power. Besides, her manner, as on the
evening before, bespoke considerable knowledge of good society and its
usages.
Madame De Marke repeated the conversation which she had already stated.
A lawyer, employed by her, was also in attendance. Jane was without
professional aid.
“The case seems clear,” said the judge, when Madame De Marke had closed
her testimony. “What have you to say? You may speak now!” he added,
turning to the prisoner.
The girl had frequently interrupted Madame De Marke until the judge had
sternly ordered her, more than once, to keep silence; and now her
suppressed rage found short and bitter words.
“She deserves the State’s prison more than I do!” cried Jane, white with
passion, and looking at Madame De Marke as if she could have stabbed her
to the heart. “She is ten thousand times worse than a thief”—
“Stick to the point,” interposed the judge. “The question is not, what
this lady may, or may not have done; but what proof there is that you
did not steal the jewel.”
“Proof! Does anybody want proof that she is blackhearted, treacherous,
lying, cowardly, a secret murderer?” raved the girl. “Yes, a murderer!
She wanted me to commit murder,—to let a sweet young creature starve on
her sick-bed, and tried to bribe me with that very ear-ring. And now she
says I stole it.”
“Have you any proof of this?”
“Proof! Proof again! What proof is there, but her word, that I took the
ear-ring!” said Jane, with quick shrewdness, a thing she was not
deficient in, when rage did not overmaster her entirely. “My word ought
to be as good as hers. She says I stole the ring, and I say she gave it
to me; what proof has she that her story is a bit truer than mine?”
“She swears to it.”
“I’ll swear to mine.”
“That the law does not allow. An accused person cannot be a witness in
his or her own behalf.”
“But the accuser may be a witness for her side.”
“No. It is the Commonwealth that prosecutes, and the accuser is only a
witness for the State.”
Jane broke forth indignantly—“You dare to call this justice! Such
pitiful stuff you name ‘the wisdom of the law!’”
She spoke these last words with bitter scorn. “If some one would come,
and swear that you, the judge, had stolen, you’d have to believe ’em,
ha! ha!”
“Order!” cried an officer, horrified.
“Order! order!” shouted the equally horrified clerk.
“No, I’ll not come to order,” she cried, raising her voice to a scream
of rage. “It’s God’s truth, that I’m innocent, and that yonder woman
tried to buy me to do murder; and she ought to be here instead of me.
You let her swear me into prison, and won’t let me swear what a lie it
is. You’re in league against me, every one of you,” and she glared
around on the court like a wild beast. “Justice! You call this justice!
The devils themselves are more just—”
She was proceeding in this mad way, when the police-officer, rushing up
to her, actually dashed his hand over her mouth, crying, “This can’t be.
Respect the court. Will you be silent, you jail-bird? We’ll gag you
completely if you don’t hush up.”
Exhausted by her frantic rage, not less than by her struggle with the
officer, Jane soon fell back, panting and exhausted, in the prisoners’
seat. When the decorum of the court had been restored, the case went on
again; and as the girl had no testimony to offer, the magistrate
committed her, and in default of bail meantime, sent her back to the
Tombs again.
In due time, her case came up for trial, when the same testimony was
repeated against her. But on this occasion, no such scene of disorder
occurred as had marked the preliminary examination. Jane, finding how
useless were her recriminations, had now sunk into a sullen silence.
Only, when asked what she had to say in her defence, she repeated her
charge against Madame De Marke, adding,—
“It’s as true as there’s a God in heaven, whether you believe it or not.
You take that woman’s oath, and won’t take mine; because she’s rich, I
suppose, and I’m poor. She had nobody by to certify to her story any
more than I had. I don’t wonder, with such laws, that your State’s
prison is full.”
The judge, however, was not convinced. He charged the jury that the
jewel was found in her possession; that she was a character well known
to the police; and that the story she told was inconsistent in itself.
“Still,” he added, “you are the judges of the fact, gentlemen; and if
you disbelieve Madame De Marke, you must acquit.”
The jury did not even leave the box. They had unanimously come to the
conclusion that the prisoner was guilty, and immediately rendered a
verdict to that effect. Yet in after-days, more than one of them had
occasion to remember that trial, and their share in it, with something
more than doubt.
Jane was sentenced to prison for the full period that the law allowed.
Madame De Marke’s serpent-like eyes watched her victim closely, while
the judge was pronouncing this severe sentence; and the momentary spasm
which passed over the prisoner’s face was a welcome sight to her selfish
heart.
But neither natural inhumanity, nor revenge itself, were the sole
feelings gratified by this sentence. That night, as Madame De Marke sat
alone, she rubbed her withered hands together with a chuckling laugh,
and said to herself,—
“I have ’em safe now. The child is dead. The girl who got it out of the
way is in the State prison; and even when she gets out, her testimony
won’t be received in any court in this country, for convicts are not
competent witnesses, ha! ha! This Catharine,” she added, with sudden
bitterness, “she’s dead, no doubt, by this time. People soon die, in New
York,” she added, with cold-blooded calculation, “if they are starving
and delicate. She looked like a ghost—had a cough—hacked away like
anything.”
The old woman rubbed her hands again with savage glee, and her eyes
fairly emitted light in the darkness. “To boast she had married my son!
I’ll teach ’em all to cross my path. I’ll teach ’em. I’ll teach ’em.”
Mumbling this, she went about her room, preparatory to retiring, in
order to see again that all the fastenings were safe. Nor was her sleep,
that night, broken by remorseful dreams, as might have been supposed.
God’s time had not come yet, if, indeed, it was to come in this world.