THE PRISONER COMES INTO COURT.
I got the ticket, and I went to the trial.
I travelled in the same train with the judge. At Victoria, as
I was standing at the carriage door, a little old gentleman, of the
beer-barrel type of architecture, went toddling by. He wore gold
spectacles, he had a very red face, a double chin, and big, pursy
lips--the sort of old gentleman one would have liked to have smacked on
the back.
Another old gentleman was standing near me. He was tall and thin. When
the little old gentleman went toddling by this other old gentleman
moved his head in the toddler's direction and his arms in mine.
"Judge Hunter."
I was most benign.
"Indeed! Is that Judge Hunter?"
"Going down to Lewes Assizes; been spending a day in town."
That was a Monday. Of course, the day before had been Sunday. But what
the man meant is more than I can say.
The thin old gentleman and I shared a compartment. He fed me with
scraps of information by the way.
"Good judge, Hunter. He has one qualification which a good judge ought
to have."
"What is that?"
"Been a bit of a rogue himself."
"Is that a qualification which goes to the making of a good judge? Then
what a number of good judges there must be."
The thin old gentleman smiled.
"I don't mean in a criminal sense, you understand. He's not been in
prison, and that kind of thing. But Hunter has not lived exactly the
life of a saint. In the case of a judge a fellow-feeling ought to make
one wondrous kind."
"I see."
It was a delightful journey. The sun was shining; the air was warm and
sweet; the country through which we passed seemed lovely. Perhaps I was
in the mood!
As we rattled through Three Bridges Junction the thin old gentleman
recommenced his process of feeding me with titbits of information.
"This is where the murder took place."
"Is that so?"
How different it looked in the sunshine!
"Just about there"--he was pointing through the window of the
carriage--"is where they found the body."
I wondered if he was right. I, myself, had the vaguest notion. I had
not been in a position to make a mental map of my surroundings. It
struck me that it must have been a little farther on; to me, at the
time, it had seemed to be a good distance from the station. But then I
had to allow for the rate at which we were moving. I had walked along
the line.
"It was a dreadful thing--dreadful! It makes one's blood boil when one
thinks of it. I do hope that, this time, no false sentimentality will
be allowed to interfere, and that they will hang the man."
I had become used to hearing that sort of remark. Everybody seemed to
be taking it for granted that Tommy was guilty. I could but acquiesce.
Lewes seemed to me to be a charming town--all up-hill and down--though
I must confess that there was a little more up-hill than down. And all
so old! I do so like a town to be old. Of course one would never dream
of living in it, but it is so nice to visit.
The assizes were not to open till the Tuesday. Tommy's trial was not
expected to begin till the Wednesday. So I had time upon my hands. I
was truly rural. I went to Newhaven--a horrid hole!--and across the
road to Seaford--which was much of a muchness. And I lived on the Lewes
Downs. What a breeze there was up there! And what a view! And I saw the
prison--the outside of it, I mean, not the inside. It was built right
on the edge of the downs--rather cool in winter, I should think.
I came on a warder. He was smoking a pipe. I suppose he was taking
the air. He was a big man, with a huge red beard and one of the
best-humoured faces I ever saw. I wondered what he did with his
good-humour when he went inside. I should think it must have been
against the prison rules to take it in.
We foregathered. He was affability itself. He pointed out the various
parts of the prison.
"That is the debtors' wing, that is; that's where we keep the hard-up
'uns. A chap can't earn five-and-twenty shillings to pay his poor rate,
perhaps, so we spend ten pound over locking him up. That's a pretty
game, that is. I've never been able to make head or tail of it myself.
But, of course, it's no affair of mine. Those are the convicted wards.
We haven't got enough prisoners of our own to keep the place properly
going, so they send us a few down from town--some of the worst they've
got. Nice ones some of them are. That's the chapel. Oh, yes, we have a
regular daily service; we couldn't get on without one, could we?--twice
on Sunday--Protestant and Catholic. They're very particular, some of
'em, about their religion. We chaps don't do much in the service. All
our time's took up in looking after the boys; and the worse a man is,
the more he likes his bit of chapel. That's where we keep the prisoners
who are awaiting trial--Tennant's in there."
"Indeed! How very interesting! And what sort of a man is he?--I suppose
he's a dreadful man?"
The warder began combing his beard with his fingers.
"Not a bit of it; don't you think it. He's as decent and nice a chap as
ever you'd wish to meet."
"Don't you think he's guilty?"
"Oh, I don't know nothing at all about that. Some of the very worst
murders ever I have known have been done by some of the very nicest
chaps ever you met--when you come to talk to 'em, I mean. I don't know
how it is, but so it is. He'll be hung--safe to. That's where they'll
hang him. You can't see it from where we are, but there's a little yard
in there where they build the gallows. I expect I shall have the charge
of him in the condemned cell. I generally do have. I've hung 'em before
to-day; but it's not a nice job."
Poor, dear Tommy! It made me go queer all over to hear the man talk of
him like that. What a funny world it is? Or is it the people in it who
are funny?
When the trial began the court was like a theatre. I got in early--for
reasons of my own. I wanted a particular place, and succeeded in
obtaining the object of my heart's desire.
I had had a peep in at the court on the opening day of the assizes.
What I wanted was a position in which I should not face the prisoner. I
found that the prisoners were placed in a sort of railed enclosure.
Their feet were about on a level with the lawyers' heads. On one side
of this enclosure was a kind of pew. So long as the occupants kept
their seats it was impossible for any one in the enclosure to even
guess at their identity. I soon saw that a seat in this pew was exactly
what I wanted. If I wore a thick veil, and made certain changes in my
attire, Tommy would never dream that the woman whom he was charged with
having murdered was actually sitting within reach of his hand, a
spectator of the trial.
When I reached the court the usher--or whoever it was--wanted me to sit
on the bench, on a line with the judge and immediately facing the
prisoner's dock. He assured me that that part of the court was
specially reserved for ladies who were ticket-holders, and that it was
quite impossible that they could be allowed to sit anywhere else. This
impossibility I rather doubted, and when I presented him with two
beautifully bright, new yellow sovereigns he seemed to doubt it too.
"I don't want to be conspicuous," I explained. "I just want to see
everything without being seen."
Nothing could have possibly been truer or more reasonable. Possibly
those two sovereigns aided that usher to see both the truth and the
reason. Anyhow, he showed me into actually the seat I wanted.
Very soon the place was crowded. No end of ladies graced the bench.
Some of them must--unlike modest little me!--have come to be seen as
well as to see. Certainly they were dressed for show. The court wore
quite an air of fashion.
Among the crowd, but not on the bench, was Tommy's wife. She came in
with an elderly lady and gentleman, whom I took to be her father and
mother, or else Tommy's--I could not make my mind up which--and a
younger gentleman, who still was pretty well on in years. I had no
doubt that he was Tommy's solicitor. As Mrs. Tennant came in two of the
barristers, who were sitting among a heap of others at a table, stood
up and shook hands with her. I found out afterwards that, as I
suspected at the time, they were Tommy's counsel. Somebody must have
known who she was, because, directly she appeared, quite a buzz of
whispering went round the court. The women on the bench leaned towards
each other, and stared and did everything but point at her. They might
have been ladies--gentlewomen, as my old mother used to have it, they
were not. She removed her veil and looked at them--just once, and that
was all. She looked very sweet and pale and troubled, but grit to the
finger-ends.
Other counsel were sitting cheek by jowl with Tommy's counsel. One of
them, turning as Mrs. Tennant entered, looked her keenly up and down.
He was an ugly, mean-looking, colourless, bloodless little man. His
robe, or whatever they called the thing he wore, was different to the
others--it was of silk. I wondered what he was.
Suddenly there was a stir in court. Somebody appeared like an
undertaker's mute--only he wasn't a mute--from a door at the back.
"The judge."
Everybody rose to their feet. In waddled the fat little fellow I had
seen in the train. He reminded me, somehow, of the comic man in the
burlesque. He had on an enormous wig, about sixty yards of what, from
where I sat, looked like some sort of scarlet blanketing, and--as if
that wasn't enough!--fur. He presented a dreadful spectacle. Goodness
knows that he had a red enough face of his own! They might have put him
in white.
There was some rubbish which I did not understand--and did not want to.
It was some time before I could take my eyes off the judge. He was
something to stare at. The more I looked at him the more I wondered
what they would do if the man was struck with apoplexy. To me the risk
of something of the kind, which he seemed to be running, was simply
awful.
Then they swore in the jury. Among them were some of the
stupidest-looking men I ever saw. If they were married it was a pity
they could not have sent their wives, and they themselves have stayed
at home. There must have been more sense somewhere in the family.
Then somebody said--
"Bring in Thomas Tennant!"
A hush came over the court. All eyes were turned in one direction. I,
alone, did not dare to turn to look. There were movements behind me,
then all was still. I noticed that Mrs. Tennant had removed her veil
again, and had turned round in her seat and was looking at some one
whom I could not see--looking at this some one with a smile.
I knew that she was looking at her husband, and that Tommy was going to
be tried for the murder of me.
As I sat there, scarcely daring to breathe, staring straight in front
of me, yet seeing nothing, my thick veil obscuring my features, my
hands tightly clasping the knob of my umbrella, I was experiencing the
most singular sensation I had ever known.
It was worse than stage fright, by a deal.