“TRUST IN HEAVEN.”
“Dearest hopes and joys may perish—
Lost in an hour;
All the love the heart can cherish
May lose its power!
But when the storms gather o’er thee
Do not despair,
Heaven can ever joy restore thee
Still pure and fair.”
Early in the morning Eudora arose from her sleepless bed. With the aid
of the rude basin and jug of water and coarse towel that had been placed
on the rough deal stand by Mrs. Barton the night previous, Eudora made
her simple toilet.
And next, with the love of order and neatness which characterizes every
true woman under all the circumstances of life, she made up the little
bed and arranged the narrow cell. But oh! with what a heavy, aching
heart, and what an ever present sense of the awful danger before her!
Finally, she knelt and offered up her usual morning prayers, and then
sat down, in forced idleness, to endure the dull pain of merely living
on.
She had not sat long thus, before the little square opening at the top
of her door was darkened by the face of the female warder, and the next
instant Mrs. Barton unlocked the door and entered the cell, saying:
“I peeped in first to see if you were asleep, for if you had been, Miss,
it isn’t I as would ha’ disturbed you; seeing as sleep is such a
blessing to them as is in trouble, it is a’most a sin to wake ’em. But
laws, Miss, you needn’t ha’ took the pains to do the cell yourself,
’cause I could ha’ done it.”
“I thank you, it cost me little pains; besides, occupation is almost as
great a blessing as sleep to persons in my unhappy circumstances,”
replied Eudora.
“And that’s true, too; I know by myself! for well I remember when my two
poor sailor-lads were lost in the Great Western steamship as went down
with all on board—and I a lone widder-woman—I should ha’ just gone
raving mad, if so be I hadn’t been obliged to work so hard all day that
I slept sound all night. And so, between hard work and sound sleep, I
lived through it.”
“Is your post such a hard one?” inquired the poor young prisoner, taking
an immediate interest in the kind-hearted, childless widow.
“Laws, no, Miss, but I wasn’t here then, no, nor for a year afterwards.
Bless you, Miss, I was in the laundry line o’ business; but being of one
of your grandfather, the _old_ Lord Leaton’s tenants, your father, Mr.
Charles, took pity on me, and spoke to Mr. Anderson, as was under
obligations to him, to give me this place. It isn’t no ways hard on
_me_, whatsoever it may be to them as I have to ’tend to. But it’s been
a teaching to me, Miss, for since here I’ve been, I’ve seen other people
in so much deeper sorrow than any that mere death can cause, that I ha’
been ashamed to grieve out of reason for my own troubles, and I ha’
thought, i’ the name o’ the Lord, it wer’ perhaps all for the best, for
if my poor fatherless lads had lived, they might ha’ been led wrong and
brought here, and that would ha’ killed me outright!—I beg your pardon,
Miss!” said the woman, suddenly stopping and reddening at the thought of
the unkindness of speech into which her thoughts had hurried her, “I beg
your pardon, for I know that some come here without deserving it.”
“And I came here without any fault of mine! Oh, believe it! You knew and
honored my father! Oh, for his sake believe that his only child did
not—could not—commit the dreadful crimes falsely charged upon her!” said
Eudora, earnestly, clasping her hands, and throwing her glance, full of
impassioned truthfulness, up to the woman’s face.
“And ’spite of the evidence, I don’t think you did, Miss; for being of
your father’s daughter, it don’t stand to reason as you could.”
“It was all because I was the sole attendant of—”
“Miss, Miss, you mustn’t talk of your business to me nor to anyone else,
except your lawyer, for fear o’ letting out something as might be
brought against you on your trial,” interrupted Mrs. Barton.
“What, not to you, who were my father’s friend, and are mine?” asked
Eudora, in surprise.
“No, Miss, ’cause how do I know! they might even pull me up for a
witness; best be cautious.”
“But I am guiltless, and being so, how can I say anything to injure my
cause?”
“I dunnot know, Miss; but they do tell as how you let out many things
afore the Squire as had better been kept in.”
“I spoke only the truth of what I had done; and I had done only what was
right. The whole world was welcome to know it, and I do not see how it
could hurt me.”
“Yes, Miss, but then the best of truth do get so turned upside down and
wrong side out by them lawyers, as you couldn’t tell it from the worst
of falsehoods; and so, if so be you can’t say anything to clear
yourself, best keep a still tongue in your head. But depend upon this,
Miss—as Sarah Barton will do everything she lawfully can do to help and
comfort your father’s daughter.”
“I thank you from a full heart! Oh, my dear father! little did you
think, in providing for a poor widow, you were raising up a friend for
your unhappy daughter in her bitterest extremity!” exclaimed Eudora,
with emotion, as she grasped the hard hand of the woman.
“The ways of Providence are strange,” said the good woman, musingly.
“They are,” echoed poor Eudora, thinking of the strange fate that had
cast her into prison.
“And now, Miss, as the gov’ner’s family are about to sit down to
breakfast, I will go and bring yours from his own table, same as I
brought your supper.”
“Are all the prisoners supplied from the governor’s table?”
“Lawk, no, Miss! quite the reverse! You didn’t happen to think the
prisoners all got lamb chop and port wine for their supper, such as I
brought you last night?”
“Why, no, and that was the reason why I asked you. But do all the women,
then?”
“Lawk, no, Miss! quite the reverse, as I said before.”
“Then, why am I so supplied?”
“Why, Miss, you see, it’s a—it’s another affair altogether with you.”
“Then understand that I want no privilege that is not shared by the
humblest of my fellow prisoners—no favor, in short.”
“Well, Miss, for the matter of that, it is not an unlawful privilege,
seeing as how the gov’ner sartinly has the right to send meals from his
own table to any one he likes—and as for favor, Miss, it’s a favor for
you to accept any lawful services as he is free to render you, seeing as
how he is under such everlasting obligations to you and your’n as he can
never repay.”
“Not to me—not to me—I never saw or heard of the man before I was
brought hither.”
“Well, to your honored father, then! And though the old saying says that
‘favor is no inheritance,’ I say it ought to be! And so the best service
as Mr. Anderson can do you won’t be too much for your father’s
daughter.”
“Think as you will about that; but I had rather not fare better than my
fellow-sufferers.”
“Neither will you, Miss, though you should have better than the best as
the gov’ner’s house could afford.”
“I do not understand you,” said Eudora, in surprise.
“Harry, come up! I’ll explain!” answered the woman. “You must know that
the best Master Anderson can send you is not half so good as what you
have been used to; and the worst prison fare as is sent to the others is
a deal better than ever they’ve had outside. Consequently, all things
considered, you fare worse, and not better than the rest,” said Mrs.
Barton, triumphantly.
“Your ingenious sophistry does not convince me.”
“Then I’ll tell you what must—the gov’ner’s orders; and he—under the
higher authorities, you know—is paramount here. He commands me to serve
you from the best upon his own table, and I must obey.”
“Just as you please; I thank you both; but it really makes no difference
to me what I eat or drink,” said Eudora, dejectedly.
“Reckon it would, though, if you knew what sort of food we sarve out to
the others,” thought Mrs. Barton as she left the cell and locked the
door after her.
The grating of that lock! How it always jarred upon the nerves of the
sensitive girl! After an absence of about fifteen minutes, Mrs. Barton
returned, bearing a tray upon which was neatly arranged a breakfast of
coffee, toast, ham, and poached eggs.
Nature! wise mother!—you never suffer any degree of mental anguish to
utterly destroy the appetite of the young. A minute before the entrance
of the tray the hapless girl thought she could not eat; but a minute
after, the savory smell of the well-chosen breakfast assailed her
senses, creating hunger, notwithstanding all her grief, anxiety, and
terror. The gossip of the good-natured Mrs. Barton seasoned the repast;
and at the end of half an hour our poor Eudora had made a good and
refreshing meal, for which she felt all the better.
“And now, then, what can I bring you to pass away the time with, until
some of your friends call?” said Mrs. Barton.
“A pocket Bible if you please; nothing more.”
“But lor’, Miss, that’s very solemn sort of study for week-a-days;
hadn’t you better have something funny, as would liven you up like?”
“There are times when no book but _the one_ can be read,” said Eudora.
“Very well, Miss; to be sure you shall have it,” replied the woman,
taking the tray and retiring.
An hour afterward, while Eudora was engaged in seeking to draw comfort
and strength from the pages of the blessed volume, the cell door was
opened and a veiled lady was ushered in by Miss Barton, who immediately
re-locked the door and withdrew.
Eudora arose in surprise to receive this unexpected visitor.
The lady threw aside her veil, and revealed the features of Alma
Elverton.
“Miss Elverton! Is it possible! You here?” exclaimed Eudora, in
astonishment.
“Yes, dear; but why do you speak to me so formally? Why do you not call
me Alma, as you used to do?” inquired the visitor, taking the hand and
kissing the cheek of the prisoner.
“Why? Oh, that was so long ago!” sighed Eudora.
“But two weeks.”
“No longer? It seems an age; but then so many things have happened
since.”
“None that can estrange us, I hope, Eudora?”
“You think me innocent, then?”
“Yes,” replied the visitor, seating herself on the side of the cot-bed.
“And so you come to see me. Oh, that is very good in you.”
“I come also to serve you. I come as the messenger of two friends, who
wish for the present to remain unknown, but who feel such a personal
interest in your acquittal that they send you this sum of money, and beg
that you will accept it as a loan, to be devoted to the purpose of
feeing counsel for your defence,” said Alma, placing the roll of
bank-notes in her hand.
“But this is very strange,” remarked Eudora, hesitating to retain the
money.
“And is not your presence in this place very strange? And is not
everything that has happened to you for the last two weeks equally
strange?”
“Oh, yes, yes; so strange that it sometimes seems to me to be unreal; as
though I were dead and sleeping in my grave, and dreaming this dreadful
dream,” replied Eudora, with a shudder.
“Then take one incident of the dream with another.”
“But this money? I may never be able to repay it.”
“Then repayment will never be demanded. Those who have sent you the
funds direct me to say that they have a personal and strictly selfish
interest in your acquittal as well as in the apprehension of the real
criminal.”
“Thank Heaven that there are some, at least, who believe me free from
this great sin!”
“There are many; but as the mere belief in your innocence would do you
but little good with judge or jury, it is necessary that they assist you
in every practical way.”
“But who are those friends that have sent me this assistance?”
“I must not tell more than I have already told—that they are those who
have a deep interest in the acquittal of the innocent and the
crimination of the guilty.”
“But what sort of an interest?”
“I may not tell you more than that it is of so selfish a nature as to
justify you in accepting all the assistance they can render you for
their own sakes without feeling under any obligation to them whatever.”
“That will be difficult—indeed, impossible; for I must feel very, very
grateful to these unknown benefactors,” said Eudora, no longer refusing
the gift, but accepting it with mixed feelings of gratitude and
humiliation.
Alma would have remained longer, but the footsteps of several persons
were heard approaching, and the door was unlocked, and Mr. Montrose,
accompanied by a strange gentleman, was ushered in by the gaoler.
Alma hastily kissed Eudora, bade her be of good cheer, dropped her thick
veil over her face, and hurried from the cell, to return home, and keep
her dangerous appointment with her father.
“Miss Leaton, I have brought down Mr. Fenton, who is here to consult
with us upon your case,” said Mr. Montrose, presenting the lawyer.
The lawyer bowed, and the lady courtesied, just as if the introduction
had taken place in the drawing-room.
Eudora took her seat upon the side of the cot, and offered the stranger
the only chair, which he took. Malcolm Montrose seated himself upon the
little table, and the consultation began.
“This is Wednesday. The assizes open on Monday. Can you procure us a
copy of the docket, my good friend?” said Mr. Fenton, addressing the
governor, who lingered at the door.
“I think I can, sir,” replied that officer, hurrying away for the
purpose. He returned in a short time, bringing with him the required
document, which he placed in the hands of the lawyer.
“‘Queen _versus_ Goffe, poaching;’ ‘Queen _versus_ Hetton, assault, &c.’
‘Queen—um—um—um,’” read the lawyer, running his eyes down the list,
until he came to a line where he exclaimed:
“Here we are the seventh case on the docket—‘Queen _versus_ Leaton.’ The
cases that precede ours are trifling, and will soon be disposed of. Ours
will come on, I should judge, about Wednesday morning—this day week; so
there is plenty of time to prepare the defence. Have you a copy of the
evidence given at the coroner’s inquest?” said the lawyer, turning to
Mr. Montrose.
Malcolm drew from his pocket two papers, and handing them to Mr. Fenton,
said:
“Here, in this first paper, is the report of the inquest that sat upon
the body of Lord Leaton, and in this second the report of the one that
sat upon those of Lady Leaton and Miss Leaton.”
“Yes,” said the lawyer, taking them, and settling himself to their
careful perusal.
In the course of his reading he marked three or four points, and at its
close he turned to his fair client, and said:
“You are aware, I hope, Miss Leaton, that you should be perfectly frank
with me, and that you can be so with perfect safety. In a word, it is
absolutely indispensable that a client should be as candid with her
counsel as a patient is with her physician.”
“Yes, I am aware of that; but really I have nothing to tell you, but
that I am wholly innocent of the dreadful crimes they impute to me.”
“I have made several notes here upon items of evidence that may be used
in our defence, and about which I wish to question you. In the first
place, then, in the evidence given by Lady Leaton before the first
coroner’s inquest, her ladyship testified that on the same night of her
husband’s sudden death, while the sleeping-draught stood on the stand
beside his bed, she being in her adjoining dressing-room, with the
communicating door open between them, heard the rustle of a woman’s silk
dress moving about, and saw the shadow of a woman’s form gliding along
the wall of her husband’s chamber. In the second place, the testimony of
the late Agatha Leaton proves that this unknown intruder could not have
been yourself, as you were at that very hour engaged in reading to her
in her own private apartment. Consequently, the midnight intruder who
stole secretly into Lord Leaton’s room, and dropped the fatal drug into
the sleeping-draught, must have been some other woman. Suspicion seems
to have fallen on no one else; but have not you, in your private
thought, some idea as to who this midnight poisoner really was?”
“Not the remotest in the world,” replied Eudora, in astonishment at the
question.
“Humph—take time—reflect.”
“I have reflected, sir, but without effect.”
“Again, then,” said the lawyer, referring to his notes; “in your own
evidence given before the second inquest you testify that on the night
of your cousin’s sudden death, while watching beside her sick-bed, you
lost yourself in light slumber for a moment, but was almost immediately
awakened by the impression of some strange presence in the room, and
that, in the momentary interval between sleeping and waking, you saw, or
dreamed you saw, a dark-robed female figure glide through the room and
disappear in the communicating one; but that on arousing yourself, and
searching that room and the adjoining one, you found no trace of an
intruder. Now, what I wish to ask you is, whether you believe that you
really saw anyone in the sick-chamber at that hour or not?”
“I was so shocked and terrified, and grieved by the sudden death of my
cousin, that I could not then speak definitely as to whether I really
saw or only dreamed of that figure in the room; because the scene passed
on the instant of my waking up, and while my faculties were bewildered
by slumber. But since that night, every time I have thought of that
strange incident in my watch, I have become more and more firmly
convinced that what I saw was reality.”
“In a word, that there was a woman in Miss Leaton’s room that night?”
“Yes, I earnestly believe that there was.”
“And that this woman dropped the poison into the cooling drink prepared
for Miss Leaton?”
“Indeed I fear so; for when I saw the figure it was gliding away from
the mantelpiece where the jug of tamarind-water stood, towards the door
that opened into my own little room.”
“And might not that woman have put the poison into your drawers? And may
we not in that way account for its presence there?”
Eudora started violently, and turned deadly pale. The idea of such a
depth of wickedness never before had been presented to her mind; and now
it seemed to crush the very soul from her body.
“Because my theory of the case is, that the secret poisoner took
measures effectually to conceal her own crime and to fix it upon you.
And that is also the scheme of our defence.”
“Oh, Heaven of heavens! can a human being—can a _demon_ be so
atrociously wicked!” gasped Eudora, in a suffocating voice.
“Yes; a woman can be so. But reflect, and tell me, have you no possible
suspicion as to who this woman might have been?”
“No; I have not the remotest idea.”
“Well; in the first place, it must have been the same woman whose shadow
was seen by Lady Leaton on the wall of Lord Leaton’s chamber on the
night of his sudden death.”
“You think, then, that Lady Leaton’s impression of having seen such a
figure was correct?”
“I think so. Now, reflect once more, and tell me if you have no clue to
the identity of this woman?”
“Can nothing be done to ascertain who that woman is, if really guilty,
and fix the guilt upon her?” inquired Malcolm.
“Yes, much. But the first and most important thing to be done is to keep
perfectly silent regarding our suspicions, so that she may not be put
upon her guard. The next thing is to engage the services of two or three
experienced detectives, but that will be expensive.”
Malcolm’s face clouded at the remembrance of his limited resources.
But Eudora placed her roll of bank-notes in the lawyer’s hands, and
said:
“Pray take from that parcel as much as may be needed for this service,
and hand over the remainder to Mr. Montrose.”
The lawyer drew out two fifty pound notes, and handed the balance to the
astonished Malcolm.
As that was not the proper time to tell the story of this mysterious
loan, Eudora merely looked at Malcolm and smiled, for now she _could_
smile, as the presence of the lawyer who came to defend her cheered her
spirits and raised her hopes, even as the face of the physician who
appears to cure animates and revives the sinking and dying patient.
The consultation was continued a little longer, and then the lawyer
gathered up his documents and withdrew to prepare his defence.
On taking leave, Malcolm found an opportunity of lingering behind for a
moment to look the question that he would not ask.
“Yes, the money was brought me by Alma Elverton, whom you must have
noticed here as you came in, though she immediately lowered her veil,
and withdrew,” said Eudora, replying to this mute inquiry just as
directly as though it had been made in words.
“I noticed a lady pass out, but did not recognize her as Miss Elverton.
And so it was Alma who lent us the money?”
“No; she was acting as the agent of those whose names she was forbidden
to mention, but who professed to have a personal and even selfish
interest in the acquittal of the innocent and the crimination of the
guilty. Was I right to accept this loan?”
“Perfectly. It was a godsend! but we must find out, if possible, who are
your benefactors. The knowledge may be of the greatest use in your
defence. And here is another piece of service to be rendered by our
detectives,” said Malcolm. Then, knowing that he must not linger longer,
he pressed the hand of his betrothed, and said:
“Farewell for the present, my dear Eudora. I will return and visit you
as often as I may be permitted to do so. In the meanwhile, may God be
with you.”
And so saying, he released her hand, and followed the lawyer from the
cell.