CONDEMNED TO DEATH.
It was evening, in Mrs. King's parlour in Maida Vale. Darkness had set
in, but the wretched woman who was sitting over the neglected and nearly
extinct fire, alone with her gloomy thoughts, did not rise to light the
lamp.
After nearly a week of stormy and conflicting emotions and ever-changing
plans, the troubled mind had calmed somewhat. Catherine had decided to
put the matter of Mary's desertion before the Inner Circle, and was even
then awaiting the arrival of Sisters Susan and Eliza, whom she had
summoned for that object.
Mary must die! Looking at it from every point of view, she could see no
other way out of the difficulty. The girl could not be a wife and a
baby-murderer, or even an innocent accomplice of baby-murderers at the
same time. Yes, Mary must die! But Catherine could not trust herself.
She could not look at Mary's case with an unbiassed mind. Her great hate
and love of the girl prevented her from considering the question merely
as it affected the interests, the safety of the Secret Society. She felt
this keenly, so, as she above all things desired to act with strict
justice, and knew that her present mood might as readily drive her to
undue leniency as to unnecessary sternness, she determined to leave the
judgment of Mary entirely in the hands of the other sisters of the Inner
Circle. She would put the whole case before them: she would abide by
their unimpassioned verdict.
But yet she could scarcely doubt what that verdict would be. How could
such a society exist unless deserters were removed beyond all
possibility of their becoming traitors?
So Catherine sat in the deserted room awaiting the two Sisters who were
to decide her darling's doom. How dreary that room now appeared to the
miserable creature! There was no Mary there now to lighten it, and she
knew that there never again would be. The only human affection of her
heart had been ruthlessly trampled upon. Were it not for the scheme she
would have died; but she still had that to care for, and for that alone
she must live for the remainder of her loveless life.
At last there came a ring at the street-door bell. She started, she felt
fearfully nervous now that the interview on which so much depended was
so near.
The maid-servant ushered in Sister Eliza and Sister Susan.
Sister Eliza, fresh from the comfortable and substantial dinner, at
which she had just been presiding in her Bayswater boarding-house,
looked stout and beaming as usual; but Susan Riley looked pale and ill,
her eyes, surrounded by dark circles, glittered strangely, and their
contracted pupils showed that she had not yet abandoned her practice of
laudanum-drinking. She was even then excited with the drug; her brain
was on fire with it.
Catherine rose and motioned the women to two chairs. Until the
indispensable green tea came up they spoke little and on indifferent
matters. The anxiety and nervousness of the Chief communicated itself to
the others: even the volatile Susan was subdued in her manner.
The servant brought up the tea and went downstairs. Then there was a
complete silence for some minutes, each waiting for another to speak
first. Catherine was staring fixedly into the fire, with a look on her
face that awed the two women, they imagined that some great calamity
must of a certainty have befallen the Cause.
At last Sister Eliza spoke, she could bear the suspense no longer.
"Sister Catherine, you say you have summoned us to discuss some
important matter?"
The Chief looked up, and replied with a forced calmness in her voice:
"Yes; I wish to put before you the conduct of one of the Sisterhood--of
Mary Grimm, in fact."
"I suspected her!" put in Susan eagerly, the shadow of fear passing from
her face; she had not forgotten her hatred for Mary, though so far she
had found no opportunity for gratifying it.
"Mary wishes to leave us," continued the Chief.
"So I suspected," broke in again the exultant voice of Susan.
"I have discovered that she has formed an attachment with a man."
"I knew it, and you have called us here to decide what shall be done
with the traitor?"
"She is not a traitor yet."
Sister Eliza spoke next. "But if you do not take care, she soon will be
a traitor, Sister Catherine. I too have heard something of this before;
she is in love with that doctor. You should not have allowed her to go
to his sister's house at Farnham. I thought at the time it was very
imprudent."
"It was the inevitable, Sister Eliza--the girl was dying," replied the
Chief.
"It would have been safer had she died."
"Perhaps so; but the question before is, what is to be done now?"
Catherine spoke sharply. She was considerably nettled at the cool and
unfeeling way in which the sisters entered on the discussion, though she
knew that it was unreasonable on her part to expect anything else.
It was Susan's turn to speak, and she did so in an irritatingly calm and
business-like voice.
"I can only see one answer to that question."
"Well!"
"Mary must be put out of the way."
A long pause followed; the three women sipped their strong tea in
silence.
Then Catherine said, "That is dangerous--now is it necessary?"
Sister Eliza raised her eyes in wonder. What was the Chief hesitating
about? what doubt could there be?
"Necessary! of course," said Susan. "We cannot allow her to leave us and
betray us to her lover the doctor."
"She is no traitor," exclaimed Catherine indignantly; "whatever happened
she would never betray us."
"I am not so sure of that," said Sister Eliza. "Mary is no traitor; she
is devoted to you, Sister Catherine, and to the Cause. I know all that.
But now consider the facts: She loves this doctor. She is surrounded by
a religious family. May she not, too, come to accept this religion in
time? Why, she is sure to do so! The influence of those she loves, and
with whom alone she associates, must mould her opinions. Now, when she
_has_ become religious, do you think she will quietly read in the papers
the accounts of our doings--murders as she will call them, and do
nothing--hold her tongue? Of course not! Religion will command her to
save the children by betraying us. It cannot be otherwise. However much
she loves you, Sister Catherine, let her once come to look on our Cause
as wrong, duty will force her to tell all. That religion which enjoins
its followers to abandon wives and children for its sake, will not allow
your safety to stand in its way. You must not leave her at Farnham."
Too well did Catherine know how true all this was, but in her anxiety to
be strictly neutral and unprejudiced, she would not allow herself to be
convinced yet, she would even plead for the girl, and endeavour to find
any arguments that might tell in her favour.
Susan spoke next with tones of ill-concealed malice. "I tell you, Sister
Catherine, that this Mary among the buttercups and babies down there at
Farnham, cannot but be a fearful danger to us. Buttercups and babies are
frightfully demoralizing to soft-hearted novices like that weak girl.
Sister Eliza is right. There are but two alternatives. She must give up
her doctor. She must leave his people in the country, and come back to
us in London, or she must be removed. She is weak--she is in
love--weakness and love make religion and treason."
Catherine shook her head as she answered, "You know well, Sister Susan,
even as you speak, that the first of your alternatives is quite out of
the question. To come back to us would kill her. She will never do our
work. She is unfit for it. She is not of the proper stuff. We must,
whatever we do, absolve her of her engagements. We must abandon all hope
of her becoming one of us again."
"Abandon your favourite pupil!" exclaimed Sister Eliza, "but is it
really as bad as this? Are you sure she cannot be brought back?"
"You know, Sister, what it must mean to me to abandon her," replied
Catherine. "You must know. But I see no remedy. It is useless to force
her. If I asked her, she might, but I doubt it, return to us, only to
die of a broken heart."... She paused till she could command her
emotion, and till the pain at her heart subsided, then commenced again
in a calm and proud voice: "Now that I have heard your opinions I will
tell you all. Sister Eliza, what you have just foretold as likely to
happen, has happened. Not only is Mary in love with the doctor, but her
love and her new associations _have_, as you said they would, made her
look with horror on our Cause. She _has_, in her weakness of mind,
forgotten all the teachings of years; she _has_ accepted the religious
creed of fools; she _has_" ... but she paused suddenly, her fury was
carrying her away; with a great effort of will she calmed herself once
more and concluded, "Such being the state of things, I ask you,
Sisters, what must be done?"
Sister Eliza replied in a serious voice: "There can be no mercy shown in
this case, we cannot risk the whole of this glorious fabric we have
built up with such toil and care, we cannot endanger our great Cause for
one weak girl's sake. She must die."
"I agree with you," said Catherine slowly and still quite calmly.
"She must die," said Susan with a slight ring of exultation in her cold
voice.
Catherine rung the bell and the maid brought up a fresh supply of green
tea.
There was a silence for some minutes--during which the Chief looked
broodingly into the ashes of the now extinct fire.
Susan broke the silence. "The next question is--how--"
Catherine started from her black reverie. "How what?"
"How the deserter is to be removed with the greatest safety and
expedition."
Catherine shuddered visibly, then she spoke again--"Sisters, you have
never known me weak or vacillating or cowardly."
"Had you been so, you would not have gained the confidence of such a
Sisterhood as this is," replied Sister Eliza.
"No! I thought I was above all foolish weakness, but I find I am not so.
This is the first time that we have had to take away life for the Cause,
but do not imagine that I shall ever again behave in this manner. I
confide this to you two, for you will understand me--you will not
consider I have forfeited my right to be the Chief of the Sisterhood,
because on one exceptional occasion I cannot be altogether as I would
be. Think of it!--This girl has lived with me so long. I believed I had
in her one who would have been of the very highest service to the
Cause--I am disappointed--I feel this more than you suppose. Now, I wish
to have nothing personally to do with the--the removal of this girl,"
she could not bring herself to utter Mary's name now. "Arrange it among
yourselves. Tell me when it is all over. I do not feel strong enough to
go into this matter--besides, it is not necessary I should. But after
this," and she raised her voice to tones of haughty determination, "no
one will ever see me weak again. Unpitying stern justice should be the
only sentiment of one who aspires to lead such a Cause as ours."
But Susan, who was full of malicious ecstacy this evening, did not feel
inclined to spare her Chief all further pain. She was filled with a
delicious lust for torturing anything that came across her. It was her
way when she felt happier than usual, so she said, "But, Sister
Catherine, we must at any rate have your advice. This is a very delicate
task we have to perform. How are we to get at Mary while she is in the
country? It will not be easy. She knows our rules, our methods of doing
things. A very slight mistake and we are lost. Who can we send down to
do this thing? I would go myself, but she knows me, dislikes me, and
would at once divine my object. Now I have a plan by which she can be
removed with the very least amount of danger."
Catherine felt sick with disgust and horror, but she could not refuse to
listen--it was her duty--_her duty!_ she had to keep that idea
constantly before her during the interview, so that she might not fail
in this terrible ordeal.
"What is it?" she asked in a feeble voice--she could not bear this
torture much longer.
Susan spoke deliberately and without making any effort to gloss over the
horror of her proposal.
"There is only one of us that Mary loves and trusts--that is yourself,
Sister Catherine; is it not so?"
"It is."
"Well," continued the torturer, "as you alone of us would have any
chance of seeing her at Farnham--"
"Impossible," interrupted Catherine with a smothered shriek, as she rose
from her chair, her hands clenched, quite forgetting herself beneath the
scourges of that devil's tongue.
Susan smiled--"You understand me, Sister Catherine--I do not propose,
after what you have said, that you should do the deed. I will do it
myself if you will it. But what I mean is this: To effect this removal
with safety, Mary must be induced to leave the country--she must be
brought to town, to some house, where she can have a relapse, and where
we can nurse the invalid." The woman smiled again her evil smile as she
watched her Chief writhe beneath the words--"Once in town, in this or
some other safe house, I will guarantee to produce a relapse, and that
once produced, it would be hardly difficult to administer Sister Jane's
preparation, without ever arousing the patient's suspicions. Then we can
call in the doctors--even her own dear doctor--without fear. They won't
be able to bring her round from that relapse I think."
Sister Eliza, after a little thought said, "I quite agree with Sister
Susan. This is the only really safe method before us, and there is
absolutely no risk in it if we work carefully. It is true that you
alone, Sister Catherine, have sufficient influence over the girl to
bring her to London. It will be well for you to write to her. I should
suggest you tell her that, seeing how her views have altered for good,
you have decided to absolve her from her vows. Ask her to come up and
stay with you for a few weeks. Write in affectionate terms. She is sure
to come, and she will do so for none else."
"Like Judas Iscariot betraying her with a kiss," said Susan, who could
not resist the dear temptation of giving this thrust.
Catherine started as if stung but said nothing. Sister Eliza frowned,
and her face flushed with indignation, when she heard this gratuitously
unpleasant remark.
"What do you think of my proposal, Sister?" inquired Susan of her Chief,
eyeing her furtively.
Catherine pondered in silence for a while. She saw that this was,
indeed, the only safe method; she would have liked to have had nothing
to do with the execution of this just decree--but that, she said to
herself, was cowardice on her part. Her instrumentality was necessary,
at any rate to bring the girl to town, so she replied in a low weary
voice: "So be it--you are right--but there is one thing"--and her voice
trembled--"she must not come to this house--I must be spared that."
"You need not even see her, Sister Catherine," said Eliza. "I know a
little furnished villa on the Thames. We can take it for a couple of
months. Persuade her to come there for a visit. It is just the place
that a convalescent would be taken to. You will only require one
servant, I can supply you with one from the Sisterhood. Leave all the
rest to Sister Susan and myself; I understand your feelings on this
matter--I do not think you need be ashamed of them. It is the first time
I have ever seen emotion come in the way of your duty, and you have
resisted it nobly, Sister."
"Then," said Sister Susan, "all is settled. The cottage by the Thames
shall be hired. Can we get it at once, Sister Eliza?"
"It is ready for immediate occupation: we can enter the day after
to-morrow."
"Good; then you will write to Mary," said Susan turning to the Chief.
"The sooner this business is completed the better for us all."
Catherine was not listening; she was staring again into the embers, her
brow knitted into a deep frown of pain. The image of her pupil--her Mary
whom she was about to sacrifice--rose before her. She yearned to see the
girl once more--only once more before she betrayed her to the
executioners. She could not strive against this great desire, so she
said:
"Sisters, I will not write, I will go myself down to Farnham--I will see
her--I will ask her with my own lips to come; she will not refuse
then--I know."
"Can you trust yourself?" asked Eliza doubtfully, and scanning the
woman's sad face, keenly.
"I should not advise that measure," urged Susan, apprehensively.
But the masterful spirit had come back again to Catherine, and she said
sternly and with authority, "I will do as I say, Sisters."
Eliza knew by the tone that the Chief was in no humour to listen to
contradiction now, so she rose and said:
"Then all is settled--I will at once take the cottage. Write to me,
Sister Catherine, and let me know exactly when Mary is to arrive in
town. I will meet her at the station, make some excuse for your absence,
and take her with me. I think I can do that better than anyone else. As
Susan herself allows, Mary dislikes her, so she had better not appear on
the scene at first. We will now leave you. Good-night, Sister! remember
_Courage and the Cause_, but I need not repeat that to you. Good-night!"
"Good-night, Sister!" said Susan with a happy smile.
Catherine had broken down at last; she turned her head from them and
made no reply to their salutations.
Sister Eliza looked at her Chief thoughtfully for a moment; then made a
sign to Susan, and they went out together.
Catherine sat alone in her chair over the dead fire. For hours after
they had gone she remained there brooding, motionless, in agony; and
when at last she rose with a shiver to retire to her bed, it seemed as
if many years had passed over her head in that time, so old and haggard
appeared her features. Her eyes were red but not with weeping--for she
could shed no tear--but hot and dry with a tearless anguish that could
never find relief.
But she determined--even if she died of the agony of it--that she would
do her duty. "_My duty! My duty!_" she kept murmuring to herself in her
fierce resolve; and she had strong need, indeed, to keep the Cause
constantly before her mind, in order to enable her to do this thing she
had to do--"My duty!--my duty!--but oh, it is hard--hard!"