What with Mrs. Stiles's ankle and the law's delays, the case was not
tried until September. But at the September term Stiles _vs._ The
Railway Company was reached, and stood at the head of the list.
On the morning of the fated day Mrs. Tarbell could have proceeded to the
court-room in state, for not only did the entire Stiles family present
itself at her office three-quarters of an hour before the time, but Mr.
Mecutchen, the tobacconist, also dropped in, with an air of always being
early at trials.
"I couldn't keep ma at home, Mrs. Tarbell," said Miss Stiles briefly,
but with some little shame. "She would come. She thought it would take
an hour and a half to get here from Pulaski Street; didn't you, ma?"
Mrs. Stiles gave an agitated groan and looked about helplessly for a
chair. She was walking with a cane, and had on a miraculous black silk,
the seams of which were like the ridges of a ploughed field. Miss
Georgiana Stiles, the younger daughter, was almost invisible under a
straw hat with feathers waving from its pinnacled crown. Miss Celandine,
by no means a bad-looking young lady, wore her best black jersey,
buttoned at the throat, over her cambric body, her best pique skirt,
trimmed with torchon lace, her white silk mitts, and her blue-and-white
bonnet. After settling Mrs. Stiles in a corner with Georgiana, Tecumseh
Sherman, and Augustus, Celandine and Mr. Mecutchen disappeared, to go
and stand on the door-step. Mrs. Tarbell guessed where they were going,
and would have liked to hint that the door-step was not a dignified
place for her client, but, if the truth must be told, she was afraid to
do so. For Miss Stiles had by this time utterly and completely
subjugated her, and Mrs. Tarbell hardly knew which of them was the
attorney of record in Stiles _vs._ The Railway Company. There can be no
doubt that Miss Celandine was an admirable young lady. She was paying
the expenses of the case out of her own savings,--savings which had been
the secret result of secret labors with the pen and type-writer. As soon
as the accident happened she quitted the High School, put aside her
books, and divided her time between nursing her mother and keeping the
books of a successful but illiterate milliner, who offered her a place;
and she gave so many other evidences of good sense and determination
that Mrs. Tarbell felt it would be hopeless to try to resist her. Her
decision did not seem to have altered in the least, nor was she at all
discouraged by Mrs. Tarbell's warnings; and Mrs. Tarbell found that in
every conversation which took place on the subject Mrs. Tarbell began as
a philosopher and ended as a disputant. All that could be done was to
give Miss Stiles her own way and try to improve her taste in dress if
possible. It was practically understood between them, though Mrs.
Tarbell had as yet refused to commit herself, that as soon as the trial
was over and the damages had been pocketed, Miss Celandine should be
duly installed, enrolled, and accredited as a student in the office of
Juddson and Tarbell. In the mean time, Augustus had been made an
office-boy through Mr. Juddson's interest.
The Stileses having been sent on before, Mrs. Tarbell, attended by the
office-boy bearing a bag full of books and papers, slipped quietly over
to court, whither Mr. Juddson said he would follow her in a few moments.
The room was crowded. Judge Measy had not yet appeared.
Mrs. Tarbell looked about her. It was the first day of the autumn term,
and, for one reason or another, the bar was very fully represented.
There was ex-Judge Dingley, with his frills and his snuff-box; Mr.
Moddison, with his shaggy eyebrows and square jaw; Mr. Brileson, almost
as long and thin as his nose; Mr. Eakins, looking as much like Oily
Gammon as ever; and, besides the leaders of the bar, any number of the
rank and file, especially of the junior members of the profession; and
with some of these young gentlemen's elder brothers Mrs. Tarbell had
danced, once on a time. There was a stir as Mrs. Tarbell came in; the
lawyers made way for her, and the jurors, witnesses, and spectators
craned their necks to get a look at her. Among the spectators, of
course, were Mrs. Pegley and the Pegleyites. Mrs. Tarbell knew that they
were there, but did not look at them. Mr. Pope rose magnificent and
shook hands with her; several persons shook hands with her. Mrs. Tarbell
felt that she was going to acquit herself commendably. She had gone
over the case three or four times with Alexander, she had rehearsed her
speech until she knew it by heart, she had joked about the case with her
friends (not her Pegley friends) at Cape May until she was no longer
afraid of it, if she ever had been, and she was quite able to feel that
Pope was insignificant. She had at first been filled with an
apprehension that he would become very intimate with her on the strength
of their mutual antagonism; but when several days passed by, and he had
done nothing more than bow courteously, she reflected that, after all,
it was not a very uncommon occurrence for him to have a jury case; and
when he privately came and offered to compromise she wondered what there
had ever been to frighten her in the man. She refused the compromise, of
course: if her case had been only half as strong she would have refused
it.
Rap! rap! Silence, please. His honor appeared, wiping his learned brow,
for it was an oppressively hot day, and the clerk proclaimed that all
persons might draw near and be heard by the honorable court. The jurors
answered to their names. Mr. Juddson, seated by his sister's elbow,
pushed the jury-list towards her, with a slight nod of encouragement.
Mrs. Tarbell did not need encouragement: she knew the names of the
objectionable jurors by heart, and she was quite ready.
The court-room settled down into a hush of subdued expectation, and
Stiles _vs._ The Railway Company was called. Mr. Pope and Mrs. Tarbell
rose, bowed to each other and to the court: they were ready to go on.
Mr. Pope drew first blood. Eight jurors were already in the box, and the
clerk called out, "John Ewing." John Ewing took his seat; there was no
cross against his name, and Mrs. Tarbell had no challenge to make, when,
before another name could be called, he leaned forward and called out,
in an easy voice, "Mrs. Tarbell, ef I have to swear in this case I mout
as well tell you that I used to work for the railway company."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Tarbell calmly, after a moment's hesitation. "Take your
seat, Mr. Ewing. I have entire confidence in your impartiality." She
waved her hand as if to include the whole of the jury, so far as
completed,--nay, the whole of the panel,--in the compliment, and the
jurors appeared to be suitably impressed.
But Mr. Pope rose. "Wait one minute, Mr. Ewing," he said, in a voice
which breathed rugged honesty and uncompromising determination. "I shall
have to ask you to withdraw." He shook his head sternly. "I cannot,
whatever may be the generous toleration of my learned opponent, I cannot
knowingly allow anybody who has any connection with my client to go on
the jury."
"That makes four challenges for him," whispered Mr. Juddson. Mrs.
Tarbell shook her head impatiently, and as Mr. Ewing left the box he
smiled a faint yet unmistakable smile at somebody in the crowd, and Mrs.
Tarbell became instantly convinced that the whole affair, even to the
drawing of Mr. Ewing's name by the court clerk, was a neatly-arranged
plot of Mr. Pope's, and, in her resentment, she challenged the next
juror out of hand, though he had an eye so humid and sympathetic that he
looked good for not only sentimental damages, but punitive damages of
the most revengeful description.
But she opened her case admirably. There was a slight hum as she rose;
her attitude was dignified, and she might have been called handsome.
Though every one else was stifling with the heat, she looked cool and
self-possessed, and her first sentences won her the respect of the bar;
for she made the matter-of-course explanation in a fairly novel manner.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said she, "you know without my telling you that
when my client, the plaintiff, Mrs. Stiles, comes here and says that she
has suffered at the hands of the railway company damages to the amount
of ten thousand dollars, she is not exaggerating her sufferings for the
sake of enlisting your sympathy. It is not that she comes to you with
feminine weakness, displaying her injuries, and, with feminine
resentment, overstating them and their effects, to rouse your pity. You
know, and I only remind you of it, that the rule of law forbids you to
give her more than she asks for: so I, on her behalf, take care that she
shall not ask for less than you might give her."
This was very well, and the jury probably understood as much.
Mrs. Tarbell paused a moment, and then proceeded in an impressive voice:
"But Mrs. Stiles's injuries, gentlemen, are not slight; she does not ask
you for a mere nominal sum in compensation of them, nor, in view of the
facts, will any sum that you do give her seem excessive. I shall show
you, gentlemen, that Mrs. Stiles, a widow, left almost penniless by her
husband, who has by her own efforts brought up and educated four
children, two of whom are still entirely dependent upon her, was, on the
ninth day of April last, through the negligence of the defendant,
injured in such a way as to give her seven weeks of the most painful
suffering and to render her unable for the rest of her life to do the
work upon which she has hitherto mainly depended for the support of
herself and her family. I shall show you that Mrs. Stiles attempted to
get on one of the defendant's cars; that while she was so doing the car
was started and she thrown off; that she sustained a sprain of the right
ankle and a fracture of the fibula; that the accident has resulted in
laming her for life and incapacitating her for the use of a
sewing-machine; and that it was by her sewing-machine that she supported
herself. Mrs. Stiles will now tell you her own story."
With this Mrs. Tarbell sat down. She had not the keen penetration which
years of practice give to a finished advocate, but she had feminine
instinct, which served her in quite as good stead; and, short as was the
time she had been addressing that jury, she felt that she could answer
for it as certainly as fifteen years before she could have answered for
one of her admirers. If Mr. Juddson had only been another woman she
could have told him this, but a glance would have been wasted on him: so
she kept her triumph to herself. She looked at the bullet-headed young
juror, at the benignant old juror, at the fat-faced and dropsical juror,
at the preternaturally-solemn negro juror, at the lantern-jawed foreman
with the black moustache; she was on a perfectly good understanding with
them, and knew what to say to each one of them. She felt that she could
have afforded to be a little less brief. However, Mrs. Stiles would
not-- By the way, where was Mrs. Stiles?
"Mrs. Stiles!" cried Mrs. Tarbell, half rising. "Mrs. Stiles, will you
please take the stand?"
Mrs. Stiles rose from her seat against the railing, and, after confiding
her second daughter to the care of Miss Celandine,--a ceremony which was
performed by her with evident anxiety,--hobbled to the witness-stand on
the arm of Mr. Mecutchen, who had been sitting beside her.
Mrs. Stiles on the witness-stand was a very different person,
apparently, from Mrs. Stiles in an every-day situation. It may have been
the effect of the crowd or the effect on her system of her long and
painful illness, but she was agitated and nervous to the last degree.
She looked steadily at Mrs. Tarbell, except when, every now and then,
she looked uneasily about the room, and she gave her answers in so low a
voice that the judge two or three times asked her to repeat them. But
otherwise all went well enough. Mrs. Stiles knew who she was, where she
lived, and what she had been doing on the day of the accident. When the
critical moment came, Mrs. Tarbell caught her breath, but Mrs. Stiles
avoided the difficulty in safety.
"I held up my umbereller for that there car to stop," she said; "and it
stopped. And I went to git on; and then the first thing I knew I was
falling."
This was highly satisfactory. For the rest, Mrs. Stiles described the
manner in which the doctors had vainly endeavored to cure her injured
ankle, told how she had passed sleepless night after night in spite of
the morphia and sweet spirits of nitre, how she had been confined to her
bed for three weeks and had only got up to be moved to a chair, how she
suffered _tortures_ and lost her appetite, how it was months before she
could walk without crutches, and how every step she took gave her the
most excruciating agony, and so forth, and so forth. She also, at Mrs.
Tarbell's request, gave to the jury several interesting details
concerning, first, her sewing-machine; second, the income she had been
used to make by it; third, the effect of the accident upon her power to
propel the aforesaid engine.
(Bill shown to witness.)
"This is my doctor--Dr. Laycock's bill: it is not paid yet."
(Offered in evidence. Another bill shown to witness.)
"This is the apothecary's bill. It has not been paid."
(Offered in evidence.)
"Cross-examine," said Mrs. Tarbell; and Mrs. Stiles slowly turned and
began to hobble away from the witness-stand.
"Mrs. Stiles!" cried Mrs. Tarbell; and Mrs. Stiles turned round aghast.
"Come back, my dear madam," said the Honorable Pope blandly. "We are not
quite through with you yet,--not for a moment or two."
Mrs. Stiles looked more overcome than ever. "My goodness! I forgot," she
stammered, and clutched desperately at the front of the witness-box.
Mr. Pope ran his hand through his flowing locks and smiled at her
reassuringly. After asking her one or two sympathetic questions about
her ankle,--she was _quite_ sure she had obeyed all the doctor's orders?
she was certain she had not begun to walk too soon, or injured herself
by any carelessness of her own?--he suddenly opened upon her.
"Now, madam," he said, "is it not a fact that that car was in motion
when you tried to get on it?"
"I--I--how do you mean, sir?" faltered Mrs. Stiles.
"Was not that car moving when you got on it?"
"Moving?"
"Yes, madam! _Moving!_"
"Why, ye--yes," said Mrs. Stiles. "So far's I remember, it was."
"Ah, I thought so," said Mr. Pope, with a peculiar intonation; and after
that he proceeded with great suavity to cross-examine her into a state
of utter bewilderment. As to what had happened after the accident she
contradicted herself six or seven times over, eagerly accepting any
suggestion which he held out to her; and Mr. Pope glanced triumphantly
at the jury,--neglecting, however, to remind them that Mrs. Stiles had
fainted as soon as her ankle was fractured, and that she was now only
expressing an opinion that his suggestions were probably correct.
Miss Stiles and Mr. Mecutchen plainly betrayed their agitation, but Mrs.
Tarbell preserved her equanimity. When Mr. Pope had finished his
cross-examination, she addressed her client again. Mrs. Stiles, pale,
agitated, trembling with fright, was leaning against her railing, almost
bending double over it; but at the sound of her lawyer's voice she
appeared to take courage.
"You said just now, Mrs. Stiles," said Mrs. Tarbell, "that the car was
in motion while you were getting on--"
"I beg your pardon," said the Honorable Pope, interrupting her.
"I think it is so," said Mrs. Tarbell, turning upon him with a very
haughty air. "I don't think Mrs. Stiles ever said that she tried to get
on while the car was in motion. Pray look at your notes, Mr. Pope."
"You are right," said Mr. Pope, sinking back into his chair. "I remember
now. It is quite the same thing," he continued, waving his hand
carelessly. "It makes no difference whatever."
"If you _think_ so," said Mrs. Tarbell loftily; and she reiterated her
question to Mrs. Stiles.
Mrs. Stiles fumbled with the lilac-silk tie about her neck, and
said,--Mrs. Tarbell hung upon her words,--"That car--"
Pause.
"That car had stopped before I went to git on,--I know _that_. And I
_went_ to git on; and after that I don't remember."
And when Mrs. Stiles finally hobbled back to her seat, a more woe-begone
and wretched-looking object it would have been hard to find anywhere.
"Why, ma, what's the matter with you?" cried Miss Celandine, as Mr.
Mecutchen went to take the stand. "Don't you see it's all right?"
Mrs. Stiles shook her head and rubbed her damp brow with her
handkerchief. "I don't feel no certainty about it, Celandine," she said.
"I wisht Mrs. Tarbell had let me accep' that compr'mise."
"Mamma!" cried Miss Celandine, in warning tones.
"Well--I think I would have been better satisfied. Because--because
mebbe I was the one to blame, you know."
"_Ssh_, ma! After you have come into court! It's ridiculous! Plenty of
people saw you. Listen to Mr. Mecutchen, if you want to know what
happened to you."
"I wisht," said Mrs. Stiles, "I wisht Mrs. Tarbell would say something
to the jury about how the railroad offered to compromise. That would
show 'em 'twas true about my accident."
"_Mamma!_ Be careful! If they hear you talking about that compromise
they'll stop the trial right here and turn us right out of court."
"Well, but they _did_, Celandine: they offered me six hu--"
"Ma, will you hush?" said Celandine; and when her daughter spoke in that
tone of voice, Mrs. Stiles knew that she must obey. She relapsed into
silence again, helpless and despairing.
Mecutchen testified, Vickers testified, Parthenheimer
testified,--Stethson had gone to Baton Rouge, according to
Mecutchen,--and all were as strong as could be. Dr. Laycock identified
his bill, swore that his treatment of Mrs. Stiles was in accordance with
the most recent discoveries in medical science, that Mrs. Stiles had
suffered unheard-of agonies, and that she had obeyed all his directions
to the letter.
Miss Celandine also swore to her mother's agonies, and described the
condition to which the household had been brought by Mrs. Stiles's
accident.
Then Mrs. Tarbell bowed to the judge, and said, "That is my case, your
honor."
"And a very good case, too," she thought, as she sat down.
Pope's cross-examination had effected nothing, and the judge was against
him. Alexander, with his thumbs in his waistcoat, looked entirely
satisfied; Judge Measy, fanning himself and gasping under the heat,
appeared to be anxious for Mr. Pope to get through his flimsy defence as
quickly as possible.
Mr. Pope rose, flung back his hair, paused a moment, and then began. He
thanked his learned opponent for kindly putting the jury on the track of
a suggestion which he himself might have been delicate about making to
them. He would have been unwilling to dwell upon the--hem--peculiar
_status_ of his opponent; but she herself had seen fit to take it for
granted that he intended to advance a certain class of arguments, and he
consequently considered it only fair to her to do so. He should not,
however, call them arguments: they were rather considerations which
would serve to explain the arguments which Mrs. Tarbell herself had
used. "My learned opponent," said Mr. Pope, "told you that you mustn't
think of her client as a woman who comes here and asks for your
sympathy; you mustn't, she says, suppose that there is any feminine
weakness or resentment about Mrs. Stiles, nor, for a stronger
reason,--such is the unexpressed conclusion,--is there any feminine
weakness about Mrs. Stiles's eloquent counsel. Well, gentlemen, if Mrs.
Stiles is not a woman, what is she? Is she a white elephant? Is she a
female suffragist? which, I have heard, is neither man nor woman."
(Immense laughter in court, indignation in the cheeks of Mrs. Tarbell, a
lofty and contemptuous frown on the forehead of Mrs. Pegley.)
"Gentlemen, with the greatest possible respect for Mrs. Stiles, whose
painful sufferings I greatly deplore, and to whom I wish to tender my
entire sympathies; with, too, the greatest respect for my friend Mrs.
Tarbell, in admiration for whose talents and determination I yield to
nobody, I feel it my duty to say to you that this accident having
happened through the negligence, excusable perhaps, but still the
negligence,--carelessness, haste, if you will,--of Mrs. Stiles,--and
that this was the case I shall show you in a moment,--Mrs. Stiles and
her counsel, neither of them being for a single instant anything but a
woman, took the--what shall I say?--the romantic view of the matter
immediately. Romance, gentlemen, breathes its tender and refining
influence about the domestic fireside, chastens and sanctifies the
atmosphere of home, leads us, we all know, gentlemen, to holier and
purer views of life, and nerves us for the bitter struggle of the world.
But romance outside of the home-circle cuts but a sorry figure; it is
very dangerous for it to stray out of doors into the rough arena of
life,--into the street, gentlemen,--where there are street-cars. We must
look at the evils of life from the strictly legal point of view when
they come into court, gentlemen; and when his honor shall have laid down
to you the doctrine of contributory negligence, the bearings of which on
this case you have already thought of, I don't doubt,--when you come to
apply that rule to this case, you will make short work, I am afraid, of
romance."
Mr. Pope then proceeded to say that the case was in a nutshell. The
plaintiff had called a car; the driver of the car had pulled up his
horses; it was a wet day, the wheels would not stop quickly, and Mrs.
Stiles was in a hurry to get on; she tried to board the car while it was
in motion, and was thrown off. Was there any law to make a railway
company responsible for such accidents as this? or any railway company
that would not go out of business immediately if it _were_ to be held so
responsible?
Then Mr. Pope called his witnesses. He was a very short time examining
them; he bit his lips when he heard their answers. Mrs. Tarbell's
cross-examination was also short. Alexander whispered to her to cut it
short,--that the testimony was almost an admission of her case by
itself. But to Mrs. Stiles all these things were terribly significant of
victory for Mr. Pope; and the very fact that Mrs. Tarbell offered no
rebutting testimony was somehow twisted into another evidence of
approaching disaster by her poor stupid old mind. She hardly heard a
word of Mrs. Tarbell's speech to the jury. She was looking forward in
agony to what Mr. Pope would say. For she knew he was right. She knew
that Mrs. Tarbell had been carried away by her sympathies; she was sure
of it. Oh, why had she not gone to a gentleman lawyer? He would have
advised her not to bring suit; at least he would have allowed her to
accept that compromise. She was all alone. Celandine and Mr. Mecutchen
had gone away somewhere,--gone to get some ice-cream: they would be
back. Should she go and fling herself at Mr. Pope's feet and confess
everything?
When Mrs. Tarbell sat down there was a hum of applause, and the judge
stopped waving his fan for a moment to give Mrs. Tarbell a
scarcely-perceptible nod of approval.
"If I know anything, it'll be a two-thousand-dollar werdick," mumbled
one of the tipstaves.
Then Mr. Pope got on his legs. He passed his hand over his face, and
there was a countenance for you!--luminous, inspired, magical; a face
one moment like to a running brook for poetry and liquid sentiment, the
lines and wrinkles on it shifting about and rippling sweetly down into
his chin, where they cascaded off, so to speak; the next moment like a
mighty and rugged rock, a stronghold of security and protection, on
which he presently smote, Moses-like, and the brook of which I spoke
gushed out again.
"You know already, gentlemen," said he, "my view of this case. I think
that by this time it must be yours also."
Mrs. Stiles moaned. Then Mr. Pope proved to the jury that it was utter
nonsense for Mrs. Stiles's witnesses to pretend that they had seen the
accident, because the ordinary pedestrian looks at his nose when he is
walking, and not at the car-track. The jury smiled, the room grew hotter
and hotter, and the judge whiter and whiter.
"Mr. Mecutchen?" cried Mr. Pope. "Mr. Mecutchen never laid eyes on Mrs.
Stiles until he saw her lying in the middle of the street. I don't say
he is intentionally prevaricating. Of course he thinks he saw all that
he says he did. I grew up in the firm conviction that I had known Judas
Iscariot. I was ten years old before I could be persuaded that it was
only a sweet delusion,--a dazzling dream of childhood, too bright to
last."
The jury roared.
Then Mr. Pope talked of his own witnesses, and the virtues with which he
didn't invest those remarkable beings may exist in heaven, but are
certainly not to be found on earth, nor even in any of the intermediate
planetary paradises known to the Spiritualists.
And then--then he descended on Mrs. Stiles herself.
"What," he cried, suddenly, turning with an outburst of indignant
impatience from the petty arguments into which his love for the
exhibition of the whole truth in all its details had led him, "what are
you told by the most respectable and conscientious witness who has
appeared here to-day? What is the testimony of the one person who ought
to know _everything_ about this case? What does Mrs. Stiles say?
Nothing. She says nothing. She doesn't know what happened. If this were
a strong case, she would describe to you with minute particularity the
manner in which she put her hand upon the rail of the car, stepped on,
was jolted, tried to save herself, was thrown off. But not a word of
this have you heard from her. All that she remembers, as she confesses,
is that the car was in motion when she got on it."
Oh, where was Celandine? Had she gone out only to get ice-cream, or
because Georgiana was so hot that she couldn't stand it any longer? Mrs.
Stiles could not remember. Maybe it was Mr. Mecutchen that had spoken of
the ice-cream, and Celandine was going to put Georgiana in the cars and
send her home. It would have been better to send Augustus home with her.
And where were Augustus and Tecumseh Sherman?
Mrs. Stiles looked about the room. She saw no friendly faces, nobody to
encourage her, nobody whom she could apply to in her distress. How hot
it was! Could she not go over to the window and get a breath of air? The
room was very crowded. Mrs. Stiles hesitated, half rose, hesitated
again, and then got up and limped outside of the railings. People made
way for her, and when she reached the window a dark-faced man gave her a
place, and she went through a sort of parody of putting her head out
into the air.
The dark man looked at her thoughtfully. "Shan't I get you a glass of
water?" said he. Mrs. Stiles accepted his kindness with immense
gratitude. The dark man went and brought the water, and watched her with
a pair of very keen eyes while she was drinking it.
"Mr. Pope is making a good speech," he said presently.
Mrs. Stiles groaned. "Do you think he'll win?" she asked.
"Win?" said the dark man, with a pleasant smile. "Well, I should think
so. Just listen to him."
"But I'm not saying anything to Mrs. Tarbell's discredit," said the
Honorable Pope. "Not a bit of it. Not a bit of it. Her feelings do her
infinite honor. In her appearance on our wordy and contentious stage I
see the commencement of a new era of things. Let her be guided by her
feelings. Let her still preserve that beautiful sympathy which is one of
the chiefest ornaments of the female sex. It will bring to her a
thousand cases of injustice and oppression which we hardened lawyers of
the other sex have lost--if we ever had it--the instinct to detect. It
will lead her and her sisters to find justice and consolation for
innumerable victims of wrong-doing, whose hopes of obtaining redress
might have seemed poor and empty to us less inspired practitioners. No
one, no man, however jealous and crabbed in temper, will be sorry to see
the law vivified by a spark of that genius, that inexplicable instinct
by which women know what is right and make right to be done, where men
fail and fail again." Here Mr. Pope paused, and his features were those
of an angel. Then his expression changed to one of the most remarkable
sagacity and wariness. "But no one, gentlemen, will fail to recognize
the danger, easily avoided, which accompanies the lubricating, so to
speak, of our legal machinery by this sometimes superabundant sympathy.
Even genius errs, even instinct may be mistaken. Take the present case.
My learned opponent would be acting strictly within her duty by bringing
this case before you to ask for your decision. A man would do that. A
casehardened lawyer like myself would do that. But a man would take it
for granted his client was wrong, if he were beaten. Perhaps my learned
opponent will do the same thing. But if she does I shall be mistaken. In
all her subsequent career, which will be marked by more generosity,
charity, and enthusiasm than can now be boasted of by any man at the
bar, she never will believe that the verdict which I am asking you to
give was just to Mrs. Stiles. But she will be wrong. Right in a hundred
other cases, perhaps,--let that stand for the proportion, if you
will,--but wrong in this. And nothing but her misapplied sympathy and
tenderness of heart could have lent her the vigor and earnestness which
she has displayed to-day.
"Now, gentlemen, one thing more."
"That'll fetch 'em," said the dark man decidedly.
"Oh," moaned Mrs. Stiles, half aloud, "why didn't Mrs. Tarbell let me
accept that there compromise?"
"Compromise?" said the dark man quickly. "Why, are you Mrs. Stiles?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Stiles, drawing back in great alarm.
"And you say you were offered a compromise by the railway company which
your lawyer didn't let you accept?" said the dark man, in lower tones.
"Why, yes," said Mrs. Stiles hesitatingly.
The dark man struck his hand against the window-seat. "Well, upon my
word!" said he.
"Do you think I ought to have took it?" said poor Mrs. Stiles, in a
stifled voice.
The dark man eyed her pityingly. "You've lost your chance now," said he.
There was a sudden cry, a great bustle in the court-room, a rush toward
the judge's bench. Mr. Pope stopped short in his speech, looked up, and
hastened to follow the court clerk, who had sprung over the desk, though
Mr. Pope went round by the side-bar. The judge had swooned in his chair,
falling forward upon his desk. The heat had at last got the upper hand
of him, after a severe fight of two or three hours. Jurymen, witnesses,
spectators, all stood aghast. The judge was brought to and assisted to
his room, and the court clerk, presently returning to the disturbed and
excited forum, announced that, his honor being unwell, all parties would
be dismissed until to-morrow morning at ten o'clock,--and there was a
general rush for the door.
So it happened that when Miss Stiles and Mr. Mecutchen came back to the
court-room they found it closed, and neither Mrs. Stiles nor Mrs.
Tarbell anywhere to be seen.
The next morning, at ten o'clock, Mrs. Tarbell was wondering what had
become of the Stileses. She had missed Mrs. Stiles the day before, after
the sudden adjournment of the court, but she had been detained by Pegley
and friends, and thought it not unnatural that her client should have
decided not to wait for her. She was rather glad the accident had
happened,--that is, she was not sorry on her own account,--for the
delay had given her time to prepare one or two witticisms in answer to
Mr. Pope. She greeted Mr. Pope with a pleasant smile as he came into
court, but Mr. Pope seemed rather surprised to find her in such a serene
frame of mind.
"I assure you, my dear madam," said he, coming up to her instantly, and
speaking in his most earnest tones, "I assure you that I had nothing to
do with it whatever. I had no idea that anything of the sort was going
on; I knew absolutely nothing of it until they sent word to me from the
railway-office in the afternoon, and I really most sincerely regret that
I am forced to take advantage of my client's--and your client's--improper
action."
"What--what do you mean?" said Mrs. Tarbell, very much perplexed.
"What? Haven't you heard?" cried Mr. Pope.
"Heard? What should I hear?"
From the depths of his green bag Mr. Pope extracted a stiff pasteboard
envelope, bursting with papers and confined by an india-rubber band.
From this envelope he drew out a folded document, which he handed to
Mrs. Tarbell; and when Mrs. Tarbell clapped eyes on the document's
contents her face wore an expression before which Pope ought to have
blushed for shame. The document was a release, given by Mrs. Stiles to
the railway company,--a printed form, with blanks to be filled in as the
individual case should demand; a devilish engine of cozen and covin,
constructed in cold blood by the railway company, and supplied to them
(as a small line of print at the bottom of the paper showed) by
Detweiler, the Blank-Book Mfr., Irving Ave. and Prime St. Mrs. Stiles
had sold herself. For one hundred and twenty-five dollars she had
released to the railway company all the claims she might have, or could
have, upon it at any time, past, present, or future, on account of her
accident. There was Mrs. Stiles's hand, there was her seal; the date was
yesterday. Mrs. Tarbell read the release, and then looked at Mr. Pope.
But he did not blench.
"I regret this extremely, Mrs. Tarbell," he said. "It places me in a
very unenviable position. It was done," he continued, with a brazen
front, "it was done without my knowledge. My advice was not asked: the
company acted on their own responsibility and of their own motion. It
is, at best, a poor compliment to me as an officer of the road."
"Pray, how did Mrs. Stiles happen to go to the company's office?" asked
Mrs. Tarbell.
"I have not had a very clear account of it myself," said Mr. Pope,
clearing his throat and putting one foot up on a chair in front of him.
"It seems, however, that Mrs. Stiles was--hem--very much frightened by
my speech, and in some way got into conversation with an agent of the
company, a sort of bailiff to the corporation, in fact,--a man who
serves their subpoenas, and looks up their witnesses, and so on, in
addition to other work. This man is a sharp fellow, and, finding out
which way the cat was jumping, he decided, I suppose, that he would try
to make it jump as far as possible. Mrs. Stiles herself spoke of the
compromise, and said she regretted she had not signed it. That was
enough for my man; and when Judge Measy fainted he suggested to her to
take advantage of the delay by going round to the railway company's
office with him, where, he said, of course, he would see what he could
do for her, as he had friends in the office. At the company's office he
represented that he was acting under orders from me, the fact of the
matter being that the rogue knew that the case was going against us, and
Mrs. Stiles was virtually allowed to name her own sum. She took it, and
signed the release. The ingenious bailiff is in disgrace, but the
company think they have a good thing in the release, and I, as their
servant, can't refuse to obey them. _You_ understand that, of _course_,
my dear madam. But I must repeat that I'm sorry, and sorry for my own
sake, that this has happened, for I should be very unwilling to have
anything occur to interrupt or cloud the very pleasant professional
relations in which I have had the good fortune to find myself standing
toward you. But clients are queer cattle, as you'll soon discover. I can
assure you I have been treated much worse in my day."
Mrs. Tarbell tapped the slender paper against her open palm. Her lips
were compressed. Mr. Pope gazed at her with a queer look in his eyes.
The court-room was beginning to fill up; the jurymen were taking their
places in the box; the public interest in Stiles _vs._ The Railway
Company had not in the least diminished.
"Your bailiff seems to be a person of extraordinary acuteness," said
Mrs. Tarbell, at length.
"He used to be a sheriff's officer," said Mr. Pope blandly. "If you
like," he continued, "if you choose to attack this release on the ground
of fraud, I won't say a word. I think you're entitled to try it.
Possibly you might prove that the company took an unfair advantage of
your client, that misrepresentations were made to her. Still, I am free
to say that she seems to have signed it with her eyes open."
Mrs. Tarbell, her lips still compressed, raised her head and looked
about the room. As she did so she caught sight of Celandine standing by
the railing. Miss Stiles's face was anxious and downcast: she gave Mrs.
Tarbell an appealing glance.
"Excuse me one moment," said Mrs. Tarbell. She walked over to Miss
Celandine with a rapid step. "Did your mother know what she was doing
when she signed this?" said Mrs. Tarbell.
"Mrs. Tarbell," cried Miss Stiles, "I don't know what I can say to you.
I don't know how I'm ever going to beg your pardon. Ma she's in a
dreadful state; and I'm sure she ought to be, the way I've been talking
to her. She didn't dare to come here this morning; she was ashamed to
have you see her. And, if anything, I'm more ashamed than she, for I
really feel it more. I wonder you have the patience to listen to me."
Here Mrs. Tarbell interrupted. "Never mind that," she said. "Did Mrs.
Stiles do this of her own free will, or was she tricked into it?"
"That's the worst of it, Mrs. Tarbell, that's the worst of it. I can't
get her to say anything but that it was her own fault. To every question
I ask her, she says, 'No; it was my own fault. I just went and did it.'
I can_not_ understand it. Is there no way out of it? It's really, if you
don't mind my saying so, it's on your account I ask. I haven't slept a
wink all night. Ma was taken remorseful before she'd got two steps with
the money. And, do _you_ know, she was late for tea. We were in an awful
state about her; she never came home to dinner. We hunted high and low
for her. She went to Everett Square, and sat down on a bench there,
just--just--penitent. Oh, I _wish_ you could _see_ her! Indeed, if it
wasn't so right down dishonest it would be funny. But is there nothing
to be done? Do you know how it all happened? Do you know that a man in
the company's _em_ploy--I'm sure he was--got hold of ma and just twisted
her round? Couldn't you show that? And I know Mr. Pope got that man to
talk to her; I'm sure he did. Ma ain't fit to be trusted alone, that's
the amount of it."
"But can you get your mother to say that she was imposed upon?" said
Mrs. Tarbell, a faint gleam of hope asserting itself.
Celandine shook her head sadly. "After all," she said, "it ain't so much
that she was imposed upon, but that she imposed upon herself. They took
advantage of her, true enough, that's certain; but she let them do it.
Why, Georgiana--you couldn't make her give more than five cents' worth
of lemon taffy for five cents if you talked to her all day; but any
three-year-old baby on Pulaski Street can persuade ma that she's giving
short weight. I do feel so bad about it, Mrs. Tarbell. And ma lost three
buttons off her black silk yesterday, and won't have them sewed on. You
might think she was a Catholic, doing penance."
Mrs. Tarbell turned away without saying a word.
"Mrs. Tarbell! Mrs. Tarbell!" cried Celandine.
Mrs. Tarbell turned back. A few minutes later she was walking away
again, leaving Celandine very red in the face and beginning to cry. Mrs.
Tarbell had refused to accept the hundred and twenty-five dollars, or
any part of it, in payment of her fee.
As Mrs. Tarbell was coming out of the court-room--a juryman had in the
mean time told her that he hoped she had got a good round sum by her
compromise: "You would have had, say, eighteen hundred from us," he
said,--as Mrs. Tarbell was going down-stairs, having just told Mrs.
Pegley that she--Mrs. Tarbell--did not think it necessary to communicate
all her private affairs to her friends, there was Celandine waiting for
her in the passage.
"Mrs. Tarbell," said Celandine hesitatingly, her eyes still red,--"Mrs.
Tarbell--"
"Well?" said Mrs. Tarbell.
"About my studying law, please, ma'am. I just wanted to say
that--that--"
Unpropitious moment. The storm gathered on Mrs. Tarbell's brow.
"I just wanted to tell you that I shall have to give it up, ma'am," said
Celandine hurriedly. "I'm going to marry Mr. Mecutchen."
"I wish you joy," Mrs. Tarbell said, and went on down-stairs.