MARY'S EFFORTS TO PROVE AN ALIBI.
"There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was, with its stored thunder, labouring up."
KEATS' "HYPERION."
No sooner was Mary alone than she fastened the door, and put the
shutters up against the window, which had all this time remained
shaded only by the curtains hastily drawn together on Esther's
entrance, and the lighting of the candle.
She did all this with the same compressed lips, and the same stony
look that her face had assumed on the first examination of the paper.
Then she sat down for an instant to think; and rising directly, went,
with a step rendered firm by inward resolution of purpose, up the
stairs;--passed her own door, two steps, into her father's room. What
did she want there?
I must tell you; I must put into words the dreadful secret which she
believed that bit of paper had revealed to her.
Her father was the murderer!
That corner of stiff, shining, thick writing-paper, she recognised as
part of the sheet on which she had copied Samuel Bamford's beautiful
lines so many months ago--copied (as you perhaps remember) on the
blank part of a valentine sent to her by Jem Wilson, in those days
when she did not treasure and hoard up every thing he had touched, as
she would do now.
That copy had been given to her father, for whom it was made, and
she had occasionally seen him reading it over, not a fortnight
ago she was sure. But she resolved to ascertain if the other part
still remained in his possession. He might, it was just possible he
_might_, have given it away to some friend; and if so, that person
was the guilty one, for she could swear to the paper anywhere.
First of all she pulled out every article from the little old chest
of drawers. Amongst them were some things which had belonged to her
mother, but she had no time now to examine and try and remember them.
All the reverence she could pay them was to carry them and lay them
on the bed carefully, while the other things were tossed impatiently
out upon the floor.
The copy of Bamford's lines was not there. Oh! perhaps he might have
given it away; but then must it not have been to Jem? It was his gun.
And she set to with redoubled vigour to examine the deal-box which
served as chair, and which had once contained her father's Sunday
clothes, in the days when he could afford to have Sunday clothes.
He had redeemed his better coat from the pawn-shop before he left,
that she had noticed. Here was his old one. What rustled under her
hand in the pocket?
The paper! "Oh! Father!"
Yes, it fitted; jagged end to jagged end, letter to letter; and even
the part which Esther had considered blank had its tallying mark with
the larger piece, its tails of _y_s and _g_s. And then, as if that
were not damning evidence enough, she felt again, and found some
bullets or shot (I don't know which you would call them) in that
same pocket, along with a small paper parcel of gunpowder. As she
was going to replace the jacket, having abstracted the paper, and
bullets, &c., she saw a woollen gun-case made of that sort of striped
horse-cloth you must have seen a thousand times appropriated to such
a purpose. The sight of it made her examine still further, but there
was nothing else that could afford any evidence, so she locked the
box, and sat down on the floor to contemplate the articles; now with
a sickening despair, now with a kind of wondering curiosity, how
her father had managed to evade observation. After all it was easy
enough. He had evidently got possession of some gun (was it really
Jem's; was he an accomplice? No! she did not believe it; he never,
never would deliberately plan a murder with another, however he might
be wrought up to it by passionate feeling at the time. Least of all
would he accuse her to her father, without previously warning her; it
was out of his nature).
Then having obtained possession of the gun, her father had loaded it
at home, and might have carried it away with him some time when the
neighbours were not noticing, and she was out, or asleep; and then he
might have hidden it somewhere to be in readiness when he should want
it. She was sure he had no such thing with him when he went away the
last time.
She felt it was of no use to conjecture his motives. His actions
had become so wild and irregular of late, that she could not reason
upon them. Besides, was it not enough to know that he was guilty of
this terrible offence? Her love for her father seemed to return with
painful force, mixed up as it was with horror at his crime. That
dear father, who was once so kind, so warm-hearted, so ready to help
either man or beast in distress, to murder! But, in the desert of
misery with which these thoughts surrounded her, the arid depths of
whose gloom she dared not venture to contemplate, a little spring of
comfort was gushing up at her feet, unnoticed at first, but soon to
give her strength and hope.
And _that_ was the necessity for exertion on her part which this
discovery enforced.
Oh! I do think that the necessity for exertion, for some kind of
action (bodily or mental) in time of distress, is a most infinite
blessing, although the first efforts at such seasons are painful.
Something to be done implies that there is yet hope of some good
thing to be accomplished, or some additional evil that may be
avoided; and by degrees the hope absorbs much of the sorrow.
It is the woes that cannot in any earthly way be escaped that admit
least earthly comforting. Of all trite, worn-out, hollow mockeries
of comfort that were ever uttered by people who will not take the
trouble of sympathising with others, the one I dislike the most
is the exhortation not to grieve over an event, "for it cannot be
helped." Do you think if I could help it, I would sit still with
folded hands, content to mourn? Do you not believe that as long as
hope remained I would be up and doing? I mourn because what has
occurred cannot be helped. The reason you give me for not grieving,
is the very and sole reason of my grief. Give me nobler and higher
reasons for enduring meekly what my Father sees fit to send, and I
will try earnestly and faithfully to be patient; but mock me not, or
any other mourner, with the speech, "Do not grieve, for it cannot be
helped. It is past remedy."
But some remedy to Mary's sorrow came with thinking. If her father
was guilty, Jem was innocent. If innocent, there was a possibility of
saving him. He must be saved. And she must do it; for was not she the
sole depository of the terrible secret? Her father was not suspected;
and never should be, if by any foresight or any exertions of her own
she could prevent it.
She did not yet know how Jem was to be saved, while her father
was also to be considered innocent. It would require much thought
and much prudence. But with the call upon her exertions, and her
various qualities of judgment and discretion, came the answering
consciousness of innate power to meet the emergency. Every step now,
nay, the employment of every minute, was of consequence; for you
must remember she had learnt at Miss Simmonds' the probability that
the murderer would be brought to trial the next week. And you must
remember, too, that never was so young a girl so friendless, or so
penniless, as Mary was at this time. But the lion accompanied Una
through the wilderness and the danger; and so will a high, resolved
purpose of right-doing ever guard and accompany the helpless.
It struck two; deep, mirk, night.
It was of no use bewildering herself with plans this weary, endless
night. Nothing could be done before morning: and, at first in her
impatience, she began to long for day; but then she felt in how unfit
a state her body was for any plan of exertion, and she resolutely
made up her mind to husband her physical strength.
First of all she must burn the tell-tale paper. The powder, bullets,
and gun-case, she tied into a bundle, and hid in the sacking of
the bed for the present, although there was no likelihood of their
affording evidence against any one. Then she carried the paper down
stairs, and burnt it on the hearth, powdering the very ashes with her
fingers, and dispersing the fragments of fluttering black films among
the cinders of the grate. Then she breathed again.
Her head ached with dizzying violence; she must get quit of the pain
or it would incapacitate her for thinking and planning. She looked
for food, but there was nothing but a little raw oatmeal in the
house: still, although it almost choked her, she ate some of this,
knowing from experience, how often headaches were caused by long
fasting. Then she sought for some water to bathe her throbbing
temples, and quench her feverish thirst. There was none in the house,
so she took the jug and went out to the pump at the other end of
the court, whose echoes resounded her light footsteps in the quiet
stillness of the night. The hard, square outlines of the houses cut
sharply against the cold bright sky, from which myriads of stars
were shining down in eternal repose. There was little sympathy in
the outward scene, with the internal trouble. All was so still, so
motionless, so hard! Very different to this lovely night in the
country in which I am now writing, where the distant horizon is soft
and undulating in the moonlight, and the nearer trees sway gently to
and fro in the night-wind with something of almost human motion; and
the rustling air makes music among their branches, as if speaking
soothingly to the weary ones who lie awake in heaviness of heart. The
sights and sounds of such a night lull pain and grief to rest.
But Mary re-entered her home after she had filled her pitcher, with
a still stronger sense of anxiety, and a still clearer conviction of
how much rested upon her unassisted and friendless self, alone with
her terrible knowledge, in the hard, cold, populous world.
She bathed her forehead, and quenched her thirst, and then, with wise
deliberation of purpose, went upstairs, and undressed herself, as if
for a long night's slumber, although so few hours intervened before
day-dawn. She believed she never could sleep, but she lay down, and
shut her eyes; and before many minutes she was in as deep and sound a
slumber as if there was no sin nor sorrow in the world.
She awakened, as it was natural, much refreshed in body; but with a
consciousness of some great impending calamity. She sat up in bed
to recollect, and when she did remember, she sank down again with
all the helplessness of despair. But it was only the weakness of an
instant; for were not the very minutes precious, for deliberation if
not for action?
Before she had finished the necessary morning business of dressing,
and setting her house in some kind of order, she had disentangled her
ravelled ideas, and arranged some kind of a plan for action. If Jem
was innocent (and now, of his guilt, even his slightest participation
in, or knowledge of, the murder, she acquitted him with all her
heart and soul), he must have been somewhere else when the crime was
committed; probably with some others, who might bear witness to the
fact, if she only knew where to find them. Every thing rested on her.
She had heard of an alibi, and believed it might mean the deliverance
she wished to accomplish; but she was not quite sure, and determined
to apply to Job, as one of the few among her acquaintance gifted with
the knowledge of hard words, for to her, all terms of law, or natural
history, were alike many-syllabled mysteries.
No time was to be lost. She went straight to Job Legh's house, and
found the old man and his grand-daughter sitting at breakfast; as she
opened the door she heard their voices speaking in a grave, hushed,
subdued tone, as if something grieved their hearts. They stopped
talking on her entrance, and then she knew they had been conversing
about the murder; about Jem's probable guilt; and (it flashed upon
her for the first time) on the new light they would have obtained
regarding herself: for until now they had never heard of her giddy
flirting with Mr. Carson; not in all her confidential talk with
Margaret had she ever spoken of him. And now Margaret would hear her
conduct talked of by all, as that of a bold, bad girl; and even if
she did not believe every thing that was said, she could hardly help
feeling wounded, and disappointed in Mary.
So it was in a timid voice that Mary wished her usual good-morrow,
and her heart sank within her a little, when Job, with a form of
civility, bade her welcome in that dwelling, where, until now, she
had been too well assured to require to be asked to sit down.
She took a chair. Margaret continued silent.
"I'm come to speak to you about this--about Jem Wilson."
"It's a bad business, I'm afeared," replied Job, sadly.
"Ay, it's bad enough anyhow. But Jem's innocent. Indeed he is; I'm as
sure as sure can be."
"How can you know, wench? Facts bear strong again him, poor fellow,
though he'd a deal to put him up, and aggravate him, they say. Ay,
poor lad, he's done for himself, I'm afeared."
"Job!" said Mary, rising from her chair in her eagerness, "you must
not say he did it. He didn't; I'm sure and certain he didn't. Oh! why
do you shake your head? Who is to believe me,--who is to think him
innocent, if you, who know'd him so well, stick to it he's guilty?"
"I'm loth enough to do it, lass," replied Job; "but I think he's
been ill used, and--jilted (that's plain truth, Mary, hard as it may
seem), and his blood has been up--many a man has done the like afore,
from like causes."
"Oh, God! Then you won't help me, Job, to prove him innocent? Oh!
Job, Job; believe me, Jem never did harm to no one."
"Not afore;--and mind, wench! I don't over-blame him for this." Job
relapsed into silence.
Mary thought a moment.
"Well, Job, you'll not refuse me this, I know. I won't mind what you
think, if you'll help me as if he was innocent. Now suppose I know--I
knew he was innocent,--it's only supposing, Job,--what must I do to
prove it? Tell me, Job! Isn't it called an _alibi_, the getting folk
to swear to where he really was at the time?"
"Best way, if you know'd him innocent, would be to find out the real
murderer. Some one did it, that's clear enough. If it wasn't Jem, who
was it?"
"How can I tell?" answered Mary, in an agony of terror, lest Job's
question was prompted by any suspicion of the truth.
But he was far enough from any such thought. Indeed, he had no doubt
in his own mind that Jem had, in some passionate moment, urged on by
slighted love and jealousy, been the murderer. And he was strongly
inclined to believe, that Mary was aware of this, only that, too
late repentant of her light conduct which had led to such fatal
consequences, she was now most anxious to save her old play-fellow,
her early friend, from the doom awaiting the shedder of blood.
"If Jem's not done it, I don't see as any on us can tell who did. We
might find out something if we'd time; but they say he's to be tried
on Tuesday. It's no use hiding it, Mary; things looks strong against
him."
"I know they do! I know they do! But, oh! Job! isn't an _alibi_ a
proving where he really was at th' time of the murder; and how must
I set about an _alibi_?"
"An _alibi_ is that, sure enough." He thought a little. "You mun ask
his mother his doings, and his whereabouts that night; the knowledge
of that will guide you a bit."
For he was anxious that on another should fall the task of
enlightening Mary on the hopelessness of the case, and he felt that
her own sense would be more convinced by inquiry and examination than
any mere assertion of his.
Margaret had sat silent and grave all this time. To tell the truth,
she was surprised and disappointed by the disclosure of Mary's
conduct, with regard to Mr. Henry Carson. Gentle, reserved, and
prudent herself, never exposed to the trial of being admired for her
personal appearance, and unsusceptible enough to be in doubt even
yet, whether the fluttering, tender, infinitely-joyous feeling she
was for the first time experiencing, at sight, or sound, or thought
of Will Wilson, was love or not,--Margaret had no sympathy with the
temptations to which loveliness, vanity, ambition, or the desire of
being admired, exposes so many; no sympathy with flirting girls, in
short. Then, she had no idea of the strength of the conflict between
will and principle in some who were differently constituted from
herself. With her, to be convinced that an action was wrong, was
tantamount to a determination not to do so again; and she had little
or no difficulty in carrying out her determination. So she could not
understand how it was that Mary had acted wrongly, and had felt too
much ashamed, in spite of all internal sophistry, to speak of her
actions. Margaret considered herself deceived; felt aggrieved; and,
at the time of which I am now telling you, was strongly inclined to
give Mary up altogether, as a girl devoid of the modest proprieties
of her sex, and capable of gross duplicity, in speaking of one
lover as she had done of Jem, while she was encouraging another in
attentions, at best of a very doubtful character.
But now Margaret was drawn into the conversation. Suddenly it flashed
across Mary's mind, that the night of the murder was the very night,
or rather the same early morning, that Margaret had been with Alice.
She turned sharp round, with--
"Oh! Margaret, you can tell me; you were there when he came back that
night; were you not? No! you were not; but you were there not many
hours after. Did not you hear where he'd been? He was away the night
before, too, when Alice was first taken; when you were there for your
tea. Oh! where was he, Margaret?"
"I don't know," she answered. "Stay! I do remember something about
his keeping Will company, in his walk to Liverpool. I can't justly
say what it was, so much happened that night."
"I'll go to his mother's," said Mary, resolutely.
They neither of them spoke, either to advise or dissuade. Mary felt
she had no sympathy from them, and braced up her soul to act without
such loving aid of friendship. She knew that their advice would be
willingly given at her demand, and that was all she really required
for Jem's sake. Still her courage failed a little as she walked to
Jane Wilson's, alone in the world with her secret.
Jane Wilson's eyes were swelled with crying; and it was sad to
see the ravages which intense anxiety and sorrow had made on her
appearance in four-and-twenty hours. All night long she and Mrs.
Davenport had crooned over their sorrows, always recurring, like the
burden of an old song, to the dreadest sorrow of all, which was now
impending over Mrs. Wilson. She had grown--I hardly know what word to
use--but, something like proud of her martyrdom; she had grown to hug
her grief; to feel an excitement in her agony of anxiety about her
boy.
"So, Mary, you're here! Oh! Mary, lass! He's to be tried on Tuesday."
She fell to sobbing, in the convulsive breath-catching manner which
tells so of much previous weeping.
"Oh! Mrs. Wilson, don't take on so! We'll get him off, you'll see.
Don't fret; they can't prove him guilty!"
"But I tell thee they will," interrupted Mrs. Wilson, half-irritated
at the light way, as she considered it, in which Mary spoke; and a
little displeased that another could hope when she had almost brought
herself to find pleasure in despair.
"It may suit thee well," continued she, "to make light o' the misery
thou hast caused; but I shall lay his death at thy door, as long as
I live, and die I know he will; and all for what he never did--no, he
never did; my own blessed boy!"
She was too weak to be angry long; her wrath sank away to feeble
sobbing and worn-out moans.
Mary was most anxious to soothe her from any violence of either grief
or anger; she did so want her to be clear in her recollection; and,
besides, her tenderness was great towards Jem's mother. So she spoke
in a low gentle tone the loving sentences, which sound so broken
and powerless in repetition, and which yet have so much power when
accompanied with caressing looks and actions, fresh from the heart;
and the old woman insensibly gave herself up to the influence of
those sweet, loving blue eyes, those tears of sympathy, those words
of love and hope, and was lulled into a less morbid state of mind.
"And now, dear Mrs. Wilson, can you remember where he said he was
going on Thursday night? He was out when Alice was taken ill; and he
did not come home till early in the morning, or, to speak true, in
the night: did he?"
"Ay! he went out near upon five; he went out with Will; he said he
were going to set [45] him a part of the way, for Will were hot upon
walking to Liverpool, and wouldn't hearken to Jem's offer of lending
him five shilling for his fare. So the two lads set off together. I
mind it all now; but, thou seest, Alice's illness, and this business
of poor Jem's, drove it out of my head; they went off together, to
walk to Liverpool; that's to say, Jem were to go a part o' th' way.
But, who knows" (falling back into the old desponding tone) "if he
really went? He might be led off on the road. Oh! Mary, wench!
they'll hang him for what he's never done."
[Footnote 45: "To set," to accompany.]
"No, they won't--they shan't! I see my way a bit now. We mun get Will
to help; there'll be time. He can swear that Jem were with him. Where
is Jem?"
"Folk said he were taken to Kirkdale, i' th' prison-van, this
morning; without my seeing him, poor chap! Oh! wench! but they've
hurried on the business at a cruel rate."
"Ay! they've not let grass grow under their feet, in hunting out the
man that did it," said Mary, sorrowfully and bitterly. "But keep up
your heart. They got on the wrong scent when they took to suspecting
Jem. Don't be afeard. You'll see it will end right for Jem."
"I should mind it less if I could do aught," said Jane Wilson; "but
I'm such a poor weak old body, and my head's so gone, and I'm so
dazed-like, what with Alice and all, that I think and think, and can
do nought to help my child. I might ha' gone and seen him last night,
they tell me now, and then I missed it. Oh! Mary, I missed it; and I
may never see the lad again."
She looked so piteously in Mary's face with her miserable eyes, that
Mary felt her heart giving way, and, dreading the weakening of her
powers, which the burst of crying she longed for would occasion,
hastily changed the subject to Alice; and Jane, in her heart, feeling
that there was no sorrow like a mother's sorrow, replied,
"She keeps on much the same, thank you. She's happy, for she knows
nought of what's going on; but th' doctor says she grows weaker and
weaker. Thou'lt may be like to see her?"
Mary went up-stairs: partly because it is the etiquette in humble
life to offer to friends a last opportunity of seeing the dying
or the dead, while the same etiquette forbids a refusal of the
invitation; and partly because she longed to breathe, for an instant,
the atmosphere of holy calm, which seemed ever to surround the pious
good old woman. Alice lay, as before, without pain, or at least any
outward expression of it; but totally unconscious of all present
circumstances, and absorbed in recollections of the days of her
girlhood, which were vivid enough to take the place of realities to
her. Still she talked of green fields, and still she spoke to the
long-dead mother and sister, low-lying in their graves this many a
year, as if they were with her and about her, in the pleasant places
where her youth had passed.
But the voice was fainter, the motions were more languid; she was
evidently passing away; but _how_ happily!
Mary stood for a time in silence, watching and listening. Then she
bent down and reverently kissed Alice's cheek; and drawing Jane
Wilson away from the bed, as if the spirit of her who lay there were
yet cognisant of present realities, she whispered a few words of hope
to the poor mother, and kissing her over and over again in a warm,
loving manner, she bade her good-bye, went a few steps, and then once
more came back to bid her keep up her heart.
And when she had fairly left the house, Jane Wilson felt as if a
sun-beam had ceased shining into the room.
Yet oh! how sorely Mary's heart ached; for more and more the fell
certainty came on her that her father was the murderer! She struggled
hard not to dwell on this conviction; to think alone on the means of
proving Jem's innocence; that was her first duty, and that should be
done.