THE trial took place after a considerable interval, for the assizes
were just over when the man was killed. In that dreadful time of
suspense and misery proof after proof accumulated slowly with a gradual
drawing together as of the very web of fate. The stick which was found
by the body of the murdered man was Jim’s stick, with his initials upon
it, in a silver band--alas, his mother’s gift. He was proved to have
had a desperate quarrel with the man, who was one of those who had
corrupted and misled him. Then the _alibi_ which had seemed at first
so strong disappeared into worse than nothing when examined: for Jim
had been seen on his flight home; he had been seen to enter furtively
and noiselessly into his mother’s house, though the servants were ready
to swear that he had not gone out that night; and all the precautions
he had taken, instead of bringing him safety, only made his position
worse, being shown to be precautions consciously taken against a danger
foreseen. All these things grew into certainty before the trial; so
that it was all a foregone conclusion in the minds of the townspeople,
some of whom yielded to the conviction with heartfelt pity, and some
with an eager improving of the situation, pointing out to what horrible
conclusions vice was sure to come.
Meanwhile this strange and horrible event, which had held the town for
more than nine days in wonder and perturbation, and which had given
a moral to many a tale, and point to many a sermon, held one little
circle of unhappy creatures as in a ring of iron--unable to get away
from it, unable to forget it, their hearts, their hopes, their life
itself, marked forever with its trace of blood. The two ladies had
roused themselves from their first stupor into a half fictitious
adoption of their natural _rôle_ as defenders of Jim. God knows through
how many shocks and horrors of discovery Jim had led them, making
something new, something worse, always the thing to be expected, before
they had come to that pitch that their hearts had no power to make any
protest at all. But when the morning rose upon their troubled souls
they began to say to each other that it could not be true. It could not
be true! Jim had now and then an _accès_ of sudden rage, but he was
the kind of man of whom it is said that he would not hurt a fly. How
could it be possible that he would do a murder? It was not possible;
any other kind of evil thing--but not that, oh, not that! They said
this to each other when they rose up from the uneasy bed in which
mother and daughter had lain down together, not able to separate from
each other--though those rules of use and wont which are so strong
on women made them lie down as if to sleep, where no sleep was. But
when the light came--that awful light which brings back common life
to us on the morning after a great calamity--they looked into each
other’s pale faces, and with one voice said, “Oh no, no, it cannot be!”
“Mother,” cried Agnes, “he would not hurt a fly. Oh, how kind he was
when I was ill, when you had your accident--do you remember?” Who does
not know what these words are--Do you remember? All that he was who
is dead; all that he might have been who is lost; all the hopes, the
happy prospects, the cheerful days before trouble came. No words more
poignant can be said. They did not need to ask each other what they
remembered--that was enough. They clasped each other, and kissed with
trembling lips, and then Agnes rose, bidding her mother rest, and went
to fetch her the woman’s cordial, the cup of tea--which is so often all
one poor female creature can offer to another by way of help.
No, no, he could not have done it! They took a little comfort for the
moment. And another strange comfort they took in a thing which was
one of the most damning pieces of evidence against Jim: which was that
he had quarreled violently with the murdered man and denounced him,
and declared hatred and everlasting enmity against him. The story of
the quarrel as it was told to them brought tears, which were almost
tears of joy, to Mrs. Surtees’ eyes. The man who had been killed was
one of those adventurers who haunt the outskirts of society wherever
there are victims to be found. He had preyed upon the lives and souls
of young men in Poolborough since the days when Jim Surtees was an
innocent and credulous boy. It was not this man’s fault that Jim had
gone astray, for Jim, alas, was all ready for his fall, and eager
after everything that was forbidden; but in the fits of remorse and
misery which sometimes came upon him it was perhaps no wonder if he
laid it at Langton’s door; and that the mother should have held Langton
responsible, who could wonder? The facts of the quarrel were as so
many nails in Jim’s coffin: but God help the poor woman, they gave
consolation to his mother’s heart. They meant repentance, she thought,
they meant generosity and a pathetic indignation, and more, they
meant succour; for the quarrel had arisen over an unfortunate youth
whom the blackleg was throwing his toils around as he had thrown them
around Jim, and whom Mrs. Surtees believed Jim had saved by exposing
the villain. The story was told reluctantly, delicately, to the poor
ladies, as almost sealing Jim’s fate: and to the consternation of the
narrator, who was struck dumb, and could only stare at them in a kind
of stupor of astonishment, they looked at each other and broke forth
into cries at first inarticulate which were almost cries of joy. “You
do not see the bearing of it, I fear,” said the solicitor who had the
management of the case, as soon as out of his astonishment he had
recovered his voice. “Oh sir,” cried Mrs. Surtees, “what I see is this,
that my boy has saved another poor woman’s son, God bless him! and
that will not be forgotten, that will not be forgotten!” This gentleman
withdrew in a state of speechless consternation. “No, it will not be
forgotten,” he said to Dr. Barrère. “I think the poor lady has gone out
of her senses, and little wonder. It is a piece of evidence which we
can never get over.” Dr. Barrère shook his head, not understanding the
women much better than the lawyer did. This gave them consolation, and
yet it was the seal of Jim’s fate.
Dr. Barrère himself in the long period of waiting was a most unhappy
man. He stood by the Surtees nobly, everybody said. No son could have
been more attentive than he was to the poor mother who was entirely
broken by this blow, and had suddenly become an old woman. And he
never wavered in his faith and loyalty to Agnes, who but for that
noble fidelity would, everybody said, have been the most of all to be
pitied. For Agnes was young, and had all her life before her, with the
stain of this crime upon her name; and if her lover had not stood by
her what would have become of her? The people who had been doubtful of
Dr. Barrère, as half a Frenchman, as too great a theorist, as a man
who had not been quite successful in his outset, began now to look
upon him with increased respect, and his firmness, his high honour,
his disinterestedness were commented upon on all sides. But in his
heart the doctor was far from happy. His life, too, seemed in question
as well as Jim’s. If the worst came to the worst, he asked himself,
would society, however sympathetic for the moment, receive the family
of a man who had been hanged--horrible words!--without prejudice?
Would there not be a stigma upon the name of Surtees, and even upon
the name of him who had given his own as a shield to the family of the
murderer? He did his duty--no man more truly. He loved his Agnes with
all the warmth of an honest heart, taking his share of all her trouble,
supporting her through everything, making himself for her sake the
brother of a criminal, and one of the objects of popular curiosity and
pity. All this he did from day to day, and went on doing it: but still
there were struggles and dreadful misgivings in Dr. Barrère’s heart. He
was a proud man, and except for what he made by his profession a poor
one. If that failed him he had nothing else to fall back upon, and he
already knew the misery of unsuccess. He knew what it was to see his
practice wasting away, to see his former patients pass by shamefacedly,
conscious of having transferred their ailments and themselves to other
hands, to be put aside for no expressed reason out of the tide of life.
At Poolborough he had begun to forget the experiences of his beginning,
and to feel that at last he had got hold of the thread which would lead
him if not to fortune, at least to comfort and the certainties of an
established course of living. Would this last? he asked himself. Would
it make no difference to him if he identified himself with ruin--ruin
so hideous and complete? The question was a terrible one, and brought
the sweat to his brow when in chance moments, between his visits and
his cases, between the occupations and thoughts which absorbed him, now
and then, suddenly, in spite of all the pains he took, it would start
up and look him in the face. “He had a brother who was hanged,” that
was what people would say; they would not even after a little lapse
of time pause to recollect that it was his wife’s brother. The brand
would go with them wherever he went. “You remember the great murder
case in Poolborough? Well, these were the people, and the brother was
hanged.” These words seemed to detach themselves and float in the air.
He said them to himself sometimes, or rather they were said in his
ear, without anything else to connect them. The phrase seemed already
a common phrase which any one might use--”The brother was hanged.” And
then cold drops of moisture would come out upon his forehead. And all
the possibilities of life, the success which is dear to a man, the
advancement of which he knew himself capable--was it all to go? Was he
to be driven back once more to that everlasting re-commencement which
makes the heart of a man sick?
These thoughts accompanied Dr. Barrère as he went and came, a son, and
more than a son, to Mrs. Surtees, and to Agnes the most faithful, the
most sympathetic of lovers. At such a moment, and in face of the awful
catastrophe which had come upon them, any talk of marriage would have
been out of place. He had, indeed, suggested it at first in mingled
alarm and desperation, and true desire to do his best, in the first
impulse of overwhelming sympathy, and at the same time in the first
glimpse of all that might follow, and sickening horror of self-distrust
lest his resolution might give way. He would have fled from himself,
from all risks of this nature into the safety of a bond which he could
not break. But Agnes had silently negatived the proposal with a shake
of her head and a smile of pathetic tenderness. She, too, had thoughts
of the future, of which she breathed no word to any one, not even to
her mother. All that was in his mind as subject of alarm and misgiving
was reflected, with that double clearness and vivification which is
given to everything reflected in the clear flowing of a river, in the
mind of Agnes. She saw all with the distinctness of one to whom the
sacrifice of herself was nothing when compared with the welfare of
those she loved. He was afraid lest these alarms might bring him into
temptation, and the temptation be above his strength; and his soul was
disturbed and made miserable. But to Agnes the matter took another
aspect. All that he foresaw she foresaw, but the thought brought
neither disturbance nor fear. It brought the exaltation of a great
purpose--the solemn joy of approaching martyrdom. Arnold should never
suffer for her. It was she who would have the better part and suffer
for him.
The dreadful fact that it was Dr. Barrère only who had witnessed the
murder, and that he would have to speak and prove what he had seen,
became more and more apparent to them all as the time drew on. His
description of the blows that had been rained down wildly on the
victim, and of the lurking figure in the shadow whom he had noted, as
he passed the first time, took away all hope that it might be supposed
the act of a momentary madness without premeditation. The doctor had
told his story with all the precision that was natural to him before he
knew who it was that would be convicted by it; and now it was no longer
possible for him, even had his conscience permitted it, to soften the
details which he had at first given so clearly, or to throw any mist
upon his clear narrative. He had to repeat it all, knowing the fatal
effect it must have, standing up with Jim’s pale face before him, with
a knowledge that somewhere in a dim corner Agnes sat with bowed head
listening--to what she already knew so well. The doctor’s countenance
was as pale as Jim’s. His mouth grew dry as he bore his testimony; but
not all the terrible consequences could make him alter a word. He could
scarcely refrain a groan, a sob, when he had done; and this involuntary
evidence of what it cost him to tell the truth increased the effect
in the highest degree, as the evidence of an unwilling witness always
does. There was but one point in which he could help the prisoner; and
fortunately that too had been a special point in his previous evidence:
but it was not until Dr. Barrère got into the hands of Jim’s advocate
that this was brought out. “I see,” the counsel said, “that in your
previous examination you speak of a cry uttered by the assailant after
the blows which you have described. You describe it as a cry of horror.
In what sense do you mean this to be understood?”
“I mean,” said Dr. Barrère very pointedly and clearly--and if there
had been any divided attention in the crowded court where so many
people had come to hear the fate of one whom they had known from his
childhood, every mind was roused now, and every eye intent upon the
speaker--”I mean--” He paused to give fuller force to what he said.
“I mean that the man who struck those blows for the first time realised
what he was doing. The cry was one of consternation and dismay. It was
the cry of a man horrified to see what he had done.”
“The cry was so remarkable that it made a great impression on your
mind?”
“A very great impression. I do not think I have ever heard an utterance
which affected me so much.”
“You were hurrying forward at the time to interpose in the scuffle. Did
you distinguish any words? Did you recognise the voice?”
“It would give an erroneous impression to say that I meant to interpose
in the scuffle. There was no scuffle. The man fell at once. He never
had a chance of defending himself. I did not recognise the voice, nor
can I say that any words were used. It was nothing but a cry.”
“The cry, however, was of such a nature as to induce you to change your
mind in respect to what had occurred?”
“I had no time to form any theory. The impression it produced on my
mind was that an assault was intended, but not murder; and that all
at once it had become apparent to the unfortunate--” Here the doctor
paused, and there was a deep sobbing breath of intense attention drawn
by the crowd. He stopped for a minute, and then resumed, “It had
become apparent to the--assailant that he had--gone too far; that the
consequences were more terrible than he had intended. He threw down
what he had in his hand, and fled in horror.”
“You were convinced, then, that there was no murderous intention in the
act of the unfortunate--as you have well said--assailant?”
“That was my conviction,” said Dr. Barrère.
The effect made upon the assembly was great. And though it was no
doubt diminished more or less by the cross-examination of the counsel
for the prosecution, who protested vehemently against the epithet of
unfortunate applied to the man who had attacked in the dark another
man who was proceeding quietly about his own business, who had lain
in wait for him and assaulted him murderously with every evidence of
premeditation, it still remained the strongest point in the defence.
“You say that you had no time to form any theory?” said the prosecutor;
“yet you have told us that you rushed forward calling out murder. Was
this before or after you heard the cry, so full of meaning, which you
have described?”
“It was probably almost at the same moment,” said Dr. Barrère.
“Yet, even in the act of crying out murder, you were capable of
noticing all the complicated sentiments which you now tell us were in
the assailant’s cry!”
“In great excitement one takes no notice of the passage of time--a
minute contains as much as an hour.”
“And you expect us to believe that in that minute, and without the help
of words, you were enlightened as to the meaning of the act by a mere
inarticulate cry?”
“I tell you the impression produced on my mind, as I told it at the
coroner’s inquest,” said Dr. Barrère, steadily; “as I have told it to
my friends from the first.”
“Yet this did not prevent you from shouting murder?”
“No; it did not prevent me from calling for help in the usual way.”
This was all that could be made of the doctor. It remained the
strongest point in poor Jim’s favour, who was, as everybody saw to be
inevitable, condemned; yet recommended to mercy because of what Dr.
Barrère had said. Otherwise there were many features in the case that
roused the popular pity. The bad character of the man who had been
killed, the evil influence he was known to have exercised, the injury
he had done to Jim himself and to so many others, and the very cause
of the quarrel in which Jim had threatened and announced his intention
of punishing him--all these things, had Jim been tried in France,
would have produced a verdict modified by extenuating circumstances.
In England it did not touch the decision, but it produced that vague
recommendation to mercy with which pity satisfies itself when it can do
no more.
Dr. Barrère took the unfortunate mother and sister home. Mrs. Surtees,
broken as she was, could not be absent from the court when her son’s
fate was to be determined. She was as one stricken dumb as they took
her back. Now and then she would put her trembling hands to her eyes
as if expecting tears which did not come. Her very heart and soul were
crushed by the awful doom which had been spoken. And the others did
not even dare to exchange a look. The horror which enveloped them was
too terrible for speech. It was only after an interval had passed,
and life, indomitable life which always rises again whatever may be
the anguish that subdues it for a moment, had returned in pain and
fear to its struggle with the intolerable, that words and the power of
communication returned. Then Dr. Barrère told the broken-hearted women
that both he himself and others in the town who knew Jim, with all the
influence that could be brought to bear, would work for a revision of
the sentence. It was upon his own evidence that the hopes which those
who were not so deeply, tremendously interested, but who regarded the
case with an impartial eye, began to entertain, were founded. “I hope
that the Home Secretary may send for me,” he said; “they think he will.
God grant it!” He too had worked himself into a kind of hope.
“Oh,” said Agnes, melting for the first time into tears at the touch of
a possible deliverance, “if we could go, as they used to do, to the
Queen, his mother and his sister, on our knees!”
Mrs. Surtees sat and listened to them with her immovable face of
misery. “Don’t speak to me of hope, for I cannot bear it,” she said.
“Oh, don’t speak of hope; there is none--none! Nothing but death and
shame.”
“Yes, mother,” said Dr. Barrère, and he added under his breath,
“whatever happens--whatever happens--there shall be no death of shame.”