"You must listen to me," I said; "I want you to see how truly this is
the work of Providence, and not of mere chance."
I told her how I often had been attracted to the pier; I told her all
that was said by the crowd around; of the man who carried the little
dead child to the work-house; of the tiny little body that lay in its
white dress in the bare, large, desolate room, and of the flowers that
the kindly matron had covered it with.
I told her how I had taken compassion on the forlorn little creature,
had purchased its grave, and of the white stone with "Marah" upon it.
"Marah, found drowned." And then, poor soul--poor, hapless soul, she
clung to my hands and covered them with kisses and tears.
"Did you--did you do that?" she moaned. "How good you are, but you will
not tell him. I was mad when I did that, mad as women often are, with
sorrow, shame and despair. I will suffer anything if you will only
promise not to tell Lance."
"Do you think it is fair," I asked, "that he should be so cruelly
deceived?--that he should lavish the whole love of his heart upon a
murderess?"
I shall not forget her. She sprang from the ground where she had been
kneeling and stood erect before me.
"No, thank Heaven! I am not that," she said; "I am everything else that
is base and vile, but not that."
"You were that, indeed," I replied. "The child you flung into the sea
was living, not dead."
"It was not living," she cried--"it was dead an hour before I reached
there."
"The doctors said--for there was an inquest on the tiny body--they said
the child had been drugged before it was drowned, but that it had died
from drowning."
"Oh, no, a thousand times!" she cried. "Oh, believe me, I did not
wilfully murder my own child--I did not, indeed! Let me tell you. You
are a just and merciful man, John Ford; let me tell you--you must hear
my story; you shall give me my sentence--I will leave it in your hands.
I will tell you all."
"You had better tell Lance, not me," I cried. "What can I do?"
"No; you listen; you judge. It may be that when you have heard all, you
will take pity on me; you may spare me--you may say to yourself that I
have been more sinned against than sinning--you may think that I have
suffered enough, and that I may live out the rest of my life with Lance.
Let me tell you, and you shall judge me."
She fell over on her knees again, rocking backwards and forwards.
"Ah, why," she cried--"why is the world so unfair?--why, when there is
sin and sorrow, why does the punishment fall all on the woman, and the
man go free? I am here in disgrace and humiliation, in shame and
sorrow--in fear of losing my home, my husband, it may even be my
life--while he, who was a thousand times more guilty than I was, is
welcomed, flattered, courted! It is cruel and unjust.
"I have told you," she said, "how hard my childhood was, how lonely and
desolate and miserable I was with my girl's heart full of love and no
one to love.
"When I was eighteen I went to live with a very wealthy family in
London, the name--I will not hide one detail from you--the name was
Cleveland; they had one little girl, and I was her governess. I went
with them to their place in the country, and there a visitor came to
them, a handsome young nobleman, Lord Dacius by name.
"It was a beautiful sunlit county. I had little to do, plenty of
leisure, and he could do as he would with his time. We had met and had
fallen in love with each other. I did not love him, I idolized him;
remember in your judgment that no one had ever loved me. No one had ever
kissed my face and said kind words to me; and I, oh! wretched, miserable
me, I was in Heaven. To be loved for the first time, and by one so
handsome, so charming, so fascinating! A few weeks passed like a dream.
I met him in the early morning, I met him in the gloaming. He swore a
hundred times each day that he would marry me when he came of age. We
must wait until then. I never dreamed of harm or wrong, I believed in
him implicitly, as I loved him. I believe every word that came from his
lips. May Heaven spare me! I need tell you no more. A girl of eighteen
madly, passionately in love; a girl as ignorant as any girl could be,
and a handsome, experienced man of the world.
"There was no hope, no chance. I fell; yet almost without knowing how I
had fallen. You will spare me the rest, I know.
"When in my sore anguish and distress, I went to him, I thought he would
marry me at once; I thought he would be longing only to make me happy
again; to comfort me; to solace me; to make amends for all I had
suffered. I went to him in London with my heart full of longing and
love. I had left my situation, and my stern, cruel grandmother believed
that I had found another. If I lived to be a thousand years old I should
never forget my horror and surprise. He had worshipped me; he had sworn
a thousand times over that he would marry me; he had loved me with the
tenderest love.
"Now, when after waiting some hours, I saw him last, he frowned at me;
there was no kiss, no caress, no welcome.
"'This is a nice piece of news,' he said. 'This comes of country
visiting.'
"'But you love me?--you love me?' I cried.
"'I did, my dear,' he said, 'but, of course, that died with Summer. One
does not speak of what is dead.'
"'Do you not mean to marry me?' I asked.
"'No, certainly not; and you know that I never did. It was a Summer's
amusement.'
"'And what is it to me?' I asked.
"'Oh, you must make the best of it. Of course, I will not see you want,
but you must not annoy me. And that old grandmother of yours, she must
not be let loose upon me. You must do the best you can. I will give you
a hundred pounds if you will promise not to come near me again.'
"I spoke no word to him; I did not reproach him; I did not utter his
name; I did not say good-bye to him; I walked away. I leave his
punishment to Heaven. Then I crushed the anguish within me and tried to
look my life in the face. I would have killed myself rather than have
gone home. My grandmother had forced me to be saving, and in the
postoffice bank I had nearly thirty pounds. I had a watch and chain
worth ten. I sold them, and I sold with them a small diamond ring that
had been my mother's, and some other jewelry; altogether I realized
fifty pounds. I went to the outskirts of London and took two small
rooms.
"I remember that I made no effort to hide my disgrace; I did not pretend
to be married or to be a widow, and the mistress of the house was not
unkind to me. She liked me all the better for telling the truth. I say
no word to you of my mental anguish--no words can describe it, but I
loved the little one. She was only three weeks old when a letter was
forwarded to me at the address I had given in London, saying that my
grandmother was ill and wished me to go home at once. What was I to do
with the baby? I can remember how the great drops of anguish stood on
my face, how my hands trembled, how my very heart went cold with dread.
"The newspapers which I took daily, to read the advertisements for
governesses, lay upon the table, and my eyes were caught by an
advertisement from some woman living at Brighton, who undertook the
bringing up of children. I resolved to go down that very day. I said
nothing to my landlady of my intention. I merely told her that I was
going to place the little one in very good hands, and that I would
return for my luggage.
"I meant--so truly as Heaven hears me speak--I meant to do right by the
little child. I meant to work hard to keep her in a nice home. Oh, I
meant well!
"I was ashamed to go out in the streets with a little baby in my arms.
"'What shall I do if it cries?' I asked the kindly landlady. 'You can
prevent it from crying,' she said; 'give it some cordial.' 'What
cordial?' I asked, and she told me. 'Will it hurt the little one?' I
asked again, and she laughed.
"'No,' she replied, 'certainly not. Half the mothers in London give it
to their children. It sends them into a sound sleep, and they wake up
none the worse for it. If you give the baby just a little it will sleep
all the way to Brighton, and you will have no trouble.' I must say this
much for myself, that I knew nothing whatever of children, that is, of
such little children. I had never been where there was a baby so little
as my own.
"I bought the cordial, and just before I started gave the baby some. I
thought that I was very careful. I meant to be so. I would not for the
whole world have given my baby one half-drop too much.
"It soon slept a calm, placid sleep, and I noticed that the little face
grew paler. 'Your baby is dying,' said a woman, who was traveling in the
third-class carriage with me. 'It is dying, I am sure.' I laughed and
cried; it was so utterly impossible, I thought; it was well and smiling
only one hour ago. I never remembered the cordial. Afterwards, when I
came to make inquiries, I found that I had given her too much. I need
not linger on details.
"You see, that if my little one died by my fault, it was most
unconscious on my part; it was most innocently, most ignorantly done. I
make no excuse. I tell you the plain truth as it stands. I caused my
baby's death, but it was most innocently done; I would have given my own
life to have brought hers back. You, my judge, can you imagine any fate
more terrible than standing quite alone on the Brighton platform with a
dead child in my arms?
"I had very little money. I knew no soul in the place. I had no more
idea what to do with a dead child than a baby would have had. I call it
dead," she continued, "for I believe it to have been dead, no matter
what any doctor says. It was cold--oh, my Heaven, how cold!--lifeless;
no breath passed the little lips! the eyes were closed--the pretty hand
stiff. I believed it dead. I wandered down to the beach and sat down on
the stones.
"What was I to do with this sweet, cold body? I cried until I was almost
blind; in the whole wide world there was no one so utterly desolate and
wretched. I cried aloud to Heaven to help me--where should I bury my
little child? I cannot tell how the idea first occurred to me. The waves
came in with a soft, murmuring melody, a sweet, silvery hush, and I
thought the deep, green sea would make a grave for my little one. It was
mad and wicked I know now; I can see how horrible it was; it did not
seem to be so then. I only thought of the sea then as my best friend,
the place where I was to hide the beloved little body, the clear, green
grave where she was to sleep until the Judgment Day. I waited until--it
is a horrible thing to tell you! but I fell asleep--fast asleep, and of
all the horrors in my story, the worst part is that, sitting by the sea,
fast asleep myself, with my little, dead babe on my knee.
"When I awoke the tide was coming in full and soft, and swift-running
waves, the sun had set, and a thick, soft gloom had fallen over
everything, and then I knew the time had come for what I wanted to do."