THE INQUIRY
“Who is there?”
Henrietta lifted her tear-stained face from the pillow and awaited the
answer. Three hours earlier, her head aching, her heart full, uncertain
what to do or what would follow, she had fled from the commotion below,
and, locking herself in her bedroom, had lain down with her misery. It
was something to find in the apathy of prostration a brief respite; it
was something to close her eyes and lie quite still. For a while she
might keep her door locked, might nurse her wretchedness, might evade
rude looks and curious questions, might postpone decision.
For the pride that had sustained her in the morning had failed, as the
day wore on. Solitude and the lack of food—she had refused to eat at
midday—had worn down her spirit. At last tears had come, and
plentifully—and repentance. She did not say that the fault was her own,
but she knew it, she admitted it. The man had behaved to her wickedly,
treacherously, horribly; but she had brought it on herself. He had laid
the snare in vain had she not stooped to deceit—had she not consented
to mislead her friends, to meet him secretly, to listen to him with as
little heed of propriety as if she had been Sue at the forge, or Bess
in the still-room. Her own vanity, her own folly, had brought her to
the very verge of ruin; and with shame she owned that there was more in
the old saws with which her sister-in-law had deafened her than her
inexperience had imagined. But the discovery came late. She was
smirched. And what—what was she to do? Where could she go to avoid the
full penalty—the taunts, the shame, the disgrace that awaited her in
the old home?—even if the old home were still open to her.
Meanwhile she got no answer. And “Who is there?” she repeated wearily.
The reply came muffled through the door.
“You are wanted downstairs, lady.”
She rose languidly. Perhaps the time was come. Perhaps her brother was
here, had followed, traced, and found her. For the moment she was all
but indifferent. To-morrow she would suffer, and sorely; but to-day she
had fallen too low. She went slowly to the door and opened it.
Ann stood in the passage.
“They want you downstairs, miss,” she said.
The girl saw that the woman looked queerly at her, but she was prepared
for such looks. Unconsciously she had steeled herself to bear them.
“Very well,” she returned, and did not ask who wanted her. But she went
back to her table, dabbed her eyes with cold water, and smoothed her
hair and her neck-ribbon—she had pride enough for that. Then she went
to the door. The woman was still outside, still staring.
“I did not know that you were waiting,” Henrietta said, faintly
surprised. “I know my way down.”
“I was to come with you, miss.”
“Where are they, then?”
“They are where you were this morning,” the woman answered. “This way,
if you please.”
Henrietta followed listlessly, and fancied in the sullenness of her
apathy that she was proof against aught that could happen. But when she
had descended the stairs and neared the door of Mr. Rogers’s room—which
was in a dusky passage—she found herself, to her astonishment, brushing
past a row of people, who flattened themselves against the wall to let
her pass. Their eyes and their hard breathing—perhaps because she was
amongst them before she saw them—impressed her so disagreeably that her
heart fluttered, and she paused. For an imperceptible instant she was
on the point of turning and going back. But, fortunately, at that
moment the door opened wide, Ann stood aside, and Mrs. Gilson showed
herself. She beckoned to the girl to enter.
“Come in, miss,” she said gruffly, as Henrietta complied. “Here’s some
gentlemen want to ask you a question or two.”
Henrietta saw two persons with their faces turned towards her seated
behind a table, which bore ink and paper and one or two calf-bound
books. Behind these were three or four other persons standing; and
beside the door close to her were as many more, also on their feet. But
nowhere could she see the dreaded face of her brother, or, indeed, any
face that she knew. And after advancing firmly enough into the room,
she stopped, and, turning, looked uncertainly at Mrs. Gilson.
“There must be some mistake,” she murmured. “I have come into the——”
“Wrong room, miss?”—the speaker was Bishop, who was one of the three or
four who stood behind the two at the table. “No, there’s no mistake,
miss,” he continued, with exaggerated cheerfulness. “It’s just a
formality. Only just a formality. These gentlemen wish to ask you one
or two questions.”
The colour rose to her cheeks.
“To ask me?” she repeated, with a slight ring of hauteur in her voice.
“Just so,” Bishop answered. “It will be all right, I am sure. But
attend to this gentleman, if you please, and answer his questions.”
He indicated with his finger the one seated before him.
The girl, half angry, half frightened, lowered her eyes and met those
of the person at the table. Apparently her aspect had checked the
exordium he had prepared; for instead of addressing her in the tones
which were wont to fill the justice-room at Ambleside, Mr. Hornyold,
rector and magistrate, sat back in his chair, and stared at her in
silence. It was evident that his astonishment was great. He was a
portly man, and tall, about forty years old, and, after his fashion,
handsome. He had well-formed features and a mobile smile; but his face
was masterful—overmasterful, some thought; and his eyes were hard, when
a sly look did not soften, without much improving, their expression.
The girl before him was young, adorably fresh, above all, beautiful;
and the smile of the man peeped from under the mask of the justice. He
stared at her, and she at him, and perhaps of the two he was the more
taken aback. At any rate, it was Henrietta who broke the silence.
“I do not understand,” she said, with ill-suppressed indignation, “why
I am here. Are you sure that there is no mistake?”
He found his voice then.
“Quite sure,” he said drily. And he laid down the pen with which he had
been toying while he stared at her. He sat a little more erect in his
chair. “There is no mistake,” he continued, “though for your sake,
young woman, I wish I could think there was. I wish I could think there
was,” he repeated in a more indulgent tone, “since you seem, at any
rate, a more respectable person than I expected to see.”
“Sir!”
The girl’s eyes opened wide. Her face was scarlet.
He leaned forward.
“Come, my girl,” he said—and his familiar tone struck her, as it were,
in the face,—never had such a tone been used to her before! “Let us
have no nonsense. You will not improve your case that way. Let me tell
you, we are accustomed to all sorts here. You must speak when you are
told to speak, and be silent when you are bid, and in the meantime
listen to me! Listen to me, I say!” staying by an imperious nod the
angry remonstrance that was on her lips. “And remember where you are,
if you wish to be well treated. If you are sensible and tell the truth,
some other course will be found than that which, it is to be feared,
must end this business.”
“But by what right,” Henrietta cried, striving to command both her rage
and her fear—“by what right——”
“Am I about to question you?”—with a smirk of humour and a glance at
the audience. “By the right of the law, young woman, which I would have
you know is of some account here, however it may stand in Lancashire.”
“The law?” she stammered. And she looked round terrified. “Why? Why?
What have I done?” she cried pathetically.
For a moment all was dark before her.
He laughed slyly.
“That’s to be seen,” he said. “No hanging matter,” he continued
humorously, “I hope. And as it’s good law that everybody’s
innocent—that’s so, Mr. Dobbie, is it not?”—he addressed the
clerk—“until he’s found to be guilty, let somebody set the young woman
a chair.”
“I can stand!” she cried.
“Nay, you sit down!” muttered a gruff voice in her ear. And a hand—it
was Mrs. Gilson’s—pressed her down in the chair. “And you answer
straight out,” the woman continued coolly, in defiance of the
scandalised look which Mr. Dobbie, the clerk, cast upon her, “and
there’s not one of ’em can do you any harm.”
The magistrate nodded.
“That’s true,” he said tolerantly, “always supposing that you’ve done
no wrong, my girl—no wrong beyond getting into bad company, as I trust
will turn out to be the case. Now, Mr. Dobbie, take down her answers.
What’s your name, my girl, first?”
Henrietta looked at him steadily; she was trying to place herself in
these new conditions. Something like composure was coming back to her
flushed and frightened face. She reflected; and having reflected, she
was silent.
He fancied that she had not heard, or did not understand.
“Your name, young woman,” he repeated, “and your last place of abode?
Speak up! And don’t be afraid.”
But she did not answer.
He frowned.
“Come, come,” he said. “Did you hear me? Where is your home, and what
do you call yourself? You are not the man’s wife, I know. We know as
much as that, you see, so you may as well be frank.”
“What is the charge against me?” She spoke slowly, and her face was now
set and stubborn. “Of what am I accused?”
Mr. Hornyold’s face turned a brick red. He did not rule three parishes
through three curates, reserving to himself only the disciplinary
powers he was now exercising, to be thwarted by a run-the-country girl;
who, in spite of her looks, was, ten to one, no better than the
imprudent wenches the overseers were continually bringing before him.
He knew at least the company she kept. He raised his voice.
“I am not here to answer your questions!” he said, bending his brows.
“But you mine! You mine!” he repeated, rapping the table sharply. “Do
you hear? Now, you will at once tell me——”
He broke off. The clerk had touched his sleeve and was whispering in
his ear. He frowned impatiently, but listened. And after a moment he
shrugged his shoulders.
“Very well,” he said. “Tell her!”
The clerk, a shabby man with a scratch wig and a little glass
ink-bottle at his buttonhole, raised his eyes, and looking at her over
his glasses, spoke:
“You are not yet charged,” he said; “but if you cannot give a
satisfactory account of yourself you will be charged with receiving,
harbouring, and assisting one William Walterson the younger, otherwise
Stewart, otherwise Malins, against whom indictments for various
felonies and treason felonies have been found. And with aiding and
abetting the escape of the said William Walterson, in whose company you
have been found. And with being accessory after the fact to various
felonies——”
“To murder!” said Mr. Hornyold, cutting him short emphatically. “To
murder! amongst other things. That is the charge, if you must know it.
So now”—he rapped the table sharply—“answer at once, and the truth.
What is your name? And where was your last place of abode?”
But Henrietta, if she were willing to answer, could not. At the sound
of that dreadful word “murder!”—they hanged lightly, so lightly in
those days!—the colour had fled from her face. The darkness that had
confused her a while before hid all. She kept her seat, she even
retained her erect posture; but the hands which she raised before her
as if to ward off something groped idly in the air.
Murder! No wonder that she lost consciousness for a moment, or that
Hornyold, secretly relishing her beauty, thought that he had found the
weapon that would soon bring her to her knees! or that the little
audience by the door, listening awestruck, held their breath. The
wonder was that only one of them judged from the girl’s gesture that
she was fainting. Only one acted. Mrs. Gilson stepped forward and shook
her roughly by the shoulder.
“Words break no bones!” the landlady said without ceremony—and not
without an angry look at the clerk, who raised his pen as if he would
interpose. “Don’t you make a fool of yourself. But do you tell them
what they want to know. And your friends will settle with them. Murder,
indeed! Pack of boddles!”
“Very good advice,” said the magistrate, smiling indulgently. “But——”
“But you must not interfere!” snapped the clerk—who kept the books of
the Salutation in Ambleside and not of the Low Wood Inn.
“Haven’t you sense to see the girl is fainting?” the landlady replied
wrathfully.
“Oh, well——”
“I am better now,” Henrietta said bravely. And she drew a deep breath.
A little colour—induced perhaps by Hornyold’s unsparing gaze—was coming
back to her cheeks. “Would you—can I have a glass of water?” she
murmured.
Mrs. Gilson was bustling to the door to give the order when it opened,
and Mr. Bishop, who had gone to it a moment before, took in a glass of
wine, and, secretly pleased that he had anticipated the need, handed it
to her. Mrs. Gilson took it with a grunt of distrust, and made the girl
swallow it; while the magistrate waited and watched, and thought that
he had never seen a young woman who was so handsome, pale or red,
fainting or fierce. And so fresh! so admirably, astonishingly fresh for
the companion of such a man. A good many thoughts of various kinds
flitted through his mind as he watched her, marking now the luxuriance
of her fair hair, now the white chin, small but firm, and now the
faint, faint freckles that, like clots in cream, only added to the
delicacy of her complexion. He waited without impatience until the girl
had drunk the wine, and when he spoke it was in a tone approaching the
paternal.
“Now, my dear,” he said, “you are going to be a good girl and sensible,
I am sure. We don’t want to send you to prison to herd with people with
whom, to judge from your appearance, you have not been wont to mix. And
therefore we give you this opportunity—there’s no need we should, you
know—of telling us who you are, and whence you come, and what you know;
that if it appears that you have fallen into this man’s company in
ignorance, and not knowing what manner of man he was, we may prevent
this charge appearing, and instead of committing you to Appleby, place
you here or elsewhere under bond to appear. Which, in a case so serious
as this, is not a course we could adopt were you not so very young,
and,” with a humorous look at the group by the door, “so very
good-looking! So now be a good girl and don’t be afraid, but tell me at
once who you are, and where you joined this man.”
“If I do not,” Henrietta said, looking at him with clear eyes, “must I
go to prison?”
“Appleby gaol,” said the clerk, glancing over his glasses.
“Then you must send me there,” she replied, a little faintly. “For I
cannot tell you.”
“Don’t be a fool!” growled Mrs. Gilson in her ear.
“I cannot tell you,” Henrietta repeated more firmly.
Mr. Hornyold stared. He was growing angry, for he was not accustomed to
be set at naught. After their fashion they all stared.
“Come, come, my dear,” the runner remonstrated smoothly. “If you don’t
tell us, we shall think there’s more behind.”
She did not answer.
“And that being so, it’s only a matter of time to learn what it is,”
the runner continued cunningly. “Tell us now and save time, because we
are sure to get to know. Young women as pretty as you are not hard to
trace.”
But she shook her head. And the face Bishop called pretty was stubborn.
The group by the door, marking for future gossip every particular of
her appearance, the stuff of her riding-habit, the fineness of her
linen, the set of her head, made certain that she was no common
trollope. They wondered what would happen to her, and hoped, the more
tender-hearted, that there would be no scene, and no hysterics to end
it.
The clerk raised his pen in the air. “Understand,” he said, “you will
be remanded to Appleby gaol—it’s no very comfortable place, I can tell
you—and later, you will be brought up again and committed, I’ve very
little doubt, to take your trial on these charges. If the principal
offender be taken, as he is likely to be taken before the day is out,
you’ll be tried with him. But it is not necessary. Now do you
understand?” he continued, speaking slowly. “And are you still
determined to give no evidence—showing how you came to be with this
man?”
Henrietta’s eyes were full of trouble. She shivered.
“Where shall I be tried?” she muttered in an unsteady voice.
“Appleby,” the clerk said curtly. “Or in His Majesty’s Bench at
Westminster! Now think, before it is too late.”
“It is too late,” she answered in a low tone, “I cannot help it now.”
The magistrate leant forward. What a fool the girl was! If she went to
Appleby he would see no more of her, save for an hour or two when she
was brought up again before being committed. Whereas, if she spoke and
they made her a witness, she might be lodged somewhere in the
neighbourhood under surveillance. And she was so handsome and so
young—the little fool!—he would not be sorry to see more of her.
[Illustration: ] “I give you a last chance,” he said.
“I give you a last chance,” he said.
She shook her head.
The magistrate shrugged his shoulders.
“Then make the committal out!” he said. “There’s enough to justify it.”
It was some satisfaction to think that locked up with half a dozen
sluts at Appleby she would soon be sorry for herself. “Make it out!” he
repeated.
If the hysterics did not come now he was very much mistaken if they did
not come later, when the gaol doors were shut on her. She was evidently
of respectable condition; a curate’s daughter, perhaps, figged out by
the man who had deceived her, or a lady’s lady, spoiled by her
mistress, and taught ideas above her station. On such, the gaol, with
its company and its hardships, fell severely. It would soon, he
fancied, bring her to her senses.
The clerk dipped his pen in the ink, and after casting a last glance at
the girl to see if she would still yield, began to write. She watched
him with fascinated eyes, watched him in a kind of stupor. The thought
throbbed loudly and more loudly in her head, “What will become of me?
What will become of me?” Meanwhile the silence was broken only by the
squeaking of the pen and a single angry “Lord’s sakes!” which fell from
the landlady. The others awaited the end with whatever of pity, or
interest, or greedy excitement came natural to them. They were within,
and others were without; and they had a delicious sense of privilege.
They would have much to tell: For one does not every day see a pretty
girl, young, and tenderly nurtured, as this girl seemed to be, and a
lady to the eye, committed to the common gaol on a charge of
murder—murder, and treason felony, was it, they called it? Treason
felony! That meant hanging, drawing, and quartering. Lord’s sakes,
indeed; poor thing, how would she bear it? And though it is likely that
some among them—Mrs. Gilson for one—didn’t think it would come to this,
there was a frown on the landlady’s brow that would have done honour to
the Lord Chancellor Eldon himself.