In Prison
What should he do? John Caldigate, as he walked out of the inn-yard, had
to decide for himself what he would do at once. His first impulse was to
go to the mayor and ask for assistance. He had a right to the custody of
his wife. Her father had no right to make her a prisoner. She was
entitled to go whither she pleased, so long as she had his sanction and
should she be separated from him by the action of the law, she would be
entitled to go whither she pleased without sanction from any one.
Whether married or unmarried she was not subject to her father. The
husband was sure that he was entitled to the assistance of the police,
but he doubted much whether he would be able to get it, and he was most
averse to ask for it.
And yet what other step could he take? With no purpose as yet quite
fixed, he went to the bank, thinking that he might best commence his
work by expostulating with his wife's father. It was Mr. Bolton's habit
to walk every morning into the town, unless he was deterred by heat or
wet or ill health; and till lately it had been his habit also to walk
back, his house being a mile and a half distant from the bank; but
latterly the double walk had become too much for him, and, when the time
for his return came, he would send out for a cab to take him home. His
hours were very various. He would generally lunch at the bank, in his
own little dingy room; but if things went badly with him, so as to
disturb his mind, he would go back early in the day, and generally pass
the afternoon asleep. On this occasion he was very much troubled, so
that when Caldigate reached the bank, which he did before one, Mr.
Bolton was already getting into his cab. 'Could I speak a few words to
you, sir?' said Caldigate in the street.
'I am not very well to-day,' said the banker, hardly looking round,
persevering in his effort to get into the vehicle.
'I would not keep you for a minute, sir. I must see you, as you are
aware.'
There were already half-a-dozen people collected, all of whom had no
doubt heard the story of John Caldigate's wife. There was, indeed, no
man or woman in Cambridge whose ears it had not reached. In the hearing
of these Mr. Bolton was determined not to speak of his daughter, and he
was equally determined not to go back into the house. 'I have nothing to
say,' he muttered--'nothing, nothing; drive on.' So the cab was driven
on, and John Caldigate was left in the street.
The man's anger now produced a fixed purpose, and with a quick step he
walked away from the bank to Robert Bolton's office. There he soon found
himself in the attorney's room. 'Are you aware of what they are doing at
the Grange?' he asked, in a voice which was not so guarded as it should
have been on such an occasion. Anger and the quickness of his walk had
combined to make him short of breath, and he asked the question with
that flurried, hasty manner which is common to angry people who are hot
rather than malicious in their angers.
'I don't think I am,' said the attorney. 'But if I were, I doubt whether
I should just at present be willing to discuss their doings with you.'
'My wife has gone there on a visit.'
'I am glad to hear it. It is the best thing that my sister could do.'
'And now it seems some difficulty is made about her returning.'
That I think very likely. Her father and mother can hardly wish that she
should go back to your house at present. I cannot imagine that she
should wish it herself. If you have the feelings of a gentleman or the
heart of a man you ought not to wish it.'
'I have not come here to be taught what is becoming either to a man or a
gentleman.'
'If you will allow me to say so, while things are as they are at
present, you ought not to come here at all.'
'I should not have done so but for this violence, this breach of all
hospitality at your father's house! My wife went there with the
understanding that she was to stay for two days.'
'And now, you say, they detain her. I am not responsible; but in doing
so they have my thorough sympathy and approbation. I do not know that I
can help them, or that they will want my help; but I shall help them if
I can. The fact is, you had better leave her there.'
'Never!'
'I should not have volunteered my advice, but, as you are here, I may
perhaps say a word. If you attempt to take her by violence from her
father's house you will have all the town, all the county, all England
against you.'
'I should;--I own it;----unless she wished to come to me. If she
chooses to stay, she shall stay.'
'It must not be left to her. If she be so infatuated, she must not be
allowed to judge for herself. Till this trial be over, she and you must
live apart. Then, if that woman does not make good her claim,--if you
can prove that the woman is lying,--then you will have back your wife.
But if, as everybody I find believes at present, it should be proved
that you are the husband of that woman, and that you have basely
betrayed my poor sister by a mock marriage, then she must be left to the
care of her father and her mother, and may Heaven help her in her
misery.' All this he said with much dignity, and in a manner with which
even Caldigate could not take personal offence. 'You must remember,' he
added, 'that this poor injured one is their daughter and my sister.'
'I say that she has been in no wise injured but,--as I also am
injured,--by a wicked plot. And I say that she shall come back to me,
unless she herself elects to remain with her parents.' Then he left the
office and went forth again into the streets.
He now took at once the road to Chesterton, trying as he did so to make
for himself in his own mind a plan or map of the premises. It would, he
thought, be impossible but that his wife would be able to get out of the
house and come to him if he could only make her aware of his presence.
But then there was the baby, and it would be necessary not only that she
should escape herself but that she should bring her child with her.
Would they attempt to hold her? Could it be that they should have
already locked her up in some room up-stairs? And if she did escape out
of some window, even with her baby in her arms, how would it be with
them then as they made their way back into the town? Thinking of this he
hurried back to the inn and told Richard to take the carriage into
Chesterton and wait there at the turn of the lane, where the lane leads
down from the main road to the Grange. He was to wait there, though it
might be all the day, till he heard from or saw his master. The man, who
was quite as keen for his master as was the old gardener for his
mistress on the other side, promised accurate obedience. Then he
retraced his steps and walked as fast as he could to the Grange.
During all this time the mother and the daughter kept their weary seats
in the hall, Hester having her baby in her arms. She had quite
determined that nothing should induce her again to go up-stairs,--lest
the key of the room should be turned upon her. For a long time they sat
in silence, and then she declared her purpose.
'I shall remain here, mamma.'
'If so, I must remain too.'
'I shall not go up to my bedroom again, you may be sure of that.'
'You will go up to-night, I hope.'
'Certainly not. Nurse shall take baby up to his cradle. I do not suppose
you will be cruel enough to separate me from my child.'
'Cruel! Do you not know that I would do anything for you or your
child,--that I would die for you or your child?'
'I suppose you will let them bring me food here. You would not wish him
to be starved.'
'Hester!'
'Well; what would you have me say? Are you not my jailer?'
'I am your mother. According to my conscience I am acting for you as
best I know how. Do you not know that I mean to be good to you?'
'I know you are not good to me. Nobody can be good who tries to separate
me from my husband. I shall remain here till he comes and tells me how I
am to be taken away.' Then Mr. Bolton returned, and made his way into
the house with the assistance of the gardener through the kitchen. He
found the two women sitting in the hall, each in the high-backed
arm-chair, and his daughter with her baby in her arms,--a most piteous
sight, the two of them thus together. 'Papa,' she said, as he came up
into the hall from the kitchen, 'you are treating me badly, cruelly,
unjustly. You have no right to keep me here against my will. I am my
husband's wife, and I must go to my husband.'
'It is for the best, Hester.'
'What is wrong cannot be for the best. Do you suppose that he will let
me be kept here in prison? Of course he will come. Why do you not let me
go?'
'It is right that you should be here, Hester,' he said, as he passed
up-stairs to his own bedroom. It was a terrible job of work for which he
had no strength whatever himself, and as to which he was beginning to
doubt whether even his wife's strength would suffice. As for her, as for
Hester, perhaps it would be well that she should be wearied and broken
into submission. But it was fearful to think that his wife should have
to sit there the whole day saying nothing, doing nothing, merely
watching lest her daughter should attempt to escape through some window.
'It will kill your father, I think,' said the mother.
'Why does he not let me go then? I have to think of my husband and my
child.' Then again there was silence. When they had been seated thus for
two hours, all the words that had been spoken between them had not
spread themselves over ten minutes, and Mrs. Bolton was looking forward
to hour after hour of the same kind. It did not seem to her to be
possible that Hester should be forced up into her own room. Even she,
with all her hardihood, could not ask the men about the place to take
her in their arms and carry her with violence up the stairs. Nor would
the men have done it, if so required. Nothing but a policeman's garb
will seem to justify the laying of a hand upon a woman, and even that
will hardly do it unless the woman be odiously disreputable. Mrs. Bolton
saw clearly what was before her. Should Hester be strong in her purpose
to remain seated as at present, she also must remain seated. Weariness
and solicitude for her baby might perhaps drive the young mother to bed.
Then she also would go to her bed,--and would rest, with one eye ever
open, with her ears always on the alert. She was somewhat sure of
herself. Her life had not been so soft but that she could endure
much,--and of her purpose she was quite sure. Nothing would trouble her
conscience if she could succeed in keeping her daughter separated from
John Caldigate.
Caldigate in his hot haste walked up to the iron gates and found them
chained. It was in vain that he shook them, and in vain that he looked
at them. The gates were fully twelve feet high, and spiked at the top.
At each side of the gates ran a wall surmounted by iron
railings,--extending to the gardener's cottage on the one side, and to
the coach-house on the other. The drive up to the house, which swept
round a plot of thick shrubs, lay between the various offices,--the
stables and coach-house being on one side, and the laundry and
gardener's cottage on the other. From the road there was no mode of
ingress for him to this enclosure, unless he could get over the
railings. This might perhaps have been possible, but it would have been
quite impossible for him to bring his wife back by the same way. There
was a bell at the gardener's little gate, which he rang loudly; but no
one would come to him. At last he made his way round into the
kitchen-garden by a corner where access was made by climbing a
moderately high gate which gave an entrance to the fields. From thence
he had no difficulty in making his way on to the lawn at the back of the
house, and up by half-a-dozen stone steps to the terrace which ran along
under the windows. Here he found that the lower shutters were barred on
the inside throughout so that he could not look into any of the rooms.
But he could rap at the windows, which he did loudly, and it was in his
power to break them if he pleased. He rapped very loudly; but poor
Hester, who sat at the front hall, heard nothing of the noise.
He knew that from the back-garden he could make his way to the front,
with more or less of violence. Between the gardener's cottage and the
laundry there was a covered passage leading to the front, the buildings
above being continuous, but leaving a way through for the convenience of
the servants. This, however, was guarded by a trellis-work gate. But
even on this gate the gardener had managed to fix a lock. When Caldigate
reached the spot the man was standing, idle and observant, at his own
cottage door. 'You had better open this gate,' said Caldigate, 'or I
shall kick it open.'
'You mustn't do that, Mr. Caldigate. It's master's orders as it's to be
locked. It's master's orders as you ain't to be in here at all.' Then
Caldigate raised his foot, and the trellis-work gate was very soon
despatched. 'Very well,' said the man;--'very well, Mr. Caldigate.
That'll have to come agin you when the other things come. It's my belief
as it's burglorious.' Then Caldigate went up before the house windows,
and the gardener followed him.
The front door was approached by half-a-dozen stone steps, which were
guarded on each side by a curved iron rail. Along the whole front of the
house, passing under the steps, there ran a narrow, shallow area,
contrived simply to give light to the kitchen and offices in the
basement storey. But this area was, again, guarded by an iron rail,
which was so constructed as to make it impossible that any one less
expert than a practised house-breaker should get in or out of any of the
windows looking that way. From the hall there were no less than four
windows looking to the front; but they were all equally unapproachable.
The moment that Caldigate appeared coming round the curve of the gravel
road Hester saw him. Jumping up from her chair with her baby, she rushed
to the window, and called to him aloud, tapping at the window as she did
so, 'John, I am here! Come to me! come to me! Take me out! They have
shut me in, and will not let me come to you.' Then she held up the baby.
'Mamma, let him in, so that he come to his own baby. You dare not keep
the father away from his own child.' At this time the nurse was in the
hall, as was also the cook. But the front door was locked as well as
chained, and the key was in Mrs. Bolton's own pocket. She sat perfectly
silent, rigid, without a motion. She had known that he would come and
show himself; and she had determined that she would be rigid, silent,
and motionless. She would not move or speak unless Hester should
endeavour to make her way down into the kitchen. But just in the passage
which led to the top of the kitchen stairs stood the cook,--strong,
solid, almost twice the weight of Hester,--a pious, determined woman, on
whom her mistress could depend that she would remain there impervious.
They could talk to each other now, Hester and Caldigate, each explaining
or suggesting what had been done or should be done; but they could
converse only so that their enemies around them should hear every word
that was spoken. 'No, John, no; I will not stay,' she said, when her
husband told her that he would leave the decision to her. 'Unless it be
to do your bidding, I will not stay here willingly. And, John, I will
not move upstairs. I will remain here; and if they choose to give me
food they may bring it to me. Unless they carry me I will not go to my
bedroom. And they shall tear me to pieces before I will let them carry
me. Poor baby! poor baby! I know he will be ill,' she said, moaning, but
still so that he, standing beyond the railings, should hear her through
the window. 'I know he will be ill; but what can I do? They do not care
for my baby. If he should die it will be nothing to them.' During all
this Mrs. Bolton kept her resolve, and sat there rigid, with her eyes
fixed on vacancy, speaking no word, apparently paying no attention to
the scene around her. Her back was turned to the front door, so that she
could not see John Caldigate. Nor would she attempt to look at him. He
could not get in, nor could the other get out. If that were so she would
endeavour to bear it all. In the meantime the old man was sitting in his
arm-chair up in his bedroom, reduced almost to inanity of mind by the
horror of the occasion. When he could think of it all he would tell
himself that he must let her go. He could not keep the mother and her
baby a prisoner in such a condition as this.
Then there came dinner. Let misfortunes be what they may, dinner will
come. The old man crawled down-stairs, and Hester was invited into the
dining-room. 'No,' she said. 'If you choose to send it to me here,
because of baby, I will eat.' Then, neither would Mrs. Bolton go to her
husband; but both of them, seated in their high-backed arm-chairs, ate
their food with their plates upon their laps.
During this time Caldigate still remained outside, but in vain. As
circumstances were at present, he had no means of approaching his wife.
He could kick down a slight trellis-work gate; but he could bring no
adequate force to bear against the stout front door. At last, when the
dusk of evening came on he took his departure, assuring his wife that he
would be there again on the following morning.