THE LAST DAY OF THE TRIAL
After the restless crowd--craning necks; shifting feet, half-caught
sentences--excited, alert, like a nervous horse dancing at a shadow,
ready at the vaguest rumor to rush into a sensation, how quiet,
prosaic, and even peaceful the court room seemed! That morning when we
entered it was only partly filled, and in the space behind the railing
the clerk of the court was scribbling, the lawyers were lolling,
certain individuals looking like janitors were wandering idly about,
and at his high desk the judge was writing steadily, his fine, white
hand moving across the paper, his eyes now and then glancing aside as
if he were thinking and paying no attention at all to what was going on
in the room around him. It was reassuring in a way, as if after all
nothing remarkable were going to happen.
Some women came in all in a group, among them Hallie Ferguson, her
mother hanging back in her wake, as if she were being towed along in
spite of herself. Hallie came over to where we sat, and began to
whisper in my ear some long story of something which she was deeply
absorbed in at the moment. This, too, had a habitual and pleasant
feeling about it. Even when, with a black veil over her face, sweeping
in folds down the length of her dress, the Spanish Woman came in, it
was hard to believe that she was that same terrible creature who had
stood before me only the day before yesterday telling me I should never
leave her house.
She took one of the chairs which had been placed along the wall, so
that instead of facing the judge's desk, she fronted the crowd, and
threw her veil back. She looked white, whiter than I had ever seen
her, as if she were deeply powdered, and this had the effect of a mask.
I have never seen a human face so calm or so indifferently sweet as
hers, and she sat as motionless as if she had been carved there. One
heard the whisperings around the room, saw the nudges and the twisting
of heads, but it was as if she did not see or know them. Then the
interest of the room turned toward the door. With that queer instinct
of a crowd, which knows before it sees, the whole room know that the
prisoner was coming before there was a glimpse of him visible.
He walked up the aisle, looking remarkably fresh and calm, as if he
were here on the merest matter of business. As soon as he was seated
he turned his head and glanced behind him, and I thought his eyes
rested first on that place where I had sat the week before; but they
did not linger there a moment, sweeping on in a half circle around the
room, glancing over me so quickly that I could not tell at all whether
he had noticed me. I thought he had been looking for some one, though
it couldn't have been the Spanish Woman, since she sat in plain sight
on the other side of the room.
The court filled rapidly. Young men whom I knew came in, and evidently
one or two of these knew Johnny Montgomery; for they walked up and into
the railed inclosure where he sat, shook hands with him and stood
talking with him. I could not but believe that at any time he pleased.
he could rise and leave the court as freely as those others could have
done. The thing going on here which they called a trial had the
appearance of being just a pretense--a play.
At last one of the men who had been wandering aimlessly among the
tables came forward and intoned those words which I could never
understand, but which, nevertheless, always brought quick order. Then
there was some exchange of words between the lawyers on the other side
of the rail, now with the judge, now with one another; and now it was
the clerk of the court who was speaking; and I couldn't repress the
absurd feeling of surprise that they should turn their backs and mumble
so, since it appeared irresistibly to me that we were an audience, and
the thing was being done for our benefit.
I was trying to make out what it was that Mr. Jackson had been saying
to the judge since it seemed to make for much smiling, when above the
rustle and whisper I heard again the voice of the clerk calling out.
There was a moment's wait. Then he raised his tone; I heard, and the
words went pealing through me:
"Eleanor Fenwick, Eleanor Fenwick!"
I sat gazing pitifully at him while he chanted it out in that
monotonous, singing voice.
"Ellie!" father whispered.
I rose, then realized with a sense of desertion that father was not
coming with me. I would have to be alone. Feeling strange, oh very
strange, with the echo of my own name still ringing in my ears, I
pattered up the aisle toward that railing. As I advanced I felt as if
I were walking away from all the world. I heard the movement and the
stir of it behind me. In front I saw only the faces of the lawyers, of
the clerk, of the judge, and these all seemed without any feeling, as
if they were not people at all.
I found myself standing in front of the railing, and two men were
facing me, one the clerk of the court, who was holding an open book. I
had an impression that they were speaking to me, still in those
monotonous, artificial voices, as if they were not saying anything with
human meaning in it, and while they spoke they held their hands up,
palm out, and I held mine. The next thing I knew I was mounting into
the little raised and railed-in seat on the left hand of the judge's
desk.
"What is it that is going to happen here?" I thought. I turned and
took the chair, and found myself facing a mass,--a monster,--numberless
heads and eyes, all gazing at me. A cold sensation of fear went over
me, like a great wave, closing my throat, and making my head feel as if
it were fitted with a cap of ice. "Oh, I can not, I can not!" I kept
repeating to myself.
But, while it still seemed to me as if I should never make another
sound, I heard a voice asking me my name. I recognized it as Mr.
Dingley's. To see him standing up there and gravely, as if he had
never seen me before, putting that question was indeed absurd. It was
impossible to be frightened with such laughable procedure. He asked me
my age, my place of residence, when he knew both very well, then, where
had I been walking when I heard the shot; and with these questions I
was familiar, having answered them all the day in the library, so it
made the speaking now a little easier. And finally when he said: "Now
tell the court and the gentlemen of the jury as well as you can
remember exactly what you saw," my only thought was, "Oh, how often I
have repeated this before! Will there never be an end of it?"
But as I began, I was aware that the judge's pen, which had been
steadily scratching ever since the court had opened, had ceased; and,
as I went on, all the rustling and whispering in the room fell silent.
The stillness made the place seem immense, and for a little while my
voice went on through the silence like a tiny thread. And now it had
stopped. I had come to the end of what I knew. It had been so small a
thing to say! But the silence was so deep I dared not look around. I
kept my eyes on Mr. Dingley's face, and thought it looked very strange
and worn.
"Can you," he began, in his ponderous official voice, each word coming
down heavily upon my ears, "Can you positively identify this person you
describe with the revolver?"
I believe that my "Yes" was a movement of the lips and a bend of the
head.
"Do you see him here in this court?"
The very idea of looking again at that terrible mass of heads and eyes,
all watching me, like some fabulous dragon, brought back the sickening
panic. But, queerly enough, when my eyes did move across them, I saw
only a dark, impersonal blur, and then the one face. It appeared, in
the indefiniteness around it, singularly near and distinct. He was
looking at me with that gentle, sweet expression which my sick fancy
hinted he never showed except when he looked at me. And he was
smiling, reassuringly, as if he were encouraging me to go on; as if he
would have me to understand that no great issues hung upon what I was
going to say, that really what was happening was not so very momentous
after all.
"He is sitting there," I said. "The third from the end of the bench,
next to Mr. Jackson."
Instantly voices of officers rang all about the court, crying, "Order,
order!" though there had been no sound, only a great stir, which seemed
to pass across the crowd, and which the next moment might have become
articulate. I sat trembling, wondering what it all meant, clasping my
hands tightly in my lap. All the back of the hall was crowded with
men, and most of these looked like street-loungers, unshaven and rough.
They stood so close together they hid the door, and seemed to sway and
press forward upon the room; and I thought, "There are a great many
Mexicans in here."
Mr. Dingley asked me more questions--if I had heard voices quarreling,
and I had not; which side of the street had been in sunshine, and what
color dress I had worn. I told him, thinking that this was nonsense
again. And then Mr. Jackson said something to the judge, Mr. Dingley
sat down, and Mr. Jackson leaned on the railing, making me think of a
figure on the stage, and asked me why had I gone out at that early hour
of the morning, what had been my business, how had it happened that I
was walking through such a street as Dupont, and how did I suppose the
doors of the saloon had happened to be open so early? It was all in
such a tone as made my cheeks burn with a sense of shame and
indignation, though I could not see what he was getting at. Then
suddenly he veered and demanded how could I tell that the handle of the
revolver had been mother-of-pearl when it had fallen on the shady side
of the street, how large was it exactly, how had Johnny Montgomery held
it, how had he thrown it, then--quickly leaning toward me--could I
produce this revolver?
At this there were sounds from the back of the court like hisses, and
voices choked off on the first syllable by rappings and calls of
"Order!" The small man who was Mr. Dingley's associate attorney was
calling out, "I object, your Honor," very fiercely.
I felt faint, and did not know in the least what was the trouble. I
began to answer that I had not touched the revolver, but the judge
smiled at me, and said in his conversational voice: only now it was not
indifferent but very kind, "You needn't answer that question."
So I said, "Thank you." And Mr. Jackson said, "That will do," and I
noticed that some of the jurors were smiling, but quite nicely, so I
didn't mind that, as I went down out of the witness-box.
"Can it be that this is all I am to do?" I thought. "Is it over?" I
had expected this for so long in my days and in my dreams; and the
moment had come and had passed so quickly. And here was father waiting
for me.
"I shall have to testify. I will take you to the witness room and you
can wait for me there," he explained to me.
"Oh, no," I said, "let me stay here. I am afraid to be alone." I
suppose the thought of the Spanish Woman occurred to him, for he did
not insist, but really I was not afraid of anything except of having to
leave the court room before I knew what the end was to be.
By the time I had got back to my seat they had already called another
witness, and such a queer little, compact, positive-looking woman, with
a very gay, very best hat, was sitting in the witness-box looking,
possibly as I had looked, like a queer, scared animal in a pen.
She told how on the morning of May the seventh she had been awakened by
a pistol shot, had looked out of the window and seen a woman running
down the street. Questioned as to this woman's personal appearance,
she said she could not tell, but that she wore a white dress. In what
direction did she run? The woman thought south, yes, she was sure it
was south. At this I saw father shake his head, for our house was
north of Mr. Rood's gambling place, and I noticed that Johnny
Montgomery, who had been very calm while I was talking, had now grown
nervous and jerked about in his chair.
Father was the next witness, and when he came back again he really
tried to insist that we should go home. But, for the first time in my
life, I stood out against him. I said I could not go until I knew at
least what was going to become of Johnny Montgomery. Father gave me
such a strange look, neither angry nor sad--something which I did not
at all understand. He didn't urge me further, he hardly looked at me,
but I was conscious of his set profile while I listened to a
disagreement between Mr. Dingley's associate and Mr. Jackson. Mr.
Jackson waved his arms a good deal, but the little man kept saying, "I
insist, your Honor!" And finally the judge seemed to decide it in a
way that pleased Mr. Dingley's man; though Mr. Dingley himself seemed
not to be interested, paying no attention at all to the little man, who
kept leaning over and speaking excitedly to him, and the court crier
was calling for "Latovier."
A pale, indefinite-looking creature rose up from somewhere out of the
crowd and shuffled slowly toward the witness-box. "There he is," I
heard the whispers around me. "Why, don't you know? That's the man
who was shipped off. They only got him back yesterday. He's supposed
to know--"
I felt in my heart that something decisive was coming, and I had a
premonition it was going to be something bad; the man appeared so
wretchedly nervous as he sat there in the witness-box. He kept
glancing at Johnny Montgomery, shuffling his feet and shifting his hat
from hand to hand and what they got out of him came not at all as a
story, but only with very many questions.
It seemed he had a little gunsmith's shop, not very well known, to
which, he admitted, gentlemen such as the prisoner there, hardly ever
came. But he said that on a certain night, perhaps two months ago, the
prisoner and another man had come into the shop and looked a long time
and bargained for the very best pistol he had in the place. It was a
mother-of-pearl handle, he said, with trimmings of steel, and quite
small. He had told them that it was hardly the weapon for a man to
carry, and Johnny Montgomery had answered him that he did not mean to
carry it long.
At this there was quite an uproar in the court, the lawyers shouting,
the clerk trying to call order, and a great commotion in the press
about the door. But I do not remember being afraid, only the
inconvenience of having father keep his arm around my shoulders while I
was trying to see how Johnny Montgomery looked. Finally quiet was
restored, and then the man who had gone into the gunsmith's with Johnny
testified; and after another pause, with all my expectations strained
to tighter pitch than I could bear, came the general uprising which
meant the court dismissed, that it was noon.
Father, looking down at me, said, "Now what do you propose to do? Are
you going home with me?"
"Please," I said, "do this one thing for me. I have done everything
you have wished so far. I can not endure not to know the worst or the
best that can happen. I must hear the end. Let us come back here
again this afternoon."
I was so excited that I didn't care what father thought of me. But all
he said was, "Well!" And, "Then we will go over to the restaurant
across the street for luncheon instead of going home."
It was a help not to have to step out of the excitement of the
proceedings. It was that which kept me up, which carried me along.
"There she is; that's the girl who saw it!" The voices whispering
behind me gave me a sad stir of feeling, but it was better than being
left to think. It spurred me; and the clatter of dishes and the crowd
which filled the restaurant, talking all at once, yet with no distinct
words audible, all helped to bridge over the chasm of the waiting. I
could see Laura Burnet sitting at a near table with her thick veil
raised only a little above her nose, just enough to let her drink a cup
of tea. Some of father's friends and one or two of the young men I
knew stopped at our table to shake hands, but very little was said, and
of the trial nothing at all. For all their trying to be easy and
natural, I could see that my presence embarrassed them. I could see
them glancing at me as if they wondered what sort of person I could
be--as though I had become something different from a girl by answering
questions in the witness-box. By two o'clock we were back in court
again; and how changed everything seemed! All that desultory feeling
of the morning was gone, and as I looked about over the faces I could
see how every one's mind was fixed on the same thing. A woman whom I
did not know, jostling at my shoulder as I went in, confided to me that
what she wanted was, "To hear Dingley tear the defense to pieces." I
wondered if the only people in the room who didn't want to hear that
were myself and the Spanish Woman.
But it was Mr. Jackson who got up first. Though I had heard all the
evidence that morning it had come out in such little bits and patches
with such disagreements of lawyers between, and I had myself been so in
the midst of it that I had no idea as to how it would sum up; and I had
been waiting anxiously to hear what this man, whom father said was such
a fine lawyer, would say.
He began with a sort of oration, all about the Montgomery family, and
what a fine family, they had been, how much they had done for the city!
Then he talked about Johnny, and he drew a very beautiful picture of
him, speaking of his great promise and fine character and then of the
blow which was being struck at his brilliant career; and it was somehow
awful to have to listen to it, for even supposing it were true, this
seemed scarcely the time for saying it. I could see Johnny's face
getting more and more set-looking and grim, as if he hated listening to
the words that were pouring over his head.
Then, in some way I couldn't follow, Mr. Jackson got from that to
talking about courts and evidence, and corroborating testimony; and
though for a while I couldn't make out what he was driving at,
presently it began to appear to me that he was trying to prove that all
the witnesses on the state's behalf had been lying. He was wonderfully
clever in his way of making the testimony seem improbable. He pulled
even mine to pieces, pointing out the revolver's not being where I said
it had fallen. He declared there was a plot against the prisoner; that
the gunsmith who had testified about the buying of the pistol had been
bribed to do so; and he appealed to the feelings of humanity and
justice in the jury.
He spoke beautifully. It made one's heart beat to hear just the tone
of his voice, even though one couldn't quite understand what he was
saying. And yet it was strange I thought that with everything he said
he did not bring forward, or even try to bring forward, one single
direct proof to show that Johnny Montgomery was innocent.
I was in a very confused state of mind indeed when Mr. Dingley got to
his feet. Though I had never heard him speak in a court I had read in
the newspapers that he was "Our golden-tongued orator," and father had
been used to say that, "Dingley was a whirlwind." But now, when he
rose, and turned toward the jury-box and began, his voice sounded stiff
and cold, as if he brought it out with a great effort. He didn't shake
his finger at the jury, as Mr. Jackson had done, nor fling out his
hands, nor lift his arms in the air and bring them down as if he were
bringing the world down on one's head. He simply stood there, and in a
matter of fact, even voice gathered up the evidence of the different
witnesses as one would beads in the hand, and strung them together; and
I saw a long chain of evidence winding around Johnny Montgomery. As he
went on measuring it out, for the first time I understood how heavily
my testimony counted. It seemed to do away with the whole defense. In
spite of Mr. Dingley the case seemed to be proving itself, and as he
went on he warmed to the very sound of his own argument; his voice
began to ring out more and I lost sight and memory of everything that
Mr. Jackson had said.
All heads were craning toward him as he stood with his back to all of
us, talking at the men in the jury-box as if they were the only people
in the world. The Spanish Woman was leaning forward, her elbow on her
knee, her head drooped, her hand hiding the lower part of her face, but
looking out from under her eyebrows like a picture I had once seen of a
prophetess. I felt that we were being wound up every moment more and
more tense, and when Mr. Dingley stopped, he left us at the highest
pitch possible for human beings to bear. When he sat down again he
gave a quick glance behind and around him and, as for a moment it
lingered on the Spanish Woman, I thought it seemed a little defiant.
I hardly realized what was happening in the room around me. The judge
was reading something endless to the jury, not one word of which my
ears could take. Then that sound ceased, and presently I noticed that
the jurymen were leaving the room.
With the closing of the door upon them the aspect of things behind the
railings changed, the judge getting up, walking restlessly back and
forth in front of his platform for a minute, then going back to his
writing; the clerk of the court keeping on with his, and most of the
lawyers going out. Mr. Dingley passed us with just a bend of the head,
and father glanced after him and made a little sound in his throat, a
sort of meditative "h'm" of surprise. But the crowd kept very quiet;
as the minutes passed the room grew more and more still. A sense of
nervousness was over all. Every time a door opened there was a rumor
that the jury was coming back.
"Well, it may be five minutes, and it may be all night," I heard Mr.
Ferguson saying to father. "That pistol disappearing is going to give
him a chance." Father answered, "That was a guilty man's defense, just
the same."
But I seemed to have forgotten there were such things as guilt or
innocence. I kept watching Johnny Montgomery, who was sitting almost
alone, with his head a little bent forward, looking at the table in
front of him. The light fell strongly on his face, making it almost
seem to shine, and I looked at the little white seam of the scar on his
cheek that had helped to identify him, at his black, brooding eyebrows,
and the long lock of hair falling over his forehead, and I thought, so
softly that it scarcely dared to be a thought, "Perhaps I shall never
see any of these again." I felt very quiet, as though I should never
want to laugh or cry again.
I lost all track of time; but the light was falling in the room and
that bright look it had given Johnny's face was turning gray, when,
quite suddenly, he gave a shiver, and pulled himself up in his chair,
nervously drawing in his shoulders. I looked quickly at the judge's
desk and saw a man standing beside it and offering a paper. It
glimmered faintly white as he held it up. I saw the judge lean over,
stretching out his fine, plump hand to take it, and I heard him say:
"Is this your verdict?"
Then instantly the room heard and knew. And almost at the same time I
felt myself lifted to my feet and heard father saying, in a voice I
should have never dared to question, "Quick, your coat!"
I fumbled wildly for the sleeves. I no longer knew what I was doing,
nor why, but obeyed him blindly. I felt there was some reason for this
haste, but even as I tried to follow him out it seemed the whole room
had risen, and a voice somewhere in front of us was speaking--had
spoken.
There was a moment of dreadful silence, and then all about me broke out
quick whispers, suddenly, like a refrain. Not once but over and over,
I heard them around me.
"Murder--yes, yes, murder!"
"Oh, no, guilty in the second degree."
A woman near me fainted, and I wished I could have lost consciousness
so as to be rid of those terrible words, but I could not even cry. I
raised my hand to my throat and pressed it there hard, because there
seemed to be constriction there.
The police were thick about the door, but even they, struggling with
the hoodlums who had crowded the back of the room, couldn't get a
passage open, and the large sergeant of police lifted me up as if I had
been a child and carried me out, and set me down on the sidewalk.
There I stood in the lovely, mild twilight, looking at the familiar
surroundings as if I had never seen them before. Among the vehicles
that filled the street I noticed the Spanish Woman's carriage, with its
beautiful nervous horses. Father put my arm through his and said, "Do
you think you can get across the street?"
"Oh, yes," I said, surprised that he should suppose I could not, since,
except for that queer feeling of not having any emotions at all, I felt
quite well.
He took me over to the restaurant. "But I am not hungry," I said. And
father answered, "Probably not." Then, turning to the waiter, "A glass
of brandy, please, and call me a carriage."
I sat down at a table near the window, and pushing aside the curtain a
little, looked out at the court-house entrance on the other side of the
street. In front of it a little group of men in uniform was waiting.
I could see the last of the sunlight catch on their side-arms and
bayonets. A good many people were coming out, and more were gathering
in from Kearney Street, and up from Montgomery. The police kept
shaking their clubs and trying to make them walk away. But in spite of
all they could do the crowd gathered and gathered, and made a sort of
narrow lane down the steps and across the sidewalk. Presently the
Spanish Woman's carriage drew up just opposite this narrow way, and
down the steps she came, like a queen, with her black veil sweeping
over her face, stepped in and was carried quickly down the street. But
as she passed I saw that her head was bent and that she was holding a
handkerchief in front of her face.
I swallowed the brandy in a few gulps, scarcely knowing what it was,
and kept watching the prison door, for I had the greatest longing to
see Johnny Montgomery again. But presently our carriage came, so I had
to go out and get into it. Just as we were making the turn across the
street, I was face to face with the prison door, and at that moment
they brought him out.
The guard passed close to us, and I saw his face as white and set as if
he were already dead. "I have killed him," I thought, though that
thought did not bring me any special feeling.
For a few moments we seemed to be caught in the crowd, the driver
couldn't get forward with the horses, and I could turn my head and
watch the little escort moving off down the street.
It was after sunset now, just beginning to be dusky. The sad gray
twilight was over everything, and as the figures retreated they merged
into a single dark mass in the throat of the street. As this mass
reached Jackson Street corner, there was an outcry. In the peaceful
stillness of the evening it came with a shrill, terrifying sound. The
crowd at the corner broke and scattered before a rush of horsemen.
They seemed to come from all sides, and meet in the middle of the
street. Then we couldn't see the guard, but shots rang out, yells, and
then more firing; and the mounted men swept on across the street. Men
on foot were running after them and firing. In their wake a wounded
horse was rolling on the ground and there was something else sprawled
away from it that might have been a man. I had just a glimpse before
the crowd closed in upon it.
"Stay where you are," father said, and jumping out of the carriage, he
ran up the street. Other men were running past.
The horrible thought of the vigilance committee turned me sick. I
called to the driver to go forward, but, already the crowd was swarming
on both sides and our progress up the street was very slow. As we drew
near the place a man in the uniform of the guards, with blood running
down his face, went staggering by, another man supporting him; and I
heard him groaning out: "I don't see how it happened, my God, I don't
see how it happened!"
Another man, a young man, with his coattails flying and his silk hat
knocked over his eyes, burst out of the crowd close beside the
carriage. I recognized the dandy, Jack Tracy. He was so near I could
have touched him, and for one moment I forgot all about being a lady.
I grasped him, by the sleeve. "Tell me, for Heaven's sake, what has
happened!"
He fairly glared at me, so excited that I believe he didn't recognize
me. "They've got him--the Mexicans! He's gone!"