“The time is precious; I’ll about it straight.”
_Earl of Essex._
The gaol presented a very different scene. A solemn stillness reigned in
its gallery; and even good Mrs. Gott had become weary with the
excitement of the day, and had retired to rest. A single lamp was
burning in the cell; and dark forms were dimly visible in the passage,
without the direct influence of its rays. Two were seated, while a third
paced the stone but carpeted pavement, with a slow and quiet step. The
first were the shadowy forms of Anna Updyke and Marie Moulin; the last,
that of Mary Monson. For half an hour the prisoner had been on her
knees, praying for strength to endure a burthen that surpassed her
expectations; and, as is usual with those who look above for aid, more
especially women, she was reaping the benefit of her petition. Not a
syllable had she uttered, however, since quitting the cell. Her voice,
soft, melodious, and lady-like, was now heard for the first time.
“My situation is most extraordinary, Anna,” she said; “it proves almost
too much for my strength! This has been a terrible day, calm as I may
have appeared; and I fear that the morrow will be still harder to be
borne. There is an expression about the eyes of that man, Williams, that
both alarms and disgusts me. I am to expect in him a most fiery foe.”
“Why, then, do you not escape from scenes for which you are so unsuited
and leave this saucy Williams to himself, and his schemes of plunder?”
“That would not do. Several sufficient reasons exist for remaining. Were
I to avail myself of the use of the keys I possess, and quit the gaol
not to return, good Mrs. Gott and her husband would probably both be
ruined. Although they are ignorant of what money and ingenuity have done
for me, it would be difficult to induce the world to believe them
innocent. But a still higher reason for remaining is the vindication of
my own character.”
“No one will think of confounding _you_ with Mary Monson; and by going
abroad, as you say it is your intention to do, you would effectually
escape from even suspicion.”
“You little know the world, my dear. I see that all the useful lessons I
gave you, as your school-mamma, are already forgotten. The six years
between us in age have given me an experience that tells me to do
nothing of the sort. Nothing is so certain to follow us as a bad name;
though the good one is easily enough forgotten. As Mary Monson, I am
indicted for these grievous crimes; as Mary Monson will I be acquitted
of them. I feel an affection for the character, and shall not degrade it
by any act as base as that of flight.”
“Why not, then, resort to the other means you possess, and gain a speedy
triumph in open court?”
As Anna put this question, Mary Monson came beneath the light and
stopped. Her handsome face was in full view, and her friend saw an
expression on it that gave her pain. It lasted only a moment; but that
moment was long enough to induce Anna to wish she had not seen it. On
several previous occasions this same expression had rendered her uneasy;
but the evil look was soon forgotten in the quiet elegance of manners
that borrowed charms from a countenance usually as soft as the evening
sky in September. Ere she resumed her walk, Mary Monson shook her head
in dissent from the proposition of her friend, and passed on, a shadowy
but graceful form, as she went down the gallery.
“It would be premature,” she said, “and I should fail of my object. I
will not rob that excellent Mr. Dunscomb of his honest triumph. How calm
and gentlemanlike he was to-day; yet how firm and prompt, when it became
necessary to show these qualities.”
“Uncle Tom is all that is good; and we love him as we would love a
parent.”
A pause succeeded, during which Mary Monson walked along the gallery
once, in profound thought.
“Yours promises to be a happy future, my dear,” she said. “Of suitable
ages, tempers, stations, country—yes, country; for an American woman
should never marry a foreigner!”
Anna Updyke did not reply; and a silence succeeded that was interrupted
by the rattling of a key in the outer door.
“It is your new father, Anna, come to see you home. Thank you,
kind-hearted and most generous-minded girl. I feel the sacrifices that
you and your friend are making in my behalf, and shall carry the
recollection of them to the grave. On her, I had no claims at all; and
on you, but those that are very slight. You have been to me, indeed,
most excellent friends, and a great support when both were most needed.
Of my own sex, and of the same social level, I do not now see how I
should have got on without you. Mrs. Gott is kindness and good-nature
themselves; but she is so different from us in a thousand things, that I
have often been pained by it. In our intercourse with you, how
different! Knowing so much, you pry into nothing. Not a question, not a
look to embarrass me; and with a perfect and saint-like reliance on my
innocence, were I a sister, your support could not be more warm-hearted
or firm.”
After a short pause, in which this singular young woman smiled, and
appeared to be talking to herself, she continued, after kissing her
companion most affectionately for good-night, and walking with her as
far as the door of the gallery, where it had been announced that the
doctor was waiting for his step-daughter—
“I wish I knew whether the same faith goes through the connection—Mr.
John Wilmeter?”
“Oh! He is persuaded of your entire innocence. It was he who excited so
much interest in me, on your behalf, before I had the least idea of our
having ever met before.”
“He is a noble-hearted young man, and has many excellent qualities—a
little romantic, but none the worse for that, my dear, as you will find
in the end. Alas! alas! Those marriages that are made over a rent-roll,
or an inventory, need a great deal of something very different from what
they possess, to render them happy! Mr. Wilmeter has told me that _no
evidence_ could make him believe in my guilt. There is a confidence that
might touch a woman’s heart, Anna, did circumstances admit of such a
thing. I like that Michael Millington, too; the _name_ is dear to me, as
is the race of which he comes. No matter; the world _va son train_, let
us regret and repine as we may. And Uncle Tom, Anna—what do you think of
his real opinion? Is it in my favour or not?”
Anna Updyke had detected in Dunscomb a disposition to doubt, and was
naturally averse to communicating a fact so unpleasant to her friend.
Kissing the latter affectionately, she hurried away to meet McBrain,
already waiting for her without. In quitting the dwelling of the
building annexed to the gaol, the doctor and Anna met Timms hurrying
forward to seek an interview with his client before she retired to rest.
An application at once obtained permission for the limb of the law to
enter.
“I have come, Miss Mary,” as Timms now called his client, “on what I
fear will prove a useless errand; but which I have thought it my duty to
see performed, as your best friend, and one of your legal advisers. You
have already heard what I had to say on the subject of a certain
proposal of the next of kin to withdraw from the prosecution, which will
carry with him this Williams, with whom I should think you would, by
this time, be heartily disgusted. I come now to say that this offer is
repeated with a good deal of emphasis, and that you have still an
opportunity of lessening the force that is pressing on your interests,
by at least one-half. Williams may well count for more than half of the
vigour and shrewdness of what is doing for the State in your case.”
“The proposal must be more distinctly made, and you must let me have a
clear view of what is expected from me, Mr. Timms, before I can give any
reply,” said Mary Monson. “But you may wish to be alone with me before
you are more explicit. I will order my woman to go into the cell.”
“It might be more prudent were we to go into the cell ourselves, and
leave your domestic outside. These galleries carry sounds like
ear-trumpets; and we never know who may be our next neighbour in a
gaol.”
Mary Monson quietly assented to the proposal, calling to her woman in
French to remain outside, in the dark, while she profited by the light
of the lamp in the cell. Timms followed, and closed the door.
In size, form, and materials, the cell of Mary Monson was necessarily
like that of every other inmate of the gaol. Its sides, top and bottom,
were of massive stones; the two last being flags of great dimensions.
But taste and money had converted even this place into an apartment that
was comfortable in all respects but that of size. Two cells opening on
the section of gallery that the consideration of Mrs. Gott had caused to
be screened off, and appropriated to the exclusive use of the fair
prisoner, one had been furnished as a sleeping apartment, while that in
which Timms was now received had more the air of a sort of _boudoir_. It
was well carpeted, like all the rest of what might be termed the suite;
and had a variety of those little elegancies that women of cultivated
tastes and ample means are almost certain to gather about them. The harp
which had occasioned so much scandal, as well as a guitar, stood near
by; and chairs of different forms and various degrees of comfort,
crowded the room, perhaps to superfluity. As this was the first time
Timms had been admitted to the cell, he was all eyes, gazing about him
at the numerous signs of wealth it contained, with inward satisfaction.
It was a minute after he was desired to be seated before he could
comply, so lively was the curiosity to be appeased. It was during this
minute that Marie Moulin lighted four candles, that were already
arranged in bronzed candlesticks, making a blaze of light for that small
room. These candles were of spermaceti, the ordinary American substitute
for wax. Nothing that he then saw, or had ever seen in his intercourse
with his client, so profoundly impressed Timms as this luxury of light.
Accustomed himself to read and write by a couple of small inferior
articles in tallow, when he did not use a lamp, there seemed to be
something regal to his unsophisticated imagination, in this display of
brilliancy.
Whether Mary Monson had a purpose to answer in giving Timms so unusual a
reception, we shall leave the reader to discover by means of his own
sagacity; but circumstances might well lead one to the conclusion that
she had. There was a satisfied look, as she glanced around the cell and
surveyed its arrangements, that possibly led fairly enough to such an
inference. Nevertheless, her demeanour was perfectly quiet, betraying
none of the fidgeting uneasiness of an underbred person, lest all might
not be right. Every arrangement was left to the servant; and when Marie
Moulin finally quitted the cell and closed the door behind her, every
thought of the apartment and what it contained seemed to vanish from the
mind of her extraordinary mistress.
“Before you proceed to communicate the purpose of your visit, Mr.
Timms,” Mary Monson said, “I shall ask permission to put a few questions
of my own, touching the state of our cause. Have we gained or lost by
this day’s proceedings?”
“Most clearly gained, as every man at the bar will confirm by his
opinion.”
“That has been my own way of thinking; and I am glad to hear it
corroborated by such competent judges. I confess the prosecution does
not seem to me to show the strength it really possesses. This Jane Pope
made a miserable blunder about the piece of coin.”
“She has done the other side no great good, certainly.”
“How stands the jury, Mr. Timms?”
Although this question was put so directly, Timms heard it with
uneasiness. Nor did he like the expression of Mary Monson’s eyes, which
seemed to regard him with a keenness that might possibly imply distrust.
But it was necessary to answer; though he did so with caution, and with
a due regard to his own safety.
“It is pretty well,” he said, “though not quite as much opposed to
capital punishment as I had hoped for. We challenged off one of the
sharpest chaps in the county, and have got in his place a man who is
pretty much under my thumb.”
“And the stories—the reports—have they been well circulated?”
“A little too well, I’m afraid. That concerning your having married a
Frenchman, and having run away from him, has gone through all the lower
towns of Duke’s like wild-fire. It has even reached the ears of ’Squire
Dunscomb, and will be in the York papers to-morrow.”
A little start betrayed the surprise of the prisoner; and a look
accompanied it, which would seem to denote dissatisfaction that a tale
put in circulation by herself, as it would now appear, had gone quite so
far.
“Mr. Dunscomb!” she repeated, musingly. “Anna Updyke’s uncle Tom; and
one whom such a story may very well set thinking. I wish it had not
reached _him_, of all men, Mr. Timms.”
“If I may judge of his opinions by some little acts and expressions that
have escaped him, I am inclined to think he believes the story to be, in
the main, true.”
Mary Monson smiled; and, as was much her wont when thinking intensely,
her lips moved; even a low muttering became audible to a person as near
as her companion then was.
“It is now time, Mr. Timms, to set the other story in motion,” she said,
quickly. “Let one account follow the other; that will distract people’s
belief. We must be active in this matter.”
“There is less necessity for our moving in the affair, as Williams has
got a clue to it, by some means or other; and his men will spread it far
and near, long before the cause goes to the jury.”
“That is fortunate!” exclaimed the prisoner, actually clapping her
pretty gloved hands together in delight. “A story as terrible as _that_
must react powerfully, when its falsehood comes to be shown. I regard
that tale as the cleverest of all our schemes, Mr. Timms.”
“Why—yes—that is—I think, Miss Mary, it may be set down as the
_boldest_.”
“And this saucy Williams, as you call him, has got hold of it already,
and believes it true!”
“It is not surprising; there are so many small and probable facts
accompanying it.”
“I suppose you know what Shakspeare calls such an invention, Mr. Timms?”
said Mary Monson, smiling.
“I am not particularly acquainted with that author, ma’am I know there
was such a writer, and that he was thought a good deal of, in his day;
but I can’t say I have ever read him.”
The beautiful prisoner turned her large expressive blue eyes on her
companion with a gaze of wonder; but her breeding prevented her from
uttering what she certainly thought and felt.
“Shakspeare is a writer very generally esteemed,” she answered, after
one moment of muttering, and one moment to control herself; “I believe
he is commonly placed at the head of our English literature, if not at
the head of that of all times and nations—Homer, perhaps, excepted.”
“What! higher, do you think, Miss Mary, than Blackstone and Kent!”
“Those are authors of whom I know nothing, Mr. Timms; but now, sir, I
will listen to your errand here to-night.”
“It is the old matter. Williams has been talking to me again, touching
the five thousand dollars.”
“Mr. Williams has my answer. If five thousand _cents_ would buy him off,
he should not receive them from me.”
This was said with a frown; and then it was that the observer had an
opportunity of tracing in a face otherwise so lovely, the lines that
indicate self-will, and a spirit not easily controlled. Alas! that women
should ever so mistake their natural means to influence and guide, as to
have recourse to the exercise of agents that they rarely wield with
effect; and ever with a sacrifice of womanly character and womanly
grace. The person who would draw the sex from the quiet scenes that they
so much embellish, to mingle in the strifes of the world; who would
place them in stations that nature has obviously intended men should
occupy, is not their real friend, any more than the weak adviser who
resorts to reputed specifics when the knife alone can effect a cure. The
Creator intended woman for a “help-meet,” and not for the head of the
family circle; and most fatally ill-judging are the laws that would fain
disturb the order of a domestic government which is directly derived
from divine wisdom as from divine benevolence.
“I told him as much, Miss Mary,” answered Timms; “but he does not seem
disposed to take ‘no’ for an answer. Williams has the true scent for a
dollar.”
“I am quite certain of an acquittal, Mr. Timms; and having endured so
much, and hazarded so much, I do not like to throw away the triumph of
my approaching victory. There is a powerful excitement in my situation;
and I like excitement to weakness, perhaps. No, no; my success must not
be tarnished by any such covert bargain. I will not listen to the
proposal for an instant!”
“I understand that the raising of the sum required would form no
particular obstacle to the arrangement?” asked Timms, in a careless sort
of way that was intended to conceal the real interest he took in the
reply.
“None at all. The money might be in his hands before the court sits in
the morning; but it never shall be, as coming from me. Let Mr. Williams
know this definitively; and tell him to do his worst.”
Timms was a little surprised, and a good deal uneasy at this
manifestation of a spirit of defiance, which could produce no good, and
which might be productive of evil. While he was delighted to hear, for
the fourth or fifth time, how easy it would be for his fair client to
command a sum as large as that demanded, he secretly determined not to
let the man who had sent him on his present errand know the temper in
which it had been received. Williams was sufficiently dangerous as it
was; and he saw all the hazard of giving him fresh incentives to
increase his exertions.
“And now, as this matter is finally disposed of, Mr. Timms—for I desire
that it may not be again mentioned to me”—resumed the accused, “let us
say a word more on the subject of our new report. Your agent has set on
foot a story that I belong to a gang of wretches who are combined to
prey on society; and that, in this character, I came into Duke’s to
carry out one of its nefarious schemes?”
“That is the substance of the rumour we have started at your own desire;
though I could wish it were not quite so strong, and that there were
more time for the reaction.”
“The strength of the rumour is its great merit; and, as for time, we
have abundance for our purposes. Reaction is the great power of
popularity, as I have heard, again and again. It is always the most
effective, too, at the turn of the tide. Let the public once get
possessed with the notion that a rumour so injurious has been in
circulation at the expense of one in my cruel condition, and the current
of feeling will set the other way in a torrent that nothing can arrest!”
“I take the idea, Miss Mary, which is well enough for certain cases, but
a little too hazardous for this. Suppose it should be ascertained that
this report came from us?”
“It never can be, if the caution I directed was observed. You have not
neglected my advice, Mr. Timms?”
The attorney had not; and great had been his surprise at the ingenuity
and _finesse_ manifested by this singular woman, in setting afloat a
report that would certainly act to her injury, unless arrested and
disproved at a moment most critical in her future fate. Nevertheless, in
obedience to Mary Monson’s positive commands, this very bold measure had
been undertaken; and Timms was waiting with impatience for the
information by means of which he was to counteract these self-inflicted
injuries, and make them the instruments of good, on the reaction.
If that portion of society which takes delight in gossip could be made
to understand the real characters of those to whom they commit the
control of their opinions, not to say principles, there would be far
more of reserve and self-respect observed in the submission to this
social evil, than there is at present. Malice, the inward impulses of
the propagators of a lie, and cupidity, are at the bottom of half the
tales that reach our ears; and in those cases in which the world in its
ignorance fancies it has some authority for what it says, it as often
happens that some hidden motive is at the bottom of the exhibition as
the one which seems so apparent. There are a set of vulgar vices that
may be termed the “stereotyped,” they lie so near the surface of human
infirmities. They who are most subject to their influence always drag
these vices first into the arena of talk; and fully one-half of that of
this nature which we hear, has its origin as much in the reflective
nature of the gossip’s own character, as in any facts truly connected
with the acts of the subjects of his or her stories.
But Mary Monson was taking a far higher flight than the circulation of
an injurious rumour. She believed herself to be putting on foot a
master-stroke of policy. In her intercourse with Timms, so much was said
of the power of opinion, that she had passed hours, nay days, in the
study of the means to control and counteract it. Whence she obtained her
notion of the virtue of reaction it might not be easy to say; but her
theory was not without its truth; and it is certain that her means of
producing it were of remarkable simplicity and ingenuity.
Having settled the two preliminaries of the rumour and of Williams’s
proposition, Timms thought the moment favourable to making a
demonstration in his own affairs. Love he did not yet dare to propose
openly; though he had now been, for some time, making covert
demonstrations towards the tender passion. In addition to the motive of
cupidity, one of great influence with such a man, Timms’s heart, such as
it was, had really yielded to the influence of a beauty, manners,
accomplishments, and information, all of a class so much higher than he
had been accustomed to meet with, as to be subjects of wonder with him,
not to say of adoration. This man had his affections as well as another;
and, while John Wilmeter had submitted to a merely passing inclination,
as much produced by the interest he took in an unknown female’s
situation as by any other cause, poor Timms had been hourly falling more
and more in love. It is a tribute to nature, that this passion can be,
and is, felt by all. Although a purifying sentiment, the corrupt and
impure can feel its power, and, in a greater or less degree, submit to
its influence, though their homage may be tainted by the grosser
elements that are so largely mixed up with the compound of their
characters. We may have occasion to show hereafter how far the uncouth
attorney of Mary Monson succeeded in his suit with his fair client.
[Illustration]