CHAPTER XLIX.
THE FATE OF FAUSTINA.
Oh, what a fate is guilt! How wild, how wretched!
When apprehension can form naught but fears.
—Howard.
Early the next morning Ishmael went over to the prison to see the governor relative to the removal of the body of the unhappy Vincent. But he was told that the old Earl of Hurstmonceux had arrived at noon on the previous day and had claimed the body of his son and had it removed from the prison in a close hearse at the dead of night, to escape the observation of the mob, and conveyed to Castle Cragg, where, without any funeral pomp, it would be quietly deposited in the family vault.
With this intelligence Ishmael came back to Judge Merlin.
"That is well! That is a great relief to my mind, Ishmael," said the judge, and he went to convey the news to Lady Vincent and the countess.
At nine o'clock Katie, Sally, and Jim, who were all witnesses for the prosecution in the approaching trial of Faustina Dugald, were dispatched to the courthouse, under the escort of the professor.
At half-past nine Judge Merlin, Ishmael Worth, Lady Vincent, and the Countess of Hurstmonceux entered a close carriage and drove to the same place.
What a crowd!
It is not every day that a woman of high rank stands at the bar of a criminal court to answer to a charge of felony. And Faustina was a woman of high rank, at least by marriage. She was the Honorable Mrs. Dugald; and she was about to be arraigned upon several charges, the lightest one of which, if proved, would consign her to penal servitude for years.
The world had got wind of this trial, and hence the great crowd that blocked up every approach to the courthouse.
Two policemen had to clear a way for the carriage containing the witnesses for the prosecution to draw up. And when it stopped and its party alighted, the same two policemen had to walk before them to open a path for their entrance into the courthouse.
Here every lobby, staircase, passage, and anteroom was full of curious people, pressed against each other. These people could not get into the courtroom, which was already crowded as full as it could be packed; nor could they see or hear anything from where they stood; and yet they persisted in standing there, crowding each other nearly to death, and stretching their necks and straining their eyes and ears after sensational sights and sounds.
Through this consolidated mass of human beings the policemen found great difficulty in forcing a passage for the witnesses. But at length they succeeded, and ushered the party into the courtroom, and seated them upon the bench appointed to the use of the witnesses for the prosecution.
The courtroom was even more densely packed than the approaches to it had been. It was scarcely possible to breathe the air laden with the breath of so many human beings. But for the inconvenience of the great crowd and the fetid air, this was an interesting place to pass a few hours in.
The Lord Chief Baron, Sir Archibald Alexander, presided on the bench. He was supported on the right and left by Justices Knox and Blair. Some of the most distinguished advocates of the Scottish bar were present.
The prisoner had not yet been brought into court. A few minutes passed, however, and then, by the commotion near the door and by the turning simultaneously of hundreds of heads in one direction, it was discovered that she was approaching in custody of the proper officers. Room was readily made for her by the crowd dividing right and left and pressing back upon itself, like the waves of the Red Sea, when the Israelites passed over it dryshod. And she was led up between two bailiffs and placed in the dock. Then for the first time the crowd got a good view of her, for the dock was raised some three or four feet above the level of the floor.
She was well dressed for the occasion, for if there was one thing this woman understood better than another, it was the science of the toilet. She wore a dark-brown silk dress and a dark-brown velvet bonnet, and a Russian sable cloak, and cuffs, and muff, and her face was shaded by a delicate black lace veil.
Mrs. MacDonald, who had followed her into the court, was allowed to sit beside her; a privilege that the lady availed herself of, at some considerable damage to her own personal dignity; for at least one-half of the strangers in the room, judging from her position beside the criminal, mistook her for an accomplice in the crime.
After the usual preliminary forms had been observed, the prisoner was duly arraigned at the bar.
When asked by the clerk of arraignments whether she were guilty or not guilty, she answered vehemently:
"I am not guilty of anything at all; no, not I! I never did conspire against any lady! My Lord Viscount Vincent and his valet Frisbie did that! And I never did abduct and sell into slavery any negro persons! My Lord Vincent and his valet did that also! It was all the doings of my lord and his valet, as you may know, since the valet has been guillotined and my lord has suffocated himself with charcoal! And it is a great infamy to persecute a poor little woman for what gross big men did! And I tell you, messieurs—"
"That will do! This is no time for making your defense, but only for entering your plea," said the clerk, cutting short her oration.
She threw herself into a chair and burst into tears, and sobbed aloud while the Queen's Solicitor, Counselor Birnie, got up to open the indictment setting forth the charges upon which the prisoner at the bar had been arraigned.
At the end of the opening speech he proceeded to call the witnesses, and the first called to the stand was:
"Claudia Dugald, Viscountess Vincent."
Judge Merlin arose and led his daughter to the stand, and then retired.
Claudia threw aside her deep mourning veil, revealing her beautiful pale face, at the sight of which a murmur of admiration ran through the crowded courtroom.
The oath was duly administered, Claudia following the words of the formula, in a low, but clear and firm voice.
Oh! but her position was a painful one! Gladly would she have retired from it; but the exactions of justice are inexorable. It was distressing to her to stand there and give testimony against the prisoner, which should cast such shame upon the grave of the dumb, defenseless dead; yet it was inevitable that she must do it. She was under oath, and so she must testify to "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!"
Then being questioned, she spoke of the sinful league between. Faustina Dugald, the prisoner at the bar, and the deceased Viscount Vincent; she then related the conversation she had overheard between these two accomplices on the very night of her first arrival home at Castle Cragg; that momentous conversation in which the first germ of the conspiracy against her honor was formed; being further questioned, she acknowledged the complete estrangement between herself and her husband, and the actual state of widowhood in which she had lived in his house, while his time and attention were all devoted to her rival, the prisoner at the bar.
Here Claudia begged leave to retire from the stand; but of course she was not permitted to do so; the Queen's Solicitor had not done with her yet. She was required to relate the incidents of that evening when the valet Frisbie was dragged from his hiding-place in her boudoir by the Viscount Vincent. And amid fiery blushes Claudia detailed all the circumstances of that scene. She was but slightly cross-questioned by the counsel for the prisoner, and without effect, and was finally permitted to retire. Her father came and led her back to her seat.
The housekeeper of Castle Cragg was the next witness called, and she testified with a marked reluctance, that only served to give additional weight to her statement, to the sinful intimacy between the deceased viscount and the prisoner at the bar.
Following her came old Cuthbert, who sadly corroborated her testimony in all respects.
Next came other servants of the castle, all with much dislike to do the duty, speaking to the one point of the fatal attachment that had existed between Lord Vincent and Mrs. Dugald.
And then at length came Katie. Now we all know the facts to which Katie would bear testimony, and the style in which she would do it; and so we need not repeat her statement here. It was sufficiently conclusive to insure the conviction of the prisoner, even if there had been nothing to support it.
But the most fatal evidence was yet to be produced: The Reverend Christian Godfree, chaplain of the jail, was called to the stand and duly sworn. And then a manuscript was placed in his hand, and he was asked if he could identify that as the veritable last confession made by the convict, Alick Frisbie, in his cell, on the night previous to his execution. Mr. Godfree carefully examined it and promptly identified it.
But here the counsel for the prisoner interposed, and would have had the confession ruled out as evidence; and a controversy arose between the prosecution and the defense, which was at last decided by the bench, who ordered that the confession of Alick Frisbie should be received as evidence in the case of Faustina Dugald.
And then the Queen's Solicitor, taking the paper from the witness, proceeded to read the confession with all its deeply disgraceful revelations. From it, the complicity of Faustina Dugald in the conspiracy against Lady Vincent was clearly shown. Having read it through, the solicitor called several witnesses from among the servants of the castle, who swore to the signature at the bottom of the confession as the handwriting of Alick Frisbie. And then the solicitor passed the paper to the foreman of the jury, that he might circulate it among his colleagues for their examination and satisfaction. The solicitor then summed up the evidence for the prosecution and rested the case.
Mr. Brace, leading counsel for the prisoner, arose and made the best defense that the bad case admitted of. He tried to pull to pieces, destroy, and discredit the evidence that had been given in; but all to no purpose. He next tried to engage the sympathy of the judge and jury for the beauty and misfortunes of his client; but in vain. Finally, he called a number of paid witnesses, who testified chiefly to the excellent moral character of Mrs. Faustina Dugald, seeking to make it appear quite impossible that she should do any wrong whatever, much less commit the crimes for which she stood arraigned; and also to the malignant envy, hatred, and malice felt by every servant at Castle Cragg and every witness for the prosecution against the injured and unhappy prisoner at the bar, seeking to make it appear that all their testimony was nothing but malignant calumny leveled against injured innocence.
But, unfortunately for the defense, the only impression these witnesses made upon the judge and the jury was that they—the witnesses—were about the most shameless falsifiers of the truth that ever perjured themselves before a court of justice.
The counsel for the prisoner went over the evidence for the defense in an eloquent speech, which was worse than wasted in such evil service.
The Queen's Solicitor had, as usual, the last word.
The Lord Chief Baron then summed up the evidence on either side and charged the jury. And the charge amounted in effect to an instruction to them to bring in a verdict against the prisoner. And accordingly the jury retired and consulted about twenty minutes, and then returned with the verdict: "Guilty."
The Lord Chief Baron arose to pronounce the sentence of the law.
The clerk of the arraigns ordered the prisoner to stand up.
"What are they going to do now?" nervously inquired Faustina, who did not in the least understand what was going on.
"Nothing much, my dear; his lordship the judge is going to speak to you from the bench. That is all," said Mrs. MacDonald, as she helped the prisoner to her feet; for Mrs. MacDonald never hesitated to tell a falsehood for the sake of keeping the peace.
Faustina stood up, looking towards the bench with curiosity, distrust, and fear.
The Lord Chief Baron began the usual prosing preamble to the sentence, telling the prisoner of the enormity of the crime of which she had been accused; of the perfect impartiality of the trial to which she had been subjected; the complete conclusiveness of the evidence on which she had been convicted; and so forth. He gave her to understand that the court might easily sentence her to fifteen or twenty years' imprisonment; but that, in consideration of her early youth and of her utter failure to carry out her felonious purposes to their completion, he would assign her a milder penalty. And he proceeded to sentence her to penal servitude for the term of ten years. The Lord Chief Baron resumed his seat.
Faustina threw a wild, perplexed, appealing glance around the courtroom, and then, as the truth of her doom entered her soul, she uttered a piercing shriek and fell into violent hysterics. And in this condition she was removed from the court to the jail, there to remain until she should be transported to the scene of her punishment.
"We have nothing more to do here, Judge Merlin. Had you not better take Lady Vincent back to the hotel?" suggested Ishmael.
The judge, who had been sitting as if spellbound, started up, gave his arm to his daughter, and led her out of the court and to the fly that was in attendance to convey them back to the "Highlander." Ishmael followed, with the countess on his arm. And the professor, having the three negroes in charge, brought up the rear. Judge Merlin, Ishmael, Claudia and the countess entered the fly. The professor and his charges walked. And thus they reached the "Highlander," where the news of Faustina Dugald's conviction had preceded them.
The trial had occupied the whole day. It was now late in the evening; too late for our party to think of going on to Edinboro' that night. Besides, they all needed rest after the exciting scenes of the day; and so they determined to remain in Banff that night.