Name and Fame: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

"It was just what was wanted, then, to bring her to her senses. She may recognize now that Walcott is a man of ungovernable passions. In all probability he will be a convicted felon before she comes back to England, and she will see that it is impossible to know any more of him."

"Oh, James, how hard you are! She will never think of him as a felon. No more shall I!"

"He will be one, whatever you may think. As you said yourself, facts are facts, and they will have their proper influence upon you sooner or later."

"But do you think that Lettice is the woman to change her opinion of a man just because he is unfortunate, or to despise him as soon as he gets into trouble? I am perfectly sure she is not."

"We shall see," said Graham. "I give her credit for more sense. I don't think you recognize yet the sort of offence which Walcott has committed, so we may as well drop the subject for a time. I hope, however, that you will not do anything which might bring her home just now. Clearly she could not do any good, and even on your own showing it would be a needless vexation to her."

He went off to his study, and Clara set about her household tasks with a heavy heart.

The fact was that she could hardly doubt that Alan Walcott had injured his wife in a moment of desperation, when he was not fully responsible for his actions; but she certainly doubted the justice of any law which could condemn him as a murderer; or doom him to be an outcast amongst his fellowmen. Her sense of equity might have suited the Saturnian reign better than our matter-of-fact nineteenth century, in which the precise more or less of criminality in the soul of an accused man is not the only thing which has to be taken into consideration.

Was there ever a malefactor condemned to imprisonment or torment for whom the heart of some woman or other did not plead in mitigation of his sentence? Yet the man-made laws against which untutored hearts will now and again protest are often essentially merciful in comparison with the wild and hasty judgments that outrun the law—whether in mercy or in severity.

It was so in Alan's case. The popular opinion was evidently against him. The great majority thought this case of attempted wife-murder too clear for argument, and too cold-blooded to warrant anything like sympathy for the accused. Alan's private affairs had been made public property for some time past, and he now suffered from a storm of hostility and prejudice against which it was impossible to contend. His story, or the world's story about him, had been current gossip for the last few months, as the reader has already seen; and a large number of people appeared to have fixed upon him as a type of the respectable and hypocritical sinner, prosperous, refined, moving in good society and enjoying a fair reputation, yet secretly hardened and corrupt. It was not often that the underhand crimes of such men were plainly exposed to view, and, when they were, an example ought to be made of the offender as a warning to his class. Ever since Cora had gained a hearing in the police-court at Hammersmith, Alan was set down as a heartless libertine, who had grown tired of his wife, or, at any rate, as one who wanted to wash his hands of her, and throw the burden of maintaining her upon the rates. Thus it became quite a popular pastime to hound down "Poet Walcott."

This is how the outcry originally began. One or two newspapers with an ethical turn, which had borrowed from the pulpit a trick of improving the sensational events of the day for the edification of their readers, and which possessed a happy knack of writing about anything and anybody without perpetrating a libel or incurring a charge of contempt of court, had printed articles on "The Poet and the Pauper," "Divorce Superseded," and the like. Stirred up by these interesting homilies, a few shallow men and women, with too much time on their hands, began to write inept letters, some of which were printed; and then the editors, being accused of running after sensations, pointed to their correspondents as evidence of a public opinion which they could not control, and to which they were compelled to give utterance. They were, in fact, not dishonest but only self-deceived. They really persuaded themselves that they were responding to a general sentiment, though, such as it was, their own reports and articles had called it into existence. The "gentleman in court" who paid Cora's fine at Hammersmith began the outcry in its last and worst form, the editorials nursed and encouraged it, and the correspondents gave it its malignant character. All concerned in the business were equally convinced that they were actuated by the best possible motives.