Mrs. Eastwood looked up quickly, with a hard, sudden drawing of her breath. She looked round the men, who were none of them in her confidence, and a sudden sense of fright sealed her lips. “They have no proof that I know of,” she answered, faltering, and, taking courage, bore the steady look which Mr. Ryder gave her without shrinking. As for Alexis, his mind was absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, and he paid no attention to this little episode. Vane, for his part, had not heard of the trial. Mrs. Eastwood withdrew soon after, trembling from head to foot, and went to the little room, in which Nelly was sitting, gazing up at poor Innocent’s high window with tender superstition, and threw herself upon her child’s shoulder, sobbing and sick with misery. Frederick had taken the phial out of her desk, and had thrown it into the fire at the first rumour of doubt about Amanda’s death. She had suffered him to do it, she could not tell why, and now how was she to explain? What was she to do? To say that he had done it would be to involve him, already, unhappily, too much involved, for whose sake it would be the effort of the prosecution to prove the deed had been done. And it was easier to be silent about it altogether than to tell how so fatal a mistake had been made. The more Mrs. Eastwood thought of it, the more she felt how serious a mistake it was; and if she could have said truly that she herself had done it, I think she would have gone back at once and told her story. But to say that Frederick had interfered, that he had destroyed the only tangible proof of poor Innocent’s wild tale—he whom everybody thought badly of already, who was supposed the cause of all; who to every vulgar imagination, even to his own, supplied the motive necessary to make Innocent’s guilt possible,—how could she mention his name? how involve him doubly, making him, as it were, an accomplice? With dismal confidence in chance, she said to herself that no one knew anything about the phial; that it would not be thought of unless she herself mentioned it. But after this she shrank from discussion of the subject. She avoided any encounter with the lawyers. She was to be, poor soul, one of the principal witnesses, and many a miserable, anxious prayer did the poor woman make that God would direct the minds of her questioners away from this one point upon which she had gone astray. It seemed easier to her to trust to a miracle for deliverance than to confess the truth.
During the interval which followed it would be impossible to describe the alternations of hope and of misery which swept over the unhappy family, who kept together in their little lodging opposite the prison. They were allowed to be with poor Innocent during the greater portion of the day, and then the ladies put on a semblance of ease, and even gaiety, which was far from real. But in the dreary evenings they were apart from her—and the evenings of March are still long—the vicissitudes of feeling to which they were subject were like the changes of a fever. Sometimes it seemed so impossible to them that any one could for a moment believe so incredible an accusation; and again all the horrible accumulation of proof would gather round their souls. The love of the poor girl for her cousin—love which they had themselves believed, and of which they but dimly now had come to recognize the real character; her dislike, openly professed, for Amanda; her strange vigil by Amanda’s side, brought about in so simply accidental a way, yet which might be made to bear the aspect of a deliberate plot; her sudden and unaccountable flight; her confession. When they recollected all these things, horror would come over them, dismay, and almost despair.
These and a great many other particulars were in all the papers, reported and dwelt upon with all the avidity natural when the public mind has a story so interesting presented to it—a romance in real life. There had been the usual horrible preliminaries, into which it is not necessary for me to enter, before the warrant was produced for Innocent’s arrest. Poor Amanda’s last repose had been disturbed to furnish evidence, though, owing to the lapse of time, with little or no result; but the circumstantial evidence had seemed so strong to the magistrates before whom Innocent was first examined as to warrant her immediate committal. All that the public knew in her favour was mere supposition and hearsay, while the facts on the other side were very apparent. One dismal feature in the case, however, which appalled all who heard of it, was that while all Innocent’s friends were called for the prosecution, it was by some cursed spite of fate only her enemies, with one exception, who could be called for her defence. Frederick was the only witness capable of saying anything about Amanda’s death who would not be the personal enemy of the unhappy girl, and every one was aware under what difficulties, and with what prejudices against him, the man whom the public supposed the cause of the whole would appear before a British jury. In such cases women have the best of it. A woman who has been the cause of a deadly struggle between two men is not discredited, but rather gains a fictitious interest by it. But a man for whom two women have appeared to contend bears always a miserable aspect. Men despise him, and women hate him; his evidence in favour of a culprit is worth nothing, for he is supposed bound in honour to perjure himself, if necessary, to shield the creature who has risked her life for him. The public, as was natural, regarded Frederick with scorn and disgust. And yet, with the exception of Frederick, only Innocent’s enemies, the father, the nurse, the women servants, all committed to proceed against her, could be called for her defence—a thought which might well have appalled the stoutest heart.
Jenny Eastwood had started at once in search of the doctor, whose evidence it was believed was of so much importance, and who had gone, not to the Colonies, as Frederick said, but to Transylvania, and other remote parts of Europe, with a scientific expedition. It was hoped that he might be brought back in time for the trial. And the anxious days went on—terrible days, but so full of eager consultation, of anxious reviewing of every circumstance, of the efforts made by all to keep each other up, and to support the poor girl herself, whose mind certainly seemed to weaken under the effects of her confinement, that they fled as if on wings. The unhappy family living at the prison gates, going to and fro constantly, identifying themselves with the poor young prisoner, yet probably destined to prove her guilt, became the object of much public compassion. The newspapers enlarged greatly on the attractive theme, and some graphic and eloquent journals went out of their way to paint this striking picture of family devotion and suffering. But there were some facts which even the Semaphore itself was not aware of, which deepened every stroke of pain. Batty pursued the prosecution like a fiend, calling, as I have said, Innocent’s dearest friends to convict her, to prove her foolish love, her wild expressions of dislike, her distracted avowal of guilt; and the case, thus complicated and embittered, would naturally fall to be tried by the youngest judge on the bench, the well-known and justly-celebrated Mr. Justice Molyneux. Could there be any bitterer drop in that cup of tears?
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE TRIAL.
The trial of Lady Longueville for the wilful murder of Amanda Eastwood came on about the 2nd of April, after some unimportant business had been got over. The trial was one which was not only interesting in itself, but doubly attractive to the district in which the Eastwoods had their ancestral home, and where Miss Vane had set up so remarkable an establishment. Sterborne, like every other place, had very strong opinions about the semi-conventual life of the community which had possession of the High Lodge. Some wished the sisters and their strange lady abbess well, thinking that, whether wisely or not, they were women really attempting a great piece of work while so many of us content ourselves with saying that work ought to be done. But a great many were virulent against Miss Vane, especially among the lower classes, and these felt themselves almost flattered in their amour propre by the discovery that a niece or a relative of the mistress of the High Lodge was to be tried for her life. Many of them thought it served her right, many more that it was the natural result of nunneries, and that, on the whole, it was rather a good thing that light should thus be thrown on the doings habitual to them. Of others, and better-informed people, many were curious on behalf of the Eastwoods, and some on behalf of the Vanes. Sterrington, the county town, was sufficiently near Sterborne to be affected by the strong feeling on the question which naturally existed there: and the county itself attended the Assizes almost in a body, half-glad and half-sorry that Innocent had never belonged to its “set.” Batty’s daughter, too, was very well known in the district, her beauty, her violent temper, and the match she had made having each and all of them attracted public attention to her. Thus the ordinary attractions of a trial in which the romantic element was involved, and dark stories of love and mystery promised to be unfolded, were enhanced by everything that local interest could add to it. The court was thronged. There was as distinguished an audience as if the Queen herself had come to Sterrington, or as if Titiens or Patti had been about to sing; and the anxiety to get places was more eager than it would have been on either of these occasions, for it was a real tragedy, at which all the good people intended to assist, and which thrilled them with the liveliest emotions of sympathy, horror, and fear.
Thus the court was crowded from an early hour in the morning when people went to take their places as for a spectacle; every seat was filled, almost from the floor to the roof, the Town Hall was one throng and sea of faces, and it was with difficulty that the judge himself made his way to the bench. Within the last week it had been expected that Mr. Justice Waterhouse, Molyneux’s colleague, would try the case; but the day before Sir Edward Waterhouse took ill, and there was no escape for the other, whose usually good-humoured countenance looked gloomy enough on this particular occasion. When Innocent appeared, who was the chief object of the popular curiosity, there was that thrill through the place which testified to the tension of excited nerves and highly-strained feelings. She came in very quietly, with a wondering, scared look in her eyes, but no other sentiment. She was not abashed, nor afraid to meet the gaze of so many. Why should she shrink from their gaze? Innocent had been by many supposed to be shy, but she had never really been shy—she had not enough imagination for that painful feeling. Therefore she was not abashed nor shame-faced, though a faint additional colour came upon her colourless face. Her eyes had a look of fright because she did not know what was going to happen to her, but of the scene she saw, or the people who looked at her, Innocent was not afraid. She was in the same dress of clinging white cashmere which she had worn on the day when she was arrested, and had the little gray-blue cloak upon her shoulders. A very light little bonnet, more like a white veil arranged about her head, and throwing up her pathetic face against its white background—a bonnet which had been made by a fanciful milliner to suit the strange beauty of the poor young bride—was on her head. There had been many consultations about this dress. Mrs. Eastwood had desired that her niece should wear black, as being less subject “to be remarked;” but Innocent had been unusually obstinate. She had carried her point, and accordingly made her appearance in a costume which was quite bridelike, and certain “to be remarked.” Nelly sat near the bar, as close to it as she could be permitted to place herself, so that Innocent might see her, and feel the support of a friend at hand if her heart failed her. Sir Alexis was on the other side. She was surrounded at least by those who loved her best, and perhaps no young woman ever stood in such a terrible position who was less deeply impressed by it. She believed herself to be guilty, but her mind was not weighed down by the sense of guilt. She had a vague consciousness that something terrible might be done to her, she scarcely knew what; but she was not given to forecasting the future, and for the present moment perhaps Innocent was the least painfully excited of all the family. She could do nothing, she was in the hands of those people who surrounded her, billows of faces which indeed she did not know, but who looked on her, some with visible pity, some even with tears, few with an angry aspect. When the jury came in to whom she had been told to look as the arbitrators of her fate, none of them appeared to Innocent to be angry; and from the presiding seat, where sat the man to whom everybody looked, and to whom the privilege of finding fault with everybody seemed allotted, there appeared to her a countenance she recognized, not awful, scarcely severe. And her husband and Nelly were close by her, to take care of, to speak for, to prevent her from being scolded. She knew vaguely that there was something worse than scolding to be apprehended, but poor Innocent had never known anything worse, and therefore her fears were not lively on this point. To be sure she had already been imprisoned, which was worse than scolding; but the effect the prison had upon her was much more that of highly disagreeable lodgings than anything worse. She did not like them, she longed to go home; but still she had been brought there in preparation for this trial, and the very unpleasant room in which she had to live was one of the circumstances rather than any positive infliction in itself. She came into the court with these subdued feelings, and looked round her wistfully with an appealing, pitiful look, in which, however, there was neither terror nor overwhelming shame. Nelly felt the shame a great deal more deeply, and so did Miss Vane, who was trying hard to accept and subdue it as a mortification of the flesh, but who kept murmuring to herself in her corner, “A Vane! one of our family!” with humiliation unspeakable. Innocent did not feel the humiliation. She was scared, but not abashed, and as she got used to the faces, her eyes grew more and more piteous, wistful, appealing. When would they make up their minds, all these strangers, and say to her what had to be said, and do to her what had to be done, and let her go home?
Before I begin this part of my story, I have to confess to the gentle reader that I was not there, and that I am very little learned in the mode of conducting such tragical inquiries. Everybody knows how confused are the narratives which those who have taken part in such a scene give to the historian. Sometimes one informant will lose all general sense of what was going on in a mere detail, or another burst forth into laments of mournful shame over a foolish answer he or she has given, instead of making the unfortunate narrator aware what that answer was. Under these disadvantages I have to set forth this scene, which is the most important in poor Innocent’s history, and I trust the kind reader who knows better will forgive me when I go wrong.
There was some difficulty to start with in getting Innocent to utter the plea of “Not Guilty,” a difficulty which had been foreseen, and which indeed could only be overcome by the exertions of all her friends, who had exacted a pledge from her that she should say the words, which were, they explained eagerly, a “matter of form,” and profoundly true, at all events, so far as her intention went. All her immediate supporters drew a long breath when this danger was safely surmounted. It was, indeed, more than a relief, for the pathetic way in which she replied to the question, “What is your name?” by her ordinary, simple answer, “I am Innocent,” went to the hearts of the multitude, and produced one of those altogether unreasoning but most powerful moments of popular sympathy which transcend all argument. A distinct pause had to be made to permit the general emotion to subside before the first formal evidence could be heard, and vain and foolish hopes of foolish acquittal by acclamation swelled the breast of Nelly, at least, who, poor girl, with old Alice alone to support, her mother being a witness, sat searching for sympathy with her anxious eyes through all the eager crowd.
The first important witness called was Aunty, who came into the witness-box in her deep mourning, subdued yet triumphant, feeling something of that fierce pleasure in having the life of another in her power, which seems to move humanity so strangely. She was by nature a kind soul. Under any other circumstances she would have cried over Innocent, and followed her fate with hysterical interest. But now she could not keep herself from feeling a certain elation—a certain satisfaction and superiority—at having the girl’s life, as it were, in her hands, and being able to crush the family who had been unfriendly to Amanda—the “other side.” She came fortified with a large white handkerchief and a large double smelling-bottle, ruby and gold, which had been one of Amanda’s properties, picked up during the unhappy visit to Frederick’s house. Aunty, otherwise Miss Johnson, proved all the particulars of the death in her examination-in-chief. She related the unexpected arrival of Innocent—the sudden determination of Amanda to be attended by her husband’s young cousin—and the preliminary scene in the afternoon, before dinner. The witness had no intention of saying anything untrue, but unconsciously she gave to her account of Innocent’s behaviour in the sick-room an air of hostility and evil purpose.