“Mrs. Eastwood was in so little danger at this moment that you could feel it right to confide her to the charge of a young girl?” said the counsel for the prosecution.
“Bless you, she was in no danger at all!” said Aunty. “She was as she had been often and often before.”
“And the young lady came, knowing she was ill, to help to nurse her?”
“Mrs. Frederick didn’t take it in that way; she wanted no new nurses; she made the young lady stay with her to keep her from Mr. Eastwood, as was a gentleman with taking ways. That is the truth, if I should die for it! It was thought by his poor wife, and many more than her, as the prisoner was fonder of Mr. Frederick than ought to be between cousins——”
“I must appeal to the Court,” said Mr. Serjeant Ryder, “that this is the introduction of an entirely new element not at all to the purpose.”
“If my learned brother will wait a little he will see that it is very much to the purpose,” said the other. “I must really be allowed to examine my witnesses in my own way. I have no doubt he will afterwards make them as uncomfortable as possible in his cross-examination.—The deceased had, then, a strong reason for retaining the prisoner with her?”
“As strong as a woman can have,” said Aunty. “She knew as her husband was no better than making love to his cousin. I have seen it myself over and over. She kept knocking all the time of dinner for them to come up. And then they went into the garden. My poor dear was angry. I don’t know who wouldn’t have been; lying there ill, not able to move, and knowing as your husband was carrying on in the garden with a silly young girl.”
“It must be acknowledged that the position was disagreeable. When the prisoner was finally summoned did she show symptoms of displeasure? Did she resist the call?”
“She was not one as showed much of anything,” said the witness. “She did something or said something as quieted poor ’Manda. I was sent away for quietness, as I told you, sir; and the prisoner got the book as I had been reading, and read her to sleep.”
Then there followed a description of the next two hours, to which the court listened with rapt attention. Aunty was not eloquent; but she had a homely natural flow of words, and for this part at least of her story the veracity of an eye-witness. She described the silence which gradually fell over the room—how the patient dropped to sleep, not all at once, but after repeated dozes, as was her custom, during which time the reading went on; how at last all was still—how she, half dozing too in the passage outside, went softly, and, looking in at the door, saw Innocent also asleep, or feigning sleep, with her head on her breast, the book lying on her knee, and the little table, with all its medicine bottles, illuminated by the lamp beside her. This silence lasted so far as she could judge for about an hour and a half, when she was suddenly aroused by a loud outburst of voices from the sick room. “I was not frightened—not to say more frightened than usual,” said Aunty. “She often did wake up like that, all in a flurry. I heard the prisoner’s voice, so I know she was awake, and Mrs. Frederick a-crying and screaming for something. No, I wasn’t frightened even then; that was her way; when she did not get what she wanted that very moment, she would scream and go into a passion. It was through never being crossed. The house was all still, everybody gone to bed but me; I heard the Minster clock strike, and then I could hear her calling for her drops. I couldn’t make out nothing else. Then I heard a moving about and a rustling, and then all at once, all in a moment, everything was still. I can’t say as I took fright even then, for now and again the passion would go off like that all in a moment. I waited and waited, listening; at first I thought as she had gone to sleep again. I said to myself, Now she’s dropped off, she’ll have a good sleep, and the worst of the night’s over.”