Jane, the housemaid—the cause of the trial—the traitor who had betrayed Innocent, came next to corroborate Mrs. Eastwood’s testimony; but with so very different an intention! and Jane produced a little reaction in Innocent’s favour by her evident desire to exaggerate, and anxiety to improve upon her former evidence. The lawyers fought over her for some time, and Mr. Serjeant Ryder managed to elicit several facts very detrimental to Jane’s private character, although noways affecting her story, for when she was done that story remained plain enough.
“I have killed Frederick’s wife!” These words were simple enough to remain in any one’s memory, and terrible enough to require no aggravation. “She was a-kneeling by the bedside,” said Jane, “holding her aunt by the arm. Neither on ’em saw me. She had something clasped tight in her hand——”
“Something in her hand? What was that?” the counsel for the prosecution demanded eagerly.
“I don’t know what it was,” said Jane. “No, I didn’t name it before. I didn’t think as it could be of any importance. I saw as she had her hand clasped tight when I let her in; but I couldn’t see what it was——”
Mrs. Eastwood was recalled, and desired to explain this previously unnoted circumstance. She came back into the witness-box very pale, knowing by instinct what was coming. And bit by bit the damning parts were dragged from her. Faltering and pale, and reluctant, she described the little phial which Innocent herself had held out to her, to prove her wild story, and admitted that she had put it away, feeling it to be of importance. Afterwards, when her drawers were put in order, some one, “by accident,” had thrown it away. It had been done against her will. She had been much distressed—but it was by accident. To this story she clung with a kind of blank despair. All that she knew when she tottered out of the box was that she had not committed Frederick, or involved him in the matter. But it would be impossible to exaggerate the fatal effect of this confused and faltering story. For the first time the audience and the jury began to believe in Innocent’s guilt——
There was a momentary instinctive pause after this momentous piece of evidence, and then the doctors were called who had examined poor Amanda’s remains. Into the terrible details of such an examination I need not enter. They had been able to add nothing to the elucidation of the mystery; time had extinguished all trace of the poison, if poison there was. The only medical witness whose evidence was of any importance was young Mr. Sweteson, of Sterborne, who had been the assistant partner of the doctor whom Jenny Eastwood was now pursuing across Europe—and had once or twice visited Mrs. Frederick Eastwood. He was aware that she had suffered from a disease of the heart, which gave his former principal much anxiety. For his own part, the young man said, with the confidence of youth, he had not shared that alarm. This young doctor had no prejudice against Innocent; he was, on the contrary, touched by her pathetic history. But he was on “the other side.” Though the witnesses at such a trial are called in the interest of truth only, and though humanity, justice, and natural feeling all urge upon them the necessity of bearing their testimony without bias, it is, I think, certain that every man summoned for the prosecution has a natural tendency to make the worst, and every man summoned for the defence a disposition to make the best, of the case. The present witness yielded quite unconsciously to this natural impulse. He did not agree, he said (not informing the court how small were his opportunities of forming an opinion), with his former colleague. He believed Mrs. Frederick Eastwood’s complaint to be chiefly fanciful—the vapours of a foolish and high-tempered woman—dangerous enough to the comfort of her family, if you liked, but not dangerous to her, unless indeed she had broken a blood-vessel in one of her fits of passion, he added, somewhat contemptuously, or done herself bodily harm in some other way. Serjeant Ryder examined this witness closely as to the time necessary for the operation of an overdose of opium, a question in which the court in general did not show itself greatly interested. The day had been warm, the court was very full, the interest of the great audience waned as the drowsy afternoon drooped towards evening; and it became apparent that no decision could be arrived at. The cross-examination of the doctor delayed the proceedings in a way which the audience thought tiresome, and which puzzled the honest jury, who did not see what was meant by it. The same feeling of weariness which had come upon the audience in general, and which was evinced by all those restless movements, coughs, and flutterings of going and coming, which prove to every public speaker when interest begins to fail, had come, I suppose, upon Innocent too, though she had not followed the proceedings with any intellectual attention to speak of. She was roused, however—I cannot tell how—by all that had occurred. What Aunty had said of her, and what the maids had said of her, had penetrated vaguely, taking some time to do so, into her torpid brain. And quite suddenly, while the young doctor and the counsel for the defence were still carrying on their duel on the scientific question, the whole assembly was suddenly thrilled, electrified, galvanized back again into interest. The people behind stood up, those in front bent forward, the official persons roused themselves in a sudden flutter, the usher of the court rushed to the rescue, the counsel started to their feet in dismay, the very judge on the bench began to telegraph wildly. The cause of this commotion was that Innocent herself had spoken. She was called to on all hands, as if the soft girlish voice could revolutionize the state. “Silence!” “Prisoner at the bar, you cannot be allowed to speak.” “You must be silent, Lady Longueville.” “Innocent, hush! hush! you must not speak!”—all these addresses were made to her loud and low, in every accent of authority, persuasion, and tenderness. Innocent took no notice. She went on—her clear, youthful voice sounding through theirs as the song of a bird sounds through the clang of an explosion. She paid no attention to the looks any more than the words addressed to her. Simple as she was, I suppose the thrill of sudden interest about her—the immediate turning of every eye upon her—stimulated and encouraged her mind. She put out her hand and gently pushed away the woman from the prison who attended her, and whose zeal to stop her was vehement. She said what she had to say through all the cries and remonstrances addressed to her. Whosoever does so singly and steadily is sure, I suppose, of a hearing at the end.
“You have asked them things they do not know,” she said; “why do not you ask me? I know more. It was I that was with her. I will tell you if you will listen to me. Please tell them to be still, please! for what I want is to save you trouble. No, please go away! I will go with you when I have told them. (This was to the prison matron, who had again clutched at her.) It is quite true, except that I never wanted to be with her, to be in the room at all. When I went up to her without Frederick she was very angry and scolded. I said to her, ‘Do not be angry, it does not hurt any one so much as you. They say it will kill you, if you do not stop; and it cannot kill any one else.’ Then she was quiet, and I read to her; and then she fell asleep, and I suppose I fell asleep too. Mr. Molyneux, will you tell them to be quiet, please! I woke when she shook me, holding my arm. I tried to drop the drops for her, as she told me. I tried twice, and emptied it out, for I could not. Then I went again close to the bed to try if I could do it—(Oh, silence, please! silence, as you say.) She caught hold of my arm again. She shook me. Almost all the bottle went into the glass. She took it out of my hand and drank it. That is how it was. Yes, I will be silent now, if you wish it. I will go away if you wish it. That is how it was.”
The cries all died into silence as Innocent’s voice ended. Her unlawful interposition had woke the hubbub, and it ceased when she ceased. Not half the audience could possibly have heard, but that half was in wild excitement, while the rest, who had not, struggled with equally wild determination to get better places, or to ask from those who had heard it what she had said. An indescribable scene of confusion followed. The afternoon air was stifling and heavy, the long day was at an end, a thunder-cloud had come over the sun, which was near its setting, and darkened one side of the court-house, while the light came in pale and weird on the other, pouring in a gleam of illumination from the pallid sky out of which the storm was about to break. This gleam fell full upon Innocent’s pale face, still tremulous with the excitement—if excitement it could be called—of her self-revelation, and upon that of Nelly, who stood up unawares in her agitation near her, and whose likeness to her cousin—invisible in happier moments—came out now with the most curious force. After that one amazed, affrighted pause, which was not unlike the pause before the storm outside, renewed cries of “Silence!” and “Clear the court!” were heard. The whole scene was like the brewing of a popular tumult.
“Remove the prisoner,—the court will adjourn till to-morrow,” said the powerful voice of the judge, and the papers added that he made an indignant remonstrance as to the failure of the officials in keeping order, and the extraordinary breach of decorum which they had just witnessed. But if such remarks were made, no one heard them. The court broke up. Mr. Justice Molyneux, with a solemn face, went to his solemn lodging, devoting Innocent in his heart to all the infernal gods, and groaning over the unhappy destiny which had brought her case into his hands, while the streets about suddenly filled with a buzzing crowd, all the inns swarming with groups eager for the discussion of the case—and their dinner. Torrents of rain, pouring down out of the black skies, soon swept from the streets all the eager clusters of people who discussed out of doors the one only subject of the day. Carriages stood under shelter through the storm, or lingered in the courtyards of the hotels in the High Street, till the worst of the thunder was over; but, going or coming on the ways, there was nothing talked of, nor thought of, but Innocent. Was she innocent?—was she guilty? Was it accident, a mistake, the misadventure of a frightened child; or was it the crime of a wildly passionate woman, to secure to herself the man she loved? In all Sterrington there was nothing talked of but the trial. The entire population fought over it, taking different sides, and waiting with an excitement which had something pleasurable in it for the morrow which should decide.
How the Eastwoods and the Vanes waited for that morrow, crowding together in the little sitting-room opposite the prison, one or another of the women sitting constantly at the window, watching with eyes full of tears the other high window opposite, with messengers coming and going from the lawyers—from the railway and telegraph office, to see if there was any news from Jenny—I cannot venture to record. But to tell how Innocent spent the night is easy. She slept—such sleep as comes to the beloved of heaven—and woke in the morning with a smile upon her lips, thinking she was in the little church of the Spina and saying “Our Father” before she woke.