CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE SECOND DAY.
Next day the Town Hall was more crowded than ever. The sleep of the town—I might say of the county also—had been uneasy and broken. The place was torn asunder by faction as it never before had been known to be. The Longuevillists were the strongest party; the Battyists the most virulent. The one insisted upon poor Innocent’s youth, beauty, strange fortunes, and pitiful, appealing looks, which they said were enough to melt the heart of a stone. The other cried out indignantly that had she been a poor girl, and not Lady Longueville, all this pity would have been spared, that nobody would have cared what happened to her, that she would have been left to her fate. The first were ready to forgive her love for Frederick, which everybody on both sides took for granted, partly from the evidence, partly from those unspoken, unconscious currents of rumour which come on every wind; and, indeed, many of Innocent’s partisans held in their secret heart that it was quite possible she might have done it, but forgave her for the sake of her sweet face. Everybody accordingly rushed to the scene of action almost by daylight next morning. There were people who had been sitting there for hours before the judge made his appearance, to secure a seat. Miss Vane, who had gained a victory over herself during the course of the previous day, who had accepted the mortification as for her good, and decided to her satisfaction that poor Innocent’s terrible misfortune was “a judgment” on her own pride, took heart of grace to accompany Nelly to her place near the bar, thus declaring openly that she too “stood by” her cousin. Nelly, who had grown very pale and hollow-eyed, for whom this trial had involved more than appeared, whose eyes, when she could spare them from Innocent, cast furtive glances through the crowd, wondering if it was possible that any one who had ever said he loved her could keep away from her now, was very glad of Miss Vane’s support. I doubt, however, whether Innocent was so much as conscious of it. She had fallen into a passive state, and stood at the bar with the early morning sunshine falling upon her girlish, pallid countenance, like an image of silent Patience, leaning upon the rail against which she stood, declining to take the seat they offered her. The weary strain was becoming too much for the girl’s immature and delicate frame. She did not look at either judge or jury that day, but fixed her eyes upon a bit of blue sky which appeared through a window, and stood unconscious of anything else, gazing into that—longing to be out of doors, out of this close, crowded place, out of the surrounding walls, the throng of people, and the solitude which alternated with that publicity. “When do you think it will be over? When do you think they will let me go?” she said, in the voice which had grown more plaintive and childlike than ever, to the woman who stood by her.
“Hush, my lady! you mustn’t speak to-day, or you’ll get us all into trouble,” the woman replied. Yet Innocent repeated the question at intervals through the weary day. How bright it was, that gleam of sky!—how pleasant it would be to be out, to be in the sunshine, among the flowers at Longueville, or, sweeter still, in the Lady’s Walk, with the history book, and the primroses making all the grass golden. These were the thoughts that went through her mind as she stood through the second weary day, grown too weary to attend, thinking only of the primroses, while she was being tried for her life.
The case for the prosecution had not been closed. The remaining evidence was trifling in substance, but horribly important in scope. It was chiefly made up of bits of conversation in which Innocent had expressed her love for Frederick—and her dislike of Frederick’s wife. The former suppositious sentiment was very easy to prove, and the poor girl had never hesitated to express the latter feeling. One of the witnesses was a Sister from the High Lodge, who gave her evidence very reluctantly, but with almost as damning an effect as that of Mrs. Eastwood on the previous day, for Innocent had unfolded to this lady her conviction that such people should not live. On the close of her evidence the counsel for the prosecution spoke. He drew a touching picture of the poor young wife deserted by a fickle husband, hearing his steps below as he walked and talked with another, yet subduing her painful feeling, receiving that other with kindness, and with touching confidence admitting her to her sick room. Then he pictured the course of thought which might have arisen in the mind of a girl not wholly bad, yet distracted by a lawless love, and with the power in her hands of sweeping her rival from the face of the earth, probably without suspicion or discovery. What so easy? had not she the means in her hand? He represented her as stung and roused by the reproaches which probably the young wife on suddenly awaking might address to her, and, fired by sudden resentment, rushing to “the fatal draught” which was before her. He commented upon her wild flight, her confession, the remorse which had evidently seized her, the terror, which it was evident her friends had shared. He pointed out the strange and lurid light which the destruction of the phial, an incident unknown to the prosecution before yesterday, threw upon the whole question. When he ended the assembly had all decided against Innocent in their hearts; the jurymen, pale and almost stupefied by the thought, looked at her, wondering how they could find a Lady Longueville, a beautiful young woman, guilty, and trying to steel their hearts to that terrible duty. Half the women in the place (and there were a great many) were weeping. Good heavens! was it proved, then? was she guilty, that child? The hopes of her friends fell. Nelly sank back in her seat, covering her white face with her trembling hands. Sir Alexis continued to stand up with his arms folded on his breast, and a face like yellow marble, or old ivory, so ghastly did it look, every sign of youth gone out of it, steeling himself to bear whatever was to come.
The evidence for the defence seemed at the first glance very insignificant. It was chiefly directed to one point. The first witnesses called were two railway officials, who proved that the up-train passed through Sterborne at 12.45 every night, that it was seldom more than ten minutes late, being an express train to town with few stoppages, and that on the night of the 20th October it had left Sterborne station at 12.50 exactly. The only other witness of any importance produced was a London physician of eminence, who proved that no opiate, even though administered in a very large quantity, could by any possibility produce death within the time indicated by the evidence. The sleep which preceded death would no doubt have set in (he said), but that was very distinct and easy to be distinguished from any fit of fainting or temporary unconsciousness. “The merest tyro in medicine must know as much as this,” he added, with a contempt of the country practitioner who had maintained an opposite opinion. This was absolutely the whole of the case for the defence. The speech of Mr. Serjeant Ryder was equally brief and pithy. He pointed out the vagueness of the evidence as to hour, and the fact that by the longest computation two hours was all the time allowed for such a sequence of events as the prosecution attempted to set forth; for the conception and carrying out of a murder by poison, the death of the deceased, the flight of the prisoner, all the developments of this tragic drama. Never drama on the stage went more quickly, he cried; and he showed how innocent fright and panic might have quite naturally produced every sign which was put forth as a sign of guilt. What more natural than that, seeing her charge die before her eyes, her simple and somewhat feeble (as the court had perceived) and undeveloped intelligence should jump at the idea that she had herself been partially instrumental in the terrible event she had witnessed? He pointed put that the only inference which could be drawn from the testimony of those witnesses who had been present on the occasion was that the death of the deceased had been instantaneous, whereas Dr. Frankfort had proved to them beyond dispute that no death by opium could be instantaneous, that the poison required a certain time to do its work, a time which was not afforded by the short interval between eleven o’clock, which the witness Johnson had heard striking while the voice of the deceased was still loud and angry, and 12.40, when the unfortunate prisoner left Sterborne by the train. These dates, he added, placed the case beyond the category of possibilities. And with this brief and unsensational address he sat down.
All this—the case for the defence altogether—did not occupy an hour. The audience held their breath. They stared at each other like people fallen from some sudden height. Was it possible that they had been spending their interest and tears all for nothing?—for an untenable case, a thing which had been from the commencement impossible, had they taken the trouble to examine. The jurymen’s faces lighted up. After all, it might not be necessary to convict the young creature who was called “my lady.” They would have recommended her to mercy, no doubt, and done everything they could to cancel their decision had they been compelled to make one in an adverse sense. But now their relieved feelings showed in their countenances, which brightened to the new possibilities unfolded before them. One or two only remained cloudy. The rest prepared with a cheerful confidence, seeing themselves almost out of the wood, and as eager to be relieved as Innocent, to hear the judge’s summing up. Mr. Justice Molyneux was very great in this grand point of a judge’s duty. It was one of “the greatest intellectual treats” to hear him. But perhaps he was not quite himself that day. He commented upon the evidence in a style which was not marked by his usual force and freedom. He said something civil about Mrs. Eastwood. He noticed slightly the touching, though altogether irregular, address of the prisoner. He pointed out to the jury that, though circumstances had at one time seemed overwhelmingly against her, and though her own evident impression that she was guilty, her precipitate flight, her repeated confession, seemed in one point of view to establish her guilt, there was a more charitable interpretation to be put on all these strange proceedings. It was possible, as the prisoner’s counsel had suggested, that simple fright and terror might be at the bottom of them, instead of guilt. Other cases had occurred in which an innocent person had accused himself of terrible crimes such as he had never committed. The jury was called upon to weigh all these contending arguments with the most serious care, and judge whether the panic of guilt or the panic of mere fright was at work upon the mind of the prisoner. He need not tell them that where there was a doubt she was entitled to the benefit of that doubt. The conduct and avowals of the prisoner herself made the chief foundation the prosecution had to build upon, and the destruction of the phial by the prisoner’s family was no doubt very strongly against her. The judge then called their attention to the only, but most important, point on which the defence was founded. It was backed by an authority which, to many people, would seem infallible; but yet there were minds to which no one is infallible, and it was proverbial that doctors differed on the most important subjects. If they believed that Dr. Frankfort was right, and that poisoning by opium was impossible in so short a time, then their only course would be to acquit the prisoner; but if, on the other hand, they proposed to take the opinion of a younger disciple of Esculapius, then the case remained as the very able and striking speech of the counsel for the prosecution left it. Fortunately, the whole matter lay in a nutshell. If they accepted the confessions of the prisoner, which some minds might be inclined to do—for there could be no doubt that an unsolicited confession of guilt was a very grave matter, and could not be disregarded—and considered the after circumstances as confirmatory of her guilt, they would find her guilty, though he did not think that even in that case there was any evidence to prove premeditation, and the offence must bear a less solemn appellation than that of murder; but if, on the other hand, they believed the distinct affirmation of the great physician whose evidence (delivered, he need not say, in the clearest and most satisfactory manner) they had just heard, they would understand that, notwithstanding her own impression of guilt, and whatever might be the intention with which the potion was administered, it was physically impossible that the prisoner could have committed the crime laid to her charge.
There was a pause when the judge finished, then an attempt at applause, suppressed by the officials, who, after their failure on the previous day to silence Innocent, were doubly on the alert. Then the crowd grew suddenly still, and every man looked at his neighbour. The excitement grew intense. The next sound everybody felt must be the words of the verdict, the “Guilty” or “Not Guilty,” which should be life or death. I will not attempt to describe the feelings of those principally concerned. I think they had come to that point when feeling becomes impossible, the mind having gone through all its stages. They waited, not daring to look up, not daring to think. The two least concerned were the accused and her counsel. She because that gleam of sky through the window had caught her wandering soul; he because he felt sure of his verdict. And thus they waited in the silence, in the awful suspense which subdues a great, rustling, restless crowd into unnatural, many-breathing stillness, waiting for the issues of life and death.
What visions went and came in that moment! Nelly with her feverish eyes saw—or was it a dream?—Ernest’s face look out from the depths of the crowd and then vanish. Sir Alexis saw, not a scaffold—that was impossible—but a gloomy array of prisons, rising one beyond another, as the suspense continued. Death in life—would not that be worse than death itself?
CHAPTER XLIX.
DELIVERED.
The jury were not agreed. Though the case lay in a nutshell, the nut was for the moment too hard for them. One or two indignant Battyites held the field against the gentler souls who had been so overjoyed to seize upon the possibility of a favourable verdict. If she had been a poor girl, who would have inquired whether or not there was time for the poison to take effect, and what had that to do with the question? asked the recalcitrants. Murder was meant—could any one doubt it, when the murderess herself confessed it? What had justice and Englishmen come to if they let a criminal off because she was “my lady”? Thus two revolutionaries dissolved the court, kept in tortures of suspense the unhappy persons most concerned, and filled the town once more with the buzzing and commotion of a curious crowd. The unhappy twelve were shut up again, far from their homes and comfort; the judge wended his way with dissatisfied countenance to his dinner, at which he spoke in terms not flattering of the British juryman; and a group of very miserable people assembled in the lodging opposite to the prison. They were doubly miserable, because none of them were allowed to see the unfortunate girl whom they knew to be there alone, unsupported by any sympathy, bearing the burden of suspense without any alleviation. They gathered round the table, making a miserable pretence at a meal, from which Sir Alexis, however, escaped ere it was half over, in the restlessness of misery to wander under the window where his poor little bride, the unfortunate young creature with whose name his name and fame were inextricably connected, lay alone, beyond the reach of any gentle voice, while poor Nelly withdrew weeping to conceal the additional pangs of her own unthought-of pain. Was it Ernest whose face she had seen? Was he coming back again to rend or to console her heart? Was he waiting the result to decide the question for him? She hated herself for being able to think of this personal question; yet how was it possible to shut it out?