Читать книгу Broad Arrow - Caroline Leakey - Страница 3

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'Oh! let the merry bells ring round.'

A JOYFUL clangour is rising from the tower of St. Judas as the cold grey of the venerable cathedral warms itself in the afternoon sun. Our city is very gay. Bustle and excitement jostle one another in the streets. The shops display their rainbow assortments of finery with more than ordinary taste. Carriages throng the thoroughfare, and from the carriages fashion and beauty gaze placidly on the crowd making its way towards the Queen's high-road. Placards announce a ball--and the newspapers hint that this ball is to be a nonpareil.

It is the festival of the assizes! and the ball the 'Assize Ball'!

The bells from St. Judas are made to outswell the prison bell; and, amid the hurry of preparation, the clank of the felon's chain passes unheard through the very midst.

No thinking person objects to pomp and state on all occasions calculated to impress the mind (especially that of the common people) with a sense of superior power. But is there not the pomp of the funeral--funeral pomp? Does not the sight of the plumed hearse fill the breast with solemnity? Does not the crowd intuitively doff its cap before it? Do not the voice of laughter and the song of thoughtlessness involuntarily cease, or drop to softer tones, when the toll of the death-bell meets the ear?

Would the cause that brings our judges to our cities be less hated by the youthful heart were it taught to associate more of the funeral and less of the feast with the onroll of the carriage that bears sorrow, punishment, death in its rear?

We cannot answer for all children, but we know of one who, when hurried forward to see 'the judges come in,' shrunk behind the crowd to ruminate on some mystery, and, unable to fathom it, burst into tears, exclaiming: 'Why do they let those happy bells ring?--the prisoners must hear them!'

The day for the ball arrives. You are invited to attend. Your particular attention is directed to a very elegantly--dressed young man--Captain Norwell--as elegant in person and deportment as in attire. He is unanimously voted a fascinating man by the fair sex, and the king of the evening by the dark. He is surrounded by an admiring group of both sexes. Many a plotting mother opines that he will make an excellent husband, and many an anxious father pictures how well his jewel of a daughter would look in so brilliant a setting; while some elder brother apostrophises him--that is, Captain Norwell--as a 'lucky dog,' and lucky dog means a great deal in fashionable phraseology.

'What happy chance brought you to our part of the world at this season of the year, Captain Norwell--the ball?' The querist is a lady old enough to have three grown-up daughters.

'No,' replies Norwell; 'but since I was here, I could not resist the temptation of mixing with such an assemblage of beauty as Rumour said these walls would witness; and for once I find she has been very humble in her statements, and disappointment has not followed in her train.' A gracious bow to the blushing group around him accompanies this speech.

'You come to attend the assizes, I suppose?'

'Partly; I heard that a very interesting trial was to come on, and having a little time to spare, I ran down to hear it.'

Several voices ask: 'Oh! to which one do you allude?'\ Neither fascinated ladies nor scheming parents observe that a slight shade passes over Captain Norwell's fine countenance, and a still slighter tremulousness into his voice, as he replies:

'I speak of that of Martha Grylls.'

'You will put me out of love with dancing if you talk of that woman,' says an animated girl, whose merry laugh belies her words. 'I shall fancy I am dancing to the clank of chains, or waltzing to Pestal, if you talk any more such horrors.'

But the pertinacious mother is not to be stopped. To stop Norwell in the vicinity of her daughters is the only stoppage she meditates.

'Which was Martha Grylls? Not having the honour of such distinguished acquaintance, I do not know each prisoner by name.'

A quick, searching glance at the lady, and Norwell answers:

'The young woman indicted for forgery. I--I mean child-murder.'

'Oh! that beautiful woman? One would hardly think so lovely a face could belong to such a wretch: so calm and innocent, too, she looked.'

'I do not think she did look so very innocent,' interrupts the animated girl; 'there was a flinty hardihood in her face that quite prevented me from pitying her, as I should have done had she cried. My heart was quite steeled against her; I felt no pity.'

'Flint and steel together should produce a spark, or one of the two could not be genuine,' says Captain Norwell.

'She stood so erect, and eyed the court so proudly, as if she would say, "Sentence me to death and I will thank you!" Once, though, I did think she was going to break down. Did you observe Captain Norwell, about the middle of the trial, how she faltered: and then, when she turned toward the door, how she started as if she saw something which renewed her courage? She certainly saw some person or thing, for the hard look came back to her face. I wonder what or who it was. Perhaps she saw her father or mother.'

'That would have softened her!' replies a gentle voice, from a pale, interesting girl, whose diminutive stature has hidden her from immediate sight.

'Perhaps it was an accomplice then. The change on her countenance was unmistakable.'

Another in that ballroom had marked the change in the prisoner's manner as her faltering gaze fell on a certain corner of the court. Ay--he noticed it, but not to wonder at its cause. To his heart the change brought at once ease and pain--ease to the diseased part, and pain to what portion of it remained uncontaminated.

'Such stony hardness,' persisted the young lady.

'There is the stony hardness of despair--a breaking heart may lie behind a brazen wall,' replies the gentle voice from the corner.

These words are uttered timidly, but with great feeling and the speaker, raising her eyes to Norwell, fancies that gentleman agrees with her, for she sees an expression of unutterable anguish momentarily distort his features.

You have been invited to attend the ball on purpose to hear this commonplace, out-of-place conversation--as out of place in a ballroom as a ball is out of time in an assize week.

Fancy how awkward it will look to see in the same gazette, column by column--

'THE ASSIZES!' 'THE BALL!'

Your presence is again required, but in a very different scene. Where you are now wanted there will be no festoon of blooming flowers wreathing a fragrant archway above you: no mimic suns making the decorated ceiling a lesser firmament of glory; there will be no radiant faces to greet you with the lustrous smile of excitement, no sound of music and dancing. There await you a dark, stone archway, and an iron gate beneath it. There will be the relentless grating of its hinges, with the heavy sound of ponderous keys; and a coldness in the aspect of the building you are to enter will communicate itself to your soul, making you shudder to pass within its dreary portal. You must follow the guide along that narrow passage, where your footstep echoes cheerlessly through the dismal corridor. A doubly-locked door swings itself solemnly back, and there is silence, darkness, despair.

--Pass on.

The heavy sigh that just falls upon your ear, as the lock springs from its socket, only makes the silence deeper. The gloomy flicker of the miniature lamp, hanging from the wall, serves only to show you the darkness. The look of apathy fixed on you by the occupant of the cell only reminds you that that despair is deepest which gives no outward sign.

--Pass on.

'Martha Grylls--a gentleman to speak to you.'

The hopeful tone and the earnest glance astonish you, as, energetically raising her hand to shade her eyes, the prisoner asks:

'Who is he?'

Pain succeeds your astonishment as you hear the utter hopelessness of the tone with which she continues:

'I don't wish to see him. I'll see no one.'

And the hand before shading her eyes, closes resolutely over them, as she drops her head, refusing to look at the clergyman, who is the gentleman announced.

It is Martha Grylls you look upon. You heard of her in the ballroom, and are prepared to meet her in the felon's cell. Her real name is Maida Gwynnham; but under the above alias she has been convicted of child-murder, for which crime the sentence of death was passed upon her at the assizes; since then, through the clemency of our lady sovereign, she has been reprieved, and now transportation for life is all she will have to bear. Listen awhile, and you may find that balls and prisons are not always unconnected. The clergyman who speak is the Rev. Herbert Evelyn, not the Chaplain of the gaol. He is admitted at this late hour by special authority of the powers that be.

'I am your friend, Martha; do not refuse to let me be so.'

'I have no friend; it is all false.'

'Martha, stop--stop and think. No friend?'

'None! none! Though once I madly thought I had.'

There is a tone in Maida's voice which tells Mr. Evelyn he has unwittingly touched the key-note to some part of her history--he wonders how to answer her. Then she continues half aloud, with an absent air:

'Did he send you? then he has not forgotten me!' And her hands unconsciously clasp and go with a tremble to her breast, as though she would hide some treasure there.

'No; he did not. One who loves you still better, bids me visit you with a word of comfort from Himself.'

Maida looks frightened, and with a bewildered air, asks:

'What do you mean? If he did not send, he cannot care for me; and there is no one else in the world to care for me or think of me!'

Mr. Evelyn goes towards her, and is about to lay his hand on her shoulder, but she waves him back, and he perceives that the blood has rushed to her very temples, and that passion quivers on her clenched lips; he has time only to remark this, ere she bursts forth:

'He never loved me! and now he is trying to win some other fond and foolish heart to its own destruction.'

She presses her hand to her burning brow, and proceeds:

'Ay! he will break some other heart when mine is sinking far away. He will tell the same lying tale to some unthinking girl, thoughtless and wayward as I was; and she will believe him, and he will deceive her, and she will be left; and fear or pride will drive her from her home, she will fly to hide her disgrace; she will try to die, but death hates the wretched. She will steal to give her infant bread; she will be sent to prison, and thence across the seas; and we shall meet--two victims to his lies. Ah, how I shall love her!'

She abruptly stops.

'Was he at the ball last night?' not waiting for an answer. 'He was in the court--I saw him. I was on the point of giving way when our eyes met--it was enough: that glance was fire to the dying embers--he understands my eye; he read its promise and seemed satisfied. There was--but was he at the ball last night? there is always a ball to commemorate the assizes. Was he?'

Mr. Evelyn answers not.

'Ah, you are surprised; you thought I spoke of a poor man. No--no! such glories are reserved for the rich; they may sin, and hide their sin in a golden grave; they may break innocent hearts, and the world ignore the fact; it is these sins that fill these cells; it is these sins that will people perdition; and if God sees as man sees--'

But her voice fails, the blood leaves her temples, and faint from excitement and want of food, she sinks insensible to the earth.

As Mr. Evelyn quits the prison, he sees a gentleman wrapped in a long loose cloak standing opposite the gateway, and gazing abstractedly at the grated window; the moonlight falls on his upturned face.

'If that index be true, all is not right within,' thinks Mr. Evelyn.

Captain Norwell saunters down the street. As soon as Mr. Evelyn is out of sight he returns and rings at the gate.

'Confound it! what a row! I only touched the bell, and here is noise enough to wake Lucifer on his throne.--Can I see--Maida--I mean Martha Grylls--'

'No, sir; past hours long ago, even if you'd a permit.'

'I leave to-morrow; cannot I be favoured as well as that gentleman just gone?'

'Parson, sir. Wonderful, sir, how the ooman 'tracts the gentry. Can't indeed, sir. Gentry round her like bees--'tracts 'em wonderful.'

'Does she?' Norwell tries to speak unconcernedly. 'She likes that, I suppose?'

'These creatures generally do, but she don't--she don't, and no mistake.'

Norwell looks relieved, and it seems the information is worth money to him, for he drops a crown into the turnkey's hand; that official jerks his cap in recognition of the palmy touch, but shakes his head at it.

'Can't, sir, indeed; it's as much as my place is worth to try on that game. If you was a parson now,' and the turnkey eyes him longingly, as though he would there and then put him into the priest's office for the sake of the crown; but he can discover no priest-like quality in Norwell's dress, so reluctantly holds out the money towards him.

'No, no, keep it,' cries Norwell impatiently; 'it's not for that; mind you gag your bell's mouth before I come again.'

The gate closes after him, and he mutters:

'I've done all I can--I wish she knew it. O Maida, Maida, where will it end?'