The Broom-Squire
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Before the magistrates this confidence of hers was rudely shaken. The evidence that would be produced against her at the Assizes was gone through in rough, as is always done in these cases, and the charge assumed a gravity of complexion that astonished and abashed her. That she and her husband had not lived in harmony was shown; also that he had asserted that she had attempted his life with his gun; that he was afraid she would poison him if trusted with the opiate prescribed for him when suffering from a wound. It was further shown by Giles Cheel and Sarah Rocliffe that she had threatened to kill her husband with a stone, if not that actually used by her, and then on the table, by one so like it as to be hardly distinguishable from it. This threat had been made on the night previous to the death of Jonas Kink. On the morning she had encountered her husband in a field belonging to Mr. James Colpus, and this meeting had been witnessed by the owner of the field, his daughter, and by Thomas Rocliffe and his son Samuel.
Colpus and his daughter had been at some distance in the rear, but Thomas and Samuel Rocliffe had been close by, in a sunken lane; they had witnessed the meeting from a distance of under thirty feet, and were so concealed by the hedge of holly and the bank as to render it improbable that they were visible to the accused.
James Colpus had seen that an altercation took place between Mehetabel and the deceased, but was at too great a distance to hear what was said. He had seen Mehetabel raise her hand, holding something – what he could not say – and threaten Jonas with it; but he did not actually see her strike him, because at that moment he turned to say something to his daughter.
The evidence of Mary Colpus was to much the same effect. The accused had come to her to ask for a situation vacant in the house, through the dismissal of Julia Caesar, her former servant, and some difficulty had been raised as to her reception, on account of the doubt whether Jonas would allow his wife to go out into service, and leave her home. She and her father had promised to consider the matter, and with this understanding Mehetabel had left, carrying her babe.
Just as she reached the further extremity of the field, she met her husband, Jonas Kink, who came up over the stile, out of the lane, apparently unobserved by Mehetabel; for, when he addressed her, she started, drew back, and thrust her hand into her pocket and pulled out a stone. With this she threatened to strike him; but whether she carried her threat into execution, or what occasioned his fall, she could not say, owing to her father having spoken to her at that moment, and she had diverted her eyes from the two in the field to him. When next she looked Jonas had disappeared, and she heard the shouts, and saw the faces of Thomas and Samuel Rocliffe, as they came through the hedge.
Then her father said, "Something has happened!" and started running. She had followed at a distance, and seen the Rocliffes pull the body of Jonas Kink out of the kiln and lay it on the grass.
Thomas Rocliffe was a stupid man, and the magistrates had difficulty with him. They managed, however, to extract from him the following statement on oath:
He and Samuel had been out the previous day along with Jonas Kink, his brother-in-law, looking for Mehetabel. Jonas thought she had gone to the Moor and had drowned herself, and he had said he did not care "such a won'erful sight whether she had."
On the morning of the event of his death Jonas had come to them, and asked them to attend him again, and from what he, Thomas, had heard from Sally, he said that they had been on the wrong scent the night before, and that they must look for Matabel nigher, in or about the village.
They had gone together, he and Jonas and his son Samuel, along the lane that led out of the Punch-Bowl towards Thursley by the Colpus's farm, and as they went along, in the deep lane, Jonas shouted out that he saw his wife coming along. Then he, Thomas and Samuel looked, and they also saw her. She was walking very slow, and "was cuddlin' the baby," and did not seem to know where she was going, for she went wide of the stile. Then Jonas got up over the stile, and told Thomas and Samuel to bide where they were till he called them. They did so, and saw him address Mehetabel, who was surprised when he spoke to her, and then something was said between them, and she pulled a big stone out of her pocket and raised it over her head, stepped forward, "sharp-like," and knocked him with it, on the head, so that he fell like one struck with a thunderbolt, backward into the kiln. Thereupon he and Samuel came up over the hedge, and he jumped into the kiln, and found his brother-in-law there, huddled up in a heap at the bottom. He managed with difficulty to heave him out, and with the assistance of Samuel and Farmer Colpus, to lay him on the grass, when all three supposed he was dead.
When they said that he was dead, then Mehetabel laughed.
This statement produced a commotion in court. Then they got a hurdle or gate, he couldn't say which, and lifted the deceased on to it and carried him home to the Punch-Bowl. It was only when they laid him on the bed that they saw he still breathed. They heard him groan, and he moved one hand – the right. He was rather stiff and awkward with his left since his accident.
This evidence was corroborated at every point by the testimony of Samuel, who was quite positive that Mehetabel had struck Jonas on the head. Like all stupid people, the two Rocliffes were ready to swear to and maintain with tenacity those points which were false or inaccurate, and to hesitate about asserting with confidence such as were true, and could not be other than true. It is not always in the power of a wise and observant man to discriminate between facts and imagination, and a dull and undeveloped intelligence is absolutely incapable of distinguishing between them.
The evidence of the surgeon was to the effect that Jonas Kink had died from the consequences of fracture of the skull, but whether caused by a blow from a stone or from a fall he was unable to state. There were contusions on his person. He probably struck his head against the bricks of the kiln as he fell or was thrown into it. Abrasions of the skin were certainly so caused. When he, the witness, arrived at the Punch-Bowl, Kink was already dead. He might have been dead an hour, the body was not absolutely cold. When asked whether the piece of ironstone on the table might have dealt the blow which had broken in the skull of Jonas, he replied, that it might have done so certainly, and the fracture of the skull was quite compatible with the charge advanced that it had been so caused.
The next witness summoned was Betty Chivers, who gave her evidence with great reluctance, and with many tears. It was true that the stone produced in court had been taken by her from the hand of the accused, and that immediately on her return from the farm of Mr. Colpus. Mehetabel had not told her that she had met her husband, had not said that he was dead, but had admitted that she had armed herself with the stone for the purpose of self-defence against Jonas, her husband, who, she believed, desired to take the child from her.
Mehetabel was asked if she had anything to say, and when she declined to say anything, was committed for trial at the ensuing assizes at Kingston.
Throughout the hearing she had been uneasy. The cell where she had been confined was close to the court, and she had been obliged to leave her child with a woman who had attended to her; and with this person the infant would not be at rest. Faintly, and whenever there was a lull in the court, she could hear the wail of her child, the little voice rising and falling, and she was impatient to be back with it, to still its cries and console the little heart, that was frightened at the presence of strangers and separation from its mother.
Through all the time that she was in court, Mehetabel was listening for the voice of the little one, and paying far more attention to that, than to the evidence produced against her.
It was not till Mehetabel was removed to Kingston on Thames and put in the prison to await her trial, that the full danger that menaced was realized by her, and then it was mainly as it affected her child, that it alarmed her. Life had not been so precious, that she valued it, save for the sake of this feeble child so dependent on her for everything.
Her confidence in justice was no longer great. Ever since her marriage – indeed, ever since Mrs. Verstage had turned against her, she had been buffeted by Fortune, devoid of friends. Why should a Court of Justice treat her otherwise than had the little world with which she had been brought in contact.
In Kingston prison the wife of the jailer was kind, and took a fancy to the unhappy young mother. She sat with and talked to her.
"If they hang me," said Mehetabel, "what will become of my baby?"
"It will go to a relation."
"It has no relations but Sally Rocliffe, and she has ill-wished it. She will be unkind to it, she wants it to die; and if it lives, she will speak to my child unkindly of me."
She wiped her eyes. "I cannot bear to think of that. I might make up my mind to die, if I knew my baby would be kindly cared for and loved – though none could love it and care for it as I do. But I could not die thinking it was taught that I was a bad woman, and heard untrue things said of me every day. I know Sally, she would do that. I had rather my child went on the parish, as I did, than that Sally Rocliffe should have it. I was a charity girl, and I was well cared for by Susanna Verstage, but that was a chance, or rather a Providence, and I know very well there are not many Susanna Verstages in the world. There is not another in Thursley, no, nor in Witley either."
"Your child could not go on the parish. Your husband, as I have been told, had a freehold of his own and some money."
"He lost all his money."
"But the farm was his, and that must be worth a few hundred pounds, so that it would not be possible for the child to go on the parish."
"Then it must go to Sally Rocliffe. There is no other relation."
This was now the great trouble of Mehetabel. She had accepted the inevitable, that wrong judgment would be pronounced, and that she would be hung. Then the thought that her little darling would be placed under the charge of the woman who had embittered her married life, the woman who believed her to be guilty of murder, – this was more than she could endure.
She had passed completely from confidence that her innocence would be acknowledged and that she would at once be released, a condition in which she had rested previous to her appearance before the magistrates at Godalming, into the reverse state, she accepted, now that she was in prison, awaiting her trial, as a certainty that she would be condemned and sentenced to the gallows.
This frame of mind in which she was affected the jailer's wife, and made her suppose that Mehetabel was guilty of the crime wherewith she was charged.
All Mehetabel's thoughts and schemings were directed towards the disposal of her child and its welfare after she was taken from it. All the struggle within her torn heart was to reconcile herself to the parting, and to have faith in Providence that her child would be cared for when she was removed.
How that could be she saw not; and she came at length to hope that when she was taken away the poor little orphan babe would follow her. In that thought she found more comfort than in the anticipation of its living, ill-treated by its aunt, and brought up to be ashamed of its mother.
"You say," said Mehetabel to the jaileress, "that they don't hang women in chains now. I am glad of that. But where will I be buried? Do you think it could be contrived that if my baby were to die at some time after me it might be laid at my side? That is the only thing I now desire – and that – oh! I think I could be happy if I were promised that."
CHAPTER XLVII
BEFORE THE JUDGE
Previous to the Assizes, Joe Filmer arrived in Kingston in a trap drawn by old Clutch. He was admitted into the prison on his expressing his desire to see Mehetabel.
After the first salutations were passed, Joe proceeded to business. "You see, Matabel," said he, "the master don't want you to think he won't help you out o' this little mess you've got into. But he don't want Polly to know it. The master, he's won'erful under that young woman's – I can't say thumb, but say her big toe. So if he does wot he does about you, it's through me, and he'll sit innercent like by the fire twiddlin' of his thumbs, and talkin' of the weather. Master would be crafty as an old fox if he weren't stupid as an owl. I can't think how he can have allowed himself to get so much into Polly's power. It is so; and when he wants to do a thing without her knowin', he has to do it underhand ways. Well, he thort if he let our 'oss and trap go, as Polly'd be suspectin' something, and Polly's terrible set against you. So he told me to take a holiday and visit a dyin' aunt, and borrow old Clutch and a trap from the Angel at Gorlmyn. Clutch have been there all along, ever since your affair. There's no keepin' him away. So I came here; and won'erful slow Clutch was. When I came to Kingston I put up at the Sun, and sez I to the ostler: Be there a good lawyer hereabouts, think you? 'Well,' sez he, 'I'm a stranger to Kingston. I were born and bred at Cheam, but I was ostler first in Chertsey, and then for six months at Twickenham. But there's a young woman I'm courtin', I think she does the washin' for a soort of a lawyer chap, and I'll ax she at my dinner time.' So he did, and he came back and told me as the gal sed her master was a lawyer. She didn't think much of the missus, she was mean about perquisates, but the master was decent enough, and never came pokin into the kitchen except when he wanted to have his socks dried. So I reckon he'll do the job for you. Well, I gave that there ostler threepence, and axed him to do me the favor of tellin' that there lawyer that I'd be glad to stand him a glass o' ale if he'd step over to the bar of the Angel. I'd got a bit of business I wanted to consult him about. Well, he came, affable enough, and I told him all – as how I wanted him to defend you, and get you out of this tidy hobble you was in, and wot it 'ud cost. Then he thought a bit, and said that he could get up the case, but must engage counsel. He was only a turnkey, or some name like that; I sed, sed I, he was to manage all, and he might take it or lump it on these terms: Five and twenty pounds if he got you off clear, and if he didn't, and you was hanged, then nuthin'."
Joe smiled and rubbed his hands in self-satisfaction. Then he continued: "You know the master stands behind me. He'll find the money, so long as Polly don't know; but he thort, and so does I, as it could be done cheapest if I took it on me. So I sed to the lawyer chap, who was makin' faces as if he'd got a herrin' bone in his teeth, sez I, 'I'm nort but an ostler in a little country inn, and it's not to be supposed I've much savin's. Nor is Matabel any relation, only she wos maid in the inn whilst I wos ostlin', so I feels a sort o' a likin' for the girl, and I don't mind standin' five and twenty pound to get her off. More I can't give.' That, Matabel, was gammon. The master wouldn't stick at five and twenty, but he told me to try on this little game. He's deep is the master, for, all the innercence he puts on. I said to the ostler I'd give him half-a-crown for the gal as washes, as she introduced me to the lawyer. That there turnkey, as he calls himself, he sez he must get the counsel, and I sez, that, of course, and it comes out of the five and twenty. Then he made more faces, but I stuck to it, and I believe he'll do it. He axed me about particulars, and I sed he wos to consult you. The master sed that durin' the trial I wos to be nigh the lawyer, and if he seemed to flag at all I wos to say, 'Another five pound, old ginger, if you gets her off.' So I think we shall manage it, and Polly be never the wiser."
The Assizes began. Mehetabel, in her prison, could hear the church bells ring merry peals to welcome the judge. She was in sore anxiety about the child, that had failed greatly of late. The trouble in which its mother had been involved had told on its never strong constitution. Even had she been occupied with her own defence and ultimate fate, the condition of the babe imperiously demanded that the main solicitude of its mother should be devoted to it, to still its cries, to relieve its pains, to lull it to necessary sleep.
When Mahetabel knew that she was in a few minutes to be summoned to answer in court for her life, she hung over the little sufferer, clasped it and its crib in her arms, and laid her cheek beside its fevered face on the pillow. She could rest in no other position. If she left the child, it was to pace the cell – if she turned her thoughts to her defence, she was called back by a peevish cry to consider the infant.
When finally summoned to the court she committed the babe to the friendly and worthy jaileress, who undertook to care for it to the best of her abilities. The appearance of Mehetabel in the court produced at once a favorable impression. Her beauty, her youth, the sweetness and pathos of expression in her intelligent face, and the modesty with which she bore the stare of the crowd, sent a wave of sympathy through all present, and stirred pity in every heart. When Mehetabel had recovered the confusion and alarm into which she was thrown by finding herself in the dock with heads all about her, eyes fixed upon her, and mouths whispering comments, she timidly looked up and around.
She saw the judge in his robes under the Royal arms, the barristers, in gowns and wigs, she looked in the direction of the jury, and with a start recognized one amongst them. By a strange chance Iver Verstage had been chosen as one of the petty jury, and the prosecution not suspecting that he was in any way mixed up in the matter before the court, not knowing that he was acquainted with the prisoner, that he came from the neighborhood of the scene of the murder, suffered him to pass unchallenged. Iver did not turn his face her way, and avoided meeting her eye.
Then she saw Joe Filmer's honest countenance; he sought what Iver avoided, and greeted her with a smile and a nod.
There was one more present whom Mehetabel recognized, and that in spite of his wig. She saw in the barrister who was to act as counsel in the prosecution that same young man who had insulted her on the dam of the Hammer Pond.
There was little fresh evidence produced beyond that elicited before the magistrates. Almost the only new matter was what was drawn from the two Rocliffes relative to the conversation that had passed between the prisoner and the deceased previous to his death. But neither father nor son could give a clear account, and they contradicted each other and themselves. But both were confident as to Mehetabel having struck Jonas on the head.
The counsel for the defence was able to make a point here. According to their account they were in a lane, the level of which was considerably lower than that of the field in which the altercation took place. There was a hedge of holly intervening. Now holly does not lose its leaves in winter. Holly does not grow in straggling fashion, but densely. How were these two men able to see through so close a screen? Moreover, if they could see the prisoner then it was obvious she could see them, and was it likely that she would strike her husband before their eyes. Neither Samuel nor Thomas Rocliffe was able to explain how he saw through a hedge of holly, but he had no hesitation in saying that see he did. They were both looking and had chosen a spot where a view was possible, and that Mehetabel did not know they were present was almost certain, as she was looking at Jonas all the while and not in their direction. The counsel was disappointed, he had hoped to make much of this point.
Mehetabel was uneasy when she noticed now that the bewigged young man who had spoken with her at the Hammer Pond labored to bring out from the witnesses' admissions that would tell against her. He was not content with the particulars of the death of Jonas, he went back to the marriage of Mehetabel, and to her early history. He forced from the Rocliffes, father and son, and also from Colpus and his daughter the statement that when Mehetabel had been told her husband was dead she had laughed.
Up to this the feeling of all in court had been unmistakably in her favor, but now, as in the petty sessions, the knowledge that she had laughed turned the current of sympathy from her.
When all the evidence had been produced, then the counsel for the prosecution stood up and addressed the court. The case, said he, was a peculiarly painful one, for it exhibited the blackest ingratitude in one who owed, he might say, everything to the deceased. As the court had heard – the accused had been brought up in a small wayside tavern, the resort of sailors on their way between London and Portsmouth, where she had served in the capacity of barmaid, giving drink to the low fellows who frequented the public-house, and he need hardly say that such a bringing up must kill all the modesty, morality, sense of self-respect and common decency out of a young girl's mind. She was good-looking, and had been the object of familiarities from the drunken vagabonds who passed and repassed along the road, and stayed to slake their thirst, and bandy jokes with the pretty barmaid. From this situation she had been rescued by Jonas Kink, a substantial farmer. Having been a foundling she had no name. She had been brought up at the parish expense, and had no relatives either to curb her propensities for evil, or to withdraw her from a situation in which no young woman, he ventured to say, could spend her early years without moral degradation. It might almost be asserted that Jonas Kink, the deceased, had lifted this unfortunate creature from the gutter. He had given her his name, he had given her a home. He had treated her with uniform kindness – no evidence had been produced that he had ever maltreated her. On the contrary, as the widow Chivers had admitted – the prisoner said herself that the deceased had never struck her with a stick. That there had been quarrels he freely admitted, that the deceased had spoken sharply was not to be denied. But he asked: What husband would endure that the young wife who was indebted to him for everything, should resume her light and reprehensible conduct, or should show inclination to do so, after he had made her his own? No doubt whatever that the prisoner at the bar felt the monotony of a farmhouse irksome after the lively existence in a public house. No doubt she missed the society of topers, and their tipsy familiarities. But was that reason why she should kill her husband?
He believed that he had been able to show that this murder had been planned; that the prisoner had provided herself with the implement wherewith it was her purpose to rid herself of the husband who was distasteful to her. With deliberate intention to free herself, she had waited to catch him alone, and where she believed she was unobserved. The jury must consider how utterly degraded a woman must be to compass the death of the man to whom she had sworn eternal fidelity and love. A woman who could do this was not one who should be suffered to live; she was a scandal to her sex; she dishonored humanity.
The counsel proceeded to say: "Gentlemen of the jury, I have anxiously looked about for some excuses, something that might extenuate the atrocity of this crime. I have found none. The man who steals bread to support his starving children must suffer under the law for what he has done. Can you allow to go free a woman, because young, who has wilfully, wantonly, and deliberately compassed the murder of her husband, merely, as far as we can judge, because he stood in her way pointing the direction to morality and happiness. Whatever may be said in defence of this unfortunate prisoner now on her trial, gentlemen of the jury, do not mistake your office. You are not here to excuse crime and to forgive criminals, but to judge them with justice. Do not be swayed by any false feeling of commiseration because of the sex and youth of the accused. Remember that a wife guilty of the murder of her husband, who is allowed to run free, encourages all others, possibly even your own, to rid themselves of their husbands, whenever they resent a look or a word of reproach. I will lose no more words, but demand a sentence of guilty against Mehetabel Kink."