This Man's Wife Part 52

One of many visits to the gloomy, stone-built, county gaol where Hallam was waiting his trial--for all applications for the granting of bail had been set aside--Millicent had insisted upon going alone, but without avail.

"No, Miss Milly, you may insist as long as you like; but until I'm berried, I'm going to keep by you in trouble, and I shall go with you."

"But Thibs, my dear, dear old Thibs," cried Millicent, flinging her arms about her neck, "don't you see that you will be helping me by staying with Julie?"

"No, my dear, I don't; and, G.o.d bless her! she'll be as happy as can be with her grandpa killing slugs, as I wish all wicked people were the same, and could be killed out of the way."

"But, Thibs, I order you to stay!"

"And you may order, my dear," said Thisbe stubbornly. "You might order, and you might cut off my legs, and then I'd come crawling like the serpent in the Scripters--only I hope it would be to do good."

"Oh, you make me angry with you, Thisbe. Haven't I told you that Miss Heathery has been pressing to come this morning, and I refused her?"

"Why, of course you did, my dear," replied Thisbe contemptuously. "Nice one she'd be to go with you, and strengthen and comfort you! Send her to your pa's greenhouse to turn herself into a pot, and water the plants with warm water, and crying all over, and perhaps she'd do some good; but to go over to Lindum! The idea! Poor little weak thing!"

"But, Thisbe, can you not see that this is a visit that I ought to pay alone?"

"No, miss."

"But it is: for my husband's sake."

"Every good husband who had left his wife in such trouble as you're in would be much obliged to an old servant for going with you all that long journey. There, miss, once for all--you may go alone, if you like, but I shall follow you and keep close to you all the time, and sit down at the prison gate."

"Oh, hush, Thibs!" cried Millicent, with a spasm of pain convulsing her features.

"Yes, miss, I understand. And now I'm going. I shan't speak a word to you; I shan't even look at you, but be just as if I was a nothing, and all the same I'm there ready for you to hear, and be a comfort in my poor way, so that you may lean on me as much as you like; and, please G.o.d, bring us all well out of our troubles. Amen."

Poor Thisbe's words were inconsequent, but they were sincere, and she followed her mistress to the coach, and then through the hilly streets of the old city, and finally, as she had suggested, seated herself upon a stone at the prison gates while her mistress went in.

The sound of lock and bolt chilled Millicent; the aspect of the gloomy, high-walled enclosure, with the loose bricks piled on the top to show where the wall had been tampered with, and to hinder escape, the very aspect, too, of the governor's house, with its barred windows to keep prisoners out, as the walls were to keep them in--a cage within a cage-- made her heart sink, and when after traversing stone pa.s.sages, and hearing doors locked and unlocked, she found herself in the presence of her husband, her brain reeled, a mist came before her eyes, and for a while her tongue refused to utter the words she longed to speak.

"Humph!" said Hallam roughly. "You don't seem very glad to see me."

Her reproachful eyes gave him the lie; and, looking pale, anxious, and terribly careworn, he began to pace the floor.

The careful arrangement of the hair, the gentlemanly look, seemed to have given place to a sullen, half-shrinking mien, and it was plain to see how confinement and mental anxiety had told upon him.

In a few minutes, though, he had thrown off a great deal of this, and spoke eagerly to his wife, who, while tender and sympathetic in word and look, seemed ever ready to spur him on to some effort to free himself from the clinging stain.

This had been her task from the very first. Cast down with a feeling of degradation and sorrow, when the arrest had been made, she had, as we know, recoiled.

She had made every effort possible; had gone to her husband for advice and counsel, and had ended at his wish by taking the money Miss Heathery offered, to pay a good attorney to conduct his case; but on the first hearing, she was informed by the lawyer that a gentleman was down from town, a barrister of some eminence, who said that he had been instructed to defend Mr Hallam, and he declined to give any further information.

The despair that came over Millicent was terrible to witness; but she mastered these fits of despondency by force of will and the feverish energy with which she set to work. She visited Hallam, questioning, asking advice, instruction, and bidding him try to see his way out of the difficulty, till he grew morose and sullen, and seemed to find special pleasure in telling her that it was "all the work of that parson."

In her feverish state, in the despair with which she had bidden herself do her duty to her wronged, her injured husband, she took all this as fact, and shutting herself up at Miss Heathery's, refused to read the letters Bayle sent to her, or to give him an interview.

It was as if a savage spirit of hate and revenge had taken possession of her, and with blind determination she went on her way, praying for strength to make her worthy of the task of defending her injured husband, and for the overthrow of the cruel enemies who were fighting to work his ruin.

And now she was having the last interview with Hallam, for the authorities had interfered, she had had so much lat.i.tude, and he had given her certain instructions which made her start.

"Go to him?" she said, looking up wonderingly.

"Yes, of course," he said sharply; "do you wish me to lose the slightest chance of getting off?"

"But, Robert, dear," she said innocently, but with the energy that pervaded her speaking, "why not go bravely to your trial? The truth must prevail."

"Oh, yes," he said cynically; "it is a way it has in courts of law."

"Don't speak like that, love. I want you to hold up your head bravely in the face of your detractors, to show how you have been tricked and injured, that this man Crellock, whom you have helped, has proved a villain--deceiving, robbing, and shamefully treating you."

"Yes," he said; "I should like to show all that."

"Then don't send me to Sir Gordon. I feel that there is no mercy to be expected from either him or Mr Bayle. They both hate you."

"Most cordially, dear. By all that's wearisome, I wish they would let me have a cigar here."

"No, no; think of what you are telling me to do," she cried eagerly, as she saw him wandering from the purpose in hand. "You say I must go to Sir Gordon?"

"Yes. Don't say it outright, but give him to understand that if he will throw up this prosecution of his, it will be better for the bank. That I can give such information as will pay them."

"You know so much about Stephen Crellock?" she said quickly.

"Yes; I can recover a great deal, I am sure."

"And I am to show him how cruelly he has wronged you?"

"Yes, of course."

"You desire me to do this; you will not trust to your innocence, and the efforts of the counsel?"

"Do you want to drive me mad with your questions?" he cried savagely.

"If you decline to go, my lawyer shall see Sir Gordon."

"Robert!" she said reproachfully, but with the sweet gentleness of her pitying love for the husband irritated, and beyond control of self in his trouble, apparent in her words.

"Well, why do you talk so and hesitate?" he cried petulantly.

"I will go, dear," she said cheerfully, "and I will plead your cause to the uttermost."

"Yes, of course. It will be better that you should go. He likes you, Millicent; he always did like you, and I dare say he will listen to you.

I don't know but what it might be wise to knock under to Bayle. But no: I hate that fellow. I always did from the first. Well, leave that now. See Sir Gordon; tell him what I say, that it will be best for the bank. You'll win. Hang it, Millicent, I could not bear this trial: it would kill me."

"Robert!"

"Ah, well, I'm not going to die yet, and it would be very sad for my handsome little wife to be left a widow if they hang me, or to exist with a live husband serving one-and-twenty years in the bush."

"Robert, you will break my heart if you speak like that," panted Millicent.