CHAPTER XVII.

For thyself Thou hast had thy fill of vengeance, and perhaps The cup was sweet; but it hath left behind A bitter relish.

SOUTHEY_’s Roderick_.

Little Agnes was better in the morning. Ellen’s name was not the first on the list; a common case of burglary was nearly disposed of when she was summoned.

Lord Besville’s carriage, as previously arranged, conveyed her to the court-house. The curious mob gave way, with an expression of pity, as Ellen, assisted by her father, and by Lord Besville, and accompanied by Mr. Turnbull, alighted from the carriage. She was supported through the crowd of black, shabby-genteel, greasy-looking attendants, who are to be found about the purlieus of a court of justice. She had to wait some minutes in the passage, till the thief who had preceded her at the bar was removed. She was then led in, and placed where he had stood.

There was an universal whisper and commotion throughout the assembly, as her graceful form took the place of the coarse, vulgar, brutal figures, which had usually occupied that spot.

A silence of a moment succeeded. She held by the iron bar before her, as if to sustain herself. A request for a chair was heard from every quarter, and in a few seconds she was enabled to seat herself. There was another pause—Mr. Cresford’s lawyer then rose. He felt he had the sense of the court against him—that all instinctive and human feelings must be in favour of the delicate and shrinking creature before them.

She sat shrouded in a wrapping black cloak, her face concealed by a close bonnet and a thick veil. Scarcely any thing was visible except the slender, rounded, swan-like throat, and one white hand which occasionally clutched the iron bar.

Though one of the ablest men in his profession, he had scarcely his usual self-possession when he began; but he soon warmed with his subject. The fact of bigamy was clearly to be proved; and he expatiated upon the feelings of the adoring and deserted husband, and made use of the very interest excited by her appearance, as an argument for the sympathy he deserved, an enhancement of the injury received.

Hamilton had, unobserved, crept into a retired corner. He had heard the eloquent appeal. Accustomed to read the effect produced upon his fellow-creatures by public speaking, he had perceived that the able counsel had affected his audience; that in truth the very interest excited by Ellen did tell against her. He could not bear the situation any longer. He rushed into the street, and paced it up and down in agonized perturbation. He longed to madness that Colonel Eversham should arrive. His evidence was material. He had continued to hope against all reason that he would appear, and he now felt ready to accuse him and the Government, the winds and the waves, of cruelty.

At the close of the case for the prosecution, Ellen for the first time raised her eyes, and saw the large round green table, surrounded by the youthful faces of the lawyers in their powdered wigs. She took one fearful glance at their countenances, to see if, accustomed as they were to make their harvest of the woes and the crimes of their fellow-men, there might not be a lurking expression of levity or mirth among them. She ventured one look at the judge. He was a firm, but a venerable and mild-looking man; and she hoped for justice, tempered with mercy, at his hands. One other look towards the jury. She thought she recognized some faces she remembered in her youth.

“Ah! they will have pity on me,” she thought.

The certificates of the two marriages had been produced—the witnesses were called. At this moment a voice was heard in a loud whisper addressing one of the counsel,

“Colonel Eversham is come!”

Ellen looked up. She saw on the right of the judge’s seat, at the door by which the lawyers, the high sheriff, &c., had free ingress and egress, Algernon’s eager beaming face!

It was the first time she had seen it since they had parted at Belhanger. She gave a faint scream, and uttering his name, fell back in her chair. The assistants who were near at hand quickly lifted up her veil; they took off her bonnet, and in their awkward attentions, they loosened her comb, and her long black hair fell in showers around her. The marble brow, the fringed lids, the pencilled eyebrows, the oval face, the graceful form, caused a sensation of enthusiastic admiration and pity, and tears fell fast from the eyes of the few ladies who had had nerves to attend the trial. They handed smelling-bottles and drops, and in a few moments she revived. Her father was close at hand, and he supported her drooping head, while the tear-drops coursed one another rapidly down his pallid cheeks.

Cresford stood apart, stern and immovable. He had seen the cause of her agitation; he had watched the direction of her eye, and the fiend of jealousy possessed his soul and scared every softer emotion.

The case for the prosecution was quickly closed. Ellen’s counsel rose, relieved by finding there was no further evidence produced against his client than what he was fully prepared to meet, and inspirited by the comfortable assurance that Colonel Eversham was at hand.

Of course he did not attempt to disprove the fact of the two marriages; but in a clear and circumstantial manner he stated the events with which the reader is already well acquainted, and wound up the whole with so touching a description of the sufferings and virtues of the “exemplary lady then writhing under the unmerited disgrace of being placed in the situation in which they beheld her,” that most people present agreed with Will Pollard, that Cresford had no business to be alive. Making a forcible appeal to their feelings, he continued:—

“And when we contemplate such unmerited sufferings, does not every thing that is human in us array itself in her defence? Do we not feel ourselves rather called upon to minister relief than to inflict punishment? Good God, gentlemen, when we see this blameless lady, the victim of an imposture (for although perhaps an excusable one, still it was an imposture, an enacted lie),—when we find her, in consequence of this imposture, deprived of the name to which she was an honour, of the station in society of which she was so bright an ornament,—when we see her torn from her children, and her children bereft of a mother’s watchful care,—when we see her thus doubly widowed, severed from the man to whom in innocence and purity of thought she had given her affections at the altar,—from the man who so well deserves and still possesses those affections, of which, gentlemen, we have even now witnessed such affecting evidence,—can we, can we, I say, contemplate such accumulation of unprecedented distress, and call it guilt? Forbid it reason! Forbid it justice! Forbid it truth! And what, in her sorrows, her privations, her bereavement, what does this injured lady ask? But to live in virtuous singleness and seclusion—to devote her days to her aged father, to her innocent child—the babe from whose bed of sickness she has this day been dragged before you?”

But one feeling prevailed throughout the court. Captain Wareham, Hamilton, Henry Wareham, all felt confident of the result. Every thing that had been stated in favour of Ellen was amply borne out by the newspaper, the account of Maitland’s death, and the evidence of Colonel Eversham, who distinctly detailed each particular concerning the supposed death of Cresford, and also declared he had reported every detail to Mrs. Cresford upon his own return to England, which he effected a short time afterwards.

The judge clearly and concisely summed up the evidence, and told the jury it was for them to decide whether the prisoner was, or was not, guilty of the crime with which she was charged.

The jury retired for a few minutes. To Ellen they appeared an age. The whispered hopes and consolations of those around, fell on her ear, without entering into her mind. She had suffered so much, that she durst not give way to hope.

The jury could not do otherwise than bring in the verdict “guilty” of the crime, though at the same time they recommended the prisoner to mercy. She heard but the first word. A mist came over her eyes, a rushing noise sounded in her ears; she fainted before she had time to hear the sentence of the judge.

He premised that bigamy came under the head of felony, which by the statute 35th of George III. rendered persons liable to the same punishments, pains, and penalties as those who are convicted of grand or petit larceny. Under aggravated circumstances, therefore, the punishment might be transportation for seven years;—but under those of the present case, he commanded the prisoner to be fined one shilling, and to be forthwith discharged.

Though unseen himself, Hamilton’s eyes had been riveted upon her. He instantly darted to her side when he saw her fall. The impulse was uncontrollable. The sentence had passed, and before he had time to think, to feel, to reflect, to calculate, he had taken her from Captain Wareham’s trembling arms, and had carried her into the lobby. She was still insensible, but he supported that beloved form, and the moment was one of rapture!

She faintly opened her eyes, and it was from his voice that she first heard, “You are free, Ellen, you are free!”

“Free?” and she gazed wildly around her. “Free, from him? May I become lawfully your wife?”

Her scattered senses were not yet collected—she scarcely knew what had passed, or where she was. The words “you are free,” sounded in her ear as if the fatal tie was dissolved. He had not the courage to undeceive her, while, under this impression, she leaned weakly and trustingly on his arm.

Captain Wareham was preparing to explain the meaning of his words, when Cresford rushed forward. His eyes flashed fire, and hastily pushing aside all around, he forced his way by her father, he seized her helpless form, and sternly fixing his hand against Algernon’s breast, he forcibly repelled him.

“The law of the land has just pronounced this woman to be my wife, and you—her paramour.”

“Unmanly wretch!” and Hamilton’s dark eye flashed on him with as infuriated a glance as his own, his lip quivered with rage, but he restrained himself. “Say what you will—insult me—strike me—to me you are sacred.” Hamilton drew himself up to his full height, and looked with proud contempt upon Cresford.

Ellen had strength enough to struggle from Cresford’s grasp, and to fling herself into her father’s arms, who implored him to have pity upon his poor worn-out child, and not to make her the subject of a common brawl, in the public sight.

Angry as Cresford was, he felt that he was only exposing himself to the ridicule, as well as to the blame of all around, and turning to Captain Wareham, he said,—

“In your hands—in the hands of her father I am content to leave her. But I owe it to myself, that she should be preserved from one who is avowedly nothing to her. I trust my wife’s honour in your hands, Captain Wareham. When I have seen you and your daughter safely placed in the carriage, which awaits you, I shall depart.”

Sternly folding his arms, and placing himself between Hamilton and Ellen, he watched them into Lord Besville’s carriage.

Hamilton, ever fearful of adding to Ellen’s sufferings, commanded himself, restrained his feelings, and saw her dear form depart, without making a movement to follow or to assist. When the carriage had driven away, Cresford and Hamilton, for one short minute, gazed fixedly on each other; each seemed to wish to look the other dead, but neither spoke. Cresford was not so deprived of all sense of reason, and honour, as to farther insult a man who would not raise his hand against him. Hamilton still maintained his resolution that no provocation should urge him to place an impassable barrier between himself and Ellen.

Each turned on his heel and walked away, with a storm of turbulent and angry passions raging in his bosom. They returned to their respective hotels.

Did Cresford feel the happier for having accomplished his revenge? No! he only felt, if possible, more injured, more miserable, than ever. It is true he had increased the wretchedness of Ellen, but had that afforded his own any alleviation? He had merely given her the occasion of proving how innocently she had contracted her second marriage, and how exemplary had been her conduct, how conscientious and considerate that of his rival, since they had discovered that he was still in existence. He had merely given the world an opportunity of knowing how little share he had in her affections, how dear to her was Hamilton.

Algernon’s mind was scarcely less agitated. The sight of Ellen had distracted him. How were they to drag on their weary lives in hopeless absence? The blank and cheerless prospect before them, never struck him so forcibly as now. The excitement of the last six weeks had kept up his spirits. There was something to be done, something to look to, something to hope, something to fear. He felt it impossible to seek again his solitary home; impossible to pursue any regular fixed course of life, to which there seemed no period, no end, except in the grave. His child, too! his only child was ill. He had a father’s longing to see it; he knew not what to do, or how to act. He would not expose Ellen to another outbreak of Cresford’s passion, and he at length made up his mind, that if the next day his child was going on well, he would leave the neighbourhood, but that, when Cresford had also departed, he would arrange with Captain Wareham that he should occasionally see his little Agnes.

Poor Ellen had reached her home. Exhausted by the overwhelming emotions of the day, she had scarcely feeling left, to comprehend any thing beyond being restored to her child. Caroline, to whose care she had committed her, and Matilda, whom her father had not allowed to attend the trial, received her in their arms, and almost carried her to her child’s bedside.

Little Agnes was better, and Ellen sat close by her, with a vague weak feeling of gratitude to Heaven for re-uniting them. They persuaded her to lay herself on the bed by her side, and in a very few moments she was wrapped in slumber, as calm, as placid as the child’s.

It was late in the evening before she awoke. Caroline and Matilda were both in the room. She started up. “Is it over?” she cried; “is the trial over? or did I only dream it?”

“It is over, all well over, dearest sister, and you are restored to us.”

“Thank you, dear creatures. And my child, she is better; she is sleeping nicely, and quite close to me. Oh, the relief of finding myself among you all, without the fear of those dreadful hulks! Where is my father, my poor father! He has gone through a great deal to-day.”

“He has just stolen out of the room. He has been here, looking at you and Agnes, as you both slept, till the tears streamed down his face.”

“Oh, let me go to him!” She hastened down-stairs, and poor Captain Wareham felt almost happy when he saw a smile, though it was a troubled and an unquiet one, upon Ellen’s lips.

“Oh, father, I scarcely thought I should ever again feel any thing so near akin to joy as this. If you knew how the horrible idea of transportation preyed upon my mind! I did not like to own how much I thought of it. At least, I can look round and feel that from all of _you_ I need not now be parted. Yet mixed with this sensation of joy, which is so strange to me, there comes such a yearning for George and Caroline, my poor dear children, whom I must not see. Oh! if I could kiss them once, if I could look upon them, if I could know they were well! My poor dear innocent children!” She sat down and wept freely, weakly, gently, as a person utterly worn out, body and mind.

Latterly she had not spoken much of her elder children; her mind had been bent to the one point, and the fear of another, still more dreadful misfortune, had prevented her dwelling so much on their absence. But now that her heart, for the first time, gave way to this unwonted feeling of happiness, she longed for their presence, with a passionate desire.

She breathed not Algernon’s name. But when they all retired to rest, and she found herself alone in her chamber, she seated herself in an arm-chair, and covering her eyes with her hands, she yielded herself up to a sort of dreamy but delightful consciousness that she had seen him, heard him; that her eye had met his, that her head had rested on his shoulder, that his voice had sounded in her ear. She dreaded to move, and to rouse herself to the sad prospect that she was to see him no more—that days, months, years, must roll on, and she must meet those eyes, and hear that voice no more!

But this weakness was not to be indulged; she shook it off, and calmed and refreshed her soul with humble and grateful prayer.