Revelation,
or,
A Death at Delaford

[Chapters 1-3] [Chapters 4-5] [Chapters 6-7] [Chapters 8-9] [Chapters 12-13] [Chapters 14-15] [Chapters 16-17]

Chapter Ten

Hats off! rose the shout as the condemned man appeared on the roof of the entrance lodge of the gaol. From some of the thousands of observers it was a cry of respect, and of something approaching empathy; from those who knew him it was a voicing of their angry awareness that they would soon witness a most grievous miscarriage of justice; but from most it was nothing more than a demand that their view be unobstructed, as if they attended a stage performance. The gallows was black and clean-lined against a bright morning sky, easily visible to the watching crowd below; they cheered when the hangman mounted the platform to adjust the rope. In family parties, in groups of vulgar women or half-drunken laborers, in gangs of boys, they had walked and ridden and driven from as far as twenty miles away, having perhaps ignored the exhortations of clergymen or fathers or husbands or masters and all now aquiver with eager excitement. Some had waited in their chosen places the whole of the night before, on walls, in trees, in the beds of wagons and carts; others had paid for a foot or so of rooftop or window. Many had worn their best clothing, and had brought food and drink and a few extra coins with which to buy roasted chestnuts or perhaps a copy of the condemned man's "last dying speech," hawked with zest by enterprising printers. In contrast, little interest was shown in the broadside distributed by his friends, a last proclamation of his innocence after all their letters and petitions had failed. A hanging was rare in the country, especially of a murderer, and the hanging of a gentleman rarer still; to doubt his guilt would rob the proceedings of any pleasure. "And besides," said some, "he is a rich man. If he an't guilty of this, he be guilty of something else."

As the condemned man set foot upon the steps of the scaffold a sudden hush descended over the gaping multitude, but it was very soon replaced by catcalls and hisses. He was pale but calm, his dread, if he felt it, his private concern, not for the sight and comment of others. Very deliberate were his movements, with particular care given to the placing of his feet, for his hands being bound before him he would not easily be able to catch himself should he trip. He bore his own rope wrapped about his waist, and carried the noose in his hands; when he had been cut down the hangman would sell bits of it for a shilling or more a piece. Dressed in a fine black suit and shiny black pumps, the white of his shirt and stockings gleaming, he made a noble figure, though he looked older and was certainly thinner than he had been only a few weeks before. The keeper and chaplain and turnkeys walked very near him, ready to brace him if he should faint; but his unwavering composure made them look foolish in their hovering. As proudly as if on a review stand, he stepped to his place under the beam, feet squarely upon the drop.

The hangman took the noose from the condemned man's steady hand, and then began to unwind the rope from about his waist. He asked whether the hood would be wanted, to which the man replied that it would, though not until the very last; and he also requested the hangman fix the noose very tightly with the knot beneath the left ear, in the hope that the breath would be choked from him a little more swiftly. To this the hangman agreed, and, being well acquainted with his victim, he also promised to allow a longer drop than usual, and to jump down and pull on the man's legs should his agonies not have ceased within five minutes. This exchange was heard by those in the front of the crowd and relayed at once to their neighbors, so that in minutes all the assemblage knew what had been said on both sides. Some applauded the condemned man's self-possession; others insisted that a murderer, whether or not a gentleman, deserved no such merciful consideration.

The words came also to the ears of that person who watched most intently, not with any modicum of pleasure but in the most acute and immediate horror, herself composed only because she had summoned every scrap of her will into a determination not to falter while her husband lived. He had not wanted her to be present, but in the face of her abject pleading had been unable to deny her this last sight of him.

He was asked if he would like to address the crowd, and he nodded and lifted his voice. He wished, he said, only that he could look out upon his neighbors and assert his innocence directly to them, and hoped that those of his friends he could see in the crowd would convey his message to all the rest whom he would be very sorry to leave.

His gaze then sought that of his wife, who stood alone to one side, trembling but upright, weeping but not hysterical, eyes locked upon him as if to engrave these final moments upon her memory. He did not speak to her, all they had wanted to say to one another having been said the night before, when she had been permitted to visit him in the tiny windowless cell for the condemned, and he, though she had felt the shivers of fear run through him when he clutched her to his breast, yet had been more comfort to her than she to him, even as the crowd outside cheered the erection of the gallows. In her hand, damp with perspiration from her palm, was the letter he had given to her, extracting her solemn promise not to read it until she was alone. He did not speak to her now, only gazed at her in a warm and loving silence until the hangman asked him if he had anything further to say. He answered that he did not, and so the hood was placed on his head and drawn down over his face; and with the covering of his eyes she felt that the bond that had stretched between them had been cruelly severed. She cried out his name, though she knew it was his wish that she be spared the awful sight of his distorted features. Dizzy and faint with hopeless misery at the thought of what was to come, nevertheless she would not turn away, though the tears streamed from her eyes so that she could hardly see, and she could draw so little breath that the noose seemed tight about her own neck; would not turn away even as the hangman pulled on the lever and the trap slid back and all around her rose the shrieks and cheers of the crowd--

********************

Marianne woke with sobs tearing her throat, sick with nightmare that would not at once release her. Heart pounding and ears roaring, she flung back the curtains to let in the moonlight and fumbled to light a candle. Unsteady on her feet, she went into her dressing room and splashed water on her face, shivering with the cold shock and all the while seeing the hooded figure convulsing at the end of the rope, hearing the hurrahs of the mob at every spasm. Still her lips moved in prayer, not for his life but for his quick death. When the body was motionless, she saw the ignorant and superstitious approach to press the lifeless hands against a wart or a cancer in the belief of a cure, the hands whose touch she knew so well; later saw people file past his body where it was displayed in the town hall, laying foul hands upon him, snipping locks of his hair, the hair that her hands had so frequently caressed; heard the bawling of ghoulish execution ballads from street-corners.

She dried her face but her cheeks were at once wet again with tears. She could not stop herself imagining the accounts of the trial and execution, with their lurid illustrations of the crime, of the innocent rider in the turnpike shot from the concealment of the hedge by a villain in gentleman's clothing, and of course the death grip of the victim on the greatcoat and button; or the broadsides with sober homilies for the edification of children and servants, demonstrating that even a gentleman could not escape justice.

"Justice!" she cried aloud into the empty room, slipping back into bed and burying her face in the pillow, and feeling very much alone as she waited for the daylight--for she knew that further sleep, with its risk of such attendant horror, was impossible.

She had not slept well since Christopher's arrest, but neither had she once awakened in such a panic. She knew what had been its origin: his staunch refusal to bend terrified her, and having read and answered his letter during the evening, it had weighed heavily on her mind when she had gone to bed.

"Of course I know that you did not intend to hurt me," she had written. "I never believed such a thing, and in any case your withholding information wounds me far less than the position you have taken. All the poems and songs you may recite will not divert me from the fact that you would rather die than fight for your good name in any way you can. I simply cannot believe that the degree of ostracism, if we suffered any at all, would be very severe; but even if I am wrong I do not care. I do not care. I would rather have you still with us; I would rather have you than all the society in the world. And I reject absolutely your gloomy prediction that the expectation of ostracism would poison and erode our affection, for I believe our union is stronger than that. We are stronger. Christopher, I beg you to reconsider. You will tire of hearing it, but I shall not stop saying it. I can tell you how to be easier in your mind: only agree with me. --Oh, how petulant I sound, when I read what I have written! Could you hear my voice you would know that I am not--you would see how hard I am trying to understand. And you need not write as if a woman had no notion of honor--I assure you we do, though it might differ from a man's--but I could come closer to sympathy, if never outright agreement, if you would but allow a tête-à-tête. No matter how lengthy our letters or how finely reasoned, they are not equivalent to a conversation. May I not come to see you? A kiss, an embrace, the mere sight of you would ease my mind."

She had little hope that he would relent so soon, but she had determined to ask him directly, and ask again and again, if only to demonstrate to him how badly she missed him, how great was her need to see him, talk with him, hold him. He would have received her reply before he retired, but she prayed it had not prompted such dreams as her own.

Christopher's letter had not been the only blow she had received the day before. She had also been paid a visit by Mr. Haydock, who was so disconcerted by her forcing him to admit that he had not quite honored his promise to keep his client's wife informed, that he atoned for his sin of omission by disillusioning her still further: a conditional pardon, he told her, was really very unlikely, its refusal almost a certainty, the assize judge being unalterably opposed to duelling and consequently to any misbehavior that could be said to have arisen from it. "You see, Mrs. Brandon," in a very conciliatory tone, "why I could not bring myself to be entirely straightforward with you." She was obliged to respect his motivation if not its result, especially when she reflected that even her husband had not yet told her as much as this. And to complete the happiness of the day, she had received a letter from Mrs. Jennings, who, though continuing sincerely indignant and sympathetic, was also day by day surrendering what restraint she had ever exercised upon the natural propensities of her imagination. "It is such a pity," she had written, "that little Joy will never know her dear father if he is hung--"

At that moment she needed very much to see her child, no matter that it was not yet four o'clock, and she donned her dressing gown and slippers and went down the quiet hallway to the nursery. Nurse Tarville was snoring softly in her adjacent closet, but her sleep was habitually very light and in fact she soon appeared in the doorway in her gown and nightcap, awakened by the moving glow of Marianne's candle. Assured that all was well, and unable in the poor light to distinguish her mistress's puffy eyes and blotched cheeks, she bobbed her head and went back to her bed. As Marianne looked down at her sleeping daughter, contemplating the small reflection of her own eyes and Christopher's mouth, and the nose that as yet refused to announce its provenance, her tears began to flow all over again. How could she one day explain to Joy the unexplainable--that a good and innocent man could be executed for a crime he had not committed? It might happen, she knew. He might be taken from her forever in just that horrible, humiliating way. Nothing had come of the several letters to Lord Melgrove, for which the correspondents readily blamed Mr. Humphries, who would, they were persuaded, make certain his lordship did not soften even if he were so inclined. Nor had the many letters to the papers generated significant relevant response, the space allotted to a discussion of Brandon's case very soon, upon the printing of Mrs. Holcombe's tart offensive, being given over to a tangential debate upon the evils of female interest in political and legal matters. Margaret's letter, so carefully composed and refined through many drafts, to her great disappointment had never been printed. But as awful, as ghastly as it would be, his suffering would end, while she must live on without him.

He had looked so striking on their wedding day, dashing and almost handsome in his uniform. Oddly, on that occasion she had been subdued and he exuberant, throwing the coins with abandon while she sat pensive, suffused with a quiet joy and tolerant affection for every body within her sight. When contemplating whether to marry him she had found it easy to imagine a life with him, and, finding what she imagined pleasing, had made her decision. Her imagination, however, had fallen far short of the truth; her life with him was richer and more satisfying than she had ever conceived it could be, her delighted infatuation with the novelty and intimacy of marriage having grown into a more mature and settled contentment. Seeing him enter a room she occupied was a pleasure; conversing with him was by turns amusing or informative or thought-provoking, but always stimulating. They did not meet as often in a day as in the early months of their marriage, yet she was all the more aware of him, of both his presence and his absence. Since Joy's birth she could no longer accompany him when he journeyed to Exeter or Dorchester on business, or to the Sessions or Assizes, and when he was away she missed him more completely than she had before, if not perhaps as acutely--yet a sharp, localized pain is sometimes more easily endured than a dull but pervasive ache. Now it was impossible to imagine a life without him, so constant and cherished and indispensable a presence he had become, interwoven in the fabric of her days. It was impossible to imagine being deprived of the one person with whom she could share the minutiae of her life in which not even her mother and sisters would be interested, the one person who would listen to her play or read for hours on end, with whom she could discover new books and music, or ride beneath a gray sky, or wade in a stream on a hot summer's day, or walk out on a frosty morn-- From even the conjecture of a future so lonely, she shrank in anguish.

They had shared so many experiences during their marriage--birthdays, tours, a somewhat sentimental anniversary. They had suffered together the least charming members of each other's families--for instance when Wilfrid and two of his sons had paid a visit to Delaford on their way to Plymouth, for the purpose, Marianne declared suspiciously, of judging whether there were any hope of Joy's being a sickly child; or when John and Fanny, with the added enchantment of their spoilt son, Harry, had stopped for a week on their way to bathe at Weymouth, and Marianne was reduced to wishing the cold sea would turn them so blue that they could never again set foot outside their own house. Through happy and trying events her husband was calm, competent, and understanding, soothing her disgust and pique without once criticizing her for feeling them, never demanding that she be other than what she was.

The most profound experience they had shared had been, of course, Joy's dramatic and, looking backward now from a relatively safe distance, rather humorous entrance into the world. She could not bear to think of her child raised fatherless, never knowing the good, dear man who doted on her so, or of all the deeply satisfying moments he himself might be denied. Even now Joy was trying to pull herself up by means of a chair leg or a low table; would he miss her first unassisted step? her first intelligible word? the first time she said "Mama" or "Papa"? How long would this waking nightmare extend? When would it be resolved, and with what outcome? If it were that most feared by all those who loved him, she would witness their daughter's milestones alone. Until Joy reached the age of reason she herself might be unconscious of her loss, but in later years when she painted a picture or wrote a poem, learned to ride a horse or to roll a hoop all the way across the lawn, no father would praise her achievements. No father would lead her in a dance at her first ball, or protect her from too-ardent admirers. No father would give her into marriage--nor brother either, for she would never know the tribulations and delights of siblings. Marianne remembered the pangs of grief that had visited her at her own wedding, that her father had not lived to witness it or take his part, to be glad and relieved in her choice of husband. But her father, at least, had died of common illness, at home in his bed surrounded by his loving family, not brutally before thousands of strangers, an object of scorn or obscene fascination. On every occasion when a father should be present, Joy would be agonizingly reminded of why hers was not.

It struck Marianne suddenly that this direction of thought assumed that she would never marry again. But if widowed so very young, why should she not? Indeed she would be widely expected to seek the protection of another husband, and being in possession of her own little estate she would not lack for suitors. Yet the thought repulsed her--and not simply because her husband was yet alive. It was not only a betrayal of him to think of it, it was also a betrayal of herself, for where could she find another man who united all her colonel's noble qualities? Her mother did not discount the possibility of marrying again should a sufficiently worthy gentleman offer for her hand, but she declared that her happy union had made her very unreasonable in what she would expect from a prospective second husband. "And he must understand, you know," she often said, "that I still miss your papa every day." Her mother's grief for her husband, Marianne recalled, had contained a wrenching, tortured quality that hers for her father had lacked; her mother's sobs had been of a more heartbreaking timbre even than her own--for though she had lost her father she had been left whole. She had no doubt that should she lose Christopher now, she would miss him as unceasingly all the remaining days of her life; that should he be torn away from her, a piece of her heart would be torn away with him--that part of herself she had slowly, by perhaps immeasurable increments, given to him over the course of the past two years and a half. And she had given it. He had not taken, or demanded, or even asked for it. He had asked for nothing but her affection, but could it be--and she caught her breath even to skirt the edge of the notion--could it be that she had given him, without conscious thought, something more?

She found that all her muscles were tense, that her hands gripped the edge of Joy's crib so tightly her knuckles were white. To lose Christopher now would alter her heart and mind forever--just as they had been altered when she had lost Willoughby.

There could be but one explanation. It had happened at last. "I love him," she said--in a whisper, but aloud, as if testing the sound of the words and the feeling behind them. "I love him," she said, and knew that it was true.

Suddenly dizzy, she reached behind her for her nursing chair and sat down upon it with a jar that forced a small sound past her lips--a moan, a sigh, perhaps a laugh, or all three blended. She felt she should ponder this realization--but she pondered no more than a moment. "One simply knows," she had told Margaret upon her sister's asking how one could know that one was in love. And she did know. She was staggered by new and unexpected discovery, by a revelation as abrupt and significant as that which had set her on the path to marriage. She got up, paced about, and sat down again, dabbing with her handkerchief at her eyes and nose. She examined her feelings, and complimented herself that she did it coolly and rationally. She must be certain she was not guilty this time of the same artificial heightening of emotion that had plunged her into a passion for Willoughby so all-consuming that she almost had not recovered from it, must be certain that the present terrifying circumstances had not caused her to mistake one emotion for another. But she knew. She knew that this time every feeling was wholly genuine, for this time she listened to her heart rather than commanded what it should feel. She remembered Elinor's speaking so calmly about perhaps coming to love another should Edward be taken from her--her confident assumption that she would not be destroyed by grief as her sister had almost been. That sister was no longer in like danger; should she be forever separated from Christopher she would be for a time overwhelmed, certainly, but not destroyed. She would recover, changed but still useful, a reaction exactly opposite to that she had suffered upon being separated from Willoughby. Greater maturity and experience had allowed her to understand that a feeling was no less love for her being able to survive its loss; was perhaps more truly love for giving her a particular kind of confidence and strength, for being supportive rather than debilitating.

"Oh Christopher, I do love you," she said, though her chest and throat were constricted and aching and she hardly made a sound, such was the whirl of her thoughts, the storm of her emotions, exhilaration and despair mingled in equal measure in her breast. Might she lose not only a husband, but the man she loved?

--The man who was yet ignorant of her new awareness! How strange that he did not know, when she seemed to have always felt it. She must tell him at once! She had come to stand by Joy's crib again, and her tears fell onto the fuzzy head. "Someday, my love, perhaps I shall tell you how you helped me to know myself." She kissed the tip of the tiny ear and then hurried downstairs through the awakening house, her dressing gown billowing behind her, the servants looking askance in her direction but saying nothing, having grown somewhat accustomed to displays of unchecked emotion in recent days. She sat down at her desk, in her haste nearly tipping over the chair and spilling the ink. "My dearest, most wonderful husband-- There is something I simply must tell you at once--it is very urgent that I see you--please may I--" No, she must not give him opportunity to refuse her. She put the page aside and began again. "My dearest, most wonderful husband-- As there is something I simply must tell you at once, something too important to commit to paper, I am coming to see you this very morning--" Surely he could not refuse her admittance if she were already outside the gate! But if he would not allow her within the privacy of his cell, she would give voice to what was in her heart any way she could, would shout her love up toward his window, heedless of stares and titters, until he was at once so mortified by her abandon and so impatient to take her in his arms and shower her with ecstatic kisses, that he could not but submit. She laughed through tears of joy to picture the scene--

And then her hand slowed, and stilled, and she sat motionless for some minutes, her brow furrowed in thought. At last she laid down the quill, blotted the pages, and folded them and put them away--for he would like to see the beginnings of such a letter even though she might now have no occasion to complete and send it. Her jaw and shoulders set with determination, her movements deliberate, she pushed away from the desk and started up the stairs. Within a few minutes she was knocking on her mother's door.

********************

Elinor was very startled indeed to see Marianne hurrying toward her along the garden path, where she was weeding the herbs while at the same time trying to keep Rosalind from abandoning her blanket and all her toys for the irresistible enticement of eating dirt.

"Elinor," her sister called out even before she had approached very near, "I have come to tell you that I shall be out for several hours, perhaps all the day. Margaret will accompany me and Mama will look out for Joy, but I wanted you to know that I was not at the house. The carriage will stop for me at any moment."

"Where are you going?" --but before Marianne could answer she came near enough that Elinor could see the red rims and dark circles about her eyes, and the handkerchief clutched in her hand. "Marianne, what is wrong? Has something happened to Colonel Brandon?" She had heard such terrible tales of what went on inside a prison-- "Edward has just departed for Dorchester--"

"Yes, I knew he was going today." And then, to Elinor's astonishment, Marianne beamed at her, a smile both girlish and discerning. "No, nothing has happened to Christopher."

"But-- I beg your pardon, I know that I am prying, but--it is very obvious that you have been weeping--"

"Yes, yes I have--it is--I am never a delicate weeper. But I do not weep because anything is wrong--anything new, I mean, anything that was not wrong yesterday. No, these tears are from a happy cause. To me it is a happy cause, and I believe it will be for my husband as well."

"Marianne, will you stop talking in riddles? --Rosalind, put that down--"

Marianne knelt to brush a mouthful of England from her niece's grubby hand and captured her in an affectionate embrace, from which Rosalind immediately attempted to extricate herself. "Did you know," said her aunt into her ear as if imparting a secret, and Rosalind quieted, intrigued by the tone of her voice, "that your cousin Joy is a very wise little girl, though she cannot yet walk or talk?"

"Marianne, in a moment I shall begin to doubt your faculties--"

"You might doubt them in any case. And you will probably laugh at me."

"I endeavor always to laugh at you only when you will not see me. Please will you release me from suspense!"

"Well then--I have this morning realized something. I have realized that I am in love with my husband. There--am I not the most foolish woman on earth, to be so long about falling in love with such a man? --I said that you would laugh."

"I have made no sound at all--can I not smile because my sister is happy? I did wonder when you would--or when you would put the proper name to your feelings for him--I was not certain which of my speculations applied."

"I am not certain either, now that you have posed the question," Marianne replied after some consideration. "I always believed I would one day love him--I would not have married him without that belief--but I expected it to come as a jolt, as it did with Willoughby. I fell in an instant for Willoughby, or at least in the course of the first day of our being acquainted. So dramatic were the circumstances of our meeting, and of course I adored a fantasy, an ideal that he seemed to embody, that to a certain extent he made himself embody. How could I not have loved him? But with Christopher it has been a slow evolution of feeling, and the jolt a result of the realization rather than the cause. Why it has taken so long, I do not know. Perhaps if we had not married so soon after our betrothal-- Possibly it is more difficult to recognize falling in love after marrying, because the shared anticipation of lovers has been replaced by the independent daily routines of husband and wife; or because there are fewer periods of separation, even as long as the hours of the night, to heighten passion or pining. Or perhaps, on the contrary, it is being always together with him, the continuous passing of the days in his company, that has made me love him. I do believe my love might have quickened when Joy was born, and therefore might not have done so without her, for I did feel then, even an hour after her birth, that her very existence had joined us together as we had not been joined before. But however it has happened, or why, or when, I do love him, as much as I ever loved Willoughby--more so--in a different way--" Tears filled her eyes again, to which she applied a handkerchief that was already damp. "But poor Elinor--I have made you ill with my unbridled romantic babblings!"

Though she knew her sister teased her, Elinor nonetheless pressed her hand in affectionate protest. "They are hardly babblings, and I shall recover soon enough from hearing them. But ill or not, I am very happy for you, and for your husband. Must I perform a somersault to prove it to you?"

Marianne burst into laughter, whereupon Rosalind squealed in delighted echo and clapped her hands. "Your daughter and I should both like to witness such a feat! My dear sister, someday I shall learn to decipher your moods. --Oh heaven, it is wonderful to laugh!--even if my heart is light but briefly."

"I cannot but think that your present troubles have had some influence upon your feelings."

"Oh, without a doubt! Absent this danger, how much longer might I have been? I do seem at times to require being hit upon the head to see what is in front of me."

"What a pity your husband did not know what method he should employ in order to enlighten you! Have you informed him of your realization?"

"Not as yet. I did begin a letter, but then I knew I must tell him, and show him."

"You are going to Dorchester, then." Elinor was very glad to think of Sarah's enjoying a little relief with regard to her brother's state of mind.

"No--that is, I do not go there this morning--but I will go tomorrow, for I will not be kept from him any longer. Just now, however, there is another errand to which I give priority from the expectation of its yielding something of more practical value. Are you not proud of me, that I can be practical even while in the intoxicating throes of new rapture?" Her eyes danced with delight at her own hyperbole.

"Very proud indeed," Elinor said drily. "What then is your errand?"

The crunch of carriage wheels was heard in the lane, followed by Margaret's footsteps on the path and her voice calling out her sister's name. Marianne deposited Rosalind in her mother's arms and started away to meet her. "I go this moment to Allenham, to consult with Mrs. Smith."

********************

Chapter Eleven

At about the same moment Marianne was setting out in her carriage for Allenham, Colonel Brandon was handing his servant the latest of many expresses to Delaford. Almost as soon as Tim had disappeared from sight in the warren of iron walkways, however, he wished he could call his letter back, such was his anxiety with regard to the feelings its contents might provoke in its recipient. "You are so very good to try to understand my position, my love, though it cause you such distress, so good to wish to see me to discuss the matter; and I myself want nothing more than to see you, for I agree that conversation might bring us both a measure of repose; but once again I cannot sanction your visit, though I beg you to believe it wrings my heart to refuse you after reading so moving a plea as you have sent me. John Barnes, the poor fellow who suffers from consumption, was taken very ill yesterday. The prison surgeon believes it is simply questionable meat or foul air acting upon a constitution already mortally weakened, rather than the initial case of an epidemic of gaol fever--for the onset was very sudden, and there are as yet no lesions on his skin--but until he is certain, you must not think of coming. I have sent a note to Sarah and Claude, but there is no hope of their heeding my warning--after surviving revolution they think themselves indestructible. (I believe Jonah Masters is indestructible.) But I know that I can depend upon my Marianne to honor my request, though it be made, and received, most unwillingly. You must trust me to judge when it might be safe for you to come--"

It was as much as a promise to allow her to visit him, a promise he never should have made; and that he had made it demonstrated that continued separation and his overall depression were inexorably diluting his will. He had been very susceptible to the obvious agitation of spirit in which she had written her last two letters. Gone was any effort to cheer him, any attempt to conceal her fears. He had scarcely slept the night before, her letter having been brought him so late, and had written several drafts of his reply before being satisfied with its tone and substance--a satisfaction that had now deserted him. He was forced to accept, however, that he was powerless to stop her should she really set her mind on coming. He would not stoop to ordering her: he was far from being an authoritarian husband, and hardly wished to add to her depression by continually rejecting her entreaties. He also regretted very much the probability of having frightened her into a belief that the entire gaol would be carried off by fever within the week; such an apprehension would induce her to climb into the carriage almost the moment his letter was in her hands. But though he could not be sanguine about her arrival within the next several days, he had at last been persuaded that the only likelihood of his being able to bring her opinion into something like sympathy with his own lay in the tête-à-tête she so desperately sought. And even while he feared for her safety when she should come, he could not but hope, though he felt the inappropriateness of such a hope at such a time, that the intensity of her desire to see him and talk with him might betoken a strengthening of her esteem and affection into--

No--he would not think it, would not articulate that secret yearning even in his own mind, would not increase the poignancy of their necessarily brief reunion, whenever it should occur, by the anticipation of a particular event and the consequent despondency should that event not occur.

He was glad to be spared the embarrassment of further self-pity by Edward's arrival, though sorry he had not known his brother planned to come today, so that he might have warned him as well of the possible danger. "Forgive me for arriving at such an early hour, Colonel, but I am engaged for dinner with the bishop's representative and I must leave you by one o'clock. Have you breakfasted?"

"Not yet, but I am not the least hungry. Do not think me un welcoming, Mr. Ferrars, but you ought rather to leave now--one of the inmates is very ill."

"So Mr. Henley told me--he was going out as I was coming in. He believes it is not gaol fever, and the symptoms do not sound it to me either."

"All the same, I should not wish you to risk your health by coming to see me."

"May I point out that many of my flock are housed in less wholesome accommodations than these, and I do not avoid them."

To this Brandon could not but concede, but he would not be prevented from being grateful. "The general accommodations of your flock are not twenty miles or more out of your way. I very much appreciate your coming so often."

"It is not as often as I would like--you and your colleagues should have had the new gaol built nearer Delaford. And you will not be so appreciative when you hear that my primary task today is to urge you to allow your wife to visit you."

"She has enlisted your aid, has she?" Brandon said with a smile. "On the contrary, I shall always appreciate your concern for Marianne's feelings. You will perhaps be pleased on her behalf to learn that I am on the brink of surrender. Once it is certain that the air here is no more than usually noxious, I must yield to her importunities, if I am to have any hope of persuading her of the justification of my position."

"I am persuaded that you have no prospect at all of success."

Brandon sighed in a kind of defeat. "I expect events will bear you out. Her last two letters have disturbed me very much--she is allowing her imagination to fuel her fears." Abruptly he turned his gaze away. "It shames me to say that I am guilty of the same weakness. --It is a curious phrase they use, in the newspaper accounts and the execution records: 'launched into eternity,' they say. What does eternity hold for me, I wonder, and will I truly be launched into it before my time? Before--" He stopped himself from the inadvertent disclosure of that particular longing, and stared for some minutes at the wall. When he faced Edward again his expression was bleak.

Quite taken aback, Edward struggled to formulate a coherent and meaningful response. "Of-of all the responsibilities of my profession, I find most difficult the giving of comfort when there is nothing ahead but further affliction. Indeed I find it sometimes impossible. I do not claim a greater understanding of the mysteries of life and death simply because I wear a black suit and a surplice, and have read a number of religious meditations. I have certainly never had to offer solace to anybody in exactly your situation-- I have felt that I--am failing you--"

Brandon was greatly moved by this confession. "I assure you, Mr. Ferrars, you are very far from failing me in any way. I value our conversations highly."

"And I value your reassurance, Colonel, very much." When Edward continued it was with noticeably more confidence. "I do not call it solace, but we are promised that what awaits us is more joyful than the life we know as mortal beings."

A harsh smile played about Brandon's mouth. "Once I heard a man protest from the scaffold that he was very satisfied with this life if he would but be permitted to stay in it. I cannot conceive of a life more joyful than that I have known these eighteen months." To this Edward had no answer. "The prison chaplain, your spiritual colleague, eyes me warily as he goes about his visitations. It is his duty, by diligent instruction and sharp reproach, to bring the prisoners to contrition, and to ensure that the condemned are so prostrate with remorse that they will not resist the hangman and their fate. But having listened to my regular and vigorous protestations of innocence, he despairs, I believe, of having any success with me." Edward could not fathom the expression in his eyes. "I am confident the angels will know the truth."

"Really, Colonel," Edward interjected, very unsettled indeed by the turn of the conversation, "it is much too early to be talking of angels. I refuse to believe that it will not be many years before they have their opportunity of judging you--"

"Who will be judging whom?" Sarah asked brightly, coming into the cell before Tim could announce her. She was accompanied by her husband and Jonah Masters, and also Mr. Haydock, and all wore the air of having been engaged in intensive conversation.

Brandon made a little shake of his head to Edward, to tell him that he did not want his sister to know the morbid direction of his thoughts. "Mr. Ferrars is going to judge the quality of the next meal I offer him. Good morning to you all. Haydock, I did not expect to see you today--"

"We met him outside the livery stable and insisted he join us," Masters explained.

"I am glad to see you all, but I fear that really you should go, as one of the prisoners is ill--"

"And you, dear brother, are the only person within these walls who believes it is gaol fever. Do stop trying to shove us out the door. How would we talk to you--by wrapping notes around stones and tossing them through the bars? Come and eat these muffins I have brought you from the inn."

"I see that Tim has been very informative," Brandon commented, and gave up trying to save them from the consequences of their good intentions. Tim was sent for a tea cart, and every body partook of muffins and jam while talking of politics and grape-growing and travel and the latest excesses of fashionable society. Brandon took genuine pleasure in the agreeable noise of numerous company, and for a brief time could almost forget the reason they had come.

And then he said, "Haydock, why are you here? Is there news?"

A silence fell, and he realized that the determined cheerfulness of his latest visitors had been prompted by the ulterior motivation of delaying some blow. Haydock cleared his throat. "I have had a letter from Mr. Parker. He is giving up his search along the turnpike. I came especially to tell you, as it seemed very cold to put it to paper so bluntly as that."

After a pause, Brandon said in a strained voice, "I see," and then, "You are very considerate." He then drew a breath and willed himself to be steady, for this was hardly an unexpected development and he must not allow it to disturb him unduly. "We must call in the thief-takers, then."

"My clerk is drafting inquiries this morning to the two most highly recommended. However, Parker does intend to visit Mr. Willoughby's estate at Combe Magna, and to return to Allenham. Perhaps he will learn something yet."

Brandon set down his cup and began to pace, but the cell was so well occupied that he could take only two steps before he reached the outer wall and was forced to turn back. Facing Haydock once again, he asked as if in challenge, "You do not urge me afresh to change my plea?"

The lawyer's eyebrows rose. "I can perceive when effort is useless, Colonel. But it is early days yet."

"My position will not alter--though the dearest person in the world ask it of me." Brandon attempted anew to pace, was again brought up short, and pivoted sharply. "Good God, man, do you believe I wish to hang? If you have no confidence in your ability to convince a jury that I do not take leave of my senses at the sight of a man I dislike, I will offer my own justification. I will speak of my home and family and the happiness I find therein, and of my disinclination to risk any portion of that happiness, my own or that of my loved ones, on the reckless redress of an ancient grievance."

His voice had grown rough with barely controlled emotion, but Haydock was unmoved. "Do you not see, sir, how that argument could be turned against you? Humphries could assert that you might think to protect your happiness by preventing Mr. Willoughby from interfering with it. Every argument you advance could be countered as easily."

"What we want is an explanation for that d----- button," said Sergeant Masters, so engrossed in the problem that he forgot he was in the presence of a lady. "They couldn't counter that."

He meant only to think aloud, but Brandon in his agitation felt it as an attack. "I have said repeatedly that I cannot explain the confounded button! It is absurd, it is laughable, that my very life should depend upon an item so commonplace and insignificant. Do you know that I am beset with nightmares about buttons--of buttons all around me but I am blind to them; of tearing apart my house board by board and stone by stone in search of a button; of spying it at last, dangling before my eyes as the drop slides back and the noose jerks at my neck--"

Such an uncharacteristic outburst from a man so usually collected shocked his listeners into silence. Not one of them moved or spoke; the broken inhale and exhale of his breathing was the only sound. At last Masters stepped over to the small cabinet against the wall and returned with the second bottle of arrack. "You want something a bit stronger than tea."

Brandon let out a long, shuddering sigh, and sank into a chair. "You are all very good to endure me. I beg you forgive my shameful display."

At this manifestation of her brother's courage and his constant preference never to trouble others even at great cost to himself, Sarah's eyes filled with tears. Had they been alone she would have embraced him, but now could only take his hand and be grateful that he did not pull away, and even responded with an answering pressure.

"The colonel would perhaps prefer his own company," Edward suggested. "We ought to take our leave--"

There was immediate general agreement, if also regret on Sarah's part, but Brandon found himself loath to see them go. "In actuality I have been too much in my own company of late, as I believe my tension this morning indicates. I shall even talk of buttons to keep you here for a time--"

His tone was faintly pleading--indeed he had quite forgotten that not a long while before he had been imploring them to depart--and when they saw that he was sincere, they arranged themselves on the chairs and beds and proceeded to a discussion all the more spirited for having so many participants. "Was he certain he could trust all his servants? -- Was he certain he could trust his tailor? -- Did Mrs. Brandon really know how many buttons should be in the button box? -- Was there a tenant or villager who might bear a grudge against him, for an eviction or an unfavorable judgment?" These were some of the questions that were asked; and Brandon's replies, as if he strove to make amends for having caused his guests discomfort, were patient and clear. "Yes, he trusted all his servants; the newest had been with him since his marriage and nothing had been noticed missing. -- His tailor could also be trusted, unless he had taken inexplicable offense after eight years of mutual satisfaction. -- Yes, Mrs. Brandon had placed the order herself. -- Undoubtedly there were tenants and miscreants who were not his friends, but he could think of no one who would exact any but trivial revenge." He had answered all such questions before, from Humphries and Melgrove and Haydock himself, but the process seemed less onerous now, such was the energy and stimulation generated by the application of several minds to the same problem.

"Well--" Masters expostulated, galled anew by their not having solved together in an hour what none had solved separately in nearly a fortnight, "--haven't you got other coats somewhere in the house? Up in the attic, or in a remote closet that every body always forgets?"

"Marianne has searched in every room and closet in the house, under every bed and inside every cupboard. There are some trunks in the attic, but these cursed buttons, which I never will use again, are a more recent addition to my wardrobe than anything they contain. She examined every item in them, however, nonetheless. In any case, I do not retain coats or suits when I have ceased to wear them--I give them to--"

He stopped abruptly with a curious choking sound, then closed his eyes while a series of thoughts blazed through his brain, to culminate in a realization that nearly turned him faint. "Tim!" His shout came without warning, causing them all to start in their seats. "I give them to the servants," he said, "to the servants! Tim!" He had sprung up from his chair and had reached the doorway by the time Tim appeared in it, and thus they nearly collided. "Tim, the greatcoat I gave to you about three or four months ago--what did you do with it?"

"Kit!" Sarah exclaimed, while a buzz of incredulity rose from her companions. "Do you mean to say--"

"Yes--that that very coat was adorned with those stupid, those ridiculous, those--I have run out of civilized epithets--buttons! I had intended to ask Polly to exchange them, but as I had never had occasion to do so before--" His shoulders lifted in a bemused shrug; he seemed not to know whether to whoop for joy at a possible deliverance or rail against the cruel tricks of memory. "--I forgot." He turned again to his manservant with an air of cautious hope held tightly in check.

The alarm of poor Tim, as he began to understand that he must be somehow responsible for his master's jeopardy, was almost palpable. His face turned white and his eyes darted in supplication from Brandon to Mr. Haydock and back again. "I--I sold it, sir. I understood you to say that I might, as I always do--"

"Of course, of course. I accuse you of nothing, Tim--I want only to know how you disposed of it."

Tim attempted to direct his narrative toward his master, but Haydock, with a severe look, continually interrupted for the purpose of clarifying this or that detail, or establishing this or that hour or location. His tone was barbed, his manner that of a prosecutor seeking flaws in a witness's testimony. Brandon comprehended his method, but felt for his quaking servant nonetheless. Having received the coat as a customary perquisite of his employment in a great house, Tim had waited until the next market day before attempting to sell it, in the expectation of obtaining a better price due to there being many more people in the village as well as several itinerant merchants. His audience, appalled by the thought of searching for a travelling peddler, were relieved to hear that he had not met with any success among them--until Mr. Haydock pointed out that such persons often adhered to a regular route, so that tracing one of them might have been a very simple matter indeed.

Discouraged and warm, for it was then almost summer and the sun was merciless, Tim had at last sought a mug of ale at the George, and there had met with a man who after some haggling had relieved him of the fine coat for two guineas. "I'm sure he doesn't live in Delaford parish, but I had seen him about now and then, at market or the inns, and maybe in the shops or the post office. I remember his face but not his name, though I fancy it were something like two Christian names, like John Henry, or Ned Williams, or some such. Oh God, sir, I didn't know! I always check the pockets to be sure you've left nothing in them, but I carried that coat half the day and I never saw those buttons. I swear I didn't know--!"

"Calm yourself, Tim. You are not a valet; it is not your duty to notice the details of every item of clothing I own. You had no reason to know that the buttons on that coat were any different from the buttons on any other coat I had ever given to you before. And even if you had, you had no reason to think that the man to whom you sold it would murder an old enemy of your master's several months later. I tell you again you are accused of nothing."

Mr. Haydock's next questions, however, seemed to belie this assurance. "Why have you not come forward with this information? Why did you not mention it when I interviewed you?"

"But sir, you didn't ask me about an old coat. You asked about the coats the colonel has now, whether I knew if any were missing, and whether I ever saw a stranger about who might have stolen one, and so forth, and I swear I told you everything I knew."

"And all the discussions of greatcoats did not prompt you to think that even an old coat might be of some relevance?"

"Remember he has been at Delaford for but a few hours since my arrest," Brandon interrupted, "and during those few hours he was working without pause or visiting his family; thus he had no opportunity for talking with his fellow servants. It was, in any case, before Mrs. Brandon began her searches. And he has not been present at any of our discussions of the case here."

Tim was vigorously shaking his head, and looking his thanks to his master for this defense. "And I was that nervous talking to Mr. Haydock, sir--for he does seem to think I ought to be guilty of something--that I did well to remember my own name."

Haydock did not look appeased, but neither did he seem inclined to further interrogation, and so Brandon dismissed Tim with instructions to come to him with any particular he might yet remember. The unfortunate Tim was so relieved to escape into the walkway that he did not in the least regret being deprived of the opportunity to hear something of interest.

The tumult of felicitation and jubilation, of astonished comment and hopeful conjecture, that greeted Tim's report can be imagined. Every body talked at once; every body finished every body else's sentences; every body was full of congratulation and gaiety and playfulness--until they noticed Haydock's unsmiling countenance, and no longer knew whether they were permitted to be happy.

Brandon had been too stunned to say anything more, and dared turn to his lawyer only when Edward, who could no longer contain himself, demanded, "Well, Haydock? Is not this very good news indeed?"

Haydock frowned and said tersely, "I think it a suspicious story. The man might be better acquainted with this convenient coat-buyer than he allows. He might be the guilty party himself. He has admitted a temporary possession of the coat; perhaps he never did actually sell it."

"Of course he sold it," Brandon said. "With the price he can get for one of my coats he can buy a coat for himself of lesser make but equal warmth and have a pocketful of coin left over. Tim is not a fool, nor is he a murderer or an accomplice. Do not harass him, Haydock. He has been loyal to me, and I intend to keep him in my employ as long as he will stay."

"He admitted to me that you had on two occasions docked his wages for his being hung-over and unable to work. Might he not bear a grudge as much as any tenant or felon?"

"For so minor a punishment? No. One of those occasions was his coming of age, when his family gave a party in his honor. The other was the safe birth of his nephew after his sister's long and frightening labor. Had he been able to work at all I would not have docked him a penny, and told him so. I would have been within my rights to discharge him, and he knew it. He has never held those instances against me."

"Your confidence is admirable, sir. I hope it is not misplaced."

"Really, it does no good for us to doubt this man's veracity, for whatever reason," Claude pointed out. "Assuming he tells the truth, how useful is his information? Is it enough for my brother to obtain bail? Is this a something or a nothing?"

"Well, of course it is more than a nothing," was Haydock's less disputatious reply. "But how much more, I cannot predict. Though a jury will usually prefer not to convict a gentleman for murder if there is the slightest evidence in his favor, I cannot be wholly confident that Tim's statement in and of itself will be sufficient to ensure an acquittal, let alone to induce Lord Melgrove and Mr. Wilverton to grant bail. The man is a servant, they will say, and the testimony of a servant is easily bought--particularly that of a loyal servant, and this man has already demonstrated his loyalty to Colonel Brandon by consenting to be locked away with him."

"He is not locked away," Brandon countered. "He comes and goes freely. Nor has he consented to be here; he is contracted to perform whatever duties I require of him, in whatever location I might find myself."

"Under these circumstances, sir, many a servant would be away to London, regardless of his contract. Your man's willingness to remain is indicative of a degree of loyalty that a prosecutor and jury will find significant."

"It is also indicative of his honesty, and an honest man would not perjure himself to save an employer."

"A prosecutor would try to convince a jury that he would, if he believed in that employer's innocence."

"Now we are returned to distrusting Tim," said Edward, "and I agree with Mr. Marchbanks that that is not helpful. We must assume that this John or Ned exists, and we must try to find him. Even if he did not retain the coat he can tell us what he did with it."

"He appears to have a regular connection to Delaford," said Masters. "Somebody must know something about him--maybe the proprietor of the inn where the sale was made."

"Mr. Havers clearly remembers a great many things he hears," Brandon said in a wry tone. "Perhaps this time what he remembers will aid rather than harm my cause."

"Perhaps so," said Haydock, "but we must yet prove a connection between this man and Mr. Willoughby. We must find the coat in his possession--still lacking its button--or locate someone who will swear to have seen the two together at some time just prior to the murder--preferably at the height of a vicious quarrel. We must at the very least place this man and his coat somewhere along Mr. Willoughby's route, in which case an ambush for the purpose of robbery is certainly plausible. It is very difficult, however, to prove a random murder. Even highwaymen usually do not kill in cold blood--ahem, you will forgive me, Mrs. Marchbanks."

"Mr. Haydock, I am rather less dainty even than Mrs. Brandon--you need not be so protective of my sensibilities." Sarah's voice betrayed the excitement with which she had trembled from the moment Tim had begun to speak. "Perhaps the person in Delaford--whom I am convinced we shall uncover--can also provide the link with Mr. Willoughby--perhaps even is that link."

"In which case the said person will be very difficult to uncover, my dear," said her husband. "Indeed, if John or Ned himself be the sort of man who goes about shooting people in the road, it would not be surprising if he should use many different names."

"But surely he has not an infinite store of aliases?--else he would risk forgetting which he was using from one moment to the next."

"We must hope for that. I also wonder again whether this might not be some attempt to cast suspicion deliberately upon my brother. A button is very easily closed in a dying man's hand."

Haydock shook his head. "No--I do believe we are faced with an extraordinary--and extraordinarily harmful--coincidence. For the case to be as you postulate, this man must not only bear a murderous grudge against Colonel Brandon, he must be cognizant of a great many facts. He must know that the coat Tim wished to sell had been owned by the colonel, and that its buttons were so readily identifiable that they could be used to incriminate him--this even when Tim himself did not know of his master's sartorial refinements. He must know of the colonel's earlier connection to Mr. Willoughby, and that it was sufficiently acrimonious to have led to a challenge and a duel. He must by extension be aware of certain--intimate--circumstances relating to Mrs. Brandon and Miss Williams. He then must know that Mr. Willoughby would be riding through Delaford at an hour for which most men with families would have an alibi but the colonel would not, due to an entirely unexpected escalation of a tenants' dispute-- You see the chain of improbability. I do not deny that cases of such complexity have been documented, and therefore I cannot say absolutely that this is not such a case, but I do believe it unlikely."

"It occurs to me," said Edward, "that the very same coincidence that has endangered Colonel Brandon might also protect him. It is true that Tim's selling the coat did lead to the colonel's arrest; but without that transaction there would still have been a murder, the colonel would still have been a suspect without an alibi, and we would not now be a little nearer to finding the guilty man. Of course, sir, you would always have had your character in your favor, but solid evidence will exonerate you much more swiftly and unquestionably."

"It will if we stop talking and get after it," Jonah Masters grumbled--and was answered by a burst of hilarity from all, even Haydock, their sudden optimism all the more exhilarating for the long days of hopelessness that had preceded it.

There followed a commotion of suggestion and planning, in the course of which it was decided that Mr. Haydock and Tim would journey immediately to Delaford, where they would first interview Mr. Havers at the George and then continue to Wilverton Hall so that Tim could give his deposition before Mr. Wilverton. Deposition in hand, Haydock would then urge Wilverton to accompany him to Melgrove Lodge, in an effort to persuade Lord Melgrove to reverse his decision on the granting of bail. Tim would visit his family overnight and then return to Dorchester by coach. Jonah Masters would accompany them, for the purpose of conveying to Marianne a hasty communication from her husband and a complete description of the morning's developments, and would then offer his services to Constable Parker, who was expected to return to Delaford that evening or on the morrow. Claude was eager to renew his assaults on the chief justice and the newspapers in the light of the new evidence; Sarah--whose allotted hour, her brother was horrified to discover, had long since elapsed--looked forward to writing a happier letter to her sons than she had yet been able; while poor Edward, having never looked forward less to a dinner engagement, must away alone, though he threatened to knock Mr. Haydock out of bed at midnight to learn what had transpired during his isolation.

After an embrace from his sister and warm handshakes from his friends, and words of hearty encouragement from them all, Brandon accompanied them as near to the entrance lodge as he was permitted to go, and thanked them all most sincerely--though, he felt, inadequately--for their efforts on his behalf. "I deeply regret that my troubles have inconvenienced so many of my friends and family," he said; but they dismissed his apology as being unnecessary and entirely unwarranted, the whole situation owing to no fault of his own. As Masters took his leave on the iron walkway, Brandon said to him, "Thank heaven you were here to prod my memory."

The sergeant smiled. "You'd have recalled that coat on your own."

"Perhaps--but when? In another month, or two, or six? I have been blind to buttons. As a penalty I shall no doubt dream about buttons all the remaining nights of my life. Godspeed, Jonah. Please tell Marianne that I shall write again later today."

"That I shall, sir. Take heart--it will be over soon now." The sergeant's voice was newly robust with a conviction it had lacked during all his previous visits.

So great was the turmoil of Brandon's thoughts that he hardly noticed the other prisoners as he made his way back to his cell. At once he was vexed by his being dependent on others for rescue, and also deeply grateful to have so many friends so determined to save him. Once again in his cell he could not sit still, and paced about until he grew dizzy. Was this truly a breaking through of all the obstacles of the case? So it seemed to be, but so often had his hopes been disappointed that he could not be wholly cheerful. He was already regretting the buoyant tone of his note to Marianne, fearing that he had raised her hopes for naught--and yet he could not prevent hope from leaping about a little within his own breast, could not entirely subdue an absurd inclination to weep with relief.

A short time after he had returned to his cell he was paid a visit by Mr. Henley, with Padgett at his heels.

"You missed breakfast, Colonel," said the keeper, solicitude mingling with inquisitiveness in his tone. "I trust you do not starve?"

"No, thank you. I was occupied by an important discussion with visitors--and my sister had brought some muffins. I beg your pardon for neglecting to send word to you."

"Yes, Padgett did tell me you were hosting quite a crowd of people. But they have all hurried away, even your servant."

"He will return tomorrow--but might I make use of Samuel in an hour or two to take a letter to the post office?"

"Yes, of course. Has there been some progress in your case?"

"Let us say that there is the possibility."

When Brandon offered no further explanation, Henley bowed and exited reluctantly, his curiosity unassuaged; but in a moment he reappeared in the doorway. "I came also to tell you, Colonel, that John Barnes is recovering. He is somewhat stronger and his color is improved, and the cell has been cleaned and his clothing burnt. I believe we can safely say that we have avoided a general outbreak."

"I am very glad to hear it, for his own sake as well as ours." A sudden happy scheme presented itself for Brandon's internal examination. "As we have been granted that reprieve--Mr. Henley, I should like to put an idea to you--"

********************

"My dearest Marianne," he wrote, little knowing how many hours would elapse, or what startling events would fill them, before she would be able to read the words. "What a morning it has been here--I hardly know what to feel. I shall pass a second solitary night in my fine cell, but I have never felt less lonely, such are the heartening developments of the day. By now you have heard the news from Masters, and so I will not use this space to talk of it, except to say that my cheer today is not forced, not in the least, and I believe that neither will yours be in your next to me. I offer now other information that will perhaps increase your glad spirits, as it does mine; might even allow you to forgive any earlier offense. I cannot know how much longer I will remain incarcerated. It might be only days, should the discovery of this morning result in bail or even exoneration; but it might yet be the full span until the assizes. Marianne, if Haydock is unable to sway Wilverton and Melgrove, I wish very much to see you. You will think me quite indecisive, writing that sentiment so soon after having written its opposite, but I can tell you now not only that John Barnes is improved, but also that I have had a talk with Mr. Henley and arranged a meeting for us outside the prison walls. He was very dubious at first, but I reminded him that there is no explicit prohibition in Lord Melgrove's commitment order, and that as some prisoners regularly work on the roads, there is ample precedent. Our reunion would not be private, as the charming Mr. Padgett has volunteered to guard me, and I shall be required to wear an astonishingly ugly smock stamped with 'Dorset Gaol'; but there is a pleasant little patch of grass, and a great oak beneath which two chairs or a bench might be placed, and if you will consent to be seen with such an unappetizing figure of a husband, I should very much like to see you within the coming week. It is my belief that there would be no risk to your health, for I shall bathe before we meet and don clean clothing from head to foot. I do hope you will come soon, earlier in the week rather than later. I shall be so glad to see you, my Marianne, now that we may share a smile instead of tears. --I am, with love, your Christopher."

********************

Continue to Chapters 12-13

Home