CHAPTERCXIII.MISS LAURA STANBRIDGE MAKES A MISTAKE—CAUGHT IN THE ACT.Laura Stanbridge throughout her lawless career had been singularly fortunate in escaping detection. She was known or suspected rather of being a receiver of stolen goods, and while following this occupation she had as yet not been entangled in the meshes of that net which the law throws out to catch the unwary or less fortunate criminal.But no one is wise at all times, and such was proved to be the case with Miss Stanbridge.Actuated by a mad impulse, or, it might be, from the desire of excitement, this unprincipled woman chose to do a little robbery on her own account.There was no occasion for it, for she was rich, and therefore had not the excuse of extreme need; but nevertheless she could not resist the impulse.She was stopping for a day or two in a small country town in the north of England.Clickborne, the place in question, was one of those clean dull towns where the streets are always white, the pavement equally so, likewise the houses.Some persons called it a pretty place, and, as far as cleanliness and salubrity were concerned, there was perhaps no reason for complaint.But it resembled a huge white sepulchre—the names over the doors forming the epitaphs, the cries of the commercial vagrants forming the funeral hymn.This is, perhaps, not a very flattering description of the place, but it is one which a journalist gave in one of the London newspapers. We do not, of course, vouch for its accuracy, for journalists are prone at times to sacrifice truth to effect. That it was clean and apparently dull is beyond all question.Suddenly, however, the principal street was thrown into a state of the greatest excitement. Windows were flung open, and a crowd of faces protruded. Beggars basking in the sunshine returned to their feet, and to an unpleasant consciousness of their starvation, which, while in a dormant state they had perhaps forgotten; dogs awoke from their slumbers, and aroused the neighbourhood with their sharp barks; pigeons descended and fluttered round the cause of all this startle and disturbance.There was nothing of any great importance to cause all this flutter and outcry, but the Clickbornites were very impressible, it would appear.The cause was simply this.A lady elegantly dressed was walking quietly along the right-hand side of the street, toying with a green silk parasol between her lavender gloved fingers. The Clickbornites watched with a curiosity as unfeigned as it was undisguised.She was a lady, or supposed to be such—anyway she had the appearance of one, and therefore it was taken for granted that she was such, and she was dressed in the height of fashion—she was therefore not only a stranger but a prodigy.Now in most country towns there is one shop which is as large as three, and which employs a fabulous number of young men. In some towns it is a grocer’s, in others it is a fine art repository, in Clickborne it was a draper’s.Before the door of this well-known establishment one might see at a certain hour handsome carriages, which were driven into Clickborne every afternoon when the weather was fine.It was also patronised by young gentlemen incipient in dandyism, who attempted with Clickbornian scarfs and collars to rival the exquisites of Bond-street or Belgravia, for it must be noted that in addition to the drapery department there was one devoted to hosiery of every conceivable description.Every town, remote as it may be, and rude as its inhabitants may appear, has yet its fashionable hours. In Clickborne no one shopped till the afternoon; therefore when they saw the strange lady enter the great shop at noon, the sensation rose to a climax, and the crowd increased. It does not take much to arouse the curiosity of persons who locate themselves in the country; there is generally such a dearth of objects to create excitement that the good folks avail themselves of any excuse for a surprise.In half an hour’s time the lady reappeared. Her veil was raised. Before she wore it down. However, they had time to see that she was beautiful. Her handsome face inspired the male passengers with awe, the females with envy, and the beggars with hope, although hard experience teaches us that the ugliest people are the most charitable. Beauty is a shrine at which we involuntarily worship, and which we ever invest with the attributes of compassion. This is evidenced but too frequently; and it is not possible for the most determined caviller to contravene. In trials we invariably find that there is but little interest manifested by the outside public in a female prisoner who is unmistakeably plain or ugly.The lady to whom we are now referring was almost lost sight of round the distant corner, when the shop door was suddenly opened and three young men rushed out into the middle of the street with bare heads and a wonder-struck expression on their countenances. On perceiving the lady they gave a shout, and rushed after her like harriers.The excitement was by this time at its height. What could it mean? was the question repeatedly asked, but which no one seemed able to answer.The spectators poured down from their windows to their doors, and from their doors into the street. Something extraordinary had taken place, and everyone was desirous of knowing what that something was.They saw the shopmen leading back the fashionably-dressed female, who expostulated with them loudly. She was most indignant, and told them that they should be severely punished for the indignity they had offered her.One of them carried a bundle of lace in his hand, which, with a triumphant wave of his hand, he presented to the owner of the Titanic establishment, who, panting and almost breathless, had come up with his subordinates.They were immediately surrounded by a horde of men, women, and children, who had come to see what was the matter. These persons cried out in loud voices, and, addressing themselves to the master draper, asked what the poor thing had done.There was a general feeling of sympathy for the lady manifested by the crowd, some of whom were disposed to take her part at all hazards.The proprietor of the drapery establishment saw this, and he appealed to them impetuously. He was not very logical, but that did not much matter.“Was it right,” he said to the gaping bystanders, “that he should have, he’d be afraid to say how many pounds worth of lace, lifted out of his shop without trying to protect himself?”“Oh, gammon and all!” cried a rough navigator, who had been working on the line for the last few weeks.“No gammon, my man,” said the draper, with sudden warmth, “it’s a fact. Isn’t it a duty I owe to myself and to all my brethren in the trade to resent such an act—to punish the perpetrator? Isn’t it incumbent on me as a Christian and a church-goer to expose such dishonest practices? I ask you that.”“I always thought it was the duty of a Christian to forgive his enemies,” said the navigator. “Leastways, that’s what I’ve bin taught, guv’nor.”“You mind your own business, my friend,” cried the draper, “and I’ll mind mine.”“Don’t you attempt to cheek me,” said the navigator, who stuck to his post manfully—“’cause I tell yer plainly I aint one as ell stand it. You may keep a fine shop, but that’s no reason for your being better than other people. Let the woman alone, and if so be as she’s done anything wrong, she’ll have to answer for it; but I don’t b’lieve she has.”“No more do I,” cried another.One of the town’s people, touched by the beauty and sadness of the prisoner, put in a word for her. He besought the draper to take his goods back, and pass the matter over as a mistake, which he hoped it really was.“No, no, my friend,” said the tradesman, “I’m for making an example of persons of this description. I’m as straight as an arrow myself, and there is but one course to pursue. I’ve sent one of my lads for a policeman. I pay him by the day, and I can’t afford to let him waste his time.”“But, my dear fellow, consider—” interposed the townsman, who had before spoken.“I have considered. If it was a poor man who tried to steal something because he was sick or starving, it would be a different thing altogether—I might take compassion on him; but look at the clothes the woman has on, they are of the most costly description. I can’t afford to dress my wife like that, although I work hard and have done so early and late for the last thirty years.”“You work hard!” exclaimed the navigator, in evident disgust.“You don’t know what work is. Come along wi’ me, and I’ll show yer.”“I don’t want to have any conversation with you,” cried the draper.“Shut up, then,” said the navigator. “Go back to your flarey shop, and let the woman go about her business.”“I have no answer to make to this man,” said the other, addressing himself to the crowd.By this time one of the rural police had succeeded in squeezing his way through the crowd of persons.The circumstances were explained to him, and the stolen articles displayed. He endeavoured to look as wise as he could, reflected for a few moments, and then said, interrogatively—“Do you charge her?”“Of course I do—charge her with robbery, with shoplifting.”“She couldn’t lift your shop, old man, if she tried ever so,” said the navigator, “so don’t tell no lies.”At this there was a roar of laughter from the crowd.“You have him there and no mistake,” cried one.“So you charge her then?” again repeated the policeman.“Yes; do your duty,” returned the draper majestically, “sawing the air” with his right arm.“You must come with me to the station-house,” said the constable, addressing himself to Miss Stanbridge.She bowed her head without speaking, and walked quietly by his side.“I should like to land him one on his nose,” said the navigator to a companion in the crowd. “That’s what I should like to do.”“What’s that you are saying? Have a care,” cried a ci-devant detective. “If you don’t you will get yourself into trouble, my man.”“Ugh! he aint worth getting into trouble for,” answered the navigator; “so I shall step it. Make your mind easy, old penny-three-farthings a yard. I hope she’ll be discharged by the beak.” And with these words the knight of the pick and spade took himself off.“I should say she’s an old hand,” observed the detective. This is a conclusion they generally arrive at in cases of this sort.“Why is she an old hand?” inquired a butcher of the town. “Tell us that. Do you know her?”“Can’t say that I do,” returned the detective, “but, you see, a raw thief would have turned as white as a turnip when the man said ‘station-house,’ and cried a pailful of tears, pretty nigh. But this moll’s too clever to waste words and tears when it’s no use. She can see that the old man means pulling her, and she knows well enough, I dare say, that one might as well talk to a post as a ‘bobby,’ specially a country ‘bobby.’ Only wait till to-morrow, and you’ll see how white her cheeks and how red her eyes will get.”“Well, she didn’t look like a thief to me,” said the butcher, “and as to her being an old hand, I don’t b’lieve it. It’s all moonshine.”Laura Stanbridge was lodged very roughly that night, and brought up the next morning before two of the borough magistrates.As the detective had predicted, her cheeks were very pale, and her eyes inflamed with weeping, but in her case they were real tears.She bitterly regretted having been so imprudent as to commit so foolish and unnecessary a robbery; indeed, she could not very well understand what induced her to run such a risk, and for the greater portion of the night she was plunged into the very depths of sorrow.Her tears and protestations of innocence, combined with her beauty, might, perhaps have saved her if her judges had been gentlemen of the country, who, as a rule, take a merciful view of cases of this description. But they were tradesmen.The injured draper was a magistrate himself, and, though not allowed to act in his own case, sat close to the Bench, which he watched with his eyes.No.60.Illustration: THE CHAPLAIN STARTEDTHE YOUNG CHAPLAIN STARTED AS HE BEHELD THE GRACEFUL FORM OF THE PRISONER.The consequence was that they committed Miss Stanbridge—or Clara Johnson, as she called herself, upon this occasion—for trial.After this had been effected the three magistrates returned to their counters—one to sell reels of cotton marked with mendacious numbers; the second to regulate his false weights and measures; the third to superintend the adulteration of articles of food of various descriptions.The fair culprit was then placed between two policemen and escorted to the gaol, followed by a ragged and sympathising crowd. Indeed, it was impossible not to be affected by her face—so dignified, so pale, and so resigned.Clickborne Gaol is one of the prettiest specimens of the model prisons in this country. We may contrast it with those of the old style, as we contrast the fairy-like colleges of Cambridge with the grand picturesque but sombre piles of the senior university.Built of no dark grey stone, but of variegated bricks, which were adorned with fantastic designs and with an assemblage of graceful and picturesque little turrets, it presented nothing of the appearance of a receptacle for thieves and lawless characters, with the exception of thick bars before the windows, and in the ponderous locks attached to the doors.Laura Stanbridge was conducted by the deputy-governor and the head turnkey of the prison to a building separated from the establishment by the ground in which the prisoners were exercised. The deputy-governor preceded them up a flight of stone steps, and knocked at a small iron door. It was instantly thrown open, and two women of repulsive appearance stood before them. They were both dressed in black, and both had ponderous bunches of keys suspended at their girdles.Laura was forcibly impressed with the depressing nature of all these formalities, but she bore up as best she could, and endeavoured to put a good face on the matter.Having handed over the prisoner to the care of these ogresses, the deputy-governor and turnkey returned to their own sphere of action. No man was permitted to enter the female ward but the governor, the chaplain, the visiting justices, and the surgeon; and so, having handed Miss Stanbridge over to the female warders, her two male conductors retired.The shoplifter would have much preferred their remaining, for, to say the truth, she had more faith in those of the opposite sex than she had in her own.But the rules of the prison could not be infringed, and she therefore submitted to them with the best grace possible.She was taken to a reception cell and subjected to the usual course of bathing and searching, with those thousand indignities which felons and suspected persons have to suffer. When this was over she was conducted to her cell, which was on the same model as those of the male prisons, and which has been described in a previous chapter of this work.Miss Stanbridge was disgusted with her narrow prison-house, and she did not fail to express her dissatisfaction.“Pray tell me,” said she, in angry tone, “is it customary to put prisoners before their trial in such a miserable hole as this?”“Most certainly it is,” was the answer of her janiters. “We have no other cells.”“Then I must tell you plainly that I think it an act of great injustice,” said Laura-—“of gross injustice! Am I to understand that a prisoner before conviction is treated in the same manner as a prisoner sentenced to imprisonment, without hard labour, after conviction?”“Well, yes, she is. Unless she happens to have money.”“Oh, indeed. Money, eh?”“Yes.”“And what if she has?”“Oh, that makes all the difference.”“Does it? Then it’s still more discreditable. Well, assuming she has money—what then?”“She will be allowed to buy books, clothes, and food.”“Will she?”“Certainly.”“And bedding and furniture?” she asked, glancing at the bed which was rolled up and bound by a strap, and at a wooden stool with no back to it by the wall.”“You cannot buy furniture; the governor would object to any prisoners making themselves so comfortable in prison. He might perhaps let you have a chair or an extra blanket to your bed; but, of course, we are only subordinates. It rests with the governor.”“Whom I cannot see, I suppose?”“Oh, you can see him whenever you like. He is a very genial gentleman, and does all he can to make prisoners comfortable who behave themselves—but they must behave properly.”“I am not likely to misbehave myself,” said Miss Stanbridge, “but I must tell you frankly that it appears to me that suspected felons are not allowed so many comforts as convicted first-class misdemeanants, who are swindlers, and therefore only felons on a grander scale.”She pointed to the rule which applied to the treatment of first-class misdemeanants, and which she had discovered with her first glance at the printed board.“We don’t make the rules,” said one of the female warders.“I don’t say you do. All I object to is being treated like a guilty person before conviction. I am innocent, and this I shall be able to prove when my trial comes on.”The women smiled.“You don’t believe me?” cried Miss Stanbridge.“Everybody is innocent until found guilty,” was the quick response.“I don’t expect much sympathy from anyone here; but that does not so much matter. While I am here awaiting my trial it is but fair that I should be treated with some little consideration.”“Certainly you will be—without doubt.”“I can send for my luggage, I suppose?”“If you choose to do so you can. Where is it?”“At the hotel where I was stopping when this shameful charge was made.”“We have a prison messenger, who will fetch your luggage if you pay him for doing so.”“I will pay him,” cried Miss Stanbridge.“You forget, perhaps,” observed one of the women, “that you had only seven-and-sixpence in your purse.”“I do not forget. I have good friends who will assist me in the hour of my trial and trouble. I am not without means.”Upon this both the women were much more conciliatory in their manner.“We will do our best to make you as comfortable as possible,” they both ejaculated. “We always do that to those who have the misfortune to be charged with any offence.”“You are very kind, I’m sure,” cried Miss Stanbridge, with something like irony in her tone.“You had better let me keep the seven and sixpence,” said one of the female warders, “and pay it to the prison servant to clean your cell, otherwise you will have to do it yourself every morning.”“Clean it myself! Is that in the rules?”“Yes, it is a rule always exacted.”“Very well, I’ll leave the amount in your hands. That will be the best course to adopt—won’t it?”“I think so. There is a bye-law in most gaols against prisoners keeping their own money. Besides, you know you would soon spoil your fine clothes if you elected to clean your own cell, which I suppose you won’t think of doing?”“Well, I don’t know about that.”“Then in that case you had better wear the prison dress if you mean to do prison work. It is grey cloth, very comfortable and becoming.”“May I wear it in addition to this dress?”“Oh, dear me, no; you must wear our dress or your own.”Laura Stanbridge hesitated. “I don’t want to be arrayed in the garb of a felon,” she ejaculated. “Not unless there is an absolute necessity for my doing so. I will, therefore, wear my own.”She reasoned that in the gloomy dress which these poor criminals wore she would lose many of her fascinations. Besides, it was like putting on a badge of guilt—a thing that was most repugnant to her.Having invited her to study the prison rules, the warders left her to herself. When alone, she gave full vent to her rage, and paced her narrow den with masculine strides, tearing her lip with her white wolfish teeth.She bitterly regretted having made the false step which brought her into her present awkward predicament. It was a sort of mad infatuation which had led her to attempt the robbery at the draper’s. She could not any way account for the impulse which had so suddenly prompted her to commit such a foolish act.Crestfallen and humiliated she felt the danger of her position. She felt also its degradation, for this was the first time she had been in prison; but, worse than all, she was fearful of being baulked of that revenge for which she had so long and so patiently waited, and of which she believed herself secure.Alf Purvis was at large, and she was in “durance vile.”“Oh,” she ejaculated, “it is indeed bitter to be locked up here when all was working so well without. I must have been mad to run any risk—worse than mad—seeing that there was no earthly need for it.”She screamed with rage, and climbing up to the window like a cat, she shook the bars with her white hands till the dust flew from the stones.Uttering frightful imprecations she sank back exhausted.“This is the worst of folly,” she ejaculated; “I cannot escape with my hands and arms. I must use a woman’s real weapons—her voice, her beauty, her falsehoods, with a man’s mind and nerve to guide them.”She sat down, and, leaning her head against the wall, with her arms folded and her face slightly upturned, she began to reflect—as a mathematician commences the solution of some abstruse problem—as an actress studies the looks and gestures of a new and difficult part.Man forgets and forgives, but the woman whose pride has been injured can never forget and will never forgive. Alf Purvis had cruelly wounded her vanity, and this vanity, which when flattered will decoy women into vice, when angered will drive them into crime.Laura Stanbridge had taken a tigress-like fancy for this man, who was so much younger than herself, and whom she had taught to steal. She had spent pains and money upon him, believing that thus she would secure a powerful weapon; but it had proved a weapon with a sharp edge which stabbed the hand that endeavoured to direct it.Spurned in her passions, thwarted in her schemes, she had conceived an incredible hatred against him.It is true she had solaced herself by making a conquest, and for a long time nothing disturbed her friendly and familiar terms of intimacy with Tom Gatliffe. This had continued even up to the time of her arrest; but for all this she had not forgotten her hatred of Purvis, whom, sooner or later, she had determined to bring to ruin. Now she was powerless; she trembled when she thought of the exposure and ignominy that might follow.She was surrounded by stone walls and iron bars—by persons who would be stone to her entreaties and iron against her bribes.The stern faces of the warders gave her no hope. Besides, they were women.She had seen the governor for a moment in the corridor. He had scarcely deigned to honour her with a cursory glance as she passed; and as they were taking her through the yards, her eyes, busy as her thoughts, had observed a number of children playing in the garden, which was separated from the yards by an iron railing surmounted with huge spikes, yet enclosed within the walls. The governor was probably old and possibly phlegmatic. It was at least certain that he was married and the father of a large family. He would not be assailable. Her beauty, her falsehood, and dissimulation would be of no avail, as far as he was concerned. It would but be a waste of time for her to endeavour to propitiate him; besides, from what she could gather, he was a man, who, although reputed timid and considerate, was withal a strict disciplinarian and not easily turned from the path of rigid duty which he had followed for so many years.She ran her eyes down the rules, and from thence discovered that one of the visiting justices was by law compelled to visit each prisoner once a week alone, in order that the presence of the governor or turnkeys should not intimidate the prisoners from making complaints.This gave her hope, but it was but a transient one.“Once a week,” she ejaculated. “Ah, that is not of any great import. I would it were once a day—then there would be some chance for me. In two or three visits it would be difficult, or indeed impossible, to do much, if anything, but in fifteen or twenty—well, I might yet triumph, but I will watch and wait; it is not possible to say at present what my chances may be.”As she spoke the door of her cell was opened, and a young man of prepossessing appearance presented himself. He was dressed in a suit of black, with a plain white cravat round his throat. His countenance was indicative of deep and anxious thought, and his brow was furrowed with long thin lines. When she saw his face her heart seemed to beat more audibly, her eyes flashed for a moment, then she bent forward her head, and gazed abstractedly on the floor of her cell.“He is young, and I think impressionable,” she murmured, “and has, I hope, a good heart.”Then she took a pose.
Laura Stanbridge throughout her lawless career had been singularly fortunate in escaping detection. She was known or suspected rather of being a receiver of stolen goods, and while following this occupation she had as yet not been entangled in the meshes of that net which the law throws out to catch the unwary or less fortunate criminal.
But no one is wise at all times, and such was proved to be the case with Miss Stanbridge.
Actuated by a mad impulse, or, it might be, from the desire of excitement, this unprincipled woman chose to do a little robbery on her own account.
There was no occasion for it, for she was rich, and therefore had not the excuse of extreme need; but nevertheless she could not resist the impulse.
She was stopping for a day or two in a small country town in the north of England.
Clickborne, the place in question, was one of those clean dull towns where the streets are always white, the pavement equally so, likewise the houses.
Some persons called it a pretty place, and, as far as cleanliness and salubrity were concerned, there was perhaps no reason for complaint.
But it resembled a huge white sepulchre—the names over the doors forming the epitaphs, the cries of the commercial vagrants forming the funeral hymn.
This is, perhaps, not a very flattering description of the place, but it is one which a journalist gave in one of the London newspapers. We do not, of course, vouch for its accuracy, for journalists are prone at times to sacrifice truth to effect. That it was clean and apparently dull is beyond all question.
Suddenly, however, the principal street was thrown into a state of the greatest excitement. Windows were flung open, and a crowd of faces protruded. Beggars basking in the sunshine returned to their feet, and to an unpleasant consciousness of their starvation, which, while in a dormant state they had perhaps forgotten; dogs awoke from their slumbers, and aroused the neighbourhood with their sharp barks; pigeons descended and fluttered round the cause of all this startle and disturbance.
There was nothing of any great importance to cause all this flutter and outcry, but the Clickbornites were very impressible, it would appear.
The cause was simply this.
A lady elegantly dressed was walking quietly along the right-hand side of the street, toying with a green silk parasol between her lavender gloved fingers. The Clickbornites watched with a curiosity as unfeigned as it was undisguised.
She was a lady, or supposed to be such—anyway she had the appearance of one, and therefore it was taken for granted that she was such, and she was dressed in the height of fashion—she was therefore not only a stranger but a prodigy.
Now in most country towns there is one shop which is as large as three, and which employs a fabulous number of young men. In some towns it is a grocer’s, in others it is a fine art repository, in Clickborne it was a draper’s.
Before the door of this well-known establishment one might see at a certain hour handsome carriages, which were driven into Clickborne every afternoon when the weather was fine.
It was also patronised by young gentlemen incipient in dandyism, who attempted with Clickbornian scarfs and collars to rival the exquisites of Bond-street or Belgravia, for it must be noted that in addition to the drapery department there was one devoted to hosiery of every conceivable description.
Every town, remote as it may be, and rude as its inhabitants may appear, has yet its fashionable hours. In Clickborne no one shopped till the afternoon; therefore when they saw the strange lady enter the great shop at noon, the sensation rose to a climax, and the crowd increased. It does not take much to arouse the curiosity of persons who locate themselves in the country; there is generally such a dearth of objects to create excitement that the good folks avail themselves of any excuse for a surprise.
In half an hour’s time the lady reappeared. Her veil was raised. Before she wore it down. However, they had time to see that she was beautiful. Her handsome face inspired the male passengers with awe, the females with envy, and the beggars with hope, although hard experience teaches us that the ugliest people are the most charitable. Beauty is a shrine at which we involuntarily worship, and which we ever invest with the attributes of compassion. This is evidenced but too frequently; and it is not possible for the most determined caviller to contravene. In trials we invariably find that there is but little interest manifested by the outside public in a female prisoner who is unmistakeably plain or ugly.
The lady to whom we are now referring was almost lost sight of round the distant corner, when the shop door was suddenly opened and three young men rushed out into the middle of the street with bare heads and a wonder-struck expression on their countenances. On perceiving the lady they gave a shout, and rushed after her like harriers.
The excitement was by this time at its height. What could it mean? was the question repeatedly asked, but which no one seemed able to answer.
The spectators poured down from their windows to their doors, and from their doors into the street. Something extraordinary had taken place, and everyone was desirous of knowing what that something was.
They saw the shopmen leading back the fashionably-dressed female, who expostulated with them loudly. She was most indignant, and told them that they should be severely punished for the indignity they had offered her.
One of them carried a bundle of lace in his hand, which, with a triumphant wave of his hand, he presented to the owner of the Titanic establishment, who, panting and almost breathless, had come up with his subordinates.
They were immediately surrounded by a horde of men, women, and children, who had come to see what was the matter. These persons cried out in loud voices, and, addressing themselves to the master draper, asked what the poor thing had done.
There was a general feeling of sympathy for the lady manifested by the crowd, some of whom were disposed to take her part at all hazards.
The proprietor of the drapery establishment saw this, and he appealed to them impetuously. He was not very logical, but that did not much matter.
“Was it right,” he said to the gaping bystanders, “that he should have, he’d be afraid to say how many pounds worth of lace, lifted out of his shop without trying to protect himself?”
“Oh, gammon and all!” cried a rough navigator, who had been working on the line for the last few weeks.
“No gammon, my man,” said the draper, with sudden warmth, “it’s a fact. Isn’t it a duty I owe to myself and to all my brethren in the trade to resent such an act—to punish the perpetrator? Isn’t it incumbent on me as a Christian and a church-goer to expose such dishonest practices? I ask you that.”
“I always thought it was the duty of a Christian to forgive his enemies,” said the navigator. “Leastways, that’s what I’ve bin taught, guv’nor.”
“You mind your own business, my friend,” cried the draper, “and I’ll mind mine.”
“Don’t you attempt to cheek me,” said the navigator, who stuck to his post manfully—“’cause I tell yer plainly I aint one as ell stand it. You may keep a fine shop, but that’s no reason for your being better than other people. Let the woman alone, and if so be as she’s done anything wrong, she’ll have to answer for it; but I don’t b’lieve she has.”
“No more do I,” cried another.
One of the town’s people, touched by the beauty and sadness of the prisoner, put in a word for her. He besought the draper to take his goods back, and pass the matter over as a mistake, which he hoped it really was.
“No, no, my friend,” said the tradesman, “I’m for making an example of persons of this description. I’m as straight as an arrow myself, and there is but one course to pursue. I’ve sent one of my lads for a policeman. I pay him by the day, and I can’t afford to let him waste his time.”
“But, my dear fellow, consider—” interposed the townsman, who had before spoken.
“I have considered. If it was a poor man who tried to steal something because he was sick or starving, it would be a different thing altogether—I might take compassion on him; but look at the clothes the woman has on, they are of the most costly description. I can’t afford to dress my wife like that, although I work hard and have done so early and late for the last thirty years.”
“You work hard!” exclaimed the navigator, in evident disgust.
“You don’t know what work is. Come along wi’ me, and I’ll show yer.”
“I don’t want to have any conversation with you,” cried the draper.
“Shut up, then,” said the navigator. “Go back to your flarey shop, and let the woman go about her business.”
“I have no answer to make to this man,” said the other, addressing himself to the crowd.
By this time one of the rural police had succeeded in squeezing his way through the crowd of persons.
The circumstances were explained to him, and the stolen articles displayed. He endeavoured to look as wise as he could, reflected for a few moments, and then said, interrogatively—
“Do you charge her?”
“Of course I do—charge her with robbery, with shoplifting.”
“She couldn’t lift your shop, old man, if she tried ever so,” said the navigator, “so don’t tell no lies.”
At this there was a roar of laughter from the crowd.
“You have him there and no mistake,” cried one.
“So you charge her then?” again repeated the policeman.
“Yes; do your duty,” returned the draper majestically, “sawing the air” with his right arm.
“You must come with me to the station-house,” said the constable, addressing himself to Miss Stanbridge.
She bowed her head without speaking, and walked quietly by his side.
“I should like to land him one on his nose,” said the navigator to a companion in the crowd. “That’s what I should like to do.”
“What’s that you are saying? Have a care,” cried a ci-devant detective. “If you don’t you will get yourself into trouble, my man.”
“Ugh! he aint worth getting into trouble for,” answered the navigator; “so I shall step it. Make your mind easy, old penny-three-farthings a yard. I hope she’ll be discharged by the beak.” And with these words the knight of the pick and spade took himself off.
“I should say she’s an old hand,” observed the detective. This is a conclusion they generally arrive at in cases of this sort.
“Why is she an old hand?” inquired a butcher of the town. “Tell us that. Do you know her?”
“Can’t say that I do,” returned the detective, “but, you see, a raw thief would have turned as white as a turnip when the man said ‘station-house,’ and cried a pailful of tears, pretty nigh. But this moll’s too clever to waste words and tears when it’s no use. She can see that the old man means pulling her, and she knows well enough, I dare say, that one might as well talk to a post as a ‘bobby,’ specially a country ‘bobby.’ Only wait till to-morrow, and you’ll see how white her cheeks and how red her eyes will get.”
“Well, she didn’t look like a thief to me,” said the butcher, “and as to her being an old hand, I don’t b’lieve it. It’s all moonshine.”
Laura Stanbridge was lodged very roughly that night, and brought up the next morning before two of the borough magistrates.
As the detective had predicted, her cheeks were very pale, and her eyes inflamed with weeping, but in her case they were real tears.
She bitterly regretted having been so imprudent as to commit so foolish and unnecessary a robbery; indeed, she could not very well understand what induced her to run such a risk, and for the greater portion of the night she was plunged into the very depths of sorrow.
Her tears and protestations of innocence, combined with her beauty, might, perhaps have saved her if her judges had been gentlemen of the country, who, as a rule, take a merciful view of cases of this description. But they were tradesmen.
The injured draper was a magistrate himself, and, though not allowed to act in his own case, sat close to the Bench, which he watched with his eyes.
No.60.
Illustration: THE CHAPLAIN STARTEDTHE YOUNG CHAPLAIN STARTED AS HE BEHELD THE GRACEFUL FORM OF THE PRISONER.
THE YOUNG CHAPLAIN STARTED AS HE BEHELD THE GRACEFUL FORM OF THE PRISONER.
The consequence was that they committed Miss Stanbridge—or Clara Johnson, as she called herself, upon this occasion—for trial.
After this had been effected the three magistrates returned to their counters—one to sell reels of cotton marked with mendacious numbers; the second to regulate his false weights and measures; the third to superintend the adulteration of articles of food of various descriptions.
The fair culprit was then placed between two policemen and escorted to the gaol, followed by a ragged and sympathising crowd. Indeed, it was impossible not to be affected by her face—so dignified, so pale, and so resigned.
Clickborne Gaol is one of the prettiest specimens of the model prisons in this country. We may contrast it with those of the old style, as we contrast the fairy-like colleges of Cambridge with the grand picturesque but sombre piles of the senior university.
Built of no dark grey stone, but of variegated bricks, which were adorned with fantastic designs and with an assemblage of graceful and picturesque little turrets, it presented nothing of the appearance of a receptacle for thieves and lawless characters, with the exception of thick bars before the windows, and in the ponderous locks attached to the doors.
Laura Stanbridge was conducted by the deputy-governor and the head turnkey of the prison to a building separated from the establishment by the ground in which the prisoners were exercised. The deputy-governor preceded them up a flight of stone steps, and knocked at a small iron door. It was instantly thrown open, and two women of repulsive appearance stood before them. They were both dressed in black, and both had ponderous bunches of keys suspended at their girdles.
Laura was forcibly impressed with the depressing nature of all these formalities, but she bore up as best she could, and endeavoured to put a good face on the matter.
Having handed over the prisoner to the care of these ogresses, the deputy-governor and turnkey returned to their own sphere of action. No man was permitted to enter the female ward but the governor, the chaplain, the visiting justices, and the surgeon; and so, having handed Miss Stanbridge over to the female warders, her two male conductors retired.
The shoplifter would have much preferred their remaining, for, to say the truth, she had more faith in those of the opposite sex than she had in her own.
But the rules of the prison could not be infringed, and she therefore submitted to them with the best grace possible.
She was taken to a reception cell and subjected to the usual course of bathing and searching, with those thousand indignities which felons and suspected persons have to suffer. When this was over she was conducted to her cell, which was on the same model as those of the male prisons, and which has been described in a previous chapter of this work.
Miss Stanbridge was disgusted with her narrow prison-house, and she did not fail to express her dissatisfaction.
“Pray tell me,” said she, in angry tone, “is it customary to put prisoners before their trial in such a miserable hole as this?”
“Most certainly it is,” was the answer of her janiters. “We have no other cells.”
“Then I must tell you plainly that I think it an act of great injustice,” said Laura-—“of gross injustice! Am I to understand that a prisoner before conviction is treated in the same manner as a prisoner sentenced to imprisonment, without hard labour, after conviction?”
“Well, yes, she is. Unless she happens to have money.”
“Oh, indeed. Money, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And what if she has?”
“Oh, that makes all the difference.”
“Does it? Then it’s still more discreditable. Well, assuming she has money—what then?”
“She will be allowed to buy books, clothes, and food.”
“Will she?”
“Certainly.”
“And bedding and furniture?” she asked, glancing at the bed which was rolled up and bound by a strap, and at a wooden stool with no back to it by the wall.”
“You cannot buy furniture; the governor would object to any prisoners making themselves so comfortable in prison. He might perhaps let you have a chair or an extra blanket to your bed; but, of course, we are only subordinates. It rests with the governor.”
“Whom I cannot see, I suppose?”
“Oh, you can see him whenever you like. He is a very genial gentleman, and does all he can to make prisoners comfortable who behave themselves—but they must behave properly.”
“I am not likely to misbehave myself,” said Miss Stanbridge, “but I must tell you frankly that it appears to me that suspected felons are not allowed so many comforts as convicted first-class misdemeanants, who are swindlers, and therefore only felons on a grander scale.”
She pointed to the rule which applied to the treatment of first-class misdemeanants, and which she had discovered with her first glance at the printed board.
“We don’t make the rules,” said one of the female warders.
“I don’t say you do. All I object to is being treated like a guilty person before conviction. I am innocent, and this I shall be able to prove when my trial comes on.”
The women smiled.
“You don’t believe me?” cried Miss Stanbridge.
“Everybody is innocent until found guilty,” was the quick response.
“I don’t expect much sympathy from anyone here; but that does not so much matter. While I am here awaiting my trial it is but fair that I should be treated with some little consideration.”
“Certainly you will be—without doubt.”
“I can send for my luggage, I suppose?”
“If you choose to do so you can. Where is it?”
“At the hotel where I was stopping when this shameful charge was made.”
“We have a prison messenger, who will fetch your luggage if you pay him for doing so.”
“I will pay him,” cried Miss Stanbridge.
“You forget, perhaps,” observed one of the women, “that you had only seven-and-sixpence in your purse.”
“I do not forget. I have good friends who will assist me in the hour of my trial and trouble. I am not without means.”
Upon this both the women were much more conciliatory in their manner.
“We will do our best to make you as comfortable as possible,” they both ejaculated. “We always do that to those who have the misfortune to be charged with any offence.”
“You are very kind, I’m sure,” cried Miss Stanbridge, with something like irony in her tone.
“You had better let me keep the seven and sixpence,” said one of the female warders, “and pay it to the prison servant to clean your cell, otherwise you will have to do it yourself every morning.”
“Clean it myself! Is that in the rules?”
“Yes, it is a rule always exacted.”
“Very well, I’ll leave the amount in your hands. That will be the best course to adopt—won’t it?”
“I think so. There is a bye-law in most gaols against prisoners keeping their own money. Besides, you know you would soon spoil your fine clothes if you elected to clean your own cell, which I suppose you won’t think of doing?”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Then in that case you had better wear the prison dress if you mean to do prison work. It is grey cloth, very comfortable and becoming.”
“May I wear it in addition to this dress?”
“Oh, dear me, no; you must wear our dress or your own.”
Laura Stanbridge hesitated. “I don’t want to be arrayed in the garb of a felon,” she ejaculated. “Not unless there is an absolute necessity for my doing so. I will, therefore, wear my own.”
She reasoned that in the gloomy dress which these poor criminals wore she would lose many of her fascinations. Besides, it was like putting on a badge of guilt—a thing that was most repugnant to her.
Having invited her to study the prison rules, the warders left her to herself. When alone, she gave full vent to her rage, and paced her narrow den with masculine strides, tearing her lip with her white wolfish teeth.
She bitterly regretted having made the false step which brought her into her present awkward predicament. It was a sort of mad infatuation which had led her to attempt the robbery at the draper’s. She could not any way account for the impulse which had so suddenly prompted her to commit such a foolish act.
Crestfallen and humiliated she felt the danger of her position. She felt also its degradation, for this was the first time she had been in prison; but, worse than all, she was fearful of being baulked of that revenge for which she had so long and so patiently waited, and of which she believed herself secure.
Alf Purvis was at large, and she was in “durance vile.”
“Oh,” she ejaculated, “it is indeed bitter to be locked up here when all was working so well without. I must have been mad to run any risk—worse than mad—seeing that there was no earthly need for it.”
She screamed with rage, and climbing up to the window like a cat, she shook the bars with her white hands till the dust flew from the stones.
Uttering frightful imprecations she sank back exhausted.
“This is the worst of folly,” she ejaculated; “I cannot escape with my hands and arms. I must use a woman’s real weapons—her voice, her beauty, her falsehoods, with a man’s mind and nerve to guide them.”
She sat down, and, leaning her head against the wall, with her arms folded and her face slightly upturned, she began to reflect—as a mathematician commences the solution of some abstruse problem—as an actress studies the looks and gestures of a new and difficult part.
Man forgets and forgives, but the woman whose pride has been injured can never forget and will never forgive. Alf Purvis had cruelly wounded her vanity, and this vanity, which when flattered will decoy women into vice, when angered will drive them into crime.
Laura Stanbridge had taken a tigress-like fancy for this man, who was so much younger than herself, and whom she had taught to steal. She had spent pains and money upon him, believing that thus she would secure a powerful weapon; but it had proved a weapon with a sharp edge which stabbed the hand that endeavoured to direct it.
Spurned in her passions, thwarted in her schemes, she had conceived an incredible hatred against him.
It is true she had solaced herself by making a conquest, and for a long time nothing disturbed her friendly and familiar terms of intimacy with Tom Gatliffe. This had continued even up to the time of her arrest; but for all this she had not forgotten her hatred of Purvis, whom, sooner or later, she had determined to bring to ruin. Now she was powerless; she trembled when she thought of the exposure and ignominy that might follow.
She was surrounded by stone walls and iron bars—by persons who would be stone to her entreaties and iron against her bribes.
The stern faces of the warders gave her no hope. Besides, they were women.
She had seen the governor for a moment in the corridor. He had scarcely deigned to honour her with a cursory glance as she passed; and as they were taking her through the yards, her eyes, busy as her thoughts, had observed a number of children playing in the garden, which was separated from the yards by an iron railing surmounted with huge spikes, yet enclosed within the walls. The governor was probably old and possibly phlegmatic. It was at least certain that he was married and the father of a large family. He would not be assailable. Her beauty, her falsehood, and dissimulation would be of no avail, as far as he was concerned. It would but be a waste of time for her to endeavour to propitiate him; besides, from what she could gather, he was a man, who, although reputed timid and considerate, was withal a strict disciplinarian and not easily turned from the path of rigid duty which he had followed for so many years.
She ran her eyes down the rules, and from thence discovered that one of the visiting justices was by law compelled to visit each prisoner once a week alone, in order that the presence of the governor or turnkeys should not intimidate the prisoners from making complaints.
This gave her hope, but it was but a transient one.
“Once a week,” she ejaculated. “Ah, that is not of any great import. I would it were once a day—then there would be some chance for me. In two or three visits it would be difficult, or indeed impossible, to do much, if anything, but in fifteen or twenty—well, I might yet triumph, but I will watch and wait; it is not possible to say at present what my chances may be.”
As she spoke the door of her cell was opened, and a young man of prepossessing appearance presented himself. He was dressed in a suit of black, with a plain white cravat round his throat. His countenance was indicative of deep and anxious thought, and his brow was furrowed with long thin lines. When she saw his face her heart seemed to beat more audibly, her eyes flashed for a moment, then she bent forward her head, and gazed abstractedly on the floor of her cell.
“He is young, and I think impressionable,” she murmured, “and has, I hope, a good heart.”
Then she took a pose.