CHAPTERCXVI.THE YOUNG ENTHUSIAST—A WOMAN’S WILES.Miss Stanbridge had set herself a task which required all the tact and finesse she was mistress of to bring about a successful issue. She had the cunning of the serpent, the patience of Job, and hoped to prevail before the drama was played out; anyway, she made up her mind to have a stout fight for it. She was duly impressed with the fact that it would not do to be too precipitate; she must study the character of the man whom she hoped to make her victim.Two days passed without her being able to obtain any fresh insight into the character of the gaol chaplain. He came in always at the same time, and remained with her the same length of time. He was punctual in his attendance, and equally so in his time of departure.This was very systematic, but not by any means so satisfactory. He appeared to be fulfilling a duty in a methodical manner; nothing more. Laura watched his looks, his tones, his gestures; weighed them, compared them, and analysed them, and could gain nothing from them that could lead her to hope.He was earnest in his discourse, was gentle and conciliating in his manner; but then, she judged rightly enough that this was habitual to him. He was so, she imagined, just the same to the other prisoners. She could not flatter herself that he evinced any greater consideration for her than the other inmates in the gaol.This vexed her. She must have recourse to strategem, for the time was passing, and she was no nearer the goal upon which she had set her heart.On the last day she listened to his words as well as his tones. They were words of pity which she could not turn as a weapon against him.She now began to fear that the look upon which she had built her schemes had not been one of compassion for her beauty, but regret for her sins, and that this was a soul too high above her for her arts to pollute.If this proved to be the case, she would be defeated in her purpose. Up to this time she had studiously avoided speaking to him. She had not looked at him openly, for thus she counted on exciting his curiosity, but now she determined to use her voice, her eyes, and her blandishments, and to cast forth the first of those silver cords with which she hoped to enmesh his heart.When he came to visit her at the accustomed hour, he found her upon her knees cleaning the floor of her cell. Her snowy arms were white and naked, her brown hair fell with dishevelled art upon her shoulders, and over that voluptuous bosom which her dress did not entirely conceal.As he entered, she seemed confused and attempted to rise, looking at him with eyes which appeared to languish, but which were really piercing into the depths of his soul.He glanced at her for a moment or so, and then turned away with aversion, but without precipitation. He said that he would return when he had visited another prisoner, and these words, so calm and cold, crept like ice through her heart.He had not evinced the slightest passion or hesitation, but was perfectly calm and self-possessed.She was vexed—she shuddered. This was not a man! He was either supremely dense and unimpressionable, or else sublime as an angel.In either case he was impregnable.She heard him enter the cell adjoining her own, and hastily finishing her task she adjusted her hair, and waited patiently until he had concluded his ministrations to the other prisoner.He remained withNo.42 exactly the same length of time that he had accorded to her on the previous occasions. It was therefore clear that he made no distinction between the other prisoners and herself.Upon discovering this she was deeply mortified.Consumed by bitter thoughts and anxieties, for the first time she omitted to look at him or to even listen to his discourse. For the first time she was deaf to his voice, or as blind to his face as she had wished him to believe.“Oh, you impenetrable creature!” she exclaimed, when she was again alone. “Oh, you man without a passion! I will not rest till I have found out a flaw in your armour—till I have learnt where I can wound you. You must be human—you must be weak. I bide my time. I must and will triumph.”She dug her nails deep into her flesh, and gnawed her lips, to prevent herself from shrieking aloud.At the end of two hours, exhausted with rage, she sank back upon the wooden seat, and wiped away the tears which fury had brought to her eyes.There was a clatter at the door; a trap flew open in the centre, and presented a slide, on which was a bowl of gruel and a hunch of bread—her supper.At the same moment a stream of white flame burst up into the air and flared and bubbled, making her cell light and cheerful.She took her supper from the slide, ate it slowly, and replaced the bowl upon the board. Half an hour afterwards the door again clattered and the mug disappeared.A great bell rang, and filled the whole building with its harsh and monotonous tones.At this signal she went to the corner of her cell, unrolled her bed, and suspended if from wall to wall after the fashion which has been described in one of our previous chapters. She undressed herself slowly—being engaged in deep thought all the while. She lay down upon the bed; her brow was still dark and disturbed. Suddenly it became irradiated, and the prisoner sprang up in bed, and clapped her hands together.“Ah, how foolish I have been!” she ejaculated; “but now I understand. How blind I have been! Ah! passionless man, I will conquer you yet. It is my only chance—I will get him into my power!”The gaslight died out of the leaden pipe; Laura Stanbridge sank back in her bed and fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.Anyone to have seen her thus would have said she was a young virgin who was dreaming of her honeymoon.On the following day the chaplain, at his customary hour, paid the shoplifter another visit. He exhorted her to prayer and repentance, and was more than usually earnest in his manner. She listened to him this time, and affected to be deeply moved at the words he gave utterance to. Having fulfilled his duties thus far, he rose to leave the cell. He paused, and laid his hand on the lock. She took advantage of this pause to speak. It was the first time he had heard this voice, which was sweet, plaintive, and dangerous as the voices of the sirens of old.“Ah, sir,” said Laura Stanbridge, with a sigh, “you tell me to pray for mercy and to repent of my sins.”“I do,” he murmured.“And yet you do not even ask me whether I am innocent or guilty?”He paused for a moment, and looked intently in her face.“Young woman,” he presently ejaculated, “I am not allowed to make myself your confessor. I beseech you to address yourself to a higher power, to Him who knows all our hearts, if you are innocent.”“If, reverend sir,” exclaimed Laura, with an injured look, “I am so.”“That is a question I must decline to discuss or offer an opinion on.“If what you say is true, I hope and trust you will be able to prove your innocence. Will you read a little of this while I am gone?” he added, and he placed a pocket Bible between her passive hands.She did not answer.“I will leave it with you,” he murmured.She nodded her head mechanically.He went silently and almost sadly from the cell. Then she rose and walked slowly to and fro, with her beautiful but treacherous head upon her breast.She repeated these words several times—“I am not allowed to make myself your confessor.”In spite of the mild tone in which they had been pronounced, her eyes, which lost nothing, had detected a momentary contraction of the eye-brows.At length she solved the enigma. Her chaplain had thought of the Roman Catholics as he spoke. Of this she felt convinced. He had therefore a prejudice against them.“Good!” she murmured, “I have discovered that you have a prejudice, and each prejudice in a man’s mind is a crevice in his armour. It will suit me very well to attack him on his weakest side, and it will go hard with me if I do not in the end succeed in my purpose.”When we signified that William Leverall was neither a fanatic nor a bigot, an exception should have been made in respect to one point—he did hold the profession of the Catholic faith in utter abhorrence. It is not possible to find any one man faultless. High-minded and virtuous as was Mr. Leverall in almost every way, he was nevertheless intolerant in this respect, and yet it appears strange that this young man, who had so often emptied his needy purse, who had passed so many sleepless nights, after witnessing a spectacle of human misery or human sin—that this man, who was really devout, should dislike men who were perhaps as devout as himself, and who tried to win souls as even he himself strove to do.A bitter and poisonous hatred to Popery had been instilled into his heart by ignorant and prejudiced tutors, and by the controversial books and newspapers which they had placed in his hands. It was the one blemish on his white robe.When he came the next day he foundNo.43 with the sacred volume in her hands, and her eyes filled with an ardent gaze.“Oh, sir!” she exclaimed, as she rose, her bosom heaving and her face stirring with emotion. “Oh, sir, you have saved me. I began to read this book, not because you asked me, but because I was dull; but soon the words began to steal into my heart. I read on and on, unable to withdraw my eyes away. When the light was put out I screamed. In the horrible darkness and silence of the night I heard whispers all around me, and sounds like the rustling of wings in the air, and the words which I had read I read again in strokes of fire on the wall.“I awoke in the morning with a burning head, and a cold shivering in all my limbs. Again I opened the book, almost fearing to read, and yet unable to resist the strange fascination which it exercised over me. Accept my most heartfelt thanks—you have saved me!”She burst into tears as she spoke, and uttered words which were stifled with sobs; but all the while she was watching him like a lynx. She saw his hands clasp and his lips flutter for an instant; she understood that he believed in her sincerity, and gave a smile behind her hands—so cold, so sardonic, that it would have served as an offering to the demon who inspired her.He stayed with her for a longer period than his usual wont. In that time he discovered that she possessed the power of diving through the dead and inanimate letter, and revealing the pearls of the spirit which were beyond the reach of common understandings.In fact, she was a wonderful woman, for in two hours she taught him not only a lesson in theology, but she had completely studied his character and was learning it by heart.“Ah,” murmured Laura Stanbridge to herself after he had departed, “he is the most virtuous man I ever met with. But so much the better; virtue is simplicity, simplicity leads to concession, concession to vice. That is why many good women fall and are scouted as ruiners, and why artful women, shielding themselves with prudence—the only useful virtue—are respected as moral members of society.”As she lay in her bed that night, she murmured to herself in a state of satisfaction and full confidence in her diabolical machinations—“He has two flaws in his armour—the one is ambition—laudable in its way—but in all ambitions there is a stamp of the cloven foot. The other is a blind and senseless bigotry upon a certain point. Through one of these I will stab him in the head, and through the other in the heart.”For five days she allowed him to visit her without taking any fresh steps.Precipitation would be her ruin, and she was too wary to risk taking any false step.During the succeeding five days she coiled herself slowly and silently round the poor sleeping victim; soon he would be quite encircled in those horrible folds which embraced before they killed.During those five days she matured her observations of the intricacies of his character, and obtained a certain mastery over him by her prodigious penetration into the meaning of the sacred writings, and by her eloquent and exalted language.These he ascribed to divine inspiration instead of the human intelligence.There are men so superstitious upon the problem of faith and inspiration, that they are unable to see things in a practical light.Without knowing it he already venerated her, for in acuteness and powers of perception she was more than a match for him; and he never for a moment suspected that she was playing a part with one special object.This gained, she would relapse again into the unscrupulous and sinful woman she had been all through her life.The warders congratulated him upon the good effects of his ministrations.“No.43 was quite a different person now from what she used to be,” said one of them to Laura Stanbridge’s pastor.“I believe and hope she is,” observed Mr. Leverall.“Oh, dear me yes, sir,” cried the woman, “quite different. When she first came here she’d howl to herself when she thought no one was by, and answer us so surly when any one of us spoke to her, it made a body loathe to go anear her. But now it is quite different. When we go in she’s meek and mild, and is always a reading a good book, and she speaks so beautiful, makes use of such soft and loving expressions that it does one’s heart good to listen to her, poor soul! I do hope she’ll get through the bit of trouble she’s got into.”The chaplain’s countenance was indicative of the pleasure he felt at listening to the foregoing observations.“She is in an excellent frame of mind, and feels her position most acutely, I am sure of that,” said he.“She does, poor dear, and everyone is sorry for her,” cried the canting old crone, who, as the reader may suppose, had been well bribed by the prisoner in cellNo.43.Miss Stanbridge had been playing her cards pretty well, all things considered. Bribes would not do with the prison chaplain, but she held him in bondage by other means.Of this she was perfectly convinced, and the sequel proved that she was not far out in her reckoning.She began to reflect upon her projects, which were still vague and unsettled.At present they were like dark shadows, which passed backwards and forwards, but which she could not grasp or connect.She possessed, or supposed she did so, a key to liberty, but she was wandering in the dark, for she had not yet found the door.She resolved to make him tell her his history. Thus she might obtain a clue to the labyrinth in which she was lost. Thus she might find a fulcrum, without which the most powerful lever is useless.William Leverall was by this time fairly in the toils of the huntress, albeit she did not realise this herself; but he was so, without perhaps knowing it.She had so wrought upon him that when he left the cell he could not dismiss her from his thoughts. To say he was in love would be making use of too strong a term; he was fascinated, even as people are said to be fascinated by the piercing eye of the serpent.His eyes were dull and reddened through want of sleep when he again approached the cell in which Laura Stanbridge was confined.He had of late visited her several times in the day, and whenever he came he found her always reading.On this occasion he opened the door softly. She pretended not to hear him.He gazed upon her with a feeling that almost amounted to veneration. Her pale face and her eyes glowing ardently made her resemble a virgin saint at her devotions.He was touched, and his countenance was expressive of pity, which, to say the truth, was the index of his thoughts.He grew more sad when he remembered that, perhaps, in a few weeks she might have to wear a felon’s dress and endure a felon’s doom.This thought made him shudder. He fancied that he saw her striving to soar above the shame and ignominy—saw her dragged back into the abyss by the base drudgeries and foul companionship of infamous and base women.“Oh!” he murmured, “how is it possible to avoid the law? How can she be rescued from her impending doom?”He remained silent and motionless, still gazing at her sorrowfully.She divined his thoughts, and her black heart leapt with joy. When he spoke to her she gave a faint scream, and said, apologetically—“Oh! sir, pardon me; I did not know you were here.”She showed him what she had been reading, and described her feelings with that perfidious eloquence which was one of her chief weapons.Then she asked him to relate to her his life.He sat down by her side with his eyes bent on the ground. She was delighted, but did not attempt to give expression to the joy she felt.Then calmly and in soft low voice he entered upon his history.He told her all about his college life, his three years at the university, his missionary prospects, his interview with his relative, and his appointment as chaplain to the prison.He spoke to her of his mother and sister, whom he loved so warmly.And he laid bare his warm and enthusiastic heart, into which she probed with cold and ingenious calculations.When he had ended he found her silent and thoughtful, looking vacantly on the ground; he believed that she was buried in a reverie.But this was not so. She was attempting in these few moments to mould her scheme into a form which could not fail. She threw out a sentence in order that she might feel her way. She watched him keenly as she spoke.“How long have you been here, then?” she inquired, carelessly.“Two years,” he answered, with a sigh.“Two years of prison life—of earnest ministrations! Oh! sir, how many hearts have you moved by your eloquence? Had I not met you, I might have been lost. You so good, so noble—”“Hush, do not indulge in laudation,” he said, interrupting her.“But I must when I speak of you,” said she, leaning her head forward till her cheek almost touched his. “Without you my life here would have been insupportable, and the future,” she added, with bitterness, and bursting into tears—“I dread to think of the future.”“Ah!” he ejaculated; “that is a sad reflection.”“Oh, sir,” she said, in a tone which seemed to find its way to his heart, “what a terrible position I am in! I behold exposure, ignominy, and disgrace before me. My poor mother will break her heart when she learns what I am charged with.”“Does she not know it already?” he inquired, in some surprise.“No—oh, dear, no! My uncle thought it best to keep it from her. It may be that the charge against me will not be substantiated, and in that case she will be spared the infliction of knowing her daughter has been an inmate of a prison. I cannot tell you—words are altogether inadequate to express the miserable state of hopeless despair I am in. Think of a respectable family being disgraced—think of the odium and obloquy that must necessarily fall upon me even under the most favourable circumstances. I have not before spoken of my own deep, deep sorrow—my abject despair. I have not pained you by a recital of all my agonising thoughts, because I thought it selfish to do so; but oh, sir, you behold in me one of the most wretched and miserable creatures you have ever met with. At night I think of these things—by day I strive by prayer and penitence to cast aside the heavy shadow which has fallen over me. I ask for mercy—I pray to be relieved from this miserable thraldom.”She ceased suddenly and burst into a passionate flood of tears.He bent over her and with soft words tried to assuage her grief, which was painful to behold.“You must not give way to despair. Bear up against the deep affliction which has fallen upon you,” he murmured. “Cheer up—brighter days are in store for you, let us hope.”“For me there is no hope.”“You must not say that. Hope never deserts us, however sorely we may be tried. It never deserts the truly repentant sinner—you do not need to be told that.”“Oh, I am supremely miserable,” she ejaculated. “If it were possible for me to return to society without disgrace and exposure I would for the rest of my life devote myself to the service of my fellow-creatures. But——”“But what?” he inquired.“I fear it is not possible. Can you see any way?”This was a home thrust, and the chaplain hardly knew what reply to make.“I am sure you would lead an exemplary life—I hope so—if you obtained your release.”“I would—I swear it!” she exclaimed, with sudden warmth and energy. “I will swear it on this sacred book.”She laid her hands on a volume which was on the table before her.“All this is very sad and painful,” he murmured. “You are respectably connected, without doubt.”“Dear me, yes. Some day I hope to introduce you to my relations.”“There will be time enough to think of that hereafter.”“Ah, hereafter—you are right. It is the present, the miserable, hopeless present, I have to consider; and when I think of that I grow sick at heart. Tell me what I am to do—you are so good, so pure, and high-minded.”She looked up into his face, and saw that he was deeply moved.“Forgive me troubling you about my wordly affairs. I feel that I am inflicting pain upon you. Pardon, pardon me.”She drew her hand across her eyes, and again regarded him with a glance which was at once supplicating, caressing, and voluptuous.He quailed before the glance.“Tell me—tell me what I am to do,” said she, placing her hand upon his shoulder.A beautiful woman in distress might well move the most obdurate heart, the most unimpressionable of the opposite sex to her own.Mr. Leverall felt a strange thrill pass through his frame. It was the first time the prisoner had been so demonstrative. His pulse quickened as he felt her soft, pliant hand upon his shoulder.She was not slow to perceive the effect of her wiles. As a cat with slow, noiseless and stealthy steps approaches her prey, so did Laura Stanbridge approach her victim.She poured forth another piteous and eloquent appeal, and as she did so drew closer to him.“My guide—my counsellor—my kind and gentle monitor! tell me what I am to do,” said she. “You, who are so wise, have such wondrous powers of perception and penetration, are so well adapted to save and succour one who is at the present moment surrounded with difficulties which appear to be insurmountable.”“I have already given you the best advice I could offer,” said he, not daring to turn his head and look at the upturned beseeching face of the siren by his side.“You have caused me solace which can never be forgotten,” she exclaimed, with something like rapture in her tone and manner.She rested her head on his shoulder, pressing him fondly with her hand on the other.He did not attempt to withdraw from her embrace. He placed his arm round her waist and drew her towards him.Their lips met, and being now no longer master of himself, he had one long lingering embrace, which, if the truth must be told, was neither parental nor fraternal.“He is mine,” murmured the charmer, to herself. “He is in my toils, and soon, very soon, I shall be able to mould him at my will.”It was true enough the chaplain was fascinated with the seductive being by his side. He forgot to administer his habitual moral discourse—he forgot all but one thing, this being that he had an alluring and fascinating woman by his side—and he drank deep of his first draught of illicit love.She had worked unceasingly to bring about the present issue, and she had succeeded far beyond her expectations. The fortress she had been endeavouring to reach for so long a time fell into her hands as suddenly as unexpected.A smile of triumph sat upon her features, for she felt that the battle was nearly won. She felt assured also that very shortly she should be able to gain her liberty; nevertheless she could not conceal from herself that much remained to be done.Mr. Bourne, her uncle, had paid her another visit. He had brought her a second supply of money, which had been sent by Charles Peace.Laura Stanbridge had bribed the female warders in charge of her so liberally that they were quite astounded at her munificence.In prisons, workhouses, and other public institutions, money works wonders. It is useful enough, we all of us will readily admit, everywhere and under all circumstances, but without it the prisoner can do little or nothing—with it he or she can do a great deal.The female warders were in the pay of Laura Stanbridge.She persuaded them that she was highly connected, that some of her relations belonged to the upper ten, and they believed her. Small wonder at that, seeing that in appearance she was far above those females they were accustomed to have under their charge, and in addition to this she appeared to have ample means furnished her from those of her relations and outside the walls of the prison.The chaplain’s visit on this occasion was one unusually long—indeed, there is no telling how long it would have been had it not been rudely interrupted.While seated by the side of his enchantress the alarm bell of the prison was suddenly rung.This was followed by the shuffling of feet along the corridor, the sounds of many voices, as of people who were conversing hurriedly.Mr. Leverall judged rightly enough that something unusual had occurred in the gaol.“My dear Laura,” he exclaimed (he had already learned to call her by her Christian name), “there must be some strong reason for all this commotion; I must, therefore, leave you now.”“You are going,” cried the prisoner, pouting. “Well, I will not seek to detain you.”The door was suddenly opened, and a male warder thrust his head in.He was evidently in a state of alarm, and said—“Oh, your pardon, sir, but the governor wishes you to attend a patient in the infirmary.”“What is the matter, Martin?” inquired the chaplain.“A prisoner has attempted to escape, and is dreadfully injured. The governor thought you had better see him.”“Oh, certainly, by all means I will do so,” observed the chaplain, who at once left the cell with the prison official.
Miss Stanbridge had set herself a task which required all the tact and finesse she was mistress of to bring about a successful issue. She had the cunning of the serpent, the patience of Job, and hoped to prevail before the drama was played out; anyway, she made up her mind to have a stout fight for it. She was duly impressed with the fact that it would not do to be too precipitate; she must study the character of the man whom she hoped to make her victim.
Two days passed without her being able to obtain any fresh insight into the character of the gaol chaplain. He came in always at the same time, and remained with her the same length of time. He was punctual in his attendance, and equally so in his time of departure.
This was very systematic, but not by any means so satisfactory. He appeared to be fulfilling a duty in a methodical manner; nothing more. Laura watched his looks, his tones, his gestures; weighed them, compared them, and analysed them, and could gain nothing from them that could lead her to hope.
He was earnest in his discourse, was gentle and conciliating in his manner; but then, she judged rightly enough that this was habitual to him. He was so, she imagined, just the same to the other prisoners. She could not flatter herself that he evinced any greater consideration for her than the other inmates in the gaol.
This vexed her. She must have recourse to strategem, for the time was passing, and she was no nearer the goal upon which she had set her heart.
On the last day she listened to his words as well as his tones. They were words of pity which she could not turn as a weapon against him.
She now began to fear that the look upon which she had built her schemes had not been one of compassion for her beauty, but regret for her sins, and that this was a soul too high above her for her arts to pollute.
If this proved to be the case, she would be defeated in her purpose. Up to this time she had studiously avoided speaking to him. She had not looked at him openly, for thus she counted on exciting his curiosity, but now she determined to use her voice, her eyes, and her blandishments, and to cast forth the first of those silver cords with which she hoped to enmesh his heart.
When he came to visit her at the accustomed hour, he found her upon her knees cleaning the floor of her cell. Her snowy arms were white and naked, her brown hair fell with dishevelled art upon her shoulders, and over that voluptuous bosom which her dress did not entirely conceal.
As he entered, she seemed confused and attempted to rise, looking at him with eyes which appeared to languish, but which were really piercing into the depths of his soul.
He glanced at her for a moment or so, and then turned away with aversion, but without precipitation. He said that he would return when he had visited another prisoner, and these words, so calm and cold, crept like ice through her heart.
He had not evinced the slightest passion or hesitation, but was perfectly calm and self-possessed.
She was vexed—she shuddered. This was not a man! He was either supremely dense and unimpressionable, or else sublime as an angel.
In either case he was impregnable.
She heard him enter the cell adjoining her own, and hastily finishing her task she adjusted her hair, and waited patiently until he had concluded his ministrations to the other prisoner.
He remained withNo.42 exactly the same length of time that he had accorded to her on the previous occasions. It was therefore clear that he made no distinction between the other prisoners and herself.
Upon discovering this she was deeply mortified.
Consumed by bitter thoughts and anxieties, for the first time she omitted to look at him or to even listen to his discourse. For the first time she was deaf to his voice, or as blind to his face as she had wished him to believe.
“Oh, you impenetrable creature!” she exclaimed, when she was again alone. “Oh, you man without a passion! I will not rest till I have found out a flaw in your armour—till I have learnt where I can wound you. You must be human—you must be weak. I bide my time. I must and will triumph.”
She dug her nails deep into her flesh, and gnawed her lips, to prevent herself from shrieking aloud.
At the end of two hours, exhausted with rage, she sank back upon the wooden seat, and wiped away the tears which fury had brought to her eyes.
There was a clatter at the door; a trap flew open in the centre, and presented a slide, on which was a bowl of gruel and a hunch of bread—her supper.
At the same moment a stream of white flame burst up into the air and flared and bubbled, making her cell light and cheerful.
She took her supper from the slide, ate it slowly, and replaced the bowl upon the board. Half an hour afterwards the door again clattered and the mug disappeared.
A great bell rang, and filled the whole building with its harsh and monotonous tones.
At this signal she went to the corner of her cell, unrolled her bed, and suspended if from wall to wall after the fashion which has been described in one of our previous chapters. She undressed herself slowly—being engaged in deep thought all the while. She lay down upon the bed; her brow was still dark and disturbed. Suddenly it became irradiated, and the prisoner sprang up in bed, and clapped her hands together.
“Ah, how foolish I have been!” she ejaculated; “but now I understand. How blind I have been! Ah! passionless man, I will conquer you yet. It is my only chance—I will get him into my power!”
The gaslight died out of the leaden pipe; Laura Stanbridge sank back in her bed and fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.
Anyone to have seen her thus would have said she was a young virgin who was dreaming of her honeymoon.
On the following day the chaplain, at his customary hour, paid the shoplifter another visit. He exhorted her to prayer and repentance, and was more than usually earnest in his manner. She listened to him this time, and affected to be deeply moved at the words he gave utterance to. Having fulfilled his duties thus far, he rose to leave the cell. He paused, and laid his hand on the lock. She took advantage of this pause to speak. It was the first time he had heard this voice, which was sweet, plaintive, and dangerous as the voices of the sirens of old.
“Ah, sir,” said Laura Stanbridge, with a sigh, “you tell me to pray for mercy and to repent of my sins.”
“I do,” he murmured.
“And yet you do not even ask me whether I am innocent or guilty?”
He paused for a moment, and looked intently in her face.
“Young woman,” he presently ejaculated, “I am not allowed to make myself your confessor. I beseech you to address yourself to a higher power, to Him who knows all our hearts, if you are innocent.”
“If, reverend sir,” exclaimed Laura, with an injured look, “I am so.”
“That is a question I must decline to discuss or offer an opinion on.
“If what you say is true, I hope and trust you will be able to prove your innocence. Will you read a little of this while I am gone?” he added, and he placed a pocket Bible between her passive hands.
She did not answer.
“I will leave it with you,” he murmured.
She nodded her head mechanically.
He went silently and almost sadly from the cell. Then she rose and walked slowly to and fro, with her beautiful but treacherous head upon her breast.
She repeated these words several times—
“I am not allowed to make myself your confessor.”
In spite of the mild tone in which they had been pronounced, her eyes, which lost nothing, had detected a momentary contraction of the eye-brows.
At length she solved the enigma. Her chaplain had thought of the Roman Catholics as he spoke. Of this she felt convinced. He had therefore a prejudice against them.
“Good!” she murmured, “I have discovered that you have a prejudice, and each prejudice in a man’s mind is a crevice in his armour. It will suit me very well to attack him on his weakest side, and it will go hard with me if I do not in the end succeed in my purpose.”
When we signified that William Leverall was neither a fanatic nor a bigot, an exception should have been made in respect to one point—he did hold the profession of the Catholic faith in utter abhorrence. It is not possible to find any one man faultless. High-minded and virtuous as was Mr. Leverall in almost every way, he was nevertheless intolerant in this respect, and yet it appears strange that this young man, who had so often emptied his needy purse, who had passed so many sleepless nights, after witnessing a spectacle of human misery or human sin—that this man, who was really devout, should dislike men who were perhaps as devout as himself, and who tried to win souls as even he himself strove to do.
A bitter and poisonous hatred to Popery had been instilled into his heart by ignorant and prejudiced tutors, and by the controversial books and newspapers which they had placed in his hands. It was the one blemish on his white robe.
When he came the next day he foundNo.43 with the sacred volume in her hands, and her eyes filled with an ardent gaze.
“Oh, sir!” she exclaimed, as she rose, her bosom heaving and her face stirring with emotion. “Oh, sir, you have saved me. I began to read this book, not because you asked me, but because I was dull; but soon the words began to steal into my heart. I read on and on, unable to withdraw my eyes away. When the light was put out I screamed. In the horrible darkness and silence of the night I heard whispers all around me, and sounds like the rustling of wings in the air, and the words which I had read I read again in strokes of fire on the wall.
“I awoke in the morning with a burning head, and a cold shivering in all my limbs. Again I opened the book, almost fearing to read, and yet unable to resist the strange fascination which it exercised over me. Accept my most heartfelt thanks—you have saved me!”
She burst into tears as she spoke, and uttered words which were stifled with sobs; but all the while she was watching him like a lynx. She saw his hands clasp and his lips flutter for an instant; she understood that he believed in her sincerity, and gave a smile behind her hands—so cold, so sardonic, that it would have served as an offering to the demon who inspired her.
He stayed with her for a longer period than his usual wont. In that time he discovered that she possessed the power of diving through the dead and inanimate letter, and revealing the pearls of the spirit which were beyond the reach of common understandings.
In fact, she was a wonderful woman, for in two hours she taught him not only a lesson in theology, but she had completely studied his character and was learning it by heart.
“Ah,” murmured Laura Stanbridge to herself after he had departed, “he is the most virtuous man I ever met with. But so much the better; virtue is simplicity, simplicity leads to concession, concession to vice. That is why many good women fall and are scouted as ruiners, and why artful women, shielding themselves with prudence—the only useful virtue—are respected as moral members of society.”
As she lay in her bed that night, she murmured to herself in a state of satisfaction and full confidence in her diabolical machinations—
“He has two flaws in his armour—the one is ambition—laudable in its way—but in all ambitions there is a stamp of the cloven foot. The other is a blind and senseless bigotry upon a certain point. Through one of these I will stab him in the head, and through the other in the heart.”
For five days she allowed him to visit her without taking any fresh steps.
Precipitation would be her ruin, and she was too wary to risk taking any false step.
During the succeeding five days she coiled herself slowly and silently round the poor sleeping victim; soon he would be quite encircled in those horrible folds which embraced before they killed.
During those five days she matured her observations of the intricacies of his character, and obtained a certain mastery over him by her prodigious penetration into the meaning of the sacred writings, and by her eloquent and exalted language.
These he ascribed to divine inspiration instead of the human intelligence.
There are men so superstitious upon the problem of faith and inspiration, that they are unable to see things in a practical light.
Without knowing it he already venerated her, for in acuteness and powers of perception she was more than a match for him; and he never for a moment suspected that she was playing a part with one special object.
This gained, she would relapse again into the unscrupulous and sinful woman she had been all through her life.
The warders congratulated him upon the good effects of his ministrations.
“No.43 was quite a different person now from what she used to be,” said one of them to Laura Stanbridge’s pastor.
“I believe and hope she is,” observed Mr. Leverall.
“Oh, dear me yes, sir,” cried the woman, “quite different. When she first came here she’d howl to herself when she thought no one was by, and answer us so surly when any one of us spoke to her, it made a body loathe to go anear her. But now it is quite different. When we go in she’s meek and mild, and is always a reading a good book, and she speaks so beautiful, makes use of such soft and loving expressions that it does one’s heart good to listen to her, poor soul! I do hope she’ll get through the bit of trouble she’s got into.”
The chaplain’s countenance was indicative of the pleasure he felt at listening to the foregoing observations.
“She is in an excellent frame of mind, and feels her position most acutely, I am sure of that,” said he.
“She does, poor dear, and everyone is sorry for her,” cried the canting old crone, who, as the reader may suppose, had been well bribed by the prisoner in cellNo.43.
Miss Stanbridge had been playing her cards pretty well, all things considered. Bribes would not do with the prison chaplain, but she held him in bondage by other means.
Of this she was perfectly convinced, and the sequel proved that she was not far out in her reckoning.
She began to reflect upon her projects, which were still vague and unsettled.
At present they were like dark shadows, which passed backwards and forwards, but which she could not grasp or connect.
She possessed, or supposed she did so, a key to liberty, but she was wandering in the dark, for she had not yet found the door.
She resolved to make him tell her his history. Thus she might obtain a clue to the labyrinth in which she was lost. Thus she might find a fulcrum, without which the most powerful lever is useless.
William Leverall was by this time fairly in the toils of the huntress, albeit she did not realise this herself; but he was so, without perhaps knowing it.
She had so wrought upon him that when he left the cell he could not dismiss her from his thoughts. To say he was in love would be making use of too strong a term; he was fascinated, even as people are said to be fascinated by the piercing eye of the serpent.
His eyes were dull and reddened through want of sleep when he again approached the cell in which Laura Stanbridge was confined.
He had of late visited her several times in the day, and whenever he came he found her always reading.
On this occasion he opened the door softly. She pretended not to hear him.
He gazed upon her with a feeling that almost amounted to veneration. Her pale face and her eyes glowing ardently made her resemble a virgin saint at her devotions.
He was touched, and his countenance was expressive of pity, which, to say the truth, was the index of his thoughts.
He grew more sad when he remembered that, perhaps, in a few weeks she might have to wear a felon’s dress and endure a felon’s doom.
This thought made him shudder. He fancied that he saw her striving to soar above the shame and ignominy—saw her dragged back into the abyss by the base drudgeries and foul companionship of infamous and base women.
“Oh!” he murmured, “how is it possible to avoid the law? How can she be rescued from her impending doom?”
He remained silent and motionless, still gazing at her sorrowfully.
She divined his thoughts, and her black heart leapt with joy. When he spoke to her she gave a faint scream, and said, apologetically—
“Oh! sir, pardon me; I did not know you were here.”
She showed him what she had been reading, and described her feelings with that perfidious eloquence which was one of her chief weapons.
Then she asked him to relate to her his life.
He sat down by her side with his eyes bent on the ground. She was delighted, but did not attempt to give expression to the joy she felt.
Then calmly and in soft low voice he entered upon his history.
He told her all about his college life, his three years at the university, his missionary prospects, his interview with his relative, and his appointment as chaplain to the prison.
He spoke to her of his mother and sister, whom he loved so warmly.
And he laid bare his warm and enthusiastic heart, into which she probed with cold and ingenious calculations.
When he had ended he found her silent and thoughtful, looking vacantly on the ground; he believed that she was buried in a reverie.
But this was not so. She was attempting in these few moments to mould her scheme into a form which could not fail. She threw out a sentence in order that she might feel her way. She watched him keenly as she spoke.
“How long have you been here, then?” she inquired, carelessly.
“Two years,” he answered, with a sigh.
“Two years of prison life—of earnest ministrations! Oh! sir, how many hearts have you moved by your eloquence? Had I not met you, I might have been lost. You so good, so noble—”
“Hush, do not indulge in laudation,” he said, interrupting her.
“But I must when I speak of you,” said she, leaning her head forward till her cheek almost touched his. “Without you my life here would have been insupportable, and the future,” she added, with bitterness, and bursting into tears—“I dread to think of the future.”
“Ah!” he ejaculated; “that is a sad reflection.”
“Oh, sir,” she said, in a tone which seemed to find its way to his heart, “what a terrible position I am in! I behold exposure, ignominy, and disgrace before me. My poor mother will break her heart when she learns what I am charged with.”
“Does she not know it already?” he inquired, in some surprise.
“No—oh, dear, no! My uncle thought it best to keep it from her. It may be that the charge against me will not be substantiated, and in that case she will be spared the infliction of knowing her daughter has been an inmate of a prison. I cannot tell you—words are altogether inadequate to express the miserable state of hopeless despair I am in. Think of a respectable family being disgraced—think of the odium and obloquy that must necessarily fall upon me even under the most favourable circumstances. I have not before spoken of my own deep, deep sorrow—my abject despair. I have not pained you by a recital of all my agonising thoughts, because I thought it selfish to do so; but oh, sir, you behold in me one of the most wretched and miserable creatures you have ever met with. At night I think of these things—by day I strive by prayer and penitence to cast aside the heavy shadow which has fallen over me. I ask for mercy—I pray to be relieved from this miserable thraldom.”
She ceased suddenly and burst into a passionate flood of tears.
He bent over her and with soft words tried to assuage her grief, which was painful to behold.
“You must not give way to despair. Bear up against the deep affliction which has fallen upon you,” he murmured. “Cheer up—brighter days are in store for you, let us hope.”
“For me there is no hope.”
“You must not say that. Hope never deserts us, however sorely we may be tried. It never deserts the truly repentant sinner—you do not need to be told that.”
“Oh, I am supremely miserable,” she ejaculated. “If it were possible for me to return to society without disgrace and exposure I would for the rest of my life devote myself to the service of my fellow-creatures. But——”
“But what?” he inquired.
“I fear it is not possible. Can you see any way?”
This was a home thrust, and the chaplain hardly knew what reply to make.
“I am sure you would lead an exemplary life—I hope so—if you obtained your release.”
“I would—I swear it!” she exclaimed, with sudden warmth and energy. “I will swear it on this sacred book.”
She laid her hands on a volume which was on the table before her.
“All this is very sad and painful,” he murmured. “You are respectably connected, without doubt.”
“Dear me, yes. Some day I hope to introduce you to my relations.”
“There will be time enough to think of that hereafter.”
“Ah, hereafter—you are right. It is the present, the miserable, hopeless present, I have to consider; and when I think of that I grow sick at heart. Tell me what I am to do—you are so good, so pure, and high-minded.”
She looked up into his face, and saw that he was deeply moved.
“Forgive me troubling you about my wordly affairs. I feel that I am inflicting pain upon you. Pardon, pardon me.”
She drew her hand across her eyes, and again regarded him with a glance which was at once supplicating, caressing, and voluptuous.
He quailed before the glance.
“Tell me—tell me what I am to do,” said she, placing her hand upon his shoulder.
A beautiful woman in distress might well move the most obdurate heart, the most unimpressionable of the opposite sex to her own.
Mr. Leverall felt a strange thrill pass through his frame. It was the first time the prisoner had been so demonstrative. His pulse quickened as he felt her soft, pliant hand upon his shoulder.
She was not slow to perceive the effect of her wiles. As a cat with slow, noiseless and stealthy steps approaches her prey, so did Laura Stanbridge approach her victim.
She poured forth another piteous and eloquent appeal, and as she did so drew closer to him.
“My guide—my counsellor—my kind and gentle monitor! tell me what I am to do,” said she. “You, who are so wise, have such wondrous powers of perception and penetration, are so well adapted to save and succour one who is at the present moment surrounded with difficulties which appear to be insurmountable.”
“I have already given you the best advice I could offer,” said he, not daring to turn his head and look at the upturned beseeching face of the siren by his side.
“You have caused me solace which can never be forgotten,” she exclaimed, with something like rapture in her tone and manner.
She rested her head on his shoulder, pressing him fondly with her hand on the other.
He did not attempt to withdraw from her embrace. He placed his arm round her waist and drew her towards him.
Their lips met, and being now no longer master of himself, he had one long lingering embrace, which, if the truth must be told, was neither parental nor fraternal.
“He is mine,” murmured the charmer, to herself. “He is in my toils, and soon, very soon, I shall be able to mould him at my will.”
It was true enough the chaplain was fascinated with the seductive being by his side. He forgot to administer his habitual moral discourse—he forgot all but one thing, this being that he had an alluring and fascinating woman by his side—and he drank deep of his first draught of illicit love.
She had worked unceasingly to bring about the present issue, and she had succeeded far beyond her expectations. The fortress she had been endeavouring to reach for so long a time fell into her hands as suddenly as unexpected.
A smile of triumph sat upon her features, for she felt that the battle was nearly won. She felt assured also that very shortly she should be able to gain her liberty; nevertheless she could not conceal from herself that much remained to be done.
Mr. Bourne, her uncle, had paid her another visit. He had brought her a second supply of money, which had been sent by Charles Peace.
Laura Stanbridge had bribed the female warders in charge of her so liberally that they were quite astounded at her munificence.
In prisons, workhouses, and other public institutions, money works wonders. It is useful enough, we all of us will readily admit, everywhere and under all circumstances, but without it the prisoner can do little or nothing—with it he or she can do a great deal.
The female warders were in the pay of Laura Stanbridge.
She persuaded them that she was highly connected, that some of her relations belonged to the upper ten, and they believed her. Small wonder at that, seeing that in appearance she was far above those females they were accustomed to have under their charge, and in addition to this she appeared to have ample means furnished her from those of her relations and outside the walls of the prison.
The chaplain’s visit on this occasion was one unusually long—indeed, there is no telling how long it would have been had it not been rudely interrupted.
While seated by the side of his enchantress the alarm bell of the prison was suddenly rung.
This was followed by the shuffling of feet along the corridor, the sounds of many voices, as of people who were conversing hurriedly.
Mr. Leverall judged rightly enough that something unusual had occurred in the gaol.
“My dear Laura,” he exclaimed (he had already learned to call her by her Christian name), “there must be some strong reason for all this commotion; I must, therefore, leave you now.”
“You are going,” cried the prisoner, pouting. “Well, I will not seek to detain you.”
The door was suddenly opened, and a male warder thrust his head in.
He was evidently in a state of alarm, and said—
“Oh, your pardon, sir, but the governor wishes you to attend a patient in the infirmary.”
“What is the matter, Martin?” inquired the chaplain.
“A prisoner has attempted to escape, and is dreadfully injured. The governor thought you had better see him.”
“Oh, certainly, by all means I will do so,” observed the chaplain, who at once left the cell with the prison official.