CHAPTER LX.AN UNEXPECTED WITNESS.
A young woman, evidently of the working classes, was talking eagerly with a policeman, stationed at the door of the court-room, which disturbed the judge, who looked that way with an expression of annoyance.
Boyce also gazed anxiously around; a deadly whiteness crept over his face, as he looked for some other door by which he might hope to escape. None presented itself. Rendered desperate by fear, he hurried toward the woman, and attempted to pass her, forcing a ghastly smile to his lips, calling her by name, and saying, with airy lightness, that he wished to speak with her.
The woman turned upon him fiercely. He saw that her eyes were heavy with weeping, and her whole face flushed with angry grief. Every nerve in his body quivered; the breath stopped in his throat. He could not have maintained that jaunty air a moment longer.
“Come along! I have lots to say to you!”
“Say it to him!” answered the woman, pointing toward the policeman. “He will go with you, I dare say. I have got business in here.”
“Business! You? What? What business?”
“Come back, and you’ll hear. At any rate, I’m not afraid of you going far. Make sure that you’ll be wanted!”
“What do you mean, woman? Are you going back on your own husband?” gasped the frightened wretch, in a hoarse whisper. “Are you, Mary?”
“Not yet,” answered the woman. “But no wonder you think so, for I’m going to do a queer thing for once!”
“What? What is that?”
“I’m going to speak the truth, and shame—Well, no matter.”
“Mary!”
“Yes! That’s my name. Mary Boyce. Tell Mr. Mahone that the old name is good enough for me and my baby; but then we don’t wear French caps and pink streamers, and no young lady is yearning to give me five thousand dollars for disgracing innocent people! Such things don’t often come in the way of a poor woman, who goes out to day’s washing to support herself and her child, besides handing over her hard earnings to the man who wants to leave her.”
“Mary! Mary! Listen to me! You are mistaken! Some wicked person has been telling you lies!”
Boyce caught his sister-in-law by the arm, driven frantic by her words.
She tore herself from his hold, and hurrying up to the judge, broke in upon him.
“Sir! Yer honor! I know all about this case! That young man standing there is Jared Boyce, my husband’s brother. Swear me, please. Let me tell the story with my hand on the Bible.”
“Let her be sworn,” said the judge; and the woman who had been engaged for extra help in Mrs. Lambert’s laundry laid her hand on the Bible and kissed it reverently.
“Now,” said the magistrate, “what is it you wish me to hear?”
The woman answered promptly and under considerable excitement.
“It was my husband and that copper-headed scamp that robbed Mr. Smith’s store. They two planned it weeks and weeks ago; but it was not till Smith took a new boy on, that they could make anything of a haul. They did it together. My own husband, who is a footman in Fifth Avenue, only he goes by another name, expects that will carry him through bigamy and burglary, and everything else bad that begins with a B. In short, sir, only thismorning, going out to my day’s work, as innocent as a lamb, thinking my husband was at his place down town, where females couldn’t come, though I never saw a smithereen of his money—not I. Well, yer honor, I went to me day’s work in a new place, being on account of another woman’s not being well, and there I finds my own husband making up to a creature that yer honor wouldn’t wipe your shoes on, saving yer presence, and she calling him Mr. Mahone, and talking about a wedding dress that stands alone with richness, and a Miss Spicer, who wants eternal and everlasting disgrace to fall on a family by the name of Laurence.
“Well, yer honor, the long and the short of it is this entirely. Jared Boyce and his brother, me own lawfully wedded husband, robbed Mr. Smith’s store, both of groceries and money, which they divided atween them, in my own room, and the groceries they packed away under my bed and in the closet, and me saying nothing, till they come one night and carried them away; so I, being put about by this, followed after them, and, with my own eyes, saw Jared and me husband hide the groceries and other things away in a wood-house back of a little place where I afterwards saw yon woman going in and out as if she belonged there.
“Well, yer honor, I said nothing about that, but minded me work, and keeping the baby nice in hopes it might ’tice me husband home more, wondering what it all meant, when I found out behind that close-horse in the laundry what was going on in them underground rooms, where servants set up for ladies; I just wiped the soap suds from my arms, put on my bit of a hood and foregathered awhile with a policeman that stands on our corner, about the best way of telling the truth and keeping me husband from that prowling lion with the cap, and it please your honor, he told me to come down here, and never fear that your honor wouldn’t give Robert a taste of Blackwell’s Island which I hope youwill, just enough to set him straight and keep him out of the way of females in caps till he turns to his own lawfully married wife and child. That is all I ask your honor, and if you don’t believe me, just send some one up to me little place and I’ll show him a chist of tea and a box of crackers that they left with me, besides other things just to pacify me for taking off the rest, which I didn’t like at all, not always having tea and such things in the house.”
Here Mrs. Boyce was interrupted by the Judge, who pointed towards the door, and in a stern voice ordered the officer to stop that man.
The man was Jared Boyce, who had been making sickly efforts to slink out of sight, while his sister-in-law was giving her evidence. He had crept up to the door through which he was about to make a desperate plunge just as the Judge observed him. Terrified and shaking from head to foot, the poor wretch muttered that he wasn’t meaning to go out, and retreated to the nearest bench, where his limbs shrunk together, and his face grew more and more livid, as the woman rambled on with her evidence.
“Your honor,” said she, “I don’t want yez to be hard on my Robert. A week at Blackwell’s Island will be plenty to bring him to his sinses and make an honest man and dutiful husband of him. But as for the woman who was tempting him into unlawful bigermy, as the perliceman calls it; twenty years wouldn’t be too much for her, with plinty of hard work at the wash-tub, and bread and water to live on.”
Here Mrs. Boyce was preparing to step down from the witness stand but turned back again, having thought of something else.
“It was that female, your honor, that set him on to parsecute this woman, that never says a word or cries a tear more an if she was made of stone, yer honor; and it was her that put him up to marrying her ownself before thepriest, so ye cannot give the crather too much punishment, which is all I have to say, that I think of now.”
Having thus expressed her wishes, Mrs. Boyce came down from the witness stand with a look of triumph on the face that had been stained with tears when she went up; for she had great faith in her own eloquence, and entertained no doubt that the judge would kindly deal out justice exactly as she had recommended, for he had seemed deeply interested, and smiled more than once while she was giving her evidence.
But the woman’s countenance fell when she saw Jared crouching on his bench, pale and shivering with dread of the fate her words had prepared for him. She went up to him, with a little hesitation, and was about to assure him of her protection, but he glared upon her like a wild beast, and turned his face to the wall, muttering hoarsely,
“Get out of my sight, you fool! It is in States Prison for years you’ve put me and your own husband this day.”
The woman was struck dumb by his words; the color left her face to its natural wan misery. She looked wildly around toward the judge, who was talking with the tall gentleman who had entered the court-room so quietly. She looked again at Boyce, and in a broken, piteous voice besought him to tell her the truth, would the judge be so cruel after all she had said to him.
“Cruel, you idiot! he can’t help himself,” answered the clerk, livid with malice and cowardly dread, “you’ve done for me, and you’ve done for your own husband.”
“No, no, it’s wanting to break my heart ye are, just out of spite; but I don’t believe ye. It’s the woman he’ll send up yonder.”
“The woman, he can’t touch her!”
“What! what is it ye say.”
“That woman will carry her head high as ever, while you are worse than a widow, that’s what I say.”
“A widdy—me a widdy, whist now, Jared, it’s jokin’ ye are.”
“Joking,” repeated the clerk, bitterly, “It seems like a joke, don’t it? They are making out the warrants now, but I can tell you this, for your comfort. Robert will be married before they can reach him.”
“Married! To that woman?”
“To that woman.”
Once more Mrs. Boyce rushed before the judge.
“Oh, yer honor—”
The judge waved her back, he was giving orders about some papers that a clerk was writing out.
“But, yer honor,” persisted the distracted creature.
“You can go home now, my good woman. The officer will let you know when you are wanted again,” said the judge, without lifting his eyes.
The poor woman looked wildly around the court-room, but there was no one to whom she could appeal. Then struck with the thought that her husband was perhaps being married, she rushed from the room.
It was nearly dark when this poor wife, stung with regret for what she had done, and tortured with dread, reached the vicinity of Mrs. Lambert’s dwelling. She dared not attempt to go in, but walked up and down the block, keeping the servants’ entrance in view all the time. Once or twice she passed a police officer who seemed watching like herself, but shunned him with trembling dread. What did he want there, and who was he waiting for?
After it became quite dark, the poor woman lingered in sight of the house. She had walked all the way down to the Tombs and back again, her limbs were weary, her heart ached with apprehension. Oh, if she could only see her husband one moment to warn him of the danger her own ignorance had brought upon him.
The woman grew desperate, she could pace that side-walkno longer. It was quite dark and her child would be crying with hunger; at any rate she would ring at the servants door.
As Mrs. Boyce was advancing for that purpose a carriage drove up. She hesitated and drew back into a shadow of the garden wall. The policeman was near her, but she was too much absorbed to observe him.
Directly the door opened and two persons came out. One a figure in flowing white garments that gleamed like snow across the darkness; the other a man. There was a pause near the carriage, and the woman was close enough to hear every word these two persons said. The woman drew back and seemed to hesitate about entering the carriage.
“Your friend is not here; we cannot proceed without him; there must be witnesses,” she said.
“But we shall find them at the minister’s,” pleaded the man. “I don’t pretend to know what keeps my friend Boyce, but one witness is as good as another; do step in, or we shall be late.”
Ellen Post had her foot on the step and was gathering the bridal veil about her, when a strange hand was laid on her arm, and the face of Mrs. Boyce gleamed on her with the lamp light full upon it.
“Woman, go back into the house, take off them white things and ask God to forgive you. This man is my own lawfully wedded husband.”
The deep, honest feeling of the wife gave dignity to her speech. Ellen Post stepped back and stood gazing on her, pale and breathless.
“Who are you? What does this mean?” she faltered at last.
“I am this man’s wife, that’s what I am, and we have one child, which you can see any day if you will come to my place, Ellen Post.”
“I don’t believe it. Mahone, Mahone, come here and tell this woman she lies.”
“Oh Robert, Robert, run for your life. Jared is in prison; they will be after you,” pleaded the poor wronged wife. “Don’t wait for anything, but go.”
“Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you deny this?” demanded Ellen Post, stamping her whitely-clad foot on the side-walk.
“The gentleman has something else to do,” answered the strange voice of a man who had quietly drawn near and laid his hand on Mahone’s shoulder.
“Robert Boyce, you must go with me.”
“A policeman!” faltered the bride, “what does this mean?”
“A policeman,” moaned the wife; “oh Robert, Robert, say you forgive me!”
Boyce turned his wild eyes from his wife to the officer, and stared a moment in the man’s face. Then he made a sudden twist, wrenched himself free, and made a bound forward—one bound and the heavy hand grasped his shoulder again.
Before either of the women could speak, Robert Boyce was led off into the darkness.