‘No such thought entered our heads, sir,’ Ambrose answered. ‘How could we foresee that the neighbours would search the kiln, and say what they have said of us? All we feared was, that the old man might hear of the quarrel, and be bitterer against us than ever. I was the more anxious of the two to keep things secret, because I had Naomi to consider as well as the old man. Put yourself in my place, and you will own, sir, that the prospect at home was not a pleasant one for me, if John Jago really kept away from the farm, and if it came out that it was all my doing.’
(This was certainly an explanation of his conduct; but it was not quite satisfactory to my mind.)
‘As you believe, then,’ I went on, ‘John Jago has carried out his threat of not returning to the farm? According to you, he is now alive and in hiding somewhere?’
‘Certainly!’
said
Ambrose.
‘Certainly!’
repeated
Naomi.
‘Do you believe the report that he was seen travelling on the railway to New York?’
‘I believe it firmly, sir; and, what is more, I believe I was on his track. I was only too anxious to find him; and I say I could have found him, if they would have let me stay in New York.’
I looked at Naomi.
‘I believe it too,’ she said. ‘John Jago is keeping away.
‘Do you suppose he is afraid of Ambrose and Silas?’
She
hesitated.
‘He may be afraid of them,’ she replied, with a strong emphasis on the word ‘may.
‘But you don’t think it likely?’ She hesitated again. I pressed her again.
‘Do you think there is any other motive for his absence?’
Her eyes dropped to the floor. She answered obstinately, almost doggedly,—‘I can’t say.’
I addressed myself to Ambrose.
‘Have you anything more to tell us?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I have told you all I know about it.’
I rose to speak to the lawyer whose services I had retained. He had helped us to get the order of admission, and he had accompanied us to the prison. Seated apart, he had kept silence throughout, attentively watching the effect of Ambrose Meadowcroft’s narrative on the officers of the prison and on me.
‘Is this the defence?’ I enquired, in a whisper.
‘This is the defence, Mr Lefrank. What do you think, between ourselves?’ ‘Between ourselves, I think the magistrate will commit them for trial.’ ‘On the charge of murder?’
‘Yes; on the charge of murder.’
VIII THE CONFESSION
My replies to the lawyer accurately expressed the conviction in my mind. The narrative related by Ambrose had all the appearance, in my eyes, of a fabricated story, got up, and clumsily got up, to pervert the plain meaning of the circumstantial evidence produced by the prosecution. I reached this Conclusion reluctantly and regretfully, for Naomi’s sake. I said all I could say to shake the absolute confidence which she felt in the discharge of the Prisoners at the next examination.
The day of the adjourned enquiry arrived.
Naomi and I again attended the court together. Mr Meadowcroft was unable, on this occasion, to leave the house. His daughter was present, walking to the court by herself, and occupying a seat by herself.
On his second appearance at the ‘bar,’ Silas was more composed, and more like his brother. No new witnesses were called by the prosecution. We began the battle over the medical evidence relating to the charred bones; and, to some extent, we won the victory.
In other words, we forced the doctors to acknowledge that they differed widely in their opinions. They confessed that they were not certain. Two went still further, and declared that the bones were the bones of an animal, not of a man. We made the most of this; and then we entered upon the defence, founded on Ambrose Meadowcroft’s story.
Necessarily, no witnesses could be called on our side. Whether this circumstance discouraged him, or whether he privately shared my opinion of his client’s statement, I cannot say—it is only certain that the lawyer spoke mechanically, doing his best, no doubt, but doing it without genuine conviction or earnestness on his own part. Naomi cast an anxious glance at me as he sat down. The girl’s hand, when I took it, turned cold in mine. She saw plain signs of the failure of the defence in the look and manner of the counsel for the prosecution; but she waited resolutely until the presiding magistrate announced his decision. I had only too clearly foreseen what he would feel it to be his duty to do. Naomi’s head dropped on my shoulder as he said the terrible words which committed Ambrose and Silas Meadowcroft to take their trial on the charge of murder.
I led her out of the court into the air. As I passed the ‘bar,’ I saw Ambrose, deadly pale, looking after us as we left him; the magistrate’s decision had evidently daunted him. His brother Silas had dropped in abject terror on the gaoler’s chair; the miserable wretch shook and shuddered dumbly like a cowed dog.
Miss Meadowcroft returned with us to the farm, preserving unbroken silence on the way back. I could detect nothing in her bearing which suggested any compassionate feeling for the prisoners in her stern and secret nature. On Naomi’s withdrawal to her own room, we were left together for a few minutes; and then, to my astonishment, the outwardly merciless woman showed me that she, too, was one of Eve’s daughters, and could feel and suffer, in her own hard way, like the rest of us. She suddenly stepped close up to me, and laid her hand on my arm.
‘You are a lawyer, ain’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you had any experience in your profession?’
‘Ten
years’
experience.’
‘Do you think—’ She stopped abruptly; her hard face softened; her eyes dropped to the ground. ‘Never mind,’ she said, confusedly. ‘I’m upset by all this misery, though I may not look like it. Don’t notice me.’
She turned away. I waited, in the firm persuasion that the unspoken question in her mind would sooner or later force its way to utterance by her lips. I was right. She came back to me unwillingly, like a woman acting under some influence which the utmost exertion of her will was powerless to resist.
‘Do you believe John Jago is still a living man?’
She put the question vehemently, desperately, as if the words rushed out of her mouth in spite of her.
‘I do not believe it,’ I answered.
‘Remember what John Jago has suffered at the hands of my brothers,’ she persisted. ‘Is it not in your experience that he should take a sudden resolution to leave the farm?’
I replied, as plainly as before—
‘It is not in my experience.’
She stood looking at me for a moment with a face of blank despair; then bowed her grey head in silence, and left me. As she crossed the room to the door, I saw her look upward; and I heard her say to herself softly, between her teeth, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.’
It was the requiem of John Jago, pronounced by the woman who loved him.
When I next saw her, her mask was on once more. Miss Meadowcroft was herself again. Miss Meadowcroft could sit by, impenetrably calm, while the lawyers discussed the terrible position of her brothers, with the scaffold in view as one of the possibilities of the ‘case’.
Left by myself, I began to feel uneasy about Naomi. I went upstairs, and, knocking softly at her door, made my enquiries from outside. The clear young voice answered me sadly, ‘I am trying to bear it: I won’t distress you when we meet again.’ I descended the stairs, feeling my first suspicion of the true nature of my interest in the American girl.
Why had her answer brought the tears into my eyes? I went out walking, alone, to think undisturbedly. Why did the tones of her voice dwell on my ear all the way? Why did my hand still feel the last cold, faint pressure of her fingers when I led her out of court?
I took a sudden resolution to go back to England.
/> When I returned to the farm, it was evening. The lamp was not yet lit in the hall.
Pausing to accustom my eyes to the obscurity in-doors, I heard the voice of the lawyer whom we had employed for the defence, speaking to some one very earnestly.
‘I’m not to blame,’ said the voice. ‘She snatched the paper out of my hand before I was aware of her.’
‘Do you want it back?’ asked the voice of Miss Meadowcroft.
‘No: it’s only a copy. If keeping it will help to quiet her, let her keep it by all means.
Good evening.’
Saying those last words, the lawyer approached me on his way out of the house. I stopped him without ceremony: I felt an ungovernable curiosity to know more.
‘Who snatched the paper out of your hand?’ I asked, bluntly.
The lawyer started. I had taken him by surprise. The instinct of professional reticence made him pause before he answered me.
In the brief interval of silence, Miss Meadowcroft replied to my question from the other end of the hall.
‘Naomi Colebrook snatched the paper out of his hand.’
‘What
paper?’
A door opened softly behind me. Naomi herself appeared on the threshold; Naomi herself answered my question.
‘I will tell you,’ she whispered. ‘Come in here.’
One candle only was burning in the room. I looked at her by the dim light. My resolution to return to England instantly became one of the lost ideas of my life.
‘Good God!’ I exclaimed, ‘what has happened now?’
She gave me the paper which she had taken from the lawyer’s hand.
The ‘copy’ to which he had referred, was a copy of the written confession of Silas Meadowcroft on his return to prison. He accused his brother Ambrose of the murder of John Jago. He declared on his oath that he had seen his brother Ambrose commit the crime.
In the popular phrase, I could ‘hardly believe my own eyes.’ I read the last sentences of the confession for the second time:
. . . I heard their voices at the lime-kiln. They were having words about Cousin Naomi. I ran to the place to part them. I was not in time. I saw Ambrose strike the deceased a terrible blow on the head with his (Ambrose’s) heavy stick. The deceased dropped without a cry. I put my hand on his heart. He was dead. I was horribly frightened.
Ambrose threatened to kill me next if I said a word to any living soul. He took up the body and cast it into the quick-lime, and threw the stick in after it. We went on together to the wood. We sat down on a felled tree outside the wood. Ambrose made up the story that we were to tell if what he had done was found out. He made me repeat it after him like a lesson. We were still at it when Cousin Naomi and Mr Lefrank came up to us. They know the rest. This, on my oath, is a true confession. I make it of my own free will, repenting me sincerely that I did not make it before.
(Signed) SILAS MEADOWCROFT
I laid down the paper, and looked at Naomi once more. She spoke to me with a strange composure. Immovable determination was in her eye; immovable determination was in her voice.
‘Silas has lied away his brother’s life to save himself,’ she said. ‘I see cowardly falsehood and cowardly cruelty in every line on that paper. Ambrose is innocent, and the time has come to prove it.’
‘You forget,’ I said, ‘that we have just failed to prove it.’
She took no notice of my objection.
‘John Jago is alive, in hiding from us,’ she went on. ‘Help me, friend Lefrank, to advertise for him in the newspapers.’
I drew back from her in speechless distress. I own I believed that the new misery which had fallen on her had affected her brain.
‘You don’t believe it?’ she said. ‘Shut the door.’
I obeyed her. She seated herself, and pointed to a chair near her.
‘Sit down,’ she proceeded. ‘I am going to do a wrong thing, but there is no help for it. I am going to break a sacred promise. You remember that moonlight night when I met him on the garden-walk?’
‘John
Jago?’
‘Yes. Now listen. I am going to tell you what passed between John Jago and me.’
IX THE ADVERTISEMENT
I waited in silence for the disclosure that was now to come. Naomi began by asking me a question..
‘You remember when we went to see Ambrose in prison?’ she said.
‘Perfectly.’
‘Ambrose told us of something which his villain of a brother said of John Jago and me.
Do you remember what it was?’
I remembered perfectly. Silas had said, ‘John Jago is too sweet On Naomi not to come back.’
‘That’s so,’ Naomi remarked, when I had repeated the words. ‘I couldn’t help starting when I heard what Silas had said; and I thought you noticed me.’
‘I did notice you.’
‘Did you wonder what it meant?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll tell you. It meant this: What Silas Meadowcroft said to his brother of John Jago, was what I myself was thinking of John Jago at that very moment. It startled me to find my own thought in a man’s mind, spoken for me by a man. I am the person, sir, who has driven John Jago away from Morwick Farm; and I am the person who can and will bring him back again.’
There was something in her manner, more than in her words, which let the light in suddenly on my mind.
‘You have told me the secret,’ I said. ‘John Jago is in love with you.’
‘Mad about me!’ she rejoined, dropping her voice to a whisper. ‘Stark, staring mad!—
that’s the only word for him. After we had taken a few turns on the gravel-walk, he suddenly broke out like a man beside himself. He fell down on his knees; he kissed my gown, he kissed my feet; he sobbed and cried for love of me. I’m not badly off for courage, sir, considering I’m a woman. No man, that I can call to mind, ever really scared me before. But, I own, John Jago frightened me: oh, my! he did frighten me! My heart was in my mouth, and my knees shook under me. I begged and prayed of him to get up and go away. No; there he knelt, and held by the skirt of my gown. The words poured out from him like—well, like nothing I can think of but water from a pump. His happiness and his life, and his hopes in earth and heaven, and Lord only knows what besides, all depended, he said, on a word from me. I plucked up spirit enough at that to remind him that I was promised to Ambrose. “I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” I said,
“to own that you are wicked enough to love me when you know I am promised to another man!” When I spoke to him, he took a new turn: he began abusing Ambrose. That straightened me up. I snatched my gown out of his hand, and I gave him my whole mind.
“I hate you!” I said. “Even if I wasn’t promised to Ambrose, I wouldn’t marry you; no!
not if there wasn’t another man left in the world to ask me. I hate you, Mr Jago! I hate you!” He saw I was in earnest at last. He got up from my feet, and he settled down quiet again, all on a sudden. “You have said enough” (that was how he answered me). “You have broken my life. I have no hopes and no prospects now. I had a pride in the farm,
miss, and a pride in my work; I bore with your brutish cousins’ hatred of me; I was faithful to Mr Meadowcroft’s interests; all for your sake, Naomi Colebrook—all for your sake! I have done with it now; I have done with my life at the farm. You will never be troubled with me again. I am going away, as the dumb creatures go when they are sick, to hide myself in a corner, and die. Do me one last favour. Don’t make me the laughing-stock of the whole neighbourhood. I can’t bear that: it maddens me, only to think of it.
Give me your promise never to tell any living soul what I have said to you to-night—your sacred promise to the man whose life you have broken!” I did as he bade me: I gave him my sacred promise with the tears in my eyes. Yes; that is so. After telling him I hated him (and I did hate him), I cried over his misery; I did. Mercy, what fools women are! What is the horrid perversity, sir, which ma
kes us always ready to pity the men? He held out his hand to me; and he said, “Good bye for ever!’ and I pitied him. I said, “I’ll shake hands with you if you will give me your promise in exchange for mine. I beg of you not to leave the farm. What will my uncle do if you go away? Stay here, and be friends with me; and forget and forgive, Mr John.” He gave me his promise (he can refuse me nothing); and he gave it again when I saw him again the next morning. Yes, I’ll do him justice, though I do hate him! I believe he honestly meant to keep his word as long as my eye was on him.
It was only when he was left to himself that the Devil tempted him to break his promise, and leave the farm. I was brought up to believe in the Devil, Mr Lefrank; and I find it explains many things. It explains John Jago. Only let me find out where he has gone, and I’ll engage he shall come back and clear Ambrose of the suspicion which his vile brother has cast on him. Here is the pen all ready for you. Advertise for him, friend Lefrank; and do it right away, for my sake!’
I let her run on, without attempting to dispute her conclusions, until she could say no more. When she put the pen into my hand, I began the composition of the advertisement, as obediently as if I, too, believed that John Jago was a living man.
In the case of anyone else, I should have openly acknowledged that my own convictions remained unshaken. If no quarrel had taken place at the lime-kiln, I should have been quite ready, as I viewed the case, to believe that John Jago’s disappearance was referable to the terrible disappointment which Naomi had inflicted on him. The same morbid dread of ridicule which had led him to assert that he cared nothing for Naomi, when he and Silas had quarrelled under my bedroom-window, might also have impelled him to withdraw himself secretly and suddenly from the scene of his discomfiture. But to ask me to believe, after what had happened at the lime-kiln, that he was still living, was to ask me to take Ambrose Meadowcroft’s statement for granted as a true statement of facts.
I had refused to do this from the first; and I still persisted in taking that course. If I had been called upon to decide the balance of probability between the narrative related by Ambrose in his defence and the narrative related by Silas in his confession. I must have owned, no matter how unwillingly, that the confession was, to my mind, the least incredible story of the two.
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