Mrs Peixada

by Henry Harland

  CHAPTER XII.—“THE FINAL STATE O’ THE STORY.”

  ON Thursday, August 14th, at about half, past one in the afternoon,Assistant-district-attorney Romer was seated in his office, poring overa huge law-book’, and smoking a huge cigar, when the door suddenlyflew open, and in came, or more accurately, in burst Mr. Julian Hetzel.In one hand Hetzel carried a dripping umbrella; the other hand wasthrust deep into the breast of its owner’s coat. Hetzel’s face worean expression of intense excitement.

  Romer lifted his eyes from off his law-book, removed his cigar frombetween his lips, and ejaculated, “Hello! What’s up now?”

  Hetzel hurried straight ahead, till he had reached the edge of Romer’sdesk. Then, extracting a ponderous envelope from the inner pocket ofhis coat, he threw it emphatically down upon Romer’s blotting pad, andcried, “Read that—will you?—and tell me what you think of it.”

  Romer picked the envelope up, looked inquiringly at its superscription,inserted thumb, and forefinger, drew out its contents, unfolded thesame, turned to the beginning, scanned perhaps the first dozen lines,stopped, ran the pages rapidly over to the end, found the signature,then glanced up, and asked, “Are you in a hurry? Have you plenty oftime to spare? Because it’s a pretty serious undertaking—to readthis through.”

  “Here—give it to me,” returned Hetzel. “I’ve been over itonce, and got familiar with the handwriting. I’ll read it to you.”

  Hetzel read Ruth Ripley’s letter aloud to Romer. The reading consumedrather more than an hour. Not once did Romer interrupt, or Hetzel pause.At the end, the two men looked at each other in silence. By and byRomer’s lips opened.

  “By—by God!” was all he said.

  Then he began to pace uneasily to and fro across the room.

  “Well,” asked Hetzel, “do you think that that’s the sort of awoman to be left locked up in the Tombs prison?”

  “Heavens and earth!” cried Romer; and continued his promenade.

  “But the question is,” said Hetzel, “whether she’s to be leftthere in the Tombs. In view of what she has written down in thosepapers, can’t we get her out? I want to take her home before nightfallto-day. It seems to me, it’s an outrage upon humanity for her toremain locked up an hour longer. You’re acquainted with the practicalside of this kind of thing. Now, give me your opinion.”

  Romer knitted his brows, and kept on moving back and forth, up and downthe room, Gradually, pendulum-fashion, the space covered at each turnshortened somewhat; until finally coming to a standstill, Romer said,“Yes, by Jove! You’re right. She sha’n’. spend another night inthat place if I can help it; and I think I can.”

  “Good and the less time lost, the better.”

  “What I mean to do,” said Romer, “is this. I mean to take a prettybig responsibility upon my shoulders, but I guess I’m safe in doingso. I’m sure Mr. Orson would approve, if he were here; and as longas he isn’t here, I’m going to act on that assumption, and run thechances of getting his approval after the fact. The homicide that thatwoman committed—why, it was a clear case of self-defense. And whatI’m going to take the responsibility of doing is this. I shall senddown to the Tombs and have her brought up here—to my office—withouta moment’s delay. While the officers are gone after her, I’ll runinto court and speak privately to the judge. I’ll lay these factsbefore him, and tell him that we, the People, are convinced that itwas a plain case of justifiable homicide; and I’ll ask him to let herwithdraw her plea of guilty, and enter one of not guilty, right away. Hecan’t refuse, if I put it on that ground. I’ll ask him, moreover,as a personal favor to me, to have the court-room cleared of people, sothat she? won’t be obliged to face the music again to-day, as she wasyesterday. I can’t promise that he’ll agree to this; but it isn’tat all impossible. Well and good. I’ll make these arrangements beforeshe arrives. When she does arrive, I’ll talk to her. You leave me todo the talking. Then we’ll go with her into the judge’s presence,and have her do what’s necessary there. And then, in your sight and inhers, so that all doubt on that score will be cleared away for goodand all, I’ll nolle the indictment! That is to say, I’ll render theindictment null and void by indorsing upon it a nol. pros., togetherwith a memorandum to the effect that the district-attorney is persuadedof the defendant’s innocence. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Hetzel, “I think I understand. And if you can onlysucceed in doing this, we—we’ll—” Hetzel’s voice broke. Beforehe was able to recover it, Romer had left the room.

  Half an hour, or thereabouts, elapsed. Hetzel waited as patiently ashe could—which is not saying much. Every five minutes, he had out hiswatch. It was nearly half past three when at last Romer reappeared.

  “Well?” Hetzel made haste to inquire.

  “Well,” said Romer, “congratulate me! The judge agrees to do everything, just as I wished. At first he was disposed to hesitate. Then Iread him that part where she describes the application of the torture.That finished him. They’re just winding up a larceny case at thismoment. He’s on the point of sentencing the prisoner. After that’sover, he’ll have the court-room emptied, and be ready for us. Sheought to get here any minute now, and—” Romer paused; for, at thismoment, the door of his office opened, and Mrs. Ripley entered the room.

  She halted just across the threshold, looked from Romer to Hetzel, bowedslightly to the latter, and then stood still in passive attendance.

  Romer advanced toward her, and said, very gently, “I beg of you, Mrs.Ripley, to come in and sit down. I have something to say, and Ishall thank you very much if you will listen. Sit down here in thiseasy-chair.—There.—Now, when you are ready, I’ll speak.”

  “I am ready,” she said. Her voice was faint and weak. She leanedback in her chair, as though feeble and exhausted. Her face wasintensely white—snow-white beneath its coronet of raven hair. Therewere large, dark circles under her eyes.

  “Mrs. Ripley,” began Romer—then hesitated—then began anew,“Mrs. Ripley, I—that is, Mr. Hetzel—Mr. Hetzel has given me theletter you wrote him yesterday, and I have read it. I dare not trustmyself to—to say what—to say any thing about it, more than this,that we—the district-attorney’s office—that we are sorry, very,very sorry for all that has happened—for all that you have been madeto suffer these last few days, and that—that we are anxious to doevery thing in our power to make amends. Of course I know we nevercan make amends in full. I know that. We can’t undo what has beendone—can’t cure the pain that you’ve already had to bear.But—but we can spare you—we can save you from having to suffer anymore pain, and—and then, you know, being ignorant of the real truth,as we were, it wasn’t altogether our fault, was it? No; the originalfault lay with your lawyers, Short and Sondheim, when you were firsttried, years ago. They—they ought to have been strung and quartered,because, if they had had you tell your story to the district-attorneythen, and if you had told it in its completeness, as you have in thisletter, why—why, nobody would have doubted your innocence for amoment, and you would have been spared no end of trouble and sorrow andmortification. But that’s neither here nor there. It’s too late tocomplain of Short and Sondheim. They have an inborn antipathy to thetruth, and always fight as shy of it as they can. There’s no useraking up bygones. The point is now that we want to set you at libertyas quickly as possible. That’s the most we can do. We mean to nollethe indictment against you—which will be as complete an exoneration asan acquittal by a jury and an honorable discharge by a judge wouldbe. That’s what we intend to do. But first—before we can dothat—first, you know, you will have to untie our hands by withdrawingthe plea that you put in yesterday, and by entering in place of it aplea of not guilty. Then you’ll be a free woman. Then you can go homewith Mr. Hetzel, here, and rest assured that you’ll never be troubledany more about the matter.”

  Ruth sat perfectly still in her chair. Her great, melancholy eyes werefixed upon the wall in front of her. She made no answer.

  “Now,” Romer said, af
ter having waited in vain for her to speak,“now, if you will be so good, I should like to have you come with meinto the court room, in order, you know, to do what I have said.”

  At this, Ruth winced perceptibly. “Oh,” she said, very low,“must—must I go into court again?”

  “Oh, this time,” explained Romer, “it will not be as hard for youas it was before. There’ll be, no spectators and no red tape. You’lltell the judge that you withdraw your plea of guilty, and plead notguilty, and he’ll say all right; and then you’ll see me nolle theindictment; and then it will all be over for good; and, as I’ve said,you’ll go home with Mr. Hetzel.”

  Ruth rose, bowed to Romer, and said, “I am ready to follow you.”

  “Is there any objection to my accompanying you?” Hetzel asked.

  “Oh, no; come along,” said Romer.

  Every thing befell substantially as Romer had predicted. They found thejudge presiding over an empty court-room. His honor came down informallyfrom the bench, bade Mrs. Ripley be seated, said laughingly, “I’llact as clerk and judge both,” went to the clerk’s desk, possessedhimself of pen, ink, and paper, rattled off sotto voce, “You, JudithPeixada, do hereby”—mumble, mumble, mumble—“and enter in lieu ofthe same”—mumble, mumble—“upon the indictment;” threw down hispen, got up, added in a loud, hearty voice, “That’s all, madam: goodday,” bowed, and left the room.

  A few minutes later Ruth was seated at Hetzel’s side in a carriage;and the carriage was making at top-speed for Beekman Place. After theyhad driven for half a dozen blocks in silence, Hetzel began, “Mrs.Ripley, I am sorry to disturb you. I suppose you are so tired that youwould rather not be talked to. But there is something which you musthear before we reach home; and I must beg of you to give me permissionto say it now—at once.”

  “Say any thing you wish. I will listen to any thing you wish tosay.” Her voice was that of a woman whose spirit has been quite brokenand subdued.

  “Well, then, the upshot of what I have to say is just this.Don’t for a moment imagine that I mean to reproach you. Under thecircumstances—considering the shock and the pain of your situationlast Monday—you weren’t to be blamed for jumping to a falseconclusion. But now, at last, you are in a position to see things asthey truly are. What I want to say is what Mrs. Hart wanted to say whenshe visited you on Tuesday. It is that Arthur—that your husband—hadno more idea, when he put that advertisement into the papers, that youwere Judith Peixada, than I had, or than the most indifferent person inthe world had. When you fancy that he had been trying to find out yoursecrets behind your back, you do him a—a tremendous injustice.He never would be capable of such a thing. Arthur is the frankest,honestest fellow that ever lived. He doesn’t know what deceptionmeans. The amount of the matter was simply this. He had been retainedby Mr. Peixada to hunt up his brother’s widow. In order to accomplishthis, he resorted to a device which, I suppose, precedents seemedto justify, though it strikes me as a pretty shabby one,notwithstanding—he advertised. And when he went to meet Mrs. Peixadain his client’s office, and found that she and you were one and thesame person, why, he was as much astonished as—as I was when he camehome and told me about it. There’s the long and short of the story ina nutshell. The detail of it you’ll learn when you talk it over withhim.”

  Hetzel waited, expecting Ruth to speak. But she did not speak for a longwhile. She sat rigid in her corner, with pale face and downcast eyes.At last, however, her lips opened. In a whisper, “Will—will he everforgive me?” she asked.

  “Forgive you?” repeated Hetzel. “He doesn’t feel that he hasany thing to forgive you for. On the other hand, he hopes for yourforgiveness—hopes you will forgive him for having refused to let youspeak. It was a coincidence and a mistake. He loves you. When that issaid, every thing is said.”

  For another long while Ruth kept silence. As the carriage turned intoFiftieth Street, she straightened up, and drew a deep, tremulous breath.After a brief moment of hesitation, she said, “I—I suppose he iswaiting for us—yes?”

  “Well,” Hetzel answered, “that reminds me. You—you see, the factis—”

  And thereupon the poor fellow had to break the news of Arthur’sillness to her, as best he could. Beginning with that hour, the trainednurse had an indefatigable companion in her vigils.