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Morgan Callaway - "Select Poems of Sidney Lanier"

Joel Benton. - "A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T."

Mihai Nadin - "The Civilization of Illiteracy, by Mihai Nadin"

Max Beerbohm - "Enoch Soames"

The Legacy of Cain

W >> Wilkie Collins >> The Legacy of Cain




"My rashness runs the risk of that," I rejoined.

"Tell me something, before I allow you to run your risk," he
said. "Are you one of those people who think that the tempers of
children are formed by the accidental influences which happen to
be about them? Or do you agree with me that the tempers of
children are inherited from their parents?"

The Doctor (as I concluded) was still strongly impressed by the
Minister's resolution to adopt a child whose wicked mother had
committed the most atrocious of all crimes. Was some serious
foreboding in secret possession of his mind? My curiosity to hear
him was now increased tenfold. I replied without hesitation:

"I agree with you."

He looked at me with his sense of humor twinkling in his eyes.
"Do you know I rather expected that answer?" he said, slyly. "All
right. I'll come back."

Left by myself, I took up the day's newspaper.

My attention wandered; my thoughts were in the cell with the
Minister and the Prisoner. How would it end? Sometimes, I was
inclined to doubt with the Doctor. Sometimes, I took refuge in my
own more hopeful view. These idle reflections were agreeably
interrupted by the appearance of my friend, the Chaplain.

"You are always welcome," I said; "and doubly welcome just now. I
am feeling a little worried and anxious."

"And you are naturally," the Chaplain added, not at all disposed
to receive a stranger?"

"Is the stranger a friend of yours?" I asked.

"Oh, no! Having occasion, just now, to go into the waiting-room,
I found a young woman there, who asked me if she could see you.
She thinks you have forgotten her, and she is tired of waiting. I
merely undertook, of course, to mention what she had said to me."

The nurse having been in this way recalled to my memory, I felt
some little interest in seeing her, after what had passed in the
cell. In plainer words, I was desirous of judging for myself
whether she deserved the hostile feeling which the Prisoner had
shown toward her. I thanked the Chaplain before he left me, and
gave the servant the necessary instructions. When she entered the
room, I looked at the woman attentively for the first time.

Youth and a fine complexion, a well-made figure and a natural
grace of movement--these were her personal attractions, so far as
I could see. Her defects were, to my mind, equally noticeable.
Under a heavy forehead, her piercing eyes looked out at persons
and things with an expression which was not to my taste. Her
large mouth--another defect, in my opinion--would have been
recommended to mercy, in the estimation of many men, by her
magnificent teeth; white, well-shaped, cruelly regular. Believers
in physiognomy might perhaps have seen the betrayal of an
obstinate nature in the lengthy firmness of her chin. While I am
trying to describe her, let me not forget her dress. A woman's
dress is the mirror in which we may see the reflection of a
woman's nature. Bearing in mind the melancholy and impressive
circumstances under which she had brought the child to the
prison, the gayety of color in her gown and her bonnet implied
either a total want of feeling, or a total want of tact. As to
her position in life, let me confess that I felt, after a closer
examination, at a loss to determine it. She was certainly not a
lady. The Prisoner had spoken of her as if she was a domestic
servant who had forfeited her right to consideration and respect.
And she had entered the prison, as a nurse might have entered it,
in charge of a child. I did what we all do when we are not clever
enough to find the answer to a riddle--I gave it up.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"Perhaps you can tell me," she answered, "how much longer I am to
be kept waiting in this prison."

"The decision," I reminded her, "doesn't depend on me."

"Then who does it depend on?"

The Minister had undoubtedly acquired the sole right of deciding.
It was for him to say whether this woman should, or should not,
remain in attendance on the child whom he had adopted. In the
meanwhile, the feeling of distrust which was gaining on my mind
warned me to remember the value of reserve in holding intercourse
with a stranger.

She seemed to be irritated by my silence. "If the decision
doesn't rest with you," she asked, "why did you tell me to stay
in the waiting-room?"

"You brought the little girl into the prison," I said; "was it
not natural to suppose that your mistress might want you--"

"Stop, sir!"

I had evidently given offense; I stopped directly.

"No person on the face of the earth," she declared, loftily, "has
ever had the right to call herself my mistress. Of my own free
will, sir, I took charge of the child."

"Because you are fond of her?" I suggested.

"I hate her."

It was unwise on my part--I protested. "Hate a baby little more
than a year old!" I said.

"_Her_ baby!"

She said it with the air of a woman who had produced an
unanswerable reason. "I am accountable to nobody," she went on.
"If I consented to trouble myself with the child, it was in
remembrance of my friendship--notice, if you please, that I say
friendship--with the unhappy father."

Putting together what I had just heard, and what I had seen in
the cell, I drew the right conclusion at last. The woman, whose
position in life had been thus far an impenetrable mystery to me,
now stood revealed as one, among other objects of the Prisoner's
jealousy, during her disastrous married life. A serious doubt
occurred to me as to the authority under which the husband's
mistress might be acting, after the husband's death. I instantly
put it to the test.

"Do I understand you to assert any claim to the child?" I asked.

"Claim?" she repeated. "I know no more of the child than you do.
I heard for the first time that such a creature was in existence,
when her murdered father sent for me in his dying moments. At his
entreaty I promised to take care of her, while her vile mother
was out of the house and in the hands of the law. My promise has
been performed. If I am expected (having brought her to the
prison) to take her away again, understand this: I am under no
obligation (even if I could afford it) to burden myself with that
child; I shall hand her over to the workhouse authorities."

I forgot myself once more--I lost my temper.

"Leave the room," I said. "Your unworthy hands will not touch the
poor baby again. She is provided for."

"I don't believe you!" the wretch burst out. "Who has taken the
child?"

A quiet voice answered: "_I_ have taken her."

We both looked round and saw the Minister standing in the open
doorway, with the child in his arms. The ordeal that he had gone
through in the condemned cell was visible in his face; he looked
miserably haggard and broken. I was eager to know if his merciful
interest in the Prisoner had purified her guilty soul--but at the
same time I was afraid, after what he had but too plainly
suffered, to ask him to enter into details.

"Only one word," I said. "Are your anxieties at rest?"

"God's mercy has helped me," he answered. "I have not spoken in
vain. She believes; she repents; she has confessed the crime."

After handing the written and signed confession to me, he
approached the venomous creature, still lingering in the room to
hear what passed between us. Before I could stop him, he spoke to
her, under a natural impression that he was addressing the
Prisoner's servant.

"I am afraid you will be disappointed," he said, "when I tell you
that your services will no longer be required. I have reasons for
placing the child under the care of a nurse of my own choosing."

She listened with an evil smile.

"I know who furnished you with your reasons," she answered.
"Apologies are quite needless, so far as I am concerned. If you
had proposed to me t o look after the new member of your family
there, I should have felt it my duty to myself to have refused. I
am not a nurse--I am an independent single lady. I see by your
dress that you are a clergyman. Allow me to present myself as a
mark of respect to your cloth. I am Miss Elizabeth Chance. May I
ask the favor of your name?"

Too weary and too preoccupied to notice the insolence of her
manner, the Minister mentioned his name. "I am anxious," he said,
"to know if the child has been baptized. Perhaps you can
enlighten me?"

Still insolent, Miss Elizabeth Chance shook her head carelessly.
"I never heard--and, to tell you the truth, I never cared to
hear--whether she was christened or not. Call her by what name
you like, I can tell you this--you will find your adopted
daughter a heavy handful."

The Minister turned to me. "What does she mean?"

"I will try to tell you," Miss Chance interposed. "Being a
clergyman, you know who Deborah was? Very well. I am Deborah now;
and _I_ prophesy." She pointed to the child. "Remember what I
say, reverend sir! You will find the tigress-cub take after its
mother."

With those parting words, she favored us with a low curtsey, and
left the room.


CHAPTER VI.

THE DOCTOR DOUBTS.


THE Minister looked at me in an absent manner; his attention
seemed to have been wandering. "What was it Miss Chance said?" he
asked.

Before I could speak, a friend's voice at the door interrupted
us. The Doctor, returning to me as he had promised, answered the
Minister's question in these words:

"I must have passed the person you mean, sir, as I was coming in
here; and I heard her say: 'You will find the tigress-cub take
after its mother.' If she had known how to put her meaning into
good English, Miss Chance--that is the name you mentioned, I
think--might have told you that the vices of the parents are
inherited by the children. And the one particular parent she had
in her mind," the Doctor continued, gently patting the child's
cheek, "was no doubt the mother of this unfortunate little
creature--who may, or may not, live to show you that she comes of
a bad stock and inherits a wicked nature."

I was on the point of protesting against my friend's
interpretation, when the Minister stopped me.

"Let me thank you, sir, for your explanation," he said to the
Doctor. "As soon as my mind is free, I will reflect on what you
have said. Forgive me, Mr. Governor," he went on, "if I leave
you, now that I have placed the Prisoner's confession in your
hands. It has been an effort to me to say the little I have said,
since I first entered this room. I can think of nothing but that
unhappy criminal, and the death that she must die to-morrow."

"Does she wish you to be present?" I asked.

"She positively forbids it. 'After what you have done for me,'
she said, 'the least I can do in return is to prevent your being
needlessly distressed.' She took leave of me; she kissed the
little girl for the last time--oh, don't ask me to tell you about
it! I shall break down if I try. Come, my darling!" He kissed the
child tenderly, and took her away with him.

"That man is a strange compound of strength and weakness," the
Doctor remarked. "Did you notice his face, just now? Nine men out
of ten, suffering as he suffered, would have failed to control
themselves. Such resolution as his _may_ conquer the difficulties
that are in store for him yet."

It was a trial of my temper to hear my clever colleague
justifying, in this way, the ignorant prediction of an insolent
woman.

"There are exceptions to all rules," I insisted. "And why are the
virtues of the parents not just as likely to descend to the
children as the vices? There was a fund of good, I can tell you,
in that poor baby's father--though I don't deny that he was a
profligate man. And even the horrible mother--as you heard just
now--has virtue enough left in her to feel grateful to the man
who has taken care of her child. These are facts; you can't
dispute them."

The Doctor took out his pipe. "Do you mind my smoking?" he asked.
"Tobacco helps me to arrange my ideas."

I gave him the means of arranging his ideas; that is to say, I
gave him the match-box. He blew some preliminary clouds of smoke
and then he answered me:

"For twenty years past, my friend, I have been studying the
question of hereditary transmission of qualities; and I have
found vices and diseases descending more frequently to children
than virtue and health. I don't stop to ask why: there is no end
to that sort of curiosity. What I have observed is what I tell
you; no more and no less. You will say this is a horribly
discouraging result of experience, for it tends to show that
children come into the world at a disadvantage on the day of
their birth. Of course they do. Children are born deformed;
children are born deaf, dumb, or blind; children are born with
the seeds in them of deadly diseases. Who can account for the
cruelties of creation? Why are we endowed with life--only to end
in death? And does it ever strike you, when you are cutting your
mutton at dinner, and your cat is catching its mouse, and your
spider is suffocating its fly, that we are all, big and little
together, born to one certain inheritance--the privilege of
eating each other?"

"Very sad," I admitted. "But it will all be set right in another
world."

"Are you quite sure of that?" the Doctor asked.

"Quite sure, thank God! And it would be better for you if you
felt about it as I do."

"We won't dispute, my dear Governor. I don't scoff at comforting
hopes; I don't deny the existence of occasional compensations.
But I do see, nevertheless, that Evil has got the upper hand
among us, on this curious little planet. Judging by my
observation and experience, that ill-fated baby's chance of
inheriting the virtues of her parents is not to be compared with
her chances of inheriting their vices; especially if she happens
to take after her mother. _There_ the virtue is not conspicuous,
and the vice is one enormous fact. When I think of the growth of
that poisonous hereditary taint, which may come with time--when I
think of passions let loose and temptations lying in ambush--I
see the smooth surface of the Minister's domestic life with
dangers lurking under it which make me shake in my shoes. God!
what a life I should lead, if I happened to be in his place, some
years hence. Suppose I said or did something (in the just
exercise of my parental authority) which offended my adopted
daughter. What figure would rise from the dead in my memory, when
the girl bounced out of the room in a rage? The image of her
mother would be the image I should see. I should remember what
her mother did when _she_ was provoked; I should lock my bedroom
door, in my own house, at night. I should come down to breakfast
with suspicions in my cup of tea, if I discovered that my adopted
daughter had poured it out. Oh, yes; it's quite true that I might
be doing the girl a cruel injustice all the time; but how am I to
be sure of that? I am only sure that her mother was hanged for
one of the most merciless murders committed in our time. Pass the
match-box. My pipe's out, and my confession of faith has come to
an end."

It was useless to dispute with a man who possessed his command of
language. At the same time, there was a bright side to the poor
Minister's prospects which the Doctor had failed to see. It was
barely possible that I might succeed in putting my positive
friend in the wrong. I tried the experiment, at any rate.

"You seem to have forgotten," I reminded him, "that the child
will have every advantage that education can offer to her, and
will be accustomed from her earliest years to restraining and
purifying influences, in a clergyman's household."

Now that he was enjoying the fumes of tobacco, the Doctor was as
placid and sweet-tempered as a man could be.

"Quite true," he said.

"Do you doubt the influence of religion?" I asked sternly.

He answered, sweetly: "Not at all"

"Or the influence of kindness?"

"Oh, dear, no!"

"Or the force of example?"

"I wouldn't deny it for the world."

I had not expected this extraordinary docility. The Doctor had
got the upper hand of me again--a state of thing s that I might
have found it hard to endure, but for a call of duty which put an
end to our sitting. One of the female warders appeared with a
message from the condemned cell. The Prisoner wished to see the
Governor and the Medical Officer.

"Is she ill?" the Doctor inquired.

"No, sir."

"Hysterical? or agitated, perhaps?"

"As easy and composed, sir, as a person can be."

We set forth together for the condemned cell.


CHAPTER VII.

THE MURDERESS CONSULTS THE AUTHORITIES.


THERE was a considerate side to my friend's character, which
showed itself when the warder had left us.

He was especially anxious to be careful of what he said to a
woman in the Prisoner's terrible situation; especially in the
event of her having been really subjected to the influence of
religious belief. On the Minister's own authority, I declared
that there was every reason to adopt this conclusion; and in
support of what I had said I showed him the confession. It only
contained a few lines, acknowledging that she had committed the
murder and that she deserved her sentence. "From the planning of
the crime to the commission of the crime, I was in my right
senses throughout. I knew what I was doing." With that remarkable
disavowal of the defense set up by her advocate, the confession
ended.

My colleague read the paper, and handed it back to me without
making any remark. I asked if he suspected the Prisoner of
feigning conversion to please the Minister.

"She shall not discover it," he answered, gravely, "if I do."

It would not be true to say that the Doctor's obstinacy had
shaken my belief in the good result of the Minister's
interference. I may, however, acknowledge that I felt some
misgivings, which were not dispelled when I found myself in the
presence of the Prisoner.

I had expected to see her employed in reading the Bible. The good
book was closed and was not even placed within her reach. The
occupation to which she was devoting herself astonished and
repelled me.

Some carelessness on the part of the attendant had left on the
table the writing materials that had been needed for her
confession. She was using them now--when death on the scaffold
was literally within a few hours of her--to sketch a portrait of
the female warder, who was on the watch! The Doctor and I looked
at each other; and now the sincerity of her repentance was
something that I began to question, too.

She laid down the pen, and proceeded quietly to explain herself.

"Even the little time that is left to me proves to be a weary
time to get through," she said. "I am making a last use of the
talent for drawing and catching a likeness, which has been one of
my gifts since I was a girl. You look as if you didn't approve of
such employment as this for a woman who is going to be hanged.
Well, sir, I have no doubt you are right." She paused, and tore
up the portrait. "If I have misbehaved myself," she resumed, "I
make amends. To find you in an indulgent frame of mind is of
importance to me just now. I have a favor to ask of you. May the
warder leave the cell for a few minutes?"

Giving the woman permission to withdraw for a while, I waited
with some anxiety to hear what the Prisoner wanted of me.

"I have something to say to you," she proceeded, "on the subject
of executions. The face of a person who is going to be hanged is
hidden, as I have been told, by a white cap drawn over it. Is
that true?"

How another man might have felt, in my place, I cannot, of
course, say. To my mind, such a question--on _her_ lips--was too
shocking to be answered in words. I bowed.

"And the body is buried," she went on, "in the prison?"

I could remain silent no longer. "Is there no human feeling left
in you?" I burst out. "What do these horrid questions mean?"

"Don't be angry with me, sir; you shall hear directly. I want to
know first if I am to be buried in the prison?"

I replied as before, by a bow.

"Now," she said, "I may tell you what I mean. In the autumn of
last year I was taken to see some waxworks. Portraits of
criminals were among them. There was one portrait--" She
hesitated; her infernal self-possession failed her at last. The
color left her face; she was no longer able to look at me firmly.
"There was one portrait," she resumed, "that had been taken after
the execution. The face was so hideous; it was swollen to such a
size in its frightful deformity--oh, sir, don't let me be seen in
that state, even by the strangers who bury me! Use your
influence--forbid them to take the cap off my face when I am
dead--order them to bury me in it, and I swear to you I'll meet
death tomorrow as coolly as the boldest man that ever mounted the
scaffold!" Before I could stop her, she seized me by the hand,
and wrung it with a furious power that left the mark of her grasp
on me, in a bruise, for days afterward. "Will you do it?" she
cried. "You're an honorable man; you will keep your word. Give me
your promise!"

I gave her my promise.

The relief to her tortured spirit expressed itself horribly in a
burst of frantic laughter. "I can't help it," she gasped; "I'm so
happy."

My enemies said of me, when I got my appointment, that I was too
excitable a man to be governor of a prison. Perhaps they were not
altogether wrong. Anyhow, the quick-witted Doctor saw some change
in me, which I was not aware of myself. He took my arm and led me
out of the cell. "Leave her to me," he whispered. "The fine edge
of my nerves was worn off long ago in the hospital."

When we met again, I asked what had passed between the Prisoner
and himself.

"I gave her time to recover," he told me; "and, except that she
looked a little paler than usual, there was no trace left of the
frenzy that you remember. 'I ought to apologize for troubling
you,' she said; 'but it is perhaps natural that I should think,
now and then, of what is to happen to me to-morrow morning. As a
medical man, you will be able to enlighten me. Is death by
hanging a painful death?' She had put it so politely that I felt
bound to answer her. 'If the neck happens to be broken,' I said,
'hanging is a sudden death; fright and pain (if there is any
pain) are both over in an instant. As to the other form of death
which is also possible (I mean death by suffocation), I must own
as an honest man that I know no more about it than you do.' After
considering a little, she made a sensible remark, and followed it
by an embarrassing request. 'A great deal,' she said, 'must
depend on the executioner. I am not afraid of death, Doctor. Why
should I be? My anxiety about my little girl is set at rest; I
have nothing left to live for. But I don't like pain. Would you
mind telling the executioner to be careful? Or would it be better
if I spoke to him myself?' I said I thought it would come with a
better grace from herself. She understood me directly; and we
dropped the subject. Are you surprised at her coolness, after
your experience of her?"

I confessed that I was surprised.

"Think a little," the Doctor said. "The one sensitive place in
that woman's nature is the place occupied by her self-esteem."

I objected to this that she had shown fondness for her child.

My friend disposed of the objection with his customary readiness.

"The maternal instinct," he said. "A cat is fond of her kittens;
a cow is fond of her calf. No, sir, the one cause of that
outbreak of passion which so shocked you--a genuine outbreak,
beyond all doubt--is to be found in the vanity of a fine feminine
creature, overpowered by a horror of looking hideous, even after
her death. Do you know I rather like that woman?"

"Is it possible that you are in earnest?" I asked.

"I know as well as you do," he answered, that this is neither a
time nor a place for jesting. The fact is, the Prisoner carries
out an idea of mine. It is my positive conviction that the worst
murders--I mean murders deliberately planned--are committed by
persons absolutely deficient in that part of the moral
organization which _feels._ The night before they are hanged they
sleep. On their last morning they eat a breakfast. Incapable of
realizing the horror of murder, they are incapable of realizing
the horror of death. Do you remember the last murderer who was
hanged here--a gentleman's coachman who killed his wife? He had
but two anxieties while he was waiting for execution. One was to
get his allowance of beer doubled, and the other was to be hanged
in his coachman's livery. No! no! these wretches are all alike;
they are human creatures born with the temperaments of tigers.
Take my word for it, we need feel no anxiety about to-morrow. The
Prisoner will face the crowd round the scaffold with composure;
and the people will say, 'She died game.' "

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MINISTER SAYS GOOD-BY.


THE Capital Punishment of the Prisoner is in no respect connected
with my purpose in writing the present narrative. Neither do I
desire to darken these pages by describing in detail an act of
righteous retribution which must present, by the nature of it, a
scene of horror. For these reasons I ask to be excused, if I
limit what I must needs say of the execution within the compass
of a few words--and pass on.

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