The Queen of Hearts

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That was all I could say before I fell on his breast.

May 2d. Misfortunes and disappointments have saddened him a
little, but toward me he is unaltered. He is as good, as kind, as
gently and truly affectionate as ever. I believe no other man in
the world could have listened to the story of Mary's death with
such tenderness and pity as he. Instead of cutting me short
anywhere, he drew me on to tell more than I had intended; and his
first generous words when I had done were to assure me that he
would see himself to the grass being laid and the flowers planted
on Mary's grave. I could almost have gone on my knees and
worshiped him when he made me that promise.

Surely this best, and kindest, and noblest of men cannot always
be unfortunate! My cheeks burn when I think that he has come back
with only a few pounds in his pocket, after all his hard and
honest struggles to do well in America. They must be bad people
there when such a man as Robert cannot get on among them. He now
talks calmly and resignedly of trying for any one of the lowest
employments by which a man can earn his bread honestly in this
great city--he who knows French, who can write so beautifully!
Oh, if the people who have places to give away only knew Robert
as well as I do, what a salary he would have, what a post he
would be chosen to occupy!

I am writing these lines alone while he has gone to the Mews to
treat with the dastardly, heartless wretch with whom I spoke
yesterday.

Robert says the creature--I won't call him a man--must be humored
and kept deceived about poor Mary's end, in order that we may
discover and bring to justice the monster whose drunken blow was
the death of her. I shall know no ease of mind till her murderer
is secured, and till I am certain that he will be made to suffer
for his crimes. I wanted to go with Robert to the Mews, but he
said it was best that he should carry out the rest of the
investigation alone, for my strength and resolution had been too
hardly taxed already. He said more words in praise of me for what
I have been able to do up to this time, which I am almost ashamed
to write down with my own pen. Besides, there is no need; praise
from his lips is one of the things that I can trust my memory to
preserve to the latest day of my life.

May 3d. Robert was very long last night before he came back to
tell me what he had done. He easily recognized the hunchback at
the corner of the Mews by my description of him; but he found it
a hard matter, even with the help of money, to overcome the
cowardly wretch's distrust of him as a stranger and a man.
However, when this had been accomplished, the main difficulty was
conquered. The hunchback, excited by the promise of more money,
went at once to the Red Lion to inquire about the person whom he
had driven there in his cab. Robert followed him, and waited at
the corner of the street. The tidings brought by the cabman were
of the most unexpected kind. The murderer--I can write of him by
no other name--had fallen ill on the very night when he was
driven to the Red Lion, had taken to his bed there and then, and
was still confined to it at that very moment. His disease was of
a kind that is brought on by excessive drinking, and that affects
the mind as well as the body. The people at the public house call
it the Horrors.

Hearing these things, Robert determined to see if he could not
find out something more for himself by going and inquiring at the
public house, in the character of one of the friends of the sick
man in bed upstairs. He made two important discoveries. First, he
found out the name and address of the doctor in attendance.
Secondly, he entrapped the barman into mentioning the murderous
wretch by his name. This last discovery adds an unspeakably
fearful interest to the dreadful misfortune of Mary's death. Noah
Truscott, as she told me herself in the last conversation I ever
had with her, was the name of the man whose drunken example
ruined her father, and Noah Truscott is also the name of the man
whose drunken fury killed her. There is something that makes one
shudder, something supernatural in this awful fact. Robert agrees
with me that the hand of Providence must have guided my steps to
that shop from which all the discoveries since made took their
rise. He says he believes we are the instruments of effecting a
righteous retribution; and, if he spends his last farthing, he
will have the investigation brought to its full end in a court of
justice.

May 4th. Robert went to-day to consult a lawyer whom he knew in
former times The lawyer was much interested, though not so
seriously impressed as he ought to have been by the story of
Mary's death and of the events that have followed it. He gave
Robert a confidential letter to take to the doctor in attendance
on the double-dyed villain at the Red Lion. Robert left the
letter, and called again and saw the doctor, who said his patient
was getting better, and would most likely be up again in ten days
or a fortnight. This statement Robert communicated to the lawyer,
and the lawyer has undertaken to have the public house properly
watched, and the hunchback (who is the most important witness)
sharply looked after for the next fortnight, or longer if
necessary. Here, then, the progress of this dreadful business
stops for a while.

May 5th. Robert has got a little temporary employment in
copying for his friend the lawyer. I am working harder than ever
at my needle, to make up for the time that has been lost lately.

May 6th. To-day was Sunday, and Robert proposed that we should
go and look at Mary's grave. He, who forgets nothing where a
kindness is to be done, has found time to perform the promise he
made to me on the night when we first met. The grave is already,
by his orders, covered with turf, and planted round with shrubs.
Some flowers, and a low headstone, are to be added, to make the
place look worthier of my poor lost darling who is beneath it.
Oh, I hope I shall live long after I am married to Robert! I want
so much time to show him all my gratitude!

May 20th. A hard trial to my courage to-day. I have given
evidence at the police-office, and have seen the monster who
murdered her.

I could only look at him once. I could just see that he was a
giant in size, and that he kept his dull, lowering, bestial face
turned toward the witness-box, and his bloodshot, vacant eyes
staring on me. For an instant I tried to confront that look; for
an instant I kept my attention fixed on him--on his blotched
face--on the short, grizzled hair above it--on his knotty,
murderous right hand, hanging loose over the bar in front of him,
like the paw of a wild beast over the edge of its den. Then the
horror of him--the double horror of confronting him, in the first
place, and afterward of seeing that he was an old man--overcame
me, and I turned away, faint, sick, and shuddering. I never faced
him again; and, at the end of my evidence, Robert considerately
took me out.

When we met once more at the end of the examination, Robert told
me that the prisoner never spoke and never changed his position.
He was either fortified by the cruel composure of a savage, or
his faculties had not yet thoroughly recovered from the disease
that had so lately shaken them. The magistrate seemed to doubt if
he was in his right mind; but the evidence of the medical man
relieved this uncertainty, and the prisoner was committed for
trial on a charge of manslaughter.

Why not on a charge of murder? Robert explained the law to me
when I asked that question. I accepted the explanation, but it
did not satisfy me. Mary Mallinson was killed by a blow from the
hand of Noah Truscott. That is murder in the sight of God. Why
not murder in the sight of the law also?

* * * * * * *

June 18th. To-morrow is the day appointed for the trial at the
Old Bailey.

Before sunset this evening I went to look at Mary's grave. The
turf has grown so green since I saw it last, and the flowers are
springing up so prettily. A bird was perched dressing his
feathers on the low white headstone that bears the inscription of
her name and age. I did not go near enough to disturb the little
creature. He looked innocent and pretty on the grave, as Mary
herself was in her lifetime. When he flew away I went and sat for
a little by the headstone, and read the mournful lines on it. Oh,
my love! my love! what harm or wrong had you ever done in this
world, that you should die at eighteen by a blow from a
drunkard's hand?

June 19th. The trial. My experience of what happened at it is
limited, like my experience of the examination at the
police-office, to the time occupied in giving my own evidence.
They made me say much more than I said before the magistrate.
Between examination and cross-examination, I had to go into
almost all the particulars about poor Mary and her funeral that I
have written i n this journal; the jury listening to every word I
spoke with the most anxious attention. At the end, the judge said
a few words to me approving of my conduct, and then there was a
clapping of hands among the people in court. I was so agitated
and excited that I trembled all over when they let me go out into
the air again.

I looked at the prisoner both when I entered the witness-box and
when I left it. The lowering brutality of his face was unchanged,
but his faculties seemed to be more alive and observant than they
were at the police-office. A frightful blue change passed over
his face, and he drew his breath so heavily that the gasps were
distinctly audible while I mentioned Mary by name and described
the mark or the blow on her temple. When they asked me if I knew
anything of the prisoner, and I answered that I only knew what
Mary herself had told me about his having been her father's ruin,
he gave a kind of groan, and struck both his hands heavily on the
dock. And when I passed beneath him on my way out of court, he
leaned over suddenly, whether to speak to me or to strike me I
can't say, for he was immediately made to stand upright again by
the turnkeys on either side of him. While the evidence proceeded
(as Robert described it to me), the signs that he was suffering
under superstitious terror became more and more apparent; until,
at last, just as the lawyer appointed to defend him was rising to
speak, he suddenly cried out, in a voice that startled every one,
up to the very judge on the bench: "Stop!"

There was a pause, and all eyes looked at him. The perspiration
was pouring over his face like water, and he made strange,
uncouth signs with his hands to the judge opposite. "Stop all
this!" he cried again; "I've been the ruin of the father and the
death of the child. Hang me before I do more harm! Hang me, for
God's sake, out of the way!" As soon as the shock produced by
this extraordinary interruption had subsided, he was removed, and
there followed a long discussion about whether he was of sound
mind or not. The matter was left to the jury to decide by their
verdict. They found him guilty of the charge of manslaughter,
without the excuse of insanity. He was brought up again, and
condemned to transportation for life. All he did, on hearing the
dreadful sentence, was to reiterate his desperate words: "Hang me
before I do more harm! Hang me, for God's sake, out of the way!"

June 20th. I made yesterday's entry in sadness of heart, and I
have not been better in my spirits to-day. It is something to
have brought the murderer to the punishment that he deserves. But
the knowledge that this most righteous act of retribution is
accomplished brings no consolation with it. The law does indeed
punish Noah Truscott for his crime, but can it raise up Mary
Mallinson from her last resting-place in the churchyard?

While writing of the law, I ought to record that the heartless
wretch who allowed Mary to be struck down in his presence without
making an attempt to defend her is not likely to escape with
perfect impunity. The policeman who looked after him to insure
his attendance at the trial discovered that he had committed past
offenses, for which the law can make him answer. A summons was
executed upon him, and he was taken before the magistrate the
moment he left the court after giving his evidence.

I had just written these few lines, and was closing my journal,
when there came a knock at the door. I answered it, thinking that
Robert had called on his way home to say good-night, and found
myself face to face with a strange gentleman, who immediately
asked for Anne Rodway. On hearing that I was the person inquired
for, he requested five minutes' conversation with me. I showed
him into the little empty room at the back of the house, and
waited, rather surprised and fluttered, to hear what he had to
say.

He was a dark man, with a serious manner, and a short, stern way
of speaking I was certain that he was a stranger, and yet there
seemed something in his face not unfamiliar to me. He began by
taking a newspaper from his pocket, and asking me if I was the
person who had given evidence at the trial of Noah Truscott on a
charge of manslaughter. I answered immediately that I was.

"I have been for nearly two years in London seeking Mary
Mallinson, and always seeking her in vain," he said. "The first
and only news I have had of her I found in the newspaper report
of the trial yesterday."

He still spoke calmly, but there was something in the look of his
eyes which showed me that he was suffering in spirit. A sudden
nervousness overcame me, and I was obliged to sit down.

"You knew Mary Mallinson, sir?" I asked, as quietly as I could.

"I am her brother."

I clasped my hands and hid my face in despair. Oh, the bitterness
of heart with which I heard him say those simple words!

"You were very kind to her," said the calm, tearless man. "In her
name and for her sake, I thank you."

"Oh, sir," I said, "why did you never write to her when you were
in foreign parts?"

"I wrote often," he answered; "but each of my letters contained a
remittance of money. Did Mary tell you she had a stepmother? If
she did, you may guess why none of my letters were allowed to
reach her. I now know that this woman robbed my sister. Has she
lied in telling me that she was never informed of Mary's place of
abode?"

I remembered that Mary had never communicated with her stepmother
after the separation, and could therefore assure him that the
woman had spoken the truth.

He paused for a moment after that, and sighed. Then he took out a
pocket-book, and said:

"I have already arranged for the payment of any legal expenses
that may have been incurred by the trial, but I have still to
reimburse you for the funeral charges which you so generously
defrayed. Excuse my speaking bluntly on this subject; I am
accustomed to look on all matters where money is concerned purely
as matters of business."

I saw that he was taking several bank-notes out of the
pocket-book, and stopped him.

"I will gratefully receive back the little money I actually paid,
sir, because I am not well off, and it would be an ungracious act
of pride in me to refuse it from you," I said; "but I see you
handling bank-notes, any one of which is far beyond the amount
you have to repay me. Pray put them back, sir. What I did for
your poor lost sister I did from my love and fondness for her.
You have thanked me for that, and your thanks are all I can
receive."

He had hitherto concealed his feelings, but I saw them now begin
to get the better of him. His eyes softened, and he took my hand
and squeezed it hard.

"I beg your pardon," he said; "I beg your pardon, with all my
heart."

There was silence between us, for I was crying, and I believe, at
heart, he was crying too. At last he dropped my hand, and seemed
to change back, by an effort, to his former calmness.

"Is there no one belonging to you to whom I can be of service?"
he asked. "I see among the witnesses on the trial the name of a
young man who appears to have assisted you in the inquiries which
led to the prisoner's conviction. Is he a relation?"

"No, sir--at least, not now--but I hope--"

"What?"

"I hope that he may, one day, be the nearest and dearest relation
to me that a woman can have." I said those words boldly, because
I was afraid of his otherwise taking some wrong view of the
connection between Robert and me

"One day?" he repeated. "One day may be a long time hence."

"We are neither of us well off, sir," I said. "One day means the
day when we are a little richer than we are now."

"Is the young man educated? Can he produce testimonials to his
character? Oblige me by writing his name and address down on the
back of that card."

When I had obeyed, in a handwriting which I am afraid did me no
credit, he took out another card and gave it to me.

"I shall leave England to-morrow," he said. "There is nothing now
to keep me in my own country. If you are ever in any difficulty
or distress (which I pray God you may never be), apply to my
London agent, whose address you have there."

He stopped, and looked at me attentively, then took my hand
again.

"Wher e is she buried?" he said, suddenly, in a quick whisper,
turning his head away.

I told him, and added that we had made the grave as beautiful as
we could with grass and flowers. I saw his lips whiten and
tremble.

"God bless and reward you!" he said, and drew me toward him
quickly and kissed my forehead. I was quite overcome, and sank
down and hid my face on the table. When I looked up again he was
gone.

* * * * * * *

June 25th, 1841. I write these lines on my wedding morning, when
little more than a year has passed since Robert returned to
England.

His salary was increased yesterday to one hundred and fifty
pounds a year. If I only knew where Mr. Mallinson was, I would
write and tell him of our present happiness. But for the
situation which his kindness procured for Robert, we might still
have been waiting vainly for the day that has now come.

I am to work at home for the future, and Sally is to help us in
our new abode. If Mary could have lived to see this day! I am not
ungrateful for my blessings; but oh, how I miss that sweet face
on this morning of all others!

I got up to-day early enough to go alone to the grave, and to
gather the nosegay that now lies before me from the flowers that
grow round it. I shall put it in my bosom when Robert comes to
fetch me to the church. Mary would have been my bridesmaid if she
had lived; and I can't forget Mary, even on my wedding-day. . . .

THE NIGHT.

THE last words of the last story fell low and trembling from
Owen's lips. He waited for a moment while Jessie dried the tears
which Anne Rodway's simple diary had drawn from her warm young
heart, then closed the manuscript, and taking her hand patted it
in his gentle, fatherly way.

"You will be glad to hear, my love," he said, "that I can speak
from personal experience of Anne Rodway's happiness. She came to
live in my parish soon after the trial at which she appeared as
chief witness, and I was the clergyman who married her. Months
before that I knew her story, and had read those portions of her
diary which you have just heard. When I made her my little
present on her wedding day, and when she gratefully entreated me
to tell her what she could do for me in return, I asked for a
copy of her diary to keep among the papers that I treasured most.
'The reading of it now and then,' I said, 'will encourage that
faith in the brighter and better part of human nature which I
hope, by God's help, to preserve pure to my dying day.' In that
way I became possessed of the manuscript: it was Anne's husband
who made the copy for me. You have noticed a few withered leaves
scattered here and there between the pages. They were put there,
years since, by the bride's own hand: they are all that now
remain of the flowers that Anne Rodway gathered on her marriage
morning from Mary Mallinson's grave."

Jessie tried to answer, but the words failed on her lips. Between
the effect of the story, and the anticipation of the parting now
so near at hand, the good, impulsive, affectionate creature was
fairly overcome. She laid her head on Owen's shoulder, and kept
tight hold of his hand, and let her heart speak simply for
itself, without attempting to help it by a single word.

The silence that followed was broken harshly by the tower clock.
The heavy hammer slowly rang out ten strokes through the gloomy
night-time and the dying storm.

I waited till the last humming echo of the clock fainted into
dead stillness. I listened once more attentively, and again
listened in vain. Then I rose, and proposed to my brothers that
we should leave our guest to compose herself for the night.

When Owen and Morgan were ready to quit the room, I took her by
the hand, and drew her a little aside.

"You leave us early, my dear," I said; "but, before you go
to-morrow morning--"

I stopped to listen for the last time, before the words were
spoken which committed me to the desperate experiment of pleading
George's cause in defiance of his own request. Nothing caught my
ear but the sweep of the weary weakened wind and the melancholy
surging of the shaken trees.

"But, before you go to-morrow morning," I resumed, "I want to
speak to you in private. We shall breakfast at eight o'clock. Is
it asking too much to beg you to come and see me alone in my
study at half past seven?"

Just as her lips opened to answer me I saw a change pass over her
face. I had kept her hand in mine while I was speaking, and I
must have pressed it unconsciously so hard as almost to hurt her.
She may even have uttered a few words of remonstrance; but they
never reached me: my whole hearing sense was seized, absorbed,
petrified. At the very instant when I had ceased speaking, I, and
I alone, heard a faint sound--a sound that was new to me--fly
past the Glen Tower on the wings of the wind.

"Open the window, for God's sake!" I cried.

My hand mechanically held hers tighter and tighter. She struggled
to free it, looking hard at me with pale cheeks and frightened
eyes. Owen hastened up and released her, and put his arms round
me.

"Griffith, Griffith!" he whispered, "control yourself, for
George's sake."

Morgan hurried to the window and threw it wide open.

The wind and rain rushed in fiercely. Welcome, welcome wind! They
all heard it now. "Oh, Father in heaven, so merciful to fathers
on earth--my son, my son!"

It came in, louder and louder with every gust of wind--the
joyous, rapid gathering roll of wheels. My eyes fastened on her
as if they could see to her heart, while she stood there with her
sweet face turned on me all pale and startled. I tried to speak
to her; I tried to break away from Owen's arms, to throw my own
arms round her, to keep her on my bosom, till _he_ came to take
her from me. But all my strength had gone in the long waiting and
the long suspense. My head sank on Owen's breast--but I still
heard the wheels. Morgan loosened my cravat, and sprinkled water
over my face--I still heard the wheels. The poor terrified girl
ran into her room, and came back with her smelling-salts--I heard
the carriage stop at the house. The room whirled round and round
with me; but I heard the eager hurry of footsteps in the hall,
and the opening of the door. In another moment my son's voice
rose clear and cheerful from below, greeting the old servants who
loved him. The dear, familiar tones just poured into my ear, and
then, the moment they filled it, hushed me suddenly to rest.

When I came to myself again my eyes opened upon George. I was
lying on the sofa, still in the same room; the lights we had read
by in the evening were burning on the table; my son was kneeling
at my pillow, and we two were alone.

THE MORNING.

THE wind is fainter, but there is still no calm. The rain is
ceasing, but there is still no sunshine. The view from my window
shows me the mist heavy on the earth, and a dim gray veil drawn
darkly over the sky. Less than twelve hours since, such a
prospect would have saddened me for the day. I look out at it
this morning, through the bright medium of my own happiness, and
not the shadow of a shade falls across the steady inner sunshine
that is poring over my heart.

The pen lingers fondly in my hand, and yet it is little, very
little, that I have left to say. The Purple Volume lies open by
my side, with the stories ranged together in it in the order in
which they were read. My son has learned to prize them already as
the faithful friends who served him at his utmost need. I have
only to wind off the little thread of narrative on which they are
all strung together before the volume is closed and our anxious
literary experiment fairly ended.

My son and I had a quiet hour together on that happy night
before we retired to rest. The little love-plot invented in
George's interests now required one last stroke of diplomacy to
complete it before we all threw off our masks and assumed our
true characters for the future. When my son and I parted for the
night, we had planned the necessary stratagem for taking our
lovely guest by surprise as soon as she was out of her bed in the
morning.

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