The Dawn of Reckoning (28 page)

The paper with its dreadful headlines lay on the floor. Stella picked it
up and pointed to a small paragraph at the foot of the report of the appeal.
It stated that “the execution is fixed to take place at Holloway Gaol at nine
o’clock on the morning of August 5th.”

“There are three weeks yet,” said Mrs. Bowden. Stella nodded. “And I shall
be mad before then,” she said.

The only hope lay now in a petition for reprieve. It was
reported that many people all over the country were eager to sign one. But a
most unfortunate event took place in the meantime. A youth named Watson had
been jilted by a girl, whereupon he had taken the fearful revenge of throwing
vitriol over her and her new lover. The man was so terribly injured that he
died in hospital, and the girl herself was disfigured and eventually lost the
sight of both eyes. Watson was tried for murder and sentenced to death. A
petition for reprieve was launched on the ground that he had received great
provocation, but the Home Secretary refused to consider it, observing in his
reply that no provocation that he could think of could in any way diminish
the guilt of such a dreadful crime. Watson was accordingly executed on July
20th.

Everybody realized that the execution lessened considerably the likelihood
of a reprieve being granted to Ward. Ward’s position and past career even
told against him, for Watson had been an ill-educated farm-labourer, and the
Home Secretary, in the present precarious situation of the Government, was
not likely to give scope for an outcry about one law for the rich and another
for the poor. There were people, of course, who said that Ward’s was a
gentlemanly crime—almost a decent one—compared with Watson’s; but
on the other hand there were fierce logicians who replied that Watson had had
his woman stolen
from
him, whereas Ward was both the murderer and the
thief. Indeed, it was very likely true, as a certain Home Office official
said in the privacy of his London club, that “but for this damnable Watson
case, Ward would certainly be reprieved.”

July gave place to August, and the petition, supposed to have been signed
by over a hundred thousand names, was delivered to the Home Secretary in a
small fleet of taxi-cabs. The affair was much photographed; indeed every
feature of the case was exploited by Fleet Street for a good deal more than
it was worth. This sensational publicity harmed, rather than helped, for it
spread the quite erroneous idea that Ward possessed great influence. The
attitude of the man in the street, frequently expressed, was: “He’ll get off
all right. They don’t hang his sort.”

Stella’s hopes, always eager to be rekindled, rose again over the delivery
of the petition. Somebody in the Press had mooted the idea of a special
petition signed by eminent men—explorers, geographers, historians,
authors, and public men of all kinds. To Stella it seemed an idea that could
not fail. Mrs. Bowden was less optimistic. “Don’t expect the big people to
take his part,” she said. “Half of them are jealous of him and glad that he’s
down. And the other half are too frightened to face the music. Ward’s come a
cropper, and the big people only back winners.”

The “special” petition was duly launched, however, and duly met the fate
that Mrs. Bowden had prophesied for it. A few semi-significant nobodies gave
their names, more for the advertisement to themselves than for the cause; and
the whole project died a very natural death. Sir Julius Hopton, F.R.G.S.,
approached for his signature, replied: “It is true that I have been an
explorer, but it is also true that I have been an M.P. On the whole, I think
I should be more likely to put my name to a petition praying that under no
circumstances should Philip Monsell’s murderer escape the full legal
penalty.” It was difficult to convince people that Sir Julius had rather
missed the point.

A few days later, on August 3rd, the Home Secretary replied. “After full
consideration,” he wrote, “I cannot see that any fresh facts have been
brought forward to justify me in recommending His Majesty to grant a
reprieve.”

That was all, and it was well understood to be final. To Stella it was the
almost incredible shattering of her dream, but most other people were neither
surprised not indignant.

On the night of August 3rd there was a terrific
thunderstorm. It wakened Stella into stark panic; she screamed and sobbed
frantically until, from very weariness a calmness came. Even then her
self-discipline was fitful, feverish, almost demoniacal. “I’m going mad, Mrs.
Bowden,” she said quietly. “I mean it. Oh, I can’t bear it all. Why
should
they hang him—oh, God—they mustn’t—they
mustn’t
…”

Mrs. Bowden had her own ideas. She wakened the chauffeur out of his bed at
four in the morning and told him to prepare the car. The rain was still
falling heavily, but she insisted on Stella driving with her through the
hissing streets. It was hardly dawn, and the vast wet promenade was grey and
empty. Every now and then the lightning blazed over the sea and glinted on
the curling wave-crests. Stella pulled down the side-window and breathed
deeply the cool sea-salt wind. “That makes me calmer,” she said.

“I know,” answered Mrs. Bowden. And she added softly: “From
experience.”

They drove through Portslade and Shoreham to Littlehampton, and then
turned inland to Horsham and back home over the grey mist-swathed Downs. The
sun was blazing upon them as they swished down the Ditchling Road at
half-past seven.

“It is so kind of you to have done such an odd thing,” said Stella over
breakfast.

Mrs. Bowden answered: “If only you knew what odd things I
have
done!”

They did not mention Ward at all during the day. At night Mrs. Bowden
said: “Do you think you will be able to sleep to-night?”

“Perhaps I may. I feel very sleepy.”

“That’s right. Try to sleep late in the morning. I’ll tell the maid not to
call you.”

“Sleep late in the morning,” Stella echoed. She seemed to ponder over the
phrase, and then replied: “Yes, I think I will.” She added, slowly: “I
suppose there isn’t—anything—anything more—that can be
done?”

Mrs. Bowden took her hand quietly in hers. “Nothing at all, my dear,” she
answered softly. “Don’t think about it. Try to sleep.”

“Nothing at all?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Quite sure.”

They bade each other good-night and went to their rooms.

But she could not sleep. As soon as she was alone the cloud
fell on her, torturing her with the thought of the morrow. She must try to
sleep. She forced herself to close her eyes, and then she saw nothing but the
pictures of her mind. She saw the long low fringe of the Danube river, with
the mists rolling over it in winter-time, and the blaze of the summer sun at
high noon, and the cross on the steeple of the quaint little ikoned
church—the cross that looked like a gallows. How beautiful, despite the
pain and cruelty of them, had been her childhood days, so cool, so
lovely-sweet, a tremulous heaven for her to dream of now—the church
bells tinkling by the riverside at Vaczs, the towers and palaces of Buda
gleaming gold in the sunset—
Csillagos az eg, csillagos, Bu szallt a
szivemre banatos
!—Oh, so long ago, so long ago.

She would never sleep that night. She would go downstairs and be very
calm, and sit in the library and think and think and perhaps talk to herself
in low tone that no one would hear. She tip-toed down the stairs. What a dark
and mournful house it was—nearly as dark and mournful as the Hall at
Chassingford. But the library was comfortable, and the night Was warm, and
nobody would interrupt her thoughts. She was quite calm…Oh, yes, quite
calm…One o’clock. Eight more hours…Was he sorry? One o’clock. Eight more
hours…Was he as calm as she? Was he afraid to die? Surely not. Was he sorry
to leave her? Ah, that was more poignant.

Oh, what a pile of letters on the library table! The letters had been
opened and stacked in heaps. All had been addressed in the first place to
Chassingford Hall, and had been re-addressed from there in Venner’s funny
wriggly handwriting. Good old Venner—perhaps he didn’t hate her
altogether…And all these letters were for her? Mrs. Bowden had opened them
to save her trouble or worry or anxiety of some sort, for they were from
people she had never heard of, from people who had never met or seen her, but
who hated her so much that they took the trouble to write her abusive
letters. How queer, to think of all this hate for her that was in people’s
hearts! How queer and how terrible!…She took some of the letters out of
their envelopes. This one—from a man in Coventry…“You ought to be put
on the rack and tortured to death if Ward is hanged.”…Oh, how
funny—how comic—that anybody should write like that to her!…Now
this other letter. From Maida Vale…“Murderess…”
Murderess!
Murderess?

The letters slipped from her hand to the floor.

She thought she saw an old shaggy-haired dog come limping into the room.
But the doors were all shut, so how could that be?—Never mind, there
was the dog, all muddy and bedraggled, panting with parched lips, eyes
bloodshot—limping with a wounded paw. It came on to the rug beside her
and lay down exhausted. She wanted to get up and stroke it, but somehow when
she tried she found that she could not move out of her chair. Poor little
hunted cur! It was not frightened of her. Doggie! Doggie!—She made a
whistling noise to it—softly, or Mrs. Bowden would hear her—and
it opened one suffering eye and looked at her. Its tongue was
hanging—hanging parched out of its mouth, and she thought it was
thirsty. There was a carafe of water on the table, and she knocked it over on
to the rug…If the dog were really thirsty it would lap up the water before
it sank in. But—somehow—the dog wasn’t there at all—had
gone away…

But the letters…This man from Maida Vale. “Murderess, why arnt you
waiting to be hung same as the man as isn’t a quarter as bad as you Im only a
poor working woman but I say…” Oh, a woman, not a man. Fancy a woman
writing to her like that!

The dog was there on the rug again, but the water had all sunk into the
carpet, and there was no more to throw down. Poor old doggie I…She wanted
to put her arms round the shaggy neck and kiss the mud-streaked face. Nobody
had ever loved that dog—you could see that from its eyes. But
she
loved it. She loved it because it looked so wretched and
friendless and forlorn. Because she understood its dumb miseries. She must
stoop down to kiss it. The creature suddenly looked up at her. She could not
bear that look. It sank into her soul like a deep pain. She must…she
must…she must…must…She flung out her arms and tried to embrace
something dear and wonderful that had eluded her always up to now…Oh,
Philip, Philip, darling Philip—if they had known each other better, if
they had understood…

But the letters. Could they be real? Were all these messages of hate for
her? She took them one after the other and read them. They seemed strange,
unreal, unbelievable. But there was a parcel as well. It was flat and
well-packed, and the first address on it had been typewritten. She took it in
her hands and pulled the string until it broke with a snap…

“This is a present for you. By the time you get it I shall
have succeeded. Realize that—only realize that—and I shall
forgive both you and myself.

“I have been very clever, oh, consummately clever, cleverer, I hope, than
all the judges and juries and king’s counsels in England. For example, let me
describe the method by which in due course you will receive the book.

“First of all, notice its binding. It is beautiful old Milanese
leather-work, such as I have always admired. In the course of my somewhat
extensive European travels I have discovered a firm that does this sort of
thing very well. It is a firm in Buda-Pesth—quite a small place in a
turning off the Andrassy-Ut.

“What an irony that I should send my diaries—these revelations of my
soul—to your capital city to be bound sumptuously for your hands! Yet
the plan has its advantages, for there is nobody in the firm (as I found out
once myself) who can speak English. My diaries will therefore be safe from
prying and from premature disclosure.

“Do you remember as long as last December I asked you to translate for me
a short business-letter into Hungarian? How eagerly and innocently you
complied. Perhaps you wondered why I was sending a book all the way to
Hungary to be bound? Did you? I could never, never in all my life, know what
was in your mind.

“Anyway, you will admit that the idea is clever. At the moment when the
police are all nosing round my books and shelves, hoping for some clue simple
enough for them to understand, the real key to my life will be lying in some
workman’s house in Pesth, for nearly all these skilled leather-binders work
in their own homes.

“I have given careful orders to the firm that they are not to send on the
completed book until July 28th, so that it ought to reach you on your
birthday. Another fine stroke of irony!—A present for a good child from
Blackpool? Southend? Scarborough? Ramsgate? Margate? Bournemouth? Brighton?
Worthing? Broadstairs? Shanklin? Southport? Llandudno? Colwyn Bay?
Bridlington? Skegness? Yarmouth? Lowestoft? Clacton? Westonsuper-Mare?
Penarth? Cleethorpes?—No, my beloved, not any of these. From
Buda-Pesth…”

Was this
real
? Was it her wild brain that was
dictating the wild words that her eyes saw? The book was there, anyway, with
its rich velvet-soft binding, and inside it the ordinary octavo pages of a
half-crown diary. And it was Philip’s handwriting…

Philip’s handwriting…Her brain was too wild to receive a shock from
that. It seemed almost the most natural thing in the world that she should be
reading Philip’s handwriting. As natural, anyway, as that she should be
sitting up at four o’clock in the morning in a strange house, terrified by
the fear of the morrow.