Esther Waters Part 59

"Never mind what I said last night about the betting; what I say now is that you're not to leave the bar. Come upstairs, Sarah, and dress yourself, and let's be off."

Stack and Journeyman were waiting to speak to him. They had lost heavily over old Ben and didn't know how they'd pull through; and the whole neighbourhood was in the same plight; the bar was filled with gloomy faces.

And as William scanned their disconcerted faces--clerks, hair-dressers, waiters from the innumerable eating houses--he could not help thinking that perhaps more than one of them had taken money that did not belong to them to back Ben Jonson. The unexpected disaster had upset all their plans, and even the wary ones who had a little reserve fund could not help backing outsiders, hoping by the longer odds to retrieve yesterday's losses. At two the bar was empty, and William waited for Esther and Sarah to return from Mile End. It seemed to him that they were a long time away.

But Mile End is not close to Soho; and when they returned, between four and five, he saw at once that they had been unsuccessful. He lifted up the flap in the counter and all three went into the parlour.

"He left Milward Square yesterday," Esther said. "Then we went to another address, and then to another; we went to all the places Sarah had been to with him, but no tidings anywhere."

Sarah burst into tears. "There's no more hope," she said. "I'm done for; they'll come and take me away. How much do you think I'll get? They won't give me ten years, will they?"

"I can see nothing else for you to do," said Esther, "but to go straight back to your people and tell them the whole story, and throw yourself on their mercy."

"Do you mean that she should say that she p.a.w.ned the plate to get money to back a horse?"

"Of course I do."

"It will make the police more keen than ever on the betting houses."

"That can't be helped."

"She'd better not be took here," said William; "it will do a great deal of harm.... It don't make no difference to her where she's took, do it?"

Esther did not answer.

"I'll go away. I don't want to get no one into trouble," Sarah said, and she got up from the sofa.

At that moment Charles opened the door, and said, "You're wanted in the bar, sir."

William went out quickly. He returned a moment after. There was a scared look on his face. "They're here," he said. He was followed by two policemen. Sarah uttered a little cry.

"Your name is Sarah Tucker?" said the first policeman.

"Yes."

"You're charged with robbery by Mr. Sheldon, 34, c.u.mberland Place."

"Shall I be taken through the streets?"

"If you like to pay for it, you can go in a cab," the police-officer replied.

"I'll go with you, dear," Esther said. William plucked her by the sleeve.

"It will do no good. Why should you go?"

XL

The magistrate of course sent the case for trial, and the thirty pounds which William had promised to give to Esther went to pay for the defence.

There seemed at first some hope that the prosecution would not be able to prove its case, but fresh evidence connecting Sarah with the abstraction of the plate was forthcoming, and in the end it was thought advisable that the plea of not guilty should be withdrawn. The efforts of counsel were therefore directed towards a mitigation of sentence. Counsel called Esther and William for the purpose of proving the excellent character that the prisoner had hitherto borne; counsel spoke of the evil influence into which the prisoner had fallen, and urged that she had no intention of actually stealing the plate. Tempted by promises, she had been persuaded to pledge the plate in order to back a horse which she had been told was certain to win. If that horse had won, the plate would have been redeemed and returned to its proper place in the owner's house, and the prisoner would have been able to marry. Possibly the marriage on which the prisoner had set her heart would have turned out more unfortunate for the prisoner than the present proceedings. Counsel had not words strong enough to stigmatise the character of a man who, having induced a girl to imperil her liberty for his own vile ends, was cowardly enough to abandon her in the hour of her deepest distress. Counsel drew attention to the trusting nature of the prisoner, who had not only pledged her employer's plate at his base instigation, but had likewise been foolish enough to confide the p.a.w.n-ticket to his keeping. Such was the prisoner's story, and he submitted that it bore on the face of it the stamp of truth. A very sad story, but one full of simple, foolish, trusting humanity, and, having regard to the excellent character the prisoner had borne, counsel hoped that his lords.h.i.+p would see his way to dealing leniently with her.

His Lords.h.i.+p, whose gallantries had been prolonged over half a century, and whose betting transactions were matters of public comment, pursed up his ancient lips and fixed his dead gla.s.sy eyes on the prisoner. He said he regretted that he could not take the same view of the prisoner's character as learned counsel had done. The police had made every effort to apprehend the man Evans who, according to the prisoner's story, was the princ.i.p.al culprit. But the efforts of the police had been unavailing; they had, however, found traces of the man Evans, who undoubtedly did exist, and need not be considered to be a near relative of our friend Mrs.

Harris. And the little joke provoked some amus.e.m.e.nt in the court; learned counsel settled their robes becomingly and leant forward to listen. They were in for a humorous speech, and the prisoner would get off with a light sentence. But the grim smile waxed duller, and it was clear that lords.h.i.+p was determined to make the law a terror to evil-doers. Lords.h.i.+p drew attention to the fact that during the course of their investigations the police had discovered that the prisoner had been living for some considerable time with the man Evans, during which time several robberies had been effected. There was no evidence, it was true, to connect the prisoner with these robberies. The prisoner had left the man Evans and had obtained a situation in the house of her present employers. When the characters she had received from her former employers were being examined she had accounted for the year she had spent with the man Evans by saying that she had been staying with the Latches, the publicans who had given evidence in her favour. It had also come to the knowledge of the police that the man Evans used to frequent the "King's Head," that was the house owned by the Latches; it was probable that she had made there the acquaintance of the man Evans. The prisoner had referred her employers to the Latches, who had lent their sanction to the falsehood regarding the year she was supposed to have spent with them, but which she had really spent in cohabitation with a notorious thief. Here lords.h.i.+p indulged in severe remarks against those who enabled not wholly irreproachable characters to obtain situations by false pretences, a very common habit, and one attended with great danger to society, one which society would do well to take precautions to defend itself against.

The plate, his Lords.h.i.+p remarked, was said to have been p.a.w.ned, but there was nothing to show that it had been p.a.w.ned, the prisoner's explanation being that she had given the p.a.w.n-ticket to the man Evans. She could not tell where she had p.a.w.ned the plate, her tale being that she and the man Evans had gone down to Whitechapel together and p.a.w.ned it in the Mile End Road. But she did not know the number of the p.a.w.nbroker's, nor could she give any indications as to its whereabouts--beyond the mere fact that it was in the Mile End Road she could say nothing. All the p.a.w.nbrokers in the Mile End Road had been searched, but no plate answering to the description furnished by the prosecution could be found.

Learned counsel had endeavoured to show that it had been in a measure unpremeditated, that it was the result of a pa.s.sing but irresistible temptation. Learned counsel had endeavoured to introduce some element of romance into the case; he had described the theft as the outcome of the prisoner's desire of marriage, but lords.h.i.+p could not find such purity of motive in the prisoner's crime. There was nothing to show that there was any thought of marriage in the prisoner's mind; the crime was the result, not of any desire of marriage, but rather the result of vicious pa.s.sion, concubinage. Regarding the plea that the crime was unpremeditated, it was only necessary to point out that it had been committed for a distinct purpose and had been carried out in conjunction with an accomplished thief.

"There is now only one more point which I wish to refer to, and that is the plea that the prisoner did not intend to steal the plate, but only to obtain money upon it to enable her and the partner in her guilt to back a horse for a race which they believed to be--" his Lords.h.i.+p was about to say a certainty for him; he stopped himself, however, in time--"to be, to be, which they believed him to be capable of winning. The race in question is, I think, called the Cesarewitch, and the name of the horse (lords.h.i.+p had lost three hundred on Ben Jonson), if my memory serves me right (here lords.h.i.+p fumbled amid papers), yes, the name is, as I thought, Ben Jonson.

Now, the learned counsel for the defence suggested that, if the horse had won, the plate would have been redeemed and restored to its proper place in the pantry cupboards. This, I venture to point out, is a mere hypothesis. The money might have been again used for the purpose of gambling. I confess that I do not see why we should condone the prisoner's offence because it was committed for the sake of obtaining money for gambling purposes. Indeed, it seems to me a reason for dealing heavily with the offence. The vice among the poorer cla.s.ses is largely on the increase, and it seems to me that it is the duty of all in authority to condemn rather than to condone the evil, and to use every effort to stamp it out. For my part I fail to perceive any romantic element in the vice of gambling. It springs from the desire to obtain wealth without work, in other words, without payment; work, whether in the past or the present, is the natural payment for wealth, and any wealth that is obtained without work is in a measure a fraud committed upon the community. Poverty, despair, idleness, and every other vice spring from gambling as naturally, and in the same profusion, as weeds from barren land. Drink, too, is gambling's firmest ally."

At this moment a certain dryness in his Lords.h.i.+p's throat reminded him of the pint of excellent claret that lords.h.i.+p always drank with his lunch, and the thought enabled lords.h.i.+p to roll out some excellent invective against the evils of beer and spirits. And lords.h.i.+p's losses on the horse whose name he could hardly recall helped to a forcible ill.u.s.tration of the theory that drink and gambling mutually uphold and enforce each other.

When the news that Ben Jonson had broken down at the bushes came in, lords.h.i.+p had drunk a magnum of champagne, and memory of this champagne inspired a telling description of the sinking feeling consequent on the loss of a wager, and the natural inclination of a man to turn to drink to counteract it. Drink and gambling are growing social evils; in a great measure they are circ.u.mstantial, and only require absolute legislation to stamp them out almost entirely. This was not the first case of the kind that had come before him; it was one of many, but it was a typical case, presenting all the familiar features of the vice of which he had therefore spoken at unusual length. Such cases were on the increase, and if they continued to increase, the powers of the law would have to be strengthened. But even as the law stood at present, betting-houses, public-houses in which betting was carried on, were illegal, and it was the duty of the police to leave no means untried to unearth the offenders and bring them to justice. Lords.h.i.+p then glanced at the trembling woman in the dock. He condemned her to eighteen months' hard labour, and gathering up the papers on the desk, dismissed her for ever from his mind.

The court adjourned for lunch, and Esther and William edged their way out of the crowd of lawyers and their clerks. Neither spoke for some time.

William was much exercised by his Lords.h.i.+p's remarks on betting public-houses, and his advice that the police should increase their vigilance and leave no means untried to uproot that which was the curse and the ruin of the lower cla.s.ses. It was the old story, one law for the rich, another for the poor. William did not seek to probe the question any further, this examination seemed to him to have exhausted it; and he remembered, after all that the hypocritical judge had said, how difficult it would be to escape detection. When he was caught he would be fined a hundred pounds, and probably lose his licence. What would he do then? He did not confide his fears to Esther. She had promised to say no more about the betting; but she had not changed her opinion. She was one of those stubborn ones who would rather die than admit they were wrong. Then he wondered what she thought of his Lords.h.i.+p's speech. Esther was thinking of the thin gruel Sarah would have to eat, the plank bed on which she would have to sleep, and the miserable future that awaited her when she should be released from gaol.

It was a bright winter's day; the City folk were walking rapidly, tightly b.u.t.toned up in top-coats, and in a windy sky a flock of pigeons floated on straightened wings above the telegraph wires. Fleet Street was full of journalists going to luncheon-bars and various eating-houses. Their hurry and animation were remarkable, and Esther noticed how laggard was William's walk by comparison, how his clothes hung loose about him, and that the sharp air was at work on his lungs, making him cough. She asked him to b.u.t.ton himself up more closely.

"Is not that old John's wife?" Esther said.

"Yes, that's her," said William. "She'd have seen us if that cove hadn't given her the s.h.i.+lling.... Lord, I didn't think they was as badly off as that. Did you ever see such rags? and that thick leg wrapped up in that awful stocking."

The morning had been full of sadness, and Mrs. Randal's wandering rags had seemed to Esther like a foreboding. She grew frightened, as the cattle do in the fields when the sky darkens and the storm draws near. She suddenly remembered Mrs. Barfield, and she heard her telling her of the unhappiness that she had seen come from betting. Where was Mrs. Barfield? Should she ever see her again? Mr. Barfield was dead, Miss May was forced to live abroad for the sake of her health; all that time of long ago was over and done with. Some words that Mrs. Barfield had said came back to her; she had never quite understood them, but she had never quite forgotten them; they seemed to chime through her life. "My girl," Mrs. Barfield had said, "I am more than twenty years older than you, and I a.s.sure you that time has pa.s.sed like a little dream; life is nothing. We must think of what comes after."

"Cheer up, old girl; eighteen months is a long while, but it ain't a lifetime. She'll get through it all right; and when she comes out we'll try to see what we can do for her."

William's voice startled Esther from the depth of her dream; she looked at him vaguely, and he saw that she had been thinking of something different from what he had suspected. "I thought it was on account of Sarah that you was looking so sad."

"No," she said, "I was not thinking of Sarah."

Then, taking it for granted that she was thinking of the wickedness of betting, his face darkened. It was aggravating to have a wife who was always troubling about things that couldn't be helped. The first person they saw on entering the bar was old John; and he sat in the corner of the bar on a high stool, his grey, death-like face sunk in the old unstarched s.h.i.+rt collar. The thin, wrinkled throat was hid with the remains of a cravat; it was pa.s.sed twice round, and tied according to the fas.h.i.+ons of fifty years ago. His boots were broken; the trousers, a grey, dirty brown, were torn as high up as the ankle; they had been mended and the patches hardly held together; the frock coat, green with age, with huge flaps over the pockets, frayed and torn, and many sizes too large, hung upon his starveling body. He seemed very feeble, and there was neither light nor expression in his gla.s.sy, watery eyes.

"Eighteen months; a devil of a stiff sentence for a first offence," said William.

"I just dropped in. Charles said you'd sure to be back. You're later than I expected."

"We stopped to have a bit of lunch. But you heard what I said. She got eighteen months."

"Who got eighteen months?"

"Sarah."

"Ah, Sarah. She was tried to-day. So she got eighteen months."

"What's the matter? Wake up; you're half asleep. What will you have to drink?"