1
"there is always," says bertram standon in his book "how i fought fleet street," "a psychological news-moment. to be premature with news is even worse than to be dilatory with it. the editor who knows when not to publish is worth his weight in gold."
in the towers-public defender stunt, the proprietor of the "democratic news" backed his maxim to the limit. clean through a newsless august, and well into a newsless september, he stirred the pool of the controversy he had started; whipped up every ripple of public interest to a wave of excitement over the guilt or innocence of lucy towers; but gave no hint of the rope he, standon the magnificent, intended to pull when finally the last act of the great drama should be launched upon london.
even ronnie, chafing for his chance, could ascertain no detail of the magnate's intention. cartwright, pumped whenever etiquette allowed it, only beamed, "wait and see!" jimmy, who must have known something, had disappeared into devonshire. at her second ordeal, the trial before the magistrate, lucy towers--still represented by the same unimposing solicitor--reserved her defense and was formally committed for trial at the old bailey.
meanwhile julia cavendish worked on.
2
physically and mentally, as day followed september day, ronnie's mother felt well--better, indeed, than at any other period of her illness. the weapon of her forging grew sharp and sharper under her hand.
despite the realization, every time she set pencil to paper, that the candle of her life was burning remorselessly to its socket, that her mind and her body must alike expire at task's completion, she experienced no fear. her brain, rapt in the creative ecstasy of julia cavendish, living novelist, regarded julia cavendish, dying woman, from a point of view of the coolest detachment.
outwardly, to her watchers, to ronnie, nurse, aliette, and mrs. sanderson, she played a part; the part of the convalescent. that they, in their ignorance, should believe the part she played to be real, gave to her detachment a whimsical and peculiar happiness.
and always in those days the illusion of immortality sustained her. she used to think, lying weary of work on her great bed: "like horace, i shall not utterly die. dying, i shall leave my ronnie this sword of the written word. what greater proof of love and service could any son or any god require?"
for now, almost at the end of her race with death, julia cavendish knew the conviction of godhead. the priest-hoisted sectarian idol of her middle years lay shattered into a thousand fragments. in its stead was a spiritual presence, all-pervading, all-comprehending, all-pardoning: an individual of individuals, to whom, freed from the slave-allegiance of the formal churches, each unhampered soul must fight its own unhampered way: a soul of souls who--despising no man-made creed--yet demanded more than any creed made of man, even the courage to look on life and death and himself alike fearlessly.
but to that godhead the soul of aliette brunton had not yet come. her second honeymoon-time was over; daffadillies no longer "joyous gard"; ronnie no more the single-minded lover of july. between them, like a wraith, hovered a man's ambition.
and, "if only--if only i could be with child," thought aliette. "if only there could be given me one tiny mite of love--one human atom to be wholly mine." for always now--as it seemed--ronnie and ronnie's mother grew less and less dependent on her affection. to each was their work: to her only the waiting.
ronnie's nerves, ronnie's chafing after success, reminded her of hector, of the hector she had married. every monday morning, as she drove with him down the odorous country roads to west water, his talk would be of lucy towers: "she's innocent, alie. i'll swear she's innocent"; "if only i can get that brief, i'll be a made man"; "a made man, i tell you; cartwright said so."
rushing back to daffadillies she used to think: "i'm selfish, selfish. i mustn't stand between him and his career. i must help him--help both of them." but at daffadillies, demanding no help, resolute over her desk, sat julia; and aliette, looking up at the magnolia-sheathed window, would feel lonely; lonelier than ever before; so lonely that not even ronnie's letters could console her through the desert week.
yes! even his letters seemed less loving. through every line of them she could feel the pulse and surge of a new desire--of the desire for success--which, if gratified, must leave her lonelier yet. once she had cherished his letters at her breasts. but now her very breasts were a reproach; a reproach of childlessness. once, laying her head among the pillows, she had dreamed of him beside her. but now, every night, her pillows were wet; wet with tears. strange terrors tore her in the nighttime. she dreamed herself utterly outcast--the woman reproached of her own children--mother indeed, but mother-in-shame.
3
and then suddenly, a bare fortnight before the reopening of the central criminal courts, ronnie's dreams came true. john cartwright himself brought round the brief, the long taped document marked on the outside:
central criminal court. session october.
rex v. towers. brief for the defense.
mr. ronald cavendish. 50 gns. conference 5 gns.
wilberforce, wilberforce & cartwright, norfolk street.
"standon jibbed a bit at that fifty," chuckled john. "he said you ought to take the case for nothing, considering the publicity he's going to give you."
"oh, did he?" ronnie laughed; but his nerves were quivering. "my whole career," he thought. "riches--success--fame. it's all in my own hands now. standon thinks he's overpaid me, does he? perhaps he has. but i'll give him a run for his money. fight! by jove, i'll fight every foot, every inch of the way."
"i shall want an order to see the prisoner," he went on. "and, look here, if standon's people can find out----" the cautious voice dropped; so that benjamin bunce, in the outer office, heard only a vague drone of talk.
"that'll be all right," answered the solicitor; and two days later a very different ronnie caught the saturday afternoon train to west water.
"i'll get her off," he told julia and aliette, seated at tea under the cedar. "i'll get her off--or die in the attempt. this is my chance, i tell you. my big chance at last!"
"optimist!" julia laughed, a little wearily. "how can you 'get her off'? as far as i can see there's nothing in the woman's favor except that she's a little like our aliette."
"a little like her! mater, it's amazing. when i saw her yesterday, in that wretched place at brixton, i could have sworn it was alie." and he went on talking, talking, talking of "his chance" till the sun sank behind the cedar-tree; till--julia, utterly tired out, having been carried into the house--aliette interrupted him with, "i've been rather worried about her this week. don't you think we might have sir heron down again?"
"we might see what she's got to say about it in the morning," answered ronnie; but next morning, sunday, the "democratic news" drove all thoughts save one from his mind.
at long last, bertram standon had launched his journalistic thunderbolt. "shall lucy towers hang?" howled bertram standon. "never--if she be innocent--while we can prevent it. never--if she be innocent--while there's a dollar in our purse or a sense of pity in our hearts. let the state pour out the taxpayers' money like water--let the bureaucrats brief their 'hanging prosecutor' if they will. we, so far failing in our efforts to secure the appointment of a public defender, have briefed--out of our own pocket--a defender for lucy towers, a young man, an untried man, but a man in whom both we and the unfortunate woman in whose defense he will rise at the old bailey have the most unbounded confidence. and who is this young man? he is ronald cavendish--son of a woman who is known wherever the english language is spoken, of julia cavendish, our greatest woman novelist."
and squeezed away in the "stop press," so inconspicuous that julia, who did not see the papers till tea-time, was the first of the three to notice it, stood the news: "brixton murder. saturday night. the crown has briefed mr. hector brunton, k.c., for the prosecution of lucy towers."
4
hector brunton sat alone in his chambers at king's bench walk. within the dusty book-littered room brooded silence. from without, from under trees already browning for a hint of autumn, sounded the occasional tup-tup of feet on the flagstones, the occasional staccato of a raised voice. the noises fretted brunton, distracting his attention from the multitudinous papers prepared by the director of public prosecutions in the case of rex v. towers, which stood piled on his ink-stained desk. "i'm getting jumpy," he thought, turning from the signed and sealed findings of the coroner's jury, through the verbatim reports of the proceedings before the magistrate, to the actual indictment.
concentrating, the k.c. reread the words of that indictment.
central criminal court
the king v. lucy towers
lucy towers is charged with the following offense:
statement of offense: homicide.
particulars of offence: lucy towers on the fifth day of july, in the county of middlesex, murdered her husband, william towers, by shooting him with a revolver.
reading, an expression almost of mania flickered across brunton's face. behind the words of the indictment, his mind visualized the actual crime: the woman, some blowzy messalina of the slums lusting horribly for a mutilated lover: the lover, a puppet in her adulterous arms: the husband, shot down in cold blood because he dared to come between the woman and her desires.
a fitting client--thought brunton--for this other adulterer, this ronald cavendish with his gutter-press backing, to defend. but he would defend her in vain!
the k.c.'s long fingers prodded among the papers. ever since the cairns case, he had derived--subconsciously--a satisfaction, a secret chop-licking satisfaction, from his title of "hanging prosecutor." it was as though, harrying mrs. cairns to her death, he had taken his revenge on all women. and he thought: "hilda cairns escaped my rope. lucy towers shall not escape it."
concentrating again, he reread the entire evidence. outside it grew darker--silent. he switched on the opal-shaded reading-lamp; and sent david patterson home. it was good--good to be alone with this chess-game of death: messalina for its queen, his brain the mover of those pawns which would sweep her from the board.
brunton's gray pupils shrank to pin-points. there were flaws, flaws in the evidence. the chess-board, as prepared by the solicitors for the crown, lacked one pawn; the pawn of premeditation. given himself, with his gift of oratory, to defend her, lucy towers might escape the black-cap sentence of the murderess.
now the k. c.'s brain took the other side of the chess-board. he played the queen against himself; played her to the stalemate of "manslaughter." that would be cavendish's gambit; a reduction of the charge.
but could cavendish succeed?
for a long time hector brunton sat motionless, brooding; a cruel figure in the green glare of the desk-light. then he drew the proof of maggie peterson's evidence from the paper pile; and, recasting it word by word, saw the rope tighten, tighten round his victim's neck, saw her drop feet first through the sliding floor.
god! but it would be good--good to know cavendish beaten; to know him as incapable of defending this woman as of defending that other.
and at that, abruptly, the k.c.'s concentration snapped. the furies were on him again, lashing at his loins, lashing him to blood-frenzy. he sprang to his feet; and his chair crashed backward as he sprang. this woman, this lucy towers, must hang. hang! between him and his enemy, between him and the man whose body possessed aliette, she, the messalina of the slums, stood for a symbol. destroying the one, he would destroy all three. this was his chance; his chance for revenge.
vengeance at last! too long aliette and cavendish had eluded him--eluded the torturer.
god! if only he could torture aliette; torture her, not as he would torture this other woman when she stood before him in the witness-box, but physically. of what avail was the law--the law that had reprieved hilda cairns from the rope, that left aliette to revel unpunished in the arms of her paramour--the law that gave him, the wronged husband, no remedy for his wrongs save to set the woman who had wronged him free--free to marry her paramour, to flaunt herself as her paramour's wife before an uncensorious world?
the furies were howling at him: "don't set her free, hector brunton. don't set her free! get her back, hector brunton! make her come back to you! make her submit--submit her cold unyielding body to your hot desires. make her your slave, your puppet--as the armless man was puppet of the woman you have sworn to hang."
with a great shock of self-disgust, of self-realization, aliette's husband controlled his distraught brain. but his loins still quivered to memory of the lash; sweat beaded his forehead; his hands, as he lifted the overset chair, felt hot and clammy on the polished rail. for months he had succeeded in forgetfulness; in chasing the furies from his mind. work had helped him to forget--and renée, renée with her red and riotous hair, her facile, faithless sensuality. other women too--facile, unfastidious.
christ! but he was tired of it all. tired! work and women, women and work--month after month, the same eternal treadmill! now he was weary; wearied alike of his work and his women. remained in him only the one desire; the desire for vengeance. that desire he would satisfy. and after that?
what did it matter? he, hector brunton, knew the hollowness of all desires. even in success, even in hatred, even in vengeance, could be no enduring satisfaction.
a great mood of self-pity submerged his mind. fame, riches, every fruit of his up-reaching--he had won. and the choicest fruits left only a bitterness in his mouth. how could a man enjoy those fruits in loneliness?
christ! but he was lonely--lonely. he hadn't even a friend. not one single friend with whom to take counsel! not one solitary being in all the world who would listen--as a friend listens--to---to the still, small scarce-articulate voice which had begun to whisper in hector brunton's soul.
that voice, the still small voice of conscience, was whispering now. "cruel," it whispered; "cruel. set her free. set her free!"
heavily hector brunton sat him down at his desk. his gray pupils stared vacantly at the light. he saw two faces in the light: his wife's face, torture-pale; and the face he imagined lucy's, heavy-jowled, animal, yet with a hint of soul behind the animal eyes.
the two faces seemed to be pleading with him, pleading for pity. "we have known love," they pleaded, "but you--how should you understand?"
the faces vanished; and in their stead he saw renée--insatiate, submissive, her mouth still upcurled for his. "i am love," said the mouth of renée.
but always the still small voice of conscience whispered in hector's soul. "between love and lust," whispered the voice, "between the good and the bad that is in you, between the cruelty that cries for vengeance and the understanding which is pity--choose!"
