The Tragedy of the Chain Pier by Charlotte M. Braeme
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Charlotte M. Braeme >> The Tragedy of the Chain Pier
There was a long pause, a long silence, a terrible few minutes, and then
she answered:
"Yes, it was my child!"
Her voice was full of despair; she folded her hands and laid them on her
lap.
"I knew it must come," she said. "Now, let me try to think what I must
do. I meet now that which I have dreaded so long. Oh, Lance! my love,
Lance! my love, Lance! You will not tell him?" she cried, turning to me
with impassioned appeal. "You will not!--you could not break his heart
and mine!--you could not kill me! Oh, for Heaven's sake, say you will
not tell him?"
Then I found her on her knees at my feet, sobbing passionate cries--I
must not tell him, it would kill him, She must go away, if I said she
must; she would go from the heart and the home where she had nestled in
safety so long; she would die; she would do anything, if only I would
not tell him. He had loved and trusted her so--she loved him so dearly.
I must not tell. If I liked, she would go to the river and throw herself
in. She would give her life freely, gladly--if only I would not tell
him.
So I sat holding, as it were, the passionate, aching heart in my hand.
"You must calm yourself," I said. "Let us talk reasonably. We cannot
talk while you are like this."
She beat her white hands together, and I could not still her cries; they
were all for "Lance!"--"her love, Lance!"
CHAPTER XI.
"You must listen to me," I said; "I want you to see how truly this is
the work of Providence, and not of mere chance."
I told her how I often had been attracted to the pier; I told her all
that was said by the crowd around; of the man who carried the little
dead child to the work-house; of the tiny little body that lay in its
white dress in the bare, large, desolate room, and of the flowers that
the kindly matron had covered it with.
I told her how I had taken compassion on the forlorn little creature,
had purchased its grave, and of the white stone with "Marah" upon it.
"Marah, found drowned." And then, poor soul--poor, hapless soul, she
clung to my hands and covered them with kisses and tears.
"Did you--did you do that?" she moaned. "How good you are, but you will
not tell him. I was mad when I did that, mad as women often are, with
sorrow, shame and despair. I will suffer anything if you will only
promise not to tell Lance."
"Do you think it is fair," I asked, "that he should be so cruelly
deceived?--that he should lavish the whole love of his heart upon a
murderess?"
I shall not forget her. She sprang from the ground where she had been
kneeling and stood erect before me.
"No, thank Heaven! I am not that," she said; "I am everything else that
is base and vile, but not that."
"You were that, indeed," I replied. "The child you flung into the sea
was living, not dead."
"It was not living," she cried--"it was dead an hour before I reached
there."
"The doctors said--for there was an inquest on the tiny body--they said
the child had been drugged before it was drowned, but that it had died
from drowning."
"Oh, no, a thousand times!" she cried. "Oh, believe me, I did not
wilfully murder my own child--I did not, indeed! Let me tell you. You
are a just and merciful man, John Ford; let me tell you--you must hear
my story; you shall give me my sentence--I will leave it in your hands.
I will tell you all."
"You had better tell Lance, not me," I cried. "What can I do?"
"No; you listen; you judge. It may be that when you have heard all, you
will take pity on me; you may spare me--you may say to yourself that I
have been more sinned against than sinning--you may think that I have
suffered enough, and that I may live out the rest of my life with Lance.
Let me tell you, and you shall judge me."
She fell over on her knees again, rocking backwards and forwards.
"Ah, why," she cried--"why is the world so unfair?--why, when there is
sin and sorrow, why does the punishment fall all on the woman, and the
man go free? I am here in disgrace and humiliation, in shame and
sorrow--in fear of losing my home, my husband, it may even be my
life--while he, who was a thousand times more guilty than I was, is
welcomed, flattered, courted! It is cruel and unjust.
"I have told you," she said, "how hard my childhood was, how lonely and
desolate and miserable I was with my girl's heart full of love and no
one to love.
"When I was eighteen I went to live with a very wealthy family in
London, the name--I will not hide one detail from you--the name was
Cleveland; they had one little girl, and I was her governess. I went
with them to their place in the country, and there a visitor came to
them, a handsome young nobleman, Lord Dacius by name.
"It was a beautiful sunlit county. I had little to do, plenty of
leisure, and he could do as he would with his time. We had met and had
fallen in love with each other. I did not love him, I idolized him;
remember in your judgment that no one had ever loved me. No one had ever
kissed my face and said kind words to me; and I, oh! wretched, miserable
me, I was in Heaven. To be loved for the first time, and by one so
handsome, so charming, so fascinating! A few weeks passed like a dream.
I met him in the early morning, I met him in the gloaming. He swore a
hundred times each day that he would marry me when he came of age. We
must wait until then. I never dreamed of harm or wrong, I believed in
him implicitly, as I loved him. I believe every word that came from his
lips. May Heaven spare me! I need tell you no more. A girl of eighteen
madly, passionately in love; a girl as ignorant as any girl could be,
and a handsome, experienced man of the world.
"There was no hope, no chance. I fell; yet almost without knowing how I
had fallen. You will spare me the rest, I know.
"When in my sore anguish and distress, I went to him, I thought he would
marry me at once; I thought he would be longing only to make me happy
again; to comfort me; to solace me; to make amends for all I had
suffered. I went to him in London with my heart full of longing and
love. I had left my situation, and my stern, cruel grandmother believed
that I had found another. If I lived to be a thousand years old I should
never forget my horror and surprise. He had worshipped me; he had sworn
a thousand times over that he would marry me; he had loved me with the
tenderest love.
"Now, when after waiting some hours, I saw him last, he frowned at me;
there was no kiss, no caress, no welcome.
"'This is a nice piece of news,' he said. 'This comes of country
visiting.'
"'But you love me?--you love me?' I cried.
"'I did, my dear,' he said, 'but, of course, that died with Summer. One
does not speak of what is dead.'
"'Do you not mean to marry me?' I asked.
"'No, certainly not; and you know that I never did. It was a Summer's
amusement.'
"'And what is it to me?' I asked.
"'Oh, you must make the best of it. Of course, I will not see you want,
but you must not annoy me. And that old grandmother of yours, she must
not be let loose upon me. You must do the best you can. I will give you
a hundred pounds if you will promise not to come near me again.'
"I spoke no word to him; I did not reproach him; I did not utter his
name; I did not say good-bye to him; I walked away. I leave his
punishment to Heaven. Then I crushed the anguish within me and tried to
look my life in the face. I would have killed myself rather than have
gone home. My grandmother had forced me to be saving, and in the
postoffice bank I had nearly thirty pounds. I had a watch and chain
worth ten. I sold them, and I sold with them a small diamond ring that
had been my mother's, and some other jewelry; altogether I realized
fifty pounds. I went to the outskirts of London and took two small
rooms.
"I remember that I made no effort to hide my disgrace; I did not pretend
to be married or to be a widow, and the mistress of the house was not
unkind to me. She liked me all the better for telling the truth. I say
no word to you of my mental anguish--no words can describe it, but I
loved the little one. She was only three weeks old when a letter was
forwarded to me at the address I had given in London, saying that my
grandmother was ill and wished me to go home at once. What was I to do
with the baby? I can remember how the great drops of anguish stood on
my face, how my hands trembled, how my very heart went cold with dread.
"The newspapers which I took daily, to read the advertisements for
governesses, lay upon the table, and my eyes were caught by an
advertisement from some woman living at Brighton, who undertook the
bringing up of children. I resolved to go down that very day. I said
nothing to my landlady of my intention. I merely told her that I was
going to place the little one in very good hands, and that I would
return for my luggage.
"I meant--so truly as Heaven hears me speak--I meant to do right by the
little child. I meant to work hard to keep her in a nice home. Oh, I
meant well!
"I was ashamed to go out in the streets with a little baby in my arms.
"'What shall I do if it cries?' I asked the kindly landlady. 'You can
prevent it from crying,' she said; 'give it some cordial.' 'What
cordial?' I asked, and she told me. 'Will it hurt the little one?' I
asked again, and she laughed.
"'No,' she replied, 'certainly not. Half the mothers in London give it
to their children. It sends them into a sound sleep, and they wake up
none the worse for it. If you give the baby just a little it will sleep
all the way to Brighton, and you will have no trouble.' I must say this
much for myself, that I knew nothing whatever of children, that is, of
such little children. I had never been where there was a baby so little
as my own.
"I bought the cordial, and just before I started gave the baby some. I
thought that I was very careful. I meant to be so. I would not for the
whole world have given my baby one half-drop too much.
"It soon slept a calm, placid sleep, and I noticed that the little face
grew paler. 'Your baby is dying,' said a woman, who was traveling in the
third-class carriage with me. 'It is dying, I am sure.' I laughed and
cried; it was so utterly impossible, I thought; it was well and smiling
only one hour ago. I never remembered the cordial. Afterwards, when I
came to make inquiries, I found that I had given her too much. I need
not linger on details.
"You see, that if my little one died by my fault, it was most
unconscious on my part; it was most innocently, most ignorantly done. I
make no excuse. I tell you the plain truth as it stands. I caused my
baby's death, but it was most innocently done; I would have given my own
life to have brought hers back. You, my judge, can you imagine any fate
more terrible than standing quite alone on the Brighton platform with a
dead child in my arms?
"I had very little money. I knew no soul in the place. I had no more
idea what to do with a dead child than a baby would have had. I call it
dead," she continued, "for I believe it to have been dead, no matter
what any doctor says. It was cold--oh, my Heaven, how cold!--lifeless;
no breath passed the little lips! the eyes were closed--the pretty hand
stiff. I believed it dead. I wandered down to the beach and sat down on
the stones.
"What was I to do with this sweet, cold body? I cried until I was almost
blind; in the whole wide world there was no one so utterly desolate and
wretched. I cried aloud to Heaven to help me--where should I bury my
little child? I cannot tell how the idea first occurred to me. The waves
came in with a soft, murmuring melody, a sweet, silvery hush, and I
thought the deep, green sea would make a grave for my little one. It was
mad and wicked I know now; I can see how horrible it was; it did not
seem to be so then. I only thought of the sea then as my best friend,
the place where I was to hide the beloved little body, the clear, green
grave where she was to sleep until the Judgment Day. I waited until--it
is a horrible thing to tell you! but I fell asleep--fast asleep, and of
all the horrors in my story, the worst part is that, sitting by the sea,
fast asleep myself, with my little, dead babe on my knee.
"When I awoke the tide was coming in full and soft, and swift-running
waves, the sun had set, and a thick, soft gloom had fallen over
everything, and then I knew the time had come for what I wanted to do."
CHAPTER XII.
"I went on to the Chain Pier. I had kissed the little face for the last
time; I had wrapped the pretty white body in the black-and-gray shawl. I
said all the prayers I could remember as I walked along the pier; it was
the most solemn of burial services to me.
"I went to the side of the pier--I cannot understand how it was that I
did not see you--I stood there some few minutes, and then I took the
little bundle; I raised it gently and let it fall into the sea. But my
baby was dead--I swear to that. Oh, Heaven! if I dared--if I dared fling
myself in the same green, briny waves!
"I was mad with anguish. I went back to my lodging; the landlady asked
me if I had left the baby in Brighton, and I answered 'Yes.' I do not
know how the days went on--I could not tell you; I was never myself, nor
do I remember much until some weeks afterward I went home to my
grandmother, who died soon after I reached her. I need not tell you that
afterwards I met Lance, and learned to love him with all my heart.
"Do not tell him; promise me, I beseech you, for mercy's sake, do not
tell him!"
"What you have told me," I said, "certainly gives a different aspect to
the whole affair. I will make no promise--I will think it over. I must
have time to decide what is best."
"You will spare me," she went on. "You see I did no one any harm, wrong
or injury. If I hurt another, then you might deprive me of my husband
and my home; as it is, Lance loves me and I love him. You will not tell
him?"
"I will think about it," I replied.
"But I cannot live in this suspense," she cried. "If you will tell him,
tell him this day, this hour."
"He might forgive you," I said.
"No, he would not be angry, he would not reproach me, but he would never
look upon my face again."
"Would it not be better for you to tell him yourself?" I suggested.
"Oh, no!" she cried, with a shudder. "No, I shall never tell him."
"I do not say that I shall," I said. "Give me a few days--only a few
days--and I will decide in my mind all about it."
Then we saw Lance in the distance.
"There is my husband," she said. "Do I look very ill, Mr. Ford?"
"You do, indeed; you look ghastly," I said.
"I will go and meet him," she said.
The exercise and the fresh air brought some little color to her face
before they met. Still he cried out that I had not taken care of her;
that she was overtired.
"That is it," she replied. "I have been over-tired all day: I think my
head aches; I have had a strange sensation of dizziness in it, I am
tired--oh, Lance, I am so tired!"
"I shall not leave you again," said Lance to her, and I fancied he was
not quite pleased with me, and thought I had neglected her. We all three
went home together. Mrs. Fleming did not say much, but she kept up
better than I thought she could have done. I heard her that same evening
express a wish to be driven to Vale Royal on the day following; a young
girl, whom she had been instrumental in saving from ruin, had been
suddenly taken ill, and wanted to see her.
"My darling," Lance said, "you do not seem to me strong enough. Let me
persuade you to rest tomorrow."
"I should like to see Rose Winter again before--before I"--then she
stopped abruptly.
"Before you--what, Frances?" he asked.
"I mean," she said, "that I should like to see Rose before she grows
worse."
"I think you ought to rest, but you shall do as you like, Frances; you
always do. I will drive you over myself."
I saw them start on the following morning, and then I tried to think
over in solitude what it would be best to do. Her story certainly
altered facts very considerably. She was not a murderess, as I had
believed her to be. If the death of the little hapless child was
attributable to an overdose of the cordial, she had certainly not given
it purposely. Could I judge her?
Yet, an honest, loyal man like Lance ought not to be so cruelly
deceived. I felt sure myself that if she spoke to him--if she told him
her story with the same pathos with which she had told it to me, he
would forgive her--he must forgive her. I could not reconcile it with my
conscience to keep silence, I could not, and I believed that the truth
might be told with safety. So, after long thinking and deliberation, I
came to the conclusion that Lance must know, and that she must tell him
herself.
It was in the middle of a bright, sunshiny afternoon when they returned.
When Lance brought his wife into the drawing-room he seemed very anxious
over her.
"Frances does not seem well," he said to me. "Ring the bell, John, and
order some hot tea; she is as cold as death."
Her eyes met mine, and in them I read the question--"What are you going
to do?" I was struck by her dreadful pallor.
"Is your head bad again today?" I asked.
"Yes, it aches very much," she replied.
The hot tea came, and it seemed to revive her; but after a few minutes
the dreadful shivering came over her again. She stood up.
"Lance," she said, "I will go to my room, and you must lead me; my head
aches so that I am blind."
She left her pretty drawing-room, never to re-enter it. The next day at
noon Lance came to me with a sad face.
"John, my wife is very ill, and I have just heard bad news."
"What is it, Lance?" I asked.
"Why, that the girl she went yesterday to see, Rose Winter, is ill with
the most malignant type of small-pox."
I looked at him in horror.
"Do you think," I gasped, "that the--that Mrs. Fleming has caught it?"
"I am quite sure," he replied. "I have just sent for the doctor, and
have telegraphed to the hospital for two nurses. And my old friend," he
added, "I am afraid it is going to be a bad case."
It was a bad case. I never left him while the suspense lasted; but it
was soon over. She suffered intensely, for the disease was of the most
virulent type. It was soon over. Lance came to me one afternoon, and I
read the verdict in his face.
"She will die," he said, hoarsely. "They cannot save her," and the day
after that he came to me again with wistful eyes.
"John," he said, slowly, "my wife is dying, and she wants to see you.
Will you see her?"
"Most certainly," I replied.
She smiled when she saw me, and beckoned me to her. Ah, poor soul! her
judgment had indeed been taken from me. She whispered to me:
"Promise me that you will never tell him. I am dying! he need never know
now. Will you promise me?"
I promised, and she died! I have kept my promise--Lance Fleming knows
nothing of what I have told you.
Only Heaven knows how far she sinned or was sinned against. I never see
the sunset, or hear the waves come rolling in, without thinking of the
tragedy on the pier.
THE END.
[Transcriber's Note: Several typographical errors from the original
edition have been corrected.
white, slivery foam has been changed to
white, silvery foam.
an entensive park has been changed to
an extensive park.
the magnificent retriver has been changed to
the magnificent
retriever.
a ring of such clear, music has been changed to
a ring of such clear
music.
the breat boughs has been changed to
the great boughs.
come to your own room, John and has been changed to
come to your own
room, John, and.
a supberb picture has been changed to
a superb picture.
it was utterably impossible that my suspicious could be correct has
been changed to
it was utterly impossible that my suspicions could be
correct.
seeming unconciousness has been changed to
seeming unconsciousness.
A missing quotation mark has been added at the end of the line
I do not
like thee, Doctor Fell!'
An extraneous quotation mark has been removed from the sentence
beginning
I meant nothing by the words.
A missing quotation mark has been added to the sentence
I will go into
the house."
A missing quotation has been added to the sentence
I am not tired, Mrs.
Fleming, I am interested," I said.
In the sentence
He heard her as plainly as I here the river here
"here" has been changed to "hear".
An extra comma has been removed from the line
my old friend," he
added,, "I am afraid.]