University of Virginia Library

36. CHAPTER XXXVI.

We pass over the interviews between Beauchampe and
William Calvert. At none of these was the wife present.
The former was satisfied to accept the services of one
who approached him with the best manners of the gentleman,
and the happy union, in his address, of the sage and
lawyer; and he freely narrated to him all the particulars
of that deed for which he was held to answer. Calvert
was put in possession of all that was deemed necessary to
the defence, or rather of all that Beauchampe knew. But,
either the latter did not know all, or perjury was an easily
bought commodity upon his trial. There were witnesses
to swear to his footsteps, to his voice, his face, his words,
his knife and clothes; though he believed that no living

eye, save that of the Omniscient, beheld him in his approaches
to commit the deed. The knife which struck
the blow was buried in the earth. The clothes which he
wore were sunk in the river. Yet a knife was produced
on the trial as that which had pierced the heart of the
victim, and witnesses identified him in garments which he
no longer possessed, and in which, according to his belief,
they had never seen him. It is possible that he deceived
himself. There can be no doubt that he was just enough
of the maniac, while carrying out the monomania which
made him so, to be conscious of little else but the one
stirring, all-absorbing passion in his mind. Such a man
walks the streets and sees no form save that which occupies
his imagination—speaks his purpose in soliloquy
which his own ears never heed; fancies himself alone
though surrounded by spectators. His microcosm is within.
He has, while the leading idea is busy in his soul, no consciousness
of any world without.

Could we record the argument of Calvert,—analyse for
the reader the voluminous and not always consorting testimony,
as he analysed it for the court,—and repeat, word
for word, and look for look, the exquisite appeal which he
offered to the jury, we should be amply justified in occupying,
in these volumes, the considerable space which
such a record would require; but we dare not make the
attempt; the more particularly, as, however able and admirable,
it failed of its effect. Eyes were wet, sighs were
audible at its close; but the jury, if moved by the eloquence
of the orator, were obdurate, so far as concerned the
prisoner. The verdict was rendered “Guilty,”—and with
the awful word, Mrs. Beauchampe started to her feet, and
accused herself to the court, not only of participating in
the offence, but of prompting it. It was supposed to be a
merciful forbearance that Justice permitted herself to become
deaf, as well as blind, on this occasion. Her wild
asseverations were not employed against her; and she
failed of the end she sought—to unite her fate, at the close,
with that of him, to whom, as she warned him in the beginning,
she herself was a fate.

But, though she failed to provoke justice to prosecution,
she was yet not to be baffled in her object. Her resolution
was taken, to share the doom of her husband. For
her he had incurred the judgment of the criminal, and her

nature was too magnanimous to think of surviving him.
She resolved upon death in her own case, and at the same
time resolved on defeating, in his, that brutal exposure
which attends the execution of the laws. But of her purpose
she said nothing,—not even to him whom it most
concerned. With that stern directness of purpose which
formed so distinguishing a trait in her character, she made
her preparations in secret. The indulgence of the authorities
permitted her to see her husband at pleasure, and to
share with him, when she would, the sad privilege of his
dungeon. This indulgence was not supposed to involve
any risk, since a guard was designated to maintain a constant
watch upon the prisoner; and it does not seem to
have entered into the apprehensions of the jailer to provide
against any danger except that of the convict's escape.

The dungeon of the condemned was a close cell, the
only entrance to which was by a trap-door from above.
Escape from this place, with a guard in the upper chamber,
was not an easy performance, nor did it seem to enter for
a moment into the calculation or designs of either of the
Beauchampes. The husband was prepared to die, and
the solemn, though secret determination of the wife, had
prepared her also. The former considered his fate with
the feeling of a martyr; and every word of the latter, was
intended to confirm, in his mind, this strengthening and
consoling conviction. The few days which were left to
the criminal, were not otherwise unsoothed and unlighted
from without. Friends came to him in his dungeon, and
strove, with the diligence of love, to convert the remaining
hours of his life into profitable capital for the future grand
investment of immortality. Religion lent her aid to friend—
ship; and whether Beauchampe did or did not persist in
the notion that the crime for which he stood condemned
was praiseworthy, at all events, he was persuaded by her
unremitting cares and counsels, that he was a sinner,—
sinning in a thousand respects for which repentance was
the only grand remedy which could atone to God for the
wrongs done, and left unrepaired, to man.

Among the friends who now constantly sought the cell
of the criminal, William Calvert was none of the least
punctual. Beauchampe became very fond of him, and
felt, in a short time, the very vast superiority of his mind
and character over those of his late tutor. The wife,

meanwhile, with that fearless frankness which knows thoroughly
the high value of the most superior truth—for
truth has its qualities and degrees, though each may be intrinsically
pure—had freely told her husband the whole
history of the early devotion of William Calvert, when she
knew him as the obscure William Hinkley; how, blinded
by her own vanity, and the obscurity to which the very
modesty of the young rustic had subjected him, she despised
his pretensions, and, for the homage of the sly serpent
by whom she had been deceived,—beguiled with his
lying tongue and pleased with his gaudy coat,—had
slighted the superior worth of the former, and treated his
claims with a scorn as little deserved by him as becoming
in her. Sometimes, Beauchampe spoke of this painful past
in the history of his wife and visiter, and the reference
now did not seem to give pain, at least to the former. The
reason was good—she had done with the past. The considerations
which now filled her mind were all of a superior
nature; and she listened to her husband, even when
he spoke on this theme in the presence of William Calvert
himself, with an unmoved and unabashed countenance.
The latter possessed no such stoicism. At such moments
his heart beat with a wildly increased rapidity of pulsation;
and he felt the warm flush pass over his cheeks, as
vividly and quickly now, as in the days of his first youthful
consciousness of love.

It was the evening preceding the day of execution.
The dark hours were at hand. The guard of the prison
had warned the visiters to depart. The divine had already
gone. The drooping sisters of Beauchampe were
about to go for the night, moaning wildly as they went,
in anticipation of the day of awful moan which was approaching.
Fond and fervent, and very sad, was the
parting, though for the night only, which the condemned
gave to these dear twin-buds of his affections. It was a
pang spared to him that his poor old mother was too sick
to see him. When he thought of her, and of the unspeakable
misery which would be hers were she present,
he felt the grief lessened which followed from the thought
that their eyes might never more encounter. But the
sisters went, all went but William Calvert, and he seemed
disposed to linger to the last permitted moment. His
thoughts were less with the condemned man than with

the wife. His eyes were fixed upon the same object.
His anxiety and surprise increased with each moment of
his gaze. Whence could arise that strange serenity
which appeared in her countenance? Where did she
find that strength which, at such an hour, could give her
composure? Nor was it serenity and composure alone,
which distinguished her air, look, and carriage. There
was a holy intentness, a sublime decision in her look,
which filled him with apprehension. He knew the daring
of her character—the bold disposition which had always
possessed her to dare the dark and the unknown—and
his prescient conjecture divined her intention. She sat
behind her husband on his lowly pallet. Calvert occupied
a stool at its foot. Beauchampe had been speaking freely
with all his visiters. He was only moved by the feeling of
his situation on separating from his sisters. At all other
periods he was tolerably calm, and sometimes his conversation
ran into playfulness. When we say playfulness, we
do not mean to be understood as intimating his indulgence
of mere fun and jest, which would have been as inconsistent
with his general character as with the solemn responsibility
of his situation. But there was an ease of heart about
what he said, an elastic freedom, which insensibly coloured
with a freshness and vitality, the idea which he uttered.

“Sit closer to me, Anna,” he said to his wife—“sit
closer. We are not to be so long together that we can
spare these moments. We have no time for distance
and formality. Calvert will excuse this fondness, however
annoying it might seem between man and wife at
ordinary periods.”

He took her hand in his as she drew nigh, and passed his
arm fondly about her waist. She was silent—and Calvert,
thinking of the conjecture which had been awakened in
his mind, by the deportment of the wife, was too full
of serious and startling thoughts to be altogether assured
of what Beauchampe was saying. The latter continued,
after a brief pause, by a reference of some abruptness to
the past history of the two:

“It seems to me the strangest thing in the world,
Anna, that you should ever have refused to marry our
friend Calvert. My days,” he said, turning to the latter
as he spoke, “my days of idle speech and vain flattery
are numbered, Calvert; and you will do me the justice

to believe that I am not the man to waste words at any
time in worthless compliment. Certainly I will not now.
But, since I have known you, I feel that I could wish to
know no more desirable friend; and how my wife could
have rejected you for any other person—I care not whom
—I do not exclude myself—I cannot understand, unless
by supposing that there is a special fate in such matters,
by which our best judgments are set at nought, and our
wisest plans baffled. Had she married you, Calvert—”

“Why will you speak of it?” said Calvert with an earnestness
of tone which yet faltered. The wife was still
silent. Beauchampe answered:

“Because I speak as one to whom the business of life
is over. I am speaking as one from the grave. The passions
are dumb within me. The strifes are over. The
vain delicacies of society seem a child's play to me
now. Besides, I speak regretfully. For her sake, how
much better had it been. Instead of being, as she is now,
the wife of a convict, doomed to a dog's death—instead of
the long strife through which she has gone—instead of
the utter waste of that proud genius which might, under
other fortunes, have taken such noble flights and attained
such a noble eminence,—”

The wife interrupted him with a smile.

“Ah, Beauchampe, you are supposing that the world
has but one serpent—but one Alfred Stevens! The eagle
in his flight may escape one arrow, but who shall insure
him against the second or the third? I suspect that few
persons at the end of life—of a long life—looking back,
with all their knowledge and experience, could recommence
the journey and find it any smoother or safer than
at first. He is the best philosopher who, when the time
comes to die, can wash his hands of life the soonest, with
the least effort, and dispose his robes most calmly—and
so gracefully—around him. Do not speak of what I have
lost, and of what I have suffered. Still less is it needful
that you should speak of our friend's affairs. We are all
chosen, I suspect. Our fortunes are assigned us. That
of our friend was never more favourable than when mine
prompted my refusal of his kind offer. I was not made
for him nor he for me. We might not have been happy
together; and for the best reason, since I was too blind
and ignorant to see what I should have seen, that the

very humility which I despised in him, was the source of
his strength and would have been of my security. I now
congratulate him that I was blind to his merits. He will
live, he will grow stronger with each succeeding day,
fortune will smile upon his toils, and fame will follow
them. At least we will pray, Beauchampe, that such
will be the case. At parting, William Hinkley—I cannot
call you by the other name now—at parting, for ever,—
believe this assurance. You shall have our prayers and
blessings—such as they are—truly, fondly, my friend, for
we owe much to your help and sympathy.”

“For ever, Margaret!—why should you say for ever?”

Calvert fastened his eyes upon her as she spoke. She
met the glance unmoved, and replied—

“Will it not be for ever? To-morrow, which deprives
me of him, deprives me of the world. I must hide from
it. I have no more business with it, nor it with me. I
have still some sense of shame—some feelings of sacred
sorrow—which I should be loth to expose to its busy finger.
Is not this enough, William Calvert?”

“But I am not the world. Friends you will still need;
my good, old father—”

She shook her head.

“I know what you would say, William—I know all
your goodness of heart, and thank you from the very bottom
of mine. Let it suffice that, should I need a friend
after to-morrow, I shall seek none other than you.”

“Margaret,” said William, impressively, “you cannot
deceive me. I know your object. I see it in your eyes
—in those subdued tones. I am sure of what you purpose.”

“What purpose? what do you mean?” demanded
Beauchampe.

Before he could be answered by Calvert the wife had
spoken. She addressed herself to the latter.

“And if you do know it, William Hinkley, you know it
only by the conviction in your own heart of what, if not
unavoidable, is at least necessary. Speak not of it—give
it no thought, and only ask of yourself what, to me, to
such a soul as mine—would be life after to-morrow's
sun has set! Go now—the guard calls. You will see us
in the morning.”

“Margaret—for your soul's sake—”

The expostulation was arrested by the repeated summons
of the guard. The wife put her finger on her lips
in sign of silence. He prepared to depart, but could not
forbear whispering in her ears the exhortation which he
had begun to speak aloud. She heard him patiently to
the end, and sweetly, but faintly smiling, she shook her
head, making no other answer. The hoarse voice of the
guard again summoned the visiter, who reluctantly rose
to obey. He shook hands with Beauchampe, and Margaret
followed him to the foot of the ladder. When he
gave her his hand she carried it to her lips.

“God bless you, William Hinkley!” she murmured.
“You are and have been a noble gentleman. Remember
me kindly, and oh! forgive me that I did you wrong, that
I did not do justice to your feelings and your worth. Perhaps
it was better that I did not.”

“Let me pray to you, Margaret. Do not—oh! do not
what you design. Spare yourself.”

“Ay, William, I will! Shame, certainly, the bitter
mock of the many—the silent derision of the few—deceit
and fraud—reproach without and within—all these will I
spare myself.”

“Come! come!” said the guard gruffly, from above,
“Will you never be done talking? Leave the gentleman
to his prayers. His time is short!”

And thus they parted for the night.