The Dawn of Reckoning (27 page)

What many had said was quite true; Stella was so changed in
appearance that those who had known her as Philip’s wife would hardly have
recognized her after the trial. She was scarred with anxiety and suffering;
but she was not cowed. As soon as the court was dismissed she went over to
Sir John Hempidge and said, with perfectly controlled voice: “You will
appeal, of course?”

Now, after the turmoil of the fight, she was staying for the while at
Brighton. There were several reasons for this. One was that she could not,
even if she had wished, have remained at Chassingford. The Hall was no longer
open to her; by Philip’s will, it had been left to his mother, together with
the Kensington flat and all his money and property.

During the final days of the trial, however, a letter reached her from a
lady who claimed to be connected with Ward in a rather extraordinary manner.
“I am the mother,” she wrote, “of one of the men who went with Doctor Ward on
his first polar expedition, and who would have lost his life but for Ward’s
bravery and self-sacrifice. My boy (for I still think of him as that) is now
happy and prosperous in Australia, and every hour of the day I offer up my
thanks to the man who is now on his trial for murder. I have never been able
to meet him, but now, I think, has come a chance to repay a little of my
great debt. Will you (whether the trial goes well or badly for him) accept
the hospitality of an old lady for just as long as you care to? Of course,
you may have other plans—if so, please do exactly as you prefer. My
only desire is to help you and the doctor, and it occurred to me that you
might be wondering where to go and what to do afterwards. People in this
world, as I well know, are very thoughtless and cruel; they neglect you most
of all when you need their help…”

Stella replied simply: “Dear Mrs. Bowden,—Thank you very much for
your kind offer, which I shall gratefully accept. I shall come straight away
to you as soon as the trial ends…”

Mrs. Bowden proved to be an old and wealthy lady who lived alone in an
enormous rock-like house on the borders of Brighton and Hove. For her age she
was amazingly agile and enterprising, and she seemed to take a certain
malicious pleasure in being seen out in company with the woman whom all
England delighted to revile. “My dear,” she told Stella, “I have no
reputation to keep up and consequently none to lose. If you knew more of my
past life you’d understand why.”

Meanwhile, the wheel of fate still moved inexorably round. One result of
the popular outcry against Stella (“the woman who had driven him to do it”)
was that a great deal of public sympathy was aroused for Ward. Stella hoped
that this would be shown by the size of a petition that was being signed for
a reprieve. She was quite certain that the death sentence would never be
carried out. “For one thing, it may get quashed on appeal. And, in any case,
the Home Secretary can’t ignore a petition signed by half the country.”

Mrs. Bowden was less confident. “Hope for victory, but don’t count on it,”
she advised. “And don’t forget that your chief enemy is not the Home
Secretary, but the creature who occupies every cabinet post in every
government—Mrs. Grundy.”

The petition was organized by Ward’s solicitors, but Stella received a
cold rebuff when she visited them and offered her help. They gave her to
understand plainly that the less she had to do with it the more successful it
was likely to be, and that her most valuable service to the prisoner would be
to keep out of things as much as possible. It was this that decided her to
refuse the
Sunday Wire’s
offer of a thousand pounds for an article.
Mrs. Bowden rather favoured an acceptance. “After all, a thousand isn’t to be
sneezed at, and it may come in very handy for you some day. Besides, you
won’t have to write anything—only your signature at the end.” But after
the interview with Ward’s solicitors, Stella wrote refusing the offer. A wire
in return increased the offer to fifteen hundred, and then she wrote
explaining that in no circumstances would she have anything to do with the
matter. The
Wire
published her letter in full under the heading: “Mrs.
Monsell’s Refusal.”

About a week after the trial she had to meet Mrs. Monsell at a solicitor’s
office in connection with a business matter. Mrs. Monsell’s attitude was
curious; she seemed just as full as ever of her usual acid volubility. Her
manner seemed to say: “I am too broad-minded to be rude to you, and you are
perhaps even more interesting (which is the main thing) after all that has
happened. But, of course, you must recognize that what you have done puts you
outside the pale of society. Therefore I can only regard you as a curiosity,
like my Armenian violinists, postman-poets, and other freaks.”

Soon afterwards Stella heard that Mrs. Monsell had gone to America. The
picture-papers called her “Mother of Chassingford Victim.”

Time dragged fearfully at Brighton, even in Mrs. Bowden’s
energetic company. During the long days of waiting for the hearing of the
appeal, there was nothing at all to do except to make tiresome visits to the
shops, or go motoring with Mrs. Bowden in her enormous Renault limousine.
Mrs. Bowden, indeed, took complete command, insisting that Stella should
accompany her to this place and that, even though she agreed listlessly and
without interest. On almost every day the sun shone, making a perfect holiday
for all the happy crowds whom Stella envied, and who in their ignorance
envied her just as much.

The newspapers, however, had familiarized the country with her appearance,
and once or twice when she was recognized, her identity, combined with the
extravagant opulence of the car, aroused hostility. This was one of the
results of the
Daily
and
Sunday Wire
propaganda. Those
enterprising journals, disappointed in their efforts to buy Stella’s
signature to an article, had begun a fierce campaign against her, cleverly
exploiting her nationality for the purpose. Every day there appeared articles
on the alien peril almost every day the
crime passionel
was the
subject of a special contribution by some medical, legal, psychological, or
sociological expert. Their conclusions pointed to the undoubted superiority
of the English over every other nationality, and the necessity for purging
our national life from “alien pests” and “continental” ideas of morality.
Some of these attacks went so far that the Hungarian Minister protested,
declaring in a letter to the Press that “it must not be supposed that the
events disclosed in a recent murder trial are at all typical of Hungarian
life and manners…”

Whenever the crowd recognized Stella, Mrs. Bowden was tactlessly and
unnecessarily bellicose. Evidently she enjoyed the flouting of convention,
and when at Worthing one afternoon the windows of the car were smashed and
she and Stella had to take refuge in the police station, her zestful
indignation knew no bounds. “I won’t be intimidated by a mob,” she cried to
the police superintendent. “I’m sixty-nine, and a fighter yet.”

The people of Brighton, less demonstrative, were none the less hostile.
Mrs. Bowden despised them.

“The folks who live here,” she said, “are real freezers. But the visitors
aren’t so bad, especially the week-ending couples. Saturday-to-Monday
out-for-a-good-timers, bless them…”

She added quite calmly: “I was one myself once, so maybe that’s why I’m
not bigoted about it.”

Once she said to Stella: “What will you do it the sentence
gets quashed on appeal?”

Stella answered morosely: “I don’t know.”

“You haven’t any money?”

“Not a penny. But I could earn some.”

“It isn’t as easy as you think. But perhaps the doctor has money?”

Stella flushed. “And do you think I could take money from him?”

Mrs. Bowden shrugged her shoulders. “Why not? Forgive me, my dear, if I’m
rather too much a realist for you. You see I’ve had such real
experiences…and it seems to me that since you love him—”

“I
love
him? How do you know that?”

“At the trial—”

“Oh, yes, I remember…Good God, I remember…Go on.”

“Well, my dear, since you love him—”

She could get no further than that. Stella covered her face with her hands
and burst into sobbing. “I can’t bear it—I can’t bear it…Even
you
don’t understand.”

“Don’t I? Very likely not. Who does, anyway, except you yourself?”

Stella looked up with sudden calm. “What
would
you advise me to
do?” she asked.

Mrs. Bowden said quietly: “Put the past on one side. Begin life afresh.
Don’t ruin your future with false conventions. Don’t shackle yourself with a
morality you don’t believe in. If Ward wins, as I hope he will, go with him
abroad and stay there till the world has forgotten. Thank God it has a short
memory. And if money is the only difficulty, then I can—”

Stella interrupted her with a half-sad smile. “I’m afraid you don’t
understand at all, Mrs. Bowden. I can never marry him, even if he were
willing.”

“And why not, indeed?”

She answered: “Because—because—Oh, God—because I’m not
certain—not certain that he’s innocent…”

Mrs. Bowden raised her eyebrows. “My dear,” she said gently, “I never
supposed he was.”

Stella was on fire in an instant.

“What!
What
! Do you think he’s guilty? Have you thought so all
along? Oh, God!
What
do you think?”

“Does it matter what I think?”

“Oh, don’t argue—
tell
me…”

“Stella, I
must
argue. I say, does it matter what I think? I say
more; I say, does it matter whether he’s guilty or not? He loves you and you
love him—”

“Oh, it
does
matter—it
does
matter. It’s
everything—”

“To you. You, the Hungarian, are chaste, moral, almost
proper
. I,
the Englishwoman—oh, well, no need to make a boast of it. But if a man
loved me, and I loved him, I would not care what crime he
committed—even murder.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Stella seemed almost incredulous. Then she began to speak
slowly and carefully. “You don’t understand me. In fact, to be frank, I’m
here on false pretences. You thought I was a woman who plotted with her lover
to murder her husband. Didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“I’m afraid I must be terribly disappointing.”

“Don’t be foolish. I’m here to help you, whatever you are and whatever
you’ve done. I have never been impertinent enough to question you about the
matter. For us to discuss Ward, however, is different—”

“Oh, Ward—Ward…Isn’t it curious that I’ve never called him by his
Christian name?…And you think he
is
guilty then?”

Her voice was quite calm.

“As an outsider judging by evidence alone, I feel quite certain of
it.”

“Yes…yes…I remember he once told me he was afraid of what he’d do if
he lost control—we were talking about drinking, and he said he was
teetotal because he was afraid of killing somebody if he got drunk .. Oh,
yes, he
did
kill Philip—he must have done, and it’s stupid of me
to keep trying to think otherwise…But Philip—Philip…Oh, you don’t
understand me—nobody understands me. They don’t understand how I loved
Philip. Yes, Philip as well as Ward. Until he grew cold and strange, I was
quite happy with him—I loved him like a little baby that I had to look
after. When he was a boy—a big boy—and I was a girl, we were so
happy together—he used to teach me things—and I—in a
way—I used to worship him. He was very good to me then. It was only
towards the end, when he wasn’t well—O God, I
wish
I had been
kinder to him…Poor Philip, so ill and weak, and Ward, big and
strong—oh, it was a brutal, dreadful thing to do…and the man who did
it—I
hate
him—I—”

“Yet you hope he wins his appeal?”

Mrs. Bowden’s voice was full of sweetness.

“Yes. Yes. I hope that. I can’t help hoping that.” She suddenly flung
herself face downwards on the settee and buried her head in the cushions. “O
God, they mustn’t hang him!” she screamed, sobbing convulsively. “Not
hang
him!—I want him!—I want him to live and do great
things and wipe out this fearful business…And yet they’ll hang him and take
away his only chance…Oh, what can I do?—What can anybody do? They’ll
hang him—What can I do to stop them? Tell me—tell me—for
God’s sake—”

“So you still love him?”

The reply was almost inaudible. “Yes…But I will never, never see him
again…”

The appeal was heard in the middle of July. It lasted two
days, and on the afternoon of the second, Stella was in the streets when she
heard the newsboys shouting: “Result of Ward’s Appeal.” She bought a paper
and learned that the appeal had been dismissed.

For several moments she stood on the kerb as in a trance. She could not
see the traffic; there was something heavy and monstrous in front of her
eyes. People were staring, and those who recognized her were doubtless
explaining the full piquancy of the situation to those who didn’t. It was
only the slow and gradual realization of the amount of attention she was
attracting that made her grope her way along the blazing, heartless
streets.

She went back to the house and cried. Without realizing it, she had pinned
all her faith to this appear; she had felt an inward certainty that the
sentence would be quashed or at least reduced. So many barriers had seemed to
loom between the prisoner and the hangman, and to each one in its turn she
had given all her hope. But now the biggest and most redoubtable of the
barriers had come crashing to earth.

Suddenly the full visualization of all that was to happen came to her. She
saw before her eyes the prison, and the drop, and the hangman’s rope…Her
blood tingled into frigidity; it almost seemed that her heart stopped its
beating. She could not cry out or scream; the vision was too paralyzingly
horrible. She sat facing it with dry lips and glassy eyes, hypnotized,
nerveless. The terror was most fearful when the spell was broken; when the
blood raced and the heart beat wildly. The newspaper headlines echoed like
doom…“Appeal dismissed…dismissed.” All the misery of the past seemed
suddenly heaped upon her, and with the misery a frantically growing panic.
Mrs. Bowden had gone out, and when she returned, she found Stella gazing into
an empty firegrate with wild uncanny eyes.