The Penalty of a Crime.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 7, 13 February 1892, Page 146

The Penalty of a Crime.

BY

WILLIAM BELWORTHY,

, WELLINGTON-

(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, .t

CHAPTER XVII.

• It may be for years. And it may be for ever. BRIGHT moonlight night in August. Two figures standing in the shadow of a group of tine old beech trees in Squire Oakfield’s grounds. The taller of the figures is that of a gentleman in evening dress, and the other is that of a lady, dressed becomingly in a white costume of Indian silk trimmed with pale blue bows, which set off her graceful figure to advantage. Loosely fhrntvn QorrYAjfi hpr I«IPFS for

thrown across her shoulders — tor though it is the middle of summer the night air is somewhat chilly—is a light cashmere shawl of delicate texture. As they thus stand, hand clasped in hand, the quiet, peaceful beauty of the woodland scene, as revealed by the softened rays of the moon, is not without its effect on them both. ■And so, Constance,’ he is saying, with a tremor in his voice, ‘we must say goodbye to night. It is best that it should be so. Best that I should leave Finchley for a time, at any rate, but oh ! my darling,’ and the pent-up passion broke forth, ‘it is hard to give you up. What have I done that this evil should fall upon us both.’ Constance Oakfield raised her face, and there was a wistful, tender look in her eyes as she replied, ‘Hush, < Jerald ! do not grieve for my sake. The parting is bitter for me as well as for you, but we can trust each other dear, and we will try and wait patiently till the mystery has been cleared up, or "until you care to come for me. As you say, 1 think it will be better that you go away from Finchley for a time; but Australia seems such a long way off, Gerald. You will write to me as often as you can, will you not ?’ • Yes, Constance, and I shall look forward to your letters as the traveller looks for the oasis in the desert. But you are sure you will never regret the step you are taking, darling ?’

‘ Never, Gerald,' she replies. ‘Do not think me unmaidenly when I confess that I have pledged you my troth for better for worse, and come what will I am yours for evermore,' and she leaned her head lovingly for a moment on his shoulder, and then drew his face down to hers, and sealed her confession with a kiss.

‘God bless you, Constance, darling, and grant that the mystery of the Finchley murder may soon be dispelled, and my name cleared from the faintest breath of suspicion. I shall never feel thoroughly content till the murderer has been discovered, and shall leave no stone unturned to accomplish this. Mr Edgebaston has promised to use his experience towards solving the mystery, and we can only hope and wait, but if no solution can be found by the end of three years, then, if you still wish it, I will come back and claim the fulfilment of your pledge. It pains me to think that the Squire should have changed so much in his manner towards me since the trial ; but with the consciousness of your love and your belief in my innocence of the horrible erime with which I was charged, I can leave it to the future to clear my name in the eyes of the world, although for your sake especially, my darling, I do sincerely pray that that time may be hastened.’ ‘ And that day will assuredly come, Gerald. The discipline that you have been called upon to undergo has been, ami may still be, severe, but I am confident that your name will be cleared before long, so do not fear the future dear. For myself, I shall not be idle in your absence, and do not despair of also winning papa over to our side.’ ‘Your words fill me with hope and courage, darling,’ said Gerald, ‘ and have robber! our parting of half its bitterness. As you know, Constance, I have received word from a firm of solicitors in Melbourne to the effect that the property acquired by my late father in the suburbs of that city has, through the course of time, acquired great value, and as it is necessary that I should instruct them as to its disposal, I may as well take the present opportunity and run over to attend to the matter personally. So good-bye once more, darling, and may God bless and keep us safe till we meet again.'

We will not attempt further to describe the farewell interview. Suffice it to say that Gerald left Finchley the next morning for Plymouth, and from thence took passage in one of the colonial bound steamers, and in due time arrived safely at his destination in Australia

CHAPTER XVIII. 'Tired of life’s history. Glad to Death's mysterv

Hood. Two years have passed away since Gerald Olphert arrived in Australia. In a miserable room in a wretched bye street leading off from one of the main thoroughfares in the city of Melbourne, a man lay dying. The bed on which he lay, the scanty and insufficient clothing which did duty as covering tor his attenuated form, and the absence of any furniture in the room, with the exception of a table and two rickety chairs, and the l>ed on which the man lay, indicated only too plainly the financial condition of the occupants ; whilst the hectic flush on the invalid's cheeks, combined with the hacking cough which ever and anon seemed to seize him, l>es|>oke the victim to that insidious and fell disease—consumption. < >n the table itself a small kerosene lamp was burning, and seated on one of the rickety chairs by the side of the table a pale faced, worn-looking woman sat busily stitching at some material as if her very life depended—as in fact was the case—on completing her work before lay break. A small alarm clock on the mantel-

piece pointed to the hour of eleven, and as it struck the time the woman gave a weary sigh as her eyes glanced for one brief moment at the clock, and immediately dropped again on the work on which she had been engaged. The sound of the clock striking also affected the sick man on the bed in the corner, for he moaned in his sleep, attempted to raise himself, and fell back exhausted on his pillow. The worker at the little table never ceased to ply her needle, as if she had from continual watching grown accustomed to every motion of her patient, and knew, without being under the necessity of delaying her work, whether or not he rerequired her assistance. Wearily the minutes dragged along, yet still the woman sewed on till, as the clock struck the hour of one, she finished the last stitch in the garment, laid it down with another sigh, which was half a groan, and her eyes, heavy with the need of rest which she had fought against for so long, closed at last, and she fell asleep. Her face was pale, and the heavy black rings round her eyes told their tale of care and trouble and weariness. The sharp outlines of the cheek - bones, the thin bony fingers, and the drawn lines about the mouth were unmistakeable tokens that want and hunger were, alas ! too often her companions in misfortune. ■Judging from the evidences still remaining, it was easy to believe that the woman had once been what is termed ‘ good-looking,’ but the struggle—the daily, hourly struggle for existence, bad left its marks upon her, and there was a hunted, half-despairing look in her eyes—a look seldom seen outside the ranks of the poor, but seen there only too frequently, God knows. The garment at which she had been working so eagerly, and the material for making similar articles, which lay upon the floor at her feet, told the nature of her usual avocation. She was a victim to the pernicious body-and-soul destroying sweating system, which was sucking out the life-blood of so many ‘ daughters of the people ’ in the sunny south. Here in this young colony of Australia, and unfortunately even in the sister colony of New Zealand —two of the brightest spots on God’s fair earth—that fiend in human shape, that High Priest of Moloch and Mammon, with his train of emissaries designated ‘sweaters,’ had taken up their abode, and daily and hourly victims were being laid upon the altar, living sacrifices to the insatiable greed and avarice of their double-headed, flint-hearted deity, whose only answer to his victim’s cry was to triumphantly point to the inscription on his banner written in letters of blood, unalterable and unchangeable as the law sof the Medes and Persians, the glorious and martyr-inspiring text of ‘ Supply and Demand.’ What mattered it to the holy brotherhood of employers that hearts wore broken and young lives crushed beneath the car-wheels of Society’s Juggernaut? Did not they (the victims) freely offer themselves up as trilling sacrifices? And how could the demands of their god for cheap clothes and cheap food be maintained if it were not so? It was simply a matter of the ‘ survival of the fittest,’ and if the weakest went to the wall, what was that to do with Society? It had always been so, and would remain so. The laws of political economy plainly demonstrated the fact, and so long as the supply of workers is in excess of the demand for the same, just so long will it be sheer waste of time to argue about victims and broken hearts and that kind of thing in connection with this offering up of human lives. The exigencies of trade required it, Society demanded it, and so long as the members of the said Society are affiliated with the ‘ holy brotherhood ’ of Mammon, there would always be found a superabundance of victims.

This was, in effect, the argument brought forward by those engaged in the * sweating traffic.’ ‘ If,’ they argued, ‘ a person can’t live upon the price paid for his or her labour, then why on earth did they undertake it. The employer offers the work at a certain price, the employe accepts it on the terms ottered, and there, so far as the employer is concerned, the matter ends. Surely nothing could be fairer than this. Am Imy brother’s keeper?’

Aye ! surely you are, and because it is so, just as surely will your brother’s and your sister’s blood cry from the ground for vengeance to Him who has said, • Yengeance is mine, I will repay.' Did you not know when you gave that pale-faced woman the material for making up those coats and trousers, that, eventhough she worked from early morn till midnight, she could not make a bate living from the money she would receive in payment for her labour ? When you informed her that she would receive for making a pair of men’s trousers, and 2s 6d and even less for making a man’s coat, did it never occur to you that you were as truly engaged in slave traffic as was ever American planter ? and as the negro slave was bound by the laws of the country to obey the owner who had purchased him, so the white slave is bound by the laws of stern adversity and necessity to comply with the demands of her purchaser who has bought her, body, soul and spirit, for her ‘market value.’ Is it matter for wonderment then, that men and women are at length awakening to a knowledge of the fact that the Creator destined them for something higher and nobler than to act as mere beasts of burden, sent into the world to minister to the sensual gratification of the luxurious, lotuseating disciples of Mammon? And now that the scales have fallen from their eyes, can we wonder at their demands to share in the rights which were intended to be the common property of all humanity ; the right to live, and not merely to exist ; the right to a fair day’s pay for a fair day's work ; tne right to be freed from the system of oppression and injustice which enriches the few at the cost of the many ; the right to an interval of leisure from their usual avocations: that they may develop the faculties which God has given them and" the right to be acknowledged as members of the great brotherhood of man ; that they, too, may assist in hastening the consummation of the

Creator • plan, when * man to man the world o'er, shall brother's be and a’ that.’ And now let us return to the room in which our chapter first opened. The woman whom we left is still sleeping, although she has changed her position somewhat. Her arms are stretched across the table, and her head is laid upon them in verv abandonment of weariness. Presently she moves in her sleep, as if her mind is disturbed by troublesome dreams, and the next moment throws up her hands in a gesture of despair, looks wildly round the ill-furnished room till her eyes rest on the form in the bed in the corner. This, and the sight of the painfully familiar garments lying on the table, with their thimble and needle lying by their side, soon recalled her wandering thoughts, and she clenched her thin hands nervously together, as she moaned, *Oh God ? shall I never be at rest ? Day after day, night after night, always the same grinding monotony. Better for us both if we were laid at peace in the graveyard. Anything rather than this miserable existence.’

In her excitement she had raised her voice, and a cough from the other inmate of the room again reminded her of her daily burden. Turning to the bedside she saw that her husband—for that was the relationship in which he stood towards her—was awake, and as his wife picked up a clean white handkerchief which lay on the bed and lightly wiped the perspiratiom from his cadaverous features, he caught her hand, and endeavoured to draw her face down to the pillow on which he lay. The action, and the loving, longing look which accompanied it, proved too much for his wife’s composure, and with a sob she threw herself on her knees by the bedside, and her overwrought feelings found relief in tears. Her husband also was visibly affected. A spasm of pain seemed to seize him, and a tit of coughing, painful to witness, racked his frame, and left him utteuy exbausted. His wife had risen from her knees at the first indication of the cough, and rested his head on her shoulder till the paroxysm had passed, and then, kissing him tenderly on the cheek, she laid him gently down again. Having done this, she turned tor a moment to get him a cooling drink with which to moisten his parched lips, and when she looked at him again she was startled at the awful change which had taken place. His face, pale before, had assumed a ghastly hue. Heavy beads of perspiration stood on his brow, and his breath came in quick, short gasps. A terrible fear seized the watcher, and in her agony she called him by his name, ‘ John ! John ! speak to me ! What is the matter dear ?’ The eyelids gradually unclosed, the thin hands moved in search of her own, and his blue lips moved as if he wished to reply. Bending down her head, she caught the word • Water !’ The sick man had clasped one of his wife's hands, but with the other she held a cup of water to his lips, and after sipping some of its contents, the invalid spoke again. ‘ Margaret!’ ‘ Yes, John,’ replied his wife. ‘ What is the time, please ?’ ‘Just half-past six, dear. Let me get you a cup of tea ; it may revive you.' Her husband smiled faintly. ‘ No, thanks,' he said, ‘ nothing can ever revive me again, I am afraid. But what time did you say Mr Olphert would be here. Oh, yes, I remember —ten o’clock —nearly four hours,’ and he sighed heavily. By and bye he spoke again. ‘ Margaret, do you think he will come? Did you say that I had something of importance to himself to communicate? I must see him betore ’ but he did not finish his sentence, for again his cough troubled him, and for a few moments he battled for breath, and then fell back on his pillow, panting and exhausted, then his eyes closed, and he dropped into a quiet sleep. His wife rose quietly from the bedside, drew the window-blind half-way up, so arranging it that the rays of the sun might not strike on the invalid s sight, and then proceeded to light a very small tire in the grate, and to prepare her meagre bieakfast. The preparation occupied but a veiy short time, for the meal consisted of nothing more substantial than a cup of weak tea and a little bread and butter, and of this she took but sparingly. How could she eat with the shadow of this great fear hanging over her ? What if her husband should die in her absence ? And yet ‘ why should she wish him to live?’ she asks herself bitterly. What was there for either of them to live for ? Death had no terrors for her. For her own part she would be only too glad to lay her burden down and sleep, for oh ! she was so tired of it all, so worn out in body, so crushed in spirit, that Death would, for her, be a welcome relief ; but to struggle on alone, to bid good-bye for ever to him for whose sake she had been content to suffer so long. If he was taken her last earthly tie would be severed. -She moaned aloud in the anguish ol her spirit, but she could ill afford to spend time in idle grief, so gathering the finished garments together, she tied them in a black wrapper, put on her bonnet and cloak, and with one look at her husband to see that he was still breathing, took up her bundle, and was quietly leaving the room, when the invalid opened his eyes, and looked at her with such a questioning glance that she was fain to go back to him. ‘ I won t be very long, dear,’ she told him. * I'll just take these things to Mr Brown, and will be back again in less than an hour. Is there anything I cando for you, John, before I go ?’ ‘Margaret,’ he rejoined, ‘you think Mr Olphert will not fail to come ?" ‘I think he will come. He said he would, at any rate. Not a very elegant reception-room for the gentleman,’ she added, with a bitter smile, ‘and I can’t think why you should send for him, John?’ ‘ Margaret, wife, forgive me, but I have something pressing heavily on my mind and conscience, and I cannot die till 1 have relieved myself of the awful secret, and have done justice to those whose lives have been so cruelly blighted through my sins.’ ‘Oh, John ! his wife called out in alarm. ‘ What have you been saying ? Your words and looks frighten me.’ ‘ Do not be alarmed, Margaret, but promise me that whatever you may learn of my past you will try and believe that I was as much sinned against as sinning.’ The words fell broken and slow from the lips of the sinking man, and as he finished the sentence his eyes again closed wearily, and his wife, observing this, took up her bundle and left the room. She returned in about three quarters of an hour and found the invalid still sleeping, so having taken off her bonnet and cloak, she sat down on the chair by the table and began to sew. At exactly ten o’clock a knock came to the door, and she rose from ner work to admit the visitor. A gentleman, apparently about thirty-four or thirty six years of age obeyed her summons to‘Come in,’ and was evidently struck with astonishment as he looked

round at the bare walk and scanty furniture. He was a tail, dark, handsome looking man, but his dark-brown hair was already streaked with grey, and there was a quiet, thoughtful expression on his face and in his eyes, and a firm look "about the well-shaped chin, which indicated considerable strength and force of character. * I have called in answer to your husband's request, Mrs Fenton,’ he said, addressing the woman. ‘He did not state in the note what it was he wished to see me about, and the note itself appeared to have been written some time ago, as if he had intended sending it before, but for some reason or other had omitted to do so. Believe me, Mrs Fenton, I am truly sorry to see you both in such distressed circumstances. If it is money your husband requires I shall be only too pleased—’ She stopped him with a look, and following the movement of her eyes, he saw that the sick man had raised his head from his pillow, and was regarding him intently. Approaching the bedside, the visitor stooped down, his handsome face lit up with a tender pity. ‘I am sorry to find you in this condition, Fenton. Why didn’t you send to me before f he asked. The invalid motioned him to take a seat by the bedside, and then in broken sentences he said : * Mr Olphert, I am a dying man. At the most I cannot live many days, possibly not many hours. Before I die I wish to unburden my mind of a secret which has been weighing me down for some considerable time. It is a story of sin and its punishment, and when I inform you that it immediately concerns yourself, you will not be surprised that I should have sent specially for you to listen to the confession, for that is what in reality it is.’ This announcement is not without its effect on the visitor whom we may as well inform the reader is our old friend, Gerald Olphert, for his cheeks turn a shade paler than usual, and he is visibly agitated: ‘ You say your story immediately concerns myself,’ he exclaims. ‘ Tell me, has it any connection with the Oakfield murder ?’ and he looks searchingly into the eyes of the sick man, as if he would read his innermost thoughts. ‘lt is of that I wish to speak,' replied Mr Fenton brokenly. Gerald moistened the latter’s lips with some water, which seemed to revive him a little, and he continued : ‘ In that box by the wall there,’ pointing to a small wooden clothesbox at the opposite side of the room, ‘ you will find a small brown-paper parcel containing a number of sheets of foolscap paper, and on these sheets is written the confession which I have mentioned. I wrote the same some months back in case I should be too ill to do so later on, and I have instructed my wife not to open it while lam living. She does not know what it contains but I could not die with the secret unexplained. You had better send for some reliable person to witness the confession, as by its means you may be able to clear your own name of all suspicion. You understand what I mean, Mr Olphert V

Gerald turned to Mrs Fenton, who was standing by the table sobbing. ‘ Try not to distress yourself, Mrs Fenton,’ he remarked kindly. ‘ I will send for a doctar at once, and if you have anyone in the house to go I would also like to send a note to my partner, Mr Chapman. ’ She informed him that the landlady's son would take the note. So taking out his pocket book, Gerald tore a leaf from it, and hastily scribbled a few lines thereon, folded it, and addressed it to Mr Chapman. Handing this to the woman, she took it and left the room. We may as well here inform the reader that a few months after Gerald Olphert’s arrival in Melbourne he had ‘ come across ’ a gentleman whom he had known in the old country, but who had settled in Australia, and was practising the legal profession, and Gerald was induced to join him, so the two lawyers went into partnership under the title of Chapman and Olphert. The lad who had been despatched with the note returned in a short time accompanied by Mr Chapman and a doctor. The latter, as soon as he entered the room, went up to the bed, and seeing that Mr Fenton was very much exhausted, he drew a small phial containing some liquid from his pocket, and poured the contents into a teacup, and held it to the lips of his patient. The effect was instantaneous, for the sinking man opened his eyes, and seeing the doctor and < leraid bending over him, he begged the latter to get the papers he had mentioned at once. Stepping across the room to the box indicated, Gerald returned to the bedside with a brown paper parcel, which upon opening he found to contain a small bundle of foolscap paper. The doctor drew the small table to the side of the bed, and the papers being spread out upon it, Gerald turned to his partner and said, ‘ Will you kindly read what is written on these sheets, Mr Chapman ? You know something of my past history, and the mystery attaching to a certain chapter in that history, and these papers purport to throw considerable light upon the said mystery, but anxious as I am to have it solved, I feel that I cannot read these papers with calmness, so kindly oblige me by reading them aloud, as I wish yourself and the doctor to witness the same. Mr Fenton swears that the contents are strictly true, and he has signed the same.’ By way of reply Mr Chapman gathered the papers together, and as the doctor propped up the head of the dying man with the pillows, the lawyer adjusted his spectacles, and in a low clear voice, broken only at times by the sound of Mrs Fenton’s half-smothered sobs, or the hacking cough of the unfortunate invalid, he read the following confession : (TO BE CONTIXIED.I