Caroline Woolmer Leakey

“ I pledge you in a dram. We are no better than each other, when once we get in here—I forget our belts, and you forget your pass.'
'She's up to a thing or two; she doubts you yet,' said Tom.
'I doubt nothing that comes from a convict constable,' replied Maida, wresting her arm from a grasp more hateful than the official one. 'I doubt no breach of trust from men who would never be in office could free men vile enough be found to do their masters' bidding.' 'She ain't Government!' cried Tom, in a fright lest he had betrayed himself in his hurry to exercise his power. ”

“ Then came the name Martha Grylls—then Maida's own letter—when through all her sweet simplicity, through all her unwillingness, started out on Mary a truth she would have died to make false—a lie she would have given her life to abrogate. But the awakening had come—there was no reprieve—no room for doubt—the accusation was from Maida—the confession from himself! Poor Mary! you must depart from your paradise, for the evil one is there. The canker is at the root of your gourd, and it perishes before you. Your sun goeth down while it is yet day. ”

“ But you must peep in if you would understand the history that will follow.
Look; there is Maida, beaming her loveliest. Her eyes are radiant with joy, as she listens to a gentleman who is talking to her: what he says you cannot tell; there are those who know; let them tell who have learnt how to overcome artlessness with art.
Look again.
As a dissolving view the scene has changed, but the figures are the same. Maida is weeping. Her face depicts great mental agony—his face just such anxiety as a person would feel on seeing a long-sought treasure within hand-grasp. ”

“ The husbandman ploughs his acres, and his heart goes with his work; each furrow receives his hope, his prayer, as well as his goodly grain. The grave is prepared with curses; the human seed is sown prayerlessly, tearlessly—for we do not call the formal, grudged service mumbled over the prison dead a prayer—and tears, who expects them at a convict funeral? The eyes to shed them are across the ocean. The seed is sown, the earth is shovelled over it, and who cares to ask or think in what form it shall arise?
Maida leaned quietly for a few moments. ”

“ We have hitherto been much as slaveholders. We have had our fellow-creatures under our thumb; without our leave they could neither turn, look, nor speak: to turn was to be refractory; to look was to defy; to speak was to be insolent; and each of these sins met its punishment. We have been served by slaves until we prefer their abject servitude, and our despotic masterdom to the servitude of men who have rights in common with us, and a strong will to assert those rights. Having been long accustomed to the unresisting obedience of the convict, we cannot brook the whys and wherefores of the free. ”

“ Though ignorant of Maida's history, Emmeline read the tale of sorrow revealed in that bitter cry. She knew that, the broad world over, heart answers to heart, and that the parent of the prisoner standing by her bed had passed through all the tortures that had stricken other parents to their graves; and if not sunk already, his life must be a prolonged dying, to which the article of death itself would be a state most blissful. ”

“ Sanders was with her; he approached, equally pleased to see his old mate.
'Well, Madda, 'tain't trouble, I hope, that brings you here? us is come to look out a woman!'
There was no small inflation of vanity in his voice and person as he made this declaration.
Lucy explained:
'So long as one of us is T. L., you know, we can have a servant—Lor', Maida, think of me having one! but Bob says he will, and nothing shall stop him, and that, too, before baby is born.'
She suddenly blushed and looked so exactly like the Lucy of olden days, that Maida kissed her forthwith. ”

“ Without a great sacrifice, I'm a dead man.'
'What sacrifice is there I would not make for you, Henry? my love has never failed. I could do anything but sin for you.'
'And you couldn't do that? What, then, if I tell you you have sinned already?' His eye rested piercingly on her. 'Maida, I am about to sift your love for me. Do you know what we have done?'
'No! what? explain, and quickly.'
'We—have—committed—forgery,' deliberately hissed Norwell; 'and it is too late to retract, unless you would hurl me into hell—for this pistol goes through my heart the instant you decide against me. ”

“ Why did Norwell gaze so sadly on her? Why turn with a face so full of misery as folding the cheque in his pocket-book, he met her large eyes fixed fondly on him, and heard her almost gleeful voice:
'Now, thank God, you are all right! Now, naughty boy, go and renovate that pale face.'. . .
When Norwell reappeared the next morning, his unrefreshed countenance and listless gait bespoke a sleepless night. Maida was grieved and disappointed. The money had not cured him. What else could she do for him? He was too unwell to ride to the neighbouring town. ”

“ Yes—do not start; distinctions made in life are useless on a bed of sickness. I repeat, take it as a pledge of friendship, which I offer from my heart.'
Maida did not approach, and the hand dropped heavily upon the bed; emaciated as it was, it was too heavy for self-support. It rested a moment, and then again presented itself, accompanied by a look that overcame Maida's unwillingness to yield. Those who know Maida will not be surprised that, having once taken the proffered pledge, she clasped it with a fervency that satisfied Emmeline's most sanguine anticipation, but still she did not speak. ”

“ Evelyn decided that she and Maida should exchange situations. The latter therefore became housemaid, and was consequently brought into more frequent contact with Miss Evelyn, for whom she had long entertained a deep but unacknowledged regard. All portions of her daily duty which had Emmeline for their object were regarded more as acts of pleasure than of servitude. The sweet low voice, ever ready to greet her with a cheerfulness void of levity, and an affability void of condescension, had a sympathy in its tone that came more acceptably than sympathy expressed in words. ”

“ The morning had scarcely dawned when she crept downstairs, and let herself into the garden through the veranda of the drawing-room window. Thence hurrying into the street, to the imminent peril of detection, and consequent severe punishment, she glided swiftly to the post-office, and slipped her letter into the box; then, with a lightened heart and slackened step, she returned to the house, not caring by whom she might be met, or whom she might encounter.
When the family assembled for prayers, Mr. Herbert knew by her languid appearance that she had passed a night of unrest. ”

“ It needed not a second look to tell her this woman was the object of her dream, nor a second look to attest Lucy's statement that Maida was no common prisoner. It was with curious though mournful interest that Miss Evelyn watched her in this her first act of servitude; and yet she half doubted whether it could be her first, so adroitly and unhesitatingly did she begin and pursue her task. There was no token of helplessness and inability, by show of which, with pardonable vanity, superior convicts often intend their employers to discover that they have not been brought up to menial labour. ”

“ There was—but was he at the ball last night? there is always a ball to commemorate the assizes. Was he?'
Mr. Evelyn answers not.
'Ah, you are surprised; you thought I spoke of a poor man. No—no! such glories are reserved for the rich; they may sin, and hide their sin in a golden grave; they may break innocent hearts, and the world ignore the fact; it is these sins that fill these cells; it is these sins that will people perdition; and if God sees as man sees—'
But her voice fails, the blood leaves her temples, and faint from excitement and want of food, she sinks insensible to the earth. ”

“ For more than fourteen years I laboured there as a convict chaplain. I could tell you of hardships, of ill-treatment, of solitude, of home-sickness, of loveless labour, and of unrewarded servitude—all of which you must undergo; but all I could reveal of these, in their every crushing misery, would be insignificant compared to what I could disclose of the unrelenting tortures inflicted under the sentence of conscience—the sentence of remorse! generally reserved for hours of solitary imprisonment, or the day of sickness and death. ”

“ Save during the involuntary solitude of the cells, or the few moments snatched from the surveillance of the officers and the company of her shipmates, Maida has not been alone since she left England. When, therefore, she closes her bedroom-door upon herself, she can scarcely believe she is unwatched, nor that from some unseen corner a voice will not command her to unbolt the door she has dared to lock.
She recalls her interview with Mr. Evelyn; she thinks of what is expected from her, and thinks and thinks till thought becomes impalpable, and merges into one deep reverie. ”

“ What had she said about hurt feelings or grieving? she had only wanted to turn the tide of favour towards herself by closing it to Nancy; and also by making a premature declaration of innocence to disclaim all share in trouble, which with prisoner instinct she foresaw in 'them two blessed gowns.' The convict always fears that which he cannot at once understand, lest it should embody some new evil to himself and always mistrusts that which he cannot immediately explain, lest it should be another means of extending his punishment under pretext of ameliorating it. ”

“ Evelyn entered on the duty of mother to a little girl, who, after four years, resigned in death her place in her parent's affection to Master Charles, the bouncing rogue of the present volume. To him succeeded another girl, whose acquaintance Bridget has just made, and who, as she lies crowing in her cot in answer to her papa's whistle, numbers seven months to her brief existence but brief as her existence is, it has not escaped the evils incident to convict proximity. There is no such happy fortune for even the youngest who dwells within sound of prison bells. ”

“ But Norwell, too agitated to note the question in its advantageous view, merely replied:
'Why, no, hardly that, because you could implicate me.'
'I would leave that to Captain Norwell,' sneered Maida. 'Yes, to you, Henry. The scales have fallen from my eyes; I see it all too late, as, too late, I have discovered you. Detection is possible: your hand did not commit the forgery; your fame must not be touched, it stands too high; but Maida Gwynnham, that outcast! ”

“ But her pillow brought no rest; her tortured mind could see but the one picture of her unmasked husband (in his threefold baseness) , and Maida, beautiful and anguished, as she had appeared in the prison where, when Mary Doveton, Mrs. Norwell had visited her.
No sleep had closed her eyes, when she arose and descended to the parlour, again to await the post. The knock came; a thrill shivered through her, but not of joy, the paleness of her cheek became yet more deathlike as she received and mechanically opened the expected letter. ”

“ What sort of a temper is she, Bridget?'
Bridget did not answer; Mrs. Evelyn, with a gesture of annoyance, turned to Maida with:
'Well, you are here, and I suppose must stay; but you must mind what you are about; I shall watch your temper, and if I see anything in it I don't like, I shall send you back to Government, which is the proper place for such as you; we don't like having dangerous people about us any more than the English do. You'll be very foolish if you don't behave well, for this is an excellent situation, and the master and myself are very kind to our people. ”

“ He returns, no longer wondering why the lonely convict does not escape, but more fearfully wondering that one is ever found so reckless of life so utterly despising death, as to venture into the certain detection, if not destruction, awaiting him at the Neck, where, if he elude the military watch—or, more dread and vigilant, the ferocious dogs chained across the isthmus—he has still to fling himself on the mercy of the pitiless surf, and dodge the hungry shark. ”