Chapter XVI · ALDERMAN FIGSLEY.

The clamorous fear and sense of extreme mortification at having to figure in a petty local court in some obscure part of London, as a witness in such a cause—her very name to go forth in print too, as connected with it—haunted Mary keenly, till a climax was put to her endurance on the morning of the second day, when Finnis arrived with the announcement that her presence was required before Alderman Figsley at the office in W—— Street, when the prisoner, familiarly known as "Ben Ginger," would be brought up for a preliminary examination and committal.

A close cab was summoned, and they set out together, Mrs. Primer assuring her that she must keep up her courage, as this petty annoyance would soon be over.

When they arrived, Mary was politely enough handed to a seat within the bar, near a table covered with books and printed papers; and there she sat with a palpitating heart while the Alderman, a fussy, portly, and wealthy city man, with a bald head, a rubicund visage, and several double chins, disposed rapidly of numerous cases and accusations by fines, committals, or remittance to a higher court. The heinous crimes of poverty and sleeping in the open air, were always visited severely; and a little orphan urchin, whose nightly couch was the iron roller of the neighbouring park, was locked up without mercy.

The court in W—— Street was a dingy looking apartment, the windows of which were placed high in the damp and discoloured walls. It was a metropolitan court, and consequently presided over by an alderman; all other magistrates are stipendiary—carefully selected barristers—else Mary's case might have been managed differently had she been before one of them.

A gentleman of fashionable appearance, calling himself Mr. Jones Robinson, was brought up for extinguishing and smashing a street lamp in the exuberance of his spirits; and Mary drew her black veil closer on recognising Everard Home, the Master of Ernescleugh, who after tapping playfully, and perhaps contemptuously, with his cane, on the iron spikes of the dock before him, paid his fine, and departed with the air of one who deemed the affair a joke.

"Call the next case—what is it?" said the magistrate, impatiently, for as none of those before him possessed any particular interest he was getting a little weary, and proceeded to polish his bald head with a silk handkerchief in irritation till it shone.

"William Trayner—livery servant, your worship, accused of assault in a Betting House," was the reply; "his master, an officer about to embark for the seat of war, will be ready to pay any fine you may impose."

And to her astonishment, Mary beheld the impudent looking groom of Ralph Chesters—the same long-bodied, short-legged, and gimlet-eyed individual who had aided and abetted him in the scheme against herself—step into the dock with a remarkably airy and confident aspect, while at the same moment Chesters entered the court, attired in a fashionable morning costume, and certainly looking more bloated and dissipated than ever.

Mary was too thoroughly Scottish by blood and education to be without a tinge of superstition in her character; and to her it seemed ominous of misfortune—a conjunction of three evil stars,—a strange coincidence,—that those three men who had brought her so much mischief at home, should be there, in that London Court, at this unhappy juncture.

Chesters' quick eye immediately fell upon Mary seated near the Alderman, a remarkable piece of courtesy which roused his curiosity; but as yet, her veil totally prevented recognition.

The assault in the Betting House was fully proved against Mr. Bill Trayner, who was wont to make up a book on coming events as well as his master, who immediately paid the fine. Trayner touched his fore-lock to the Magistrate, and vanished at once; but Chesters, inspired by curiosity—and, perhaps, a deeper interest—lingered a little in a corner, to the infinite chagrin of Mary, leisurely sucking the white ivory handle of his riding whip the while.

"There is but one more case, your worship," said Inspector Tappleton; "the assault upon and robbery of, Mr. Fenchurch, solicitor, by garrotters, of whom we have, unfortunately, but one in custody as yet."

As he spoke, a pale, cadaverous, and savage looking fellow in very worn habiliments appeared in the dock between two officers, and glanced at the magistrate and all about him with defiance and malevolence. He had been brought from the House of Detention, and was heavily ironed, as the authorities seemed to fear that he was quite capable, unless under powerful restraint, of destroying himself or some one else, as he frequently threatened to do.

He boldly and furiously denied all knowledge of the circumstance of which he was accused, averring that he was in another place at the time.

"We have a competent witness, your worship," said Inspector Tappleton of the 1st Division.

"Stand forward, Mary Lennox, and draw off your glove," said a voice, authoritatively.

Chesters gave an undisguised and almost convulsive start on hearing the name; and still more was he astonished when Mary came forward.

"Lift your veil, please," said the Alderman, with a very curt nod.

Her face was pale as that of death, and her eyes were full of alarm, shame, and a restlessness of expression; the very sweetness of her mouth had departed, and a hard line replaced the curve of her once beautiful upper lip.

"Are you married or single? speak quickly," said he, pausing, pen in hand, after the usual preliminaries.

"Single, sir," she answered faintly.

"No objection to be the other, I suppose," said he, hazarding the attempt at a jest.

"Yes, I guess as she's a rum un' your worship," said a constable, encouraged by this; "for she vears a kind o' vedding ring on the wrong finger."

"Silence!" said the Inspector, severely.

The portly Alderman now turned to Mary, and politely enough required her to relate all she had seen, and to confirm her full recognition of the prisoner. Her evidence was deemed quite conclusive to warrant the committal of the culprit for trial before a higher court, and he was accordingly removed, partly by force, muttering vengeance against Mary if she ever crossed his path again, as being herself an accomplice.

"Don't be afraid, Miss," whispered Finnis, on seeing how terrified she was; "'taint likely as the streets of London will be troubled by him again."

"Search her pockets!" bellowed Ben Ginger, as he was dragged away. A constable approached her; Mary shrunk back, but instinctively put her hands into the outer pockets of her jacket, and drew forth from one, in utter confusion and bewilderment, a leather portemonnaie, which was found empty of money, but contained the cards of Mr. Fenchurch, to whom it undoubtedly belonged.

"This looks ill, young woman—deuced ill for you," said the Alderman, frowning.

"It may all be a plant, your worship—they've perhaps put it in the young lady's pocket," said Inspector Tappleton.

"Still, why did she not find it there before, and produce it?" was the suspicious question of the magistrate.

Mary's tongue clove to the roof of her mouth; she vainly strove to say that she had never, until then, thought of looking in her pockets, or on going home that night; she was crushed, terrified, bewildered, and unable to speak, till she faintly implored a glass of water.

After some inquiries concerning Mary, as to where she lived, what friends she possessed and so forth, the magistrate said, coldly—

"I find that your account of yourself is so unsatisfactory, that I must require you to give your personal recognisance that you will appear at the due time to give further evidence against this man."

Mary stared in utter bewilderment; she failed indeed to understand what he meant, but feeling only that money was somehow required of her, she put her hand to her purse, and then nervously withdrew it. With some irritation of manner, for though obese, he was not blessed with overmuch patience or temper, the Alderman repeated the information that she must give the necessary security for her appearance whenever required.

"Sir, I have not above six pounds in the world—it is impossible; if that sum will do, take it, and keep it; but permit me to go, I entreat of you. I am so sick of this place!" she said imploringly.

"Mr. Fenchurch is very ill, you say, Tappleton?"

"Dangerously, sir—we have here a doctor's certificate," replied the Inspector.

"Then, if anything serious befell him, the prisoner will be liable for manslaughter—or worse—a double reason for procuring security to insure the ends of justice."

Turning to Mary, he said, "The discovery of this purse upon you is awkward; can no one be found who will be bail for you?"

"None, sir—oh, whom could I ask?"

"That is your affair; not mine."

All this time she had studiously kept her back to Chesters; but the sense of his odious presence, if it oppressed her in one way, gave her a species of false courage in another.

"You positively cannot find bail?"

"Oh no, sir—no."

"Then I have but one alternative," said Mr. Alderman Figsley, dipping his gold pen in the ink bottle; "sorry for it, but I must at least commit you to prison till this fellow's trial comes off."

"To prison—to prison!" repeated Mary in a voice of anguish that is indescribable, while she clasped her hands and gazed into the round stolid face and shining gold spectacles of the city Solon with intense fear and entreaty mingled, while on her quivering lips a prayer seemed to hover.

"If I may venture to speak a word, your worship," began Finnis the ex-Lancer, with irrepressible anxiety; "I served under this young lady's brother in the war in Central India, and elsewhere under Brigadier——"

"What the deuce has Central India to do with the case!" exclaimed the Alderman, testily, as he looked at his massive repeater, and remembered that he had an appointment in the city; "the girl had no business to be prowling about the streets alone at the hour mentioned; I don't like that affair of the purse, and I must insure her presence; she will be safer a prisoner than at large. You are a soft-hearted fellow, Finnis, and this is not the first time you have been the dupe of a pretty face and an artful manner. You hear me, sir!"

Whatever was the instance to which the Alderman referred, in which Finnis had been guilty of softness of heart, the rebuke had the effect of completely silencing him, and the good-natured fellow slunk back abashed.

"You have positively no friends in London to whom you can apply?" said Figsley, pausing as he looked doubtfully at the girl's horror-struck face.

In her despair Mary thought of poor Mrs. Primer. But could she, a total stranger, expect a widow struggling for subsistence by letting a humble lodging-house, to be her surety for some amount—she knew not what! Then she actually thought again of the haughty Lady Ernescleugh; but, as before, shrunk from an appeal to her.

"No—no," muttered Mary: "better let the daughter of Oliver Lennox die unknown in the very gutter, than appeal to any—to any, but God!"

"I have a letter," faltered Mary; "a letter from a lady of rank in Scotland to a friend in London, but found, sir, that she had gone to Paris, and—and——"

"Where is this letter? I cannot open it, of course; but the address may be some clue or guarantee."

Mary searched her pockets in vain; her letter was gone! In fact, she had pulled it forth with her handkerchief, and it was now safely deposited under the left foot of Cheaters, who had cleverly twitched it towards him with the lash of his riding whip unseen.

"Oh, fatality! The letter is lost—I have it not, sir!"

"This is all, I fear, some specious pretence; we are too much used to such trickery in London. If you were at all so respectable as you pretend, and as your appearance certainly warrants, you would find no difficulty in getting some humane person to be security for you. Every one has some friend——"

"Save the poor; and God knows how poor am I!" she added, with touching pathos.

"I have no time for all this sentimentalism; you must go to prison!" replied the magistrate, as he proceeded deliberately to fill up the warrant for her committal.

"Oh, Chesters—Captain Chesters," exclaimed Mary, suddenly turning in her dire extremity and fear, and stretching her hands towards him; "will you not speak for me?"

"Whew—what is this?" asked the Alderman, frowning at her over his spectacles, and thoroughly filled with suspicion now.

He had been actually beginning to conceive the idea of making some other arrangement concerning her. But now he rapidly dismissed the thought from his mind, and felt irritated that he had permitted her to impose upon him for a single moment.

"I thought, girl, that you had no friends in London; yet you suddenly recognise one here—here in this very court, and in the master of that disreputable groom, whom I have just permitted to go under a fine for a very unprovoked assault. There must be some collusion here! Captain Chesters, your town address is the Army and Navy Club, I believe?"

"Major Chesters, Mr. Figsley; I am Major Chesters, of the Turkish Contingent."

"Do you know this young person?"

"I know her intimately."

"Can you speak for her in any satisfactory way?"

"On one condition, and I must name it to herself."

He drew near her, and in French whispered something rapidly to Mary, who surveyed him with a sublime expression of scorn and loathing.

"What is all this?" said Alderman Figsley, becoming now seriously angry. It is doubtful whether a knowledge of French was among the number of his accomplishments, but he frowned portentously, and muttered something about "contempt of court."

"Oh, sir," exclaimed Mary, "this gentleman—if I may venture to call him so now—knew my father, knew my family, knew me almost as a child, and he might have the common humanity to speak one gentle word for me here."

"I only know, Miss Lennox, that in your own locality at home, you were spoken of lightly enough latterly," he replied with a malevolent glance.

"Oh, papa! my poor papa!—thank Heaven you know nothing of all this! What have I ever done to you, sir, that you should treat me thus, in a strange place, too, when you might, and ought, as a Christian to befriend me?"

"Bah! your name and mine have been mixed up enough, and oddly enough already, Mary; so it is no use attempting to play genteel comedy or act injured innocence here."

The subtle villany of this speech, in such a time and place, made all present exchange smiles of intelligence, and caused the magistrate to be less inclined to pity Mary. He was far from being a hard-hearted man in the main, and thought there might—nay must—be more in all this scene than met the eye or ear. So he signed the fatal warrant, and leisurely placed the blotting paper over it. Then he handed it to an officer, saying—

"It is for Tothill-fields Prison; but, in case of mistake, let her have a separate sleeping cell," retired at once to an inner room, as if to cut short a matter that had already occupied too much of his valuable time.

"Tothill-fields," repeated Chesters to himself; "good, I'll have you yet, my proud little minx! Bravo! here's Ralph Rooke Chesters against the field! Unless, in despite of the fate that is hurrying her downward, she take some silly qualm of conscience, as it is called, bar accident the race is mine! How lucky that Trayner fell into that scrape and brought me here. I should have known nothing otherwise of her being in London. Ta, ta," said he aloud, with all the coolness of practised effrontery, "I am going to soldier again, but in Turkey, my girl, for I am sorry to say that my creditors are much more attached to me and my fortunes than you are, my pretty Mary; so it is better to have a shy at the Russians abroad, than become a billiard-marker, or a gentleman rider at home. Any messages for our mutual friend the Fusileer? Shall be happy to take them, I'm sure."

And kissing the tips of his kid gloves, with an ironical bow and a leering smile, for both of which he deserved to have been blown from the mouth of a gun, the heartless vaurien, gamester, and spendthrift mounted his horse and rode off to the Lady's Mile, and "to do a bit of park," followed by his groom in accurate livery, while Mary Lennox of Lonewoodlee, in a state more dead than alive, and looking as if transformed to marble, was taken away to the prison in which she was to be detained, in a common dark and grated police van!