LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1731, 6 September 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MRS BENNION’S DISAPPEARANCE,

( Concluded .)

It was a hot Summer afternoon, and the Court was densely crowded. The blinds had been pulled down to shut out the hot sun, and there was but a dim light, which made the red robes of the Judge and the scarlet uniform of the Sheriff stand out in bright relief. The atmosphere was stifling. The fPst witness who appeared—the landlady—had not much to say. She could not identify the prisoner because of his scars, and would like, said she, to hear his voice. Henry Bennion objected, and the Judge agreed with him that the prisoner ought not to be made to speak. ‘ Well,’ said the Crown counsel, excitedly, ‘ this witness has broken down, but I don’t think the next will. The prisoner was her husband or her paramour ; at all events she was convicted under his name. Call Maria Burt.”

Two policemen cleared the way through the Court for a woman in a blue check dress and an ugly poke-bonnet of brown straw,, who was attended by a wardress from Woking. The convict was ushered into the witness box, and the Clerk of Arraigns was about to administer the oath to her when. Henry Beanion, who had caught sight of her features, started up with a torrent of blood suffusing his face, and leaned right across the solicitor’s table to get a closer view of her. ‘Great heavens!’ he was heard to falter. * Who is that woman ? Mabel— ’

The prisoner stood perfectly collected. It may have been that her lips twitched for a moment, and that in the glance which she bent for an instant on the counsel for the defence there was a flash—jnst a flash, and no more. Then she righted herself and took the oath. ‘My rame is Maria Burt,’ she said, calmly. * Now, tell mo whether you know that man,’ said the prosecuting counsel, pointing to the prisoner. ‘I have never seen him before,’she answered, after a minute’s steady gaze at the occupant of the dock. ‘ Were you not convicted with him nearly four years ago of uttering forged notes ?’ ‘ Ho is an entire stranger to me,’ repeated the convict, quietly. ‘ Why, heavens, it is her voice. There is no mistake about it!:’ exclaimed Bennion, who had sunk back in his seat to hear the prisoner speak, but now rose again, pallid and trembling. ‘ Mabol, look at me ! How is it you are there?’ ‘ What is the matter?’ asked the Judge, leaning forward in his astonishment and boot oning Bennion to speak to him. ‘My lord, it’s my wife!.’ gasped the bar.-ister, and struggling forward to leave his place, he uttered an awful wail and fell across the solicitor’s table, senseless. The trial was adjourned amid a scene of indescribable confusion. 111. In the cell numbered A 1 12, at the Female Penitentiary, at Woking, Maria Burt sat, some hours later, with her head buried in her hands and her elbows resting on her little deal table. It was a dismal place that cell, with its whitewashed walls, red floor and oakum, and the prisoner who was caged in it looked neither graceful nor pretty. Perhaps she had been comely once, but four years of penal servisude had lent her a gray, sickly complexion. Her hands were coarse and wrinkled from occupation in the laundry, and the locks of chestnut hair which protruded under her white cap were short as a boy’s. A blue check gown, thick worsted stockings and heavy-nailed shoes formed her costume, which was covered with a number of broad arrowheads, and had nothing in the way of ornament but a red badge on one of the sleeves—a good-conduct badge. Maria Burt had almost completed her term of servitude, for she was to be discharged in a few days with a ticket of leave. Apparently the recollection of this occurred to her, for, starting from the table, she walked to a corner of the cell on which hung a card bearing the record of her conviction with the date of her coming release, and she took a long look at it. There were no tears in her eyes, but she pressed a hand to her brow and a sigh escaped her like a moan of pain. Suddenly a wardress, who had been watching her through the peephole in the door, turned a key in the lock and entered the cell.

‘Tell us the truth,’ ‘Twelve,’ she said, brusequely, ‘Was that gentleman your husband ?’

‘ I’ve told you no,’ answered ‘Twelve,’ indifferently, ‘ Well, he and another gentleman and two ladies have come to the prison about you. They are in the G ovornor’s room now, and they have asked to see the clothes you had on when you wore brought hero.’ ‘ And they have seen them ?’ asked the prisoner, whoso cheeks became overspread with a faint tinge of color, ‘No, for convicts’ clothes are sold; you will have a new suit when you get out.’ * What sort of a suit ?’ ‘ Ah ! that interests you,’ laughed the wardress, who was a bouncing sort of servant-girl. ‘ Oh! the clothes won’t be anything very grand, but they’ll do to find a situation with. Nobody will suspect where they come from. But hark! there’s the Governor’s bell. I expect you are going to .at for.'

1 The surmise Was correct. In another minute the matron appeared jangling a large bunch of keys and ordered “ Twelve’ to follow her. The pair proceeded down the broad wing of the prison, so unsightly a spectacle with its black iron galleries and scores of nail-stadded doors, till they came to a private part of the building where the Governor’s office stco 1. The matron knocked, and in a moment the prisoner was ushered i ito an apartment divided from roof to floor by a railing of bars. Behind rails Maria Burt and matron stood alone ; in the other part of the room was grouped the Governor, Mr and Mrs Kurthew, Julia and Henry Bennion. The latter was leaning dejectedly with an elbow cn the mantelshelf, but when the prisoner entered ho would have advanced toward her had not Mr Kurthew checked him. ‘ Let me try to identify her first,’ said the solicitor coldly. 'Julia, come with me.’

There was a moment of deep and solemn silence. The father, with his daughter beside him, gazed through the bars, endeavoring to detect the lineament of his other child in the shame-stricken fign’-e before him. Miria Buit put' up her hands before her face an! qra Id, ‘Take down your hands, “Twelve,” said the mattron curtly, and glancing at Mr Kurthew, she plainly sa w that beads of perspiration had pearled on bis forehead. Yet after a moment’s hesitation, the solicitor said hoarsely, so that ho had to clear his throat in the midst of his sentence, ‘ I do not kno w —this—this —person —do you, Julia ?'

‘No—o, faltered Julia, with her hanker chief to her month;

* And you, Mrs Kurthew ? said the Governor, addressing that lady. ‘ I do not know her,' repeated Mrs Knrthew, almost inaudibly. She had not left her place, and had only cast one fearful glance toward the railings, then turned her fa e away and burst out crying ; under any circumstances her tears seemed natural.

Henry Bennion now stepped forward, and the gaze which he bent on the prisoner made her cower. His eyes gleamed as in fever, and there was no uncertainty in their expression, yet his voice was beseechingly low and pathetic—almost a whisper, as he murmured, ‘Don’t you know me Mabel? Whatever horrible mystery may have brought you here don’t be afraid to confess it. You remember how I loved you.’ ‘I don’t understand you, sir,’murmured the prisoner, whose features were convulsed by spasms. * Look at me again. Give me your hand, ’ pleaded Henry Bennion. ‘ See how mine shakes. Do you think I could mistake my own wife?’

‘ I am not your wife, sir,’ muttered Maria Burt. Then suddenly trying to retreat from him she placed a hand over her eyes, whilst her features worked in a convulsion that ended in a hysteric laugh. ‘No, lam not your wife, I say—but if you would like to adopt me when I come out of working, I don’t mind. No, no. if you’re inclined to it. I daresay you could give me a good home.’ ‘No ; that’s not my wife,’ sighed Bennion, dropping the prisoner’s hand. ‘ Mabel wouldn’t have spoken like that.’ ‘No, Mabel wouldn’t speak like that,’ repeated Mr Kuithew, drawing his son in-law away by the arm. * Now cmo along. This scene is too trying for my wife. She is ready to faint.’

Mrs Kurthew had already fainted. She dropped on the floor in a swoon as the prisoner vanished frombehind the rails without giving her a look. It went forth to the world that Henry Bennion had been deluded by a case of mistaken identity. Nevertheless a few mornings after this a strange scene might have been seen enacted within a stone’s throw of the gates of Woking Prison. Maria Burt had jnst been released. Dressed in plain clothes, like those of a servant girl, she left the penitentiary and walked hurriedly, down the road till she came to a corner where a cab stood. She halted a moment as uncertain which way to turn, when her progress was barred by Mr Kurthew appearing before her, holding the cab door open. ‘ Get'in, Mabel,’ ho said with a mournful composure. ‘ I did not choose to recognise you at the prison the other day because of the scandal it would have caused, but’— ‘I assure you you are mistaken, sir,’ answered the discharged convict, retreating. ‘ Come, yon need not be afraid of me,’ said the old man, wistfully; * you can’t deny that you are my daughter.’ ‘ Sea, yes ; you are quite wrong ; please leave me,’ faltered Maria Bnrb, and darting from him she crossed the road, turned down a corner and was lost to view.

‘ Can it bo possible V murmured Mabel Bonnion’a father, and he stood stock-still, gazing in the direction where the woman had gone, as if he had seen an apparition that was not of this earth. IV.

Five years passed. During that time Mr and Mrs Kurthew both died, and at length Julia’s health, which had always been so bad, broke down, and she lay in her tarn at the point of death. On the day when the doctors pronounced their verdict concerning her, and when it was evident that she bad but a few hours more to live, she sent for Henry Bennion and made him a confession, ‘ That woman in Woking was Mabel, your wife,’ she said. ‘ I knew her when I saw her, and I have ascertained it for certain now.’

* Ah 1’ exclaimed Bennion, rising, with a look of unutterable horor in his eyes. ‘ Yes ; don’t scold me, but listen,’ moaned Julia. ‘You and she were not made for each other. You used to leave her alone for hours and days. She could not bear that, for she loved to be made much of. She made the acquaintance of a man—an adventurer—whom she used to visit. His true character was unknown to her, but one day while she was with him he was arrested for passing forged [notes, and she was taken as his accomplice. Sooner than let you find out her infidelity she preferred to let you think she was dead, That is the whole secret,’

‘ And where is Mabel now ?’ asked Henry Bennion, with a fatal’sort of calm. ‘ She died in Australia six months ago,’ said Julia, ‘ and she sent me this for you —a look of her hair, with a prayer that you would pardon her. Here, look at the hair ; Mabel was quite young, yet it has gray streaks in it. - You do forgive her, don’t you ?’ ‘ Yes I’ murmured the wretched widower.