The Betrayal of John Fordham

With a sigh I turned my back upon the el dorado I was the first to discover. Hundreds of other men on the goldfields have missed fortune in the same manner by a hair's breadth.

I will not prolong this record of my three years' sojourn in Australia. At the expiration of this time a stroke of good fortune really fell to my share, and then it was that I received news of an event which changed the current of my life and led to the unconscious committal of the crime for which I must answer to the law. On a partially deserted goldfield, where there were still a few miners at work on claims which were supposed to be worked out, I took possession of a shaft, and in one of the pillars I found a "pocket" of gold which in less than a fortnight yielded me between fifty and sixty ounces.

Mammon worship is an evil instinct, but gold can bring unalloyed joy to suffering hearts. It brought joy to mine.

I was sorely tempted. Longing for home, for a sight of Ellen and my boy, had for some time past assailed me; there had been hours when I rebelled against my lot, when it needed all my moral strength to overcome the anguish of my soul. I had now the means to gratify my cherished desire – why should I not do so? Debating the risks of the adventure, I was tossed this way and that, now held back by the fear that my presence in London might be discovered by my enemies to the disturbance of the life of peace which Ellen was enjoying, now encouraged by my ardent wish to clasp my dear ones in my arms. The question, however, was decided for me.

A mail from home was due, and I was expecting my monthly packet of letters, which I had directed to be forwarded to a neighboring township. So anxious was I that I set off for this township in the middle of the night.

The mail had arrived and was being delivered. Scores of bearded men were clustered about the wooden building in anxious expectation. Some came away from the little window with joy on their faces, some fell back with a sigh of disappointment. The strength of the human tie which binds heart to heart is nowhere more strikingly displayed than on these distant shores, where groups of rough, stalwart men hurry to the post office in the hope of receiving letters from home.

My packet was handed to me, and I stood aside to open it. Ellen's budget I put into my pocket; I could not read her loving words with prying eyes around me. The lawyer's letter was bulkier than usual, and I tore it open. I read but a few lines when I reeled.

"Hold up, mate," cried a man, catching me by the arm. "Bad news?"

"No, no," I muttered, and the denial struck me like a spiritual blow the moment it was uttered.

To some men the news which caused this shock would have brought a never-to-be-forgotten sorrow. To me it brought release from a chain which had galled my soul. Barbara was dead!

It would be the worst kind of hypocrisy to say that I felt as a man feels at the loss of one who is dear to him. It was impossible – impossible. There are those who deem it fitting to assume a grief which finds no place in their hearts; it is common to see white handkerchiefs held before tearless eyes. Let it tell against me that I neither felt nor assumed such sorrow. Equally wrong – and at the same time unjust to myself – would it be to say that I rejoiced. But an immense weight was lifted from my heart. Barbara was dead and I was free!

Yes, free to marry Ellen, to commence a new and purer life, to have a home which I could enter without fear; a home where love awaited my coming, where I could look in my child's face without shame, where I could show by my devotion how deeply I appreciated the sacrifices his dear mother had made for me. To remove the stigma which in the eyes of the world was attached to Ellen through her association with me – to give her my name, to call her "wife" – was this nothing to be grateful for? Was it for this that I should put on a mournful face and conjure false tears into my eyes? No. Heaven had sent me relief, had proclaimed that my long agony was over, had lifted the curse from me. It was not for me to play the hypocrite.

My agitation somewhat subdued, I set myself to the perusal of the lawyer's letter.

The details of Barbara's death were shocking and startling. Her depraved habits had been the cause of a miserable tragedy. The letter stated that the first intelligence the writer received of the event was through the newspapers, cuttings from which he enclosed. My wife, it seems, had not removed from her lodging in Islington where I last saw her. In the middle of the night an alarm of fire was raised, and the lodgers in the house had great difficulty in escaping. Barbara had not been thought of. She did not make her appearance and no cries proceeded from her room. When she was missed the firemen made their way to her apartment, and brought out her charred body. The fire, it was proved, had originated in her bedroom, and it was supposed that she overturned a lighted candle, and so caused the catastrophe.

Among the newspaper cuttings was a report of the inquest, which my solicitor had attended, and evidence was given of Barbara's depraved habits, one witness stating that "she was drunk from night till morning, and from morning till night," a statement which Maxwell declared was a calumny.

His sister had dreadful troubles; her married life was most unhappy, but she suffered in silence. His attempts to bring obloquy upon me were frustrated by my solicitor, and by the evidence of the doctors. The latter proved that she must have been a confirmed dipsomaniac for years; the former produced receipts for the allowance I made her. The verdict was in accordance with the evidence.

After the funeral, the arrangements for which were made by my solicitor, Maxwell called upon him with a document purporting to be Barbara's will, in which she left everything to him, including the £300 a-year I had allowed her. Upon my solicitor suggesting that he should take legal steps to obtain what he called "his rights," he offered to compromise and to forego his claim for a stated sum. This being scouted, he asked whether it would not be worth my while to give him a smaller sum to get rid of him forever. My solicitor replied that that was a matter for my consideration upon my return home, but that he should advise me not to give him a shilling, and there the matter ended. My solicitor said he gathered from my letters that I had not prospered in the Colonies, that my presence at home was necessary for the settlement of my financial affairs, and that he enclosed me a draft for £200 to defray the expenses of my passage and outfit.

Ellen's letter was of the usual affectionate nature, somewhat steadier in tone because of the tragedy which she had read in the papers. She expressed herself most pitifully towards Barbara, whose errors were expiated by her death.

"She is now at peace, and I am sure you will have none but tender thoughts for her." Nobility of soul, in alliance with the tenderest feeling and the purest sentiments shone forth in every line. It softened my heart towards the dead; it made me solemnly grateful for the living. She said not a word about her position and my intentions. She trusted me and had faith in me. Conscious that I would do what it was right to do, she made not the most remote reference to our future.

Our future! How brightly it spread before me! There was a new sweetness in the air, a fairer color in the skies. How strangely, how strangely are woe and joy commingled! Blessed with a good woman's love, with no fear of poverty before me, I would not have changed places with the highest in the world. The money I had capitalized to secure Barbara's allowance was now without a charge upon it, and reverted to me. The future was assured, the way was clear, the sun shone upon a flower-strewn path. Alas! the reality!

There was nothing to detain me a day longer in the Colonies; the richest claim on the goldfields would not have tempted me to delay my journey home. I had money enough for content, and love made me rich. I looked through the shipping advertisements in a Melbourne newspaper. A mail steamer was advertised to leave for London this very day; I could not catch it, and I should have to wait a fortnight for the next. Another merchant steamer was to leave for Liverpool in two days. I determined to take passage in it. I could get to Melbourne in time.

As I walked to the telegraph office, the man who had saved me from falling when I opened my solicitor's letter passed by and looked me in the face.

"Better, mate?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"It was good news, then?" he said.

"Yes," I said, mechanically, and caught my breath.

What if I had told him that the good news was the death of my wife?

From the telegraph office I dispatched three messages. One to the shipping agent in Melbourne to secure a cabin in the outgoing steamer; the second to my solicitor in London, announcing my intended departure from the colony; the third to Ellen – "I am coming home."

Wonderful was the contrast between this sea voyage and the last I had undertaken. For the greater part of the time I think I must have been the happiest man on board. On the first voyage I had schooled myself into resignation and submission to my fate, and had taken but a fitful interest in the novel aspects of life by which I was surrounded. Now they appealed to me sympathetically, and I instinctively responded to the appeal. I chatted and made friends. I found zest in the simple amusements of ship life. I spent many happy hours in contemplation of the future, and in arranging the details. Ellen and I would go to some quiet country place, where we were not known, and there we would get married. Deciding not to live in London, we would discuss together in what part of England we would make our home. The sunniest months of my life had been passed in Swanage, and I would have chosen that delightful spot because of its memories, and because it would have been Ellen's choice, had I not been restrained by the thought of Maxwell. Although with Barbara's death his power over me had practically disappeared, still in the circumstances of our life in Swanage – Ellen a single woman and I a married man living apart from my wife – Maxwell's malice might sow thorns in our path. As far as was possible, this must be avoided. We would select some part of England where we were strangers, where the people we mixed with had no personal experience of our past. There, in a little cottage with a garden we would pass our days, and there I would resume my literary labors, and under a nom de plume strive to obtain a footing in the field most congenial to me. My adventures on the goldfields would supply me with attractive themes.

In this endeavor I had no personal vanity to serve; it was simply that I recognized the mischief of living an idle life. I would have no more wasted days. If I did not succeed with the pen I would bring my muscles into play. I laughed as the idea occurred to me that I might eventually become a market gardener, a cultivator of fruits. Straightway my thoughts traveled gaily in that direction.

Towards the end of the voyage I became impatient. The nearer we got to England the greater was my eagerness to see Ellen. I was on the threshold of a new existence, and I was in a fever to cross it. This uncontrollable desire burnt within me to the exclusion of every other topic. I became restless and abstracted, and I withdrew from cordial relationship with my fellow-passengers. This mood – for which I cannot account except on the grounds of pure selfishness – lasted a week, and then I took myself to task and endeavored to make myself companionable; but I was not regarded with the same favor, and my society was not courted. It taught me a lesson, and I inwardly reproached myself with ingratitude.

It is perhaps necessary to mention that I still retained the name I had adopted, and that I appeared on the passenger list as John Fletcher. Time enough, I thought, to resume my own name when Ellen and I were married. But my principal reason for retaining the name of Fletcher was the fear that some of the passengers might have read the account of the fire in which Barbara perished. Newspapers nowadays deal largely in horrors, and accounts of the fire had been published in the Melbourne journals. Naturally I shrank from identification.

The date of my arrival in Liverpool was the 30th of November, and I landed late at night in the midst of a snowstorm. From a railway guide on board ship I noted that a train for London started from Lime Street at midnight, and by this train I had decided to travel to London. Fatal decision! Had I been struck down dead in the streets, my fate would have been the happier!

CHAPTER XXIV

It is at this point of my story that I cannot entirely trust my memory. I am, however, sufficiently clear-minded as to the course of events up to the moment when, in a street, the name of which is unknown to me, an attack was made upon my life. That a watch had been kept upon my movements, and that the attack was premeditated, I have no reason to doubt; but it is almost incredible that hatred could be so far-seeing and vindictive.

As I have said, the snow was falling heavily. It was the first time I had been in Liverpool, and I was therefore not familiar with its thoroughfares. So inclement was the weather, and so thickly did the snow lay upon the ground, that I could not obtain a vehicle to take me to the railway station, the two or three cabs which were available being snapped up before I could reach them. I had no alternative but to walk to Lime Street. There was ample time to get to the station, and I was proof against much more serious obstacles than a snowstorm and a gale of wind.

I was in joyous spirits at the prospect of soon embracing Ellen and my boy, and I walked along (after inquiring my way at the docks) with buoyant steps and a song on my lips. It may have been that this preoccupation of mind made me absent-minded, or that I had been misdirected, for in the midst of my pleasant musings a doubt arose as to whether I was on the right road. I remember stopping by a lamp-post to look at my watch, which I had purchased before I left Melbourne; I remember the time, five minutes to eleven, and my feeling of satisfaction that I had nearly an hour to get to the station. But which was the right way? There was not a person in sight of whom I could make inquiries, and at hap-hazard I turned down the street to which I have referred. It was a narrow, ill-lighted street, and I did not notice whether the houses in it were places of business or private residences.

Suddenly, either from one of the houses or from some dark courtway, a man rushed out and attacked me with such violence that had I been less powerful than I am his first onslaught would have accomplished his purpose. As it was, I grappled with him at the moment of his attack, and a furious struggle began – a struggle for life. Maddened by the attempt to dash the cup of happiness from my lips I put forth all my strength.

And here it is that memory fails me. The recollection of the salient features of this desperate encounter may doubtless be depended upon as correct, but I can go no further in my recountal of the issue of it. One maddening thought, I know, was dominant throughout – the thought that I was fighting for Ellen and love.

The struggle must have lasted a considerable time.

I could not see the face of my assailant, and it is my impression that he strove to avoid recognition; nor did he speak. We struck at each other savagely and in silence. From first to last, so far as I am aware, not a word passed between us. We swayed this way and that, each man's hand at the other's throat; then I felt myself lifted from my feet – a wrestling trick – and flung into the air. But I was up like lightning, and as I seized him again I was dimly conscious of the sight of blood dropping on the snow – whether his blood or mine I cannot say. It seemed to be his purpose to drag me into a house, the door of which was open, and in this he succeeded.

Grappling and raining blows upon each other in the dark passage, we fell upon the stairs, and struggling to our feet without losing our hold, continued the contest. The only weapon I had about me was a fossicking knife in its sheath, and this I must have drawn, as was proved by the result, though I am unable to say whether I drew it in the street or in the house. I cannot account for the fatal use I made of this weapon except upon the supposition that a weapon of some kind was being used against me, and that I was prompted by a savage instinct of self-preservation. In such an emergency a man has no time to reflect upon the consequences of his acts; reason is lost, instinct rules. My aim was to escape into the street, his to drag me from it – and he prevailed. At what period of the brutal conflict we gained the landing of the first floor, at what period we stumbled into a room, and when I dealt the fatal stroke which gave me a frightful victory – all this is hidden from me.

Scores of times since that night have I said to myself, "Let me think, let me think!" and vainly endeavored to follow the progress of the awful struggle. In the moment of victory I must have received a blow which might have proved deadly, for darkness fell upon me, and I sank to the ground in a state of unconsciousness.

When I came to my senses I found myself in an apartment lighted up by two lamps and half-a-dozen candles. The oil in the lamps was almost exhausted. The candles were guttering down. The scattered furniture denoted the savage nature of the struggle in which I had been engaged. Chairs had been flung here and there, a large table was upset; had the candles or lamps been upon it the house would have been set on fire. Against the wall, in front of me, was a sideboard garnished with bottles and glasses, among them a syphon of mineral water.

This was all I discerned in the first few moments of returning consciousness.

I put my hand to my face, and drawing it away found blood upon it; my other hand and my clothes were also stained with blood.

This caused me to think of my assailant, whose condition could have been scarcely worse than my own. What had become of him? Why had he left me here without finishing his work? Was he so badly wounded that he had no strength to kill me?

All was silent in the house. Not a sound of its being inhabited reached my ears. I must fly from it directly my own strength returned, thankful that I had come with life out of the desperate encounter.

Gradually my sight grew clearer, and I rose to my feet. My throat was parched. I went to the sideboard, and pouring out a glass of mineral water, raised it to my lips. In the act of doing this, I turned mechanically, and brought into view that part of the room which I had not yet seen. The glass dropped from my trembling hand, the water untasted.

On the floor, close to the opposite wall, lay the motionless form of a man. This was he, then, who had sought my life, this still form, struck down by my own hand. What I could distinguish of his clothing proclaimed him to belong to the well-to-do classes; a silk hat and gloves, which I had not previously observed, were on a small side table. A nameless horror stole upon me. With slow, stealthy steps I approached and knelt by his side, unconscious at the moment that I was kneeling in a pool of blood. There, gazing with terrified eyes upon him, I waited for a sign which did not come. Not a breath, not the vibration of a pulse. His arm lay across his face. Tremblingly I lifted it aside, and let it fall with a cry of terror on my lips. The face I had uncovered was that of my half-brother Louis! He was dead, and I had killed him! The scar on his forehead was blood-red, and though I was guiltless of causing it, seemed to accuse me; blood was on his face and clothes, there was a wound in his breast – his death-blow – delivered by me whom he hated, by me, who had hated him in life. Oh, cruel fate that made me his murderer!

The shock of the discovery overwhelmed me. I knew what his death meant for me. It did not dawn upon my mind; it came in one sudden, blasting flash. All that had gone before was light in comparison with this mortal blow, which dealt by my own hand, destroyed beyond redemption the newly-born hopes which had filled my heart with gladness. My dream was over. Ellen and I were forever parted.

Oh, God!

I can hear again the echo of the cry of anguish to which I gave in voluntary utterance.

Oh, God! Oh, God!

But of what use appeal to Him? Rather appeal to man, by whom I should be judged; relate my story to the earthly judge before whom I should be arraigned; hide nothing from first to last; expose the remorseless persecution, the vile cunning, the unspeakable degradation which had made my home a hell upon earth; state how I had only landed this night; how, passing through the street I was suddenly attacked and had simply defended myself, as any man would have done under similar circumstances —

Pshaw! Who would believe such a tale? It would be scouted with derision.

If an angel were to come down to testify to the truth of my story he would not be believed. How, then, could I expect to be believed when human witnesses would testify to the hate I bore the man whose spirit was now before God's Judgment Seat? To hope that I could break the chain of evidence that would be brought against me was the hope of a madman.

One by one the candles had gone out; the room was now in semi-darkness. I stood in thought.

Whoso sheddeth his brother's blood – yes, but I was innocent of murderous design. Why, then, should I declare myself a murderer and bring despair upon Ellen, bring ignominy and shame upon her and our child? Life-long despair, life-long ignominy. Every man's finger would be pointed at her. In my child's ears would ring the words, "Your father is a murderer!" Better for him never to have been born.

I had not myself alone to think of, to act for, Ellen could never now be my wife, the delights of home would never be mine. But for her, a lesser evil, though she would never realize it, was to be found in my concealment of my crime. It would be necessary for me to keep apart from her, for in her presence I should be continually confronted by the temptation to betray myself, to make confession, and to do this would be to inflict upon her frightful suffering. Sweet and patient as she was, and implicit as was her faith in me, the duplicities I should be compelled to practice in order to prevent any meeting between us, could not but injure me in her eyes. Setting love aside – an inconceivable hypothesis, for I never loved her as I did in this despairing hour – honor and honest dealings called upon me to give her the name of wife. She would grieve that I did not make amends to her for the sacrifices she had made for me; but far better that I should sink in her esteem than inflict upon her the crushing horror of seeing me condemned for murder. For her sake, then, silence and secrecy, if they could be compassed.

There had been no witnesses of the tragic incidents of the night. I was alone with the dead. The silence that reigned in the house favored my design of secret flight. If any persons resided there they must have heard the sounds of the struggle, the stumbling on the stairs, the dashing into the room, the upsetting of the furniture. I would make sure, however, that the house was uninhabited.

The oil in the lamps was nearly exhausted; but I had matches in a box which Ellen had given me before my departure for Australia. I crept into the passage and listened above, below. No sound. Striking matches as I proceeded I went all over the house from basement to attic, and saw no signs of habitation. The rooms on the ground floor had been partially dismantled, and presented the appearance of having been used for offices, while those on the upper floors had served for private residence, the most completely furnished apartment being that in which Louis lay dead. I made my investigations cautiously and quietly, and kept myself prepared for a possible attack. Once, when I was taking a match out of the box it slipped from my hand, and though I groped for it in all directions I could not find it. There was no time to waste; every moment that I remained in the house was charged with danger, and I was so beset by terrors springing from the perturbed state of my mind that the flapping of a door, the wind tearing through the street, even the slightest sound which fell unexpectedly on my ears, set all my nerves quivering.