Part 3

"Mr. Harvey, of St. Annan, and Dr. Polwhele, of Penzance, were then called and both sworn; and Mr. Harvey said that, being on the evening of the 22nd sent for to Mr. Bendigo, he thus made his complaints: That he had a violent burning pain, saying it was a ball of fire in his guts, that he vomited much since taking some tea two days before and again after taking some gruel that evening, that he had a cold sweat, hiccups, prickings all over his body, which he compared to a number of needles. He desired to drink, but could not swallow, his pulse intermitted, his tongue swelled, his throat was excoriated, his breath difficult and interrupted. Towards morning he grew worse, became delirious and sank gradually, dying about six o'clock in the morning.

"Being asked if he thought Mr. Bendigo was poisoned, witness answered, He really believed he was, for that the symptoms, while living, were like those of a person who had taken arsenic; and the appearances after death, like those that were poisoned by arsenic."[A]

"King's Counsel: Did you also make an examination of the powder found in the gruel?

"Mr. Harvey: I did. I threw it upon a hot iron; boiled ten grains in water and divided the concoction, after filtering it into five equal parts. Into one I put oil of vitriol, into another tartar, into the third spirit of sal ammoniac, into the fourth spirit of salt, and into the fifth spirit of wine. I tried it also with syrup of violets, and made the like experiments with the same quantity of white arsenic which I bought in Penzance. It answered exactly to every one of them, and therefore I believed it to be white arsenic.

"Mr. Harvey further deposed that Mr. Bendigo told him that he suspected poison, and that he believed it came to his daughter with the serpentine beads, for that his daughter had had a present of those damned pebbles that morning; that if he, this witness, would look in the gruel, he might find something, that when he, this witness, asked Mr. Bendigo whom he imagined gave him the poison, he replied, A poor love-sick girl, but I forgive her; what will not a woman do for the man she loves?

"That later on the evening of the 22nd, Mr. Bendigo being a trifle easier, consented to see Miss, that he, this witness, was present when Miss came into the chamber, and fell down upon her knees, saying, Oh! sir, forgive me! Do what you will with me, and I'll never see Crandon more if you will but forgive me. To which Mr. Bendigo replied, I forgive thee, but thou shouldst have remembered that I am thy father, upon which Miss said, Oh, sir, your goodness strikes daggers to my soul; sir, I must down on my knees and pray that you will not curse me. He replied, No, child, I bless thee and pray that God may bless thee and let thee live to repent. Miss then declared she was innocent of this illness, and he replied, that he feared she was not, and that some of the powder was in such hands as would show it against her. Witness added that deceased, before Miss Bendigo's entry, had bidden him look to the remainder of the gruel.

"Prisoner's Counsel: Who was it sent for you when deceased was taken ill?

"Harvey: James Ruffiniac,[B] the steward, fetched me and said it was at the command of Miss Bendigo, who said, to-morrow will not satisfy me, you must go now, which he did.

"Prisoner's Counsel: All the years you have known Miss Bendigo what has been her behaviour to her father? Has she not always done everything that an affectionate child could for her father's ease?

"Harvey: She always behaved like a dutiful daughter, as far as ever I knew, and seemed to do everything in her power for her father's recovery whenever he was indisposed.

"King's Counsel: Did she tell you that she had put anything into her father's gruel and that she feared it might in some measure occasion his death?

"Harvey: She never did.

"Dr. Polwhele, having been sworn at the same time as Mr. Harvey, and stood in Court close by him, was now asked by the King's Counsel if he was present at the opening of Mr. Bendigo and whether the observations made by Mr. Harvey were true: he said he was present and made the same observations himself. He was then asked what was his opinion of the cause of the death of Mr. Bendigo, and he replied, by poison absolutely.

"Eliza Ruffiniac, being sworn, said, that on the afternoon of the 20th, her master being unwell, from (as they thought at the time) an attack of bile, Miss Bendigo, the prisoner at the bar, made him a dish of tea. That after taking it he was very sick, but seemed easier next day, when Miss again made him some tea which he did not drink. That next evening he sent for the witness and asked for some water-gruel to be made; that Miss on hearing of it, said, I will make it, that there's no call for you to leave your ironing; that Miss was a long time stirring the gruel in the pantry, and on coming into the kitchen said, I have been taking of my father's gruel, and I think I shall often eat of it; I have taken a great fancy to it.

"King's Counsel: Do you recollect that one Keast, the cook-maid, had been taken ill with drinking some tea the day before, and tell the Court how it was.

"E. Ruffiniac: Hester Keast brought down the tea from my master's room and afterwards drank it in the scullery, where I found her crying out she was dying, being taken very ill with a violent vomiting and pains and a great thirst.

"Prisoner's Counsel: On that occasion, how did Miss Bendigo behave?

"E. Ruffiniac: She made Hester Keast go to her bed and sent her a large quantity of weak broth and white wine whey.

"King's Counsel: Did you ever see Miss Bendigo burn any papers, and when?

"E. Ruffiniac: On the evening of the 22nd, Miss brought a great many papers in her apron down into the kitchen and put them on the fire, then thrust them into it with a stick and said, now, thank God, I am pretty easy, and then went out of the kitchen; that this witness and Hester Keast were in the kitchen at the time; that they, observing something to burn blue, it was raked out and found to be a paper of powder that was not quite consumed; that there was this inscription on the paper; Powder to clean the pebbles, and that this paper, she, the witness, delivered to Dr. Polwhele next day. Being shown a paper, with the above inscription on it, partly burnt, she said she believed the paper to be the same the prisoner put into the fire and she took out.

"This witness was asked if she ever heard the prisoner use any unseemly expressions against her father, and what they were? Replied, many times; sometimes she damned him for an old rascal; and once when she was in the dairy and the prisoner passing at the time outside, she heard her say, Who would not send an old father to hell for ten thousand pounds?

"Hester Keast, the cook-maid, deposed, That, on the 21st she bore down her master's dish of tea and drank of it, being afterwards taken very ill, that on the next day, being down in the kitchen after her master was taken ill, Lylie Ruffiniac brought a pan with some gruel in it to the table and said, Hester, did you ever see any oatmeal so white? that this witness replied, That oatmeal? Why, it is flour! and Lylie replied, I never saw flour so gritty in my life; that they showed it to Mr. Harvey, the apothecary, who took it away with him.

"James Ruffiniac was next called and sworn.

"King's Counsel: When your master was dead, did you not have some particular conversation with the prisoner? Recollect yourself, and tell my Lord and the Jury what it was.

"J. Ruffiniac: After my master was dead, Miss Bendigo asked me if I would live along with her, and I said no, and she then said, If you will go with me, your fortune will be made; I asked her what she wanted me to do and she replied, Only to hire a post-chaise to go to London. I was shocked at the proposal and absolutely refused her request. On this she put on a forced laugh, and said, I was only joking with you.

"Charles Le Petyt, Clerk in Holy Orders, was next called and sworn, and said, That, meeting Miss Bendigo in St. Annan when the crowd was insulting her, he took her into the inn, and spoke with her there, asking if she would not return home under his protection; she answered yes, that upon this he got a closed post-chaise and brought her home; that upon her coming home she asked him what she should do, that he, having heard her, said that they should fix the guilt upon Crandon if she could produce anything to that end, but in some agony she replied she had destroyed all evidences of his guilt.

"Prisoner's Counsel: Do you, Mr. Le Petyt, believe that the Prisoner had any intention to go off, from what appeared to you, and if she was not very ready to come back with you from the inn?

"Le Petyt: She was very ready to come back, and desired me to protect her from the mob, and she had, I am sure, no design to make an escape.

"Here the Counsel for the Crown rested their proof against the prisoner, and she was thereupon called to make her defence.

"Prisoner: My Lord, in my unhappy plight, if I should use any terms that may be thought unfitting, I hope I shall be forgiven, for it will not be with any desire to offend. My Lord, some time before my father's death, I unhappily became acquainted with Captain Crandon. This, after a time, gave offence to my father, and he grew very angry with me over Captain Crandon. I am passionate, which I know is a fault, and when I have found my father distrustful over Captain Crandon, I may have let fall an angry expression, but never to wish him injury, I have always done all in my power to tend him, as the witnesses against me have not denied. When my father was dead, being ill and unable to bear confinement in the house, I took a walk over to St. Annan, but I was insulted, and a mob raised about me, so that when Mr. Le Petyt came to me I desired his protection and to go home with him, which I did.

"I will not deny, my Lord, that I did put some powder into my father's gruel; but I here solemnly protest, as I shall answer it at the great tribunal, and God knows how soon, that I had no evil intention in putting the powder in his gruel: It was put in to procure his love and not his death.

"Then she desired that several witnesses might be called in her defence, who all allowed that Miss Bendigo always behaved to her father in a dutiful and affectionate manner. And Anne Lear and Elizabeth Pollard, women occasionally employed at Troon, deposed that they had heard Lylie Ruffiniac say, Damn the black bitch (meaning the prisoner), I hope I shall see her walk up a ladder and swing.

"The prisoner having gone through her defence, the King's Counsel, in reply, observed, That the prisoner had given no evidence in contradiction of the facts established by the witnesses for the crown; that indeed, Anne Lear and Elizabeth Pollard had sworn to an expression of Lylie Ruffiniac, which, if true, served to show ill-will in Ruffiniac towards the prisoner, but that he thought the incident was too slight to deserve any manner of credit. That the other witnesses, produced by the prisoner, served only to prove that Mr. Bendigo was a very fond, affectionate and indulgent parent, therefore there could be no pretence of giving him powders or anything else to promote in him an affection for his daughter. That if the Jury believed the prisoner to be innocent, they would take care to acquit her: but if they believed her guilty, they would take care to acquit their own consciences.[C]

"The prisoner desired leave to speak in answer to what the King's Counsel had said, which being granted, she said, The gentleman was mistaken in thinking the powders were given to her father to produce his affection to her, for that they were given to procure her father's love to Captain Crandon.

"The judge summed up the evidence in a clear and impartial manner to the Jury, and they, without going out of Court, brought in their verdict: Guilty, Death.

"After sentence of death was pronounced upon her she, in a very solemn and affecting manner, prayed the Court that she might have as much time as could be allowed her to prepare for her great and immortal state. The Court told her she should have a convenient time allowed her; but exhorted her, in the meantime, to lose not a moment, but incessantly to implore the mercy of that Being to Whom alone mercy belongs."

II

FIRST STEPS

To the making of such a scene as that recounted in the contemporary journal, much had gone during the months so crudely analysed. That damning pile of evidence had been building itself up, touch upon touch, since the first moment when Sophie Bendigo's eyes lit on the instigator of the trouble; and the causes of her own share in it had been strengthening from far earlier even than that. In after years the Wise Woman of Bosullow would recount that when the baby Sophie was brought to her to be passed for luck through the ringed stone of the Men-an-Tol, she had foretold for her the rise in life that eventually came about. True, the terms of the prophecy had been so vague that beyond the fact that a ladder, metaphorical or otherwise, was to play a part in Sophie's career, Mr. Bendigo had not been much the wiser. The mother had lain in the bleak moorland churchyard for several years now, but she had had time, during the most malleable years of a girl's life, the early teens, to impress Sophie with a sense of destiny. Not for her the vulgar loves and joys of other country girls, to her some one shining, resplendent, would come flashing down, and Sophie must learn to bear with powdered hair and hoops against that moment. For London, of course, would be her splendid bourne, and as to saying that hoops got in the way of her legs--why, hoops were the mode and to a hoop she must come. Since Mrs. Bendigo had died, worn out by the terrible combination of the Squire's slow cruelty and his suave tongue, Sophie had given up the struggle with hoops and powder, but she still lived for and by her vision of the future. If Sophie Bendigo had not glanced over her shoulder in Troon Lane, thereby presenting an exceptional face at the most alluring of angles--chin up and eyes innocently sidelong--to the view of Mr. Crandon, she might never have climbed so high. When she saw Mr. Crandon, his white wig tied with a black ribbon, and an excellent paste pin flashing from his cravat, riding up the lane, she never doubted that her star had risen at last.

Sophie Bendigo was of the pure Celtic type still preserved among the intermarrying villages of West Penwith. Her rather coarse hair was a burnt black, so were her thick, straight brows, but her eyes were of that startlingly vivid blue one only meets in Cornish women and Cornish seas. There was something curiously Puck-like about Sophie; the cheekbones wide and jaw pointed, while her mouth was long, the thin, finely cut lips curving up at the ends, and there was a freakish flaunt at the corners of her brows--Crandon thought of piskies as he looked. She wore a plain white gown, low in the throat and short in the sleeve, and she carried an apron-load of elder-flower, the pearly blossoms of it showing faintly green against the deader white of the linen.

"Excuse me, but does this lead to St. Annan?" asked Crandon, bending a little towards her. Sophie felt one swift pang lest he should be riding out of her life straightway, and swiftly answered:

"You are out of your way," she told him, "this lane only leads to our house. You must go back to the highway and follow it past the 'Nineteen Merry Maidens' and turn on to your right--but it is a matter of three or four miles."

For a moment they remained looking at each other, then Crandon said:

"Is there perhaps an inn near here where I and my mare could rest? We have come from Zennor this morning, and she is newly shod."

"There is no need for an inn," said Sophie, "we are always glad to rest a traveller at Troon Manor. I am Sophie Bendigo."

Crandon smilingly dismounted and walked by her side up the lane.

"It would be ungracious to refuse when the Fates have led me and Venus herself seconds the invitation. . . . Have you just risen from the sea, I wonder, that your eyes still hold its hue?"

Sophie, used only to the clumsy overtures of the county squires, flushed with pleasure, not at the allusion, which she did not understand, but at the air of gallantry which pervaded the man. She glanced up admiringly between her narrowed lids--Crandon was accustomed to such glances, so had his girl-wife in Scotland looked at him, before he deserted her and her child. He meditated no harm to this girl, no plan was formulated in his mind; and as to the ten thousand pounds, of which so much was heard later on, no whisper of it had then reached his ears. The road had led to her, her own face lured him on, and a few hours of a pretty girl on such a June day, where was the harm? The innocence and spontaneity of his feelings gave the Captain a delightful glow of conscious virtue, and he walked beside Sophie with a slight swagger of enjoyment.

The drive was a mere rutted cart-track; hemlock, foxgloves, purple knapweed, blue scabious and tall, thin-stemmed buttercups grew along the tangled hedges, and the blackberry flowers patterned the brambles with pearliness. The luminous chequer-work of sun and shadow fell over Sophie's white gown, and the green light, filtering through the trees, reflected on her face and on her glossy head, so that she seemed to be walking in the depths of the sea, and Crandon's simile gained in aptness.

At the bend of the lane they came on the Manor House, its whitewash dazzling in the sunshine, even the shadows thrown on it by the eaves and sills were so clear they gave a curious effect of being as light as the rest. Only the Bendigo arms--a clenched fist--carved on the granite lintel, had been left untouched by the whitewash, and showed a sullen grey. A few fawn-coloured fowls, blazing like copper in the sunshine, pecked at the dusty ground, and some white pigs, looking as utterly naked as only white pigs can, snuffled at a rubbish heap, their big ears flapping. A tall, lean woman, clad in a dirty silk dressing-jacket of bright yellow, was talking to a labourer by the dairy door. There was something oddly suggestive of secrecy in the turn of their shoulders and their bent heads, and the woman's soiled finery made her thin face--that of a shrewd but comely peasant, framed in an untidy pompadour of reddish-brown hair--seem oddly incongruous. The man lapsed into insignificance beside her, yet something of likeness in their sharpened lines, and in the tinge of hot colour showing up through them, proclaimed them kin. They were Lylie Ruffiniac, Squire Bendigo's housekeeper, and her brother James, who acted as bailiff on the estate. Sophie, her head turned towards her companion, did not see them, but Crandon did, and was pricked at once to curiosity. Living as he did by his wits, his every fibre was quickened to superficial alertness, though of intellectual effort he was almost incapable. An old journal for 1752 that published, in addition to its account of the trial, some "Memoirs of the Life of Lucius William Crandon, Esq.," had enough acumen to remark: "He was not, however, destitute of parts, for he would often surprise those who entertained a mean opinion of his abilities, by schemes and concertions which required more genius than they thought he had been master of. . . . As he was not of sufficient learning to qualify him either for law or for physic, he turned his thought towards the army, where a very moderate share of literature is sufficient, and where few voices disqualify a man from making a figure. . . ." And a figure Lucius Crandon certainly made--a figure that caused the woman in the yellow jacket to stop and stare, then to disappear into the house by a side-door--Crandon received the impression that she had gone to warn some one of his approach.

III

THE WOOING

It is said that rogues know each other by instinct--certain it is that the Squire and Captain Crandon had no need of disguises once they had crossed glances, and therefore each man cloaked himself with an elaborate pretence of being unable to see through the other's garment. It was not by any wish of Squire Bendigo's that Captain Crandon heard of the rumour of the ten thousand pounds, but when one has circulated a report with diligence for several years it is impossible to withdraw it at will, and so the Squire found, and it only needed this report of Sophie's marriage portion for Crandon to attempt the capture in earnest; what happened to the map history does not relate, but the Captain stayed at the "Bendigo Arms," making explorations in the familiar but always surprising country of a woman's mind. A mind simpler, more passionate, and more one-ideaed than any he had met before, a mind at once proud, confiding and reckless--a mind fitted, both by the quality of it and its loneliness, to be easily influenced by the flattery of love.

Sophie Bendigo had a fixed belief in her star. The predictions of the Wise Woman and of her eager mother, and her own knowledge of her superiority to the people among whom she moved, all tended to give her that confidence in her fate which does not think misfortune possible. She had always led a hard life with her best of fathers, the smiling old rogue who had never been heard to address a rude word to her, and who was harsh and immutable as granite. She had always waited, with such sureness she had not even felt impatience, for her opportunity to come, and mingled with the half-shy, half-innocently sensuous imaginings of a young girl on the subject of love, ran a streak of personal ambition, a hardness inherited from her father.