The Tragedy of the Chain Pier | Page 7

you another thing, sir--a man would never have killed a child like that; not that I am upholding men--some of them are brutes enough--but I do not think any man would throw a little babe into the water. When a woman is bad, she is bad, and there is nothing vile enough for her."
I though of the beautiful and desperate face. Heaven grant that she might have nothing to do with this! And yet--the black and gray shawl!
"Whereabouts was it?" I asked.
He pointed with his hand to the very spot where she had stood.
"Just there," he said. "It was there the little bundle was thrown, and there, just below the line of the jetty, it was caught by the hooks."
The identical spot where she had stood. Oh, beautiful, despairing face, what was hidden underneath your mask of stone?
"You should go on the pier, sir, and see for yourself," said the old man. "The superintendent of the police is there now; but they will never find out who did that. Women are deep when they are wicked, and the one who did this was wicked enough."
There was a slight suggestion on the part of the little group as to the morning being a dry one. We parted on very satisfactory terms.
I went on the pier, and under the wooden shelter where I had sat last night I saw a group--the superintendent of the police with one of the officers, the manager of the pier, the keepers of the different stalls, a few strangers, and Jim, the boatman, who had found the little bundle dripping wet. Oh, Heaven, the pathos of it! On the wooden seat lay the little bundle, so white, so fair, like a small, pale rose-bud, and by it, in a wet heap, lay the black and gray shawl. I knew it in one moment; there was not another word to be said; that was the same shawl I had seen in the woman's hands when she dropped the little bundle into the sea--the self-same. I had seen it plainly by the bright, fitful gleam of the moon. The superintendent said something to me, and I went forward to look at the little child--so small, so fair, so tender--how could any woman, with a woman's heart, drop that warm, soft little nursling into the cold, deep sea? It was a woman who killed Joel--a woman who slew Holofernes--but the woman who drowned this little, tiny child was more cruel by far than they.
"What a sweet little face!" said the superintendent; "it looks just as though it were made of wax."
I bent forward. Ah! if I had doubted before, I could doubt no longer. The little face, even in its waxen pallor, was like the beautiful one I had seen in its white despair last night. Just the same cluster of hair, the same beautiful mouth and molded chin. Mother and child, I knew and felt sure. The little white garments were dripping, and some kind, motherly woman in the crowd came forward and dried the little face.
"Poor little thing!" she said; "how I should like to take those wet things off, and make it warm by a good fire!"
"It will never be warm again in this world," said one of the boatmen. "There is but little chance when a child has lain all night in the sea."
"All night in the sea!" said the pitiful woman; "and my children lay so warm and comfortable in their little soft beds. All night in the sea! Poor little motherless thing!"
She seemed to take it quite for granted that the child must be motherless; in her loving, motherly heart she could not think of such a crime as a mother destroying her own child. I saw that all the men who stood round the body were struck with this.
"What will be done with it?" she asked.
"It will go to the dead-house at the work-house," said the superintendent, "and the parish will bury it."
Then I stood forward.
"No!" I cried; "if the authorities will permit, I will take upon myself the expense of burying that little child--it shall not have a pauper's funeral; it shall be buried in the beautiful green cemetery in the Lewes Road, and it shall have a white marble cross at the head of its grave."
"You are very good, sir," said the superintendent, and the pitiful woman cried out:
"Heaven bless you, sir! I would do the same thing myself if I could afford it."
"There must be an inquest," said some one in the crowd; "we ought to know whether the child was dead before it was thrown into the water."
"I hope to Heaven it was!" cried the woman.
And I said to myself that, if that were the case, it would not be murder--not murder, but some mad, miserable mother's way out