The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) Page 12

  Frederick ordered, “That’s the woman! Take her!”

  “We are arresting you, Emer Nugent Dillon, on charges of arson to the property of one Mr. Frederick Randall, on the 21st of June, 1847, and of arson in order to make a fraudulent insurance claim, with attempt to endanger the lives of innocent children, on the night of the 22nd of May of this year. Please come with us.”

  “Sirs, as you can see, I've just had a child, and am unable to get out of the bed,” Emer said as she buttoned her night gown and began pulling a few things together that were within reach, to stuff in the pillowcases, one for her and one for the baby.

  “She’s lying,” Frederick spat impatiently.

  “No, I’m not. A beam fell on me in the fire, and I’ve been crippled ever since,” Emer said with as much dignity as she could muster considering she was so scantily clad, and the baby had begun to cry hysterically at all the commotion.

  “We’ll have to carry her, then,” the constable said, with no small degree of embarrassment, for indeed, lying there with the tiny infant, Emer certainly didn’t look like the dangerous criminal Frederick Randall had sworn her to be.

  “At least let me have some of my things, a skirt to throw over this nightdress, and a blouse. My black bag over there has most of what I need.”

  “Be careful, she might have a gun,” Frederick bellowed.

  “Here, you take the thing out for me then. One skirt, one blouse, a comb and a shawl,” Emer instructed.

  As the constable handed them to her, she stuffed them into the case, and then put all of William’s things into his bag.

  “What shall we do with the child, sir?” one of the constables asked.

  “Take it with us, of course. We can’t leave it with her, a criminal. She is unfit to look after it. Not after what she did to that orphanage.”

  “No, take me, but leave the child here!” Emer pleaded. “Leave him with the housekeeper. I don’t want the child going to prison with me.”

  “It won’t be going to prison with you. It will be going to a decent family who will look after it properly,” Frederick claimed, though indeed he had a far different plan in mind for the innocent newborn babe.

  “But before we go, you’ll need to write a farewell note to your friends, won’t you?” Frederick asked in a sinister tone.

  “There’s one already there, on the table. You may open it and read it if you like,” Emer sighed.

  The letter Emer had written for Dalton in preparation for her journey the following day to Georgia simply read,

  “Dearest Dalton,

  I have decided to go away for a time to try to recover my health, and the use of my limbs. I am very grateful for all you have done, but do not think you should be burdened with a crippled wife, and an infant son at this time in your life.

  I think you have already sacrificed enough for me, and I refuse to lean on you as a crutch any longer. I must leave to find my own destiny, and ask you not to come after me.

  If I get better, and feel I can return, I shall, but please do not wait for me, for I fear you might be sadly disappointed. Above all I wish you to be happy. I know that though you will be hurt by my leaving, that you will understand my reasons, and wish me well in the future, as I do you.”

  Ever yours,

  Emer and William.

  Frederick nodded. “Perfect. He’ll never suspect a thing. Right, Constable Warren, take her if you please.”

  “Wait, the baby. I need a few more things for him. Please, if you won’t let me leave him behind, at least allow me to take him some clothes and cloths,” Emer requested.

  The child clung on to the carved rosary beads in bewilderment as one of the constables held him up and wrapped him in a blanket several times like a mummy, while the other one went next door and grabbed a few things out of the nursery drawers as Emer had instructed.

  “Where are you taking me?” Emer asked, as they threw back the covers, and taking an arm apiece suspended her in between them, with her feet dangling lifelessly on the floor.

  “Straight to court to be tried,” one of the constables muttered as he negotiated the narrow stairs.

  Frederick looked as though he had been given a revolting disease as he was forced to take the baby down the stairs. He didn’t so much as glance at his own grandson, so hard-hearted was he.

  “You will be taken to the magistrate’s court within the hour, where your hearing will take place, and sentence will be passed,” Frederick triumphed, knowing full well that he was the sitting magistrate, and Emer hadn’t a chance in the world of being found innocent.

  But first Frederick had to get rid of the bastard child. Separating from the police constables, he got into his own carriage and headed down to the docks, where a steamer heading for Toronto from Grosse Ile had just pulled in to let off a few passengers.

  “Are any of you going to Toronto?” he called out.

  “Aye, and if we can't find work there, then on into the mountains after that.” a few of the people informed him, hoping the prosperous-looking gentleman would offer them some work.

  “Who will take this poor orphan off my hands for five pounds?” Frederick declared loudly.

  At first there were no takers, for everyone felt sorry for the poor babe, swaddled up to its odd golden eyes, and turning redder by the minute with heat and weeping as it bawled inconsolably.

  Finally one gnarled old crone looked up and answered, “I’ll take it, sir.”

  “Very well,” Frederick positively gloated, and handed over the money, the pillowcase, and the child.

  Convinced that he had found a thoroughly disreputable old woman who would take the first convenient opportunity to throw the child overboard as the steamer cruised down the St. Lawrence River, Frederick headed off to the magistrate’s court without a second thought for his poor helpless grandson.

  But once he was gone, the old woman approached a very young girl, whose eyes were half glazed with fear and grief, and said to her in Irish, “Look, Mary, your son. He’s hungry.”

  The pathetic dazed girl, having just lost her own baby to the fever, unwrapped the bundle, undid her grimy blouse, and automatically began to suckle the infant tenderly.

  The old woman smiled, and then stared suddenly at the infant’s fist. She looked with interest at the carved wooden rosary William clung to tightly, and crossed herself.

  She had no idea who the rich man was who had given her the infant, but she was certain that he was up to no good.

  Then she looked in the pillowcase, and saw all the beautiful baby clothes Emer had made so lovingly with her own hands, and saw several bibs with the name ‘William’ embroidered on them.

  Though she had doubts about the wisdom of what she had just done, the old woman was certain that Mary would treat the child as her own, which was more than could be said for the generally heartless orphanage authorities.

  So she decided to keep the child and the money, and hope she could one day discover the truth about the infant's identity, and how it had come to meet such a fate at the hands of the grim man with blue-grey eyes as pale as a wolf's.

  She placed the hand-carved rosary around the child’s neck for safe-keeping, and hung onto the baby’s pillowcase tightly to protect it from thieves.

  “I think William, Liam is a lovely name, don’t you, Mary?” The old woman smiled gently.

  The girl nodded, and cradled the child until he finally stopped crying and began to drowse.

  Then the boat cast off from the dock, and continued its voyage down the mighty river.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  While Frederick took his side trip to the docks to dispose of baby William to the first immigrant who would take him off his hands for five pounds, Emer had been brought straight to the court house. Since her arrival, she had been forced to sit propped up in a chair by her arms, to wait for the magistrate’s arrival.

  Apart from one of the constables who had arrested her, Constable Warren, there was no one else present, and
more alarmingly, no sign of her child.

  Constable Warren looked quite severe and forbidding, and Emer had a sinking feeling that worse was yet to come.

  In that she was quite correct, for when she was ordered by the constable to rise for the judge’s entrance, she of course was unable to do so.

  The magistrate, none other than Frederick Randall, entered, and abruptly called his first and only witness, Mr. Pertwee, who came into the room through the door situated behind her.

  “I commanded you to rise!” Frederick barked.

  “Show some respect, you damned whore!” Pertwee shouted at her, and dragged her up onto her feet.

  Emer tried to break her fall as her dead legs gave way under her. But Pertwee had yanked her so violently, that she went crashing to the ground, and was nearly knocked unconscious as her jaw made contact with the solid stone floor.

  “Get her up!” Frederick snarled, and then the whole farce of a trial began.

  Emer felt herself being dragged back off the ground, and shoved into the chair again. She sat numbly trying to stanch the flow of blood from her mouth and nose, and prayed she wouldn’t lose all her front teeth.

  Pertwee’s by now predictable testimony concerning the fire and the flogging on the Pegasus was recited to the court for the benefit of the tiny audience.

  Surprisingly, Pertwee then continued on to say that he had been present on the night of the orphanage fire, and had seen her set the blaze herself.

  Emer could hear a small scratching sound behind her, and managed with some difficulty to turn her head far enough around to see who was there. Emer espied a timid little clerk taking down all of Pertwee’s statements, and her heart sank.

  Even if she could move her jaw to speak, how could she possibly defend herself?

  When Pertwee came to the end of his catalogue of lies, Frederick demanded gruffly, “Have you anything to say on your own behalf, Prisoner, before sentence is passed?”

  “I just wish to ask Mr. Pertwee by what means the fire was started?” Emer managed to get out after several tries through her numb jaw.

  “The same as on the ship. She made it seem as if the logs had fallen out of the fire in the library, and then they of course set fire to the carpets and curtains, and burnt the house,” Pertwee invented happily.

  “Did you get all that down, Clerk?” Frederick asked.

  “Yes, sir,” he quavered.

  “Pertwee is lying, sir. I'm innocent. I was crippled in the fire saving the children. No one was injured except myself. It was started on the back porch with the lamp oil from the outside lanterns, as several people can attest.

  "On the ship, I broke down the wall with an axe, and stopped the fire from spreading throughout the ship. I wasn’t even in the galley when it went on fire. I was attending to my other duties. It was Fred’s negligence, not mine, that caused the fire. If Fred were still alive he could tell you so. But there are other witnesses. The Jenkinses, Patrick Bradley the first mate, and Mr. Randall’s own son Dalton were all there!” Emer argued in a slurred voice.

  “That is enough. Clerk, you will ignore those comments, and tear up that piece of paper with her testimony on it," Frederick commanded.

  "Now, since there are no witnesses for the defence, the court will proceed. If the prisoner has nothing else to say, then we declare that this court finds Emer Nugent Dillon guilty of two counts of arson."

  "No!" she screamed. "I'm innocent!"

  "The usual punishment for this crime is hanging, but in your instance, due to your gender and youth, and since you are not a citizen of this country, we sentence you to transportation to Australia, with hard labour. You will be sent to Ireland immediately, on a ship bound for Cork, and from there you will be committed to the prison on Spike island, until a suitable outbound convict vessel can be found to take you to Botany Bay. Constable Warren, take her away,” Frederick said abruptly, and banged his gavel.

  “What about my son?” Emer called out, as she felt her arms being seized.

  Frederick looked at her sharply, and she could see the gloating smile on his face through her haze of pain.

  “The court has seen fit to grant you a stay of execution, so that you may have time to reflect upon your past life and the errors of your ways. Your son has been placed with suitable parents, able to look after the child’s welfare. Let the loss of your son also be a punishment to you, to remind you of the loss of life which could have occurred had your evil deed caused fatalities amongst the innocent children in your care.”

  “No, no! You can’t give him away! Dalton loves him! It will surely kill him to lose us both. Have some mercy, for pity’s sake! I don’t care what you do to me, but don’t harm the baby! William is your own grandchild! My God, what kind of a devil are you!" Emer screamed, trying to grab Frederick’s jacket as he stormed past her contemptuously.

  The constable held her back from him, and Frederick disappeared with Mr. Pertwee hot on his tail.

  The tame clerk, perturbed by the events of the day, finished scribbling down all of Emer’s words as he had been trained to do, though Frederick had ordered him to strike out all her testimony.

  Constable Warren, moved by Emer’s tears despite himself, gave her his handkerchief and a glass of water so she could try to clean up her bleeding mouth, and waited uneasily for the clerk to finish taking down all that had been said.

  As Emer tried to stanch the flow of blood, she pleaded with them to help find her son, that the magistrate's son Dalton Randall would reward them for the return of his child.

  Constable Warren thought he had seen it all in his years as an officer of the court, but the battered, crippled woman begging for her baby's life was like nothing he had ever encountered.

  Once the clerk had completed his report, he filled out the papers required to secure Emer’s transport on the next vessel bound for Ireland.

  Then Emer’s pillowcase containing her few possessions was thrust into her hands, and she was carried away by the very disturbed constable.

  Once outside, he put her into in a closed carriage with another constable, who looked at her bruised face with puzzlement and shock. They drove on through the streets of Quebec with her trying to explain what had just happened, and how she needed to find her son.

  The young man felt pity for her, but had no idea what to do. He had his orders, after all.

  Emer's heart began to sink as her pleas fell on yet another set of deaf ears. So she forced herself to think about her own immediate situation. She was crippled, and now she was fairly certain her jaw was broken.

  Though there was no window in the conveyance, Emer could tell from the smells filtering through the closed door that they were heading towards the docks. They were transporting her like a common criminal. She was going to have to endure an Atlantic crossing once more, only this time with no freedom, family, or supplies.

  While Emer was terrified for herself, having to journey back to Ireland, and then be put in prison before being transported, she was nearly driven to despair at the thought of what Frederick might have done to her child.

  She looked pleadingly at the constable, and begged once more, “Please, my son, I must find out where he is, and tell my friends. He's called William, William Dillon. Or if you won't help me, at least contact Dalton Randall, or Doctor Lovell, or Miss Myrtle Chandler, and tell them what's happened to me and my son.”

  But Emer’s speech was badly slurred by the blood which continued to flow and the increasing swelling of her face, and the constable disregarded her frenzied behaviour as an obvious sign of madness.

  Emer persisted in her attempts to persuade the policeman, but finally he grew impatient. “There is nothing I can do, even if wanted to help a criminal like you. I’ll be glad to put you on the ship and see the back of you!”

  Emer was taken to the docks, where a huge three-masted square-rigged ship, the Britannia, was docked.

  “She is to be taken on board, kept in close confinement, and fed nothing but
biscuit and water, and kept in manacles at all times. When you arrive at Cork, notify the authorities there, and pass on these papers. They will find her a convict transport,” the constable stated.

  Emer was hauled on board unceremoniously by a deeply tanned, gruff older sailor, who practically flung Emer like an empty sack into a tiny cabin just big enough for a short box bed, a basin and ewer set, and a chamberpot.

  She heard the door slammed shut behind her as she lay prone on the floor, and listened to the scrape of a key turning in the lock.

  It wasn’t long before the by now familiar sensation of the ship rocking back and forth as it sailed along began. Emer rallied herself, and pushed up off the ground with her hands to get herself onto her knees. The bunk was fairly high, however, and it took all of Emer’s strength in her arms to hoist herself up onto it.