Mad: A Story of Dust and AshesFenn, George Manville
General
Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes
Fenn, George Manville
Fiction
The wind moaned and sighed, and mingled with the poor girl's cries; the
chains rattled noisily, and the waters seemed to leap and dash angrily
at the steps, rising higher and higher minute by minute, fearful of
losing their prey; while Matt stole nearer and nearer, trembling in
every limb--nearer and nearer still, with his eyes fixed upon that pale,
staring face, till a policeman laid a hand upon his breast to stay him
from interrupting the mourner's sorrow; but, putting back the hand, Matt
pressed on with a chaos of thoughts hurrying through his brain, bright
amongst which seemed to shine forth the face of Lucy Grey, as, stooping
lower, he now looked down upon this countenance which he had, ere now,
seen raised wildly and appealingly to his, when he had gruffly talked of
time, and then, shivering as if stricken with some paralysing seizure,
he gasped almost to himself--"It's that poor girl!"
Volume Three, Chapter X.
BY DAY.
The public might have been present in force, but they were not; for
inquests upon bodies found in Thames' stream are common events, such as
find their way into corners of the morning papers in the shape of short
paragraphs. And in this instance there was a very seedy-looking staff
to represent the Press--namely, a man who winked solemnly at old Matt as
he passed him on his way to a side-table beside the jury. The necessary
witnesses were there apparently, and the inquest dragged on its slow
length as they told all they knew. But Matthew Space must be quoted as
an exception; he did not tell all, only that he knew the poor woman by
sight, while he rightly said that he was ignorant of her name and home.
It would be time, he thought, to tell all when there was no more danger
of publicity, and so he allowed himself to be huffed by the coroner for
taking up his valuable time.
But now came forward a pale, well-dressed, weeping girl, who stated that
her name was Eleanor.
"Eleanor what?" said the coroner, frowning very severely, and oozing all
over his very high, bald forehead with the quintessence of morality; for
the poor girl shivered before him, and looked appealingly from face to
face of the jurymen. "Eleanor what?" said the coroner again, with quite
a snap.
"Anderson," said the girl sobbing; and then for a few minutes she could
not proceed to tell her tale; how that for a year past she had always
tried to see those girls who were taken out of the river. She hardly
knew why, only that she had known some of them, as she knew poor Marian;
and there seemed something which drew her towards the river. She met
the policemen, and they let her go with them, for she was looking for
Marian, and somehow she was not surprised to find her there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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