The Black Swan

He went on talking about my father’s openly stated opposition to Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill, and how Fergus O’Neill, already known to the police as an agitator, had waited on the night previous to the murder, with intent to kill. He had been foiled by the late sitting of the House of Commons on that night, for on these occasions, Mr. Lansdon stayed at the house of friends in Westminster and did not come home. He referred to the fact that I had seen Fergus O’Neill loitering outside the house. It had been a windy night. O’Neill’s opera hat had blown off, and, as there was a street lamp nearby, I had had a clear view of his face. The next time I had seen him was at the time of the murder and with a gun in his hand. And so on.

Then began the evidence for the Prosecution. Several people were called. There was the landlady in the house where Fergus O’Neill was lodging. He had come over from Ireland a week before the murder and had apparently spent the intervening time preparing for it.

There were two people who had rented rooms in the house; there were the pathologists and the doctor who had attended to my father; and a few others. I was to be the most important witness because I had actually been present at the time of the murder and had seen and identified the assassin. It was clear, even to myself-and I knew little of court procedure-that it was my evidence which would prove the case against Fergus O’Neill.

After the first day I arrived home exhausted. Rebecca and Celeste sat by my bedside and talked to me until I fell asleep.

But even in sleep I was haunted by that man. I knew that I had had to do what I did. I could not have withheld anything. I was as certain as I could be of anything that the man was my father’s murderer; but I kept imagining the rope about his neck, and I could not stop telling myself that I was the one who would put it there. When I told Rebecca this, she said, “That’s nonsense. He has put it there himself. The man’s a murderer and if he is guilty he must be punished. You cannot allow people to go free so that they can go round killing people just because they disagree with them.”

She was right, I knew, but how could one drive morbid fancies out of one’s mind? “As soon as this is all over,” announced Rebecca, “I am definitely going to take you to Cornwall. And you are coming with us, Celeste. You need a break. You need to get away from all this. And it is no use saying you cannot come, because I am going to insist.”

“I think I should be here,” said Celeste.

“And I think you should not,” replied Rebecca firmly. “You need not stay long, but it is necessary for both of you to get away from here for a while. It has been a great shock to you both. You need a break... right away.” We both knew that she was right and I must say that, for me, the prospect of getting away was enticing.

But the trial was not yet over. I should have to return to the courtroom. Mr. Thomas Carstairs thought that the Defense might want to put me in the witness box and endeavor to discredit my evidence.

And so it had to be. The solemn atmosphere of the courtroom was awe-inspiring with the judge sternly presiding over the barristers and the jury; but the one I was constantly aware of was Fergus O’Neill, the memory of whose face would, I began to fear, haunt me for the rest of my life.

The Defense, after all, did not call me. I suppose they thought that anything I could say would only be damning against the prisoner.

The Prosecution, however, put me briefly in the box. I was asked to look at the prisoner and tell the court whether I had seen him before.

I answered that I had seen him the night before my father died and at the time of the shooting. I told how I recognized him.

It was over very quickly, but it was the deciding factor.

The judge gave his summing up. The verdict was inevitable, he said. The case had been proved (not only, I kept telling myself, by me). The man was a fanatical terrorist and anarchist. He had very likely killed before. He was a man already wanted by the police.

I wished I was anywhere but in the courtroom when the jury came back and gave the verdict of guilty and the judge put on the black cap.

I shall never forget his voice. “Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted by a jury, and the law leaves me no discretion and I must pass onto you the sentence of the law and this sentence of the law is: This Court doth ordain you to be taken from hence to the place of execution; and that your body there be hanged by the neck until you are dead; and that your body be afterward buried within the precincts of the prison in which you have been confined after your conviction and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

I took one last fearful look at him. His eyes were fixed on me-venomous, revengeful and mocking.

Rebecca wanted us to leave at once, but I could not go. I had to stay.

“Sometimes there is a reprieve,” I said. “I want to be here ... so that I know.”