It seemed that all Gloucestershire had turned out this spring. After each day’s elaborate procession — the judge in his great white wig and scarlet robe, accompanied by trumpeters and sheriff’s men in full dress — down the city’s main street, more men, women, and children than Darcy would have believed possible packed into the hall. The legal proceedings provided the best theatre most of the audience would see all year. Or, at least, until the next assizes. And like any theatrical, the grisly accounts of murder and dire pronouncements of death sentences would be followed by dinner and dancing.
Despite the crush, Darcy recognized a few individuals. He, of course, knew his companions; he sat wedged between Mr. Tilney and Mr. Wickham, the latter of whom attended at Darcy’s behest. Mr. Melbourne had been advising the judge all week of defendants’ crimes and previous conduct, and Mr. Chase had swaggered forward to make exceedingly brilliant contributions to several trials.
Darcy also knew the faces of John Thorpe and Isabella Stanford, whose fate the judge would soon decree. The Thorpe siblings had stood trial earlier in the week for their misdeeds. After huddling for all of three minutes, the jury had pronounced them guilty.
They, along with all the other parties convicted in the course of the week, presently appeared for sentencing. Mr. Thorpe observed the current proceedings as if he were merely a spectator, exclaiming and murmuring along with the rest of the crowd as each punishment was declared. But Isabella, who had entered the room in a state of nervous agitation, stilled more with the calling of each name not her own.
“The Thorpes’ trial was one of the first,” whispered Mr. Tilney, who did not ordinarily attend assizes. “Why have they not had their turn?”
“Assize judges hand down sentences in order of severity, beginning with the lightest punishments and ending with executions,” Darcy replied.
“Oh, my. That does not bode well for them, does it?” The judge was more than three-quarters finished, and had just pronounced another one-way excursion to Botany Bay.
More sentences were delivered. Darcy observed Wickham’s response to each, wondering whether the scoundrel was absorbing the message Darcy had intended by commanding his attendance. Assize court truly was an awesome spectacle — the judge in his red, erminelined robe and traditional wig, meting out justice in rhetoric that rivaled Parliamentary speeches. No one, surely not even Wickham, could come away without respect for the power of the law.
Wickham shifted restlessly. “I still do not understand why you insisted I accompany you here,” he muttered. He had been annoyingly blithe throughout his accomplices’ trial, but this afternoon he had turned ill-tempered.
“Because were it not for your wife’s relationship to mine, you would be standing up there with the Thorpes.”
“Oh, I see — I am to learn gratitude. There but for the grace of Darcy go I?”
Darcy glared at the insufferable snake. “I would not behave in such a cocksure manner were I you. The quarter sessions in Derbyshire are yet to come.”
The Darcys and Mr. Tilney had decided not to pursue prosecution of Mr. Wickham to the full extent of the law. Mr. Tilney considered the Thorpe siblings’ prosecution sufficient redress for the theft of the diamonds. In the matter of the ivory stolen from Pemberley, neither Darcy nor Elizabeth wanted to risk a death sentence for Lydia’s husband, as his execution would only leave Mrs. Wickham more dependent than ever on the rest of the family.
Jenny, too, had escaped full punishment. As the misguided girl seemed to have learned her lesson, Darcy and Elizabeth had merely dismissed her and sent her back to Newcastle. But for Wickham, some deterrent to future misconduct was necessary. So he would stand trial at the quarter sessions, where Darcy hoped a few months’ hard labor would be ordered. It was possible, though not probable, that the experience might build his character, but even should it not, Wickham had nothing better to do with his time — he had already been discharged from the army for interfering with the notification of Captain Tilney’s death.
Only five sentences remained for the judge to hand down. At last, Mr. Thorpe and Mrs. Stanford were called forward.
“Have you anything to say?” the judge enquired.
“Upon my soul, I certainly do!”
Henry Tilney let slip a soft groan. “If John Thorpe speaks, he might as well hang himself.”
“Your honor, I believe that during my trial, it was not made sufficiently clear that I am a gentleman. If it had been, the jury would not possibly have convicted me. Why, those old codgers probably could not even see who they were trying! If I were on the bench, I would conduct a new trial. By Jove, I would! Juries cannot simply go round convicting gentlemen. What will England come to?”
“Fortunately, Mr. Thorpe, you need not concern yourself over the fate of England.”
“Capital! I knew you were a fellow who would see things my way.”
“Because you are being transported.”
John Thorpe sputtered. “Transported?”
“Seven years in Sydney” The judge followed the pronouncement with a lecture on respect for the law as the cornerstone of social order, meant as much for the audience as Mr. Thorpe — which was just as well, as Thorpe himself did not seem to absorb it in the least and did his best to interrupt.
When his honor had finished, he turned to Isabella, who had paled at the pronouncement of her brother’s sentence. “And you, Mrs. Stanford—”
“Your honor, please recall that I thought the whole scheme at Northanger was merely a charade. My brother arranged the whole thing. It was all—”
“A misunderstanding? So you said at the trial. The court hereby sentences you to seven years’ transportation, same as Mr. Thorpe, and hopes that by the end of it, your understanding will be stronger.”
“Seven years!” Mrs. Stanford appeared about to swoon. But as the judge orated further, she recovered herself, pulling back her shoulders and tilting her head coquettishly.
“Might I approach the bench?” she asked in a soft voice.
The judge, having ended his speech and, he had thought, his dealings with the Thorpes, released an impatient sigh. “What remains to be said, Mrs. Stanford?”
With all the grace she could muster, Isabella strolled to the judge and murmured something only he could hear. One finger stroked the sleeve of his robe.
His honor’s brows rose. “Indeed? In that case, I
She batted her eyes and smiled.
“Ten years.”
The few remaining sentences required the longest amount of time to deliver. The judge donned a black cap before handing them down, and spoke long and passionately about crimes too heinous to pardon on earth. The recipients of these fire-and-brimstone sermons would not be going to a penal colony, but to the gallows.
Wickham fidgeted throughout.
When court adjourned, Wickham was the first of their party to stand. He crossed his arms defiantly and looked down at Darcy.
“Am I dismissed?”
Darcy rose and met him eye to eye. Despite Wickham’s bluff manner, Darcy detected disquiet within him. Perhaps in witnessing the fates of his friends, Wickham had finally glimpsed something unpleasant about himself.
“Go,” he said. “I will see you at the quarter sessions.”
Wickham acknowledged him with a nod. He then hobbled off, his injured ankle still troubling him.
“So,” said Henry Tilney as they waited for the remainder of the crowd to file out of the hall, “Mr. Thorpe will be exchanging his famously swift horses for a slow boat to Australia.”
“It would seem that his belief in the immunity of gentlemen from the law did not bear out,” Darcy replied.
“No, but apparently the law — or, at least, the gentleman who administered it — did prove immune to Mrs. Stanford’s charms.”
“Poor Mrs. Stanford.” Darcy met Tilney’s eye and grinned. “There must have been a misunderstanding.”
