The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain Part 38

'I can see that,' said Leonard. 'I do hope that if--if I can take this patiently, it may show I am sorry for the real thing--and I may be forgiven. Oh! I am glad prisoners are not cut off from church.'

Dr. May pressed his hand in much emotion: and there was a silence before another question--whether there were nothing that could be of service.

'One chance there is, that Sam might relent enough to put that receipt where it could be found without implicating him. He must know what it would do for me.'

'You are convinced that he has it?'

'There must be papers in the book valuable to him; perhaps some that he had rather were not seen. Most likely he secured it in the morning.

You remember he was there before the police.'

'Ay! ay! ay! the scoundrel! But, Leonard, what possessed you not to speak out at the inquest, when we might have searched every soul on the premises?'

'I did not see it then. I was stunned by the horror of the thing--the room where I had been so lately, and that blood on my own rifle too.

It was all I could do at one time not to faint, and I had no notion they would not take my explanation; then, when I found it rejected, and everything closing in on me, I was in a complete maze. It was not till yesterday, when I was alone again, after having gone over my defence with Mr. Bramshaw, and shown what I could prove, that I saw exactly how it must have been, as clear as a somnambulist. I sometimes could fancy I had seen Sam listening at the window, and have to struggle not to think I knew him under the stable wall.'

'And you are not such a--such a--so absurd as to sacrifice yourself to any scruple, and let the earth be c.u.mbered with a rascal who, if he be withholding the receipt, is committing a second murder! It is not generosity, it is suicide.'

'It is not generosity,' said the boy, 'for if there were any hope, that would not stop me; but no one heard nor saw but myself, and I neither recognized him--no, I did not--nor heard anything definite from my uncle. Even if I had, no one--no one but you, believes a word I speak; nay, even my own case shows what probabilities are worth, and that I may be doing him the same wrong that I am suffering. I should only bring on myself the shame and disgrace of accusing another.'

The steady low voice and unboyish language showed him to be speaking from reflection, not impulse. The only tremulous moment was when he spoke of the one friend who trusted him, and whom his words were filling with a tumult of hope and alarm, admiration, indignation, and perplexity.

'Well, well,' the Doctor said, almost stammering, 'I am glad you have been open with me. It may be a clue. Can there be any excuse for overhauling his papers? Or can't we pick a hole in that alibi of his?

Now I recollect, he had it very pat, and unnecessarily prominent. I'll find some way of going to work without compromising you. Yes, you may trust me! I'll watch, but say not a word without your leave.'

'Thank you,' said Leonard. 'I am glad it is you--you who would never think a vague hope of saving me better than disgrace and dishonour.'

'We will save you,' said the Doctor, becoming eager to escape to that favourite counsellor, the lining of his brougham, which had inspired him with the right theory of many a perplexing symptom, and he trusted would show him how to defend without betraying Leonard. 'I must go and see about it. Is there anything I can do for you--books, or anything?'

No, thank you--except--I suppose there would be no objection to my having a few finer steel pens. 'And to explain his wants, he took up his Prayer-Book, which his sister had decorated with several small devotional prints. Copying these minutely line by line in pen and ink, was the solace of his prison hours; and though the work was hardly after drawing-masters' rules, the hand was not untaught, and there was talent and soul enough in the work to strike the Doctor.

'It suits me best,' said Leonard. 'I should go distracted with nothing to do; and I can't read much--at least, not common books. And my sisters may like to have them. Will you let me do one for you?'

The speaking expression of those hazel eyes almost overcame the Doctor, and his answer was by bending head and grasping hand. Leonard turned to the Collects, and mutely opened at the print of the Son of Consolation, which he had already outlined, looked up at his friend, and turned away, only saying, 'Two or three of the sort with elastic nibs; they have them at the post-office.'

'Yes, I'll take care,' said Dr. May, afraid to trust his self-command any longer. 'Good-bye, Leonard. Tom says I adopt every one who gets through a bad enough fever, so what will you be to me after this second attack?'

The result of the Doctor's consultation with his brougham was his stopping it at Mr. Bramshaw's door, to ascertain whether the search for the receipt had extended to young Axworthy's papers; but he found that they had been thoroughly examined, every facility having been given by their owner, who was his uncle's executor, and residuary legatee, by a will dated five years back, leaving a thousand pounds to the late Mrs.

Ward, and a few other legacies, but the ma.s.s of the property to the nephew.

Sam's 'facilities' not satisfying the Doctor, it was further explained that every endeavour was being made to discover what other doc.u.ments were likely to have been kept in the missing memorandum-book, so as to lead to the detection of any person who might present any such at a bank; and it was made evident that everything was being done, short of the impracticability of searching an unaccused man, but he could not but perceive that Mr. Bramshaw's 'ifs' indicated great doubt of the existence of receipt and of pocket-book. Throwing out a hint that the time of Sam's return should be investigated, he learnt that this had been Edward Anderson's first measure, and that it was clear, from the independent testimony of the ostler at Whitford, the friend who had driven Sam, and the landlord of the Three Goblets, that there was not more than time for the return exactly as described at the inquest; and though the horse was swift and powerful, and might probably have been driven at drunken speed, this was too entirely conjectural for anything to be founded on it. Nor had the cheque by Bilson on the Whitford Bank come in.

'Something must a.s.suredly happen to exonerate the guiltless, it would be profane to doubt,' said Dr. May continually to himself and to the Wards; but Leonard's secret was a painful burthen that he could scarcely have borne without sharing it with that daughter who was his other self, and well proved to be a safe repository.

'That's my Leonard,' said Ethel. 'I know him much better now than any time since the elf-bolt affair! They have not managed to ruin him among them.'

'What do you call this?' said Dr. May, understanding her, indeed, but willing to hear her thought expressed.

'Thankworthy,' she answered, with a twitching of the corners of her mouth.

'You will suffer for this exaltation,' he said, sadly; 'you know you have a tender heart, for all your flights.'

'And you know you have a soul as well as a heart,' said Ethel, as well as the swelling in her throat would allow.

'To be sure, this world would be a poor place to live in, if admiration did not make pity bearable,' said the Doctor; 'but--but don't ask me, Ethel: you have not had that fine fellow in his manly patience before your eyes. Talk of your knowing him! You knew a boy! I tell you, this has made him a man, and one of a thousand--so high-minded and so simple, so clearheaded and well-balanced, so entirely resigned and free from bitterness! What could he not be? It would be grievous to see him cut off by a direct dispensation--sickness, accident, battle; but for him to come to such an end, for the sake of a double murderer--Ethel--it would almost stagger one's faith!'

'Almost!' repeated Ethel, with the smile of a conqueror.

'I know, I know,' said the Doctor. 'If it be so, it will be right; one will try to believe it good for him. Nay, there's proof enough in what it has done for him already. If you could only see him!'

'I mean to see him, if it should go against him,' said Ethel, 'if you will let me. I would go to him as I would if he were in a decline, and with more reverence.'

'Don't talk of it,' cried her father. 'For truth's sake, for justice's sake, for the country's sake, I can not, will not, believe it will go wrong. There is a Providence, after all, Ethel!'

And the Doctor went away, afraid alike of hope and despondency, and Ethel thought of the bright young face, of De Wilton, of Job, and of the martyrs; and when she was not encouraging Aubrey, or soothing Averil, her heart would sink, and the tears that would not come would have been very comfortable.

It was well for all that the a.s.sizes were so near that the suspense was not long protracted; for it told upon all concerned. Leonard, when the Doctor saw him again, was of the same way of thinking, but his manner was more agitated; he could not sleep, or if he slept, the antic.i.p.ations chased away in the day-time revenged themselves in his dreams; and he was very unhappy, also, about his sister, whose illness continued day after day. She was not acutely ill, but in a constant state of low fever, every faculty in the most painful state of tension, convinced that she was quite able to get up and go to Leonard, and that her detention was mere cruelty; and then, on trying to rise, refused by fainting. Her searching questions and ardent eyes made it impossible to keep any feature in the case from her knowledge. Sleep was impossible to her; and once when Henry tried the effect of an anodyne, it produced a semi-delirium, which made him heartily repent of his independent measure. At all times she was talking--nothing but the being left with a very stolid maid-servant ever closed her lips, and she so greatly resented being thus treated, that the measure was seldom possible. Henry seldom left her. He was convinced that Leonard's sentence would be hers likewise, and he watched over her with the utmost tenderness and patience with her fretfulness and waywardness, never quitting her except on their brother's behalf, when Ethel or Mary would take his place. Little Minna was always to be found on her small chair by the bed-side, or moving about like a mouse, sometimes whispering her one note, 'They can't hurt him, if he has not done it,'

and still quietly working at the pair of slippers that had been begun for his birthday present. Mary used to bring Ella, and take them out walking in the least-frequented path; but though the little sisters kissed eagerly, and went fondly hand in hand, they never were sorry to part: Ella's spirits oppressed Minna, and Minna's depression vexed the more volatile sister; moreover, Minna always dreaded Mary's desire to carry her away--as, poor child, she looked paler, and her eyes heavier and darker, every day.

No one else, except, of course, Dr. May, was admitted. Henry would not let his sister see Mr. Scudamour or Mr. Wilmot, lest she should be excited; and Averil's 'No one' was vehement as a defence against Mrs.

Pugh or Mrs. Ledwich, whom she suspected of wanting to see her, though she never heard of more than their daily inquiries.

Mrs. Pugh was, in spite of her exclusion, the great authority with the neighbourhood for all the tidings of 'the poor Wards,' of whom she talked with the warmest commiseration, relating every touching detail of their previous and present history, and continually enduring the great shock of meeting people in shops or in the streets, whom she knew to be reporters or photographers. In fact, the catastrophe had taken a strong hold on the public mind; and 'Murder of an Uncle by his Nephew,'

'The Blewer Tragedy,' figured everywhere in the largest type; newsboys on the railway shouted, 'To-day's paper-account of inquest;' and the ill.u.s.trated press sent down artists, whose three-legged cameras stared in all directions, from the Vintry Mill to Bankside, and who aimed at the school, the Minster, the volunteers, and Dr. Hoxton himself. Tom advised Ethel to guard Mab carefully from appearing stuffed in the chamber of horrors at Madame Tussaud's; and the furniture at the mill would have commanded any price. Nay, Mrs. Pugh was almost certain she had seen one of the 'horrid men' bargaining with the local photographer for her own portrait, in her weeds, and was resolved the interesting injury should never be forgiven!

She really had the 'trying scenes' of two interviews with both Mr.

Bramshaw and the attorney from Whitford who was getting up the prosecution, each having been told that she was in possession of important intelligence. Mr. Bramshaw was not sanguine as to what he might obtain from her, but flattered her with the attempt, and ended by a.s.suring her, like his opponent, that there was no need to expose her to the unpleasantness of appearing in court.

Aubrey was not to have the same relief, but was, like his father, subpoenaed as a witness for the prosecution. He had followed his father's advice, and took care not to disclose his evidence to the enemy, as he regarded the Whitford lawyer. He was very miserable, and it was as much for his sake as that of the immediate family, that Ethel rejoiced that the suspense was to be short. Counsel of high reputation had been retained; but as the day came nearer, without bringing any of the disclosures on which the Doctor had so securely reckoned, more and more stress was laid on the dislike to convict on circ.u.mstantial evidence, and on the saying that the English law had rather acquit ten criminals than condemn one innocent man.

CHAPTER XIV

Ah! I mind me now of thronging faces, Mocking eyed, and eager, as for sport; Hundreds looking up, and in high places Men arrayed for judgment and a court.

And I heard, or seemed to hear, one seeking Answer back from one he doomed to die, Pitifully, sadly, sternly speaking Unto one--and oh! that one, twas I.--Rev. G. E. Monsell

The 'Blewer Murder' was the case of the a.s.size week; and the court was so crowded that, but for the favour of the sheriff, Mr. and Mrs.

Rivers, with Tom and Gertrude, could hardly have obtained seats. No others of the family could endure to behold the scene, except from necessity; and indeed Ethel and Mary had taken charge of the sisters at home, for Henry could not remain at a distance from his brother, though unable to bear the sight of the proceedings; he remained in a house at hand.

Nearly the whole population of Stoneborough, Whitford, and Blewer was striving to press into court, but before the day's work began, Edward Anderson had piloted Mrs. Pugh to a commodious place, under the escort of his brother Harvey, who was collecting materials for an article on criminal jurisprudence.

Some of those who, like the widow and little Gertrude, had been wild to be present, felt their hearts fail them when the last previous case had been disposed of; and there was a brief pause of grave and solemn suspense and silent breathless expectation within the court, unbroken, except by increased sounds of crowding in all the avenues without.

Every one, except the mere loungers, who craved nothing but excitement, looked awed and anxious; and the impression was deepened by the perception that the same feeling, though restrained, affected the judge himself, and was visible in the anxious attention with which he looked at the papers before him, and the stern sadness that had come over the features naturally full of kindness and benevolence.

The prisoner appeared in the dock. He had become paler, and perhaps thinner, for his square determined jaw, and the resolute mould of his lips, were more than usually remarkable, and were noted in the physiognomical brain of Harvey Anderson; as well as the keen light of his full dark hazel eye, the breadth of his brow, with his s.h.i.+ning light brown hair brushed back from it; the strong build of his frame, and the determined force, apparent even in the perfect quiescence of his att.i.tude.