The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain Part 66

'You look very odd,' added Gertrude.

He gave a nervous laugh. 'You would look odd, if you had travelled all night.'

They commented, and began to tell home news; but Ethel noted that he neither spoke nor heard, only listened for his father. Gertrude grew tired of inattentive answers, and said she should go and dress. Ethel was turning to follow, when he caught hold of her cloak, and drew her close to him. 'Ethel,' he said, in a husky, stifled voice, 'do you know this?'

On her knees, by the red fire-light, she saw the 'L. A. Ward,' and looked up. 'Is it?' she said. He bowed his head.

And then Ethel put her arm round his neck, as he knelt down by her; and he found that her tears, her rare tears, were streaming down, silent but irrepressible. She had not spoken, had asked no question, made no remark, when Dr. Mays entrance was heard, and she loosed her hold on her brother, out without rising from the floor, looked up from under the shade of her hat, and said, 'O, papa! it is found, and he has done it! Look there!'

Her choked voice, and tokens of emotion, startled the Doctor; but Tom, in a matter-of-fact tone, took up the word: 'How are you, father?--Yes.

I have only met with this little memorandum.'

Dr. May recognized it with a burst of incoherent inquiry and exclamation, wringing Tom's hand, and giving no time for an answer; and, indeed, his son attempted none--till, calming himself, the Doctor subsided into his arm-chair, and with a deep sigh, exclaimed, 'Now then, Tom, let us hear. Where does this come from?'

'From the casualty ward at the Hotel Dieu.'

'And from--'

'He is dead,' said Tom, answering the unspoken question. 'You will find it all here. Ethel, do I sleep here to-night? My old room?' As he spoke, he bent to light a spill at the fire, and then the two candles on the side-table; but his hand shook nervously, and though he turned away his face, his father and sister saw the paleness of his cheek, and knew that he must have received a great shock. Neither spoke, while he put one candle conveniently for his father, took up the other, and went away with it. With one inquisitive glance at each other, they turned to the papers, and with eager eyes devoured the written narratives of Tom himself and of the attache, then, with no less avidity, the French reports accompanying them. Hardly a word was spoken while Ethel leant against her father's knee, and he almost singed his hair in the candle, as they helped one another out in the difficulties of the crooked foreign writing.

'Will it be enough?' asked Ethel, at last, holding her breath for the answer.

'If there is justice in England!' said Dr. May. 'Heaven forgive me, Ethel, this business has tried my trust more than anything that ever befell me; but it will all be right now, and righter than right, if that boy comes out what I think him.'

'And oh, how soon?'

'Not a moment longer than can be helped. I'd go up by the mail train this very night if it would do any good.'

Tom, who reappeared as soon as he had spared himself the necessity of the narration, was willing and eager to set out; but Dr. May, who by this time had gathered some idea of what he had gone through, and saw that he was restless, nervous, and unhinged, began to reconsider the expedience of another night journey, and was, for once in his life, the person cool enough to see that it would be wisest to call Bramshaw into their counsels, and only that night to send up a note mentioning that they would do themselves the honour of calling at the Home Office the next day, on matters connected with the intelligence received that morning from the British Emba.s.sy at Paris.

Tom was disappointed; he was in no mood for sitting still, and far less for talking. As a matter of business, he would elucidate any question, but conversation on what he had witnessed was impossible to him; and when Gertrude, with a girl's lightness, lamented over being balked of a confession and explanation, he gravely answered, that she did not know what she was talking of; and his father led away from the subject.

Indeed, Dr. May was full of kindness and consideration, being evidently not only grateful for the discovery, but touched by his entire absence of exulting triumph, and his strong sense of awe in the retribution.

That changed and awe-struck manner impressed both the sisters, so that all the evening Ethel felt subdued as by a strange shock, and even through the night and morning could hardly realize that it was intense relief--joy, not sorrow--that made her feel so unlike herself, and that the burthen was taken away from her heart. Even then, there was a trembling of anxiety. The prisoner might be set free; but who could give back to him the sister who had pined away in exile, or the three years of his youthful brightness? There might be better things in store; but she knew she must not look again for the boy of ingenuous countenance, whose chivalrous devotion to herself had had such a charm, even while she tried to prize it at its lightest worth. It was foolish to recollect it with a pang, but there was no helping it. In the great tragedy, she had forgotten that the pretty comedy was over, but she regretted it, rather as she did the pleasant baby-days of Aubrey and Gertrude.

Indeed, during the day of suspense, while the two physicians were gone to London, taking with them the papers, and a minute detail of the evidence at the trial, Gertrude's high spirits, triumph over Charles Cheviot, and desire to trumpet forth the good news, were oppressive.

How many times that day was Mab stroked, and a.s.sured that her master would come back! And how often did the two sisters endeavour to persuade themselves that she was not grown broader in the back! Mary was, of course, told early in the day, but Gertrude got less sympathy from her than answered to that damsel's extortionate expectations, for, according to her wicked account, Mary's little Charlie had sneezed three times, and his mamma must regret what sent all the medical science of Stoneborough away by the early train.

However, Tom came home at night. The interview had been satisfactory.

The letters received in the morning had prepared the way, and revived the recollection of the unsatisfactory case of Leonard Axworthy Ward, and of the representations of the then Mayor of Market Stoneborough.

After all the new lights upon the matter had been looked into, the father and son had been a.s.sured that, as soon as possible, a free pardon should be issued, so drawn up as to imply a declaration of innocence--the nearest possible approach to a reversal of the sentence; and they further were told of a mention of his exemplary conduct in a late report from Portland, containing a request that he might be promoted to a post of greater influence and trust before the ordinary time of probation had pa.s.sed. Dr. May was eager to be at Portland at the same time as the pardon, so to give Leonard the first intelligence, and to bring him home; and he had warmly closed with Tom's offer to look after the work, while he himself waited till the necessary forms had been complied with. He had absolutely begged Tom's pardon for going in his stead. 'It is your right,' he said; 'but, somehow, I think, as I have been more with him, I might do better.' To which Tom had a.s.sented with all his heart, and had added that he would not go if he were paid for it. He had further taken care that the Doctor should take with him a suit of clothes for Leonard to come home in, and had himself made the selection; then came back with the tidings that filled the house with the certainty of joy, and the uncertainty of expectation.

n.o.body was, however, in such a fever as Tom himself. He was marvellously restless all the morning. Gertrude a.s.serted it was because he was miserable at not venturing to set his father's study to rights; and to be sure he was seen looking round at the litter with a face of great disgust, and declaring that he was ashamed to see a patient in a room in such a mess. But this did not fully account for his being in and out, backwards and forwards, all the morning, looking wistfully at Ethel, and then asking some trivial question about messages left for his father, or matters respecting his own new abode, where he kept on Dr. Spencer's old housekeeper, and was about to turn in paperers and painters. He had actually brought a drawing-room paper from Paris, a most delicate and graceful affair, much too lady-like for the old house, as Daisy told him, when she pursued him and her sister down to a consultation.

Late in the afternoon, as the sisters were coming up the High Street, they met him setting out in Hector's dog-cart. 'Oh, I say, Ethel,' he said, drawing up, 'do you like a drive out to Chilford? Here's a note come to ask my father to see the old lady there, and I want some one to give me courage to be looked at, like the curate in the pulpit instead of the crack preacher.'

It was an offer not to be despised, though Ethel knew what a waiting there would be, and what a dark drive home. Up she jumped, and Tom showed his usual thoughtfulness by ordering Gertrude to run home and fetch her m.u.f.f and an additional cloak, tucking her up himself with the carriage rug. That affection of Tom's had been slow in coming, but always gave her a sense of grat.i.tude and enjoyment.

They drove all the seven miles to Chilford without twenty words pa.s.sing between them; and when there, she sat in the road, and watched one constellation after another fill up its complement of stars as well as the moon permitted, wondering whether Tom's near-sighted driving would be safe in the dark; but her heart was so light, so glad, that she could not be afraid, she did not care how long she waited, it was only sitting still to recollect that deliverance had come to the captive--Leonard was free--'free as heart can think or eye can see,' as would keep ringing in her ears like a joy-bell; and some better things, too. 'Until the time came that his cause was known, the Word of the Lord tried him.'

Whether she were really too happy to note time, or that gossipry was deducted from the visit, Tom certainly returned sooner than her experience had led her to expect, made an exclamation of dismay at finding the machine was innocent of lamps, and remounted to his seat, prepared to be extremely careful.

'I could not get them to take me for my father in a new wig,' he said; 'but it was a very easy-going rheumatic case, and I think I satisfied her.'

Then on he drove for a mile, till he was out of the bad cross-country road, and at last he said, 'Ethel, I have made up my mind. There's no press of work just now, and I find it is advisable I should go to America before I get into harness here.'

'To America!'

'Yes, about this book of dear old Spencer's. It is a thing that must be complete, and I find he was in correspondence with some men of science there. I could satisfy my mind on a few points, which would make it infinitely more valuable, you see--and get it published there too. I know my father would wish every justice to be done to it.'

'I know he would; and,' continued Ethel, as innocently as she could, 'shall you see the Wards?'

'Why,' said Tom, in his deliberate voice, 'that is just one thing; I want particularly to see Henry. I had a talk with Wright this morning, and he tells me that young Baines, at Whitford, is going to the dogs, and the practice coming in to him. He thinks of having a partner, and I put out a feeler in case Henry Ward should choose to come back, and found it might do very well. But the proposal must come from him, and there's no time to be lost, so I thought of setting out as soon as I hear my father is on his way back.'

'Not waiting to see Leonard?'

'I did see him not a month ago. Besides--' and his voice came to a sudden end.

'Yes, the first news,' said Ethel. 'Indeed it is due to you, Tom.'

Ten minutes more of silence.

'Ethel, did she ever tell you?'

'Never,' said Ethel, her heart beating.

'Then how did you know all about it?'

'I didn't know. I only saw--'

'Saw what?'

'That you were very much distressed.'

'And very kind and rational you were about it,' said Tom, warmly; 'I never thought any woman could have guessed so much, without making mischief. But you must not put any misconstruction on my present intention. All I mean to do as yet is to induce Henry to remove them out of that dismal swamp, and bring them home to comfort and civilization. Then it may be time to--'

He became silent; and Ethel longed ardently to ask further, but still she durst not, and he presently began again.

'Ethel, was I very intolerable that winter of the volunteers, when Harry was at home?'

'You are very much improved since,' she answered.

'That's just like Flora. Answer like yourself.'

'Well, you were! You were terribly rampant in Eton refinement, and very anxious to hinder all the others from making fools of themselves.'

'I remember! I thought you had all got into intimacies that were for n.o.body's good, and I still think it was foolish. I know it has done for me! Well,' hastily catching up this last admission, as if it had dropped out at unawares, 'you think I made myself disagreeable?'