“It was written, then, the day before—the day before—— Keep the letter, Leonard. You have no other letter of hers—perhaps nothing at all belonging to the poor lady. I wonder who Langley was? I had a forefather, too, whose Christian name was Langley. It is not a common name.”
“The Christian name of my unfortunate grandfather who committed suicide was also Langley. It is a coincidence. No doubt he was named after the person mentioned in this letter. Not by any means a common name, as you say. As for this letter, I will keep it. There is nothing in my possession that I can connect with this unfortunate ancestress.”
“Where are her jewels and things?”
“Perhaps where she left them, perhaps sent to the bank. I have never heard of anything belonging to her.”
Constance walked about the room looking at everything; the dust lay thick, but it was not the black dust of the town—a light brown dust that could be blown away or swept away easily. She swept the strings of the harp, which responded with the discords of seventy years’ neglect. She touched the keys of the piano, and started at the harsh and grating response. She looked at the chairs and thetables with their curly legs, and the queer things in china that stood upon the mantel shelf.
“Why,” she said, “the place should be kept just as it is, a museum of George the Fourth fashion in furniture. Here is a guitar. Did that lady play the guitar as well as the harp and the piano? The pictures are all water-colours. The glass has partly preserved them, but some damp has got in; they are all injured. I should like to get them all copied for studies of the time and its taste. They are good pictures, too. This one looks like a water-colour copy of a Constable. Was he living then? And this is a portrait.” She started. “Good heavens! what is this?”
“This? It is evidently a portrait,” said Leonard. “Why, Constance——”
For she was looking into it with every sign of interest and curiosity.
“How in the world did this picture come here?” Leonard looked at it.
“I cannot tell you,” he said; “it is only my second visit to this room. It is a young man. A pleasing and amiable face; the short hair curled by the barber’s art, I suppose. The face is familiar; I don’t know why——”
“Leonard, it is the face of my own great-grandfather. How did it come here? I have a copy, or the original, in my own possession. How did it come here? Was he a friend of your people?”
“I know nothing at all about it. By the rolledcollar and the curly hair and the little whiskers I should say that the original must have been a contemporary of my ancestor the Recluse. Stop! there is a name on the frame. Can you read it?” He brushed away the dust. “ ‘Langley Holme, 1825,’ Langley Holme! What is it, Constance?”
“Oh, Leonard, Langley Holme—Langley Holme—he was my great-grandfather. And he was murdered; I remember to have heard of it—he was murdered. Then, it was here, and he was that old man’s brother-in-law, and—and—your Tragedy is mine as well.”
“Why, Constance, are you not jumping to a conclusion? How do you know that the murder in Campaigne Park was that of Langley Holme?”
“I don’t know it; I am only certain of it. Besides, that letter. Algernon and Langley were in the study. The letter tells us. Oh, I have no doubt—no doubt at all. This is his portrait; he was here the day before—the day before the terrible Tragedy. It must have been none other—it could have been none other. Leonard, this is very strange. You confide your story to me, you bring me out to see the spot where it happened and the house of the Recluse, and I find that your story is mine. Oh, to light upon it here and with you! It is strange, it is wonderful! Your story is mine as well,” she repeated, looking into his face; “we have a common tragedy.”
“We are not certain yet; there may be another explanation.”
“There can be no other. We will hunt up the contemporary papers; we shall find an account of the murder somewhere. A gentleman is not murdered even so far back as 1826 without a report in the papers. But I am quite—quite certain. This is my great-grandfather, Langley Holme, and his death was the first of all your many troubles.”
“This was the first of the hereditary misfortunes.”
“The more important and the most far-reaching. Perhaps we could trace them all to this one calamity.”
Leonard was looking into the portrait.
“I said it was a familiar face, Constance; it is your own. The resemblance is startling. You have his eyes, the same shape of face, the same mouth. It is at least your ancestor. And as for the rest, since it is certain that he met with an early and a violent end, I would rather believe that it was here and in this Park, because it makes my Tragedy, as you say, your own. We have a common history; it needs no further proof. There could not have been two murders of two gentlemen, both friends of this House, in the same year. You are right: this is the man whose death caused all the trouble.”
They looked at the portrait in silence for awhile. The thought of the sudden end of this gallant youth, rejoicing in the strength and hope of early manhood, awed them.
“We may picture the scene,” said Constance—“the news brought suddenly by some country ladbreathless and panting; the old man then young, with all his future before him; a smiling future, a happy life; his wife hearing it; the house made terrible by her shriek; the sudden shock; the heavy blow; bereavement of all the man loved best; the death of his wife for whom he was so anxious; the awful death of the man he loved. Oh, Leonard, can you bear to think of it?”
“Yes; but other young men have received blows as terrible, and have yet survived, and at least gone about their work as before. Is it in nature for a man to grieve for seventy years?”
“I do not think that it was grief, or that it was ever grief, that he felt or still feels. His brain received a violent blow, from which it has never recovered.”
“But he can transact business in his own way—by brief written instructions.”
“We are not physicians, to explain the working of a disordered brain. We can, however, understand that such a shock may have produced all the effect of a blow from a hammer or a club. His brain is not destroyed: but it is benumbed. I believe that he felt no sorrow, but only a dead weight of oppression—the sense of suffering without pain—the consciousness of gloom which never lifts. Is not the story capable of such effects?”
“Perhaps. There is, however, one thing which we have forgotten, Constance. It is that we are cousins. This discovery makes us cousins.”
She took his proffered hand under the eyes of her ancestor, who looked kindly upon them from his dusty and faded frame. “We are cousins—not first or second cousins—but still—cousins—which is something. You have found another relation. I hope, sir, that you will not be ashamed of her, or connect her with your family misfortunes. This tragedy belongs to both of us. Come, Leonard, let us leave this room. It is haunted. I hear again the shrieks of the woman, and I see the white face of the man—the young man in his bereavement. Come.”
She drew him from the room, and closed the door softly.
Leonard led the way up the broad oaken staircase, which no neglect could injure, and no flight of time. On the first floor there were doors leading to various rooms. They opened one: it was a room filled with things belonging to children: there were toys and dolls: there were dresses and boots and hats: there was a children’s carriage, the predecessor of the perambulator and the cart: there were nursery-cots: there were slates and pencils and colour-boxes. It looked like a place which had not been deserted: children had lived in it and had grown out of it: all the old playthings were left in when the children left it.
“After the blow,” said Leonard, “life went on somehow in the House. The Recluse lived by himself in his bedroom and the library: the dining-room and the drawing-room were locked up: his wife’s room—the room where she died—was locked up:the boys went away: the girl ran away with her young man, Mr. Galley; then the whole place was deserted.” He shut the door and unlocked another. “It was her room,” he whispered.
Constance looked into the room. It was occupied by a great four-poster bed with steps on either side in order that the occupant might ascend to the feather-bed with the dignity due to her position. One cannot imagine a gentlewoman of 1820, or thereabouts, reduced to the indignity of climbing into a high bed. Therefore the steps were placed in position. We have lost this point of difference which once distinguished the “Quality” from the lower sort: the former walked up these steps with dignity into bed: the latter flopped or climbed: everybody now seeks the nightly repose by the latter methods. The room contained a great amount of mahogany: the doors were open, and showed dresses hanging up as they had waited for seventy years to be taken down and worn: fashions had come and gone: they remained waiting. There was a chest of drawers with cunningly-wrought boxes upon it: silver patch-boxes: snuff-boxes in silver and in silver gilt: a small collection of old-world curiosities, which had belonged to the last occupant’s forefather. There was a dressing-table, where all the toilet tools and instruments were lying as they had been left. Constance went into the room on tiptoe, glancing at the great bed, which stood like a funeral hearse of the fourteenth century, with its plumes and heavy carvings,as if she half expected to find a tenant. Beside the looking-glass stood open, just as it had been left, the lady’s jewel-box. Constance took out the contents, and looked at them with admiring eyes. There were rings and charms, necklaces of pearl, diamond brooches, bracelets, sprays, watches—everything that a rich gentlewoman would like to have. She put them all back, but she did not close the box; she left everything as she found it, and crept away. “These things belonged to Langley’s sister,” she whispered; “and she was one of my people—mine.”
They shut the door and descended the stairs. Again they stood together in the great empty hall, where their footsteps echoed up the broad staircase and in the roof above, and their words were repeated by mocking voices, even when they whispered, from wall to answering wall, and from the ceilings of the upper place.
“Tell me all you know about your ancestor,” said Leonard.
“Indeed, it is very little. He is my ancestor on my mother’s side, and again on her mother’s side. He left one child, a daughter, who was my grandmother: and her daughter married my father. There is but a legend—I know no more—except that the young man—the lively young man whose portrait I have—whose portrait is in that room—was found done to death in a wood. That is all I have heard. I do not know who the murderer was, nor what happened,nor anything. It all seemed so long ago—a thing that belonged to the past. But, then, if we could understand, the past belongs to us. There was another woman who suffered as well as the poor lady of this house. Oh, Leonard, what a tragedy! And only the other day we were talking glibly about family scandals!”
“Yes; a good deal of the sunshine has disappeared. My life, you see, was not, as you thought, to be one long succession of fortune’s gifts.”
“It was seventy years ago, however. The thing must not make us unhappy. We, at least, if not that old man, can look upon an event of so long ago with equanimity.”
“Yes, yes. But I must ferret out the whole story. I feel as if I know so little. I am most strangely interested and moved. How was the man killed? Why? Who did it? Where can I look for the details?”
“When you have found what you want, Leonard, you can tell me. For my own part, I may leave the investigation to you. Besides, it was so long ago. Why should we revive the griefs of seventy years ago?”
“I really do not know, except that I am, as I said, strangely attracted by this story. Come, now, I want you to see the man himself who married your ancestor’s sister. Her portrait is somewhere among those in the drawing-room, but it is too far gone to be recognised. Pity—pity! We have lost all ourfamily portraits. Come, we will step lightly, not to wake him.”
He led her across the hall again, and opened very softly the library door. Asleep in an armchair by the fire was the most splendid old man Constance had ever seen. He was of gigantic stature; his long legs were outstretched, his massive head lay back upon the chair—a noble head with fine and abundant white hair and broad shoulders and deep chest. He was sleeping like a child, breathing as softly and as peacefully. In that restful countenance there was no suggestion of madness or a disordered brain.
Constance stepped lightly into the room and bent over him. His lips parted.
He murmured something in his sleep. He woke with a start. He sat up and opened his eyes, and gazed upon her face with a look of terror and amazement.
She stepped aside. The old man closed his eyes again, and his head fell back. Leonard touched her arm, and they left the room. At the door Constance turned to look at him. He was asleep again.
“He murmured something in his sleep. He was disturbed. He looked terrified.”
“It was your presence, Constance, that in some way suggested the memory of his dead friend. Perhaps your face reminded him of his dead friend. Think, however, what a shock it must have been to disturb the balance of such a strong man as that. Why, he was in the full strength of his early manhood.And he never recovered—all these seventy years. He has never spoken all these years, except once in my hearing—it was in his sleep. What did he say? ‘That will end it.’ Strange words.”
The tears were standing in the girl’s eyes.
“The pity of it, Leonard—the pity of it!”
“Come into the gardens. They were formerly, in the last century—when a certain ancestor was a scientific gardener—show gardens.”
They were now entirely ruined by seventy years of neglect. The lawns were covered with coarse rank grass; the walks were hidden; brambles grew over the flower-beds; the neglect was simply mournful. They passed through into the kitchen-garden, over the strawberry-beds and the asparagus-beds, and everywhere spread the brambles with the thistle and the shepherd’s-purse and all the common weeds; in the orchard most of the trees were dead, and under the dead boughs there flourished a rank undergrowth.
“I have never before,” said Constance, “realized what would happen if we suffered a garden to go wild.”
“This would happen—as you see. I believe no one has so much as walked in the garden except ourselves for seventy years. In the eyes of the village, I know, the whole place is supposed to be haunted day and night. Even the chance of apples would not tempt the village children into the garden. Come, Constance, let us go into the village and see the church.”
It was a pretty village, consisting of one long street, with an inn, a small shop, and post-office, a blacksmith’s, and one or two other trades. In the middle of the street a narrow lane led to the churchyard and the church. The latter, much too big for the village, was an early English cruciform structure, with later additions and improvements.
The church was open, for it was Saturday afternoon. The chancel was full of monuments of dead and gone Campaignes. Among them was a tablet, “To the Memory of Langley Holme, born at Great Missenden, June, 1798, found murdered in a wood in this parish, May 18, 1826. Married February 1, 1824, to Eleanor, daughter of the late Marmaduke Flight, of Little Beauchamp, in this county; left one child, Constance, born January 1, 1825.”
“Yes,” said Constance, “one can realise it: the death of wife and friend at once, and in this dreadful manner.”
In the churchyard an old man was occupied with some work among the graves. He looked up and straightened himself slowly, as one with stiffened joints.
“Mornin’, sir,” he said. “Mornin’, miss. I hope I see you well. Beg your pardon, sir, but you be a Campaigne for sure. All the Campaignes are alike—tall men they are, and good to look upon. But you’re not so tall, nor yet so strong built, as the Squire. Been to see the old gentleman, sir? Ay, he do last on, he do. It’s wonderful. Close onninety-five he is. Everybody in the village knows his birthday. Why, he’s a show. On Sundays, in summer, after church, they go to the garden wall and look over it, to see him marching up and down the terrace. He never sees them, nor wouldn’t if they were to walk beside him.”
“You all know him, then?”
“I mind him seventy years ago. I was a little chap then. You wouldn’t think I was ever a little chap, would you? Seventy years ago I was eight—I’m seventy-eight now. You wouldn’t think I was seventy-eight, would you?” A very garrulous old man, this.
“I gave evidence, I did, at the inquest after the murder. They couldn’t do nohow without me, though I was but eight years old.”
“You? Why, what had you to do with the murder?”
“I was scaring birds on the hillside above the wood. I see the Squire—he was a fine big figure of a man—and the other gentleman crossing the road and coming over the stile into the field. Then they went as far as the wood together. The Squire he turned back, but the other gentleman he went on. They found him afterwards in the wood with his head smashed. Then I see John Dunning go in—same man as they charged with the murder. And he came running out—scared-like with what he’d seen. Oh! I see it all, and I told them so, kissing the Bible on it.”
“I have heard that a man was tried for the crime.”
“He was tried, but he got off. Everybody knows he never done it. But they never found out who done it.”
“That is all you know about it?”
“That is all, sir. Many a hundred times I’ve told that story. Thank you, sir. Mornin’, miss. You’ll have a handsome partner, miss, and he’ll have a proper missus.”
“So,” said Leonard, as they walked away, “the murder is still remembered, and will be, I suppose, so long as anyone lives who can talk about it. It is strange, is it not, that all these discoveries should fall together; that I should learn the truth about my own people, and only a day or two afterwards that you should learn the truth about your own ancestors? We are cousins, Constance, and a common tragedy unites us.”
They mounted their wheels and rode away in silence. But the joy had gone out of the day. The evening fell. The wind in the trees became a dirge; their hearts were full of violence and blood and death; in their ears rang the cries of a bereaved woman, and the groans of a man gone mad with trouble.
ITwas the Sunday afternoon after these visits to the ancestor and to the group in the Commercial Road. Leonard was slowly returning home after a solitary lunch. He walked with drooping head, touching the lamp-posts as he passed with his umbrella. This, as everybody knows, is a certain sign of preoccupation and dejection.
He was becoming, in fact, conscious of a strange obsession of his soul. The Family History sat upon him like a nightmare: it left him not either by day or by night. He was beginning to realise that he could not shake it off, and that it was come to stay.
When a man is born to a Family History, and has to grow up with it, in full consciousness of it, he generally gets the better of it, and either disregards it or treats it with philosophy, or laughs at it, or even boasts of it. The illustrious Mr. Bounderby was one of the many who boast of it. But, then, he had grown up with it, and it had become part of him, and he was able to present his own version of it.
Very different is the case when a man has aFamily History suddenly and quite unexpectedly sprung upon him. What could have been more desirable than the position of this young man for a whole quarter of a century? Sufficiently wealthy, connected for generations with gentlefolk, successful, with nothing whatever to hamper him in his career, with the certainty of succeeding to a large property—could mortal man desire more?
And then, suddenly, a Family History of the darkest and most gloomy kind—murder, sudden death, suicide, early death, the shattering of a strong mind, bankruptcy, poverty, cousins whom no kindliness could call presentable—all this fell upon him at one blow. Can one be surprised that he touched the lamp-posts as he went along?
Is it wonderful that he could not get rid of the dreadful story? It occupied his whole brain; it turned everything else out—the great economical article for theNineteenth Century, all his books, all his occupations. If he read in the printed page, his eyes ran across the lines and up and down the lines, but nothing reached his brain. The Family History was a wall which excluded everything else; or it was a jealous tenant who drove every intruder out as with a broom. If he tried to write, his pen presently dropped from his fingers, for the things that lay on his brain were not allowed by that new tenant to escape. And all night long, and all day long, pictures rose up and floated before his eyes; terrible pictures—pictures of things that belonged to theHistory; pictures that followed each other like animated photographs, irrepressible, not to be concealed, or denied, or refused admission.
This obsession was only just beginning: it intended to become deeper and stronger: it was going to hold him with grip and claw, never to let him go by night or day until—— But the end he could not understand.
You know how, at the first symptoms of a long illness, there falls upon the soul a premonitory sadness: the nurses and the doctors utter words of cheerfulness and hope: there is a loophole, there always is a loophole, until the climax and the turning-point. The patient hears, and tries to receive solace. But he knows better. He knows without being told that he stands on the threshold of the torture chamber: the door opens, he steps in, because he must: he will lie there and suffer—O Lord! how long?
With such boding and gloom of soul—boding without words, gloom inarticulate—Leonard walked slowly homewards.
It was about three in the afternoon that he mounted his stairs. In his mood, brooding over the new-found tragedies, it seemed quite natural, and a thing to be expected, that his cousin Mary Anne should be sitting on the stairs opposite his closed door. She rose timidly.
“The man said he could not tell when you would come home, so I waited,” she explained.
“He ought to have asked you to wait inside. Did you tell him who you were?”
“No. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry to disturb your Sabbath calm.”
“My—— Oh yes! Pray come in.”
She obeyed, and sat down by the fire, glancing round the room curiously. In her lap lay a brown-paper parcel.
“I thought you would come home to dinner after chapel,” she began, “so I got here about one.”
She observed that his face showed some trouble, and she hesitated to go on.
“Have you come to tell me of more family misfortunes?” he asked abruptly.
“Oh,” she said, “I wish I hadn’t come. I told her you didn’t want it and you wouldn’t like it. Besides, what’s the use? It all happened so long ago. But granny would have it. I’ve brought you a book. She says you must read it. If you’d rather not have it, I will take it back again. Granny ought to know that you don’t want to be worried about these old things.”
He pulled himself together, and assumed a mask of cheerfulness.
“Nonsense!” he said. “Why should I not read about these old things which are to me so new? They belong to me as much as to you.”
He observed the girl more narrowly while he spoke. Her words and her hesitation showed perception and feeling at least. As for her appearance,she was short and sturdy; her features were cast in one of the more common moulds. She wore a black cloth jacket and a skirt of dark green serge, a modest hat with black plumes nodding over her head in the hearse-like fashion of the day before yesterday, and her gloves were doubtful.
The first impression was of complete insignificance; the second impression was of a girl who might interest one. Her eyes were good—they were the eyes of her grandmother; her hands were small and delicate—they were the hands of her grandmother; her voice was clear and soft, with a distinct utterance quite unlike the thick and husky people among whom she lived. In all these points she resembled her grandmother. Leonard observed these things—it was a distraction to think of the cousin apart from the Family History—and became interested in the girl.
“My cousin,” he said unexpectedly, “you are very much like your grandmother.”
“Like granny?” She coloured with pleasure. As she was not a girl who kept company with anyone, she had never before received a compliment. “Why, she is beautiful still, and I—— Oh!”
She laughed.
“You have her voice and her eyes. She seems to be a very sweet and gentle lady.”
“She is the sweetest old lady in the world and the gentlest, and, oh! she’s had an awful time.”
“I am sorry to think so.”
“She cried with pleasure and pride when you went away. For fifty years not a single member of her family has been to see her. I never saw her take on so, and you so kind and friendly. Sam said you had as much pride as a duke.”
“Your brother should not judge by first appearances.”
“And you were not proud a bit. Well, granny said: ‘Nobody ever told him of the family misfortunes, and it’s shameful. I’ve told him some, but not all, and now I’ll send him my Scrap-book with the trial in it—the trial, you know, of John Dunning for the wilful murder of Langley Holme.’ And I’ve brought it; here it is.” She handed him the parcel in her lap. “That’s why I came.”
“Thank you,” said Leonard, laying it carelessly on the table: “I will read it or look at it some time. But I own I am not greatly interested in the trial; it took place too long ago.”
“Once she had another copy, but she gave it to your grandfather a few days before he killed himself.”
Leonard remembered these words afterwards. For the moment they had no meaning for him.
“Granny says we’ve got hereditary misfortunes.”
“So she told me. Hereditary? Why?” His brow contracted. “I don’t know why. Hereditary misfortunes are supposed to imply ancestral crimes.”
“She puts it like this. If it hadn’t been hereditary misfortune she wouldn’t have married grandfather;he wouldn’t have been bankrupt; father wouldn’t have been only a small clerk; Sam would have been something in a large way; and I should be a lady instead of a Board School teacher.”
“You can be both, my cousin. Now look at the other side. Your grandfather was ruined, I take it, by his own incompetence; his poverty was his own doing. Your father never rose in the world, I suppose, because he had no power of fight. Your brother has got into a respectable profession; what right has he to complain?”
“That’s what I say sometimes. Granny won’t have it. She’s all for hereditary ill-luck, as if we are to suffer for what was done a hundred years ago. I don’t believe it, for my part. Do you?”
He thought of his talk with Constance in the country road.
“It is a dreadful question; do not let it trouble us. Let us go on with our work and not think about it.”
“It’s all very well to say ‘Don’t think about it,’ when she talks about nothing else, especially when she looks at Sam and thinks of you. There was something else I wanted to say.” She dropped her head, and began nervously to twitch with her fingertips. “I’m almost ashamed to say it. Sam would never forgive me, but I think of granny first and of all she has endured, and I must warn you.” She looked round; there was nobody else present. “It’s about Sam, my brother. I must warn you—I must,because he may make mischief between you and granny.”
“He will find that difficult. Well, go on.”
“He goes to your village in the country. He sits and talks with the people. He pretends that he goes to see how the old man is getting on. But it is really to find out all he can about the property.”
“What has he to do with the property?”
“He wants to find out what is to become of all the money.”
“Does he think that the rustics can tell him?”
“I don’t know. You see, his head is filled with the hope of getting some of the money. He wants to get it divided among the heirs. It’s what he calls the ‘accumulations.’ ”
“Accumulations!” Leonard repeated impatiently. “They are all in a tale. I know nothing about these accumulations, or what will be done with them.”
“Sam is full of suspicions. He thinks there is a conspiracy to keep him out.”
“Oh, does he? Well, tell him that my great-grandfather’s solicitor receives the rents and deals with them as he is instructed. I, for one, am not consulted.”
“I said you knew nothing about it. Granny was so angry. You see, Sam can think of nothing else. He’s been unlucky lately, and he comforts himself with calculating what the money comes to. He’s made me do sums—oh! scores of sums—in compoundinterest for him: Sam never got so far himself. If you’ve never worked it out——”
“I never have. Like Sam, I have not got so far.”
“Well, it really comes to a most wonderful sum. Sometimes I think that the rule must be wrong. It mounts up to about a million and a half.”
“Does it?” Leonard replied carelessly. “Let your brother understand, if you can, that he builds his hopes on a very doubtful succession.”
“Half of it he expects to get. Granny and you, he says, are the only heirs. What is hers, he says, is his. So he has made her sign a paper giving him all her share.”
“Oh! And where do you come in?”
“There will be nothing for me, because it will all be granny’s: and she has signed that paper, so that it is to be all his.”
“I am sorry that she has signed anything, though I do not suppose such a document would stand.”
“Sam says she owes the family for fifty years’ maintenance: that is, £20,000, without counting out-of-pocket expenses, incidentals, and rent. How he makes it out I don’t know, because poor old granny doesn’t cost more than £30 a year, and I find that. Can’t he claim that money?”
“Of course not. She owes him nothing. Your brother is not, I fear, quite a—a straight-walking Christian, is he?”
She sighed.
“He’s a Church member; but, then, he says it’s good for business. Mother sides with Sam. They are both at her every day. Oh, Mr. Campaigne, is it all Sam’s fancy? Will there be no money at all? When he finds it out, he’ll go off his head for sure.”
“I don’t know. Don’t listen to him. Don’t think about the money.”
“I must sometimes. It’s lovely to think about being rich, after you’ve been so poor. Why, sometimes we’ve had to go for days—we women—with a kippered herring or a bloater and a piece of bread for dinner. And as for clothes and gloves and nice things——”
“But now you have an income, and you have your work. Those days are gone. Don’t dream of sudden wealth.”
She got up.
“I won’t think about it. It’s wicked to dream about being rich.”
“What would you do with money if you had it?”
“First of all, it would be so nice not to think about the rent and not to worry, when illness came into the house, how the Doctor was to be paid. And next, Sam would be always in a good temper.”
“No,” said Leonard decidedly; “Sam would not always be in a good temper.”
“Then I should take granny away, and leave mother and Sam.”
“You would have to give up your work, you know—the school and the children and everything.”
“Couldn’t I go on with the school?”
“Certainly not.”
“I shouldn’t like that. Oh, I couldn’t give up the school and the children!”
“Well—but what would you buy?”
“Books—I should buy books.”
“You can get them at the Free Library for nothing. Do you want fine clothes?”
“Every woman likes to look nice,” she said. “But not fine clothes—I couldn’t wear fine clothes.”
“Then you’d be no better off than you are now. Do you want a carriage?”
“No; I’ve got my bike.”
“Do you want money to give away?”
“No. It only makes poor people worse to give them money.”
“Very well. Now, my cousin, you have given yourself a lesson. You have work that you like: you have a reasonably good salary: you have access to books—as many as you want: you can dress yourself as you please and as you wish: would you improve your food?”
“Oh, the food’s good enough! We women don’t care much what we eat. As for Sam, he’s always wanting more buttered toast with his tea.”
“Rapacious creature! Now, Mary Anne, please to reflect on these things, and don’t talk about family misfortunes so long as you yourself are concerned. And just think what a miserable girl you would be if you were to become suddenly rich.”
She laughed merrily.
“Miserable!” she said. “I never thought of that. You mean that I shouldn’t know what to do with the money?”
“No, not that. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. You have been brought up to certain standards. If you were rich, you would have to change them. The only way to be rich,” said this philosopher who was going to inherit a goodly estate, “is to be born rich, and so not to feel the burden of wealth.”
“I suppose so. I wish you would say it all over again for Sam to hear. Not that he would listen.”
“And how would you like just to have everything you want by merely calling for it? There is no desire for anything with a rich girl: no trying to get it: no waiting for it: no getting it at last, and enjoying it all the more. Won’t you think of this?”
“I will. Yes, I will.”
“Put the horrid thought of the money out of your head altogether, and go on with your work. And be happy in it.”
She nodded gravely.
“I am happy in it. Only, sometimes——”
“And remember, please, if there is anything—anything at all that it would please your grandmother to have, let me know. Will you let me know? And will you have the pleasure of giving it to her?”
“Yes, I will—I will. And will you come again soon?”
“I will call again very soon.”
“I will tell granny. It will please her—oh! more than I can say. And you’ll read the book, won’t you, just to please her?”
“I will read the book to please her.”
“She longs to see you again. And so do I. Oh, Mr. Campaigne—cousin, then—it’s just lovely to hear you talk!”
LEONARDstood looking straight before him when the girl had gone. Well, the omissions so much regretted by Constance seemed to be fully supplied. He was now exactly like other people, with poor relations and plenty of scandals and people to be ashamed of. Only a week ago he had none of these things. Now he was supplied with all. Nothing was wanting. He was richly, if unexpectedly, endowed with these gifts which had been at first withheld. As yet he hardly rose to the situation: he felt no gratitude: he would have resigned these new possessions willingly: the tragedies, the new cousins, the ennobling theory of hereditary sorrow.
He remembered the brown-paper parcel which he had promised to read; he tore off the covering. Within there was a foolscap volume of the kind called “scrap-book.” He opened it, and turned over the pages. It was more than half filled with newspaper cuttings and writing between and before and after the cuttings. As he turned the pages there fell upon him a sense of loathing unutterable. He threw the book from him, and fell back upon an easy-chair, half unconscious.
When he recovered, he picked up the book. The same feeling, but not so strong, fell upon him again. He laid it down gently as a thing which might do him harm. He felt cold; he shivered: for the first time in his life, he was afraid of something. He felt that deadly terror which superstitious men experience in empty houses and lonely places in the dark—a terror inexplicable, that comes unasked and without cause.
This young man was not in the least degree superstitious. He had no terror at all concerning things supernatural; he would have spent a night alone in a church vault, among coffins and bones and grinning skulls, without a tremor. Therefore this strange dread, as of coming evil, astonished him. It seemed to him connected with the book. He took it up and laid it down over and over again. Always that shiver of dread, that sinking of the heart, returned.
He thought that he would leave the book and go out; he would overcome this weakness on his return. And he remembered that the returned Australian—the man of wealth, the successful man of the family—was to dine with him at the club. He left the book on the table; he took his hat, and he sallied forth to get through the hours before dinner away from the sight of this enchanted volume charged with spells of fear and trembling.
Uncle Fred arrived in great spirits, a fine figure of Colonial prosperity, talking louder than was consideredin that club to be good form. He called for a brandy and bitters, and then for another, which astonished the occupants of the morning-room. Then he declared himself ready for dinner.
He was; he displayed not only an uncommon power of putting away food, but also an enviable power of taking his wine as a running stream never stopping. He swallowed the champagne, served after the modern fashion with no other wine, as if it was a brook falling continuously into a cave, without pause or limit.
When the dinner was over, a small forest of bottles had been successively opened and depleted. Never had the club-waiters gazed upon a performance so brilliant in a house where most men considered a mere little pint of claret to be a fair whack, a proper allowance. After dinner this admirable guest absorbed a bottle of claret. Then, on adjourning to the smoking-room, he took coffee and three glasses of curaçoa in rapid succession. Then he lit a cigar, and called for a soda and whisky. At regular intervals of a quarter of an hour he called for another soda and whisky. Let us not count them. They were like the kisses of lovers, never to be counted or reckoned, either for praise or blame. It was half-past nine when this phenomenal consumption of wine and whisky began, and it lasted until half-past eleven.
Leonard was conscious that the other men in the room were fain to look on in speechless wonder; theincreased seriousness in the waiters’ faces showed their appreciation and envy. The club-waiter loveth most the happy few who drink with freedom. His most serious admiration and respect go forth to one who becomes a mere cask of wine, and yet shows no signs of consequences. Now, this performer, from start to finish, turned not a hair; there was no thickness in his speech; there was no sign of any effect of strong drink upon this big man.
That he talked more loudly than was at this club generally liked is true. But, then, he always talked loud enough to be heard in every part of the largest room. The things of which he spoke; the stories he told; the language in which he clothed these stories, astonished the other members who were present—astonished and delighted them beyond measure, because such a loud and confident guest had never before been known in the place, and because it had been the fortune of Campaigne, Leonard Campaigne—the blameless, the austere, the cold—who had brought this elderly Bounder, this empty hogshead or barrel to be filled with strong drink, this trumpet-voiced utterer of discreditable stories. Next day there were anecdotes told in the club by those who had been present, and scoffers laughed, and those who had not been present envied those who had.
“Leonard,” said this delightful guest, late in the evening, and in a louder voice than ever, “I suppose someone has told you about the row—you know—when I had to leave the country. There had been plenty of rows before; but I mean the big row. You were only three or four years old at the time. I suppose you can’t remember.”
The other men lifted their heads. They were like Mrs. Cluppins. Listening they scorned, but the words were forced upon them.
“No one told me—that is to say, I heard something the other day. No details—something alleged as the cause.”
“Would you like to know the real truth?”
“No! Good heavens, no! Let bygone scandals rest,” he replied, in a murmur as low as extreme indignation would allow. “Let the thing die—die and be forgotten.”
“My dear nephew”—he laid a great hand on Leonard’s knee—“I dare say they told you the truth. Only, you see”—he said this horrid thing loud enough to gratify the curiosity of all present—“the real truth is that the fellow who put the name at the bottom of you know what, and did the rest of it, was not me, but the other fellow—Chris. That’s all. Chris the respectable it was—not me.”
“I tell you I want to know nothing about it.”
“I don’t care. You must. After all these years, do you think now that I am home again, with my pile made, that I’m going to labour under such an imputation any longer? No, sir. I’ve come to hold up my head like you. Chris may hang his ifhe likes. I won’t. (Boy, another whisky and soda.) In those days Chris and I hunted in couples. Very good sport we had, too. Then we got through the money, and there was tightness. Chris did it. Run him in if you like. For, you see——”
“Enough said—enough said.” Leonard looked round the room. There were only three or four men present: they sat singly, each with a magazine in his hand: they preserved the attitude of those who read critically, but there was aje-ne-sais-quoiabout them which suggested that they had heard the words of this delightful guest. Indeed, he spoke loud enough for all to hear. It is not every day that one can hear in a respectable club revelations about putting somebody’s name on the front and on the back of a document vaguely described as “you know what.”
“Enough said,” Leonard repeated impatiently.
“My dear fellow, you interrupt. I am going to set the whole thing right, if you’ll let me.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“It isn’t what you want to hear; it’s what you’ve got to hear,” said uncle Fred impressively and earnestly. He had taken, even for him, a little more than was good for him: it made him obstinate: it also made his speech uncertain as to loudness and control: he carried off these defects with increased earnestness. “Character, Leonard, character is involved; and self-respect; also forgiveness. I am not come home to bear malice, as will be shown by mytestamentary dispositions when Abraham calls me to his bosom——”
“Oh! But really——”
“Really—you shall hear! (Boy, why the devil do you keep me waiting for another whisky and soda?) Look here, Leonard. There was a money-lender in it——”
“Never mind the money-lender——”
“I must mind him. Man! he was in it. I quite forget at this moment where old Cent. per Cent. got in. But he was there—oh yes! he was there. He always was there in those days either for Chris or for me. Devil of a fellow, Chris! Now, then. The money-lending Worm—or Crocodile—wanted to be paid. He was always wanting to be paid. Either it was Chris or it was me. Let me think——”
“Does it matter?”
“Truth, sir, and character always matter. What the money-lender said I forget at this moment. I dare say Chris knows; it was more his affair than mine. It amounted to this——” He drained his glass again, and forgot what he had intended to say. “When the fellow was gone, ‘Chris,’ I said, ‘here’s a pretty hole you’re in.’ I am certain that he was in the hole, and not me, because what was done, you know, was intended to pull him out of the hole. So it must have been Chris, and not me. It is necessary,” he added with dignity, “to make this revolution—revelation. It is due to self-respect. My brother Chris, then, you understand,was in the hole. (Boy, I’ll take another whisky and soda.) I want you to understand exactly what happened.” Leonard groaned. “Of course, when it came to sticking a name on a paper, and that paper a cheque——”
“For the Lord’s sake, man, stop!” Leonard whispered.
“I knew and told him that the world, which is a harsh world and never makes allowance, would call the thing by a bad name. Which happened. But who could foresee that they would tack that name on to me?”
Leonard sprang to his feet. The thing was becoming serious. “It is eleven o’clock,” he said. “I must go.”
“Go? Why, I’ve only just begun to settle down for a quiet talk. I thought we should go on till two or three. And I’ve nearly done; I’ve only got to show that the cheque——”
“No—I must go at once. I have an appointment. I have work to do. I have letters to write.”
Uncle Fred slowly rose. “It’s a degenerate world,” he said. “We never thought the day properly begun before midnight. But if these are your habits—well, Leonard, you’ve done me well. The champagne was excellent. Boy—no, I’ll wait till I get back to the hotel. Then two or three glasses, and so to bed. Moderation—temperance—early hours. These are now my motto and my rule.”
“This way down the stairs,” said Leonard, for his uncle was starting off in the opposite direction.
“One warning. Don’t talk to Chris about that story, for you’ll hear a garbled version—garbled, sir—garbled.” He lurched a little as he walked down the stairs, but otherwise there were no indications of the profound and Gargantuan thirst that he had been assuaging all the evening.
Leonard went home in the deepest depression and shame. Why did he take such a man to such a club? He should have given him dinner in the rowdiest tavern, filled with the noisiest topers.
“He cannot be really what he pretends,” Leonard thought. “A man of wealth is a man of responsibility and position. This man talks without any dignity or reticence whatever. He seems to associate still with larrikins and cattle-drovers; he sits in bars and saloons; he ought to keep better company, if only on account of his prosperity.”
The Family History asserted itself again.
“You have entertained,” it said, “another Unfortunate. Here is a man nearly fifty years of age. He has revealed himself and exposed himself: he is by his own confession, although he is rich and successful, the companion and the friend of riffraff; his sentiments are theirs. He has no morals; he drinks without stint or measure; he has disgraced you in the Club. No doubt the Committee will interfere.”
It is, the moralist declares, an age of great laxity. A man may make a living in more ways than wereformerly thought creditable; men are admitted to clubs who formerly would not have dared to put their names down. In Leonard’s mind there still remained, strong and clear, the opinion that there are some things which a gentleman should not do: things which he must not do: companions with whom he must not sit. Yet it appeared from the revelations of this man that, whatever he had done, he had habitually consorted with tramps, hawkers, peddlers, and shepherds.
LEONARDturned up his light in the study. His eye fell upon the Book of Extracts. He looked at his watch. Nearly twelve. He took up the book resolutely. Another wave of loathing rolled over his mind. He beat it back; he forced himself to open the book, and to begin from the beginning.
The contents consisted, as he had already seen, of cuttings from a newspaper, with a connecting narrative in writing. On the title-page was written in a fine Italian hand the following brief explanation:
“This book was given to me by Mrs. Nicols, our housekeeper for thirty years. She cut out from the newspapers all that was printed about the crime and what followed. There are accounts of the Murder, the Inquest, and the Trial. She also added notes of her own on what she herself remembered and had seen. She made two cuttings of each extract, and two copies of her own notes; these she pasted in two scrap-books. She gave me one; the other I found in her room after her death. I sent the latter copy to my brother three days before he committed suicide.”
This statement was signed “Lucy Galley, née Campaigne.” The extracts and cuttings followed. Some of the less necessary details are here suppressed.
The first extract was from the weekly paper of the nearest county town:
“We are grieved to report the occurrence of a crime which brings the deepest disgrace upon our neighbourhood, hitherto remarkably free from acts of violence. The victim is a young gentleman, amiable and respected by everyone—Mr. Langley Holme, of Westerdene House, near the town of Amersham.
“The unfortunate gentleman had been staying for some days at the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Algernon Campaigne, J.P., of Campaigne Park. On Tuesday, May 18, as will be seen from our Report of the Inquest, the two gentlemen started together for a walk after breakfast. It was about ten o’clock: they walked across the Park, they crossed the highroad beyond, they climbed over a stile into a large field, and they walked together along the pathway through the field, as far as a small wood which lies at the bottom of the field. Then Mr. Campaigne remembered some forgotten business or appointment and left his friend, returning by himself. When Mr. Holme was discovered—it is not yet quite certain how long after Mr. Campaigne left him, but it was certainly two hours—he was lying on the ground quite dead, his head literally battered in by a thick club—the branch of a tree either pulled off for the purpose,or lying on the ground ready to the hand of the murderer. They carried the body back to the house where he had been staying.
“It is sad to relate that the unfortunate man’s sister, Mr. Campaigne’s wife, was so shocked by the news, which seems to have been announced or shouted roughly, and without any precaution about breaking it gently, that she was seized with the pains of labour, and in an hour was dead. Thus the unfortunate gentleman, Mr. Algernon Campaigne, himself quite young, has been deprived in one moment, so to speak, of wife and brother-in-law. Mr. Langley Holme was also a married man, and leaves one young child, a daughter, to weep with her mother over their irreparable loss. The Inquest was held on Wednesday morning.”
Then followed a passage in writing:
“I was in my own room, the housekeeper’s room, which is the last room of the south wing on the ground-floor overlooking the garden; there is an entrance to the house at that end for servants and things brought to the house. At ten o’clock in the morning, just after the clock in the stables struck, I saw the master with Mr. Langley Holme walking across the Terrace, down the gardens, and so to the right into the park. They were talking together friendly and full of life, being, both of them, young gentlemen of uncommon vivacity and spirit; with a temper, too, both of them, as becomes the master of such a place as his, which cannot be ruled by ameek and lowly one, but calls for a high spirit and a temper becoming and masterful.
“Three-quarters of an hour afterwards I heard steps in the garden, and looked up from my work. It was the master coming home alone. He was walking fast, and he was swinging his arms, as I’d often seen him do. Now I think of it, his face was pale. One would think that he had a presentiment. He entered the house by the garden door and went into his study.
“Now, this morning, my lady, when we called her, was not at all well, and the question was whether we should send for the doctor at once. But she refused to consent, saying that it would pass away. And so she took breakfast in bed; but I was far from easy about her. I wish now, with all my heart, that I had sent a note to the doctor, who lived three miles away, if it was only for him to have driven over. Besides, as things turned out, he might have been with her when the news came.
“However, about twelve o’clock, or a little after, I heard steps in the garden, and I saw a sight which froze my very blood. For four men were carrying a shutter, walking slowly; and on the shutter was a blanket, and beneath the blanket was a form. Oh! there is no mistaking such a form as that—it was a human form. My heart fell, I say, like lead, and I ran out crying:
“ ‘Oh! in God’s name, what has happened?’
“Said one of them, John Dunning by name:
“ ‘It’s Mr. Holme. I found him dead. Someone’s murdered him.’
“I screeched. I ran back to the house; I ran into the kitchen; I told them, never thinking, in the horror of it, of my poor lady.
“Then all over the house, suddenly, the air was filled with the shrieks of women.
“Alas! my lady had got up; she was dressed: she was on the landing; she heard the cries.
“ ‘What has happened?’ she asked.
“ ‘Mr. Holme is murdered.’
“I do not know who told her. None of the maids confessed the thing, but when she heard the news she fell back, all of a sudden, like a woman knocked down.
“We took her up and carried her to bed. When the doctor came in an hour my lady was dead—the most beautiful, the kindest, the sweetest, most generous-hearted lady that ever lived. She was dead, and all we could do was to look after the new-born babe. And as for her husband, that poor gentleman sat in his study with haggard looks and face all drawn with his grief, so that it was a pity and a terror to look upon him. Wife and brother-in-law—wife and friend—both cut off in a single morning! Did one ever hear the like? As for the unfortunate victim, Mr. Holme that had been, they laid him in the dining-room to wait the inquest.”
At this point Leonard laid down the book and looked round. The place was quite quiet. Evenfrom the street there came no noise of footsteps or of wheels. Once more he was overpowered by this strange loathing—a kind of sickness. He closed his eyes and lay back. Before him, as in a vivid dream, he saw that procession with the body of the murdered man; and he saw the murdered lady fall shrieking to the ground; and he saw the old recluse of the Park, then young, sitting alone, with haggard face, while one body lay in the dining-room and the other on the marriage-bed.
The feeling of sickness passed away. Leonard opened his eyes and forced himself, but with a beating heart and a dreadful feeling of apprehension, to go on with the reading:
“I remember that the house was very quiet, so quiet that we could hear in my room—the housekeeper’s room—the cries and shouts of the two little boys in the nursery, which was the room next to where the mother lay dead. The boys were Master Langley, the eldest, who was three, and Master Christopher, then a year and a half.
“Little did those innocents understand of the trouble that was coming upon them from the terrible tragedy of that day. They would grow up without a mother—the most terrible calamity that can befall a child: and they were to grow up, as well, without a father, for the master has never recovered the shock, and now, I fear, never will.
“On the Wednesday morning, the next day, the Coroner came with his jury and held the inquest. They viewed the body in the dining-room. I was present and heard it all. The report of the paper is tolerably accurate, so far as I remember.”
The newspaper began again at this point:
“On Wednesday last, the 19th inst., an inquest was held at Campaigne Park on the body of Langley Holme, Esquire, Justice of the Peace, of Westerdene House, near Amersham, aged twenty-eight years. The unfortunate gentleman, as narrated in our last number, was found dead under circumstances that pointed directly to murder, in a wood not far from Campaigne Park, where he was staying as the guest of his friend and brother-in-law, Mr. Algernon Campaigne.
“The cause of death was certified by Dr. Alden. He deposed that it was caused by a single blow from a heavy club or branch which had probably been picked up close by. The club was lying on the table—a jagged branch thick at one end, which was red with blood. The nature of the wound showed that it was one blow only, and that by a most determined and resolute hand, which had caused death, and that death must have been instantaneous.
“Mr. Algernon Campaigne, J.P., of Campaigne Park, deposed that the deceased, named Langley Holme, his brother-in-law—his wife’s brother, and his most intimate friend—was staying with them, and that on Tuesday morning the two started together after breakfast for a walk. They walked through the park, crossed the road, got over thestile on the other side, and followed the pathway under the hill. They were entering the wood in which the body was found when he himself recollected a letter which had to be written and posted that morning. He therefore stopped and explained that he must return immediately. Unfortunately, his brother-in-law chose to continue his walk alone. Mr. Campaigne turned and walked home as quickly as he could. He saw the deceased no more until he was brought back dead.
“The Coroner asked him if he had observed anyone in the wood: he said he had not looked about him carefully, but that he had seen nobody.
“A little boy, who gave the name of Tommy Dadd, and said that he knew the meaning of an oath, deposed that he was on the hillside scaring birds all day; that he saw the two gentlemen get over the stile, walk along the footpath together, talking fast and loud; that they came to the wood, and that one of them, Mr. Campaigne, turned back; that he looked up and down the path as if he was expecting somebody, and then walked away very fast.
“ ‘Stop!’ said the Coroner. ‘Let us understand these facts quite plainly. You saw Mr. Campaigne and the deceased get over the stile and walk as far as the wood?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘And you saw Mr. Campaigne turn back and walk away?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘Go on, then.’
“ ‘A long time after that I see John Dunning walking from the farm across the field to the pathway; he was carrying a basket of something over his shoulder; he wore his smock-frock. He went into the wood, too. Presently he came out and ran back to the farm-yard, and three other men came and carried something away.’
“ ‘Did nobody else go into the wood?’
“ ‘No; nobody.’
“John Dunning said that he was a labourer; that on the day in question he was on his way to some work, and had to pass through the wood; that half-way through he came upon what he thought was a man asleep. When he looked closer, he found that it was a gentleman, and he was dead, and he lay in a pool of blood. There was no scuffle of feet or sign of a struggle. That he tried to lift him, getting his hands and frock covered with blood-stains; that he found a bit of rough and jagged wood lying beside the body, which was covered with blood at one end; that on making this discovery he ran out of the wood, and made his way as fast as he could to the nearest farm, where he gave the alarm, and got four men to come with him, carrying a shutter and a blanket.
“The Coroner cross-examined this witness severely. Where did he work? Was he a native of the village? Had he ever been in trouble? What was it he was carrying on his shoulder? Would he swear it was not the club that had been found near the body?
“To all these questions the man gave a straightforward answer.
“The Coroner then asked him if he had searched the pockets of the deceased.
“At this point the deceased’s valet stood up, and said that his master had not been robbed; that his watch and rings and purse were all found upon him in his pockets.
“ ‘I presume that the murderer had no time,’ said the Coroner. ‘He must have been disturbed. I never yet heard of a murder that was not a robbery, unless, indeed, there was revenge in it.’
“Mr. Campaigne interposed. ‘I would suggest, Mr. Coroner,’ he said, ‘with submission——’
“ ‘Sir,’ said the Coroner, ‘your suggestions are instructions.’
“ ‘I venture, then, to suggest that perhaps there may have been some person or persons unknown in the wood. The boy’s evidence was straightforward, but he could not see through the wood.’
“ ‘That is true. Call up the parish constable.’
“This officer stood up to give evidence. He was asked if there were any dangerous or suspicious persons in or near the village; if he had seen any tramps, sturdy vagabonds, gipsies, or, in fact, any persons who might reasonably be suspected of this outrage.
“There was no one. The village, he said, was quite quiet and well behaved.
“He was asked if there were poachers about. Hesaid there were poachers, whom he knew very well, and so did his Honour’s gamekeeper; but in the month of May there was little or nothing to poach, and no excuse for going into the wood. Besides, why should they go into the wood at ten in the morning? He was quite confident that the village poachers had nothing to do with the business.
“ ‘My suggestion, sir,’ said Mr. Campaigne, ‘seems unproductive. Nevertheless, there was the chance that the mystery might be explained if we could in this way light upon a clue.’
“ ‘There is another way of explanation,’ said the Coroner grimly.
“He put other questions to the constable. Had he seen any gipsies or tramps about the village or on the road? The constable declared that he had seen none: that the village, lying as it did off the main road, from which it was not even visible, did not attract gipsies or tramps or vagabonds of any description.
“Had the constable observed any case of drunkenness? He had not: there were men who sometimes took more beer than was good for them, but they carried their liquor peaceably and did not become quarrelsome in their cups.
“ ‘We come next,’ said the Coroner, ‘to the question whether the deceased gentleman had any private enmities to fear?’
“To this Mr. Campaigne made reply: ‘My brother-in-law, sir, was a man who may have madeenemies as a magistrate, especially among poachers; but if so, these enemies would be all in his own part of the county, fifteen miles away. In this place he could have had neither friends nor enemies.’
“ ‘Then, gentlemen of the jury,’ said the Coroner, ‘we can find no motive for the crime. I said just now that there was another explanation possible. We can put aside the theory of poachers being disturbed at their work: and the theory of private enmity: and the theory of tramp or gipsy attacking him for the sake of robbery. We come back therefore to the broad facts. At ten in the morning the deceased entered the wood—alone. At twelve the man Dunning ran out, his smock-frock covered with blood. He said that he had found the dead body of this gentleman lying on the grass, and he had tried to lift it, getting his smock-frock stained with blood in doing so. Now, gentlemen, what was the good of trying to lift a dead body? On the other hand, suppose that a man, finding this gentleman unarmed, perhaps asleep, conceived the sudden thought of killing him for the sake of taking his money: suppose him to have been disturbed, or to have thought himself disturbed—it might be by the bird-scaring boy—what would he do? Naturally he would give the alarm, and pretend that the crime was committed by another man. You, gentlemen of the jury, will form your own conclusion. You will return such a verdict as seems to you reasonable, leaving further investigation to the Law. Far be it from me tosuggest your verdict or to influence your judgment. You have now to consider how and by whom this murder—as clear a case of murder as has ever been known—was committed.’
“The jury considered their verdict for half an hour. They then returned a verdict of wilful murder against John Dunning.
“The man was standing alone by this time: everybody shunned him. When the verdict was given, he cried out, ‘No! No! I never done it! I never done it!’ passionately, or with some show of passion.
“The constable arrested him on the spot. After the first ejaculation the man became quite passive, and made no kind of resistance. The Coroner turned to Mr. Campaigne.
“ ‘You are a magistrate, sir. You can formally commit the man for trial.’
“ ‘I commit this man?’ the bereaved gentleman seemed to have difficulty in understanding the matter. However, he came to himself, and performed his duties mechanically.
“The man, John Dunning, now lies in gaol, awaiting his trial. We would not say anything to forejudge the case, but it certainly looks black, so far, against the accused.”
To this the housekeeper added: “The Coroner’s Court was full, and a sorrowful sight it was to see the master, tall and handsome and upright, but ashy pale. On the same day, in the afternoon, they buried boththe brother and the sister in the parish church. They lie side by side in the chancel.”
Then followed the report of the trial of John Dunning. Part of it is a repetition of the evidence heard at the inquest. He was defended by counsel, and a very able counsel, too—a young man who had taken the greatest pains to get up the case. Leonard knew the name. Later on he had become a judge. The cross-examination was keen and searching. Every little point was made the most of.
The Report gave at full length all the evidence and the speeches. In this place it is sufficient to give the most important questions and answers.
The counsel had a map of the wood. He made a great deal out of this map. He called attention to distances; for instance, it would take five minutes only to get from the wood to the farm. On these points he cross-examined Mr. Campaigne closely.
“ ‘I believe it is a small wood—little more than a coppice?’
“ ‘It is very little more than a coppice.’
“ ‘How long, now, would it take you to walk through the wood from end to end?’
“ ‘Not five minutes.’
“ ‘Are there any seats in the wood—any places where a man might sit down?’
“ ‘None.’
“ ‘Did your friend express any intention of lingering in the wood, or was there any reason why he should linger in the wood?’
“ ‘No, certainly not. He entered the wood at a quick pace, and, so far as I know, he intended to keep it up. He was walking partly for exercise and partly to look at the condition of the fields.’
“ ‘There were no seats in the wood.’ The counsel returned to the point. ‘Were there any fallen trees to sit down upon?’
“ ‘Not to my knowledge.’
“ ‘Was it a morning for lying down on the grass?’