XXIII
Thetrial dragged its way through the rest of the afternoon and all the next day, the colonel sitting dutifully beside his good friend, Johnson Carter. The old man leaned forward on his cane, an interested spectator, hoping in his heart that he was thus killing off any gossip about that old attachment between William Carter and his granddaughter. It was from him that Virginia got her news of the proceedings, and an account of Daniel as a lawyer.
“Say, Jinny, that boy’s as smart as a steel trap,” said the colonel delightedly. “If William had had half his gumption, he wouldn’t be in the fix he’s in now. You ought to see Dan get a jury. By gum, I had to laugh at the way he got Haskins on the hip every time. Got the indictment in the second degree, too, Jessup says.”
“It would have been terrible to try that boy for murder in the first degree,” said Virginia. “Why, grandpa, I don’t believe Major Haskins would do it.”
“Jinny, Haskins would indict his own grandmother for grand larceny if he thought it wouldget him a seat in the Legislature,” retorted the colonel with asperity. “I reckon I know Jim Haskins!”
At which Virginia had to laugh; but she felt very little like laughing as the trial dragged on. She went over twice to carry flowers, and what comfort she could to Mrs. Carter and Emily. The last time she regretted it, for Mrs. Carter lost her head and sobbed on the young comforter’s shoulder.
“Oh, Jinny, if William had only married you!” she gasped.
Virginia went away with a red face. It seemed to her that the thing pursued her, whichever way she turned. The rest of that day she devoted to close attention to the household affairs.
“I shan’t be home until late, Jinny,” her grandfather ’phoned her during the afternoon. “I reckon it’ll go to the jury to-day. Say, Jinny!”
“Yes, grandpa, I’m listening.”
“Mrs. William Carter’s going on the stand. Jinny, the court-room’s packed, just like sardines in a box. They’re sitting on the window-sills this minute. Don’t you wait dinner if I’m late.”
Virginia hung up the receiver with a pale face. She had heard an account of William in the corridor from her grandfather, and she had divined how William felt.
The old man’s robust anger against “that lummox” for spoiling his own life did not reach Virginia. She remembered William’s boyish figure trudging home from school with her books, William reading the “Iliad” with her, and William, when he told her that he loved her. It had all been a youthful affair. She knew that, so she told herself; but she could never quite forget it when she thought of him. She thought of it now, and tried in vain to picture him sitting there, helplessly, and hearing all the whispers and gossiping when his wife went on the stand to try to save his brother—for such a cause!
Virginia, who had been standing by the telephone, walked slowly across the room to a window that overlooked the town. It was a spot that showed the old place in its most homelike and friendly aspect, with its wreath of foliage—now, in midsummer, at the full height of its beauty—and its background of lovely hills. She could see from here the long gable of Dr. Barbour’s roof, and over there the chimneys of the Paysons’ more pretentious mansion. Behind the tall poplars was the Carter house, and yonder the cross-tipped spire of the church. Beyond these she caught a glimpse of a distant cupola, and knew it to be the apex of the court-house. A pleasant, warm haze hung in the summer atmosphere, and she couldhear the tinkling bell on a passing peddler’s cart.
Virginia tried not to think. She did not want to think of William watching his wife go on the stand for such a cause; but as she leaned forward her hands gripped the window-sill until the delicate knuckles whitened.
She was still there when Lucas came driving back from town. He had taken the colonel to court in an antiquated rockaway that belonged in the family. He was returning alone now, with a number of bundles in the rockaway, topped by a large ripe watermelon. Virginia watched him drive in the gate and on to the stables.
Presently he came along on foot, with his watermelon on his shoulder. Virginia called to him.
“Where did you get your melon, Lucas?”
“Presen’ fo’ de col’nel, Miss Jinny.” Lucas turned his shoulder around for her to look at the melon. “Ain’t he a beauty! Sho’ he is! Mist’ Payson, he give him to me. He say: ‘Luke, yo’ take him to de col’nel fo’ a presen’.’”
Virginia admired the melon.
“Grandfather isn’t coming back until late,” she said. “Did he tell you when to come for him, Lucas?”
“No, Miss Jinny, he ain’t a comin’ till it’s over, I reckon. Yo’ oughter see dat court-house! Ain’t no gettin’ inter it. Mis’ Wilyum Carter, she testifyin’.Seems like it mus’ be motion-picture show, Miss Jinny. I saw Mist’ Wilyum Carter myse’f. He was goin’ in ayonnah, an’ he look—Miss Jinny, he look like one ob dese yere white-spine cucumbers—he ain’t got no more colluh ’cept green.”
“That’s all right, Lucas. Take that watermelon down to the kitchen and get Lucy to put it on ice. The colonel may want it when he comes home.”
“Yes, Miss Jinny, I sho’ will. I’s— Say, Miss Jinny, Mirandy, Miz Carter’s help, she say Mist’ Wilyum gwine to get divorcement.”
“Never mind about Miranda,” said Virginia hastily. “You get that melon out of the sun.”
“He ain’t gwine to get hurt in de sun, Miss Jinny. He’s jus’ ripe—yo’ heah him?” Lucas gave the melon a scientific tap. “Yo’ heah him? He’s all right, he sho’ is, Miss Jinny. Mirandy, she say Mist’ Carter—de ole man—he raise ruction ’bout it when Mist’ Leigh shoot dat man——”
“Lucas,” said Virginia, “I never listen to gossip. You take that melon to the kitchen!”
“Yes, Miss Jinny, yes, miss, I’s goin’, but Mirandy——”
Virginia thrust her fingers into her ears and retreated. Half laughing, half crying, she threw herself into a chair beside the piano. Her heart was beating stormily, and she hated herself for it. Then she lifted her eyes slowly, reluctantly, to thelittle picture of William as a child. It still hung beside her piano. The sight of it filled her mind with a strange tumult of thoughts; yet, strangely enough, the vision she saw most clearly was Daniel’s face of pain as she stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder. She blushed at the thought of it now.
At that very moment, when Virginia sat with her eyes hidden in her hands, trying to shut out the little tormenting imps that thrust that picture before her, a stranger scene was being staged in the old court-house. The court-room was so densely crowded that even the sweet summer air which came in through the open windows grew close and stifling. The window-sills were full, and the trees outside bore human fruit upon the branches that commanded the upper panes of those windows.
The crowd dimmed the light like a flock of locusts darkening the sun in the east, and some one had lit a green-shaded lamp on the recorder’s desk. The light from it flared up on the face of the prisoner—a pale, boyish face with girlish eyes. Near him sat his family. Mrs. Carter had summoned all her courage to be with her boy at the supreme moment, and Emily was there, too, with tearful eyes and a red nose, looking very unlike the Emily who had painted her lashes. Beside hersat William Carter, then his father and Colonel Denbigh.
William sat with his eyes down and his hands clenched on the arms of his chair. He never looked up, not even when Daniel and Judge Jessup scored a victory and got Mrs. William Carter’s testimony admitted as being relevant to the defense. Bernstein had already told his story—a story of the scandal, and of Corwin’s slanders.
Poor Mrs. Carter hardly dared to look up. She had a terrible sensation of sinking and falling through space, common to nightmare. William’s wife talked about like that! She put out a groping hand, caught Emily’s hot, moist fingers, and held them. They didn’t dare even to look at each other, and Emily sniffed hard to keep back the tears. It was the first time she had heard the details.
The prisoner went white; he realized suddenly that his reckless act had given the scandal huge publicity, that it was ruinous to the woman whom he had tried to defend. Humiliation swept over him, and he sank down in his chair, staring straight in front of him. Like William, he did not look up when Fanchon was called.
There was an expectant stir, followed by a hush. A small figure in black, with a huge hat and a floating veil, came slowly forward and took the oath.Judge Jessup stepped gallantly aside, and Daniel Carter, very pale, very relentless, took the witness.
For the first time William looked up. He looked persistently at his brother, and seemed to be trying to avoid looking at his wife; but he was aware of her, even before she began to answer Daniel’s terrible questions that seemed to drive straight into her past, to lay it open and set it, throbbing and pitiful and full of pain, before the jury, before the packed court-room, before the little world in which the Carters had always lived quiet and sober and respected.
At first William did not listen. He was filled with a blind fury that Daniel should do it, that his own brother should drag him out into public view as a young man who had made a fool of himself and married a dancer. Then her sweet, vibrating, captivating voice, with a French note in it and the spell of sex, reached him, and he had to listen.
First came the story of their marriage—he knew that; then the story of her birth and childhood—he knew that in part, and it was sad. The stillness in the room affected him. He began to feel the wave of sympathy rising. They liked her; she was winning them. Something stirred in his heart. His old passion for her was not yet cold, and that voice—that delightful, hurrying voice—hecouldn’t shut it out. Reluctantly he raised his eyes.
Row upon row of faces! He had never seen so many faces. He knew many of them. His old friends and his acquaintances were there, and strangers. Then he heard Daniel’s voice, and it cut like a knife-thrust:
“And your first meeting with this man Corwin?”
William turned and looked at her then. The light from the little lamp on the recorder’s desk was playing strange tricks. It caught Fanchon’s face now and illuminated it—a face small and pale and piquant, with the eyes of a wild fawn, the adorable face that William had seen first in Paris—only a few months ago!
He gazed fixedly at it, breathing hard. The old spell laid hold of him, for she had turned and was looking at him. There was an appeal in that look, almost a cry for help, and it held him.
Then he heard her voice again, and he began to listen, in a dull way at first, and then with growing amazement, with rising fury. She was telling her story—her pitiful, sordid story. Women wept; but there was nothing touching in it to her husband. It was a revelation, a cruel, sordid revelation of a lie. She had lied to him and deceived him.
Pity died in his heart, the spell broke, he leaned back in his chair with folded arms and regarded her coldly and scornfully and bitterly. His look worked upon her like something alien and fierce and inimical; and she broke under it. At the very moment when it seemed as if she had planned it to work upon the jury, Fanchon broke down—broke down into pitiful, passionate tears.
An hour later—after Major Haskins had tried in vain to destroy her story—Daniel rose in his place, and simply, eloquently, without gesture or oratory, he made the plea that won him fame—a brother’s plea for a brother. So eloquent was it that Judge Jessup never spoke at all. There seemed nothing else to say.
Major Haskins summed up for the prosecution. He did it with acrimony, in the old way, tearing Fanchon’s past to pieces and fairly pinning the Carter family, like a lot of butterflies stuck on the board of the cruelest of naturalists, and leaving Mr. Carter gasping with mute fury. Then, at a late hour, Judge Barbour charged the jury, and William Carter rose, white as a sheet, and left the court-house.
Virginia, having eaten her dinner in solitary state, sat on the piazza waiting for her grandfather. It was late in August, and the sweet darkness fell early. She watched the earth growdarker and darker until the hilltops stood out, etched in black against a pale sky. Behind her the old house was dark except for the light in the hall, and silent except for the occasional sound of mellow laughter from the kitchen, where the negroes awaited their share of Mr. Payson’s prize watermelon.
Virginia sat very still as the night deepened. The air was full of delicate fragrance from the flower-beds below her feet. Far off at first, and then nearer at hand, the insects began their incessant clamor, which seemed only to make the stillness more complete by contrast. Above, the pale sky began to darken, and one by one the stars came out, softly obscured by clouds and shining through them, as the candles at an altar sometimes shine through a fog of incense.
Time passed; the old clock in the hall chimed. Virginia counted the strokes—ten. How late the colonel was! Then she heard the sound of wheels on the gravel outside the main gate, and Lucas drove the rockaway up to the front door. Her grandfather’s tall head appeared at the steps. He stopped to say a word to Lucas and then came slowly up. Not until then did Virginia rise from her corner.
“Grandpa—is it over?”
He was startled; then he smiled, taking off his hat.
“How cool it is out here—we were baked down-town! I reckon I’ll sit with you, Jinny.”
“Have you dined? Mr. Payson sent a watermelon; it’s on ice for you.”
“I dined with Payson down-town. No, let the watermelon wait. What did you say, Jinny? No, it isn’t over. We waited, but they’ve locked up the jury for the night, so I came home.”
Virginia, who had dropped into her seat again, was trying to be calm.
“There’s a disagreement, then?”
The colonel nodded thoughtfully.
“I reckon there is. Haskins made a big fight, Jinny, but”—the old man drew a long breath—“by gum, I’ve heard that girl’s story—Fanchon’s. She told it on the stand!”
He stopped, drawing a deep breath. He seemed to be contemplating something amazing. Virginia said nothing. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, looking not at him but at the constellation in front of her. It happened to be the Scorpion, and she began to count the stars silently.
“By gum!” said the colonel again.
Plato came to the door.
“Col’nel, have a julep, suh, or dat watermelon?”
“Nothing at all; I’m not hungry.”
The colonel waved him away; then he turned to Virginia and told her Fanchon’s story. He told it better than she could have hoped to have him tell it.
“She hasn’t been a bad girl, Jinny. That was a relief to me. Haskins tried to slur her, but Daniel brought it out point by point. Married at fifteen, and her old aunt swore that she was eighteen to get money out of it, by gum!”
Virginia, who had listened with emotion, shivered.
“I think it was cruel, grandfather, to make her tell it.”
The old man nodded.
“Not to save Leigh, though. Lordy, Jinny, I never saw Leigh look younger, except that day I caught him with the lollypop. It ought to save him.” He added reluctantly, with a fine sense of justice: “Jinny, I can’t blame William. He got up and left the court. Mr. Carter told me about it. He never knew a darned thing about his wife being a divorced woman, nor about Corwin, nor anything. She lied to him, Jinny.” The colonel leaned back and thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat. “I’m kind of sorry for him. He’s going to get a divorce, so they say; but the girl—Fanchon, I mean—she’s tried tosave Leigh, and she’s about ruined herself. Jinny, I felt as if it was heroic. I—by gum, come inside, I can’t stand those crickets to-night! They’re on my nerves—shouting ‘Here again, here again!’ Jinny, I’m sorry for them all, but I’m a darned sight sorrier for the girl!”