XXIV
“Leigh’sacquitted!” Judge Jessup, with a flushed face, bent over to whisper it to Mrs. Carter.
In the crowd and confusion of the court-room she seemed too dazed to hear the foreman of the jury as he answered the judge’s interrogation. She looked up at the old lawyer, her lip quivering like a child.
“Oh, judge! Really and truly?”
He nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat, for Mrs. Carter collapsed, crying like a baby on Emily’s shoulder, and Judge Jessup found it a moving spectacle. He had once had a devoted mother himself.
There was a crowd around Leigh, old friends and sympathizers, and—to Mr. Carter’s horror—newspaper reporters. It made the perspiration stand out in beads on his forehead.
“Heavens, I should think we’d had enough without that,” he groaned inwardly, and then he caught sight of his eldest son’s face.
William was standing behind Leigh, his arms folded and his eyes down. It seemed to his father that he had never seen such wreckage in a youngman’s face before. It was as hard as flint. The square jaws were set and the brows bent. William had been drinking the cup of humiliation to the dregs.
“Serves him right,” his father thought hotly, and then: “She’s saved Leigh!”
That sent a thrill of remorse through him, and his eyes followed the line of reporters, which led, like a trail of ants after a dead beetle, straight to the small figure in black on the other side of the court-room. Mr. Carter, perspiring freely and with a sinking heart, beheld his daughter-in-law.
Fanchon was as white as William, but those lovely, fawn-like eyes were soft, appealing, almost childlike. She scarcely heeded the reporters. She seemed unwilling to speak to any one, and, as Mr. Carter looked at her, she began to make her way toward Leigh.
There was a little hum of excited comment as she moved, and the light grace and beauty of the small, black-clad figure had never been more marked. She wore the same big, black hat, and her veil, floating from the wide brim, formed a shadowy background for the small, pointed face—the face that had never shown more fully than it did at that moment its subtle, tantalizing, inimitable charm. Mr. Carter saw it reluctantly, and Leigh saw it with boyish devotion as she cameup. They said little. She gave both her small hands to the boy.
“Dear, dear Leigh!” she whispered, a sob in her throat.
“Oh, Fanchon!”
That was all he could gasp out, his eyes too misted to see the beauty of hers. Their hands clung together.
“Dear boy!” Fanchon murmured. “I can’t thank you—you believed in me! I shall remember—toujours, toujours!”
He wrung her hands. Then some one else came up to speak to him, and she passed on.
Turning from Leigh, she came face to face with her husband. For a moment she seemed to hold her breath. In the crowd no one saw them but Daniel, who had just come back to sit by his mother and Emily. Fanchon stood still, and her hand went to her side with an involuntary gesture of pain. For an instant she looked at William, but he never raised his eyes. He stood motionless, looking down. There was no sign that he was even aware of her, except a perceptible hardening of the mouth. She turned away blindly, dropping her veil over her face, and started toward the door.
Daniel pressed his mother’s arm.
“Mother, you ought to thank Fanchon. She saved Leigh. It’s been terrible for her.”
“Me? Oh, I can’t!” Mrs. Carter’s lip trembled worse than ever. “It—it wouldn’t do any good.”
“Mother! Don’t you understand? She saved Leigh.”
Mrs. Carter started to her feet.
“Oh, Dan, I’ll—I’ll try!” she stammered.
Daniel seized her arm and led her toward her daughter-in-law. They had to push through the crowd to a side door behind the witness-stand, for Fanchon had already reached it. Her veil was down, and, as Daniel spoke her name, she stood motionless, waiting. There was a difficult moment, and then Mrs. Carter’s tremulous, frightened voice:
“Dan says you saved my boy——”
She stopped. Fanchon had lifted her veil with a tragic gesture and looked at Mrs. Carter, passionate scorn in her beautiful eyes. For a moment she said nothing. Her whole form seemed to quiver from head to foot; then her pale lips moved at first without words.
“I didn’t do it for you,” she said bitterly at last, “nor for your son, nor for any of you—only for Leigh!Adieu, madame!”
She turned with a gesture at once tragic and beautiful, the gesture of an actress, made passionate by the bitterness of a woman.
A bailiff held the door open for her, lookingafter her admiringly and curiously, but without deference. Daniel and his mother, watching her, saw the small black figure disappear down the long corridor, saw it silhouetted a moment against the daylight at some distant door, and then it was gone.
“Oh, Dan, take me home!” gasped Mrs. Carter. “I haven’t done anything wrong, but I—I feel like a pickpocket. She makes me feel that way!”
Daniel made no reply. He was aware, at the moment, that his father, bent on getting Leigh home, was fighting his way out with the boy. Judge Jessup had ’phoned for two taxis, as one would not hold the reunited Carters.
“The jury couldn’t agree at first,” the judge explained joyfully; “but Fanchon’s story did it. When they talked it over, they agreed on acquittal. Good thing, eh?”
He tried to be jovial, for he saw the strain, and he was glad when the two loaded taxis disappeared in the dust of the highroad. It seemed to him that, as a family, they were not joyful.
“Willie looks like a death’s head at the feast,” the old man thought, and turned to shake hands with Colonel Denbigh. “I didn’t do it. No, sir, Daniel Carter did. He’s the coming man. You watch him, Colonel.”
Colonel Denbigh nodded thoughtfully.
“I’ll back Dan,” he said. “But how about that poor girl, Jessup?”
The judge pursed his lips.
“William’s going to get a divorce. Do you reckon he realizes that she gave up everything to save his brother? He’s turning her out for it, eh? Looks that way, far as I can see.”
“By gum!” said the colonel softly, and he averted his eyes.
There was a pause, and then the two old friends went silently over to the club for luncheon.
Meanwhile the Carters had taken Leigh home. Distributed in two taxicabs they arrived in a state of suppressed emotion difficult to describe; but, once in the house, the ice thawed. For the second time Mrs. Carter became hysterical, Emily wept on his neck, and Miranda started in on a wild effort to make preserved cherry tarts in time for luncheon.
Awaiting this event, all the members of the family gathered in the library, sitting around Leigh in a semicircle and looking at him, much as they might have gazed at a wanderer rescued from the perils of some distant and unknown clime. Leigh, who had been thoroughly lectured by his father on the way home, looked limp and white. He sat in Mr. Carter’s large chair and clung to the arms with his thin, white hands, the lock fallinglow on his forehead and the rims of his eyes suspiciously red. Mr. Carter, trembling with joy at his son’s release, had nevertheless exploded with long-suppressed wrath.
“You’ve had a lesson now, young man,” he had said hoarsely. “Mind you profit by it. If I catch you with shooting-irons again, I’ll lam you for it if you’re as big as the house!”
Leigh, who had indeed had a bitter experience, had made no reply. He was aware of Daniel’s significant silence on the other side. It was a painful moment, only alleviated by his mother’s fond ecstasy and Emily’s sobs. Those two, at least, were glad to get him back on any terms.
Now, in the library, he sat looking about at the family circle with a feeling of pitiful embarrassment. It was almost worse than sitting in the dock. He lifted his eyes reluctantly and found his father still explosive between relief and long-bottled anger. His mother and Emily were still sniffing, while Daniel was engaged at the table, making some notes.
In the corner, alone and morose, sat William. Leigh turned his eyes that way only once. He found his brother’s haggard face unpleasant to look at. He sat again with his eyes down, moving one foot occasionally, or gripping nervously at the arms of his chair.
Miranda came to the door, her brown face wreathed in smiles.
“Lunch is ready, Mis’ Carter, an’ dem tarts came out right smart, yes’m!”
Mrs. Carter rose and laid her hand on Leigh’s shoulder.
“Come, darling,” she said fondly. “We’ve got a nice lunch and some cherry tarts for you.”
The boy rose awkwardly, and his mother led him along, clinging to him, doting upon him, while the rest of the family trailed in the rear. As they entered the dining-room, Leigh counted the places.
“Sit right down here beside mamma,” cooed his mother, patting the chair on her right. “I’ve got lamb chops and green peas—just for you, dear!”
Leigh stood with his hand on the back of his chair, and glanced questioningly up and down the table.
“Where’s Fanchon?” he asked in a low voice.
There was that kind of silence that seems to be audible. It was Mr. Carter who answered him, frowning heavily.
“She left us some time ago,” he said shortly. “I wish you to know, Leigh, that—this family’s done with her. Understand?”
Leigh caught his breath, and his mouth fell open. He stared at William, but William waslooking down at his plate. The only sign he gave of having heard his father’s remark was the deep red flush that went up to his hair. Leigh remained standing, though his mother clutched at his sleeve.
“Sit down, dear,” she whispered.
“Father,” he said in his high, boyish voice, his lips shaking, “she saved me. Where is she?”
“Sit down,” said Mr. Carter with an impatient gesture. “We’ll talk of that another time.”
He fixed an irate eye on his son, and the boy collapsed into his chair; but he scarcely tasted his food, nor did William eat more than a few mouthfuls. The two played with their forks and avoided looking at each other.
Leigh was panting with anger against William. He understood now what had happened. William was deserting Fanchon because of Leigh’s act. Instead of protecting her, he had ruined her. The boy could not eat. His food strangled him. Mrs. Carter hurried on the cherry tarts, and Miranda bore them in on a tray, her face beaming.
“Look, Leigh!” cried his mother. “Miranda made these for you.”
The boy raised his shy eyes to the cook’s face.
“You’re very good to me, Miranda,” he managed to say.
Miranda, with her quick racial sympathy, nearly dropped the tray.
“I declar’ to goodness if he ain’t gwine to cry in those tarts fo’ sho’!” she said to herself and cast an anxious look at Mrs. Carter’s troubled face.
At this juncture, William, who felt himself to be a death’s head at the feast, rose abruptly and left the room. A moment later the startled family heard the front door close behind him. Emily slipped out of her seat and ran to the window, coming back just as Miranda returned to the kitchen.
“He’s gone to the Denbighs,” Emily announced in a stage whisper in her mother’s ear. “I just knew he would.”
“Oh, Emmy, hush!” Mrs. Carter said, looking shocked.
“He’s gone there—I watched him,” said Emily, helping herself to more cherry tarts.
More might have followed but for the fortunate return of Miranda. As she came back, Daniel, having finished his meal, rose slowly and started for the door.
“Dan,” said his father, looking around at him for the first time. “Jessup says you won the case. He thinks you’re a great lawyer. I’m proud of you, my son!”
Daniel’s face flushed; he understood the break in the older man’s voice.
“Thank you,” he said simply. “I’m sorry I had to do what I did.”
His father nodded his head gravely.
“You finished her. It was a bit cruel, but it had to be done.”
Daniel’s flush deepened. He seemed about to speak, then hesitated and said nothing. They heard him slowly ascending the stairs to his room.
“He’s going to be a great lawyer, papa,” said Mrs. Carter with a flash of pleasure.
Mr. Carter nodded his head gravely, assenting, his eyes on Leigh.
Daniel went heavily up-stairs to his room. He tried not to think of what Emily had said, but he couldn’t shut it out of his mind. His thoughts kept hovering back to it, like wretched singed moths making their last fascinated plunge for the flame of the candle; the plunge that was sure to take their remaining wings off.
He shut the door of his room and walked slowly across to the window opposite. He had had this room from his boyhood. At first he had shared it with William, but the elder brother had been promoted to a better apartment when he began to succeed at Payson’s. Through long months of illness, after the fall that lamed him, Daniel had remained in the small upper room where the slant of the gable made a queer triangle that couldn’t bedecorated. The furniture was simple enough and rather sparse, but he had put up some bookshelves for himself, and they were well filled now with books on common law. Still hanging beside the bed was the picture of Virginia that he had taken from the library; but he did not look at it now.
He went to the window and opened the shutters wide, disclosing a square of sky where the white clouds floated; but he did not look up. In spite of himself he looked down. His window commanded a view of Denbigh Crossing, and involuntarily his eyes turned in that direction. He saw nothing but the thick foliage of a group of chestnuts, and the winding road disappearing under the arches of their wide branches.
He stood for some time looking gloomily at the prospect. He knew intuitively how his brother felt. William wanted to grovel in the dirt at Virginia’s feet and beg her pardon; but would he dare to do it? Daniel remembered Virginia sitting at the piano with the childish face of William in its frame above her head. Daniel had never doubted that she loved his brother.
Then the scene in the court-room came back to him, and Fanchon’s small, quivering face. It had wrung his heart to drag her story from her, even to save Leigh; but he had done it—without mercy, too. And now——
His thoughts broke off suddenly, for the door opened, and Leigh came in and shut it behind him. The boy was white and shaken. He put out an unsteady hand and clutched at the back of a chair.
“Dan,” he said hoarsely, “what have they done to her? Where’s Fanchon?”
Daniel laid his hand on his shoulder.
“Sit down, Leigh,” he said kindly.
The boy obeyed him awkwardly. He sat there staring at his own feet, unwilling to look at his brother.
“Leigh,” said Daniel, “it’s none of our business—it’s William’s.”
“They’ve quarreled, and it’s not her fault. You know it, Dan. We’ve all been dreadful to her!”
Daniel, who was still standing, looking down at him, was silent a moment; then he spoke slowly.
“I think you’re right, Leigh, we have been; but there’s another side to this. She wouldn’t tell me where she was staying. She came to court for your sake, but she’s done with the rest of us, Leigh.”
Leigh flared up.
“Emmy says William’s going to divorce her and marry Virginia Denbigh!”
Daniel went white.
“Emily has no right to say that.” Involuntarilyhis hands clenched at his sides, but he gripped himself. “You’ve had a lesson, Leigh. You keep your hands off!”
The boy rose sullenly, his face still flushed.
“I owe her everything,” he said.
“Not quite,” Daniel retorted dryly. “You owe something to Judge Jessup and the jury.”
Leigh seemed to be deaf to this. He went sulkily to the door and opened it.
“I think William’s a brute,” he remarked in a low voice. “She loves him—I know she loves him, and she’s his wife!”
He went out and slammed the door.