Chapter VII was told of this behaviour of Trethewy’s by Sergeant Speke the day after the arrest. But it was no surprise to me, for I had come myself to communicate to the police something to the same effect. On mature reflexion I had thought it my duty to report the matter of the interview which I had had with Trethewy some days before. Trethewy had, unsolicited, made a confession to me—not a confession of crime, but a confession of criminal intent.Unchecked by a warning that I could promise no secrecy as to what he should say, and a reminder of, what he knew full well, that he was in a position of grave danger, he declared to me that he had harboured the thought of killing his master, and, though he had never actually laid hands on him, was as guilty as though he had done so. Starting with this declaration he plunged into a long and uninterrupted discourse of which I should find it impossible, even if I wished it, to give an at all adequate report.As for the matter of his statement: if one were to accept it as true, it was the tale, common enough two centuries ago, but so rarely told now that modern ears find it very hard to take it in, the tale of the ordinary struggle between good and evil in a man, taking an acute and violent form, so that the man feels day by day the alternate mastery of a religious exaltation, which he believes to be wholly good, and of base passions, which, when they come upon him, seem to be an evil spirit driving him as the steam drives an engine. From the manner of the statement, it was very hard to gather how much of it was sincere, impossible to gather whether or not something worse lay concealed behind that which was so strangely confessed. Self-abasement and self-righteousness, the genuine stuff of Puritan enthusiasm, the adulterated stuff of morbid religiousness, sheer cant, manly straightforwardness, pleasure in the opportunity of preaching and that to the parson,—all these things seemed blended together in Trethewy’s talk.On the most favourable view the story came to this. A few years before, Trethewy, after a careless life, had become suddenly impressed by deep religious feelings, no less than by precise and inflexible religious views. His conversion, he trusted, had not left his conduct unaffected, but though for a time he walked, as he said, happy in this new light, it had been the beginning, not the end, of his inward warfare. His natural ill-temper, that worst sort of ill-temper which is both sulky and passionate, began to come upon him again in prolonged fits of intense wrath, intensified, I suppose, by reaction from the pitch at which he often strove to live. Besides this, he gave way at times to a keen pleasure in alcohol. He was tempted by what he called a “carnal” pride in the strength of his head for liquor; and I have sometimes observed that drink works its worst havoc upon the very men who may appear to be the least affected by it, bringing about a slow perversion of the deeper motives of action, while for a long time it leaves the judgment unclouded upon those more trivial and obvious matters in which aberration is readily detected. Thus at the time of that altercation with Peters of which Callaghan had been a witness, Trethewy was already brooding perversely over some trumpery or altogether fancied grievance. He was deeply under the influence of drink at that moment, and did not know it, but knew he had had enough to make most men drunk. His very worldly pride had therefore been the more offended at the imputation which Peters threw on him. His spiritual pride was offended too by a rebuke from one, whom, though originally fond of him, he had come to regard as a worldling, steeped in mere profane philosophy. He had been enraged to the point of desiring Peters’ death, and the threat which Callaghan reported had been actually uttered. He had meant, it may be, nearly nothing by his threat when he uttered it; but, when once this almost insane notion, of killing for such a trifle a man whom normally he liked, had taken shape in words, it recurred to him every time that he was put out, or that a third glass of spirits went to his lips. Perhaps it recurred to him with all the more terrible power because in better moments his conscience was horribly alarmed at his having given in, by so much as one thought, to this suggestion of the Devil. On the morning before Peters’ death he had a fresh altercation with him on the occasion of some trifling oversight in the garden to which Peters had called his attention, and I was surprised after what Vane-Cartwright had said to be told that Vane-Cartwright was present on this occasion and had heard the insolent language in which he seems to have addressed Peters. All day and night after that the evil dream had been upon him, and he walked home from his uncle’s that night plotting murder. He awoke in the morning calmer, but his wrath still smouldered, till his wife brought him the news that Peters was murdered, when it gave place in a moment to poignant grief for Peters. He could not stir from the cottage; he sat, he tried to pray, he thought, and he saw himself as he was—perhaps not quite as he was, for he saw himself as a man guilty of blood.He would gladly, I think, have talked with me of his soul, but, with the suspicion which I had in my mind, I did not see how I could say much to him. So, having heard him out, I got away with some pitifully perfunctory remarks. How was I to take this confession? Was the mental history which the man gave of himself a cunning invention for accounting for the known quarrel and the known threats? Was the story true with this grave correction that Trethewy had carried out his intent? Was it the simple truth all through? Did it even go beyond the truth in this, that the man’s thoughts had never been so black as he made them out? For days these questions occurred frequently to my mind, but my real opinion upon them was fixed almost as soon as I got away from Trethewy. Contrary to my principles I disliked him, I felt strangely little sympathy for his spiritual struggles; but I did not doubt that they were real, and I did not doubt that he was innocent of the crime.Before Trethewy was brought before the magistrates, a letter arrived which excited my imagination unaccountably, or rather two letters arrived. The day before Vane-Cartwright had left, a letter had arrived for Peters, bearing the postmark of Bagdad. Vane-Cartwright carelessly opened it. He had, I think, at my request, on the day when I was away in London, opened some letters which arrived for Peters’ executors. So he had a good excuse for opening this. “Well, that is very uninforming,” he said, passing the letter over to me, with an apology for his mistake, and laughing more than was usual with him. Uninforming it certainly was. “Dear Eustace,” it ran, “I am sorry I can tell you nothing about it.—Yours, C. B.” Just a week later, after Vane-Cartwright had left, came another letter from the same place, in the same hand, and almost, but not quite, as brief: “Dear Eustace, This time I will not delay my answer. Longhurst sailed in theEleanorand she did not go down. To the best of my belief she still sails the seas. I never liked C.—Yours ever, Charles Bryanston.”
I was told of this behaviour of Trethewy’s by Sergeant Speke the day after the arrest. But it was no surprise to me, for I had come myself to communicate to the police something to the same effect. On mature reflexion I had thought it my duty to report the matter of the interview which I had had with Trethewy some days before. Trethewy had, unsolicited, made a confession to me—not a confession of crime, but a confession of criminal intent.
Unchecked by a warning that I could promise no secrecy as to what he should say, and a reminder of, what he knew full well, that he was in a position of grave danger, he declared to me that he had harboured the thought of killing his master, and, though he had never actually laid hands on him, was as guilty as though he had done so. Starting with this declaration he plunged into a long and uninterrupted discourse of which I should find it impossible, even if I wished it, to give an at all adequate report.
As for the matter of his statement: if one were to accept it as true, it was the tale, common enough two centuries ago, but so rarely told now that modern ears find it very hard to take it in, the tale of the ordinary struggle between good and evil in a man, taking an acute and violent form, so that the man feels day by day the alternate mastery of a religious exaltation, which he believes to be wholly good, and of base passions, which, when they come upon him, seem to be an evil spirit driving him as the steam drives an engine. From the manner of the statement, it was very hard to gather how much of it was sincere, impossible to gather whether or not something worse lay concealed behind that which was so strangely confessed. Self-abasement and self-righteousness, the genuine stuff of Puritan enthusiasm, the adulterated stuff of morbid religiousness, sheer cant, manly straightforwardness, pleasure in the opportunity of preaching and that to the parson,—all these things seemed blended together in Trethewy’s talk.
On the most favourable view the story came to this. A few years before, Trethewy, after a careless life, had become suddenly impressed by deep religious feelings, no less than by precise and inflexible religious views. His conversion, he trusted, had not left his conduct unaffected, but though for a time he walked, as he said, happy in this new light, it had been the beginning, not the end, of his inward warfare. His natural ill-temper, that worst sort of ill-temper which is both sulky and passionate, began to come upon him again in prolonged fits of intense wrath, intensified, I suppose, by reaction from the pitch at which he often strove to live. Besides this, he gave way at times to a keen pleasure in alcohol. He was tempted by what he called a “carnal” pride in the strength of his head for liquor; and I have sometimes observed that drink works its worst havoc upon the very men who may appear to be the least affected by it, bringing about a slow perversion of the deeper motives of action, while for a long time it leaves the judgment unclouded upon those more trivial and obvious matters in which aberration is readily detected. Thus at the time of that altercation with Peters of which Callaghan had been a witness, Trethewy was already brooding perversely over some trumpery or altogether fancied grievance. He was deeply under the influence of drink at that moment, and did not know it, but knew he had had enough to make most men drunk. His very worldly pride had therefore been the more offended at the imputation which Peters threw on him. His spiritual pride was offended too by a rebuke from one, whom, though originally fond of him, he had come to regard as a worldling, steeped in mere profane philosophy. He had been enraged to the point of desiring Peters’ death, and the threat which Callaghan reported had been actually uttered. He had meant, it may be, nearly nothing by his threat when he uttered it; but, when once this almost insane notion, of killing for such a trifle a man whom normally he liked, had taken shape in words, it recurred to him every time that he was put out, or that a third glass of spirits went to his lips. Perhaps it recurred to him with all the more terrible power because in better moments his conscience was horribly alarmed at his having given in, by so much as one thought, to this suggestion of the Devil. On the morning before Peters’ death he had a fresh altercation with him on the occasion of some trifling oversight in the garden to which Peters had called his attention, and I was surprised after what Vane-Cartwright had said to be told that Vane-Cartwright was present on this occasion and had heard the insolent language in which he seems to have addressed Peters. All day and night after that the evil dream had been upon him, and he walked home from his uncle’s that night plotting murder. He awoke in the morning calmer, but his wrath still smouldered, till his wife brought him the news that Peters was murdered, when it gave place in a moment to poignant grief for Peters. He could not stir from the cottage; he sat, he tried to pray, he thought, and he saw himself as he was—perhaps not quite as he was, for he saw himself as a man guilty of blood.
He would gladly, I think, have talked with me of his soul, but, with the suspicion which I had in my mind, I did not see how I could say much to him. So, having heard him out, I got away with some pitifully perfunctory remarks. How was I to take this confession? Was the mental history which the man gave of himself a cunning invention for accounting for the known quarrel and the known threats? Was the story true with this grave correction that Trethewy had carried out his intent? Was it the simple truth all through? Did it even go beyond the truth in this, that the man’s thoughts had never been so black as he made them out? For days these questions occurred frequently to my mind, but my real opinion upon them was fixed almost as soon as I got away from Trethewy. Contrary to my principles I disliked him, I felt strangely little sympathy for his spiritual struggles; but I did not doubt that they were real, and I did not doubt that he was innocent of the crime.
Before Trethewy was brought before the magistrates, a letter arrived which excited my imagination unaccountably, or rather two letters arrived. The day before Vane-Cartwright had left, a letter had arrived for Peters, bearing the postmark of Bagdad. Vane-Cartwright carelessly opened it. He had, I think, at my request, on the day when I was away in London, opened some letters which arrived for Peters’ executors. So he had a good excuse for opening this. “Well, that is very uninforming,” he said, passing the letter over to me, with an apology for his mistake, and laughing more than was usual with him. Uninforming it certainly was. “Dear Eustace,” it ran, “I am sorry I can tell you nothing about it.—Yours, C. B.” Just a week later, after Vane-Cartwright had left, came another letter from the same place, in the same hand, and almost, but not quite, as brief: “Dear Eustace, This time I will not delay my answer. Longhurst sailed in theEleanorand she did not go down. To the best of my belief she still sails the seas. I never liked C.—Yours ever, Charles Bryanston.”