The warm June sun rode gaily in the bright-blue skies, and the sweet June Roses were in bloom. Mrs. Andinnian, entirely unconscious of the blight that had fallen on her younger son, was placidly making the home happiness (as she believed) of the elder. Had she known of Karl's sorrow, she would have given to it but a passing thought.
There was peace in the home again. The vexation regarding their young lady-neighbour had long ago subsided in Mrs. Andinnian's mind. She had spoken seriously and sharply to Adam upon the point--which was an entirely new element in his experience; telling him how absurd and unsuitable it was, that he, one of England's future baronets, and three-and-thirty years of age already, should waste his hours in frivolous talk with a girl beneath him. Adam heard her in silence, smiling a little, and quite docile. He rejoined in a joking tone.
"All this means, I suppose, mother, that you would not tolerate Miss Turner as my wife?"
"Never, Adam, never. You would have to choose between myself and her. And I have been a loving mother to you."
"All right. Don't worry yourself. There's no cause for it."
From this time--the conversation was in April, at the close of Karl's short visit to them--the trouble ceased. Adam Andinnian either did not meet the girl so much: or else he timed his interviews more cautiously. In May Miss Turner went away on a visit: Adam seemed to have dismissed her from his mind: and Mrs. Andinnian forgot that she had ever been anxious.
Never a word of invitation had come from Sir Joseph. During this same month, May, Mrs. Andinnian, her patience worn out, had written to Foxwood, proffering a visit for herself and Adam. At the end of a fortnight's time, she received an answer. A few words of shaky writing, in Sir Joseph's own hand. He had been very ill, he told her, which was the cause of the delay in replying, as he wished to write himself. Now he was somewhat better, and gaining strength. When able to entertain her and her son--which he hoped would be soon--he should send for them. It would give him great pleasure to receive them, and to make the acquaintance of his heir.
That letter had reached Mrs. Andinnian the first day of June. Some three week's had elapsed since, and no summons had come. She was growing just a little impatient again. Morning after morning, while she dressed, the question always crossed her mind: will there be a letter to-day from Foxwood? On this lovely June morning, with the scent of the midsummer flowers wafting in through the open chamber window, it filled her mind as usual.
They breakfasted early. Adam's active garden habits induced it. When Mrs. Andinnian descended, he was in the breakfast-room, scanning the pages of some new work on horticulture. He wore a tasty suit of grey, and looked well and handsome: unusually so in his mother's eyes, for he had only returned the past evening from a few days' roving absence.
"Good morning, Adam."
He advanced to kiss his mother: his even white teeth and his grey eyes as beautiful as they could well be. Mrs. Andinnian's fond and admiring heart leaped up with a bound.
"The nonsense people write whose knowledge is superficial!" he said, with a gay laugh. "I have detected half a dozen errors in this book already."
"No doubt. What book is it?"
He held it out to her, open at the title-page. "I bought it yesterday at a railway-stall."
"What a nice morning it is!" observed Mrs. Andinnian, as she was busy with the cups.
"Lovely. It is Midsummer Eve. I have been out at work these two hours."
"Adam, I think that must be the postman's step," she remarked presently. "Some one is going round to the door."
"From Karl, perhaps," he said with indifference, for he had plunged into his book again.
Hewitt came in; one letter only on the silver waiter. He presented it to his master. Adam, absorbed in his pages, took the letter and laid it on the table without looking up. Something very like a cry from his mother startled him. She had caught up the letter and was gazing at the address. For it was one that had never before been seen there.
"Sir Adam Andinnian, Bart."
"Oh my son! It has come at last."
"Whathas come?" cried he in surprise. "Oh, I see:--Sir Joseph must be dead. Poor old fellow! What a sad thing!"
But it was not exactly Sir Joseph's death that Mrs. Andinnian had been thinking of. The letter ran as follows:--
"FOXWOOD,June 22nd.
"DEAR SIR,-I am truly sorry to have to inform you of the death of my old friend and many years' patient, Sir Joseph Andinnian. He had been getting better slowly, but we thought surely; and his death at the last was sudden and quite unexpected. I have taken upon myself to give a few necessary orders in anticipation of your arrival here.
"I am, Sir Adam, very sincerely yours,
"WILLIAM MOORE.Sir Adam Andinnian."
The breakfast went on nearly in silence. Mrs. Andinnian was deep in thoughts and plans. Sir Adam, poring over his book while he ate, did not seem to be at all impressed with the importance of having gained a title.
"When shall you start, Adam?"
"Start?" he returned, glancing up. "For Foxwood? Oh, in a day or two."
"In a day or two!" repeated his mother, with surprised emphasis. "Why, what do you mean?"
"Just that, mother."
"You should be off in half an hour. You must, Adam."
"Not I. There's no, need of hurry," he added, with careless good humour.
"But there is need of it," she answered.
"Why? Had Sir Joseph been dying and wished to see me, I'd not have lost a single moment: but it is nothing of the kind, poor man. He is dead, unfortunately: and therefore no cause for haste exists."
"Some one ought to be there."
"Not at all. The Mr. Moore who writes--some good old village doctor, I conclude--will see to things."
"But why should you not go at once, Adam?" she persisted. "What is preventing you?"
"Nothing prevents me. Except that I hate to be hurried off anywhere. And I--I only came back to the garden yesterday."
"The garden!--that's what it is," resentfully thought Mrs. Andinnian. He read on in silence.
"Adam, if you do not go, I shall."
"Do, mother," he said, readily. "Go, if you would like to, and take Hewitt. I hate details of all kinds, you know; and if you will go, and take them on yourself, I shall be truly obliged. Write me word which day the funeral is fixed for, and I will come for it."
Perhaps in all her life Mrs. Andinnian had never resented anything in her favourite son as she was resenting this.Shehad looked forward to this accession of fortune with an eager anxiety which none could suspect: and now that it was come, he was treating it with this cool indifference! Many a time and oft had she indulged a vision of the day when she should drive in to take possession of Foxwood, her handsome son, the inheritor, seated beside her.
"One of my sons ought to be there," she said, coldly. "If you will not go, Adam, I shall telegraph to Karl."
"I will telegraph for you," he replied, with provoking good-humour. "Karl will be the very fellow: he has ten times the head for business that I have. Let him act for me in all things, exactly as though it were he who had succeeded: I give him carte blanche. It will save all trouble to you."
Sir Adam Andinnian declined to be shaken out of his resolve and his inertness. In what might be called a temper, Mrs. Andinnian departed straight from the breakfast-table for the railway-station, to take the train. Her son duly accompanied her to see her safely away: she had refused to take Hewitt: and then he despatched a telegram to Karl, telling him to join his mother at Foxwood. Meantime, while these, the lady and the message, went speeding on their respective ways, the new baronet beguiled away the day's passing hours amidst his flowers, and shot a few small birds that were interfering with some choice seedlings just springing up.
Lieutenant Andinnian received the message promptly. But, following the fashion much in vogue amidst telegraphic messages, it was not quite as clear as daylight. Karl read that Sir Joseph was dead, that his mother was either going or gone to Foxwood; that she was waiting for him, and he was to join her without delay. But whether he was to join her at her own home and accompany her to Foxwood, or whether he was to proceed direct to Foxwood, lay in profound obscurity. The fault was not in Sir Adam's wording; but in the telegraph people's carelessness.
"Now which is it that I am to do?" debated Karl, puzzling over the sprawling words from divers points of view. They did not help him: and he decided to proceedhome; he thought his mother must be waiting for him there. "It must be that," he said: "Adam has gone hastening on to Foxwood, and the mother is staying for me to accompany her. Poor Uncle Joseph! And to think that I never once saw him in life!"
Mr. Andinnian had no difficulty in obtaining leave of absence: and he started on his journey. He was somewhat changed. Though only a month had gone by since the severance from Lucy Cleeve, the anguish had told upon him. His brother officers, noting the sad abstraction he was often plunged in, the ultra-strict fulfilment of his duties, as if life were made up of parades and drill and all the rest of it, told him in joke that he was getting into a bad way. They knew naught of what had happened; of the fresh spring love that had made his heart and this earth alike a paradise, or of its abrupt ending. "My poor horse has had to be shot, you know"--which was a fact; "and I can't forget him," Mr. Andinnian one day replied, reciprocating the joke.
The shades of the midsummer night were gathering as Karl neared the house of his mother. He walked up from the terminus, choosing the field-path, and leaving his portmanteau to be sent after him. The glowing fires of the departed sun had left the west, but streaks of gold where he had set illumined the heavens. The air was still and soft, the night balmy; a few stars flickered in the calm blue firmament: the moon was well above the horizon. This pathway over the fields ran parallel with the high road. As Mr. Andinnian paced it, his umbrella in his hand, there suddenly broke upon his ears a kind of uproar, marring strangely the peaceful stillness of the night. Some stirring commotion, as of a mass of people, seemed to be approaching.
"What is it, I wonder?" he said to himself: and for a moment or two he halted and stared over the border of the field and through the intervening hedge beyond. By what his sight could make out, he thought some policemen were in front, walking with measured tread; behind came a confused mob, following close on their heels: but the view was too uncertain to show this distinctly.
"Some poor prisoner they are bringing in from the county," thought Mr. Andinnian, as the commotion passed on towards the town, and he continued his way.
"This is a true Midsummer Eve night," he said to himself, when the hum of the noise and the tramping had died away, and he glanced at the weird shadows that stood out from hedges and trees. "Just the night for ghosts to come abroad, and---- Stay, though: it is not on Midsummer Eve that ghosts come, I think. What is the popular superstition for the night? Young girls go out and see the shadowy forms of their future husbands? Is that it? I don't remember. What matter if I did? Such romance has died out for me."
He drew near his home. On the left lay the cottage of Mr. Turner. Its inmates seemed to be unusually astir within it, for lights shone from nearly every window. A few yards further Karl turned into his mother's grounds by a private gate.
Their own house looked, on the contrary, all dark. Karl could not see that so much as the hall-lamp was lighted. A sudden conviction flashed over him that he was wrong, after all; that it was to Foxwood he ought to have gone.
"My mother and Adam and all the world are off to it, no doubt," he said as he looked up at the dark windows, after knocking at the door. "Deuce take the telegraph!"
The door was opened by Hewitt: Hewitt with a candle in his hand. That is, the door was drawn a few inches back, and the man's face appeared in the aperture. Karl was seized with a sudden panic: for he had never seen, in all his life, a face blanched as that was, or one so full of horror.
"What is the matter!" he involuntarily exclaimed, under his breath.
Ay, what was the matter? Hewitt, the faithful serving man of many years, threw up his hands when he saw Karl, and cried out aloud before he told it. His master, Sir Adam, had shot Martin Scott.
Karl Andinnian stood against the doorpost inside as he listened; stood like one bereft of motion. For a moment he could put no questions: but it crossed his mind that Hewitt must be mad and was telling some fable of an excited brain.
Not so. It was all too true. Adam Andinnian had deliberately shot the young medical student, Martin Scott. And Hewitt, poor Hewitt, had been a witness to the deed.
"Is he dead!" gasped Karl. And it was the first word he spoke.
"Stone dead, sir. The shot entered his heart. 'Twas done at sunset. He was carried into Mr. Turner's place, and is lying there."
A confused remembrance of the lights he had seen arose to Karl's agitated brain. He pressed his hand on his brow and stared at Hewitt For a moment or two, he thought he himself must be going mad.
"And where is he--my brother!"
"The police have taken him away, Mr. Karl. Two of them happened to be passing just at the time."
And Karl knew that the prisoner he had met in custody, with the guardians of the law around and the trailing mob, was his brother, Sir Adam Andinnian.
The tidings of the unfortunate act committed by Adam Andinnian (most people said it must have been an accident) were bruited abroad far and wide. Circumstances conspired to give to it an unusual notoriety; and for more than the traditional nine days it remained a wonder in men's minds. Sir Adam's recent accession to the family honours; the utter want of adequate motive; the name of the young lady said to be mixed up with it: all this tended to arouse the public interest. That a gentleman of peaceful tendencies, an educated man and new baronet should take up his gun and shoot another in calm deliberation, was well nigh incredible. All kinds of reports, true and untrue, were floating. Public interest was not allowed to flag. Before a sufficient space of time had elapsed for that, the period of the trial came on.
Sir Adam Andinnian was not fated, as too many prisoners are, to languish out months of suspense in prison. The calamity occurred towards the end of June; the assizes were held in July. Almost before his final examination by the magistrates had concluded, or the coroner's inquest (protracted after the fashion of inquests, but in this case without any sufficient reason) had returned its verdict, the summer assizes were upon the county. The magistrates had committed Sir Adam Andinnian to take his trial for wilful murder; the coroner's jury for manslaughter.
But now--what effect does the reader suppose this most awful blow must have had on Mrs. Andinnian? If any one ever deserved commiseration it was surely she. To every mother it would have been terrible; to her it was worse than terrible. She loved her son with the love only lavished on an idol; she had gone forth to his new inheritance in all the pride of her fond heart, counting every day, ay, and every hour, until he should gladden it with his presence. If any mortal man stood on a pinnacle just then above all his fellows in her estimation, that man was her handsome son, Sir Adam Andinnian. And oh! the desolation that fell upon her when the son for whom she cared not, Karl, arrived at Foxwood to break the news.
And Karl? Hardly less keen, if any, was the blow upon him. Until then, he did not know how very warm and true was his affection for his brother. Staggering back to the town the same night after his interview with Hewitt--and it seemed to Karl Andinnian that he did really stagger, under the weight of his affliction--he found the prisoner at the police station, and was allowed to see him. Adam did not appear to feel his position at all. Karl thought the passion--or whatever other ill feeling it might have been that prompted himto the fatal deed--was swaying him still. He was perfectly calm and self-possessed, and sat quite at ease while the chief of the station took down sundry reports in writing from the policemen who brought in the prisoner.
"I have done nothing that I regret," he said to Karl. "The man has but got his deserts. I should do it again to-morrow under the same provocation."
"But, Adam, think of the consequences to yourself," gasped Karl, aghast with dismay at this dangerous admission in the hearing of the officers.
"Oh, as to consequences, I shall be quite ready to takethem," returned the prisoner, drawing himself up haughtily. "I never yet did aught that I was ashamed to acknowledge afterwards."
The Inspector ceased writing for a moment and turned round. "Sir Adam Andinnian, I would advise you for your own sake to be silent. Least said is soonest mended, you know, sir. A good rule to remember in all cases."
"Very good indeed, Walls," readily assented Sir Adam--who had previously been on speaking terms with the Inspector. "But if you think I shall attempt to disown what I've done, you are mistaken."
"It must have been an accident," urged poor Karl in a low tone, almost as though he were suggesting it. "I told Hewitt so."
"Hewitt knows better: he saw me take up the gun, level it, and shoot him," was the reply of Sir Adam, asserted openly. "Look here, Wall. The fellow courted his fate;courtedit. I had assured him that if he dared to offend in a certain way again, I would shoot him as I'd shoot a dog. He set me at defiance and did it. Upon that, I carried out my promise, and shot him. I could not break my word, you know."
Just then a doubt crossed the Inspector's mind--as he related afterwards--that Sir Adam Andinnian was not in his right senses.
"And the mother?" breathed Karl.
"There'sthe worst of it," returned Sir Adam, his tone quickly changing to grave concern. "For her sake, I could almost regret it. You must go off to Foxwood to-morrow, Karl, and break it to her."
What a task it was! Never in all Karl's life had one like unto it been imposed upon him. With the early morning he started for Foxwood: and it seemed to him that he would rather have started to his grave.
It was perhaps somewhat singular that during the short period of time intervening before the trial, Lieutenant Andinnian should have been gazetted to his company. It gave Karl no pleasure. The rise he had hoped for, that was to have brought him so much satisfaction, could now but be productive of pain. If the trial resulted in the awful sentence--Condemnation--Karl would not of course continue in the army. No, nor could he with any inferior result; save and except acquittal. Karl felt this. It was a matter that admitted of no alternative. To remain one amidst his fellow officers with his only brother disgraced and punished, was not to be thought of. And Karl would rather have remained the nameless lieutenant than have been gazetted captain.
The truest sympathy was felt for him, the utmost consideration evinced. Leave of absence was accorded him at his request, until the result of the trial should be known. He wanted his liberty to stand by his brother, and to make efforts for the defence. Make efforts! When the accused persisted in openly avowing he was guilty, what efforts could be made with any hope of success?
One of the hottest days that July has ever given us was that of the trial. The county town was filled from end to end: thousands of curious people had thronged in, hoping to get a place in court; or, at least, to obtain a sight of the baronet-prisoner. It was reported that but for the earnest pleadings of his mother there would have been no trial--Sir Adam would have pleaded guilty. It was whispered that she, the hitherto proud, overbearing, self-contained woman, went down on her knees to entreat him not to bring upon his head the worst and most extreme sentence known to England's law--as the said pleading guilty would have brought--but to give himself a chance of a more lenient sentence: perhaps of an acquittal. It was said that Captain Andinnian would have taken his place in the dock to countenance and stand by his brother, but was not permitted.
The trial was unusually short for one involving murder, and unusually interesting. Immediately after the judge had taken his seat in the morning, the prisoner was brought in. The crowded court, who had just risen to do homage to the judge, rose again amidst stir and excitement. Strangers, straining their eager eyes, saw, perhaps with a momentary feeling of surprise, as grand a gentleman as any present. A tall, commanding, handsome man, with a frank expression of countenance when he smiled, but haughty in repose; his white teeth, that he showed so much, and his grey eyes beautiful. He wore deep mourning for his uncle, Sir Joseph; and bowed to the judge with as much stately ceremony as though he were bowing before the Queen. On one of his fingers flashed a ring of rare beauty: an opal set round with diamonds It had descended to him from his father. Captain Andinnian, in deep mourning also, sat at the table with the solicitors.
The chief witnesses, it may be said the only ones of consequence, were Thomas Hewitt the manservant, and Miss Rose Turner. A surgeon spoke to the cause of death--a shot through the heart--and a policeman or two gave some little evidence. Altogether not much. The story that came out to the world through the speeches of counsel, including those for the defence as well as for the prosecution, may be summed up as follows:
Mr. Andinnian (now Sir Adam) had a great friendship for a young lady neighbour who lived close by, with whom he and his mother had been intimate, and for whose best interests he had a lively regard. This was a Miss Rose Turner: a young lady (the counsel emphatically said) worthy of every consideration, and against whom not a breath of slight had been, or could be whispered. Some few months ago Miss Turner was introduced at a friend's house to a medical student (the deceased) named Martin Scott. It had been ascertained, from inquiries set on foot since Martin Scott's death, that this man's private pursuits and character were not at all reputable: but that was of course (the counsel candidly added) no reason why he should have been killed. In spite of Miss Turner's strong objection, Martin Scott persisted in offering her his attentions; and two or three times, to the young lady's great disgust, he had forcibly kissed her. These facts became known to Mr. Andinnian: and he, being of a hasty, passionate nature, unfortunately took up the matter warmly. Indignant that the young lady should have been subjected to anything so degrading, he sought an interview with the offender, and told him that if ever he dared to repeat the insult to Miss Turner, he, Mr. Andinnian, would shoot him. It appeared, the counsel added, that Mr. Andinnian avowed this in unmistakable terms; that the unfortunate deceased fully understood him to mean it, and that Mr. Andinnian would certainly do what he said if provoked. Proof of which would be given. In spite of all this, Martin Scott braved his fate the instant he had an opportunity. On the fatal evening, June the twenty-third, Miss Turner having only just returned home from an absence of some weeks, Martin Scott made his appearance at her uncle's house, followed her into the garden, and there, within sight of Mr. Andinnian (or, rather, Sir Adam Andinnian, for he had then succeeded to his title, said the counsel, stopping to correct himself) he rudely took the young lady in his arms, and kissed her several times. Miss Turner, naturally startled and indignant, broke from him, and burst into a fit of hysterical sobs. Upon this, the prisoner caught up his loaded gun and shot him dead: the gun, unhappily, lying close to his hand, for he had been shooting birds during the day. Such was the substance of the story, as told to the court.
Thomas Hewitt, the faithful serving man, who deposed that he had lived in the Andinnian family for many years, and who could hardly speak for the grief within him, was examined. Alas! he was called for the prosecution: for all his evidence told against his master, not for him.
"That evening," he said, "about eight o'clock, or from that tohalf-past, I had occasion to see my master, Sir Adam, and went across the garden and beyond the shrubbery of trees to find him. He was standing by the gate that divides his grounds from Mr. Turner's; and all in the same moment, as I came in view, there seemed to be a scuffle going on in Mr. Turner's wide path by the rose bushes. Just at first I did not discern who was there, for the setting sun, then going below the horizon, shone in my face like a ball of fire. I soon saw it was Miss Turner and Martin Scott. Scott seemed to be holding her against her will. She broke away from him, crying and sobbing, and ran towards my master, as if wanting him to protect her."
"Well?--go on," cried the examining counsel, for the witness had stopped. "What did you see next?"
"Sir Adam caught up his gun from the garden seat close by, where it was lying, presented it at Martin Scott, and fired. The young man sprang up into the air a foot or two, and then fell. It all passed in a moment. I ran to assist him, and found he was dead. That is all I know."
But the witness was not to be released just yet, in spite of this intimation. "Wait a bit," said the counsel for the prosecution. "You saw the prisoner take up the gun, point it at the deceased and fire. Was all this done deliberately?"
"It was not done hurriedly, sir."
"Answer my question, witness. Was itdeliberatelydone?"
"I think it was. His movements were slow. Perhaps," added poor Hewitt, willing to suggest a loophole of escape for his master, "perhaps Sir Adam had forgotten the gun was loaded, and only fired it off to frighten Scott. It was in the morning he had been shooting the birds: hours before; he could easily have forgotten that it was loaded. My master is not a cruel man, but a humane one."
"How came he to leave the gun out there for so many hours, if he had done with it?" asked the judge.
"I don't know, my lord. I suppose he forgot to bring it in when he came in to dinner. Sir Adam is naturally very careless indeed."
One of the jury spoke. "Witness, what was it that you wanted with your master when you went out that evening?"
"A telegram had come for him, sir, and I went to take it to him."
"What did the telegram contain? Do you know?"
"I believe it came from Foxwood, sir."
"From Foxwood?"
"The telegram was from my mother, Mrs. Andinnian," spoke up the prisoner, in his rather loud, but perfectly calm voice, thereby electrifying the court. "It was to tell me she had arrived safely at Foxwood Court: and that the day for my uncle Sir Joseph's funeral was not then fixed."
The prisoner's solicitor, in a great commotion, leaned over and begged him in a whisper to be silent.
"Nay," said the prisoner aloud, "if any information that I can give is required, why should I be silent?" Surely there had never before been a prisoner like unto this one!
The next witness was Rose Turner. She was accompanied by her uncle and a solicitor; was dressed handsomely in black, and appeared to be in a state of extreme nervous agitation. Her face was ashy pale, her manner shrinkingly reluctant, and her voice was so low that its accents could not always be caught. In the simple matter of giving her name, she had to be asked it three times.
Her evidence told little more than had been told by the opening counsel.
Mr. Scott had persecuted her with his attentions, she said. He wanted her to promise to marry him when he should be established in practice, but she wholly refused, and she begged him to go about his business and leave her alone. He would not; and her aunt had rather encouraged Mr. Scott; they did not know what kind of private character he bore, but supposed of course it was good. Martin Scott had twice kissed her against her will, very much to her own annoyance; she had told Mr. Andinnian of it--who had always been very kind to her, quite like a protector. It made Mr. Andinnian very angry; and he had then threatened Martin Scott that if he ever again attempted to molest her, he would shoot him. She was sure that Martin Scott understood that Mr. Andinnian was not joking, but meant to do what he said. So far, the witness spoke with tolerable readiness: but after this not a word would she say that was not drawn from her. Her answers were given shrinkingly, and some of them with evident reluctance.
"You went out on a visit in May: where was it to?" questioned the counsel.
"Birmingham."
"How long did you stay there?"
"I was away from home five weeks altogether."
"When did you return home?--You must speak a little louder, if you please."
"On the evening of the twenty-second of June."
"That was the day before the murder?"
"It was not a murder," returned the witness, with emotion. "Sir Adam Ardinnian was quite justified in what he did."
The judge interposed. "You are not here to state opinions, young lady, but to answer questions." The counsel resumed.
"Did the deceased, Martin Scott, come to your uncle's residence on the evening of the twenty-third?"
"Yes. My uncle was at home ill that evening, and he kept Mr. Scott in conversation, so that he had no opportunity of teasing me."
"You went later, into the garden?"
"Yes. Martin Scott must have seen me pass the window, for I found he was following me out. I saw Sir Adam standing at his gate, and went towards him."
"With what motive did you go?"
A pause. "I intended to tell him that Mr. Scott was there."
"Had you seen Sir Adam at all since the previous evening?"
Whether the young lady said Yes or No to this question could not be told. Her answer was inaudible.
"Now this won't do," cried the counsel, losing patience. "You must speak so that the jury can hear you, witness; and you must be good enough to lift your head. What have you to be ashamed of?"
At this sting, a bright flush dyed the young lady's pale cheeks: but she evidently did not think of resisting. Lifting her face, she spoke somewhat louder.
"I had seen Sir Adam in the morning when he was shooting the birds. I saw him again in the afternoon, and was talking with him for a few minutes. Not for long: some friends called on my aunt, and she sent for me in."
"Was anything said about Martin Scott that day, between you and Sir Adam?"
"Not a word. We did not so much as think of him."
"Why, then, were you hastening in the evening to tell Sir Adam that Scott was there?"
The witness hesitated and burst into tears. Her answer was impeded by sobs.
"Of course it was a dreadful thing for me to do--as things have turned out. I had no ill thought in it. I was only going to tell him that Scott had come and was sitting with my uncle. There was nothing in that to make Sir Adam angry."
"You have not replied to my question.Whydid you hasten to tell Sir Adam?"
"There was no very particular cause. Before I left home in May, I had hoped Mr. Scott had ceased his visits: when I found, by his coming this evening, that he had not, I thought I would tell Sir Adam. We both disliked Martin Scott from his rudeness to me. I began to feel afraid of him again."
"Afraid of what?"
"Lest he should be rude to me as he had been before."
"Allow me to ask--in a case of this sort, would it not have been your uncle's place to deal with Mr. Scott, rather than Sir Adam Andinnian's?"
The witness bent her head, and sobbed. While the prisoner, without affording her time for any answer, again spoke up.
"When Martin Scott insulted Miss Turner before, I had particularly requested her to inform me at once if he ever attempted such a thing again. I also requested her to let me know of it if he resumed his visits at her uncle's house. I wished to protect Miss Turner as efficiently as I would have protected a sister."
The prisoner was ordered to be silent. Miss Turner's examination went on.
"You went out on this evening to speak to the prisoner, and Martin Scott followed you. What next?"
"Martin Scott caught me up when I was close to the bed of rose bushes: that is, about half way between the house and the gate where Sir Adam was standing. He began reproaching me; saying I had not given him a word of welcome after my long absence, and did I think he was going to stand it. Before--before--"
"Before what? Why do you hesitate?"
The witness's tears burst forth afresh: her voice was pitiable in its distress. A thrill of sympathy moved the whole court; not one in it but felt for her.
"Before I was aware, Martin Scott had caught me in his arms, and was kissing my face. I struggled to get away from him, and ran towards Sir Adam Andinnian for shelter. It was then he took up his gun."
"What did Sir Adam say?"
"Nothing. He put me behind him with one hand, and fired. I recollect seeing Hewitt standing beside me then, and for a few moments I recollected no more. At first I did not know any harm was done: only when I saw Hewitt kneeling down in the path over Martin Scott."
"What did the prisoner do, then?"
"He put the gun back on the seat again, quite quietly, and walked down the path towards where they were. My uncle and aunt came running out, and--and that ended it."
With a burst of grief that threatened to become hysterical, she covered her face. Perhaps in compassion, only two or three further questions of unimportance were asked her. She had told all she knew of the calamity, she said; and was allowed to retire: leaving the audience most favourably impressed with the pretty looks, the innocence, and the modesty of Miss Rose Turner.
A young man named Wharton was called; an assistant to a chemist, and a friend of the late Martin Scott. He deposed to hearing Scott speak in the spring--he thought it was towards the end of April--of Mr. Andinnian's threat to shoot him. The witness added that he was sure Martin Scott took the threat as a serious one and knew that Mr. Andinnian meant it as such; though it was possible that with the lapse of weeks the impression might have worn away in Scott's mind. He was the last witness called on either side; and the two leading counsel then addressed the jury.
The judge summed up carefully and dispassionately, but not favourably. As many said afterwards, he was "dead against the prisoner." The jury remained in deliberation fifteen minutes only, and then came back with their verdict.
Wilful murder: but with a very strong recommendation to mercy.
The judge then asked The prisoner if he had anything to urge against the sentence of Death that was about to be passed upon him.
Nothing but this, the prisoner replied, speaking courteously and quietly. That he believed he had done only his duty: and that Martin Scott had deliberately and defiantly rushed upon his own fate; and that if young, innocent, and refined ladies were to be insulted by reprobate men with impunity, the sooner the country went back to a state of barbarism the better. To this the judge replied, that if for trifling causes men might with impunity murder others in cold blood, the country would already be in a state of barbarism, without going back to it.
But the trial was not to conclude without one startling element of sensation. The judge had put the black cap on his head, when a tall, proud-looking, handsome lady stepped forward and demanded to say a word in stay of the sentence. It was Mrs. Andinnian. Waving the ushers away who would have removed her, she was, perhaps in very astonishment, allowed to speak.
Her son had inherited an uncontrollable temper, she said;hertemper. If anything occurred greatly to exasperate him (but this was very rare) his transitory passion was akin to madness: In fact it was madness for the short time it lasted, which was never more than for a few moments. To punish him by death for any act committed by him during this irresponsible time would be, she urged, murder. Murder upon him.
Only these few words did she speak. Not passionately; calmly and respectfully; and with her dark eyes fixed--on the judge. She then bowed to the judge and retired. The judge inclined his head gravely to her in return, and proceeded with his sentence.
Death. But the strong recommendation of the jury should be forwarded to the proper quarter.
The judge, as was learnt later, seconded this recommendation warmly: in fact, the words he used in passing sentence as good as conveyed an intimation that there might be no execution.
Thus ended the famous trial. Within a week afterwards the fiat was known: and the sentence was commuted into penal servitude for life!
Penal servitude for life! Think of the awful blight to a man in the flower of his age and in the position of Adam Andinnian! And all through one moment's mad act!
In an invalid's chair by the side of a fire, at midday, reclined Lucy Cleeve. Her face was delicate and thin; her sweet brown eyes had almost an anxious look in them; the white wrapper she wore was not whiter than her cheeks. Mrs. Cleeve was in the opposite chair reading. At the window sat Miss Blake, working some colours of bright silks on a white satin ground.
As Mrs. Cleeve turned the page, she chanced to look up, and saw in her daughter a symptom of shivering.
"Lucy! My darling, surely you are not shivering again!"
"N--o, I think not," was the hesitating answer. "The fire is getting dull, mamma."
Mrs. Cleeve stirred the fire into brightness, and then brought a warm shawl of chenille silk, and folded it over Lucy's shoulders. And yet the August sun was shining on the world, and the blue skies were dark with heat.
The cruel pain that the separation from Karl Andinnian had brought to Lucy, was worse than any one thought for. She was perfectly silent over it, bearing all patiently, and so gave no sign of the desolation within. Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve said in private how reasonable Lucy was, and how well she was forgetting the young man. Miss Blake felt sure that she had never really cared for him: that the love had been all child's play. All through the month of June Lucy had gone about wherever they chose to take her: to flower-shows, and promenades, and dances, and picnics. She talked and laughed in society as others did; and no mortal wizard or witch could have divined she was suffering from the effects of a love-fever, that had been too rudely checked.
Very shortly she was to suffer from a different fever: one that sometimes proves to be just as difficult of cure. In spite of the gaiety and the going-out, Lucy seemed to be somewhat ailing: her appetite failed, and she grew to feel tired at nothing. In July these symptoms had increased, and she was palpably ill. The medical man called in, pronounced Miss Cleeve to be suffering from a slight fever, combined with threatenings of ague. The slight fever grew into a greater one, and then became intermittent. Intervals of shivering coldness would be succeeded by intervals of burning heat; and they in their turn by intense prostration. The doctor said Miss Cleeve must have taken cold; probably, he thought, had sat on damp grass at some picnic. Lucy was very obedient. She lay in bed when they told her to lie, and got up when they told her to get up, and took all the medicine ordered without a word, and tried to take the food. The doctor, at length, with much self-gratulation, declared the fever at an end; and that Miss Cleeve might come out of her bedroom for some hours in the day. Miss Cleeve did so come: but somehow she did not gain strength, or improve as she ought to have done. Seasons of chilling coldness would be upon her still, the white cheeks would sometimes be bright with a very suspicious-looking dash of hectic. It would take time to re-establish her, said the doctor with a sigh: and that was the best he could make of it.
Whether Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve would have chosen to speak much before their daughter of the lover she had been obliged to resign, cannot be said. Most probably not. But circumstances over which they had no control led to its being done. When, towards the close of June, the news of that strange tragedy enacted by Adam Andinnian broke upon the world, all the world was full of it. Not a visitor, calling to see them, but went over the marvellous wonders of the tale in Lucy's hearing, and, as it seemed to her, for her own special benefit. The entirely unprovoked (as was at first said and supposed) nature of the crime; the singular fact that it should have been committed the very day of his assuming his rank amidst the baronetage of the kingdom; the departure of Mrs. Andinnian on the journey that he ought to have taken, and the miserable thought, so full of poignancy to the Andinnian family, that ifhehad gone, the calamity could not have happened; the summons to the young lieutenant at Winchester, his difficulty with the telegram, and his arrival at night to find what had happened at the desolate house! All these facts, and very many more details, some true, some untrue, were brought before Lucy day after day. To escape them was impossible, unless she had shut herself up from society, for men and women's mouths were full of them; and none had the least suspicion that the name of Andinnian was more than any other name to Lucy Cleeve. It was subsequent to this, you of course understand, that she became ill. During this period, she was only somewhat ailing, and was going about just as other people went.
The subject--it has been already said--did not die out quickly. Before it was allowed to do so, there came the trial; andthatand its proceedings kept it alive for many a day more. But that the matter altogether bore an unusual interest, and that a great deal of what is called romance, by which public imagination is fed, encompassed it, was undeniable. The step in rank attained by Lieutenant Andinnian, his captaincy, was dismissed and re-discussed as though no man had ever taken it before. So that, long ere the period now arrived at, August, Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve talked of the Andinnian affairs before their daughter with as little thought of reticence as they would have given to the most common questions of everyday life, and perhaps had nearly forgotten that there had ever been a cause why they should observe it.
A word of Miss Blake. That the perfidy--she looked upon it as such--of Lieutenant Andinnian in regard to herself, was a very bitter blow and tried her heart nearly as the separation was trying Lucy's, may at once be admitted. Nothing, in the world or out of it, would have persuaded her that the young man did not at an early period love her, that he would have ultimately married her but for the stepping in between them of Lucy Cleeve: and there lay a very angry and bitter feeling against Lucy at the bottom of her heart. Not against Mr. Andinnian. The first shock over, she quite exonerated him, and threw all the weight of blame on Lucy. Is it not ever so--that woman, in a case of rivalry such as this, detests and misjudges the woman, and exempts the man?
But Miss Blake had a very strict conscience. In one of more gentle and tender nature, this would have been an admirable thing; in her, whose nature was exceptionally hard, it might cause her to grow into something undesirably stern. There was a chance for her yet. Underlying her every thought, word, action, her witty sallies inthe ball-room, her prayers in church, remained ever the one faint hope--that Karl Andinnian would recover his senses and return to his first allegiance. If this ever came to pass, and she became Mrs. Andinnian, the little kindness existing in Theresa Blake's nature would assert itself. For, though she was very just, or strove to be, she was not kind.
With this strict conscience, Miss Blake could not encourage herill-feeling towards Lucy. On the contrary, she put it resolutely from her, and strove to go on her way in a duteous course of life and take up her own sorrow as a kind of appointed cross. All very well, this, so far as it went: but there was one dreadful want ever making itself heard--the want to fill the aching void in her lonely heart. After a disappointment to the affections, all women feel this need; and none unless they have felt it, can know or imagine the intense need of it. When the heart has been filled to the uttermost with a beloved object, every hour of the day gladdened with his sight, every dream of the night rejoicing with the thought of the morning's renewed meeting, and he is compulsorily snatched away for ever, the awful blank left is almost worse than death. Every aim and end and hope in life seems to have died suddenly out, leaving only a vacuum: a vacuum that tells of nothing but pain. But for finding some object which the mind can take up and concentrate itself upon, there are women who could go mad. Miss Blake found hers in religion.
Close upon that night when you saw Mr. Andinnian and Lucy Cleeve pacing together the garden of the Reverend Mr. Blake's rectory, Mr. Blake was seized with a fit. The attack was not in itself very formidable, but it bore threatening symptoms for the future. Perfect rest was enjoined by his medical attendants, together with absence from the scene of his labours. As soon, therefore, as he could be moved, Mr. Blake departed; leaving his church in the charge of his many-years curate, and of a younger man who was hastily engaged to assist him. This last was a stranger in the place, the Reverend Guy Cattacomb. Now, singular to say, but it was the fact, immediately after Mr. Blake's departure, the old curate was incapacitated by an attack of very serious illness, and he also had to go away for rest and change. This left the church wholly in the hands of the new man, Mr. Cattacomb. And this most zealous but rather mistaken divine, at once set about introducing various changes in the service; asking nobody's permission, or saying with your leave, or by your leave.
The service had hitherto been conducted reverently, plainly, andwith thorough efficiency. The singing was good; the singers--men and boys--wore white surplices: in short, all things were done decently and in order: and both Mr. Blake and his curate were excellent preachers. To the exceeding astonishment of the congregation, Mr. Cattacomb swooped down upon them the very first Sunday he was left to himself, with what they were pleased to term "vagaries." Vagaries they undoubtedly were, and not only needless ones, but such as were calculated to bring a wholesome and sound Protestant church into disrepute. The congregation remonstrated, but the Reverend Guy persisted. The power for the time being, lay in his hands, and he used it after his own heart.
"Man, proud man, dressed in a little brief authority,Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make theangels weep."
How applicable are those lines of Shakespeare's to some of theoverzealous young divines of the present day!
The progress of events in Mr. Blake's church need not be traced. It is enough to say that the Reverend Mr. Cattacomb--whose preaching was no better than the rest of him: a quarter of an hour's rant, of which nobody could make any sense at all--emptied the church. Nearly all the old congregation left it. In their places a sprinkling of young people began to frequent it. We have had examples of these things. The Reverend Guy led, and his flock (almost the whole of them ardent young girls of no experience) followed. There were banners and processions, and images of saints and angels, and candlesticks and scrolls and artificial flowers, and thrown-up incense, and soft mutterings coming from nowhere, and all kinds of odd services at all kinds of hours,and risings-up and sittings-down, and bowings here and bowings there, and private confessions and public absolutions. Whether the worship, or, in fact, the church itself was meant to represent the Roman Catholic faith or the Protestant no living soul could tell. It was ultra-foolish--that is really the only name for it--and created some scandal. People took to speak of its frequenters slightingly and disrespectfully as "Mr. Cattacomb and his tail." The tail being the ardent young ladies who were never away from his heels.
Never a one amidst them more ardent than Miss Blake. In the Rev. Guy and his ceremonies she found that outlet for the superfluous resources of her heart that Karl Andinnian had left so vacant. Ten times a day, if the church had ten services, or scraps of services, was Miss Blake to be seen amid the knot of worshippers. At early morning she went to Matins; at sunset she went to Vespers. Once a week she was penned up in a close box which the Reverend Guy had put up as a confessional, confessing her sins. Some ladies chose the Reverend Mr. Cattacomb as their father priest in this respect; some chose his friend and coadjutor the Reverend Damon Puff: a very zealous young man also, whom the former had appointed to his assistance. One confessional box was soon found quite insufficient, and a second was introduced. Lookers-on began to wonder what would come next. Miss Blake did not neglect the claims of society in her new call to devotion; so that, what with the world and what with the church, she had but little spare time on her hands. It was somewhat unusual to see her, as now, seated quietly at her needle. The work was some beauteous silken embroidery, destined to cover a cushion for Mr. Cattacomb's reverend knees to rest upon when at his private devotions. The needle came to a sudden pause.
"I wonder if I am wrong," she exclaimed, after regarding attentively the leaf that had been growing under her hands. "Mrs. Cleeve, do you think the leaves to this rose should bebrown?I fancy they ought to be green."
"Do not ask me anything about it, Theresa."
Mrs. Cleeve's answer wore rather a resentful accent. The fact was, both herself and Colonel Cleeve were sadly vexed at Miss Blake's wholesale goings in for the comprehensive proceedings of Mr. Cattacomb. They had resigned their pew in the church themselves, and now walked regularly to the beautiful services in the cathedral. Colonel Cleeve remonstrated with Miss Blake for what he called her folly. He told her that she was making herself ridiculous; and that these ultra innovations could but tend to bring religion itself into disrepute. It will therefore be understood that Mrs. Cleeve, knowing what the embroidery was destined for, did not regard it with approbation.
"Theresa, if I thought my dear child, here, Lucy, would ever make the spectacle of herself that you and those other girls are doing, I should weep with sorrow and shame."
"Well I'm sure!" cried Miss Blake. "Spectacle!"
"What else is it To see a parcel of brainless girls running after Guy Cattacomb and that other one--Puff? Their mothers ought to know better than to allow it. God's pure and reverent and holy worship is one thing; this is quite another."
Lucy asked for some of the cooling beverage that stood near: her mouth felt always parched. As her mother brought it to her, Lucy pressed her hand and looked up in her face with a smile. Mrs. Cleeve knew that it was as much as to say "There is no fear ofme."
Colonel Cleeve came in as the glass was being put down. He looked somewhat anxiously at his daughter: he was beginning to be uneasy that she did not gain strength more quickly.
"How do you feel now, my dear?"
"Only a little cold, papa."
"Dear me--and it is a very hot day!" remarked the colonel, wiping his brows, for he had been walking fast.
"Is there any news stirring in the town?" asked Mrs. Cleeve.
"Nothing particular. Captain Andinnian has sold out. He could not do anything else under the circumstances."
"It is a dreadful blight upon the young man's career!" said Mrs. Cleeve.
"There was no help for it, Lucinda. Had he been a general he must have done the same. A man who has a brother working in chains, cannot remain an officer in the Queen's service. Had the brother been hanged, I think the Commander-in-chief would have been justified in cashiering Captain Andinnian, if he had not taken the initiative," added the colonel, who was very jealous of his order.
Miss Blake turned with a flush of emotion. This news fell on her heart like lead. Her first thought when the colonel spoke had been--If he has left the army, there will be nothing to bring him again to Winchester.
"Captain Andinnian cannot be held responsible for what his brother did," she said.
"Of course not," admitted the colonel.
"Neither ought it to be visited upon him."
"The worst of these sad things, you see, Theresa, is, that theyarevisited upon the relatives: and there's no preventing it. Captain Andinnian must go through life henceforth as a marked man; in a degree as a banned one: liable to be pointed at by every stranger as a man who has a brother a convict."
There was a pause. The last word grated on their ears. MissBlake inwardly winced at it: should she become the wife of Karl Andinnian----
"Will Sir Adam be sent to Australia?" asked Mrs. Cleeve of her husband, interrupting Theresa's thoughts.
"No. To Portland Island. It is said he is already there."
"I wonder what will become of his money? His estate, and that?"
"Report runs that he made it all over to his mother before the trial. I don't know how far that may be true. Well, it is a thousand pities for Captain Andinnian," summed up the colonel: "he was a very nice young fellow."
They might have thought Lucy, sitting there, her face covered by her hand, was asleep, so still was she. Presently, Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve were called away to receive some visitors; and Miss Blake began folding her silks and white satin in tissue paper, for the hour of some service or other was at hand. Halting for a moment at the fire to shake the ends of silk from her gown into the hearth, she glanced at Lucy.
"Suppose you had been married to Karl Andinnian, Lucy!"
"Well?"
"What an awful fate it would have been for you!"
"I should only have clung to him the closer, Theresa," was the low answer. And it must be premised that neither Lucy nor any one else had the slightest notion of Miss Blake's regard for Karl.
Miss Blake glanced at her watch. She had two minutes yet. She turned and stood before Lucy. In her unselfish judgment--and she did try to judge unselfishly always--a union with Captain Andinnian now, though she herself might stoop to put up with it in her great love, would be utterly beneath Lucy Cleeve.
"You--you do not mean to imply that you would marry Captain Andinnian, as things are?"
"I would. My father and mother permitting."
"You unhappy girl! Where's your pride?"
"I did not say I was going to do it, Theresa. You put an imaginary proposition; one that is altogether impossible, and I replied tothat. I do not expect ever to see Karl Andinnian again in this world."
Something in the despairing accent touched Miss Blake, in spite of her wild jealousy. "You seem very poorly to-day, Lucy," she gently said. "Are you in pain?"
"No," replied Lucy, with a sigh: "not in pain. But I don't seem to get much better, do I, Theresa? I wish I could, for papa and mamma's sake."