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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




Averil was somewhat better; the feverishness had been removed by her
long sleep of despair, and her energy revived under the bodily
relief, and the fixed purpose of recovering in time to see her
brother again; but the improvement was not yet trusted by Henry, who
feared her doing too much unless he was himself watching over her,
and therefore only paid Leonard a short visit in the forenoon, going
and returning by early trains.

He reported that Leonard was very pale, and owned to want of sleep,
adding, however, 'It does not matter. Why should I wish to lose any
time?' Calm and brave as ever, he had conversed as cheerfully as
Henry's misery would permit, inquiring into the plans of the family,
which he knew were to depend on his fate, and acquiescing in his
brother's intention of quitting the country; nay, even suggesting
that it might be better for his sisters to be taken away before all
was over, though he, as well as Henry, knew that to this Averil would
never have consented. He had always been a great reader of travels,
and he became absolutely eager in planning their life in the wild, as
if where they were he must be, till the casual mention of the word
'rifle' brought him to sudden silence, and the consciousness of the
condemned cell; but even then it was only to be urgent in consoling
his brother, and crowding message on message for his sisters; begging
Henry not to stay, not to consider him for a moment, but only
whatever might be best for Ave.

In this frame Henry had left him, and late in the afternoon, Dr. May
had contrived to despatch his work and make his way to the jail,
where, as he entered, he encountered the chaplain, Mr. Reeve, a very
worthy, but not a very acute man. Pausing to inquire for the
prisoner, he was met by a look of oppression and perplexity. The
chaplain had been with young Ward yesterday evening, and was only
just leaving him; but then, instead of the admiring words the Doctor
expected, there only came a complaint of the difficulty of dealing
with him; so well instructed, so respectful in manner, and yet there
was a coldness, a hardness about him, amounting to sullenness,
rejecting all attempts to gain his confidence, or bring him to
confession.

Dr. May had almost been angry, but he bethought himself in time that
the chaplain was bound to believe the verdict of the court; and
besides, the good man looked so grieved and pitiful, that it was
impossible to be displeased with him, especially when he began to
hope that the poor youth might be less reserved with a person who
knew him better, and to consult Dr. May which of the Stoneborough
clergy had better be written to as likely to be influential with him.
Dr. May recommended Mr. Wilmot, as having visited the boy in his
illness, as well as prepared him for Confirmation; and then, with a
heavier load of sadness on his heart, followed the turnkey on his
melancholy way.

When the door was opened, he saw Leonard sitting listlessly on the
side of his bed, resting his head on his hand, entirely unoccupied;
but at the first perception who his visitor was, he sprang to his
feet, and coming within the arms held out to him, rested his head on
the kind shoulder.

'My dear boy--my brave fellow,' said Dr. May, 'you got through
yesterday nobly.'

There was none either of the calmness or the reserve of which Dr. May
had been told, in the hot hands that were wringing his own, nor in
the choking struggling voice that tried to make the words clear--
'Thank you for what you said--And dear Aubrey--how is he?'

'I came away at six, before he was awake,' said the Doctor; 'but he
will not be the worse for it, never fear! I hope his evidence was
less trying than you and he expected.'

Leonard half smiled. 'I had forgotten that,' he said, 'it was so
long ago! No, indeed--the dear fellow was--like a bright spot in
that day--only--only it brought back all we were--all that is gone
for ever.'

The tenderness of one whom he did not feel bound to uphold like his
brother had produced the outbreak that could not fail to come to so
warm, open, and sensitive a nature, and at such an age. He was bold
and full of fortitude in the front of the ordeal, and solitude pent
up his feelings, but the fatherly sympathy and perfect confidence
drew forth expression, and a vent once opened, the rush of emotion
and anguish long repressed was utterly overpowering. His youthful
manhood struggled hard, but the strangled sobs only shook his frame
the more convulsively, and the tears burnt like drops of fire, as
they fell among the fingers that he spread over his face in the agony
of weeping for his young vigorous life, his blasted hopes, the
wretchedness he caused, the disgrace of his name.

'Don't, don't fight against it,' said Dr. May, affectionately drawing
him to his seat on the bed, as, indeed, the violence of the paroxysm
made him scarcely able to stand. 'Let it have its way; you will be
all the better for it. It ought to be so--it must.'

And in tears himself, the Doctor turned his back, and went as far
away as the cell would permit, turning towards the books that lay on
a narrow ledge that served for a table. 'How long, O Lord, how
long?' were the words that caught his eye in the open Psalms; and,
startled as if at unauthorized prying, he looked up at the dull
screened and spiked window above his head, till he knew by the sounds
that the worst of the uncontrollable passion had spent itself, and
then he came back with the towel dipped in water, and cooled the
flushed heated face as a sister might have done.

'Oh--thank you--I am ashamed,' gasped the still sobbing boy.

'Ashamed! No; I like you the better for it,' said the Doctor,
earnestly. 'There is no need that we should not grieve together in
this great affliction, and say out all that is in our hearts.'

'All!' exclaimed Leonard. 'No--no words can say that! Oh! was it
for such as this that my poor mother made so much of me--and I got
through the fever--and I hoped--and I strove--Why--why should I be
cut off--for a disgrace and a misery to all! and again came the
heart-broken sobs, though less violently.

'Not to those who look within, and honour you, Leonard.'

'Within! Why, how bad I have been, since _this_ is the reckoning! I
deserve it, I know--but--' and his voice again sank in tears.

'Ethel says that your so feeling comforts her the most; to know that
you have not the terrible struggle of faith disturbed by injustice.'

'If--I have not,' said Leonard, 'it is her doing. In those happy
days when we read Marmion, and could not believe that God would not
always show the right, she showed me how we only see bits and scraps
of His Justice here, and it works round in the end! Nay, if I had
not done that thing to Henry, I should not be here now! It is right!
It is right!' he exclaimed between the heaving sobs that still
recurred. 'I do try to keep before me what she said about Job--when
it comes burning before me, why should that man be at large, and I
here? or when I think how his serpent-eye fell under mine when I
tried that one word about the receipt, that would save my life. Oh!
that receipt!'

'Better to be here than in his place, after all!'

'I'd rather be a street-sweeper!' bitterly began Leonard.--'Oh, Dr.
May, do let me have that!' he cried, suddenly changing his tone, and
holding out his hand, as he perceived in the Doctor's button-hole a
dove-pink, presented at a cottage door by a grateful patient. For a
space he was entirely occupied with gazing into its crimson depths,
inhaling the fragrance, and caressingly spreading the cool damask
petals against his hot cheeks and eyelids. 'It is so long since I
saw anything but walls!' he said.

'Three weeks,' sadly replied the Doctor.

'There was a gleam of sunshine when I got out of the van yesterday.
I never knew before what sunshine was. I hope it will be a sunny day
when I go out for the last time!'

'My dear boy, I have good hopes of saving you. There's not a
creature in Stoneborough, or round it, that is not going to petition
for you--and at your age--'

Leonard shook his head in dejection. 'It has all gone against me,'
he said. 'They all say there's no chance. The chaplain says it is
of no use unsettling my mind.'

'The chaplain is an old--' began Dr. May, catching himself up only
just in time, and asking, 'How do you get on with him!'

'I can hear him read,' said Leonard, with the look that had been
thought sullen.

'But you cannot talk to him?'

'Not while he thinks me guilty.' Then, at a sound of warm sympathy
from his friend, he added, 'I suppose it is his duty; but I wish he
would keep away. I can't stand his aiming at making me confess, and
I don't want to be disrespectful.'

'I see, I see. It cannot be otherwise. But how would it be if
Wilmot came to you?'

'Would Mr. May?' said Leonard, with a beseeching look.

'Richard? He would with all his heart; but I think you would find
more support and comfort in a man of Mr. Wilmot's age and experience,
and that Mr. Reeve would have more trust in him; but it shall be
exactly as will be most comforting to you.'

'If Mr. Wilmot would be so good, then' said Leonard, meekly.
'Indeed, I want help to bear it patiently! I don't know how to die;
and yet it seemed not near so hard a year ago, when they thought I
did not notice, and I heard Ave go away crying, and my mother
murmuring, again and again, "Thy will be done!"--the last time I
heard her voice. Oh, well that she has not to say it now!'

'Well that her son can say it!'

'I want to be able to say it,' said the boy, fervently; 'but this
seems so hard--life is so sweet.' Then, after a minute's thought:
'Dr. May, that morning, when I awoke, and asked you for them--papa
and mamma--you knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer. Won't you
now?'

And when those words had been said, and they both stood up again,
Leonard added: 'It always seems to mean more and more! But oh, Dr.
May! that forgiving--I can't ask any one but you if--' and he paused.

'If you forgive, my poor boy! Nay, are not your very silence and
forbearance signs of practical forgiveness? Besides, I have always
observed that you have never used one of the epithets that I can't
think of him without.'

'Some feelings are too strong for common words of abuse,' said
Leonard, almost smiling; 'but I hope I may be helped to put away what
is wrong.--Oh, must you go?'

'I fear I must, my dear; I have a patient to see again, on my way
back, and one that will be the worse for waiting.'

'Henry has not been able to practise. I want to ask one thing, Dr.
May, before you go. Could not you persuade them, since home is
poisoned to them, at any rate to go at once? It would be better for
my sisters than being here--when--and they would only remember that
last Sunday at home.'

'Do you shrink from another meeting with Averil?'

His face was forced into calmness. 'I will do without it, if it
would hurt her.'

'It may for the time, but to be withheld would give her a worse
heart-ache through life.'

'Oh, thank you!' cried Leonard, his face lighting up; 'it is
something still to hope for.'

'Nay, I've not given you up yet,' said the Doctor, trying for a
cheerful smile. 'I've got a prescription that will bring you through
yet--London advice, you know. I've great faith in the consulting
surgeon at the Home Office.'

By the help of that smile and augury, the Doctor got away, terribly
beaten down, but living on his fragment of hope; though obliged to
perceive that every one who merely saw the newspaper report in black
and white, without coming into personal contact with the prisoner,
could not understand how the slightest question of the justice of the
verdict could arise. Even Mr. Wilmot was so convinced by the papers,
that the Doctor almost repented of the mission to which he had
invited him, and would, if he could, have revoked what had been said.
But the vicar of Stoneborough, painful as was the duty, felt his post
to be by the side of his unhappy young parishioner, equally whether
the gaol chaplain or Dr. May were right, and if he had to bring him
to confession, or to strengthen him to 'endure grief, suffering
wrongfully.'

And after the first interview, no more doubts on that score were
expressed; but the vicar's tone of pitying reverence in speaking of
the prisoner was like that of his friends in the High Street.

Tom May spared neither time nor pains in beating up for signatures
for the petition, but he had a more defined hope, namely, that of
detecting something that might throw the suspicion into the right
quarter. The least contradiction of the evidence might raise a doubt
that would save Leonard's life, and bring the true criminal in peril
of the fate he so richly deserved. The Vintry Mill was the lion of
the neighbourhood, and the crowds of visitors had been a reason for
its new master's vacating it, and going into lodgings in Whitford; so
that Tom, when he found it convenient to forget his contempt of the
gazers and curiosity hunters who thronged there, and to march off on
a secret expedition of investigation, found no obstacle in his way,
and at the cost of a fee to Mrs. Giles, who was making a fortune, was
free to roam and search wherever he pleased. Even his careful
examination of the cotton blind, and his scraping of the window-sill
with a knife, were not remarked; for had not the great chair been
hacked into fragmentary relics, and the loose paper of the walls of
Leonard's room been made mincemeat of, as memorials of 'the murderer,
Ward'?

One long white hair picked out of a mat below the window, and these
scrapings of the window-sill, Tom carried off, and also the scrapings
of the top bar of a stile between the mill and the Three Goblets.
That evening, all were submitted to the microscope. Dr. May was
waked from a doze by a very deferential 'I beg your pardon, sir,' and
a sudden tweak, which abstracted a silver thread from his head; and
Mab showed somewhat greater displeasure at a similar act of plunder
upon her white chemisette. But the spying was followed by a sigh;
and, in dumb show, Ethel was made to perceive that the Vintry hair
had more affinity with the canine than the human. As to the
scrapings of the window, nothing but vegetable fibre could there be
detected; but on the stile, there was undoubtedly a mark containing
human blood-disks; Tom proved that both by comparison with his books,
and by pricking his own finger, and kept Ethel to see it after every
one else was gone up to bed. But as one person's blood was like
another's, who could tell whether some one with a cut finger had not
been through the stile? Tom shook his head, there was not yet enough
on which to commit himself. 'But I'll have him!--I'll have him yet!'
said he. 'I'll never rest while that villain walks the earth
unpunished!'

Meantime, Harvey Anderson did yeoman's service by a really powerful
article in a leading paper, written from the very heart of an able
man, who had been strongly affected himself, and was well practised
in feeling in pen and ink. Every word rang home to the soul, and all
the more because there was no defence nor declamation against the
justice of the verdict, which was acknowledged to be unavoidable; it
was merely a pathetic delineation of a terrible mystery, with a
little meditative philosophy upon it, the moral of which was, that
nothing is more delusive than fact, more untrue than truth. However,
it was copied everywhere, and had the great effect of making it the
cue of more than half the press to mourn over, rather than condemn,
'the unfortunate young gentleman.'

Mrs. Pugh showed every one the article, and confided to most that she
had absolutely ventured to suggest two or three of the sentences.
But a great deal might be borne from Mrs. Pugh, in consideration of
her indefatigable exertions with the ladies' petition, and it was a
decided success. The last census had rated Market Stoneborough at
7561 inhabitants, and Mrs. Pugh's petition bore no less than 3024
female names, in which she fairly beat that of the mayor; but then
she had been less scrupulous as to the age at which people should be
asked to sign; as long as the name could be written at all, she was
not particular whose it was.

Dr. May made his patients agree to accept as his substitute Dr.
Spencer or Mr. Wright, to whom Henry Ward intended to resign practice
and house. He himself was to go to London for a couple of nights
with George Rivers, who was exceedingly gratified at having the
charge of him all to himself, and considered that the united
influence of member and mayor must prevail. Dr. Spencer, on the
contrary, probably by way of warning, represented Mr. Mayor as
ruining everything by his headlong way of setting about it, declaring
that he would abuse everybody all round, and assure the Home
Secretary, that, as sure as his name was Dick May, it was quite
impossible the boy could have hurt a fly; though a strict sense of
truth would lead him to add the next moment, that he was terribly
passionate, and had nearly demolished his brother.

Dr. May talked of his caution and good behaviour, which, maybe, were
somewhat increased by this caricature, but he ended by very hearty
wishes that these were the times of Jeanie Deans; if the pardon
depended on our own good Queen, he should not doubt of it a moment.
Why, was not the boy just the age of her own son?

And verily there was no one in the whole world whom poor Averil
envied like Jeanie Deans.

So member and mayor went to London together, and intense were the
prayers that speeded them and followed them. The case was laid
before the Home Secretary, the petitions presented, and Dr. May said
all that man might say on ground where he felt as if over-
partisanship might be perilous. The matter was to have due
consideration: nothing more definite or hopeful could be obtained;
but there could be no doubt that this meant a real and calm re-
weighing of the evidence, with a consideration of all the
circumstances. It was something for the Doctor that a second
dispassionate study should be given to the case, but his heart sank
as he thought of that cold, hard statement of evidence, without the
counter testimony of the honest, tearless eyes and simple good faith
of the voice and tone.

And when he entered the railway carriage on his road home, the
newspaper that George Rivers attentively pressed upon him bore the
information that Wednesday, the 21st, would be the day, according to
usage, for the execution of the condemned criminal, Leonard Axworthy
Ward. If it had been for the execution of Richard May, the Doctor
could hardly have given a deeper groan.

He left the train at the county town. He had so arranged, that he
might see the prisoner on his way home; but he had hardly the heart
to go, except that he knew he was expected, and no disappointment
that he could help must add to the pangs of these last days.

Leonard was alone, but was not, as before, sitting unemployed; he
carefully laid down his etching work ere he came forward to meet his
fnend; and there was not the bowed and broken look about him, but a
fixed calmness and resolution, as he claimed the fatherly embrace and
blessing with which the Doctor now always met him.

'I bring you no certainty, Leonard. It is under consideration.'

'Thank you. You have done everything,' returned Leonard, quietly;
'and--' then pausing, he added, 'I know the day now--the day after my
birthday.'

'Let us--let us hope,' said the Doctor, greatly agitated.

'Thank you,' again said Leonard; and there was a pause, during which
Dr. May anxiously studied the face, which had become as pale and
almost as thin as when the lad had been sent off to Coombe, and
infinitely older in the calm steadfastness of every feature.

'You do not look well, Leonard.'

'No; I am not quite well; but it matters very little,' he said, with
a smile. 'I am well enough to make it hard to believe how soon all
sense and motion will be gone out of these fingers!' and he held up
his hand, and studied the minutiae of its movements with a strange
grave sort of curiosity.

'Don't--don't, Leonard!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'You may be able to
bear it, but I cannot.'

'I thought you would not mind, you have so often watched death.'

'Yes; but--' and he covered his face with his hands.

'I wish it did not pain you all so much,' said Leonard, quietly.
'But for that, I can feel it to be better than if I had gone in the
fever, when I had no sense to think or repent; or if I had--I hardly
knew my own faults.'

'You seem much happier now, my boy.'

'Yes,' said Leonard. 'I am more used to the notion, and Mr. Wilmot
has been so kind. Then I am to see Ave to-morrow, if she is well
enough. Henry has promised to bring her, and leave her alone with
me; and I do hope--that I shall be able to convince her that it is
not so very bad for me--and then she may be able to take comfort.
You know she would, if she were nursing me now in my bed at Bankside;
so why should she not when she sees that I don't think this any
worse, but rather better?'

The Doctor was in no mood to think any comfort possible in thus
losing one like Leonard, and he did not commit himself to an untruth.
There was a silence again, and Leonard opened his book, and took out
his etchings, one which he had already promised the Doctor, another
for Aubrey, and at the third the Doctor exclaimed inarticulately with
surprise and admiration.

It was a copy of the well-known Cross-bearing Form in the Magdalen
College Chapel Altar-piece, drawn in pen and ink on a half-sheet of
thick note-paper; but somehow, into the entire Face and Figure there
was infused such an expression as now and then comes direct from the
soul of the draughtsman--an inspiration entirely independent of
manual dexterity, and that copies, however exact, fail to render,
nay, which the artist himself fails to renew. The beauty, the
meekness, the hidden Majesty of the Countenance, were conveyed in a
marvellous manner, and were such as would bring a tear to the eye of
the gazer, even had the drawing been there alone to speak for itself.

'This is your doing, Leonard?'

'I have just finished it. It has been one of my greatest comforts--'

'Ah!'

'Doing those lines;' and he pointed to the thorny Crown, 'I seem to
get ashamed of thinking this hardness. Only think, Dr. May, from the
very first moment the policeman took me in charge, nobody has said a
rough word to me. I have never felt otherwise than that they meant
justice to have its way as far as they knew, but they were all
consideration for me. To think of that, and then go over the scoffs
and scourgings!'--there was a bright glistening tear in Leonard's eye
now--'it seems like child's play to go through such a trial as mine.'

'Yes! you have found the secret of willingness.'

'And,' added the boy, hesitating between the words, but feeling that
he must speak them, as the best balm for the sorrow he was causing,
'even my little touch of the shame and scorn of this does make me
know better what it must have been, and yet--so thankful when I
remember why it was--that I think I could gladly bear a great deal
more than this is likely to be.'

'Oh! my boy, I have no fears for you now.'

'Yes, yes--have fears,' cried Leonard, hastily. 'Pray for me! You
don't know what it is to wake up at night, and know something is
coming nearer and nearer--and then this--before one can remember all
that blesses it--or the Night of that Agony--and that He knows what
it is--'

'Do we not pray for you?' said Dr. May, fervently, 'in church and at
home? and is not this an answer? Am I to take this drawing, Leonard,
that speaks so much?'

'If--if you think Miss May--would let me send it to her? Thank you,
it will be very kind of her. And please tell her, if it had not been
for that time at Coombe, I don't know how I could ever have felt the
ground under my feet. If I have one wish that never can be--'

'What wish, my dear, dear boy? Don't be afraid to say. Is it to see
her?'

'It was,' said Leonard, 'but I did not mean to say it. I know it
cannot be.'

'But, Leonard, she has said that if you wished it, she would come as
if you were lying on your bed at home, and with more reverence.'

Large tears of gratitude were swelling in Leonard's eyes, and he
pressed the Doctor's hand, but still said, almost inarticulately,
'Ought she?'

'I will bring her, my boy. It will do her good to see how--how her
pupil, as they have always called you in joke, Leonard, can be
willing to bear the Cross after his Master. She has never let go for
a moment the trust that it was well with you.'

'Oh! Dr. May, it was the one thing--and when I had gone against all
her wishes. It is so good of her! It is the one thing--' and there
was no doubt from his face that he was indeed happy.

And Dr. May went home that day softened and almost cheered, well-nigh
as though he had had a promise of Leonard's life, and convinced that
in the region to which the spirits of Ethel and her pupil could
mount, resignation would silence the wailings of grief and sorrow;
the things invisible were more than a remedy for the things visible.

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