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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




Caroline and Annie Cheviot were ladylike, nice-looking girls; but
when they found no croquet mallets in the garden, they seemed at a
loss what life had to offer at Stoneborough! Gertrude pronounced
that 'she played at it sometimes at Maplewood, where she had nothing
better to do,' and then retreated to her own devices. Ethel's heart
sank both with dread of the afternoon, and with self-reproach at her
spoilt child's discourtesy, whence she knew there would be no rousing
her without an incapacitating discussion; and on she wandered in the
garden with the guests, receiving instruction where the hoops might
be planted, and hearing how nice it would be for her sister to have
such an object, such a pleasant opportunity of meeting one's friends
--an interest for every day. 'No wonder they think I want an object
in life,' thought Ethel; 'how awfully tiresome I must be! Poor
things, what can I say to make it pleasanter?--Do you know this
Dielytra? I think it is the prettiest of modern flowers, but I wish
we might call it Japan fumitory, or by some English name.'

'I used to garden once, but we have no flower-beds now, they spoilt
the lawn for croquet.'

'And here comes Tom,' thought Ethel; 'poor Tom, he will certainly be
off to London this evening.'

Tom, however, joined the listless promenade; and the first time
croquet was again mentioned, observed that he had seen the Andersons
knocking about the balls in the new gardens by the river; and
proposed to go down and try to get up a match. There was an instant
brightening, and Tom stepped into the drawing-room, and told Daisy to
come with them.

'To play at croquet with the Andersons in the tea-gardens!' she
exclaimed. 'No, I thank you, Thomas!'

He laid his hand on her shoulder--'Gertrude,' he said, 'it is time to
have done being a spoilt baby. If you let Ethel fag herself ill, you
will rue it all your life.'

Frightened, but without clear comprehension, she turned two scared
eyes on him, and replaced the hat that she had thrown on the table,
just as Ethel and the others came in.

'Not you, Ethel,' said Tom; 'you don't know the game.'

'I can learn,' said Ethel, desperately bent on her duty.

'We would teach you,' volunteered the Cheviots.

'You would not undertake it if you knew better,' said Tom, smiling.
'Ethel's hands are not her strong point.'

'Ethel would just have to be croqued all through by her partner,'
said Gertrude.

'Besides, my father will be coming in and wanting you,' added Tom;
'he is only at the hospital or somewhere about the town. I'll look
after this child.'

And the two sisters, delighted that poor little Gertrude should have
such a holiday treat as croquet in the public gardens, away from her
governess elder sister, walked off glorious; while Ethel, breathing
forth a heavy sigh, let herself sink into a chair, feeling as if the
silence were in itself invaluable, and as if Tom could not be enough
thanked for having gained it for her.

She was first roused by the inquiry, 'Shall I take in this letter,
ma'am? it is charged four shillings over-weight. And it is for Mr.
Thomas, ma'am,' impressively concluded the parlour-maid, as one
penetrated by Mr. Thomas's regard to small economies.

Ethel beheld a letter bloated beyond the capacities of the two
bewigged Washingtons that kept guard in its corner, and addressed in
a cramped hand unknown to her; but while she hesitated, her eye fell
on another American letter directed to Miss Mary May, in Averil
Ward's well-known writing, and turning both round, she found they had
the same post-mark, and thereupon paid the extra charge, and placed
the letter where Tom was most likely to light naturally on it without
public comment. The other letter renewed the pang at common property
being at an end. 'No, Mab,' she said, taking the little dog into her
lap, 'we shall none of us hear a bit of it! But at least it is a
comfort that this business is over! You needn't creep under sofas
now, there's nobody to tread upon your dainty little paws. What is
to be done, Mab, to get out of a savage humour--except thinking how
good-natured poor Tom is!'

There was not much sign of savage humour in the face that was lifted
up as Dr. May came in from the hospital, and sitting down by his
daughter, put his arm round her. 'So there's another bird flown,' he
said. 'We shall soon have the old nest to ourselves, Ethel.'

'The Daisy is not going just yet,' said Ethel, stroking back the thin
flying flakes over his temples. 'If we may believe her, never!'

'Ah! she will be off before we can look round,' said the Doctor;
'when once the trick of marrying gets among one's girls, there's no
end to it, as long as they last out.'

'Nor to one's boys going out into the world,' said Ethel: both of
them talking as if she had been his wife, rather than one of these
fly-away younglings herself.

'Ah! well,' he said, 'it's very pretty while it lasts, and one keeps
the creatures; but after all, one doesn't rear them for one's own
pleasure. That only comes by the way of their chance good-will to
one.'

'For shame, Doctor!' said Ethel, pretending to shake him by the
collar.

'I was thinking,' he added, 'that we must not require too much.
People must have their day, and in their own fashion; and I wish you
would tell Tom--I've no patience to do it myself--that I don't mean
to hamper him. As long as it is a right line, he may take whichever
he pleases, and I'll do my best to set him forward in it; but it is a
pity--'

'Perhaps a few years of travelling, or of a professorship, might give
him time to think differently,' said Ethel.

'Not he,' said the Doctor; 'the more a man lives in the world, the
more he depends on it. Where is the boy? is he gone without
vouchsafing a good-bye?'

'Oh no, he has taken pity on Annie and Caroline Cheviot's famine of
croquet, and gone with them to the gardens.'

'A spice of flirtation never comes amiss to him.'

'There, that's the way!' said Ethel, half-saucily, half-caressingly;
'that poor fellow never can do right! Isn't it the very thing to
keep him away from home, that we all may steal a horse, and he can't
look over the wall, no, not with a telescope?'

'I can't help it, Ethel. It may be very wrong and unkind of me--
Heaven forgive me if it is, and prevent me from doing the boy any
harm! but I never can rid myself of a feeling of there being
something behind when he seems the most straightforward. If he had
only not got his grandfather's mouth and nose! And,' smiling after
all--'I don't know what I said to be so scolded; all lads flirt, and
you can't deny that Master Tom divided his attentions pretty freely
last year between Mrs. Pugh and poor Ave Ward.'

'This time, I believe, it was out of pure kindness to me,' said
Ethel, 'so I am bound to his defence. He dragged off poor Daisy to
chaperon them, that I might have a little peace.'

'Ah! he came down on us this morning,' said the Doctor, 'on Richard
and Flora and me, and gave us a lecture on letting you grow old,
Ethel--said you were getting over-tasked, and no one heeding it; and
looking--let's look'--and he took off his spectacles, put his hand on
her shoulder, and studied her face.

'Old enough to be a respectable lady of the house, I hope,' said
Ethel.

'Wiry enough for most things,' said the Doctor, patting her shoulder,
reassured; 'but we must take care, Ethel; if you don't fatten
yourself up, we shall have Flora coming and carrying you off to
London for a change, and for Tom to practise on.

'That is a threat! I expected he had been prescribing for me
already, never to go near Cocksmoor, for that's what people always
begin by--'

'Nothing worse than pale ale.' At which Ethel made one of her faces.
'And to make a Mary of that chit of a Daisy. Well, you may do as you
please--only take care, or Flora will be down upon us.'

'Tom has been very helpful and kind to me,' said Ethel. 'And, papa,
he has seen Leonard, and he says he looked so noble that to shake
hands with him made him feel quite small.'

'I never heard anything so much to Tom's credit! Well, and what did
he say of the dear lad?'

The next step was to mention Averil's letter to Mary, which could not
be sent on till tidings had been permitted by Mr. Cheviot.

'Let us see it,' said the Doctor.

'Do you think Charles Cheviot would like it?'

'Cheviot is a man of sense,' said the open-hearted Doctor, 'and there
may be something to authorize preventing this unlucky transfer of her
fortune.'

Nothing could be further from it; but it was a long and interesting
letter, written in evidently exhilarated spirits, and with a hopeful
description of the new scenes. Ethel read it to her father, and he
told every one about it when they came in. Tom manifested no
particular interest; but he did not go by the mail train that night,
and was not visible all the morning. He caught Ethel alone however
at noon, and said, 'Ethel, I owe you this,' offering the amount she
had paid for the letter.

'Thank you,' she said, wondering if this was to be all she should
hear about it.

'I am going by the afternoon train,' he added; 'I have been over to
Blewer. It is true, Ethel, the fellow can't stand it! he has sent
down a manager, and is always in London! Most likely to dispose of
it by private contract there, they say.'

'And what has become of old Hardy?'

'Poor old fellow, he has struck work, looks terribly shaky. He took
me for my father at first sight, and began to apologize most
plaintively--said no one else had ever done him any good. I advised
him to come in and see my father, though he is too far gone to do
much for him.'

'Poor old man, can he afford to come in now?'

'Why, I helped him with the cart hire. It is no use any way, he
knows no more than we do, and his case is confirmed; but he thinks he
has offended my father, and he'll die more in peace for having had
him again. Look here, what a place they have got to.'

And without further explanation of the 'they,' Tom placed a letter in
Ethel's hands.

'My Dear Mr. Thomas,

'I send you the objects I promised for your microscope; I could not
get any before because we were in the city; but if you like these I
can get plenty more at Massissauga, where we are now. We came here
last week, and the journey was very nice, only we went bump bump so
often, and once we stuck in a marsh, and were splashed all over. We
are staying with Mr. Muller and Cora till our own house is quite
ready; it was only begun a fortnight ago, and we are to get in next
week. I thought this would have been a town, it looked so big and so
square in the plan; but it is all trees still, and there are only
thirteen houses built yet. Ours is all by itself in River Street,
and all the trees near it have been killed, and stand up all dead and
white, because nobody has time to cut them down. It looks very
dismal, but Ave says it will be very nice by and by, and, Rufus
Muller says it has mammoth privileges. I send you a bit of
rattlesnake skin. They found fifteen of them asleep under a stone,
just where our house is built, and sometimes they come into the
kitchen. I do not know the names of the other things I send; and I
could not ask Ave, for she said you would not want to be bothered
with a little girl's letter, and I was not to ask for an answer.
Rosa Willis says no young lady of my age would ask her sister's
permission, and not even her mother's, unless her mamma was very
intellectual and highly educated, and always saw the justice of her
arguments; but Minna and I do not mean to be like that. I would tell
Ave if you did write to me, but she need not read it unless she
liked.
'I am, your affectionate little friend,
'ELLA.'


'Well!' said Tom, holding out his hand for more when she had restored
this epistle. 'You have heard all there was in it, except--'

'Except what I want to see.'

And Ethel, as she had more or less intended all along, let him have
Averil's letter, since the exception was merely a few tender words of
congratulation to Mary. The worst had been done already by her
father; and it may here be mentioned that though nothing was said in
answer to her explanation of the opening of the letter, the head-
master never recovered the fact, and always attributed it to his dear
sister Ethel.

'For the future,' said Tom, as he gave back the thin sheets, 'they
will all be for the Cheviots' private delectation.'

'I shall begin on my own score,' said Ethel. 'You know if you answer
this letter, you must not mention that visit of yours, or you will be
prohibited, and one would not wish to excite a domestic secession.'

'It would serve the unnatural scoundrel right,' said Tom. 'Well, I
must go and put up my things. You'll keep me up to what goes on at
home, and if there's anything out there to tell Leonard--'

'Wait a moment, Tom!'--and she told him what the Doctor had said
about his plans.

'Highly educated and intellectual,' was all the answer that Tom
vouchsafed; and whether he were touched or not she could not gather.

Yet her spirit felt less weary and burdened, and more full of hope
than it had been for a long time past. Averil's letter showed the
exhilaration of the change, and of increasing confidence and comfort
in her friend Cora Muller. Cora's Confirmation had brought the girls
into contact with the New York clergy, and had procured them an
introduction to the clergyman of Winiamac, the nearest church, so
that there was much less sense of loneliness, moreover, the fuller
and more systematic doctrine, and the development of the beauty and
daily guidance of the Church, had softened the bright American girl,
so as to render her infinitely dearer to her English friend, and they
were as much united as they could be, where the great leading event
of the life of one remained a mystery to the other. Yet perhaps it
helped to begin a fresh life, that the intimate companion of that new
course should be entirely disconnected with the past.

Averil threw herself into the present with as resolute a will as she
could muster. With much spirit she described the arrival at the
Winiamac station, and the unconcealed contempt with which the mass of
luggage was regarded by the Western world, who 'reckoned it would be
fittest to make kindlings with.' Heavy country wagons were to bring
the furniture; the party themselves were provided for by a light
wagon and a large cart, driven by Cora's brother, Mordaunt, and by
the farming-man, Philetus, a gentleman who took every occasion of
asserting his equality, if not his superiority to the new-comers;
demanded all the Christian names, and used them without prefix; and
when Henry impressively mentioned his eldest sister as Miss Warden,
stared and said, 'Why, Doctor, I thought she was not your old
woman!'--the Western epithet of a wife. But as Cora was quite
content to leave Miss behind her in civilized society, and as they
were assured that to stand upon ceremony would leave them without
domestic assistance, the sisters had implored Henry to waive all
preference for a polite address.

The loveliness of the way was enchanting--the roads running straight
as an arrow through glorious forest lands of pine, beech, maple, and
oak, in the full glory of spring, and the perspective before and
behind making a long narrowing green bower of meeting branches; the
whole of the borders of the road covered with lovely flowers--May-
wings, a butterfly-like milkwort, pitcher-plant, convolvulus; new
insects danced in the shade--golden orioles, blue birds, the great
American robin, the field officer, with his orange epaulettes,
glanced before them. Cora was in ecstasy at the return to forest
scenery, the Wards at its novelty, and the escape from town. Too
happy were they at first to care for the shaking and bumping of the
road, and the first mud-hole into which they plunged was almost a
joke, under Mordaunt Muller's assurances that it was easy fording,
though the splashes flew far and wide. Then there was what Philetus
called 'a mash with a real handsome bridge over it,' i. e. a
succession of tree trunks laid side by side for about a quarter of a
mile. Here the female passengers insisted on walking--even Cora,
though her brother and Philetus both laughed her to scorn; and more
especially for her foot-gear, delicate kid boots, without which no
city damsel stirred. Averil and her sisters, in the English boots
scorned at New York, had their share in the laugh, while picking
their way from log to log, hand in hand, and exciting Philetus's
further disdain by their rapture with the glorious flowers of the
bog.

But where was Massissauga? Several settlements had been passed, the
houses looking clean and white in forest openings, with fields where
the lovely spring green of young maize charmed the eye.

At last the road grew desolate. There were a few patches of corn, a
few squalid-looking log or frame houses, a tract of horrible dreary
blackness; and still more horrible, beyond it was a region of
spectres--trees white and stripped bare, lifting their dead arms like
things blasted. Averil cried out in indignant horror, 'Who has done
this?'

'We have,' answered Mordaunt. 'This is Maclellan Square, Miss
Warden, and there's River Street,' pointing down an avenue of
skeletons. 'If you could go to sleep for a couple of years, you
would wake up to find yourself in a city such as I would not fear to
compare with any in Europe. Your exhausted civilization is not as
energetic as ours, I calculate.'

The energetic young colonist turned his horse's head up a slight
rising ground, where something rather more like habitation appeared;
a great brick-built hotel, and some log houses, with windows
displaying the wares needed for daily consumption, and a few farm
buildings. It was backed by corn-fields; and this was the great
Maclellan Street, the chief ornament of Massissauga. Not one house
had the semblance of a garden; the wilderness came up to the very
door, except where cattle rendered some sort of enclosure necessary.

Cora exclaimed, 'Oh, Mordaunt, I thought you would have had a garden
for me!'

'I can fix it any time you like,' said he; 'but you'll be the
laughing-stock of the place, and never keep a flower.'

The Mullers' abode was a sound substantial log house, neatly
whitened, and with green shutters, bearing a festal appearance, full
of welcome, as Mr. Muller, his tall bearded son Rufus, and a thin but
motherly-looking elderly woman, came forth to meet the travellers;
and in the front, full stare, stood a trollopy-looking girl, every
bar of her enormous hoop plainly visible through her washed-out
flimsy muslin. This was Miss Ianthe, who condescended to favour the
family with her assistance till she should have made up dollars
enough to buy a new dress! The elder woman, who went by the name of
Cousin Deborah, would have been a housekeeper in England--here she
was one of the family--welcomed Cora with an exchange of kisses, and
received the strangers with very substantial hospitality, though with
pity at their unfitness for their new home, and utter incredulity as
to their success.

Here the Wards had been since their arrival. Their frame-house, near
the verdant bank of the river, was being finished for them; and a
great brass plate, with Henry's new name and his profession, had
already adorned the door. The furniture was coming; Cousin Deborah
had hunted up a Cleopatra Betsy, who might perhaps stay with them if
she were treated on terms of equality, a field was to be brought into
cultivation as soon as any labour could be had. Minna was looking
infinitely better already, and Averil and Cora were full of designs
for rival housewifery, Averil taking lessons meantime in ironing,
dusting, and the arts of the kitchen, and trusting that in the two
years' time, the skeletons would have given place--if not indeed to
houses, to well-kept fields. Such was her account.

How much was reserved for fear of causing anxiety? Who could guess?




CHAPTER XXI



Quanto si fende
La rocca per dar via a chi va suso
N'andai 'nfino ove'l cerchiar si prende
Com'io nel quinto giro fui dischiuso
Vidi gente per esso che piangea
Glacendo a terra tutta volta in giuso
Adhaesit pavimento anima mia
Sentia dir loro con si alti sospiri
Che la parola appena s'intendea.
'O eletti di Deo, i cui soffriri
E giustizia e speranza fan men duri--'
DANTE. Purgatorio



Ah, sir, we have learnt the way to get your company,' said Hector
Ernescliffe, as he welcomed his father-in-law at Maplewood; 'we have
only to get under sentence.'

'Sick or sorry, Hector; that's the attraction to an old doctor.'

'And,' added Hector, with the importance of his youthful magisterial
dignity, 'I hope I have arranged matters for you to see him. I wrote
about it; but I am afraid you will not be able to see him alone.'

Great was the satisfaction with which Hector took the conduct of the
expedition to Portland Island; though he was inclined to encumber it
with more lionizing than the good Doctor's full heart was ready for.
Few words could he obtain, as in the bright August sunshine they
steamed out from the pier at Weymouth, and beheld the gray sides of
the island, scarred with stone quarries, stretching its lengthening
breakwater out on one side, and on the other connected with the land
by the pale dim outline of the Chesill Bank. The water was dancing
in golden light; white-sailed or red-sailed craft plied across it; a
ship of the line lay under the lee of the island, practising gunnery,
the three bounds of her balls marked by white columns of spray each
time of touching the water, pleasure parties crowded the steamer; but
to Dr. May the cheerfulness of the scene made a depressing contrast
to the purpose of his visit, as he fixed his eyes on the squared
outline of the crest of the island, and the precipitous slope from
thence to the breakwater, where trains of loaded trucks rushed forth
to the end, discharged themselves, and hurried back.

Landing at the quay, in the midst of confusion, Hector smiled at the
Doctor's innocent proposal of walking, and bestowed him in a little
carriage, with a horse whose hard-worked patience was soon called
out, as up and up they went, through the narrow, but lively street,
past the old-fashioned inn, made memorable by a dinner of George
III.; past the fossil tree, clamped against a house like a vine; past
heaps of slabs ready for transport, a church perched up high on the
slope, and a parsonage in a place that looked only accessible to
goats. Lines of fortification began to reveal themselves, and the
Doctor thought himself arrived, but he was to wind further on, and be
more struck with the dreariness and inhospitality of the rugged rock,
almost bare of vegetation, the very trees of stone, and older than
our creation; the melancholy late ripening harvest within stone
walls, the whole surface furrowed by stern rents and crevices riven
by nature, or cut into greater harshness by the quarries hewn by man.
The grave strangeness of the region almost marked it out for a place
of expiation, like the mountain rising desolate from the sea, where
Dante placed his prisoners of hope.

The walls of a vast enclosure became visible; and over them might be
seen the tops of great cranes, looking like the denuded ribs of
umbrellas. Buildings rose beyond, with deep arched gateways; and a
small town was to be seen further off. Mr. Ernescliffe sent in his
card at the governor's house, and found that the facilities he had
asked for had been granted. They were told that the prisoner they
wished to see was at work at some distance; and while he was
summoned, they were to see the buildings. Dr. May had little heart
for making a sight of them, except so far as to judge of Leonard's
situation; and he was passively conducted across a gravelled court,
turfed in the centre, and containing a few flower-beds, fenced in by
Portland's most natural productions, zamias and ammonites, together
with a few stone coffins, which had once inclosed corpses of soldiers
of the Roman garrison. Large piles of building inclosed the
quadrangle; and passing into the first of these, the Doctor began to
realize something of Leonard's present existence. There lay before
him the broad airy passage, and either side the empty cells of this
strange hive, as closely packed, and as chary of space, as the
compartments of the workers of the honeycomb.

'Just twice as wide as a coffin,' said Hector, doing the honours of
one, where there was exactly width to stand up between the bed and
the wall of corrugated iron; 'though, happily, there is more
liberality of height.'

There was a ground glass window opposite to the door, and a shelf,
holding a Bible, Prayer and hymn book, and two others, one religious,
and one secular, from the library. A rust-coloured jacket, with a
black patch marked with white numbers, and a tarpaulin hat, crossed
with two lines of red paint on the crown, hung on the wall. The
Doctor asked for Leonard's cell, but it was in a distant gallery, and
he was told that when he had seen one, he had seen all. He asked if
these were like those that Leonard had previously inhabited at
Milbank and Pentonville, and hearing that they were on the same
model, he almost gasped at the thought of the young enterprising
spirit thus caged for nine weary months, and to whom this bare
confined space was still the only resting-place. He could not look
by any means delighted with the excellence of the arrangements, grant
it though he might; and he was hurried on to the vast kitchens, their
ranges of coppers full of savoury steaming contents, and their racks
of loaves looking all that was substantial and wholesome; but his
eyes were wandering after the figures engaged in cooking, to whom he
was told such work was a reward; he was trying to judge how far they
could still enjoy life; but he turned from their stolid low stamp of
face with a sigh, thinking how little their condition could tell him
of that of a cultivated nature.

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