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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




The table had just been covered with preparations for a meal, and the
glow of the fire was beginning to brighten the twilight, when the
sound of a horse's feet came near, and Henry rode past the window,
but did not appear for a considerable space, having of late been
reduced to become his own groom. But even in the noise of the hoofs,
even in the wave of the hand, the girls had detected gratified
excitement.

'Charleston has surrendered! The rebels have submitted!' cried Cora.

And Averil's heart throbbed with its one desperate hope. No! _That_
would have brought him in at once.

After all, both were in a state to feel it a little flat when he came
in presenting a letter to Miss Muller, and announcing, 'I have had a
proposal, ladies; what would you say to seeing me a surgeon to the
Federal forces?--Do you bid me go, Miss Muller?'

'I bid every one go who can be useful to my country,' said Cora.

'Don't look alarmed, Averil,' said Henry, affectionately, as he met
her startled eyes; 'there is no danger. A surgeon need never expose
himself.'

'But how--what has made you think of it?' asked Averil, faintly.

'A letter from Mr. Muller--a very kind letter. He tells me that
medical men are much wanted, and that an examination by a Board is
all that is required, the remuneration is good, and it will be an
introduction that will avail me after the termination of the war,
which will end with the winter at latest.'

'And father has accepted an office in the commissariat department!'
exclaimed Cora, from her letter.

'Yes,' answered Henry; 'he tells me that, pending more progression
here, it is wiser for us both to launch into the current of public
events, and be floated upwards by the stream.'

'Does he want you to come to him, Cora?' was all that Averil
contrived to say.

'Oh no, he will be in constant locomotion,' said Cora. 'I shall stay
to keep house for Rufus. And here are some directions for him that I
must carry home. Don't come, Dr. Warden; I shall never cure you of
thinking we cannot stir without an escort. You will want to put a
little public spirit into this dear Ave. That's her one defect; and
when you are one of us, she will be forced to give us her heart.'

And away ran the bright girl, giving her caresses to each sister as
she went.

The little ones broke out, 'O, Henry, Henry, you must not go away to
the wars!' and Averil's pleading eyes spoke the same.

Then Henry sat down and betook himself to argument. It would be
folly to lose the first opening to employment that had presented
itself. He grieved indeed to leave his sisters in this desolate,
unhealthy place; but they were as essentially safe as at
Stoneborough; their living alone for a few weeks, or at most months,
would be far less remarkable here than there; and he would be likely
to be able to improve or to alter their present situation, whereas
they were now sinking deeper and more hopelessly into poverty every
day. Then, too, he read aloud piteous accounts of the want of
medical attendance, showing that it was absolutely a cruelty to
detain such assistance from the sick and wounded. This argument was
the one most appreciated by Averil and Minna. The rest were but
questions of prudence; this touched their hearts. Men lying in close
tents, or in crowded holds of ships, with festering wounds and
fevered lips, without a hand to help them--some, too, whom they had
seen at New York, and whose exulting departure they had witnessed--
sufferers among whom their own Cora's favourite brother might at any
moment be numbered--the thought brought a glow of indignation against
themselves for having wished to withhold him.

'Yes, go, Henry; it is right, and you shall hear not another word of
objection,' said Averil.

'You can write or telegraph the instant you want me. And it will be
for a short time,' said Henry, half repenting when the opposition had
given way.

'Oh, we shall get on very well,' said Minna, cheerfully; 'better,
perhaps for you know we don't mind Far West manners; and I'll have
learnt to do all sorts of things as well as Cora when you come home!'

And Henry, after a year's famine of practice, was in better spirits
than since that fatal summer morning. Averil felt how different a
man is in his vocation, and deprived of it.

'Oh yes,' she said to herself, 'if I had let ourselves be a drag on
him when he is so much needed, I could never have had the face to
write to our dear sufferer at home in his noble patience. It is
better that we should be desolate than that he should be a wreck, or
than that mass of sickness should be left untended! And the more
desolate, the more sure of One Protector.'

There was true heroism in the spirit in which this young girl braced
herself to uncomplaining acceptance of desertion in this unwholesome
swamp, with her two little ailing sisters, beside the sluggish
stream, amid the skeleton trees--heroism the greater because there
was no enthusiastic patriotism to uphold her--it was only the land of
her captivity, whence she looked towards home like Judah to
Jerusalem.




CHAPTER XXIII



Prisoner of hope thou art; look up and sing,
In hope of promised spring.
Christian Year


In the summer of 1862, Tom May was to go up for his examination at
the College of Physicians, but only a day or two before it he made
his appearance at home, in as much excitement as it was in him to
betray. Hazlitt, the banker's clerk at Whitford, had written to him
tidings of the presentation of the missing cheque for £25, which
Bilson had paid to old Axworthy shortly before the murder, and which
Leonard had mentioned as in the pocket-book containing his receipt
for the sum that had been found upon him. Tom had made a halt at
Whitford, and seen the cheque, which had been backed by the word
Axworthy, with an initial that, like all such signatures of the
nephew, might stand either for S. or F., and the stiff office hand of
both the elder and younger Axworthy was so much alike, that no one
could feel certain whose writing it was. The long concealment, after
the prisoner's pointed reference to it, was, however, so remarkable,
that the home conclave regarded the cause as won; and the father and
son hastened triumphantly to the attorneys' office.

Messrs. Bramshaw and Anderson were greatly struck, and owned that
their own minds were satisfied as to the truth of their client's
assertion; but they demurred as to the possibility of further steps.
An action for forgery, Tom's first hope, he saw to be clearly
impossible; Samuel Axworthy appeared to have signed the cheque in his
own name, and he had every right to it as his uncle's heir; and
though the long withholding of it, as well as his own departure, were
both suspicious circumstances, they were not evidence. Where was
there any certainty that the cheque had ever been in the pocket-book
or even if it had, how did it prove the existence of young Ward's
acknowledgment? Might it not have been in some receptacle of papers
hitherto not opened? There was no sufficient case to carry to the
police, after a conviction like Leonard's, to set them on tracing the
cheque either to an unknown robber, or to Sam Axworthy, its rightful
owner.

Mr. Bramshaw likewise dissuaded Dr. May from laying the case before
the Secretary of State, as importunity without due grounds would only
tell against him if any really important discovery should be made:
and the Doctor walked away, with blood boiling at people's coolness
to other folk's tribulations, and greatly annoyed with Tom for having
acceded to the representations of the men of law, and declining all
co-operation in drawing up a representation for the Home Office, on
the plea that he had no time to lose in preparing for his own
examination, and must return to town by the next train, which he did
without a syllable of real converse with any one at home.

The Doctor set to work with his home helpers, assisted by Dr.
Spencer; but the work of composition seemed to make the ground give
way under their feet, and a few adroit remarks from Dr. Spencer
finally showed him and Ethel that they had not yet attained the prop
for the lever that was to move the world. He gave it up, but still
he did not quite forgive Tom for having been so easily convinced, and
ready to be dismissed to his own affairs.

However, Dr. May was gratified by the great credit with which his son
passed his examination, and took his degree; and Sir Matthew Fleet
himself wrote in high terms of his talent, diligence, and steadiness,
volunteering hopes of being able to put him forward in town in his
own line, for which Tom had always had a preference; and adding, that
it was in concurrence with his own recommendation that the young man
wished to pursue his studies at Paris--he had given him introductions
that would enable him to do so to the greatest advantage, and he
hoped his father would consent. The letter was followed up by one
from Tom himself, as usual too reasonable and authoritative to be
gainsaid, with the same representation of advantages to be derived
from a course of the Parisian hospitals.

'Ah, well! he is after old Fleet's own heart,' said Dr. May, between
pride and mortification. 'I should not grudge poor Fleet some one to
take interest in his old age, and I did not look to see him so warm
about anything. He has not forgotten Calton Hill! But the boy must
have done very well! I say, shall we see him Sir Thomas some of
these days, Ethel, and laugh at ourselves for having wanted, to make
him go round in a mill after our old fashion?'

'You were contented to run round in your mill,' said Ethel, fondly,
'and maybe he will too.'

'No, no, Ethel, I'll not have him persuaded. Easy-going folk, too
lazy for ambition, have no right to prescribe for others. Ambition
turned sour is a very dangerous dose! Much better let it fly off!
I mean to look out of my mill yet, and see Sir Thomas win the stakes.
Only I wish he would come and see us; tell him he shall not hear a
word to bother him about the old practice. People have lived and
died at Stoneborough without a May to help them, and so they will
again, I suppose.'

Ethel was very glad to see how her father had made up his mind to
what was perhaps the most real disappointment of his life, but she
was grieved that Tom did not respond to the invitation, and next
wrote from Paris. It was one of his hurried notes, great contrasts
to such elaborate performances as his recent letter. 'Thanks, many
thanks to my father,' he said; 'I knew you would make him see reason,
and he always yields generously. I was too much hurried to come
home; could not afford to miss the trail. I had not time to say
before that the Bank that sent the cheque to Whitford had it from a
lodging-house in town. Landlord had a writ served on S. A.; as he
was embarking at Folkestone, he took out the draft and paid. He knew
its import, if Bramshaw did not. I hope my father was not vexed at
my not staying. There are things I cannot stand, namely, discussions
and Gertrude.'

Gertrude was one of the chief cares upon Ethel's mind. She spent
many thoughts upon the child, and even talked her over with Flora.

'What is it, Flora? is it my bad management? She is a good girl, and
a dear girl; but there is such a want of softness about her.'

'There is a want of softness about all the young ladies of the day,'
returned Flora.

'I have heard you say so, but--'

'We have made girls sensible and clear-headed, till they have grown
hard. They have been taught to despise little fears and illusions,
and it is certainly not becoming.'

'We had not fears, we were taught to be sensible.'

'Yes, but it is in the influence of the time! It all tends to make
girls independent.'

'That's very well for the fine folks you meet in your visits, but it
does not account for my Daisy--always at home, under papa's eye--
having turned nineteenth century--What is it, Flora? She is
reverent in great things, but not respectful except to papa, and that
would not have been respect in one of us--only he likes her
sauciness.'

'That is it, partly.'

'No, I won't have that said,' exclaimed Ethel. 'Papa is the only
softening influence in the house--the only one that is tender. You
see it is unlucky that Gertrude has so few that she really does love,
with anything either reverend or softening about them. She is always
at war with Charles Cheviot, and he has not fun enough, is too
lumbering altogether, to understand her, or set her down in the right
way; and she domineers over Hector like the rest of us. I did hope
the babies might have found out her heart, but, unluckily, she does
not take to them. She is only bored by the fuss that Mary and
Blanche make about them.

'You know we are all jealous of both Charles Cheviots, elder and
younger.'

'I often question whether I should not have taken her down and made
her ashamed of all the quizzing and teasing at the time of Mary's
marriage. But one cannot be always spoiling bright merry mischief,
and I am only elder sister after all. It is a wonder she is as good
to me as she is.'

'She never remembered our mother, poor dear.'

'Ah! that is the real mischief,' said Ethel. 'Mamma would have given
the atmosphere of gentleness and discretion, and so would Margaret.
How often I have been made, by the merest pained look, to know when
what I said was saucy or in bad taste, and I--I can only look
forbidding, or else blurt out a reproof that _will_ not come softly.'

'The youngest _must_ be spoilt,' said Flora, 'that's an ordinance of
nature. It ends when a boy goes to school, and when a girl--'

'When?'

'When she marries--or when she finds out what trouble is,' said
Flora.

'Is that all you can hold out to my poor Daisy?'

'Well, it is the way of the world. There is just now a reaction from
sentiment, and it is the less feminine variety. The softness will
come when there is a call for it. Never mind when the foundation is
safe.'

'If I could only see that child heartily admiring and looking up! I
don't mean love--there used to be a higher, nobler reverence!'

'Such as you and Norman used to bestow on Shakespeare and Scott, and
--the vision of Cocksmoor.'

'Not only _used_,' said Ethel.

'Yes, it is your soft side,' said Flora; 'it is what answers the
purpose of sentiment in people like you. It is what I should have
thought living with you would have put into any girl; but Gertrude
has a satirical side, and she follows the age.'

'I wish you would tell her so--it is what she especially wants not to
do! But the spirit of opposition is not the thing to cause
tenderness.'

'No, you must wait for something to bring it out. She is very kind
to my poor little Margaret, and I won't ask how she talks _of_ her.'

'Tenderly; oh yes, that she always would do.'

'There, then, Ethel, if she can talk tenderly of Margaret, there
can't be much amiss at the root.'

'No; and you don't overwhelm the naughty girl with baby talk.'

'Like our happy, proud young mothers,' sighed Flora; and then letting
herself out--'but indeed, Ethel, Margaret is very much improved. She
has really begun to wish to be good. I think she is struggling with
herself.'

'Something to love tenderly, something to reverence highly.' So
meditated Ethel, as she watched her sunny-haired, open-faced Daisy,
so unconquerably gay and joyous that she gave the impression of
sunshine without shade. There are stages of youth that are in
themselves unpleasing, and yet that are nobody's fault, nay, which
may have within them seeds of strength. Tom's satire had fostered
Daisy's too congenial spirit, and he reaped the consequence in the
want of repose and sympathy that were driving him from home, and
shutting him up within himself. Would he ever forgive that flippant
saying, which Ethel had recollected with shame ever since--shame more
for herself than for the child, who probably had forgotten, long ago,
her 'shaft at random sent'?

Then Ethel would wonder whether, after all, her discontent with
Gertrude's speeches was only from feeling older and graver, and
perhaps from a certain resentment at finding how the course of time
was wearing down the sharp edge of compassion towards Leonard.

A little more about Leonard was gathered when the time came of
release for his friend the clerk Brown. This young man had an uncle
at Paris, engaged in one of the many departments connected with steam
that carry Englishmen all over the world, and Leonard obtained
permission to write to Dr. Thomas May, begging him to call upon the
uncle, and try if he could be induced to employ the penitent and
reformed nephew under his own eye. It had been wise in Leonard to
write direct, for if the request had been made through any one at
home, Tom would have considered it as impossible; but he could not
resist the entreaty, and his mission was successful. The uncle was
ready to be merciful, and undertook all the necessary arrangements
for, and even the responsibility of, bringing the ticket-of-leave man
to Paris, where he found him a desk in his office. One of Tom's few
detailed epistles was sent to Ethel after this arrival, when the
uncle had told him how the nephew had spoken of his fellow-prisoner.
It was to Leonard Ward that the young man had owed the inclination to
open his heart to religious instruction, hitherto merely endured as a
portion of the general infliction of the penalty, a supposed engine
for dealing with the superstitious, but entirely beneath his
attention. The sight of the educated face had at first attracted
him, but when he observed the reverential manner in chapel, he
thought it mere acting the ''umble prisoner,' till he observed how
unobtrusive, unconscious, and retiring was every token of devotion,
and watched the eyes, brightened or softened in praise or in prayer,
till he owned the genuineness and guessed the depth of both, then
perceived in school how far removed his unknown comrade was from the
mere superstitious boor. This was the beginning. The rest had been
worked out by the instruction and discipline of the place, enforced
by the example, and latterly by the conversation, of his fellow-
prisoner, until he had come forth sincerely repenting, and with the
better hope for the future that his sins had not been against full
light.

He declared himself convinced that Ward far better merited to be at
large than he did, and told of the regard that uniform good conduct
was obtaining at last, though not till after considerable
persecution, almost amounting to personal danger from the worse sort
of convicts, who regarded him as a spy, because he would not connive
at the introduction of forbidden indulgences, and always stood by the
authorities. Once his fearless interposition had saved the life of a
warder, and this had procured him trust, and promotion to a class
where his companions were better conducted, and more susceptible to
good influences, and among them Brown was sure that his ready
submission and constant resolution to do his work were producing an
effect. As to his spirits, Brown had never known him break down but
once, and that was when he had come upon a curious fossil in the
stone. Otherwise he was grave and contented, but never laughed or
joked as even some gentlemen prisoners of more rank and age had been
known to do. The music in the chapel was his greatest pleasure, and
he had come to be regarded as an important element in the singing.

Very grateful was Dr. May to Tom for having learnt, and still more
for having transmitted, all these details, and Ethel was not the less
touched, because she knew they were to travel beyond Minster Street.
Those words of Mr. Wilmot's seemed to be working out their
accomplishment; and she thought so the more, when in early spring one
of Leonard's severe throat attacks led to his being sent after his
recovery to assist the schoolmaster, instead of returning to the
carpenter's shed; and he was found so valuable in the school that the
master begged to retain his services.

That spring was a grievous one in Indiana. The war, which eighteen
months previously was to have come to an immediate end, was still
raging, and the successes that had once buoyed up the Northern States
with hope had long since been chequered by terrible reverses. On,
on, still fought either side, as though nothing could close the
strife but exhaustion or extinction; and still ardent, still
constant, through bereavement and privation, were either party to
their blood-stained flag. Mordaunt Muller had fallen in one of the
terrible battles on the Rappahannock; and Cora, while, sobbing in
Averil's arms, had still confessed herself thankful that it had been
a glorious death for his country's cause! And even in her fresh
grief, she had not endeavoured to withhold her other brother, when,
at the urgent summons of Government, he too had gone forth to join
the army.

Cora was advised to return to her friends at New York, but she
declared her intention of remaining to keep house with Cousin
Deborah. Unless Averil would come with her, nothing should induce
her to leave Massissauga, certainly not while Ella and Averil were
alternately laid low by the spring intermittent fever. Perhaps the
fact was that, besides her strong affection for Averil, she felt that
in her ignorance she had assisted her father in unscrupulously
involving them in a hazardous and unsuccessful speculation, and that
she was the more bound, in justice as well as in love and pity, to do
her best for their assistance. At any rate, Rufus had no sooner left
home, than she insisted on the three sisters coming to relieve her
loneliness--in other words, in removing them from the thin ill-built
frame house, gaping in every seam with the effects of weather, and
with damp oozing up between every board of the floor, the pestiferous
river-fog, the close air of the forest, and the view of the phantom
trees, now decaying and falling one against another.

Cousin Deborah, who had learnt to love and pity the forlorn English
girls, heartily concurred; and Averil consented, knowing that the dry
house and pure air were the best hope of restoring Ella's health.

Averil and Ella quickly improved, grew stronger in the intervals, and
suffered less during the attacks; but Minna, who in their own house
had been less ill, had waited on both, and supplied the endless
deficiencies of the kindly and faithful, but two-fisted Katty; Minna,
whose wise and simple little head had never failed in sensible
counsels, or tender comfort; Minna, whom the rudest and most self-
important far-wester never disobliged, Minna, the peace-maker, the
comfort and blessing--was laid low by fever, and fever that, as the
experienced eyes of Cousin Deborah at once perceived, 'meant
mischief.' Then it was that the real kindliness of heart of the
rough people of the West showed itself. The five wild young ladies,
whose successive domestic services had been such trouble, and whose
answer to a summons from the parlour had been, 'Did yer holler, Avy?
I thort I heerd a scritch,' each, from Cleopatra Betsy to Hetta Mary,
were constantly rushing in to inquire, or to present questionable
dainties and nostrums from their respective 'Mas'; the charwomen,
whom Minna had coaxed in her blandest manner to save trouble to
Averil and disgust to Henry, were officious in volunteers of nursing
and sitting up, the black cook at the hotel sent choice fabrics of
jelly and fragrant ice; and even Henry's rival, who had been so
strong against the insolence of a practitioner showing no
testimonials, no sooner came under the influence of the yearning,
entreating, but ever-patient eyes, than his attendance became
assiduous, his interest in the case ardent.

Henry himself was in the camp, before Vicksburg, with his hands too
full of piteous cases of wounds and fever to attempt the most hurried
visit.

'Sister, dear,' said the soft slow voice, one day when Averil had
been hoping her patient was asleep, 'are you writing to Henry?'

'Yes, my darling. Do you want to say anything?'

'Oh yes! so much;' and the eyes grew bright, and the breath gasping;
'please beg Henry--tell Henry--that I must--I can't bear it any
longer if I don't--'

'You must what, dear child? Henry would let you do anything he
could.'

'Oh, then, would he let me speak about dear Leonard?' and the child
grew deadly white when the words were spoken; but her eyes still
sought Averil's face, and grew terrified at the sight of the gush of
tears. 'O, Ave, Ave, tell me only--he is not dead!' and as Averil
could only make a sign, 'I do have such dreadful fancies about him,
and I think I could sleep if I only knew what was really true.'

'You shall, dear child, you shall, without waiting to hear from
Henry; I know he would let you.'

And only then did Averil know the full misery that Henry's decision
had inflicted on the gentle little heart, in childish ignorance,
imagining fetters and dungeons, even in her sober waking moods, and a
prey to untold horrors in every dream, exaggerated by feverishness
and ailment--horrors that, for aught she knew, might be veritable,
and made more awful by the treatment of his name as that of one dead.

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