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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




To hear of him as enjoying the open air and light of day, going to
church, singing their own favourite hymn tunes, and often visited by
Dr. May, was to her almost as great a joy as if she had heard of him
at liberty. And Averil had a more than usually cheerful letter to
read to her, one written in the infirmary during his recovery. His
letters to her were always cheerful, but this one was particularly
so, having been written while exhilarated by the relaxations
permitted to convalescents, and by enjoying an unwonted amount of
conversation with the chaplain and the doctor.

'So glad, so glad,' Minna was heard murmuring to herself again and
again; her rest was calmer than it had been for weeks, and the doctor
found her so much better that he trusted that a favourable change had
begun.

But it was only a gleam of hope. The weary fever held its prey, and
many as were the fluctuations, they always resulted in greater
weakness; and the wandering mind was not always able to keep fast
hold of the new comfort. Sometimes she would piteously clasp her
sister's hand, and entreat, 'Tell me again;' and sometimes the
haunting delirious fancies of chains and bars would drop forth from
the tongue that had lost its self-control; yet even at the worst came
the dear old recurring note, 'God will not let them hurt him, for he
has not done it!' Sometimes, more trying to Averil than all, she
would live over again the happy games with him, or sing their
favourite hymns and chants, or she would be heard pleading, 'O,
Henry, don't be cross to Leonard.'

Cora could not fail to remark the new name that mingled in the
unconscious talk; but she had learnt to respect Averil's reserve, and
she forbore from all questioning, trying even to warn Cousin Deborah,
who, with the experience of an elderly woman, remarked, 'That she had
too much to do to mind what a sick child rambled about. When Cora
had lived to her age, she would know how unaccountably they talked.'

But Averil felt the more impelled to an outpouring by this delicate
forbearance, and the next time she and Cora were sent out together to
breathe the air, while Cousin Deborah watched the patient, she told
the history, and to a sympathizing listener, without a moment's doubt
of Leonard's innocence, nor that American law would have managed
matters better.

'And now, Cora, you know why I told you there were bitterer sorrows
than yours.'

'Ah! Averil, I could have believed you once; but to know that he
never can come again! Now you always have hope.'

'My hope has all but gone,' said Averil. 'There is only one thing
left to look to. If I only can live till he is sent out to a colony,
then nothing shall keep me back from him!'

'And what would I give for even such a hope?'

'We have a better hope, both of us,' murmured Averil.

'It won't seem so long when it is over.'

Well was it for Averil that this fresh link of sympathy was riveted,
for day by day she saw the little patient wasting more hopelessly
away, and the fever only burning lower for want of strength to feed
on. Utterly exhausted and half torpid, there was not life or power
enough left in the child for them to know whether she was aware of
her condition. When they read Prayers, her lips always moved for the
Lord's Prayer and Doxology; and when the clergyman came out from
Winiamac, prayed by her and blessed her, she opened her eyes with a
look of comprehension; and if, according to the custom from the
beginning of her illness, the Psalms and Lessons were not read in her
room, she was uneasy, though she could hardly listen. So came Easter
Eve; and towards evening she was a little revived, and asked Averil
what day it was, then answered, 'I thought it would have been nice to
have died yesterday,'--it was the first time she mentioned death.
Averil told her she was better, but half repented, as the child sank
into torpor again; and Averil, no longer the bewildered girl who had
been so easily led from the death scene, knew the fitful breath and
fluttering pulse, and felt the blank dread stealing over her heart.

Again, however, the child looked up, and murmured, 'You have not read
to-day.' Cora, who had the Bible on her knee, gently obeyed, and
read on, where she was, the morning First Lesson, the same in the
American Church as in our own. Averil, dull with watching and
suffering, sat on dreamily, with the scent of primroses wafted to
her, as it were, by the association of the words, though her power to
attend to them was gone. Before the chapter was over, the doze had
overshadowed the little girl again; and yet, more than once, as the
night drew on, they heard her muttering what seemed like the echo of
one of its verses, 'Turn you, turn you--'

At last, after hours of watching, and more than one vain endeavour of
good Cousin Deborah to lead away the worn but absorbed nurses, the
dread messenger came. Minna turned suddenly in her sister's arms,
with more strength than Averil had thought was left in her, and
eagerly stretched out her arms, while the words so long trembling on
her lips found utterance. 'Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners
of hope! O, Leonard dear! it does not hurt!' But that last word was
almost lost in the gasp--the last gasp. What 'did not hurt' was
death without his sting.

'O, Cora! Was he with her? Is he gone too?' was Averil's cry at the
first moment, as she strained the form of her little comforter for
the last time in her arms.

'And if he is, they are in joy together,' said Cousin Deborah,
tenderly but firmly unloosing Averil's arms, though with the tears
running down her cheeks. 'Take her away, Cora, and both of you
sleep. This dear lamb is in better keeping than yours.'

Heavy, grievous, was the loss, crushing the grief; but it was such as
to be at its softest and sweetest at Easter, amid the Resurrection
joys, and the budding flowers, though Ella's bitterest fit of weeping
was excited by there being no primroses--the primroses that Minna
loved so much; and her first pleasurable thought was to sit down and
write to her dear 'Mr. Tom' to send her some primrose seed, for
Minna's grave.

Minna's grave! Alas! Massissauga had but an untidy desolate-looking
region, with a rude snake fence, all unconsecrated! Cora wanted to
choose a shaded corner in her father's ground, where they might daily
tend the child's earthly resting-place; but Averil shrank from this
with horror; and finally, on one of the Easter holidays, the little
wasted form in its coffin was reverently driven by Philetus to
Winiamac, while the sisters and Cora slowly followed, thinking--the
one of the nameless blood-stained graves of a battle-field; the other
whether an equally nameless grave-yard, but one looked on with a
shudder unmixed with exultation, had opened for the other being she
loved best. 'The Resurrection and the Life.--Yes, had not He made
His grave with the wicked, and been numbered with the transgressors!'

Somehow, the present sorrow was more abundant in such comforts as
these than all the pangs which her heart, grown old in sorrow, had
yet endured.

Yet if her soul had bowed itself to meet sorrow more patiently and
peacefully, it was at the expense of the bodily frame. Already
weakened by the intermittent fever, the long strain of nursing had
told on her; and that hysteric affection that had been so distressing
at the time of her brother's trial recurred, and grew on her with
every occasion for self-restraint. The suspense in which she lived--
with one brother in the camp, in daily peril from battle and disease,
the other in his convict prison--wore her down, and made every
passing effect of climate or fatigue seize on her frame like a
serious disorder; and the more she resigned her spirit, the more her
body gave way. Yet she was infinitely happier. The repentance and
submission were bearing fruit, and the ceasing to struggle had
brought a strange calm and acceptance of all that might be sent; nay,
her own decay was perhaps the sweetest solace and healing of the
wearied spirit; and as to Ella, she would trust, and she did trust,
that in some way or other all would be well.

She felt as if even Leonard's death could be accepted thankfully as
the captive's release. But that sorrow was spared her.

The account of Leonard came from Mr. Wilmot, who had carried him the
tidings. The prisoner had calmly met him with the words, 'I know
what you are come to tell me;' and he heard all in perfect calmness
and resignation, saying little, but accepting all that the clergyman
said, exactly as could most be desired.

From the chaplain, likewise, Mr. Wilmot learnt that Leonard, though
still only in the second stage of his penalty, stood morally in a
very different position, and was relied on as a valuable assistant in
all that was good, more effective among his fellow-prisoners than was
possible to any one not in the same situation with themselves, and
fully accepting that position when in contact either with convicts or
officials. 'He has never referred to what brought him here,' said
the chaplain, 'nor would I press him to do so; but his whole tone is
of repentance, and acceptance of the penalty, without, like most of
them, regarding it as expiation. It is this that renders his example
so valuable among the men.'

After such a report as this, it was disappointing, on Dr. May's next
visit to Portland, at two months' end, to find Leonard drooping and
downcast. The Doctor was dismayed at his pale, dejected, stooping
appearance, and the silence and indifference with which he met their
ordinary topics of conversation, till the Doctor began anxiously--

'You are not well?'

'Quite well, thank you.'

'You are looking out of condition. Do you sleep?'

'Some part of the night.'

'You want more exercise. You should apply to go back to the
carpenter's shop--or shall I speak to the governor?'

'No, thank you. I believe they want me in school.'

'And you prefer school work?'

'I don't know, but it helps the master.'

'Do you think you make any progress with the men? We heard you were
very effective with them.'

'I don't see that much can be done any way, certainly not by me.'

Then the Doctor tried to talk of Henry and the sisters; but soon saw
that Leonard had no power to dwell upon them. The brief answers were
given with a stern compression and contraction of face; as if the
manhood that had grown on him in these three years was no longer
capable of the softening effusion of grief; and Dr. May, with all his
tenderness, felt that it must be respected, and turned the
conversation.

'I have been calling at the Castle,' he said, 'with Ernescliffe, and
the governor showed me a curious thing, a volume of Archbishop Usher,
which had been the Duke of Lauderdale's study after he was taken at
Worcester. He has made a note in the fly-leaf, "I began this book at
Windsor, and finished it during my imprisonment here;" and below are
mottoes in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. I can't construe the Hebrew.
The Greek is oisteon kai elpisteon (one must bear and hope), the
Latin is durate. Will you accept your predecessor's legacy?'

'I think I read about him in an account of the island,' said Leonard,
with a moment's awakened intelligence; 'was he not the L. of the
Cabal, the persecutor in "Old Mortality?"'

'I am afraid you are right. Prosperity must have been worse for him
than adversity.'

'Endure' repeated Leonard, gravely. 'I will think of that, and what
he would mean by hope now.'

The Doctor came home much distressed; he had been unable to penetrate
the dreary, resolute self-command that covered so much anguish; he
had failed in probing or in healing, and feared that the apathy he
had witnessed was a sign that the sustaining spring of vigour was
failing in the monotonous life. The strong endurance had been a
strain that the additional grief was rendering beyond his power; and
the crushed resignation, and air of extinguished hope, together with
the indications of failing health, filled the Doctor with misgivings.

'It will not last much longer,' he said. 'I do not mean that he is
ill; but to hold up in this way takes it out of a man, especially at
his age. The first thing that lays hold of him, he will have no
strength nor will to resist, and then--Well, I did hope to live to
see God show the right.'




CHAPTER XXIV



We twa hae wandered o'er the braes,
And pu'ed the gowans fine;
I've wandered many a weary foot
Sin auld lang syne.


These years had passed quietly at Stoneborough, with little change
since Mary's marriage. She was the happy excellent wife that she was
made to be; and perhaps it was better for Ethel that the first
severance had been so decisive that Mary's attentions to her old home
were received as favours, instead of as the mere scanty relics of her
former attachment.

Mr. Cheviot, as the family shook down together, became less afraid of
Ethel, and did not think it so needful to snub her either by his
dignity or jocularity; though she still knew that she was only on
terms of sufferance, and had been, more than once, made to repent of
unguarded observations. He was admirable; and the school was so
rapidly improving that Norman had put his father into ecstasies by
proposing to send home little Dickie to begin his education there.
Moreover, the one element wanting, to accomplish the town
improvements, had been supplied by a head-master on the side of
progress, and Dr. Spencer's victory had been won at last. There was
a chance that Stoneborough might yet be clean, thanks to his
reiteration of plans for purification, apropos to everything. Baths
and wash-houses were adroitly carried as a monument to Prince Albert;
and on the Prince of Wales's marriage, his perseverance actually
induced the committee to finish up the drains with all the
contributions that were neither eaten up nor fired away! Never had
he been more happy and triumphant; and Dr. May used to accuse him of
perambulating the lower streets snuffing the deodorized air.

One autumn evening, contrary to his wont, he allowed himself to be
drawn into the May drawing-room, and there fell into one of the
bright bantering talks in which the two old friends delighted,
quizzing each other, and bringing up stories of their life; while
Ethel and Gertrude listened to and laughed at the traditions of a
sunnier, gayer, and more reckless age than their own; and Ethel
thought how insufficient are those pictures of life that close with
the fever-dream of youthful passion, and leave untold those years of
the real burthen of manhood, and still more the tranquil brightness
when toil has been overlived, and the setting sun gilds the clouds
that are drifting away.

Ethel's first knowledge of outer life the next morning was the sound
of voices in her father's adjoining room, which made her call out,
'Are you sent for, papa?'

'Yes,' he answered, and in an agitated tone, 'Spencer; I'll send
word.'

Should she mention what she had two years ago heard from Tom? There
was no time, for the next moment she heard him hurrying down-stairs,
she saw him speeding up the garden. There was nothing for her to do
but to dress as fast as possible, and as she was finishing she heard
his tread slowly mounting, the very footfall warning her what to
expect. She opened the door and met him. 'Thank God,' he said, as
he took her hand into his own, 'it has been very merciful.'

'Is it--?'

'Yes. It must have been soon after he lay down at night. As calm as
sleep. The heart. I am very thankful. I had thought he would have
had much to suffer.'

And then it appeared that his own observations had made him sure of
what Ethel had learnt from Tom; but as long as it was unavowed by his
friend, he had thought himself bound to ignore it, and had so dreaded
the protracted suffering, that the actual stroke was accepted as a
loving dispensation.

Still, as the close of a life-long friendship, the end of a daily
refreshing and sustaining intimacy, the loss was very great, and
would be increasingly felt after the first stimulus was over. It
would make Tom's defection a daily grievance, since much detail of
hospital care, and, above all, town work, his chief fatigue, would
now again fall upon him. But this was not his present thought. His
first care was, that his friend's remains should rest with those with
whom his lot in life had been cast, in the cloister of the old
Grammar-school; but here Mr. Cheviot looked concerned, and with
reluctance, but decision, declared it to be his duty not to consent,
cited the funeral of one of his scholars at the cemetery, and
referred to recent sanatory measures.

Dr. May quickly exclaimed that he had looked into the matter, and
that the cloister did not come under the Act.

'Not technically, sir,' said Mr. Cheviot; 'but I am equally convinced
of my duty, however much I may regret it.' And then, with a few
words about Mary's presently coming up, he departed; while 'That is
too bad,' was the general indignant outburst, even from Richard; from
all but Dr. May himself.

'He is quite right,' he said. 'Dear Spencer would he the first to
say so. Richard, your church is his best monument, and you'll not
shut him out of your churchyard nor me either.'

'Cheviot could not have meant--' began Richard.

'Yes, he did, I understood him, and I am glad you should have had it
out now,' said Dr. May, though not without a quivering lip. 'Your
mother has _one_ by her side, and we'll find each other out just as
well as if we were in the cloister. I'll walk over to Cocksmoor with
you, Ritchie, and mark the place.'

Thus sweetly did he put aside what might have been so severe a shock;
and he took extra pains to show his son-in-law his complete
acquiescence both for the present and the future. Charles Cheviot
expressed to Richard his great satisfaction in finding sentiment thus
surmounted by sense, not perceiving that it was faith and love
surmounting both.

Dr. Spencer's only surviving relation was a brother's son, who, on
his arrival, proved to be an underbred, shrewd-looking man, evidently
with strong prepossessions against the May family, whose hospitality
he did not accept, consorting chiefly with 'Bramshaw and Anderson.'
His disposition to reverse the arrangement for burying his uncle in
'an obscure village churchyard,' occasioned a reference to the will,
drawn up two years previously. The executors were Thomas and
Etheldred May, and it was marked on the outside that they were to
have the sole direction of the funeral. Ethel, greatly astonished,
but as much bewildered as touched, was infinitely relieved that this
same day had brought a hurried note from Paris, announcing Tom's
intention of coming to attend the funeral. He would be able to talk
to the angry and suspicious nephew, without, like his father,
betraying either indignation or disgust.

Another person was extremely anxious for Tom's arrival, namely, Sir
Matthew Fleet, who, not a little to Dr. May's gratification, came to
show his respect to his old fellow-student; and arriving the evening
before Tom, was urgent to know the probabilities of his appearance.
An appointment in London was about to be vacant, so desirable in
itself, and so valuable an introduction, that there was sure to be a
great competition; but Sir Matthew was persuaded that with his own
support, and an early canvass, Tom might be certain of success. Dr.
May could not help being grateful and gratified, declaring that the
boy deserved it, and that dear Spencer would have been very much
pleased; and then he told Ethel that it was wonderful to see the
blessing upon Maggie's children; and went back, as usual, to his dear
old Tate and Brady, with--


'His house the seat of wealth shall be,
An inexhausted treasury;
His justice, free from all decay,
Shall blessings to his heirs convey.'


And Ethel, within herself, hoped it was no disrespect to smile at his
having so unconsciously turned away the blessing from the father's to
the mother's side.

It was his great pride and pleasure that so many of Maggie's children
were round him to do honour to her old friend's burial--three sons,
and four daughters, and three sons-in-law. They all stood round the
grave, as near as might be to the stone that Gertrude, as a child,
had laid under his care, when his silver hair had mingled with her
golden locks; and with them was a concourse that evidently impressed
the nephew with a new idea of the estimation in which his uncle had
been held.

Tom had travelled all night, and had arrived only just in time.
Nobody was able to say a word to him before setting off; and almost
immediately after the return, Sir Matthew Fleet seized upon him to
walk up to the station with him, and, to the infinite disgust of the
nephew, the reading of the will was thus delayed until the executor
came back, extremely grave and thoughtful.

After all, Mr. Spencer had no available grievance. His uncle's
property was very little altogether, amounting scarcely to a thousand
pounds, but the bulk was bequeathed to the nephew; to Aubrey May was
left his watch, and a piece of plate presented to him on his leaving
India; to Dr. May a few books; to Tom the chief of his library, his
papers, notes, and instruments, and the manuscript of a work upon
diseases connected with climate, on which he had been engaged for
many years, but had never succeeded in polishing to his own
fastidious satisfaction, or in coming to the end of new discoveries.
To Etheldred, his only legacy was his writing-desk, with all its
contents. And Mr. Spencer looked so suspicious of those contents,
that Tom made her open it before him, and show that they were nothing
but letters.

It had been a morning of the mixture of feelings and restless bustle,
so apt to take place where the affection is not explained by
relationship; and when the strangers were gone, and the family were
once again alone, there was a drawing of freer breath, and the Doctor
threw himself back in his chair, and indulged in a long, heavy sigh,
with a weary sound in it.

'Can I go anywhere for you, father?' said Tom, turning to him with a
kind and respectful manner.

'Oh no--no, thank you,' he said, rousing himself, and laying his hand
on the bell, 'I must go over to Overfield; but I shall be glad of the
drive. Well, Dr. Tom, what did you say to Fleet's proposal?'

'I said I would come up to town and settle about it when I had got
through this executor business.'

'You always were a lucky fellow, Tom,' said Dr. May, trying to be
interested and sympathetic. 'You would not wish for anything
better.'

'I don't know, I have not had time to think about it yet,' said Tom,
pulling off his spectacles and pushing back his hair, with an action
of sadness and fatigue.

'Ah! it was not the best of times to choose for the communication;
but it was kindly meant. I never expected to see Fleet take so much
trouble for any one. But you are done up, Tom, with your night
journey.'

'Not at all,' he answered, briskly, 'if I can do anything for you.
Could not I go down to the hospital?'

'Why, if I were not to be back till five,' began Dr. May,
considering, and calling him into the hall to receive directions,
from which he came back, saying, 'There! now then, Ethel, we had
better look over things, and get them in train.'

'You are so tired, Tom.'

'Not too much for that,' he said. But it was a vain boast; he was
too much fatigued to turn his mind to business requiring thought,
though capable of slow, languid reading and sorting of papers.

Aubrey's legacy was discovered with much difficulty. In fact, it had
never been heard of, nor seen the light, since its presentation, and
was at last found in a lumber closet, in a strong box, in Indian
packing. It was a compromise between an epergne and a candelabrum,
growing out of the howdah of an unfortunate elephant, pinning one
tiger to the ground, and with another hanging on behind, in the midst
of a jungle of palm-trees and cobras; and beneath was an elaborate
inscription, so laudatory of Aubrey Spencer, M. D., that nobody
wondered he had never unpacked it, and that it was yellow with
tarnish--the only marvel was, that he had never disposed of it; but
that it was likely to wait for the days when Aubrey might be a
general and own a side-board.

The other bequests were far more appreciated. Tom had known of the
book in hand, was certain of its value to the faculty, and was much
gratified by the charge of it, both as a matter of feeling and of
interest. But while he looked over and sorted the mass of curious
notes, his attention was far more set on the desk, that reverently,
almost timidly, Ethel examined, well knowing why she had been
selected as the depositary of these relics. There they were, some
embrowned by a burn in the corner, as though there had been an
attempt to destroy them, in which there had been no heart to
persevere. It was but little, after all, two formal notes in which
Professor Norman Mackenzie asked the honour of Mr. Spencer's company
to dinner, but in handwriting that was none of the professor's--
writing better known to Ethel than to Tom--and a series of their
father's letters, from their first separation till the traveller's
own silence had caused their correspondence to drop. Charming
letters they were, such as people wrote before the penny-post had
spoilt the epistolary art--long, minute, and overflowing with
brilliant happiness. Several of them were urgent invitations to
Stoneborough, and one of these was finished in that other hand--the
delicate, well-rounded writing that would not be inherited--
entreating Dr. Spencer to give a few days to Stoneborough, 'it would
be such a pleasure to Richard to show him the children.'

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