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The Trial

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Trial




Perhaps this incident most fully revealed to the Doctor, how unlike
other people his charge was, how much changed from the handsome
spirited lad on whom the trouble had fallen; and he looked again and
again at the profile turned to the window, as fixed and set as though
it had been carved.

'Ah, patience is an exhausting virtue!' said he to himself. 'Verily
it is bearing--bearing up under the full weight; and the long bent
spring is the slower in rebounding in proportion to its inherent
strength. Poor lad, what protracted endurance it has been! There is
health and force in his face; no line of sin, nor sickness, nor
worldly care, such as it makes one's heart ache to see aging young
faces; yet how utterly unlike the face of one and-twenty! I had
rather see it sadder than so strangely settled and sedate! Shall I
speak to him again? Not yet: those green hill-sides, those fields
and cattle, must refresh him better than my clavers, after his grim
stony mount of purgatory. I wish it were a brighter day to greet
him, instead of this gray damp fog.'

The said fog prevented any semblance of sunset; but through the gray
moonlit haze, Leonard kept his face to the window, pertinaciously
clearing openings in the bedewed glass, as though the varying outline
of the horizon had a fascination for him. At last, after ten minutes
of glaring gas at a junction had by contrast rendered the mist
impenetrable, and reduced the view to brightened clouds of steam, and
to white telegraphic posts, erecting themselves every moment, with
their wires changing their perspective in incessant monotony, he
ceased his gaze, and sat upright in his place, with the same strange
rigid somnambulist air.

Dr. May resolved to rouse him.

'Well, Leonard,' he said, 'this has been a very long fever; but we
are well through it at last--with the young doctor from Paris to our
aid.'

Probably Leonard only heard the voice, not the words, for he passed
his hand over his face, and looked up to the Doctor, saying dreamily,
'Let me see! Is it all true?' and then, with a grave wistful look,
'It was not I who did that thing, then?'

'My dear!' exclaimed the Doctor, starting forward, and catching hold
of his hand, 'have they brought you to this?'

'I always meant to ask you, if I ever saw you alone again,' said
Leonard.

'But you don't mean that you have imagined it!'

'Not constantly--not when any one was with me,' said Leonard, roused
by Dr. May's evident dismay; and drawn on by his face of anxious
inquiry. 'At Milbank, I generally thought I remembered it just as
they described it in court, and that it was some miserable ruinous
delusion that hindered my confessing; but the odd thing was, that the
moment any one opened my door, I forgot all about it, resolutions and
all, and was myself again.'

'Then surely--surely you left that horror with the solitude?'

'Yes, till lately; but when it did come back, I could not be sure
what was recollection of fact, and what of my own fancy;' and he drew
his brows together in painful effort. 'Did I know who did it, or did
I only guess?'

'You came to a right conclusion, and would not let me act on it.'

'And I really did write the receipt, and not dream it?'

'That receipt has been in my hand. It was what has brought you
here.' And now to hearing ears, Dr. May went over the narrative; and
Leonard stood up under the little lamp in the roof of the carriage to
read the papers.

'I recollect--I understand,' he said, presently, and sat down, grave
and meditative--no longer dreamy, but going over events, which had at
last acquired assurance to his memory from external circumstances.
Presently his fingers were clasped together over his face, his head
bent, and then he looked up, and said, 'Do they know it--my sister
and brother?'

'No. We would not write till you were free. You must date the first
letter from Stoneborough.'

The thought had brought a bitter pang. 'One half year sooner--' and
he leant back in his seat, with fingers tightly pressed together, and
trembling with emotion.

'Nay, Leonard; may not the dear child be the first to rejoice in the
fulfilment of her own sweet note of comfort? They could not harm the
innocent.'

'Not innocent,' he said, 'not innocent of causing all the discord
that has ended in their exile, and the dear child's death.'

'Then this is what has preyed on you, and changed you so much more of
late,' said Dr. May.

'When I knew that I was indeed guilty of _her_ death,' said Leonard,
in a calm full conviction of too long standing to be accompanied with
agitation, though permanently bowing him down.

'And you never spoke of this: not to the chaplain?'

'I never could. It would have implied all the rest that he could not
believe. And it would not have changed the fact.'

'The aspect of it may change, Leonard. You know yourself how many
immediate causes combined, of which you cannot accuse yourself--your
brother's wrongheadedness, and all the rest. And,' added the Doctor,
recovering himself, 'you do see it in other aspects, I know. Think
of the spirit set free to be near you--free from the world that has
gone so hard with you!'

'I can't keep that thought long; I'm not worthy of it.'

Again he was silent; but presently said, as with a sudden thought,
'You would have told me if there were any news of Ave.'

'No, there has been no letter since her last inclosure for you,' and
then Dr. May gave the details from the papers on the doings of
Henry's division of the army.

'Will Henry let me be with them?' said Leonard, musingly.

'They will come home, depend upon it. You must wait till you hear.'

Leonard thought a little while, then said, 'Where did you say I was
to go, Dr. May?'

'Where, indeed? Home, Leonard--home. Ethel is waiting for us. To
the High Street.'

Leonard looked up again with his bewildered face, then said, 'I know
what you do with me will be right, but--'

'Had you rather not?' said the Doctor, startled.

'Rather!' and the Doctor, to his exceeding joy, saw the fingers over
his eyes moist with the tears they tried to hide; 'I only meant--' he
added, with an effort, 'you must think and judge--I can't think--
whether I ought.'

'If you ask me that,' said Dr. May, earnestly, 'all I have to say is,
that I don't know what palace is worthy of you.'

There was not much said after that; and the Doctor fell asleep,
waking only at the halts at stations to ask where he was.

At last came 'Blewer!' and as the light shone on the clock, Leonard
said, 'A quarter past twelve! It is the very train I went by! Is it
a dream?'

Ten minutes more, and 'Stoneborough' was the cry. Hastily springing
out, shuffling the tickets into the porter's hand, and grappling
Leonard's arm as if he feared an escape, Dr. May hurried him into the
empty streets, and strode on in silence.

The pull at the door-bell was answered instantly by Ethel herself.
She held out her hand, and grasped that which Leonard had almost
withheld, shrinking as from too sudden a vision; and then she
ardently exchanged kisses with her father.

'Where's Tom? Gone to bed?' said Dr. May, stepping into the bright
drawing-room.

'No,' said Ethel, demurely; 'he is gone--he is gone to America.'

The Doctor gave a prodigious start, and looked at her again.

'He went this afternoon.' she said. 'There is some matter about the
'Diseases of Climate' that he must settle before the book is
published; and he thought he could best be spared now. He has left
messages that I will give you by and by; but you must both be
famished.'

Her looks indicated that all was right, and both turned to welcome
the guest, who stood where the first impulse had left him, in the
hall, not moving forward, till he was invited in to the fire, and the
meal already spread. He then obeyed, and took the place pointed out;
while the Doctor nervously expatiated on the cold, damp, and changes
of train; and Ethel, in the active bashfulness of hidden agitation,
made tea, cut bread, carved chicken, and waited on them with double
assiduity, as Leonard, though eating as a man who had fasted since
early morning, was passive as a little child, merely accepting what
was offered to him, and not even passing his cup till she held out
her hand for it.

She did not even dare to look at him; she could not bear that he
should see her do so; it was enough to know that he was free--that he
was there--that it was over. She did not want to see how it had
changed him; and, half to set him at ease, half to work off her own
excitement, she talked to her father, and told him of the little
events of his absence till the meal was over; and, at half-past one,
good nights were exchanged with Leonard, and the Doctor saw him to
his room, then returned to his daughter on her own threshold.

'That's a thing to have lived for,' he said.

Ethel locked her hands together, and looked up.

'And now, how about this other denouement? I might have guessed that
the wind sat in that quarter.'

'But you're not to guess it, papa. It is really and truly about the
'Diseases of Climate'.'

'Swamp fevers, eh! and agues!'

The 'if you can help it,' was a great comfort now; Ethel could
venture on saying, 'Of course that has something to do with it; but
he really does make the book his object; and please--please don't
give any hint that you suspect anything else.'

'I suppose you are in his confidence; and I must ask no questions.'

'I hated not telling you, and letting you tease him; but he trusted
me just enough not to make me dare to say a word; though I never was
sure there was a word to say. Now do just once own, papa, that Tom
is the romantic one after all, to have done as he did in the height
of the trouble.'

'Well in his place so should I,' said the Doctor, with the
perverseness of not satisfying expectations of amazement.

'_You_ would,' said Ethel; 'but Tom! would you have thought it of
Tom?'

'Tom has more in him than shows through his spectacles,' answered Dr.
May. 'So! That's the key to his restless fit. Poor fellow! How
did it go with him? They have not been carrying it on all this time,
surely!'

'Oh, no, no, papa! She cut him to the heart, poor boy! thought he
was laughing at her--told him it had all been irony. He has no
notion whether she will ever forgive him.'

'A very good lesson, Master Doctor Thomas,' said Dr. May, with a
twinkle in his eye; 'and turn out as it will, it has done him good--
tided him over a dangerous time of life. Well, you must tell me all
about it to-morrow; I'm too sleepy to know what I'm talking of.'

The sleepiness that always finished off the Doctor's senses at the
right moment, was a great preservative of his freshness and vigour;
but Ethel was far from sharing it, and was very glad when the clock
sounded a legitimate hour for getting up, and dressing by candle-
light, briefly answering Gertrude's eager questions on the arrival.
It was a pouring wet morning, and she forbade Daisy to go to church--
indeed, it would have been too bad for herself on any morning but
this--any but this, as she repeated, smiling at her own spring of
thankfulness, as she fortified herself with a weight of waterproof,
and came forth in the darkness of 7.45, on a grim November day.

A few steps before her, pacing on, umbrellaless, was a figure which
made her hurry to overtake him.

'O, Leonard! after your journey, and in this rain!'

He made a gesture of courtesy, but moved as if to follow, not join
her. Did he not know whether he were within the pale of humanity?

'Here is half an umbrella. Won't you hold it for me?' she said; and
as he followed his instinct of obedience, she put it into his hand,
and took his arm, thinking that this familiarity would best restore
him to a sense of his regained position; and, moreover, feeling glad
and triumphant to be thus leaning, and to have that strong arm to
contend with the driving blast that came howling round the corner of
Minster Street, and fighting for their shelter. They were both out
of breath when they paused to recover in the deep porch of the
Minster.

'Is Dr. May come home?'

'Yes--and--'

Ethel signed, and Mr. Wilmot held out an earnest hand, with, 'This is
well. I am glad to see you.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Leonard, heartily; 'and for all--'

'This is your new beginning of life, Leonard. God bless you in it.'

As Mr. Wilmot passed on, Ethel for the first time ventured to look up
into the eyes--and saw their hollow setting, their loss of sparkle,
but their added steadfastness and resolution. She could not help
repeating the long-treasured lines: 'And, Leonard,


"--grieve not for thy woes,
Disgrace and trouble;
For He who honour best bestows,
Shall give thee double."'


'I've never ceased to be glad you read Marmion with me,' he hastily
said, as they turned into church on hearing a clattering of
choristers behind them.

Clara might have had such sensations when she bound the spurs on her
knight's heels, yet even she could hardly have had so pure,
unselfish, and exquisite a joy as Ethel's, in receiving the pupil who
had been in a far different school from hers.

The gray dawn through the gloom, the depths of shadow in the twilight
church, softening and rendering all more solemn and mysterious, were
more in accordance than bright and beamy sunshine with her subdued
grave thankfulness; and there was something suitable in the fewness
of the congregation that had gathered in the Lady Chapel--so few,
that there was no room for shyness, either in, or for, him who was
again taking his place there, with steady composed demeanour, its
stillness concealing so much.

Ethel had reckoned on the verse--'That He might hear the mournings of
such as are in captivity, and deliver the children appointed unto
death.' But she had not reckoned on its falling on her ears in the
deep full-toned melodious bass, that came in, giving body to the
young notes of the choristers--a voice so altered and mellowed since
she last had heard it, that it made her look across in doubt, and
recognize in the uplifted face, that here indeed the freed captive
was at home, and lifted above himself.

When the clause, in the Litany, for all prisoners and captives
brought to her the thrill that she had only to look up to see the
fulfilment of many and many a prayer for one captive, for once she
did not hear the response, only saw the bent head, as though there
were thoughts went too deep to find voice. And again, there was the
special thanksgiving that Mr. Wilmot could not refrain from
introducing for one to whom a great mercy had been vouchsafed.
If Ethel had had to swim home, she would not but have been there!

Charles Cheviot addressed them as they came out of church: 'Good
morning--Mr. Ward, I hope to do myself the honour of calling on you--
I shall see you again, Ethel.

And off he went over the glazy stones to his own house, Ethel knowing
that this cordial salutation and intended call were meant to be
honourable amends for his suspicions; but Leonard, unconscious of the
import, and scarcely knowing indeed that he was addressed, made his
mechanical gesture of respect, and looked up, down, and round,
absorbed in the scene. 'How exactly the same it all looks,' he said;
'the cloister gate, and the Swan, and the postman in the very same
waterproof cape.'

'Do you not feel like being just awake?'

'No; it is more like being a ghost, or somebody else.'

Then the wind drove them on too fast for speech, till as they crossed
the High Street, Ethel pointed through the plane-trees to two round
black eyes, and a shining black nose, at the dining-room window.

'My Mab, my poor little Mab!--You have kept her all this time! I was
afraid to ask for her. I could not hope it.'

'I could not get my spoilt child, Gertrude, to bed without taking
Mab, that she might see the meeting.'

Perhaps it served Daisy right that the meeting did not answer her
expectations. Mab and her master had both grown older; she smelt
round him long before she was sure of him, and then their content in
one another was less shown by fervent rapture, than by the quiet hand
smoothing her silken coat; and, in return, by her wistful eye,
nestling gesture, gently waving tail.

And Leonard! How was it with him? It was not easy to tell in his
absolute passiveness. He seemed to have neither will nor impulse to
speak, move, or act, though whatever was desired of him, he did with
the implicit obedience that no one could bear to see. They put books
near him, but he did not voluntarily touch one: they asked if he
would write to his sister, and he took the pen in his hand, but did
not accomplish a commencement. Ethel asked him if he were tired, or
had a headache.

'Thank you, no,' he said; 'I'll write,' and made a dip in the ink.

'I did not mean to tease you,' she said; 'the mail is not going just
yet, and there is no need for haste. I was only afraid something was
wrong.'

'Thank you,' he said, submissively; 'I will--when I can think; but it
is all too strange. I have not seen a lady, nor a room like this,
since July three years.'

After that Ethel let him alone, satisfied that peace was the best
means of recovering the exhaustion of his long-suffering.

The difficulty was that this was no house for quiet, especially the
day after the master's return: the door-bell kept on ringing, and
each time he looked startled and nervous, though assured that it was
only patients. But at twelve o'clock in rushed Mr. Cheviot's little
brother, with a note from Mary, lamenting that it was too wet for
herself, but saying that Charles was coming in the afternoon, and
that he intended to have a dinner-party of old Stoneborough scholars
to welcome Leonard back.

Meanwhile, Martin Cheviot, wanting to see, and not to stare, and to
unite cordiality and unconsciousness, made an awkward mixture of all,
and did not know how to get away; and before he had accomplished it,
Mr. Edward Anderson was announced. He heartily shook hands with
Leonard, eagerly welcomed him, and talked volubly, and his last
communication was, 'If it clears, you will see Matilda this
afternoon.'

'I did not know she was here.'

'Yes; she and Harvey are come to Mrs. Ledwich's, to stay over
Sunday;' and there was a laugh in the corner of his eye, that
convinced Ethel that the torrents of rain would be no protection.

'Papa,' said she, darting out to meet her father in the hall, 'you
must take Leonard out in your brougham this afternoon, if you don't
want him driven distracted. If he is in the house, ropes won't hold
Mrs. Harvey Anderson from him!'

So Dr. May invited his guest to share his drive; and the excitement
began to seem unreal when the Doctor returned alone.

'I dropped him at Cocksmoor,' he said. 'It was Richard's notion that
he would be quieter there--able to get out, and go to church, without
being stared at.'

'Did he like it?' asked Gertrude, disappointed.

'If one told him to chop off his finger, he would do it, and never
show whether he liked it. Richard asked him, and he said, "Thank
you." I never could get an opening to show him that we did not want
to suppress him; I never saw spirit so quenched.'

Charles Cheviot thought it was a mistake to do what gave the
appearance of suppression--he said that it was due to Leonard to
welcome him as heartily as possible, and not to encourage false
shame, where there was no disgrace; so he set his wife to fill up her
cards for his dinner-party, and included in it Mr. and Mrs. Harvey
Anderson, for the sake of their warm interest in the liberated
prisoner.

'However, Leonard was out of the scrape,' as the Doctor expressed it,
for he had one of his severe sore throats, and was laid up at
Cocksmoor. Richard was dismayed by his passive obedience--a novelty
to the gentle eldest, who had all his life been submitting, and now
was puzzled by his guest's unfailing acquiescence without a token of
preference or independence: and comically amazed at the implicit
fulfilment of his recommendation to keep the throat in bed--a wise
suggestion, but one that the whole house of May, in their own
persons, would have scouted. Nothing short of the highest authority
ever kept them there.

The semblance of illness was perhaps a good starting-point for a
return to the ways of the world; and on the day week of his going to
Cocksmoor, Ethel found him by the fire, beginning his letters to his
brother and sister, and looking brighter and more cheery, but so
devoid of voice, that speech could not be expected of him.

She had just looked in again after some parish visiting, when a quick
soldierly step was heard, and in walked Aubrey.

'No; I'm not come to you, Ethel; I'm only come to this fellow;' and
he ardently grasped his hand. 'I've got leave till Monday, and I
shall stay here and see nobody else.--What, a sore throat? Couldn't
you get wrapped up enough between the two doctors?'

Leonard's eyes lighted as he muttered his hoarse 'Thank you,' and
Ethel lingered for a little desultory talk to her brother,
contrasting the changes that the three years had made in the two
friends. Aubrey, drilled out of his home scholarly dreaminess by
military and practical discipline, had exchanged his native languor
for prompt upright alertness of bearing and speech; his eye had grown
more steady, his mouth had lost its vague pensive expression, and was
rendered sterner by the dark moustache; definite thought, purpose,
and action, had moulded his whole countenance and person into hopeful
manhood, instead of visionary boyhood. The other face, naturally the
most full of fire and resolution, looked strangely different in its
serious unsmiling gravity, the deeply worn stamp of patient endurance
and utter isolation. There was much of rest and calm, and even of
content--but withal a quenched look, as if the lustre of youth and
hope had been extinguished, and the soul had been so driven in upon
itself, that there was no opening to receive external sympathy--a
settled expression, all the stranger on a face with the clear
smoothness of early youth. One thing at least was unchanged--the
firm friendship and affection--that kept the two constantly casting
glances over one another, to assure themselves of the presence before
them.

Ethel left them together; and her father, who made out that he should
save time by going to Cocksmoor Church on Sunday morning, reported
that the boys seemed very happy together in their own way; but that
Richard reported himself to have been at the sole expense of
conversation in the evening--the only time such an event could ever
have occurred!

Aubrey returned home late on the Sunday evening; and Leonard set off
to walk part of the way with him in the dusk, but ended by coming the
whole distance, for the twilight opened their lips in this renewal of
old habits.

'It is all right to be walking together again,' said Aubrey, warmly;
'though it is not like those spring days.'

'I've thought of them every Sunday.'

'And what are you going to do now, old fellow?'

'I don't know.'

'I hear Bramshaw is going to offer you to come into his office. Now,
don't do that, Leonard, whatever you do!'

'I don't know.'

'You are to have all your property back, you know, and you could do
much better for yourself than that.'

'I can't tell till I have heard from my brother.'

'But, Leonard, promise me now--you'll not go out and make a Yankee of
yourself.'

'I can't tell; I shall do what he wishes.'

Aubrey presently found that Leonard seemed to have no capacity to
think or speak of the future or the past. He set Aubrey off on his
own concerns, and listened with interest, asking questions that
showed him perfectly alive to what regarded his friend, but the
passive inaction of will and spirits still continued, and made him
almost a disappointment.

On Monday morning there was a squabble between the young engineer and
the Daisy, who was a profound believer in the scientific object of
Tom's journey, and greatly resented the far too obvious construction
thereof.

'You must read lots of bad novels at Chatham, Aubrey; it is like the
fag end of the most trumpery of them all!'

'You haven't gone far enough in your mathematics, you see, Daisy.
You think one and one--'

'Make two. So I say.'

'I've gone into the higher branches.'

'I didn't think you were so simple and commonplace. It would be so
stupid to think he must--just because he could not help making this
discovery.'

'All for want of the higher branches of mathematics! One plus one--
equals one.'

'One minus common sense, plus folly, plus romance, minus anything to
do. Your equation is worthy of Mrs. Harvey Anderson. I gave her a
good dose of the 'Diseases of Climate!''

Aubrey was looking at Ethel all the time Gertrude was triumphing; and
finally he said, 'I've no absolute faith in disinterested
philanthropy to a younger brother--whatever I had before I went to
the Tyrol.'

'What has that to do with it?' asked Gertrude. 'Everybody was cut
up, and wanted a change--and you more than all. I do believe the
possibility of a love affair absolutely drives people mad: and now
they must needs saddle it upon poor Tom--just the one of the family
who is not so stupid, but has plenty of other things to think about.'

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