‘Almost!’ repeated Ethel, with the smile of a conqueror.
‘I know, I know,’ said the Doctor. ‘If it be so, it will be right; one will try to believe it good for him. Nay, there’s proof enough in what it has done for him already. If you could only see him!’
‘I mean to see him, if it should go against him,’ said Ethel, ‘if you will let me. I would go to him as I would if he were in a decline, and with more reverence.’
‘Don’t talk of it,’ cried her father. ‘For truth’s sake, for justice’s sake, for the country’s sake, I can not, will not, believe it will go wrong. There is a Providence, after all, Ethel!’
And the Doctor went away, afraid alike of hope and despondency, and Ethel thought of the bright young face, of De Wilton, of Job, and of the martyrs; and when she was not encouraging Aubrey, or soothing Averil, her heart would sink, and the tears that would not come would have been very comfortable.
It was well for all that the assizes were so near that the suspense was not long protracted; for it told upon all concerned. Leonard, when the Doctor saw him again, was of the same way of thinking, but his manner was more agitated; he could not sleep, or if he slept, the anticipations chased away in the day-time revenged themselves in his dreams; and he was very unhappy, also, about his sister, whose illness continued day after day. She was not acutely ill, but in a constant state of low fever, every faculty in the most painful state of tension, convinced that she was quite able to get up and go to Leonard, and that her detention was mere cruelty; and then, on trying to rise, refused by fainting. Her searching questions and ardent eyes made it impossible to keep any feature in the case from her knowledge. Sleep was impossible to her; and once when Henry tried the effect of an anodyne, it produced a semi-delirium, which made him heartily repent of his independent measure. At all times she was talking—nothing but the being left with a very stolid maid-servant ever closed her lips, and she so greatly resented being thus treated, that the measure was seldom possible. Henry seldom left her. He was convinced that Leonard’s sentence would be hers likewise, and he watched over her with the utmost tenderness and patience with her fretfulness and waywardness, never quitting her except on their brother’s behalf, when Ethel or Mary would take his place. Little Minna was always to be found on her small chair by the bedside, or moving about like a mouse, sometimes whispering her one note, ‘They can’t hurt him, if he has not done it,’ and still quietly working at the pair of slippers that had been begun for his birthday present. Mary used to bring Ella, and take them out walking in the least-frequented path; but though the little sisters kissed eagerly, and went fondly hand in hand, they never were sorry to part: Ella’s spirits oppressed Minna, and Minna’s depression vexed the more volatile sister; moreover, Minna always dreaded Mary’s desire to carry her away—as, poor child, she looked paler, and her eyes heavier and darker, every day.
No one else, except, of course, Dr. May, was admitted. Henry would not let his sister see Mr. Scudamour or Mr. Wilmot, lest she should be excited; and Averil’s ‘No one’ was vehement as a defence against Mrs. Pugh or Mrs. Ledwich, whom she suspected of wanting to see her, though she never heard of more than their daily inquiries.
Mrs. Pugh was, in spite of her exclusion, the great authority with the neighbourhood for all the tidings of ‘the poor Wards,’ of whom she talked with the warmest commiseration, relating every touching detail of their previous and present history, and continually enduring the great shock of meeting people in shops or in the streets, whom she knew to be reporters or photographers. In fact, the catastrophe had taken a strong hold on the public mind; and ‘Murder of an Uncle by his Nephew,’ ‘The Blewer Tragedy,’ figured everywhere in the largest type; newsboys on the railway shouted, ‘To-day’s paper-account of inquest;’ and the illustrated press sent down artists, whose three-legged cameras stared in all directions, from the Vintry Mill to Bankside, and who aimed at the school, the Minster, the volunteers, and Dr. Hoxton himself. Tom advised Ethel to guard Mab carefully from appearing stuffed in the chamber of horrors at Madame Tussaud’s; and the furniture at the mill would have commanded any price. Nay, Mrs. Pugh was almost certain she had seen one of the ‘horrid men’ bargaining with the local photographer for her own portrait, in her weeds, and was resolved the interesting injury should never be forgiven!
She really had the ‘trying scenes’ of two interviews with both Mr. Bramshaw and the attorney from Whitford who was getting up the prosecution, each having been told that she was in possession of important intelligence. Mr. Bramshaw was not sanguine as to what he might obtain from her, but flattered her with the attempt, and ended by assuring her, like his opponent, that there was no need to expose her to the unpleasantness of appearing in court.
Aubrey was not to have the same relief, but was, like his father, subpoenaed as a witness for the prosecution. He had followed his father’s advice, and took care not to disclose his evidence to the enemy, as he regarded the Whitford lawyer. He was very miserable, and it was as much for his sake as that of the immediate family, that Ethel rejoiced that the suspense was to be short. Counsel of high reputation had been retained; but as the day came nearer, without bringing any of the disclosures on which the Doctor had so securely reckoned, more and more stress was laid on the dislike to convict on circumstantial evidence, and on the saying that the English law had rather acquit ten criminals than condemn one innocent man.
CHAPTER XIV
Ah! I mind me now of thronging faces, Mocking eyed, and eager, as for sport; Hundreds looking up, and in high places Men arrayed for judgment and a court.
And I heard, or seemed to hear, one seeking Answer back from one he doomed to die, Pitifully, sadly, sternly speaking Unto one—and oh! that one, twas I.—Rev. G. E. Monsell
The ‘Blewer Murder’ was the case of the Assize week; and the court was so crowded that, but for the favour of the sheriff, Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, with Tom and Gertrude, could hardly have obtained seats. No others of the family could endure to behold the scene, except from necessity; and indeed Ethel and Mary had taken charge of the sisters at home, for Henry could not remain at a distance from his brother, though unable to bear the sight of the proceedings; he remained in a house at hand.
Nearly the whole population of Stoneborough, Whitford, and Blewer was striving to press into court, but before the day’s work began, Edward Anderson had piloted Mrs. Pugh to a commodious place, under the escort of his brother Harvey, who was collecting materials for an article on criminal jurisprudence.
Some of those who, like the widow and little Gertrude, had been wild to be present, felt their hearts fail them when the last previous case had been disposed of; and there was a brief pause of grave and solemn suspense and silent breathless expectation within the court, unbroken, except by increased sounds of crowding in all the avenues without.
Every one, except the mere loungers, who craved nothing but excitement, looked awed and anxious; and the impression was deepened by the perception that the same feeling, though restrained, affected the judge himself, and was visible in the anxious attention with which he looked at the papers before him, and the stern sadness that had come over the features naturally full of kindness and benevolence.
The prisoner appeared in the dock. He had become paler, and perhaps thinner, for his square determined jaw, and the resolute mould of his lips, were more than usually remarkable, and were noted in the physiognomical brain of Harvey Anderson; as well as the keen light of his full dark hazel eye, the breadth of his brow, with his shining light brown hair brushed back from it; the strong build of his frame, and the determined force, apparent even in the perfect quiescence of his attitude.