Read Ebook: Dilemmas of Pride (Vol 3 of 3) by Loudon Mrs Margracia

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Ebook has 315 lines and 34223 words, and 7 pages

She was driven to the gates of the gaol; she looked at them, and at Mrs. Dorothea.

When last she had passed through the streets of Arden, the triumphal arches and laurel wreaths, the remnants of the previous day's rejoicings, for the coming of age of her twin sons, were not yet taken down.--Now, one son lay a quarter of a mile distant, within the stately mansion of his fathers, a yet unburied corse;--she waited at the door of a common prison for admittance to the other.

Mrs. Dorothea's eyes met hers, but neither spoke. Becoming suddenly collected, Lady Arden alighted from the carriage with a firm step, and entered the dismal precincts as proudly as though the portals of a palace had received her.

Alfred had been warned of her approach. He stood breathless, and with a beating heart. Without a word uttered on either side, they rushed into each other's arms. In continued silence the mother held the son to her bosom, as though she felt, instinctively, that it was his natural sanctuary.

Though at first melted by the tenderest sorrow, in the embraces of his parent, our hero soon assumed a noble firmness. He had already passed eight-and-forty hours in solitary reflection on his extraordinary fate.

"I do not ask you, mother," he said, "not weep, for we have a common cause of sorrow in the untimely and sudden death of my poor brother: but add not one tear for me; believe me, there is not, there cannot be, a shadow of danger in the position in which I stand; although public opinion, I am told, is against me. Is it not," he added, in an altered tone, "a degrading view of human nature, to see that so many individuals should be found ready to believe such a crime possible? As to the result of a fair and open trial, however, I repeat it, I have no fears!

"In a land professing to prefer mercy before judgment; in a land with laws so constituted, that lest an error should be committed on the side of severity, the criminal, whom all know to be guilty, is allowed to escape unpunished, if but a technicality of legal proof be wanting; in a land, one of the boasts of which is, that no man is required to prove his own innocence, but that all are by law innocent until proved guilty; in such a land it must be quite impossible that, on mere appearances, they should strip of honour and of life one whose thoughts were never visited by the conception of a crime! Nay, I speak it not in unchristian pride, but, compared with that of which they would accuse me, I feel that I am innocent indeed!"

After a long pause, during which they had gazed silently in each other's faces, Alfred, as a sort of effort to converse, said, "How much we are struck with the merest common-places, when they happen to suit our own individual case: 'innocent as the babe unborn,' now seems to me a beautiful expression."

Lady Arden felt much comforted by the firmness of her son;--his views were her own; though within the walls of a prison, and surrounded with every practical proof of the peril in which he stood, she could not look at Alfred, his lofty carriage, the nobleness of his brow, and force her imagination to associate with him the idea of a condemned criminal--it seemed a thing impossible! "No!" she haughtily exclaimed, "acquitted he must be, but how have they dared to accuse him?"

Alfred now explained the hitherto unexpressed fears, which he had so long entertained, respecting his brother's state of mind, and went into all the particulars of his late return to Arden, and subsequent death. As he drew up in array the extraordinary circumstances, inexplicable to any one but himself, on which the accusation against him was founded, Lady Arden felt a pang of terror paralyse her heart, but as his simple explanations followed, she would exclaim, "Is not that sufficient? Is not that sufficient?"

"In the mouth of an impartial witness, such explanations would be all-sufficient," he replied, "but remember I am the person accused."

"Accused!" she repeated, then gazed with a mother's rapturous love, on the guileless expression of his parted lip, as to comfort her he tried to smile, she fondly poured forth expressions of endearment.

"Alfred, my child! my mild, my innocent, my beautiful Alfred! my gentle, my affectionate, my noble Alfred!" She paused, and, by the working of her features, terrible thoughts seemed to pass in view before her.

"Oh, impossible!" she suddenly exclaimed, clasping him with convulsive agony to her breast, "quite impossible! But if they are so mad," she added, in a hurried tone of subdued agony, "they shall saw these arms asunder before they take him from me!" He was too much affected to reply. Again she looked at him in silence for a time, then added, almost fiercely,

This became so serious, and lasted so long, that she was obliged to be carried home, and conveyed to bed, where the kindhearted Mrs. Dorothea, took the post of friendship beside her pillow.

Yet this was, by no means, the most agonizing period of this season of trial. The situation was too novel to be comprehended in its full extent. There was, as yet, more of incredulous amazement, and of proud defiance of the accuser, than of despair or even of apprehension in the feelings both of Lady Arden and of Alfred. They were both at present more indignant that such an outrage had been offered, and that submission to insulting and degrading forms was still necessary, than seriously alarmed as to future consequences.

"Should we not subpoena Lady Arden?" asked Fips.

Here Geoffery repeated the particulars of a conversation on the subject, which it may be remembered he once overheard, between Lady Arden and her son. And Fips took down notes, for suggesting questions to counsel.

"Do you think," he said, "there would be any use in sending subpoenas to Lady Palliser and her daughter?"

"No, on the contrary, I have reason to suspect, some circumstances might come out on their examination, rather calculated to raise a doubt in the minds of jurors; I am therefore better pleased that they are on the continent."

"When did they go abroad?"

"A short time before the death of Sir Willoughby; immediately after his return to Arden."

"Are they likely to be brought forward on the other side, think you?"

"I should say not: from the conversations I have had with Sir Alfred, I should think that he was not at all aware that their evidence could be of the slightest service to him."

"You seem to have more reasons for thinking so, Mr. Arden," said Fips, "than you have been pleased to confide to me. Now 'tis well and wisely said, that a man, for his own sake, should have no secrets either from his doctor or his lawyer. That, however, is your look out; I can only serve you to the best of my ability, as far as my information goes."

"Which is quite as far as mine, I assure you Fips. It was merely my own surmise, that Sir Willoughby might not have been quite as well received latterly as his vanity had, at first, led him to believe he should be. Now, I naturally thought that such an idea being promulgated, might suggest the possibility of Sir Willoughby's having taken the poison himself; which idea, though not amounting to evidence on either side, might, as I said before, raise doubts in the minds of a jury, calculated to bias their judgments, and so defeat the ends of justice."

"I thought," observed Fips, sulkily, for he fancied he saw that Geoffery was playing an underhand game, "I understood you to have said, you had reasons for your opinion."

"Yes, so I have--those I have just stated."

He had others, however, which he had not stated, because, as we have said, he did not wish to put himself absolutely in Fips's power, unless there should be no other means of gaining his end.

"His sisters too," continued Geoffery, "and his aunt Mrs. Dorothea, can be produced to prove so far, that Sir Alfred, before the appearance of his brother on the stage, was an assiduous, and believed himself to be a favoured lover. I do not mean to say, that either this or Lady Arden's evidence would be any proof of Sir Alfred's guilt; but, by adding the incentives of jealousy and revenge to that of mere avarice, it makes his having committed the crime much less improbable, and must therefore influence, more or less, the minds of the jury."

When the various subjects under discussion were arranged and the bottle of port finished, Mr. Fips repaired to his office--for he was a labourer at his vocation, late, as well as early--while Geoffery, whom the strains of a female voice, accompanied by a pianoforte, had been long inviting to the drawing-room, repaired thither.

Without somewhat of the grace of natural timidity, the most splendid performance could scarcely please; with what feeling then, but that of unqualified disgust, could such a display as we have just described have been witnessed; while Geoffery, who had the part of a lover not only of music, but of the lady to maintain, was thereby called upon to enact raptures.

The orders were given, that no pains or expense should be spared in making Miss Fips highly accomplished. These accomplishments, in all their various stages, became at each vacation the subjects of new displays; till at length the young lady came home the perfect singer of Italian bravuras, performance of which we have just witnessed; and furthermore imbued with a thorough contempt for her vulgar, and except in the chicanery of the law, ignorant father. Of this contempt she made no secret; but on the contrary, laughed at his opinions and scoffed at his authority, on the plea of being herself a much better judge of every thing, save, as she expressed it, of musty parchments.

All men, besides a natural dislike to milliners' bills, let them be ever so clumsy in every thing else, have a sort of notion of what is becoming to women in dress.

Fips, accordingly, on one occasion ventured to hint to his daughter, that she looked as handsome again when she had not half so many fine things on. She was at the moment just equipped to step forth into the streets of a country town, dressed in a bright green silk pelisse, extremely short, to display the pretty foot and ancle; her stockings were of open-work embroidery, the slippers scarlet, the hat yellow crape, adorned with white blond and pink ostrich feathers tipped with scarlet. She also wore, flung across one shoulder, and hung over the contrary arm, a long flying canary-coloured scarf, and held perpendicularly above her head, that it might neither conceal nor derange its trappings, a conspicuous-sized, canopy-shaped, lilac parasol, deeply bordered with a gold-coloured net-work fringe, and tasseled at every point. Chains, ear-rings, bracelets, brooches, clasps, watch, and reticule, were of course none of them forgotten; while the very backs of the canary-coloured kid gloves were embroidered with lilac and gold.

Fips's remark was received with a sneer, and "I beg, sir, you'll mind your parchments, and give me leave to be the best judge of my dress."

"Well, well, my dear, follow your own way."

"That I shall, sir, you may rest assured."

The remaining traits in the character of this young woman, together with what we have already said, are quite in accordance with a favourite theory of ours, that want of personal modesty is more than a presumption both of want of heart and want of taste or genius; because it is a proof of the absence of that susceptibility--that acuteness of moral perception, the presence of which is indispensable to the mental process by which both the powers of genius and the capability of loving are developed, almost, we might say, created in the human mind.

Flattery too, with the want of early control, had made the temper of Miss Fips violent and insolent in the extreme. From the time of her return from school there was no peace in the house, and little, as far as their own set went, in the town. She quarrelled with the neighbours--insulted the boarder clerks--and scolded the servants; and when Fips was too busy with his own, if not more amiable, at least more important avocations, to join her in pouring forth invectives against whoever had provoked her ire, she would stand over his desk and scold himself; or interrupted in a like tempestuous manner, the quiet enjoyment of his bottle of port, his only recreation, till his life became a perfect burden to him.

The death of Sir Willoughby occurred within so short a period of the assizes, that the immediate approach of Alfred's trial gave to the whole terrific transaction the character of a sudden and awful thunder-storm.

Lady Arden and her son, desirous of supporting each other, mutually acted a part painful to both, incessantly concealing their feelings, and denying themselves the solace of unreserved intercourse: whatever their separate thoughts were, neither would confess to the other that they had any apprehensions as to the result of the approaching trial. And yet the conduct of their legal advisers was by no means calculated to inspire confidence. These gentlemen looked extremely grave, asked both Alfred and Lady Arden many questions, and seemed much disappointed at their replies. They were agreed in opinion that the chain of circumstantial evidence was unbroken--almost irresistible; and that the only defence which could be set up was the insanity, and consequently possible suicide of Sir Willoughby.

While the idea of his being insane, never having been entertained by any one but Sir Alfred, nor even by Sir Alfred himself suggested to any one, till after he, Sir Alfred, was actually accused of the murder, it was to be feared the plea would not even be listened to. And yet the idea of Sir Willoughby's having wilfully taken poison, while in possession of his right mind, was still more unlikely to be heard, from his very advantageous circumstances at all times, and the peculiarly happy prospects he at that particular crisis enjoyed. The combinations and coincidences too of trivial events were no less untoward; for all of those, and they were many, which told against our hero, could be established by a host of creditable witnesses; whilst the few which were in his favour were known to no human being but himself; nor had he even spoken of them to any one, until, as in the former plea, after he had been accused. Alfred had a faint and rather confused remembrance of having said something of his motives to Geoffery, in the first moments of affliction. He mentioned this to his lawyers. They had a conference with Mr. Arden on the subject. He replied, but without entering into any explanation, that if they chose to put him in the witness box, he should esteem himself happy, if any thing he could say with truth, should have any tendency to exculpate his cousin. He was accordingly subpoened, and was the only witness for the defence.

The plea of Sir Alfred's amiable and honourable character rendering it highly improbable that he should have committed such a crime; though it must be felt by all, and with his immediate circle of friends and intimates, was all sufficient, could not weigh one feather as evidence. We had, unhappily, instances of persons previously of unblemished character, departing from that character in practice, when strongly tempted by passion, revenge, or avarice; and in this case all these incentives seemed to have been united.

Opinions so alarming, were of course not distinctly stated by the lawyers, either to Lady Arden, or to Alfred. To have done so, would have been an unnecessary degree of cruelty. But such were the sentiments they entertained, and much of which could be implied, not only from their whole demeanor, but, as we have already said, both from the anxious questions they put, and the evasive answers they gave. All this had a fearful effect on the feelings of Lady Arden: concealed agony, and constant fever, were devouring the vital energies, while her mind laid waste, as it were, by so immeasurable, so incomprehensible a calamity, seemed defenceless against the superstitious impressions and wild images of horror which wearied her spirit and aggravated her sufferings, by the ceaseless importunity with which they blended themselves unbidden with the wretched realities of the hour.

The presence of Geoffery too, which she was occasionally compelled to endure, was terrible to her feelings. She literally shuddered as she looked on the man who was destined, should her most horrible apprehensions be realized, to fill the place of both her sons. And notwithstanding the subdued air of solemnity and sorrow he hypocritically assumed in her presence, she found it impossible to divest herself of the idea that she could detect triumph lurking in the depths of his sinister eye; and that his hard spare lips were more than usually compressed, to prevent the corners of his mouth from curling with a fiendish joy; for of such a feeling she did inwardly accuse him. With what thoughts would she have viewed him, could she have known that he was, through his secret emissaries, labouring at the very moment to fix upon the innocent Alfred that horrible accusation, of which he alone could have proved him innocent; but this was a degree of wickedness of which she was incapable of conceiving the idea. She could not suspect even Geoffery of such.

With the gentlemen of the country too, Geoffery attempted to act a part which in fact he greatly over-acted. He sought every opportunity to dwell at great length on the painful and delicate situation in which he was placed. He sincerely hoped, he said, that Sir Alfred might be fully cleared of so revolting an accusation; yet he confessed he could not himself see how the distinct chain of circumstantial evidence, which had already appeared, was to be got over. He hoped, however, that something favourable might come out on the trial, and most especially he hoped that he might not be called upon to take any part whatever. Yet, if it was indeed possible that Sir Alfred was guilty, he could not wish to see him escape the just punishment his aggravated crime would, in that case, so fully merit; nay, such he declared was his indignation when he took this view of the subject, that if it were not fortunately the duty of the crown to prosecute, he should feel himself called upon--nay, bound to do so; bound to sacrifice every private feeling towards the offender, and as the nearest male relative of poor Sir Willoughby, stand forward the avenger of his untimely end. Yet as he had, he might say, the misfortune to be the next heir to the property, he considered it a happy circumstance that he was not obliged to act, what some might consider an invidious part. He used the expression misfortune, for it certainly would be a misfortune to inherit a venerable family property through the medium of a catastrophe so awful, and what was even worse, so disgraceful; in fact, should the affair so terminate, it was more than probable that he should become almost an exile from the family mansion, at least for many years; he did not know indeed that he should ever be able to bring himself to live at Arden.

These indelicate communications, though murmured in an under tone, and given as much as possible the air of individual confidences, were, from time to time, forced on as many hearers as Geoffery could obtain; for it was not all who would listen to him--many, and those some of the leading men of the country, were indignant at the attempt to bring such an accusation against our hero.

The funeral of Sir Willoughby was naturally delayed by the committal of Alfred, under whose authority the preparations had been proceeding. No one seemed aware what was to be done, or whose orders were to be given and received. Geoffery indeed was disposed to take upon himself the command, as well as the part of chief mourner, in Alfred's place, but this Lady Arden arrived in time to prevent.

When appealed to, she clasped her hands and raised her eyes to heaven for a few moments, as if she there sought counsel, then with admirable dignity and presence of mind, she ordered that the solemn preparations should stand still till the necessary forms of law having been gone through, her son should be at liberty to take his place at the head of his brother's grave; inferring thus, by her reply, that there existed not a doubt of Alfred's innocence being established.

Accordingly, in pursuance of these commands, the remains of her eldest son still lay in state at Arden, when the anxious day arrived on which her younger son was to stand at the bar of justice, arraigned for the murder of his brother.

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