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Title: The Lindsays, Volume 3 (of 3)
A romance of Scottish life
Author: John Kirkwood Leys
Release date: December 7, 2023 [eBook #72354]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Chatto and Windus, 1888
Credits: Carol Brown, Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LINDSAYS, VOLUME 3 (OF 3) ***
THE LINDSAYS
A Romance of Scottish Life
BY
JOHN K. LEYS
[Illustration: colophon]
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1888
[_The right of translation is reserved_]
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER PAGE
XXVII. TWO CONVERSATIONS 1
XXVIII. TROUBLE DRAWS NEAR 23
XXIX. AT THE POLICE COURT 39
XXX. ALEC’S FRIENDS VISIT HIM 61
XXXI. MISGIVINGS 77
XXXII. BEFORE THE TRIAL 93
XXXIII. THE TRIAL 107
XXXIV. AFTER THE TRIAL 150
XXXV. MISS MEREDITH INSISTS ON BEING OBEYED 176
XXXVI. SICK UNTO DEATH 192
XXXVII. THE FUGITIVE’S RETURN 211
XXXVIII. TWO YEARS AFTER 229
THE LINDSAYS.
CHAPTER XXVII.
TWO CONVERSATIONS.
Mr. Hatchett drove back to his office in a brown study. When he arrived
there he sent for Mr. Beattie, who speedily made his appearance.
‘Mr. Lindsay is not here, is he?’ were the solicitor’s first words.
‘No, sir. He has been confined to the house with a bad cold for more
than a week.’
‘Just fetch me the draft of his uncle’s will, if you please.’
Mr. Beattie left the room and came back after a few minutes, saying
that he could not find it. This was not surprising, seeing that the
document was at that moment reposing in a drawer of Mr. Beattie’s
writing-table, at his own lodgings.
‘You can’t find it!’ exclaimed Mr. Hatchett, his face becoming more
grave.
‘No. It is not among the other drafts, nor in any of the drawers of Mr.
Lindsay’s table. One of them is locked, however, and he has the key.
Very probably he has put it there for safety.’
‘Likely enough. Did you see the draft before it was sent out?’
‘I don’t think I did,’ said Mr. Beattie, after considering a moment.
‘No; I am almost sure I did not. I was very busy at the time; but I
remember telling Mr. Lindsay to lay the draft on my table, and I would
revise it.’
‘Did he do so?’
‘I can’t say; but I never saw it there, and so the thing escaped my
memory.’
‘You ought not to have allowed an important draft like that to leave
the office, without either settling it yourself or sending it to
counsel,’ said Mr. Hatchett severely.
‘You are quite right, sir. But I was kept in the Master’s room till
late in the afternoon on the day the will was drawn; and when I came
back the draft had gone.’
‘Then you should have taken care to go over it the next morning, when
it came back.’
‘If I had not been so very much occupied, no doubt it would have
occurred to me. But the letter Mr. Lindsay wrote to us, particularly
desiring that his nephew should prepare his will----’
‘I don’t forget the letter; but it does not release us from all
responsibility,’ interrupted the solicitor.
‘Has anything happened?’ asked the other.
‘Well, I should not be surprised if something does happen. It seems
that the old gentleman altered an intention he had of leaving an
enormous sum of money to the Scotch Presbyterians, and left them only
five thousand pounds instead.’
‘Rather a sensible thing to do, I should say,’ observed Mr. Beattie,
with a smile.
‘Yes; but the odd thing is that one of the Presbyterian parsons, a
Scotchman called Mackenzie, I think, says that he saw the draft’ (Mr.
Beattie gave a hardly perceptible start), ‘and that in it the bequest
was five hundred thousand pounds.’
‘Then the old gentleman changed his mind later in the day, I suppose,’
put in the clerk.
‘And stranger still,’ pursued the solicitor, ‘this man says that he
was present when the will was signed, that young Lindsay read it aloud
before it was signed, and that he read the bequest “five hundred
thousand.”’
‘Really! That is very odd!’
‘Very odd indeed.’
‘Was anyone else present?’
‘Yes, another nephew. And _he_ says that Lindsay read “five thousand
pounds” only.’
‘It is impossible that Lindsay should have committed a fraud. I won’t
believe it of him for a moment!’ exclaimed the managing clerk warmly.
‘This nephew’s evidence is not disinterested, however,’ pursued Mr.
Hatchett. ‘He shares the residue with young Lindsay; and it must be a
very large sum, about half a million, I suppose.’
‘Had the minister any interest in it, one way or the other?’ asked
Beattie.
‘No; of course not. His name was in the will, though, as secretary to
the trust, or something. Here it is,’ he added, unfolding the will as
he spoke--‘at such a remuneration as the trustees in their discretion
may decide.’
‘Then the minister’s evidence is _not_ quite disinterested, any more
than that of the other nephew?’ remarked Beattie.
‘No; but of course there is a vast difference between a few hundreds
a year and a quarter of a million. And it seems odd that there should
be all these elaborate directions about a secretary, and so on, if the
bequest was meant to be only five thousand pounds.’
‘Perhaps the direction to change the amount came after the will was
drawn, and young Lindsay allowed all the rest of it to remain,’
suggested Beattie. ‘I should think it quite possible,’ continued he,
‘that the old man was under this minister’s influence, afraid of
him, in fact, and that he privately told his nephew to make the sum
only five thousand, but to read the will as if it were five hundred
thousand, to save himself from having a scene with the minister.’
‘Rather a far-fetched explanation,’ said Mr. Hatchett, with a smile.
‘Besides, the other nephew, Semple, says that his cousin read “five
thousand.”’
‘One of the two is clearly mistaken,’ said Beattie.
‘Or lying,’ said the lawyer. ‘Of course the case on the other side is
that the two nephews made up a plan to get this money for themselves.
Young Lindsay was to get his uncle to intrust the drawing of the will
to him, alter the draft by striking out the word “hundred,” and deceive
the old gentleman by reading the will as if it had been left in, while
the other cousin swears that he read it quite correctly. The minister
means mischief; I could see that. Well; we can’t say anything about it
till Lindsay is convalescent. When do you think I could see him?’
‘I expect he will be here to-morrow morning. There was a note from him
a day or two ago to that effect.’
‘Very good; tell me as soon as he comes.’
And here the conversation ended.
As soon as Mr. Beattie was released from the office that evening he
went to Alec’s rooms. The invalid was sitting alone, with a large fire
to keep him company.
‘Well, Lindsay, I congratulate you.’
‘On being indoors this dismal weather? I meant to have gone to my
uncle’s funeral to-day, but the doctor bullied me into giving up the
idea.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going to come in for half your uncle’s
money?’
‘Because I have done nothing of the kind.’
‘But you have; and I congratulate you with all my heart.’
‘Nonsense. I get five thousand pounds. So does Semple. The bulk of it
goes to the Free Church.’
‘That was your uncle’s original idea, I know; I took his instructions
myself to that effect. But you must know very well that he changed
his mind, and told you to make his legacy to the Free Kirk five
thousand--and quite enough too.’
‘I never----’ began Alec, bewildered by what he heard.
‘Stop a minute, man, and let me speak. I have just seen Mr. Hatchett.
He read the will to them all after the funeral, and it seems there was
a fine row. As it stands, the legacy to the Kirk is only five thousand
pounds.’
‘Five _hundred_ thousand, you mean.’
‘Five _thousand_ only, I tell you. I saw the will myself in Mr.
Hatchett’s hands, when he came back to the office.’
‘But this is incredible. I----’
‘But I tell you I saw it. And you can see it for yourself, as soon
as you are well enough to drive down to the office. Your uncle must
have changed his mind, and told you to make it five thousand, and your
illness has made you forget it--though I warn you, old man, you had
better not say you had forgotten such a thing as that. No one would
believe you.’
‘There’s no forgetting in the matter,’ cried Alec, striking the elbow
of his chair with his fist. ‘My uncle never changed his mind. And what
I put in the will was five hundred thousand pounds to trustees for the
Free Church.’
‘Look here, Lindsay, I’ll forget what you have said just now. You did
not say it.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Because the time may come when--your memory may serve you better. You
_must_ remember the fresh instructions.’
‘How can I remember instructions that never were given?’
‘They were given, sure enough, and you have forgotten them.’
‘They were never given!’ shouted Alec, losing his temper.
‘You are very dense,’ said Beattie, with something like a sneer,
throwing himself back on his seat.
‘True; I don’t understand you,’ said Alec haughtily.
Beattie made no reply.
‘As you choose, Lindsay,’ he said at length. ‘But I may point out to
you, as a friend, that if your uncle did not tell you to alter the will
you are in a very unfortunate position.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t you see? You are intrusted with the making of a will. (It would
have been better if you had refused point-blank to have anything to
do with it; but we can’t help that now.) And you leave out one little
word, the effect of which is that you add a quarter of a million
sterling to your own share. Who will believe that that was done by
inadvertence? Your uncle _must_ have told you himself to let the Free
Church bequest be five thousand pounds. Think, now.’
‘And to avoid the consequences of my blunder--if I did commit a
blunder--I am to invent and swear to a lie,’ said Alec, slowly rising
to his feet. ‘I ought to kick you downstairs; and I would, if I were
not as weak as a cat just now. Leave the room, sir.’
‘Lindsay, you mistake me altogether,’ said Beattie earnestly, also
rising to his feet. ‘I never meant that you should invent what never
happened.’
‘It sounded precious like it.’
‘If you are certain your uncle gave you no further instructions----’
‘I told you before, he never did,’ interrupted Alec.
‘Then you have made a very nasty blunder, that’s all; and one that I am
afraid will cost you dear.’
‘I don’t believe I did. Wasn’t it five hundred thousand in the draft?’
‘I never saw the draft.’
‘Why, I left it on your table to be settled, as you told me to do.’
‘I dare say you did; but I have no remembrance of seeing it. Let me
think.--That afternoon I was in the Master’s chambers till very late,
and I was so fagged out that I went and had some dinner before I went
back to the office. So, very likely, you sent off the draft thinking I
had seen it, when I had not.’
‘But haven’t you looked for it since, this afternoon, to see what it
says?’
‘I did look for it, but I couldn’t find it.’
‘Couldn’t find it!’ exclaimed Alec, who was getting terribly excited.
‘Did you look in my drawers?’
‘I looked everywhere,’ said Beattie; ‘but one of your drawers was
locked. Perhaps you put it there.’
‘I may have done so, though I don’t remember it,’ said Alec.
‘Unfortunately MacGowan, who engrossed it, has gone. It was his
blunder, no doubt; but I ought to have noticed it, of course, for I
examined it with him.’
‘It is clear that it was in your mind that the legacy had been
reduced,’ said Beattie; ‘for when you read over the will to your uncle
you read it “five thousand pounds.”’
‘I did not!’ shouted Alec, starting to his feet a second time. ‘Who
says so?’
‘Your cousin, James Semple, says so.’
‘Then he says what is not true!’
‘That is very unlikely. But Dr. Mackenzie, who was in the room,
declares that you read it “five hundred thousand.”’
‘And he speaks the truth!’
‘Do take care what you say, my dear fellow,’ said Beattie, after a
pause. ‘This is sure to come into the courts in some shape or other.
Your cousin will swear to hearing you read “five thousand”--at least,
so Mr. Hatchett tells us. How dreadful for you to accuse him of
wilful and corrupt perjury! What I believe really happened was this:
MacGowan made a mistake in copying the will, and you unfortunately
allowed it to pass when you examined it. Then, when you read it, you
read mechanically what was before your eyes. You are often a little
absent-minded, you know, Lindsay,’ he added with a smile.
‘I suppose it must have been so,’ said Alec at length. ‘It is the only
way of accounting for it. But Dr. Mackenzie says I read it as if it ran
“five _hundred_ thousand.”’
‘Pooh, my dear Lindsay, he heard what he wished and expected to hear.
Listen to me. Do you think it likely that if your cousin had heard that
after being his uncle’s right-hand man all these years he was to have
only a share of the residue, worth about ten thousand pounds, he would
have submitted without saying a word?’
‘No; it is not likely,’ said Alec thoughtfully; ‘and yet I can’t help
thinking that it was “five hundred thousand” in the will, and that I
read it so.’
‘My dear fellow, I do want to impress this upon you--don’t be as frank
with everyone as you are with me. It might be your ruin.’
‘How? What do you mean?’
‘This Dr. Mackenzie--what sort of a man is he?’
‘He is an arrogant, narrow-minded old ass.’
‘Is he the sort of man who would prosecute anyone who had done him an
injury?’
‘The very man, I should say.’
‘Then I think you are in very considerable danger.’
‘Danger? Of what? Of course I won’t touch a penny of this money, for I
know my uncle meant the Free Church to have it.’
‘But your cousin doesn’t know it. He may not be so ready to give up so
large a sum.’
‘Does he say so? Have you seen him?’
‘Not I. I haven’t seen him for ever so long. But he may not be willing
to give up his legal rights; and if this Dr. Mackenzie and his friends
should make up their minds to prosecute you criminally----’
‘What!’
The shout silenced Beattie. The two men sat looking steadily at each
other.
‘Lindsay,’ said Beattie at length, ‘is it not better that you should
hear the truth from a friend’s lips, rather than from an enemy’s? Look
at the facts. You made an ugly blunder, by which you stand to make a
large profit. Giving up the money will only be taken as a confession of
guilt. It cannot save you.’
‘I know you are innocent of any wrong intention, my dear fellow,’ said
Beattie warmly, after a short pause. ‘Do you suppose I would take all
this trouble if I did not know it? But if you had been as long in the
profession as I have been, you would understand how the most innocent
man, if he has got into a hole (as you have done), may damage his cause
by admissions--that is, by speaking frankly to his enemies. They take
your words, and twist them into a confession of guilt. Don’t give them
the chance of doing that. When Mr. Hatchett questions you, as he is
sure to do, tell _him_ the truth frankly--say you made a blunder which
you cannot account for, that your uncle _may_ have changed his mind,
but he said nothing of it to you--you’re sure of that, by the way?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Well, say so frankly. And say you cannot remember reading the very
words, but you have no doubt you read the words that were before you
in the will. That is true enough, I suppose?’
‘Certainly. And yet I could have sworn it was “five hundred thousand.”’
‘Then you would have followed up one mistake by another, you see. That
is only your opinion. The will speaks for itself.’
‘I _cannot_ understand it.’
‘But if Dr. Mackenzie, or any stranger, comes to ask you questions, say
not one word--not one word, as you value your reputation. Refer them
to me, or to Mr. Hatchett. Say nothing to anybody, either of what you
thought were your uncle’s intentions, or anything else. It is your only
safe course. If the danger passes by, well and good. If it comes to
your door, I am ready to stand by you. Can I say more?’
‘No. You are very good, Beattie,’ said Alec half absently. ‘If I have
need of anyone to defend me, I am sure the case could not be in better
hands than yours.’
‘Thank you, Lindsay. Well, if I am to help you, I am entitled to ask
you to hold your tongue in presence of the enemy, am I not? It’s not
what you might say that I am afraid of. It’s the construction they
might put upon it.’
‘Yes; I will follow your advice, Beattie.’
‘That’s right. You won’t repent doing so, I am sure. It’s the only
sensible thing to do. And now, I see you are very tired and worried, so
I’ll say good-night.’
* * * * *
‘What a Quixotic fellow!’ said Beattie to himself, as he sat in his
own room half an hour later, and opened a certain drawer in his
writing-table. ‘To give up two hundred and fifty thousand pounds for a
mere freak! I suppose if his uncle’s will had said that the money was
to have been thrown into the sea he would have thought it his duty
to do it. That was practically what the old man wanted to do. If only
the young fool would have taken my hint, and said his uncle told him
he had changed his mind, and he was to make the Free Kirk bequest five
thousand only, we should have been perfectly safe, with, perhaps, the
help of a neat imitation of the old man’s initials on the alteration in
the draft.
‘But he wouldn’t rise to it. Some men are like that. Curious. Well; I
very much fear our friend may suffer for it. I’m very sorry; but, after
all, he has only his own obstinacy to thank for it.’
‘I may as well get rid of this,’ he continued, taking the draft in his
hands. ‘No use producing it in court altered, if the prisoner persists
that he never was told to alter it, and never did alter it. That seems
tolerably plain. If I thought he might change his mind----’
Beattie was holding one corner of the document with his left hand, and
the other with his right, and he paused an instant.
‘No; no chance of that, what he says he will stick to; I am certain of
it.’
And at this point in his soliloquy, Mr. Beattie tore the draft in two,
and quietly burned it to ashes.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
TROUBLE DRAWS NEAR.
It may easily be believed that Alec Lindsay passed a sleepless night
after his visitor left him. In the early morning he sent for a cab, and
drove through a choking fog to Theobald’s Road.
An old woman, sweeping out the rooms and lighting the fires, was the
only person in the office. Alec ran to his own room, and with feverish
haste began opening drawers, and tossing about their contents, turning
over bundles of old drafts, and peering behind the rows of books on the
bookshelves. The draft he sought for was nowhere to be found. Then he
began a more systematic search, going carefully over the whole ground
again. Of course it was all in vain.
By this time the clerks had begun to arrive. He went downstairs,
searched the desk which had formerly been occupied by MacGowan, and
closely questioned all the clerks, only to learn that none of them had
seen the paper he was seeking.
Once more he went up to his own room, and threw himself into his chair,
completely exhausted. A fit of coughing seized him, and when that
passed away, he began to cross-examine his memory for the fiftieth
time. Where had he put the draft? He believed he had followed the
usual course, and placed it with the other drafts of wills, which, as
it happened, were kept in this room. What could have become of it? It
was possible that MacGowan had inadvertently carried it downstairs
with him, and that it had been left there. Or it was possible that it
had fallen from the edge of his table into the waste-paper basket. He
questioned the office-keeper. She did not remember seeing any paper
such as he described in the waste-paper basket. It might have been
there; she could not say after so many weeks. If it was in the basket,
no doubt she had used it to light the fires with. She could not, in
fact, say anything about it.’
He was still speaking to the woman, when he received a message to the
effect that Mr. Hatchett, who had just arrived, wished to see him.
Alec went at once to his employer’s room. He was the first to speak.
‘Will you be kind enough, sir, to show me my uncle’s will?’
‘Certainly,’ said the lawyer, after a short pause.
He unlocked the safe, and produced the will. With trembling hands Alec
Lindsay opened it. There were the signatures, one of them slightly
blotted. He remembered them well. And in another moment his eyes were
riveted on the fatal words, ‘the sum of five thousand pounds.’ Again he
scrutinized the signatures. Yes; they were undoubtedly genuine. This
was the paper his uncle had signed.
Alec folded up the document, and gave it back to Mr. Hatchett.
‘I have made a terrible blunder, sir,’ he said, in a choking voice.
Then, steadying himself, he went on: ‘That bequest to the Free Church
of Scotland should have been five _hundred_ thousand pounds. I cannot
understand how it happened.’
‘You examined the will with the draft, did you not?’ asked the lawyer.
‘I did. The fault is mine. But where is the draft, Mr. Hatchett?’
‘That was just what I was going to ask you, Mr. Lindsay,’ said the
solicitor, with a faint but peculiar smile.
‘I have not got it.’
‘And I have never seen it. Where did you put it?’
‘With the other drafts, I imagine. But I can’t swear to that. It may
have dropped off my table into the waste-paper basket.’
‘Yes,’ said the solicitor, in a doubtful tone.
‘Sir, you don’t suppose that I made away with it?’ cried Alec hotly.
‘No---- Oh dear me, no! But it is very unfortunate.’
This was exactly what the lawyer did believe, however. He might have
thought it possible that the omission of the word ‘hundred’ had been a
blunder--but for the disappearance of the draft.
Neither spoke for a few moments. Mr. Hatchett thought it better,
considering that his clerk might be charged with a criminal offence,
to ask him no more questions, but leave him to frame his defence as
he thought best. He believed the young man had yielded to sudden
temptation, and had repented of it after destroying the tell-tale draft.
‘You are not looking at all well, Mr. Lindsay,’ he said, in a not
unkindly tone. ‘Indeed, you ought not to be out at all on such a day as
this. Let me advise you to go home, and try to dismiss the subject from
your mind.’
Alec followed the former part of his advice; to follow the latter part
of it was impossible. The subject haunted him. To be alone with it
was unendurable; he must take counsel with someone; and his thoughts
naturally turned to Hubert Blake.
In the afternoon he went to Blake’s studio, but it was empty. So Alec
told the cabman to drive to Highgate.
It was nearly dark when he arrived there, and afternoon tea was laid
in the drawing-room. Blake was there, and Sophy Meredith, and an
elderly lady whom Alec did not know. This was a Miss Elmwood, who had
been installed as Sophy’s companion.
The atmosphere of peace, of comfort, of freedom from everything like
care or anxiety, was inexpressibly soothing to Alec. His friends
welcomed him warmly, though Sophy gently reproached him, and Blake
roundly told him he was a fool, for venturing out of doors when he was
so ill.
‘I have something to say to you, Blake,’ he said, as soon as he could
get an opportunity of speaking aside to his friend. ‘I have got into a
most horrible mess, and I want your advice.’
Blake’s face became serious in a moment.
‘You know I am entirely at your service, Alec. If I had known you were
so ill, I would have been with you. I can’t ask you to come upstairs,
for there is no fire there, and the one in the library is very low.
But in a minute or two Miss Elmwood will go to sit with my uncle; she
always does so at this hour; and I will tell Miss Meredith that we want
to be left alone.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind her hearing what I have to say,’ said Alec; ‘I would
rather she did. The whole world will know soon enough, I fancy,’ he
added bitterly.
In a few minutes the three were left alone, and Alec told his story.
‘So you see the chances are that I shall be accused of a gigantic
fraud, and find myself in the dock before long,’ he said grimly in
conclusion.
‘Oh, never!’ exclaimed Sophy. ‘No one who knows you, no one who had
even seen you, would think you capable of such a thing!’
Alec smiled.
‘The world is not so good-natured as you are, Miss Meredith.’
Blake did not speak. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and
his head between his bands, studying the pattern of the carpet.
‘Had your cousin Semple anything to do with the preparation of the
will?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Nothing whatever,’ said Alec. ‘He did not even know what its contents
were, and insisted upon being in the room to hear it read. I can’t help
thinking that if I really read out “five hundred thousand pounds,” as I
thought I did, he would have made a row, instead of going quietly away.’
‘But the minister was there too. He would surely have said something if
you had read “five thousand,”’ remarked Sophy.
‘One of them is lying,’ said Blake decisively; ‘and, of the two, I’m
afraid it is more likely to be Semple.’
‘Beattie--that is the managing clerk at the office--came up last night
and told me all about it,’ said Alec. ‘He strongly advised me to say
nothing to anyone in the meantime--that is, anyone who might appear
against me.’
‘That was sound advice,’ said Blake. ‘The only thing that occurs to me
to do is to advertise for the man who wrote out the will. He is sure to
answer the advertisement. I will see that this is done to-morrow. And I
will look you up in the morning, and be ready with another surety, if
necessary--you understand.’
‘Thank you, Blake. I never thought of that,’ said Alec, as he rose to
go.
‘You must stay here to-night,’ said Sophy impulsively; ‘you must not
think of going out in this fog.’
‘Do,’ said Blake. ‘I’ll send a message to your landlady.’
But Alec would not stop. He would be more comfortable at home, he said.
They all three went into the hall together.
‘Alec, old fellow,’ said Blake, putting his hand on the young man’s
shoulder, ‘I’m afraid there’s a hard trial in store for you. You will
meet it like a man. Don’t get excited and lose your head, and don’t
allow yourself to be too much cast down. Hope for the best. Men have
had to face worse things, and have lived through them.’
Alec grasped his friend’s hand in silence. Sophy took his left hand
between her own.
‘You will be brave, and keep up your courage, I know,’ she said, as her
eyes moistened; ‘and we will hope and pray continually that all may yet
be well.’
‘Oh, all right,’ cried Alec, in his old cheery voice. ‘As Blake says,
men have had such things to bear and worse; why not I? Good-night.’
The touch of sympathy, the evident belief of his friends in his
integrity, the cheering words, had made him a new creature.
But there was one house Alec wished to visit before he sought his
own solitary abode. After a long drive he found himself at Claremont
Gardens. He wished to see Semple, and learn from his own lips whether
he had actually read ‘five thousand pounds’ when he read the will to
his uncle. But Semple was, unfortunately, out. Miss Lindsay was in bed
with a cold, and Laura received Alec alone.
‘I suppose you have heard about this terrible blunder I have
committed,’ he said, as he took his seat.
‘Yes, I was in the dining-room when Mr. Hatchett read the will. Dr.
Mackenzie seemed to be in a great passion.’
‘I am utterly unable to understand how it occurred,’ said Alec; ‘I want
to see Semple, and ask him a question or two.’
Semple, however, did not come in; and after talking in a desultory way
with Laura for some little time, Alec rose to go.
‘By the way,’ he exclaimed suddenly, ‘_you_ read the will before it was
signed; at least, you peeped into it, you remember. Was it not five
_hundred_ thousand----?’
‘Oh, Alec!’ exclaimed Laura, clasping her hands upon her breast; ‘don’t
remind me of that! You _said_ you would never mention it!’
‘I never have mentioned it to a third person, and I never will,’ said
Alec. ‘But I need not ask you how the will read. I have seen it myself.’
‘I did not read it--not that part of it, at least,’ exclaimed Laura,
in some confusion. ‘I was only anxious to see what I should have for
myself. I had no time to read it. I had hardly time to peep into it. It
is cruel, cruel of you to remind me of such a thing!’
‘Don’t say that, Laura,’ said Alec gently. ‘Don’t cry. Indeed I did
not mean to wound you. I only thought that as you had seen the will
you might remember----But it was stupid of me to ask the question,
for there is no doubt what the will says. I think I am getting a
little bewildered with it all. Last night, when Beattie--that is Mr.
Hatchett’s managing clerk, you know--told me of what I had done, I felt
as if I had been literally bewitched. I could have sworn the will was
all right. But never mind. Good-night; and I hope you will forgive me
for so thoughtlessly causing you pain.’
So Laura, smiling through her tears, graciously gave him her hand and
forgave him; and Alec went away. As soon as the hall-door had closed
behind him, she threw herself on the sofa and wept the bitterest tears
she had ever known.
Tired out in mind and body, Alec arrived at his lodgings. On the table
lay a piece of blue paper, neatly folded in two. It was a summons
for him to appear at the Bow Street Police Court at ten o’clock on
the following morning to answer charges of altering a will, and of
attempting to obtain money by false pretences.
He hardly heard the voice of the housemaid saying, ‘The man told me to
give it to you as soon as ever you come in, sir. And please, sir,’ the
girl added confidentially, for Alec had found favour in her eyes, ‘I
think he’s not gone far away,’ and she nodded in the direction of the
street.
Alec went to the window, and, shading his eyes with his hand, looked
out into the darkness. A burly fellow in plain clothes was loitering at
the opposite corner. The house was evidently watched; and the hot blood
rushed to the young man’s cheek, as he turned away from the window.
‘Thank you, Martha. That will do,’ he said quietly.
That night Alec felt as though the prison door had already closed
behind him.
CHAPTER XXIX.
AT THE POLICE COURT.
The plan devised by Beattie for securing a fortune for himself and
one for his fellow-conspirator, at the expense of the Free Church
of Scotland, had been skilfully devised and boldly carried out. Its
weakness was due to a succession of unlucky circumstances which could
hardly have been foreseen, and which neither Beattie nor James Semple
could possibly avert. The clerk’s intention had been to draw the will
himself, and alter the draft, after it came back from Mr. Lindsay, by
taking out the page in which the all-important words appeared, and
substituting a fresh page in which the bequest to the Free Church
should be merely five thousand pounds. He would then have examined the
draft with the engrossment along with MacGowan, gone to Mr. Lindsay
with it, and read aloud ‘five hundred thousand pounds,’ instead of
‘five thousand.’ If Mr. Lindsay had insisted on reading the will
himself, it would have been easy to pretend that the error was simply
due to the carelessness of the clerk who copied it; and if necessary,
he could have slipped the original page of the draft back into its
place, and thus diverted suspicion from himself. In any case, no one
was likely to suspect him, for he had no apparent interest in the
matter, one way or the other. If the will were challenged after the old
man’s death, it would be easy for Semple to say that his uncle had told
him to instruct the lawyer’s clerk to alter the amount, and easy for
Beattie to declare that he had called the testator’s attention to the
matter when the will was signed.
The fraud seemed very easy of execution, the only real difficulty
being the necessity of silencing MacGowan, which did not appear a very
arduous undertaking. Beattie was congratulating himself already on his
success, when the news that Mr. Lindsay specially desired that his
nephew should prepare his will fell on him like a thunderbolt. Should
he abandon the scheme? Abandon a hundred thousand pounds! It was not to
be thought of. Was there any other method of carrying out the fraud?
Beattie could think of none. On the spur of the moment he told Alec
Lindsay not to send the draft to be settled by counsel, and not to send
it to the law-stationers, hoping that some change in the old man’s
plans might yet enable him to carry out his scheme.
While Alec was drawing the will, Beattie’s subtle brain was devising a
way of overcoming this obstacle; and at length he hit upon the plan of
getting hold of MacGowan while he was half tipsy, and making him copy
the will over again. MacGowan would probably forget next day what he
had done in a state of semi-intoxication; but to make sure, he would
give him money and send him out of the country.
The strong point of the new scheme was that it involved no risk till
the last moment. If it had been found impracticable to substitute the
altered will (which Beattie had in his pocket when he went to Claremont
Gardens for the second time) for the true one, before the latter was
signed, no one could possibly tell that the attempt had been made.
The weak point of the plan was the difficulty of effecting the
substitution. After long deliberation, Beattie came to the conclusion
that the thing was quite practicable.
Clearly, Alec Lindsay’s attention must be diverted by some matter of
sufficient importance, at the critical moment; and Beattie partly
arranged and partly invented an excuse for seeking him at Mr. Lindsay’s
house, and making him write an affidavit then and there. Semple, he
thought, might insist upon being present while the will was being
executed on the score of jealousy of his cousin. He had only to lower
the blind, and draw it up again, to make Beattie (who was waiting in a
cab at the corner of the street) come upon the scene.
Alec, Beattie argued, was certain at least to come downstairs and see
him. He would either leave the will upstairs in his uncle’s bedroom,
or bring it down with him--probably he would leave it upstairs. Semple
was to be in the library when Beattie was shown into it, ready to take
the false will from his confederate, and leave the room before Alec
entered it. He was then to go upstairs, and try to effect the exchange.
If he failed, he failed, and no harm was done. If he found that the
will was not there, he was to go back at once to the library, and hand
the false will back to Beattie, who was to change one document for the
other, while Alec Lindsay was busy with the affidavit.
Everything had been provided for; and everything was carried out
according to the conspirators’ plans, except that James Semple, instead
of fetching the will which Alec had read from his uncle’s room,
prevailed upon Laura (who had her own reason for wishing to know its
contents) to get it and bring it to him. The girl imagined that she was
merely helping her lover to ascertain how his uncle had devised his
property. Semple, of course, had changed the true will for the false
one, as he pretended to read the former at the drawing-room window.
When Laura asked him afterwards what he had learned, he replied:
‘I couldn’t make much of it. I think I shall have a good large sum; but
I couldn’t be sure that I understood their lawyer’s jargon.’
Beattie had not forgotten that on him devolved the responsibility of
Alec Lindsay’s defence. Thinking it wise to take time by the forelock,
he went down to the Temple on the afternoon of the day after the will
was read, and made his way to the chambers of Mr. Abel Corker. Mr.
Corker’s practice lay chiefly in the Bankruptcy Court, but he had seen
a good deal of criminal business in his time, and Mr. Beattie was
satisfied that he could not intrust young Lindsay’s interests to more
capable hands than his.
Passing through a very narrow lane, the lawyer’s clerk turned into
a doorway in an old building, the bricks of which were black with
soot. The sides of the doorway were adorned with fifty or sixty
names belonging to men learned in the law. Glancing at these to
assure himself of being right, Beattie ascended a dark old-fashioned
staircase, till he reached the third floor, and stopped at a door
embellished with half a dozen names in black letters, and a small
knocker.
Mr. Beattie had no sooner rapped than the door was suddenly opened by a
small boy who precipitated himself into the aperture, as if determined
to block the way until due cause for admittance had been shown.
‘Can I see Mr. Corker? I want a consultation,’ said the visitor,
plunging his hand into his trousers-pocket.
Without speaking a word, the boy led the way into a corner of the
passage, boxed off so as to form a clerk’s room. This cheerful
apartment contained a table and a gas-jet; and the boy watched the
stranger in silence as he deposited the regulation sum, one pound six
shillings, upon the table. Then, still without uttering a syllable, he
went into the passage, and pulled open a door.
Mr. Corker had just come across the street from the Law Courts and had
not yet divested himself of his wig and gown. He was standing with
his back to the fire, his gown carefully tucked under one arm to save
it from being scorched--a needless precaution, as no scorching could
make it browner than it was already. His wig, very black, and very much
battered, was awry; and his bands looked as if he had forgotten to take
them off when he went to bed the night before.
Seeing his visitor, Mr. Corker grunted, left off stroking his chin, and
held out two dirty fingers. Mr. Beattie bowed, totally ignoring the
fingers, and seated himself without waiting for an invitation to do so.
‘I am managing clerk in the firm of Hatchett, Small, and Hatchett,’ he
began; and went straight on with his story, telling, of course, only
what was known to Mr. Hatchett and to Alec himself.
Mr. Corker’s keen black eyes were turned full upon the speaker; and as
he concluded a benevolent grin overspread the old barrister’s sallow
features.
‘Very neat--very pretty--very pretty _indeed_,’ he said. ‘This Mr.
Lindsay must be a young man of ability. It was not expected, I suppose,
that the Scotch minister should be present at the reading of the will?’
‘I should think not,’ said Mr. Beattie, with a smile.
‘And what do they charge him with, eh?’
‘They have not had time to charge him yet; but I thought it better to
make you acquainted with the facts, so that----’
Mr. Beattie stopped, for Mr. Corker was not listening to him. With one
hand still holding up the tails of his gown, and the other caressing
the lower part of his face, Mr. Corker was promenading the room, quite
oblivious to all but the workings of his own brain.
‘And the draft’s lost?’ he asked suddenly.
‘It cannot be found,’ said Mr. Beattie gravely.
‘That’s a mistake. It ought to be found,’ said Mr. Corker sharply.
‘I’m afraid it cannot be found,’ replied Mr. Beattie, and the barrister
recommenced his promenade without paying any more attention to his
visitor.
Seeing this, Beattie quietly left the room, and after impressing upon
the silent clerk the necessity of despatching his master in a hansom to
Bow Street Police Court immediately on receiving a telegram, he took
his departure.
Next morning Beattie had a note from Alec, posted the night before,
telling him of the summons; and in consequence of the managing clerk’s
forethought, Alec found his counsel awaiting him when he arrived at Bow
Street.
The magistrate had not yet taken his seat, and there was time for
a short interview. Etiquette did not require that Mr. Corker should
appear in an inferior court such as a police court in professional
costume; and this was a pity, for if the barrister had seemed but a
faded flower in his wig and gown, he looked positively disreputable
without them.
On his part Mr. Corker regarded Alec with considerable interest, very
much as an R.A. might look on a young artist who had shown unusual
talent.
‘There’s just one thing I want to say to you, Mr. Corker,’ said Alec
hurriedly. ‘I am convinced now that I made a gross blunder in preparing
the will. I could not believe it at first; but I see that I must have
done so, and I suppose I must suffer for my carelessness. Whether, in
reading the will, I read what was really there, or what I thought was
there, I don’t know.’
As Alec had been speaking, Mr. Corker kept looking at him with a
curious, half-amused, half-admiring expression in his beady black eyes;
and when the young man ended his speech he turned slowly away, without
answering a word, and began to tell an interesting story to the counsel
on the other side. This was Mr. Champneys, a middle-aged man, with a
hard, keen face, finely-cut features, and firmly-set thin lips. Mr.
Champneys wore well-made clothes and fine linen, and looked like a
gentleman. Everything about him was absolutely correct, everything he
said was clearly yet cautiously expressed. He sat with unmoved features
listening to Mr. Corker’s anecdote, when a sudden bustle in the region
of the bench announced the arrival of Mr. Mallison, the magistrate. The
two barristers and the half-dozen solicitors who were present stood
up; and as Mr. Mallison slowly made his way to his chair, Mr. Corker
placed his hand over his mouth, and delivered the point of his story
into Mr. Champneys’ ear, much to that gentleman’s disgust.
Alec was sitting beside Beattie at the solicitors’ table. He glanced
behind him. The court was filled with frowsy women and beetle-browed
men, the friends of the prisoners who were presently to appear in
the dock, with here and there the tall form of a policeman. A few
respectable-looking people were sitting in front; but the majority
of those present evidently belonged to the criminal classes; and the
unmistakable, sickening odour peculiar to such a crowd filled the air.
‘Are these the men with whom I am to live for the future?’ said Alec to
himself, as a shudder passed over him.
But the magistrate had arranged his papers, and was now ready to begin.
‘Are you two gentlemen in the same case?’ he asked, with a glance at
the two counsel.
‘I believe so,’ said Mr. Champneys.
‘Then we’ll take your case first,’ answered Mr. Mallison.
This was not pure good-nature on the magistrate’s part. He knew Mr.
Corker well, and was anxious to get him out of the court as soon as
possible.
Then Mr. Champneys rose, and ‘opened the case.’ Alec’s eyes wandered to
a kind of box fitted with pews at one side of the bench. Half a dozen
men and boys were sitting there, writing as fast as their pencils would
go.
‘These are the reporters,’ thought Alec; ‘to-morrow morning my shame
will be in every man’s mouth.’
As succinctly as he could, Mr. Champneys detailed the facts.
‘I shall only ask for a remand to-day,’ he said in conclusion, ‘as the
documents we rely upon are not yet in our hands. Call the Reverend Dr.
Mackenzie.’
Mr. Corker grinned, and looked the magistrate straight in the face.
‘I may save the court some trouble,’ he said, rising. ‘The will is
here. The draft seems to have been destroyed as waste-paper. Messrs.
Hatchett’s managing clerk is here; and he will tell you, sir, that he
has searched everywhere for it, and it cannot be found. But to my mind
that is of little importance. My client is accused of altering a will.
Here is the will. It is evident on the face of it that it has not been
altered.’
A long wrangle followed upon this point; and eventually the magistrate
decided that he could not commit the defendant upon the charge of
altering the will.
‘At least, sir,’ said Mr. Champneys, ‘as the defendant would have
gained largely by the fraud, had it not been detected, there was an
attempt to obtain money by the false pretence, made in reading the will
to his uncle, that the words in the will were “five hundred thousand
pounds.”’
Another wrangle ensued upon this point, Mr. Corker arguing, with much
scorn of his opponent’s contentions, that no attempt had yet been made
by the accused to get the money, that it could only be obtained from
the executors, whereas the alleged false pretence had been made to the
testator, and so forth.
After half an hour’s argument, Mr. Mallison came to the conclusion that
he could not commit the defendant for trial upon that charge, any more
than he could upon that of altering the will; and Mr. Corker, muttering
his satisfaction, began to fold up the sheet of paper which had done
duty as his brief.
Dr. Mackenzie was amazed, bewildered, shocked. Was the culprit going
to escape after all? Was he not to be allowed even to tell his story to
the magistrate? He tried to speak to his solicitor; but the solicitor
would not listen. He stood up, and laying his hand on his counsel’s
arm, whispered:
‘It was the draft he altered, not the will.’
‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Mr. Champneys to the magistrate, after a
moment’s thought; ‘it is at least clear that the defendant can be
indicted for altering the draft (which would in the circumstances be
forgery), and for uttering the forged draft.’
‘There’s nothing about forgery, or uttering a forged draft here,’ said
Mr. Corker, with an angry frown, waving the summons in the face of the
bench.
‘True; but now I apply for a summons. Perhaps your worship would order
that it be served at once,’ and Mr. Champneys glanced in Alec’s
direction with a look that was both uneasy and insulting.
Before Mr. Corker could intervene, Alec sprang to his feet.
‘I am perfectly willing that the summons should be issued and heard
now,’ he cried.
Mr. Corker turned upon him with a scowl. Mr. Mallison regarded him
gravely over the top of his spectacles.
‘You have no objection, I suppose, Mr. Corker,’ said the magistrate.
The barrister growled something by way of reply, as he turned to confer
with Beattie.
‘Seems as if he rather wanted to be locked up,’ whispered Mr. Corker.
‘I fancy the charge must be heard some time. We gain nothing by delay,’
said Beattie, in a low tone.
Mr. Corker gravely unfolded his _pro forma_ brief, and placed it before
Mr. Beattie, with his finger laid impressively on the title of that
document. The other smiled, and, taking up a pen, added the words, ‘For
Forgery and Uttering a Forged Draft--Mr. Corker--five guineas.’ This
little point having been satisfactorily settled, the new charge was
formally made, and Dr. Mackenzie had the satisfaction of telling his
story in the witness-box.
His evidence was evidently that of an honest man, and it told fatally
against Alec. Mr. Corker fairly earned his fresh fee, bullying
the witness, the counsel for the prosecution, and the magistrate
impartially, and loudly contending that as the draft was lost, the
evidence was totally insufficient to convict the defendant.
But Mr. Mallison, like many men who have no great strength of mind, was
obstinate. He was convinced that a gigantic fraud had been attempted,
and he was resolved that the case should go before a jury. Besides, he
was getting angry at Mr. Corker’s scornful tone and arrogant manner.
‘There,’ he said, as he signed the warrant of commitment; ‘he’s fully
committed. I suppose you will now conclude your argument, Mr. Corker?’
The barrister dashed the book he was quoting from on the table before
him.
‘I apply that the defendant may be admitted to bail,’ he said. ‘I am
prepared with bail to any reasonable amount.’
The magistrate shook his head.
‘I know Mr. Lindsay well. I will become his bail for twenty thousand
pounds,’ said a voice from the body of the court.
Alec’s pale face flushed with pleasure. It was Blake who had spoken.
But Mr. Mallison had once more made up his mind, and was now immovable.
‘Who are you, sir? The defendant has one counsel, and that is
enough,’ he said to Blake. ‘The case is too important to admit of my
considering the question of bail,’ he added. ‘Half a million sterling,
I think you said, Dr. Mackenzie?’
‘Half a million, sir.’
‘Couldn’t think of bail for a moment.’
Mr. Champneys gathered up his books and papers. Mr. Corker, very much
disgusted with the turn matters had taken, pushed his way out of court.
A policeman touched Alec Lindsay on the shoulder and led him away.
CHAPTER XXX.
ALEC’S FRIENDS VISIT HIM.
It was not until the evening of the following day that a letter from
Hubert Blake arrived at the Castle Farm. Alec himself had not written;
for Blake had assured him that he would write at once, and would say
all that was necessary.
As soon as Alec’s father opened the letter and read its opening words,
Margaret, who was watching him, saw a change come into his face. She
dropped her work and clasped her hands, nerving herself for the bad
news which she was sure had come.
The letter was a very long one, and took several minutes to read. Still
Margaret waited, without speaking. Suddenly the old man’s arm dropped
by the side of his chair, and he uttered a sound which was half a moan,
half an inarticulate wail.
‘What is it, father?’ cried Margaret, springing to his side. ‘Something
dreadful has happened. Oh! what is it?’
Her father gazed at her with stony features, without uttering a word.
‘Only tell me, father! Something is wrong with Alec. Is he ill?’
‘Worse than that, my girl,’ said the old man, almost in a whisper.
‘Dead--is he dead? He cannot be dead.’
‘It is worse than that,’ said Mr. Lindsay, in a louder tone.
‘He has----’
The words failed to come.
He conquered his emotion, and spoke them with a cold, cruel
distinctness.
‘He has stolen--or tried to steal--his uncle’s money. He is in prison.’
For a moment Margaret’s heart stood still. Then she seized Blake’s
letter, which was lying on the floor, and began to read it.
The old man sat gazing into the fire without speaking.
‘But he may be innocent!’ cried Margaret suddenly. ‘Mr. Blake does not
believe him guilty. See; he says--“Of course I do not for one moment
believe----”’
‘Of course he says that,’ interrupted her father impatiently. ‘That is
only his polite way of speaking.’
‘But he _cannot_ be guilty.’
‘None of us know what we may do till the temptation comes, Margaret.
Besides, it is too clear. Your uncle imagined he was leaving all this
money to the Free Church. Alec made him think he was doing so by
reading the will wrongly. Dr. Mackenzie has sworn that he heard him do
so with his own ears.’
‘But James Semple says----’
‘I noticed that,’ said Mr. Lindsay coldly. ‘Don’t you see, they
would divide this immense sum of money between them? I would not
take Semple’s word, in such a case, against that of a man like Dr.
Mackenzie.’
‘Are you going to London, father?’ asked the girl, after a pause.
‘Ay; I suppose so. In the morning.’
‘You will let me go with you?’
‘Nonsense, girl. Of what use could _you_ be?’
‘Not much, perhaps; but we would be company for each other. Oh, father!
I can’t stay here by myself!’
And the old man yielded a somewhat grudging consent.
Late on the following afternoon they arrived in London. Blake had
obtained from his uncle permission to invite them both to Highgate in
the first instance, an invitation which Mr. Lindsay was very unwilling
to accept. He wished to go to an hotel, but Margaret overruled him.
‘They will perhaps be offended if we don’t go; and we need only stay
one night,’ she said.
Old Mr. Blake found it convenient to have one of his ‘attacks,’ as
he rather vaguely called them, and thus avoided his guests entirely,
Hubert was anxious to make some return for the kindness he had received
at Castle Farm; but in spite of his efforts there was a constraint on
the little party which nothing could dissipate. Mr. Lindsay looked and
spoke very much as usual, except that he was very pale, and there was
a stern formality in his manner which forbade any nearer approach. His
rough northern accents sounded harsh and forbidding to the southern
ears of his new acquaintances.
As for Sophy, her colour heightened a little when she was told that
Margaret would accompany her father, and would, for one night at least,
be a guest under Mr. Blake’s roof. She was anxious to see what the girl
was like who had captivated Hubert’s affections--for she felt sure
that something of the kind had occurred. Margaret’s cold pale face,
her severe beauty, her low measured tones, took the English girl by
surprise.
‘She is dressed like a housekeeper,’ was Sophy’s first thought. ‘But
how self-possessed she is, how--how unlike anyone I have ever seen,’
was her second.
Margaret, in spite of her country-made dress and her utter want of
‘style,’ was in no way ridiculous. Her calm proud eyes surveyed her
hostess, till Sophy felt, somehow, that she was the smaller and weaker
creature of the two, and instinctively turned to Hubert for sympathy
and protection.
Before Mr. Lindsay went upstairs for the night Blake tried to say a
word about Alec, whose name had never crossed his father’s lips.
‘I think it will be better, Mr. Blake, if we leave that subject
entirely alone for the present,’ said the old man sternly.
Blake flushed and bit his lip, but made no reply.
‘Is it possible that he believes Alec to be guilty?’ he said to himself
afterwards, with a curious look at his guest’s face.
It was true. The laird was not a man to take an imaginative view of
things. He looked simply at the facts, and in them he read his son’s
condemnation. As for the faith that can go beyond ‘facts,’ the faith
that considers a man’s character to be the most important of all facts,
that can accept a gesture of denial as more potent evidence than the
words of many witnesses, he would have looked upon such a thing as
childish folly. His son had been tempted, probably by Semple. He had
been without true religious principle; and he had fallen. The disgrace
was indelible; it was overwhelming. For him no more would the sun
shine, or the trees put forth their leaves. His gray hairs would indeed
go down with sorrow to the grave.
There was this to be said for him, that he had never known his son. The
two natures were in many points absolutely unlike. Their sympathies
were diverse. Alec had often abstained from expressing his true
opinions, but the old man had nevertheless been quite aware that they
were in many instances the antipodes of his own. Confidence between
them would in any case have been difficult; and events had made it
almost impossible. Alec perhaps did his father less than justice, and
the old man felt bitterly that any one of Alec’s chance acquaintances
knew his son better than he did himself.
It was a relief to everyone when the travellers retired. Sophy, as she
sought her couch, could think of no one but Margaret.
‘An iceberg! A positive iceberg!’ she exclaimed to herself, as she
sat crouching over the tiny fire in her bedroom. ‘Even her brother’s
trouble does not seem to move her in the least. Ah! if I had had
such a brother! And Hubert--can he really love her? If it had been
anyone worthy of him, anyone who could understand and return his warm
affection, I should have been----’
Here Sophy’s candle suddenly went out, and her reflections ended in a
sigh.
Meanwhile, Alec’s naturally buoyant spirits had not failed him. As he
told himself over and over again, he had acted like a fool, with a most
culpable want of care, and it was only natural and fitting that he
should suffer for it. As for the confinement, the cold of his cell,
the mean surroundings, the distasteful food, that mattered little. The
disgrace was the worst of it.
‘My poor father will feel it terribly,’ he said to himself. ‘And even
if by some accident I am acquitted, will men believe me innocent? How
can I hope to rise to a high place in the world’s estimation after
this? Twenty years hence someone will say--There was some queer story
about a will, wasn’t there? He was accused of tampering with one, and
he was tried at the Old Bailey. I know that.’
This was the thought which chilled him, and nearly broke down his
courage. His liberty might be regained; wealth might come in future
years; but his good name, more precious than all--was not that
irretrievably gone?
This gloomy thought was in his mind one morning, when his cell-door
suddenly opened, and his father appeared, with Margaret behind him.
Alec sprang from his seat, and rushed forward with outstretched hands.
‘Father!’ he cried.
But the old man had advanced a step or two, and now stood looking at
his son immovably, his hands resting on the top of his stick.
‘Unhappy boy!’
Alec drew back, his eyes blazing with indignation, unable to speak.
Margaret was seized with a fit of sobbing. It was the only sound in the
cell.
‘And you believe that I did that?’ asked Alec at length, frowning as he
spoke.
The lad’s look and words almost shook the old man’s opinion. Alec
seemed to be taking the part of the accuser.
‘I believe the oath of God’s minister,’ answered Mr. Lindsay. ‘Do
you--dare you, deny it?’
‘Deny it!’ echoed the boy, as, turning his back, he looked up at the
grated window of his cell.
It was well that his father could not see the look of contempt which
was then on his face.
‘Speak, sir! Do you deny your guilt to your own father?’ cried the old
man.
The lad’s manner was irritating him past endurance. Alec did not answer
at once, and Margaret stepped forward.
‘Only say you did not intend to do anything wrong, Alec,’ she said,
laying her hand on her brother’s arm.
‘Why should I say it, when I would not be believed, Maggie?’ he said
in a softer tone. ‘We had better not say any more about it. I am sorry
you should have had such a long journey in winter for nothing,’ he
continued, addressing his father. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
The old man looked at his son without speaking. Was it possible that he
could be speaking the truth? No; he told himself. It was not possible.
And if so, what a consummate hypocrite, what an impudent scoundrel, had
the young man become! And yet he was his son.
The interview lasted a few minutes longer; but nothing further was said
on the subject of Alec’s guilt or innocence, till the visitors were on
the point of leaving the cell.
‘Alec,’ said the laird in a softer tone than he had yet spoken in,
‘if you cannot confess to me, you may at least confess to God. If we
confess our sins, you know, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins. But if any restitution is possible it must be made, else there
can be no forgiveness.--Come, Margaret, I think we had better be going
now.’
And the old man turned to leave the cell, a hundred-fold more sad at
heart than he had been when he entered it.
Alec stood still, in cold but respectful silence. Margaret, as soon as
his back was turned, threw one arm round her brothers neck; but he did
not respond to her embrace.
‘And you, Maggie? Do you believe this of me?’
‘Not--not if you say you did not intend to do wrong, Alec. But if
you had done it, I would have loved you all the same,’ she said in a
hurried whisper.
‘Thank you, Maggie. But--never mind. Good-bye for to-day. Don’t let
father come again, if you can help it.’
In another moment they were gone.
So even Maggie did not quite believe in him. She was not sure. She was
balancing probabilities.
‘And who will believe in my innocence, if my own father does not?’ he
cried aloud, when he found himself alone.
Who indeed? Alec saw, as he had not seen before, the cruel strength
of the very accusation to blast his life. Henceforth an honourable
distinction was impossible for him. In a moment the ambition which,
vague as its shape had been, bad been the life-blood of his soul,
perished within him. He saw the years stretch out before him, without
hope of any second spring. His love was wrecked; his good name was
gone; and, worst of all, there was nothing to live for.
All at once he burst into a wild fit of laughter.
The gaoler came and opened his cell-door to see what was the matter.
‘It’s a queer world this, isn’t it, turnkey?’
‘None the less queer for having _you_ in it,’ said the man, as he shut
the door with a bang, and made the heavy bolts fall into their sockets.
CHAPTER XXXI.
MISGIVINGS.
Meantime, James Semple’s conscience had been making him very miserable.
It was not the fraud that troubled him. He had long since made up
his mind that to prevent his uncle’s unnatural intentions from being
carried out was a very venial offence. Nor was it merely Alec’s
incarceration. That, he thought, would be amply compensated by the
quarter of a million which would fall to his share as one of the
residuary legatees. Alec’s fortune, in fact, would be twice as large
as his own; and it was only fair that he should take his share of the
inconveniences which were inseparable from the securing of it.
But if his cousin should be convicted, and sentenced to a long term
of penal servitude, Semple knew that he would feel very uncomfortable
indeed. Yet, he argued, Alec would certainly have himself to thank
if that was the result. If he had chosen to take Beattie’s hint, and
declare that his uncle, before he died, had privately told him that he
had changed his mind, and wished to leave the bulk of his money to his
two nephews, all would have been well, and Dr. Mackenzie might have
raged as much as he pleased, without being able to do any harm. It was
Alec’s inability to explain the discrepancy between the will as it
stood and his uncle’s known intentions which formed the real strength
of the prosecution.
It would be very sad if Alec were convicted in consequence of his
own obstinacy, but it would be still more sad, it would be a quite
intolerable calamity, if anything should happen to Mr. James Semple.
And in spite of Beattie’s assurances, he felt far from secure. He
was horrified to find that Alec was actually in prison before he had
heard that criminal proceedings had been thought of. If the fraud were
discovered, what would be his fate?
‘I say, Beattie,’ he said to his friend one day, ‘I almost think I’ll
take a voyage to California, or somewhere, and stay there till this
affair has been thoroughly forgotten. You could remit my share of the
proceeds, couldn’t you?’
Beattie looked at him curiously.
‘I might. But I should be much more likely to remit a detective
officer.’
‘What!’ cried the other with a white, scared face. ‘You don’t mean that
you would turn traitor, do you?’
‘I mean that you would turn traitor if you bolted just now. Don’t you
see that it would make everybody believe that you had done something,
and that you were afraid you would be found out? Besides, we need your
evidence for your cousin’s trial.’
Semple muttered something to the effect that Alec’s trial could get on
very well without him.
‘But you don’t think they can convict him?’ he said aloud.
‘Corker says he thinks he can get him off, and he’s the best criminal
lawyer in the country,’ answered Beattie tranquilly. ‘But you mustn’t
talk of a trip to America,’ he added, with a meaning look. ‘If you do,
you will never see one penny of your uncle’s money. I’ll see to that.’
‘Oh; I was only joking, of course,’ said the other, as he took his
leave.
Semple was still living at Claremont Gardens, and he made his way
thither that day, after parting from his companion.
As he opened the door with his latch-key, Laura met him in the hall.
‘Oh, James,’ she whispered to him, ‘Margaret Lindsay has come up to
town; and she is in the drawing-room now, with your aunt. She is
waiting on purpose to see you.’
Semple muttered an oath between his teeth, as he very deliberately took
off his overcoat; and Laura glided back to the drawing-room.
‘No, my dear,’ Miss Lindsay was saying when she entered; ‘nothing will
ever make me believe such a thing o’ Alec. If your feyther has his
doots, as ye seem to think, he has less gumption than I gied him credit
for. Hoots! The thing’s perfeckly ridiculous!’ exclaimed the old lady,
smoothing away imaginary crumbs from her lap as she spoke.
Margaret felt more cheered by this speech than she had been since the
blow had fallen; and at that moment Semple entered the room.
‘How do you do, Maggie?’ he said, going up to her in a hurried way, and
shaking her by the hand. ‘I didn’t know you had come up. Almost a pity,
I think; for this scrape, I mean this ridiculous accusation they have
made against your brother, is a matter of no real moment. It is only a
temporary--inconvenience, you know.’
The three women were listening to him in silence, and somehow his words
sounded hollow and unreal, even to himself.
Margaret felt hurt that her wound should thus be openly probed and
commented on, and she made no reply.
‘Then you think that Mr. Alec Lindsay is in no real--danger?’ asked
Laura timidly.
Semple turned to her almost gratefully.
‘Not the least in the world,’ he said eagerly. ‘I have just seen B----
Mr.--a--the lawyer, you know, and he feels quite sure about it.’
‘Oh, I am so glad!’ exclaimed Laura.
Then there was a pause.
‘There is just one question I should like to ask you, James,’ said
Margaret.
Semple’s heart sank within him.
‘When Alec read over the will, did he read the bequest “five thousand”
or “five _hundred_ thousand” pounds?’
‘Five thousand,’ said Semple promptly.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Margaret, her large eyes steadily regarding him.
‘I’ll take my oath of it.’
‘But Alec says, I understand, that he either said, or meant to say,
“five _hundred_ thousand.”’
‘There’s no doubt he read it as it stands--five thousand--and I heard
him,’ persisted Semple. ‘But there seems to have been a mistake of
some sort. I don’t profess to understand it myself.’
‘Umph,’ said Miss Lindsay.
‘Let us hope for the best, dear Margaret--I may call you Margaret, as I
did in the old days, mayn’t I?’ said Laura, when Margaret rose to go.
‘And you will let me help you to look for rooms, won’t you?’
But Margaret was in no mood to accept civilities. She thanked Laura
rather coolly, and went away, declining her cousin’s offer to escort
her to Highgate.
‘Have you been to see Alec, James?’ asked Miss Lindsay, when Margaret
had gone.
Now this was what Semple had not been able to bring himself to do.
‘Not yet,’ he said sullenly. ‘He doesn’t want a lot of people bothering
round him. At least, if I were in his place I wouldn’t.’
‘If you were in his place----’ repeated the old lady, as if she were
not thinking of her words, as she turned and slowly left the room.
Semple shuddered, and watched her curiously till the door closed behind
her.
‘James,’ said Laura suddenly, ‘you remember one night, before my uncle
died, you asked me to watch what he did with a paper that had come from
the lawyers. What was in that paper? Had it anything to do with the
will?’
‘What paper? Oh, I remember now. No; nothing in the world.’
Laura had purposely put her question in this shape.
‘James, you are not telling me the truth,’ she said, looking at him
steadily. ‘You gave me to understand at the time that it had to do with
it.’
‘You are quite mistaken,’ cried Semple, greatly alarmed.
It was the manner of his denial which the clever girl had wished to
observe; and what she saw satisfied her that she had been right in her
guess about the paper.
‘My uncle put it in his desk,’ she said slowly, ‘and I told you how to
take the desk out of the room. Did you get the paper? What did you do
with it? Did you burn it?’
‘No--no! What makes you imagine such things?’
‘I believe you did burn it. Come now!’ she said, laughing.
Semple laughed a little too, and looked furtively at his companion, as
she sat looking into the fire. Laura turned round sharply, and caught
his glance, smiled to herself, and gracefully changed the subject.
Seeing that the danger had gone by, Semple ventured to take her hand.
Laura quietly withdrew it.
‘What’s the matter, Laura?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why do you treat me like that?’
‘How else should I treat you?’
‘Aren’t we two engaged?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘But we are,’ cried Semple, catching her wrist.
‘Indeed you are mistaken,’ said the girl, throwing off his grasp. ‘You
asked me, I know.’
‘And you accepted me.’
‘I have not made up my mind about it yet.’
‘Upon my word!’
His astonishment prevented his saying more. Suddenly a thought occurred
to him, which stung him like a serpent.
‘Oh, I suppose that means that you have heard.’
‘Heard what?’
‘That Alec Lindsay is a residuary legatee as well as I.’ In a moment
he saw that he had made a great mistake. She had not known it before.
But he was too angry to think of what he said. ‘If the poor fellow
escapes penal servitude, that is,’ said he, with a sneer.
Laura Meredith rose and drew a step nearer to the smiling, mocking face
before her. She could gladly have struck it. Then she moved away again,
while the smile died from Semple’s face; and without uttering another
word, she walked out of the room.
Semple, in a rage, went off to his club, banging the door behind him;
and Laura, as soon as she saw that the coast was clear, slipped back to
the drawing-room fire (for, cat-like, she dearly loved a good blaze),
and sat down to think.
‘So Alec, if he was not found guilty, was to be rich after all--as rich
as his cousin! What a good thing it was that she had not committed
herself definitely to Semple! But Alec--would he ever come back to
her? She remembered only too well the look in his face when he met her
outside Mr. Lindsay’s bedroom door with the will in her hand.
Yet, if he were the victim of a plot, and if she were to deliver him
from the snare in which he had been taken, surely gratitude would make
him turn to her then! And she would be a good wife to him; faithful,
and true, and loving. How happy they might be! And the girl’s eyes
softened as the idea crossed her mind.
He must be set free, and she must do it. He was innocent. She had never
doubted that. (Curiously enough, this girl had judged Alec better than
his own father had done.) How had he been involved? Had he really made
a mistake? Or was there some conspiracy on foot?
Laura went the right way to work. She did not stop to consider the
difficulties of the case, but went straight to motives. If there was a
plot on foot, Semple was concerned in it. She felt sure of that.
Why had he been so anxious to get hold of that paper? She believed he
had burned it.
Then, why had he wanted to see the will, when (as she afterwards
learned) he had been in the room while it was read? Had he made any
alteration in it? No. She felt certain there had been no time for
anything of that kind. If he had even bent down to write in it, she
must have seen him doing it. He had only stood at the window with it in
his hand reading it. Besides, if he had altered the writing in any way,
the alteration must have been noticed.
The girl’s subtle mind was at fault. She could see no clue to the plot
which, she felt certain, existed.
Suddenly she remembered the conversation between Semple and a stranger,
which she had partly overheard at the railway-station. ‘We are not out
of the wood yet,’ the stranger had said; and ‘he must not be there when
the will is read, on any account.’ Who must not be there? Not Alec,
surely. Dr. Mackenzie? Why? Clearly, that he might not be able to say
what Alec had read.
So much seemed clear; but still there was no explanation of the fact
that Alec had failed to carry out his uncle’s instructions. Ponder over
it as she might, the girl could not solve the mystery.
‘But suppose I were to write to Alec and tell him all this,’ she said
to herself, ‘or tell some friend of his, Mr. Blake, for example, and
get him to tell the lawyer; he might be able to put the pieces of the
puzzle together. If they have made up some plot and allowed the blame
to fall on Alec, what a shame!’ And again a pleased look came into
her face as she remembered how Alec’s gratitude, if she were the means
of establishing his innocence, would surely bring him once more to her
side.
But--how could she have overlooked it? She could never tell this. She
had made herself one of the conspirators. How could she confess that
she had kept a watch on the old man, and told his nephew where his
private papers were to be found? Could she tell openly that she had
smuggled his will out of his room before it was signed, and had given
it to Semple to read? She might find herself in the dock instead of
Alec, accused of--she knew not what. Who would believe that she had
done these things innocently, when she could give no good reason for
doing them at all?
Was she going to risk standing her trial with Semple, and----? She
shuddered, shook her head, and crept upstairs to her own room. She
dared not tell.
CHAPTER XXXII.
BEFORE THE TRIAL.
‘Well, old fellow, how are you getting on?’
Alec turned on the rough bed which served him for a couch in the
daytime, and saw Hubert Blake.
‘Not getting on at a particularly fast pace just at present,’ said
Alec, as he got up and shook hands with his friend.
‘You’re keeping up your spirits, I hope?’
‘I do my best.’
‘How do you amuse yourself?’
‘I got the doctor to lend me an old Tod-hunter. I find nothing like
algebra for making the time pass--that is, if you try to find out
something of it for yourself.’
‘What have you got here?’ asked Blake, who had strolled up to a corner
where a card was hanging.
‘Only an almanac.’
‘And you’re ticking off the days, I see. Are you counting up to
the----?’
‘The day of my trial--yes,’ said Alec, looking as if he wished that his
friend had not been so observant.
‘Are you so anxious for it to come off?’ asked Blake, sitting down on
the edge of the bed.
‘Yes. Naturally I want to know the worst.’
‘I was talking with your lawyer friend yesterday. He seems certain that
you will be acquitted.’
‘An acquittal would not set things right.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you see that whether I am convicted or not is a thing that
affects only my liberty and my personal comfort? If I am acquitted it
will probably be by some of those legal arguments which Mr. Corker used
before the magistrate. They may be sound or unsound; it doesn’t matter
one straw. How far does an acquittal of that kind go to clear one’s
character?’
Blake murmured something vague and deprecatory.
‘Or it may be that the jury may “give me the benefit of the doubt.”
Will _that_ set me right with the world? No, Blake. My life is ended,
almost before it has begun.’
‘Don’t say that, Lindsay. At the worst you can emigrate, and----’
‘And hide myself. Yes, to be sure. I could do that.’
‘I’ll tell you what I wish you would do for me,’ said Alec, after a
pause. ‘Get my father to go back to Scotland. He cannot possibly do me
any good. He----’ Alec stopped and bit his lip. He was ashamed to say
that his father believed him guilty.
‘It is natural for him to wish to be here,’ began Blake.
‘He comes here and preaches at me,’ said Alec. ‘I dare say he means
very well; but I really _cannot_ stand it. I think it is taking a mean
advantage of circumstances, for I can’t run away, and I can’t very well
tell him to leave me alone.’
‘Can’t you listen in patience?’
‘You see, I’ve got the chaplain on to me too.’
‘I used to think you were rather fond of religious discussions,’ said
Blake maliciously.
Alec laughed. It was a hard joyless sound, not pleasant to hear.
‘The worst of it is, my two spiritual guides give contrary directions,’
he said. ‘But you have absolutely no conception how unpleasant it is to
sit here and be preached at. Of the two I think I like the chaplain
best. Professional training always tells, and----’
‘Alec,’ interrupted Blake, who wanted to change the subject, ‘_can_ you
imagine how that word “hundred” slipped out of that will?’
‘It never was there,’ said Alec.
Blake shook his head.
‘Or it would be there now.’
‘You see the whole thing was left to me,’ Alec went on. ‘No one so much
as touched it, except myself and----’
Suddenly he remembered something--the little incident of Laura’s
curiosity. He paused rather awkwardly, considering whether it could
possibly affect the matter, and decided that it was absolutely of
no importance. He opened his lips to mention the circumstance as an
excuse for his sudden silence, when he remembered that it was not
very creditable to Laura, and besides, that he had promised her he
would never speak of what she had done. He stopped again, when on the
point of speaking, and looking up, he caught a surprised and troubled
expression in his friend’s face. Meeting Alec’s gaze, Blake dropped his
eyes. He saw that something was being concealed from him, and he had
imagined that he had known every incident connected with the making of
the will.
‘Blake is beginning to doubt me,’ said Alec to himself. ‘Soon I shall
have no one left.’ When he next spoke, his voice, in spite of himself,
was hard and repelling. He was too proud to give an explanation of his
reticence; and Blake, on his side, was afraid to ask for any. When he
left the prison he had not come to believe in his friends guilt; but
his faith was shaken.
‘I won’t say I distrust him; and yet--it is very queer.’ That was the
tenor of his thoughts. He felt profoundly sorry for Mr. Lindsay, and
tried to persuade him to return to Scotland before the trial. But this
would not have suited the old man’s ideas of his duty as a father. He
would stay by his son, guilty though he were, to the end.
Alec, of course, had his despairing moods, moods in which there seemed
no brightness for him, nor any possibility of comfort, in heaven or on
earth; and as the imprisonment began to tell more and more upon his
health these periods became more frequent and more prolonged. It was
not surprising, indeed, that sometimes a deep melancholy seized him, as
it were in a grasp of iron.
He was sitting in his cell one day, holding a book before him, but
reading nothing, while his mind was lost in aimless, gloomy wanderings,
when he heard the familiar sound of the unlocking of his door.
‘Oh, can’t they leave me alone even one day!’ he groaned to himself.
A tall figure in an immense cloak entered.
‘Cameron!’
The two men stood grasping each other’s hands in silence. Alec’s mobile
lips were working strangely. As for Cameron, a great beard effectually
concealed the expression of his mouth, but his eyes were moist.
Then he broke into a laugh, and withdrawing his hand gave Alec a shove
which sent him staggering backwards.
‘What on earth made ye get into such a pickle?’
‘That’s just what I want to know.’
‘Come now, tell me all about it,’ said Cameron, seating himself on the
bed.
‘If you don’t mind, old fellow, I’d rather not,’ said Alec. ‘You see,
I’ve had to go over these wretched details so often; and I can hardly
help thinking of them night and day, so it is a relief to speak of
something else. Tell me about yourself. What are you doing now?’
‘I’m assistant to Dr. Farquharson. But I don’t care for the work. I
can scarcely prevent myself from pitching some of the patients out of
the windows of their own bedrooms. They have nothing in the world the
matter with them but over-feeding and too much coddling. Occasionally
I give them the nastiest drugs I can think of, by way of relieving my
feelings, especially castor oil.’
‘You brute!’
‘I am only fit for surgery. I hate the pill-and-powder business.’
‘How did you come to be in London?’ asked Alec suddenly.
‘I wanted to see what the London hospitals are like.’
‘Duncan, ye’re leein’,’ said Alec gravely.
‘Maybe I am; an’ maybe I’m no. That’s neither here nor there.’
‘You saw something about--about it in the papers, didn’t you?’
‘Lees an’ trash.’
‘Well, I’m not so sure about that;’ and Alec, having thus reached the
subject, told the whole story of the will. ‘And now, doesn’t it look
very like as if I had struck that word “hundred” out of the draft?’
For answer Cameron gave a comical look, and slowly shook his head.
‘Ye haven’t brains enough, laddie, to be a thief.’
Alec looked anxiously at his friend, with searching eyes. Cameron bore
the look unmoved. Yet Alec was not satisfied.
‘Do you think it _possible_ that I made a blunder like that
unintentionally?’ A wild thought came into the lad’s head, and he
uttered what was in his mind. ‘What if I were to tell you that I did it
on purpose?’ he asked.
It seemed almost as if he were bent on destroying the faith of the
only man who still believed in him.
‘Do you mean wilfully, after time for reflection, taking a day or two
over it?’
Alec nodded.
‘I should certify that you were insane.’
‘God bless you, Cameron!’
‘Man, you’re half cracked already, to talk in that way. Your uncle was
a donnart auld eediot. That’s undeniable. And if ye confessed to me
that being suddenly aware of the injustice he meant to do you (as I
look on it), you had thrown his will on the fire, I might have thought
that possible enough. But if you were to tell me that you sat down in
cold blood, and thought out this plan for yourself, and determined to
carry it out, and did carry it out, I would _not_ believe you. I should
say ye were mad first.’
‘Cameron, my father----’ began Alec after a pause.
‘No?’
The word was accompanied by a raising of the eyebrows, and followed
by slow shakes of the head, which indicated that in his opinion some
people were hopelessly stupid.
‘He’ll be very sorry, and ashamed of his want of trust in you, Alec;
don’t forget that,’ said Cameron.
‘My innocence may never be known. My character is gone already,’ said
the prisoner, glad to tell what was in his heart to a sympathetic ear.
‘That’s not certain,’ said Cameron quickly, as he grasped his friend
by the shoulder, and scanned his face narrowly. ‘And if it were, why,
better men than you have had to thole[1] the same thing.’
‘That’s true. I shouldn’t make so much of it. But, you see, I have so
little here to occupy my thoughts.’
‘I’ll come and see you again, if they’ll let me. But I don’t think they
will. It was a fashious[2] job to get in. But I’ll be in court. You may
depend on that.’
‘No, no, Duncan. You must go back to your work.’
‘I haven’t left the sick folk as sheep without a shepherd, which they
would be if they were left entirely to old Farquharson. So I chose a
sub-deputy-assistant before I came away. A fourth-year’s student just
scraped through. An Englishman, and I think the most ignorant man I
ever came across, but popular with the women. Yes, yes, man, in a
minute,’ he said impatiently to the turnkey, who opened the door to say
that the allotted time had expired. ‘That minds me I would practise my
art on you, Alec, my lad, if time permitted. _Fiat experimentum_, ye
ken.’
‘There’s nothing the matter with me,’ said Alec.
‘I don’t like that cough. And you’re very thin. I must see the pill-man
of this institution mysel’. I suppose they keep an animal of that kind
on the premises?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure. I suppose so. Good-bye, old fellow. You’ve
done me a world of good.’
‘After all this rumpus and palaverin’s by,’ said Duncan, ‘I’ll carry ye
off _vi et armis_ to the island of Scalpa, and fatten you up there for
a month; or, better still, send you for a voyage to Australia--Coming!
I tell ye, ye----’
The rest of the speech was lost in the dark recesses of the Gaelic
language, as Dr. Cameron strode after the bulky form of the turnkey.
One good result of this visit was that Alec was removed next day to the
hospital ward of the prison.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] To bear.
[2] Troublesome.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE TRIAL.
A thick, murky fog hung over London on the morning of Alec Lindsay’s
trial. Waves of chill mist rolled up from the river, and met the
sulphurous vapours which filled the air. The sun was not visible at
all. In every street and building gas was flaming, as if it had been
midnight. Rain or snow would have been a relief from the stifling
yellow vapour; but neither fell. The cold, clammy, omnipresent fog
reigned supreme.
As it happened, Hubert Blake had slept at his uncle’s the night before.
He had, of course, determined to be present at the trial; and when he
came down to breakfast, an hour earlier than usual, he was surprised
to see that both Sophy Meredith and Miss Elmwood were dressed ready to
go out.
‘You are not thinking of shopping on a day like this?’ asked Hubert in
some surprise.
‘No, indeed,’ answered Sophy, almost indignantly. ‘We are going to the
court.’
Blake said no more at the time; but when Miss Elmwood had left the
breakfast-room to put on her bonnet, he returned to the subject.
‘I really think you had better stay at home,’ he said, in a
matter-of-fact way. ‘It is quite unnecessary for you to be there, and
it may be a very painful scene.’
Sophy’s fingers were trembling nervously, as she played with the
sugar-tongs. She was obliged to fold her hands, and pause for a second
or two before she answered:
‘I think, if there is ever a time when one should stand by one’s
friends, it is when they are----’
And then she stopped, as if she could not trust herself to say more.
‘Yes, of course; but, you see, you can’t do Lindsay any good by going;
probably he won’t even know you are there. It is not as if you were a
relation of his.’
It was all true enough; and Sophy felt only too keenly that her action
would seem ridiculous; yet she was none the less determined to go.
She had nothing to say in reply, and sat searching her mind for some
excuse, while the tears that would no longer be restrained rapidly
filled her eyes.
Blake saw her agitation with surprise.
‘I had no idea she was so tender-hearted,’ was his first thought. ‘Can
it be that--that Lindsay is something more than a friend to her?’ was
his second. ‘She is older than he is, but not so very much older, after
all. It would not be so very surprising, if it were so. It would
be----’
Then his thoughts became more vague. He could not imagine what his
uncle’s house would be like without Sophy as its mistress. There would
be no one to chat to about his pictures, no one to whom he could bring
the gossip of the little world of artists to which he had returned. As
for the wandering, unsettled life he had been living the year before,
he thought of it now with positive disgust. Yes; if Sophy were to go
out of his life, she would leave a sad blank behind.
He did not stop to consider on what a slender foundation he was thus
constructing the future. Sophy was surprised at his silence, and
glanced at him timidly. He seemed lost in reflection; then suddenly
looking up, their eyes met. He was astonished that she looked so
beautiful. He had never thought of her as pretty before; but indeed
the tender light in her eyes, and the faint colour coming suddenly into
her pale cheeks would have made a far plainer face seem fair.
‘Don’t you think we had better be going?’ said Hubert, in a gentle
tone. ‘The court may be crowded; and we may find a difficulty in
getting seats.’
Sophy rose and left the room without saying anything more.
The fog detained the party from Highgate, so that when they reached
the court it was with difficulty that Blake could find seats for his
friends. To Sophy the scene was so new and strange, and the effect of
the fog so bewildering, that in spite of the gas jets flaring here and
there it was some time before she could make out anything distinctly.
By degrees she distinguished the Judge in his ermine-trimmed gown, the
City dignitaries in their robes of office, the officials of the court
on their raised seats under the bench, and the empty jury-box. But the
object which fascinated her was the high, spiked iron railing which
surrounded a wide space in the centre of the court, facing the bench.
That, she knew, was the dock.
It was tenanted by one person, a woman, a forlorn-looking creature,
with a dirty shawl thrown over her bare head. On either side of her,
but a little behind, stood a policeman. For some minutes after Sophy
and her companions took their seats, there was perfect silence in the
building, so that they wondered what the reason could be. Then the
voice of the Judge broke the stillness.
‘The sentence of the court is that you be kept in penal servitude for
the period of seven years.’
Sophy did not know what the woman’s offence had been, but the
punishment seemed terrible; and as the poor creature, who had
evidently not expected so long a term, broke out into cries, oaths, and
imprecations, Sophy shuddered, and was almost moved to tears. To the
Judge, to the barristers, the police, and the other officials, it was
only part of the ordinary routine of their lives. To the gentle woman
who had lived in shelter all her days, the sight of this sister-woman’s
face, coarse, bloated, distorted by passion and despair, was like a
glimpse into a world of which she had never even dreamed--a world in
which blessings were exchanged for curses, tender thoughts for the fury
of selfish passions, and liberty for bondage.
As the woman was led down a staircase inside the dock, which
communicated with the cells, the clerk of the arraigns and the counsel
on the front row were exchanging a few words. And in another moment the
clerk called out:
‘Bring up Alexander Lindsay!’
A subdued rustle of excitement passed through the court, and every eye
was turned to the dock. In another moment Alec had taken his place,
calm and self-possessed, but very pale. The first thing he saw was his
father’s face. The old man was sitting at the solicitor’s table, facing
the dock, with Margaret by his side. No emotion of any kind was visible
on his features; but Alec fancied--probably it was only his fancy--that
a look of reproach was in his eyes. Margaret, unable to meet her
brother’s gaze, was looking stedfastly at the table in front of her.
Opposite her sat Beattie; and behind him, with his back to Alec, sat
Mr. Corker, who had, of course, been instructed for the defence.
As the clerk was reading the indictment, Alec’s eyes were fixed on the
ledge in front of him. He knew that Duncan Cameron was somewhere in the
building; and the thought comforted him. Then, somehow, he fell to
thinking of his College-days; and was only recalled from his reverie
when the clerk’s voice was raised to ask him:
‘How say you, Alexander Lindsay; are you guilty, or not guilty?’
‘Not guilty.’
Then the clerk proceeded to swear in the jury; and then Mr.
Collithorne, Q.C., rose to open the case for the Crown.
Mr. Collithorne was famed at the bar for his ‘deadly moderation’ as a
prosecuting counsel. Never raising his voice, over-stating nothing,
admitting beforehand the facts on which he knew the defence would be
based, his words had with the jury the weight which attaches to the
utterances of a Judge rather than that which belongs to the speech of
an advocate.
‘May it please your worship,’ he began. ‘Gentlemen of the jury, this
is a very painful case, and one which well deserves that close and
careful attention which I am sure you will bestow upon it. Fortunately
the facts are few and simple. The prisoner is a grand-nephew of the
late Mr. James Lindsay, who, as some of you may know, was a very
wealthy man. Some time before his death, Mr. Lindsay conceived the idea
of bequeathing by his will a large sum of money, no less than half a
million sterling, to the religious body of which he was a member, the
Free Church of Scotland. He talked over that intention with an old
friend of his, the Reverend Dr. Mackenzie, of Glasgow; and (though that
is not really important to the matter in hand) Dr. Mackenzie will tell
you that he neither suggested this idea to Mr. Lindsay nor in any way
pressed him to make this bequest.
‘Having settled in his mind the disposition which he intended to
make of his property, Mr. Lindsay sent to his solicitors, asking
them to call and take instructions for his will. His solicitors were
Messrs. Hatchett, Small, and Hatchett, a most respectable firm; and I
must tell you that the prisoner was at that time a clerk in Messrs.
Hatchett’s office. Well, the solicitors sent their managing clerk, a
Mr. Beattie, to take Mr. Lindsay’s instructions. We have subpœnaed this
Mr. Beattie; and I have no doubt he will tell you that Mr. Lindsay
distinctly informed him that the bequest to the Free Church of Scotland
was to be five hundred thousand pounds. The paper on which these
instructions were written by Mr. Beattie was sent to Mr. Lindsay with
the draft-will, and was not returned by him. It was not found among the
testator’s papers. Probably Mr. Lindsay, thinking that it was of no
importance, destroyed it.’
Mr. Collithorne then went on to speak of Mr. Lindsay’s request that
his nephew should personally prepare his will, and of the fact that the
prisoner actually did write the draft with his own hand. ‘That fact,
gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘will hardly be disputed; and if it is not
admitted I will prove it to you by unimpeachable evidence. The draft
itself, as well as the man who engrossed it, has disappeared. It ought
to have been found with other drafts of a like nature in the prisoner’s
room. It has been searched for, and cannot be found. But while it was
in Mr. Lindsay’s possession, before he returned it to the solicitors to
be engrossed, it was seen and read by Dr. Mackenzie, whom I shall place
in the box before you. He will tell you, gentlemen, that it was in the
prisoner’s handwriting, and that it contained a bequest of five hundred
thousand pounds to certain trustees for the Free Church of Scotland.
He will tell you that he read it most carefully, and that the sum was
written both in figures and in words. The draft was sent back on the
very night it arrived, Dr. Mackenzie posting it with his own hand.
‘Now, gentlemen, it is a singular fact, that, so far as we have been
able to learn, not a single individual in Messrs. Hatchett’s office
saw that draft, except the prisoner and a clerk named MacGowan, who
engrossed the will; and the theory of the prosecution is, that before
handing the draft to MacGowan to engross the prisoner struck out of it
the all-important word “hundred,” so that the bequest should run “five
thousand pounds” only. Inquiries for this clerk, MacGowan, have been
made in all directions; but from the day he engrossed that will he
never turned up at the office; he disappeared from his lodgings on the
following day, and has not since been heard of.
‘We come now to the actual execution of the will. It was brought to
Mr. Lindsay’s house by the prisoner. It was read over to the testator
by the prisoner; and, in reading it, the prisoner inserted the word
“hundred,” which was not in the will, before the word “thousand,” thus
leading his uncle, the testator, to imagine that the will was really in
accordance with his intentions. This fact will be proved to you on the
evidence of Dr. Mackenzie; and it will be for you to judge whether he
could possibly be mistaken on a point of such importance, a point on
which his attention would naturally be fixed.
‘It is only right that I should tell you, gentlemen,’ continued the
barrister, ‘that there was one other person in the room when the will
was read besides the testator, the prisoner, and the witness I have
named. And you may be surprised to hear that this person does not bear
out the statement which the Reverend Mr. Mackenzie will make on oath
before you, as to what the prisoner did actually read from the will.’
Here Mr. Corker interposed, and said something in an angry tone to Mr.
Collithorne.
‘Perhaps my friend is right, gentlemen,’ said the Queen’s Counsel,
majestically waving the Old Bailey barrister back into his seat. ‘It
may be better for him to deal with his own witness, if he should think
it worth while to call him. You will understand, gentlemen, later on,
the reason of my learned friend’s interposition.
‘As I said at the commencement of my observations, this is a painful
case. I do not remember that, in all my experience, I have had to
do with a prosecution in which one’s natural sympathies would be
more strongly excited in favour of the prisoner. His youth and his
character, hitherto blameless, will naturally and properly tell in
his favour. It would only be natural, also, if you found yourselves
sympathizing with the keen feelings of disappointment with which
a young man would hear of an intention on the part of an uncle to
alienate the greater part of his fortune from those who may reasonably
have looked forward to inheriting it. But these sympathies you are, for
the present, bound to forget. Your one thought must be--Did the accused
commit the offence with which he is charged? As to the motive for the
crime, you must remember that the prisoner is one of the residuary
legatees under the will; in other words, the alteration in the legacy
would put the sum of two hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred
pounds into the prisoner’s pocket. Crimes much more serious than this
have been committed ere now for the tenth part of such a sum, by men
who had, up to the moment of temptation, led innocent lives. If you
can, after hearing the evidence, entertain a reasonable, a serious
doubt of the prisoner’s guilt, you will, of course, let him have the
benefit of it. But if the facts as proved point irresistibly, in your
opinion, to the conclusion that the offence of which he is accused was
committed by him, it will be your duty--however painful that duty may
be--to say so by your verdict.’
A faint rustle passed over the court as Mr. Collithorne sat down.
Cameron, who from his corner could see the faces of the jurymen,
noticed that they wore a very serious look. And Alec? He knew that the
counsel for the Crown had spoken nothing but the truth; and his heart
died within him. He felt that his character was ruined irretrievably in
the eyes of the world. He could almost have wished that the formalities
of the trial could be omitted and sentence pronounced at once, that he
might hide himself from the cold and curious eyes around him in the
quiet seclusion of his cell.
The first witnesses called were the servants who had witnessed the
will. The junior counsel for the Crown, a young gentleman with a very
new wig and a very nervous manner, asked them the necessary questions,
and Mr. Corker did not think it worth while to cross-examine them.
‘Call Mr. William Beattie,’ said Mr. Collithorne, and that gentleman
rose from his seat at the solicitors’ table, and slowly made his way
to the witness-box. As he did so, Mr. Corker broke into a lively
argument--nominally addressed to the Judge, but really aimed at the
jury--on the lawfulness of the Crown calling the managing clerk of
the defendant’s solicitor as a witness. The Judge, however, ruled--as
Mr. Corker quite expected that he would rule--that Mr. Beattie might
be questioned as to matters which came to his knowledge before the
relationship of attorney and client began, and Mr. Beattie was sworn.
Speaking in a low but clear tone, Mr. Beattie said, in answer to Mr.
Collithorne’s questions, that he had received instructions from the
late Mr. Lindsay as to his will; that these instructions included a
legacy of five hundred thousand pounds to the Free Church of Scotland;
that, in accordance with Mr. Hatchett’s directions, he handed the paper
on which these instructions were jotted down to the defendant; and,
finally, that the missing draft had been searched for in the prisoner’s
room and in the office generally, and had not been found.
‘One word more, Mr. Beattie,’ said Mr. Collithorne; ‘at that time was
there a clerk in Messrs. Hatchett’s office named MacGowan?’
‘There was.’
‘Look at the will. In whose handwriting is it?’
‘In his handwriting--MacGowan’s.’
‘Did he return to the office after he engrossed that will?’
‘He did not. When he did not come back that afternoon, a letter was
written dismissing him.’
‘What was his character?’
‘I know nothing against his character, except that he was unsteady. He
would have been dismissed before, but----’
‘Yes. But what?’
‘But Mr. Lindsay interceded for him, and the offence was overlooked.’
‘You mean the prisoner?’
‘Yes.’
A subdued murmur ran round the court as these words were spoken. Then
there was a silence.
‘That was months before,’ added Mr. Beattie; but the impression had
already been created that there had been a friendship or, at least, a
relationship of patronage on the one side, and gratitude on the other,
between the man who was now alleged to have altered the draft, and the
man who, after engrossing the will from it, had suddenly disappeared.
Then Mr. Collithorne sat down, and Mr. Corker got up.
‘Did Mr. Lindsay express any hesitation when he said that he wished to
leave so large a sum to the Free Church?’
‘Not in words.’
‘In any other way?’
‘By his manner he did. He spoke in a hesitating way, as if he had
hardly made up his mind.’
‘Judging from his manner, did you expect that he would perhaps alter
these instructions?’ asked the Judge.
‘I quite expected it, my lord.’
Mr. Corker looked hard at the jury, to see that they paid due attention
to this answer, and then proceeded:
‘Now, as to the search for the draft. The drafts made in your office
are kept in a sort of book-case, I believe--a book-case fitted up with
pigeon-holes?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this receptacle stands in Mr. Lindsay’s room?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is not kept locked?’
‘No. Anyone in the office may have access to it.’
‘I suppose, Mr. Beattie, papers do get lost occasionally, even in an
office so well regulated as yours?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And sometimes, after a long time perhaps, they turn up again?’
‘Sometimes that happens, certainly.’
‘It seems almost an impertinence to Mr. Lindsay to put the question,
but I believe that he came to your office with high recommendations,
and that until this affair his character was blameless?’
‘Absolutely without reproach; and I may say that I do not for a moment
believe----’
‘You are not asked anything about your belief, sir,’ said the Judge
sternly.
Mr. Beattie fully anticipated the rebuke; but he had accomplished his
purpose. He had let the jury and the whole court see that he was doing
what he could for the prisoner. And yet now, for the first time, a
doubt as to Beattie’s integrity crossed Alec Lindsay’s mind. He seemed
too cool, too calm and collected, to be sincere. It looked as if he
were performing a part which had been rehearsed beforehand. ‘Can it
be all his doing?’ The thought flashed through Alec’s mind only to be
rejected. He could not see how Beattie could have interfered in the
matter, even had he wished to do so.
Mr. Hatchett was the next witness, but he was put into the box chiefly
to give the junior counsel his turn, so that the examination of the
important witness, Dr. Mackenzie, might fall to Mr. Collithorne,
without a violation of the rule that senior counsel and junior shall
take the witnesses alternately.
The minister was examined very minutely; the Judge’s note of his
evidence was as follows:
‘I am a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. In the autumn of last
year I came to London to see the testator, who was an old friend of
mine. He declared to me his intention of leaving the sum of half a
million sterling to the Church to which I belong. I did not suggest his
doing so. I did not in any way urge him to do it. Nor did I disapprove
of the bequest. One or two days after that, he put a paper in my hands,
and told me it was the draft of his will. It was in the prisoner’s
handwriting. The prisoner had written to me before this, and I knew
his handwriting. The bequest mentioned in it to the Free Church of
Scotland was five hundred thousand pounds. It was written in words and
also in figures--first in words and then in figures. That I swear.
‘I was present at the execution of the will. The prisoner brought it.
That is the will, so far as I can judge. I did not examine it. The
prisoner read it aloud, at the testator’s request. He read the bequest
‘five hundred thousand pounds.’ He read slowly and distinctly. I paid
particular attention to that part of the will. No one was present
except the testator, the prisoner, Mr. James Semple, who, I believe,
is also a grand-nephew of the deceased, and myself. The servants who
witnessed it did not hear it read over. The testator expressed his
satisfaction with the will as it was read to him.
‘When the prisoner finished reading the will, he left the room for a
short time. I believe some one called to see him. He did not take the
will away with him. He left it with the deceased. I think he laid it
on the bed. I did not look at it, nor touch it. When he returned the
servants were called in, and the will was signed.’
As the minister ceased speaking, a sound ran round the court, as of
long-drawn inspirations. Then a slight buzz of conversation arose.
Every man looked at his neighbour and smiled, and then looked at the
prisoner.
Alec’s pale face was set, and his eyes fixed on the minister.
Sophy shuddered, and felt bewildered. She was not surprised that a girl
sitting beside her whom she did not know gave a half-hysterical sob.
The girl was Laura Mowbray. She was at that moment suffering something
like agony. She saw that Alec was about to be condemned. She believed
that her evidence might save him. Yet she dared not speak. She knew
not what the consequences might be to herself, if she confessed that
she had meddled with the will. She might even be accused of the fraud,
and tried herself; and she shuddered at the thought.
Then Mr. Corker rose to cross-examine the witness.
‘You approved of this singular bequest, Mr. Mackenzie?’
‘I did not disapprove of it.’
The minister looked at the barrister disdainfully for an instant,
and then turned his eyes back to the Judge, whom he had addressed
throughout.
‘It would have been a very fine thing for you if it had been carried
out, eh?’
‘The bequest was not to me.’
‘Look at me, sir, and answer my questions in a straightforward manner!’
shouted Mr. Corker.
Dr. Mackenzie mutely appealed to the Judge for protection; but his
lordship contented himself with pointing in Mr. Corker’s direction with
the feather of his pen.
‘I know very well the bequest was not to you; but it would have been a
very good thing for you if it had been half a million instead of five
thousand pounds, wouldn’t it?’
‘I was to be secretary to the trust,’ answered the minister, after a
pause.
‘Exactly. For nothing, eh? Come now.’
‘I could not be expected to devote a large portion of my time to work
of that kind for nothing.’
‘Of course not. You expected that it would be a snug little berth for
you?’
The minister did not answer.
‘You foresaw this when Mr. Lindsay declared his intention of making
this bequest, did you not?’
‘I knew that I was to be the secretary.’
‘So that, so far from your coming here as a pure, impartial,
disinterested witness, as my friend would have had the jury believe,
you----’
Here Alec leaned over the edge of the dock, caught the speaker by his
gown, and whispered something energetically into his ear.
‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Mr. Corker, shaking off his client’s grasp.
‘Now, just listen to me, sir,’ he began.
‘My lord,’ said Alec, ‘I may say at once that Mr. Mackenzie is only
telling the truth. I believe I _did_ read “five hundred thousand
pounds.”’
There was a silence, then a murmur of astonishment.
‘You had better be quiet, and leave your case to your counsel,’ said
the Judge in a stern voice.
Mr. Corker had indignantly thrown down his brief; but a few words from
the Judge persuaded him to take it up again.
‘Your lordship will excuse me for a few moments,’ he said, as he turned
to consult with Mr. Beattie on the change which Alec’s interposition
had rendered necessary in the defence.
The defence had to be altered suddenly, at the critical moment. Mr.
Corker’s intention had been to maintain that Mr. Lindsay had changed
his mind, and had given private instructions to his nephew to prepare
a will leaving only five thousand pounds to the Free Church. He had
resolved to rely on Semple’s evidence to neutralize, or at least to
weaken, the effect produced by Dr. Mackenzie’s statement. But the
prisoner had just declared that Dr. Mackenzie had told the truth! It
would be useless to put Semple in the box now.
‘Did you ever know of such a complete idiot?’ asked Mr. Corker in a
whisper, as he leant over the desk before him to speak to Mr. Beattie.
‘What shall we do now? We must say it was an accident--absence of
mind,’ whispered Beattie.
‘I may say it, but the jury won’t believe it for a moment. The other
theory they _might_ have believed.’
‘You have the legal argument still.’
‘Yes; but the verdict is gone. However, I suppose we must go on.’
And Mr. Corker straightened himself up and fell back into his seat,
with the air of a man who has been very ill-used.
‘Do you ask this witness any more questions, Mr. Corker?’ asked the
Judge.
‘No, m’ lud,’ said Mr. Corker, without troubling himself to rise.
‘That is the case for the prosecution, my lord,’ said Mr. Collithorne.
‘Do you call any witnesses?’ he added to Mr. Corker.
‘No!’
‘Then, may it please your lordship, gentlemen of the jury----’
‘My lord, may I say a word?’
It was a woman’s voice. Laura Mowbray was standing up, pale and
resolute, at the back of the court.
‘No; certainly not. Go on, Mr. Collithorne.’
‘But I took the will myself, just before it was signed, from Mr.
Lindsay’s bedroom.’
Laura’s good angel had triumphed. Till the last moment she had been
declaring that she dared not tell what she knew--besides, it would be
of no use. But in a moment, when Alec’s counsel had declared that he
had no witnesses, and she felt that the last moment for speech had
come, she had, without deliberation, yielded to the impulse which bade
her speak.
Meanwhile Mr. Collithorne and Mr. Corker were both busily disowning
this disconcerting witness, and suggesting that she should not be
heard. But the Judge took a different view of the matter. If anyone had
touched the will, he remarked, between the time when the prisoner read
it to the testator and the time when it was signed, that was clearly
very important. He thought the ends of justice required that the young
lady should be heard.
‘I don’t see that calling her can injure the defendant,’ he said by way
of apology to Mr. Corker.
That gentleman grunted and said nothing.
Laura was piloted to the witness-box by an usher, and in a few clear
words she told how she had at Semple’s request taken the will from her
uncle’s room, and had given it to him to read.
‘Did he do anything to it, while it was in his hands?’ asked the Judge.
‘No.’
‘And you never allowed it to go out of your sight?’
Laura hesitated.
‘He took it to the window to read it, and I was standing by the door. I
don’t think he did anything to it. There was not time.’
‘As he walked to the window, had he his side or his back to you?’
‘He would have his back to me. But I don’t think I was looking at him
then. I don’t exactly remember.’
‘Well, Miss--Miss Mowbray, have you mentioned this to anyone before
to-day?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Why not?’
‘I did not wish it to be known, if possible, that I had meddled with
the will at all,’ said the girl in a low voice. ‘And I remember, too,’
she added, ‘that one night just after Mr. Lindsay died, I was at a
railway-station; and I saw Mr. James Semple there, with a gentleman I
do not know. And the gentleman said to him----’
But here the Judge, Mr. Collithorne, and Mr. Corker, interposed in
chorus; and Laura, thoroughly disconcerted, stopped and almost burst
into tears.
‘That will do,’ said the Judge, in a kindly tone. ‘You were quite right
to speak now; but you ought to have spoken sooner.’
So Laura turned away, and crept back to her seat, disappointed and
humiliated. She had made the sacrifice, and all for nothing! She had
been prevented telling what she considered the most important part of
her story. In her agitation she had forgotten to speak of the incident
of the paper which Semple had managed to obtain from his uncle’s desk.
But, as she reflected, she would probably not have been allowed to
mention it, as she could not say that she knew it had anything to do
with the will. She had expected that her testimony would cause Alec to
be set at liberty. It had produced no effect whatever, beyond covering
her with shame.
In this, however, she was mistaken. The Judge was eyeing the counsel,
and they were eyeing him; and the thought in the minds of the three
shrewd men was--‘Here there was an opportunity for exchanging the will
read by the prisoner for another document.’
‘I think you had better go on, Mr. Collithorne,’ said the Judge at
length; and the Queen’s Counsel was proceeding to obey, when he was
interrupted for the second time.
‘Let me by; I tell ye I’m a witness; let me by.’
These words, uttered in a shrill Scotch voice, were heard at one of
the entrances to the court; and in another moment a queer-looking,
under-sized individual, dressed in a shabby overcoat with a velvet
collar, many sizes too large for him, pushed through the crowd in the
passage.
‘MacGowan!’ exclaimed Alec involuntarily.
‘Who is this?’ asked the Judge testily.
‘The clerk who engrossed the will, I believe, my lord,’ said Mr.
Collithorne, who had overheard Alec’s exclamation.
‘You cannot call him; you have closed your case,’ said Mr. Corker to
his opponent.
‘But he may give evidence for the defendant, unless you object, Mr.
Corker,’ said the Judge.
‘It’s what I’ve come here for,’ put in Mr. MacGowan.
‘Really, my lord, I cannot take the responsibility of calling this
witness,’ said Mr. Corker; ‘I know nothing of what he may say.’
‘I’m no’ surprised at that,’ said MacGowan, as without further
invitation he stepped round to the witness-box.
‘I shall take his evidence,’ said the Judge, after a pause.
‘Ma loard,’ said MacGowan, as soon as he was sworn, ‘I engrossed the
wull wi’ my ain haun’. The bequest to the Free Kirk was five _hunder_
thoosan’ pounds. So it was in the draft, an’ so I wrote it in the wull,
and so I read it to Maister Alexander Lindsay, when him and me compared
them.
‘That nicht, ma loard,’ he continued, dramatically raising his right
hand, ‘I was refreshin’ mysel’ after the toils o’ the day in a maist
respectable public-hoose, wi’ some freends, when Maister Wulliam
Beattie, that is the managin’ clerk at the office, cam’ in and withdrew
me to a private room. He telled me there had been a mistak’ made, an’
I would hae to copy the draft ower again; an’ naething would serve
him but I maun copy it ower again, then and there. I did sae, and he
dictated it to me, frae the same blue draft I had had before. Only he
read it _five thoosan’ pounds_, leavin’ oot the _hunder_.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ asked the Judge sharply.
‘Certain sure, my lord.’
‘Well?’
‘Then he gied me half a sovereign and gaed awa’.’
‘I leave him to you, Mr. Collithorne,’ said the Judge.
‘How does it happen that you immediately disappeared after this took
place?’ asked Mr. Collithorne.
‘Weel, Messrs. Hatchett and me had a bit of difference.’
‘You were dismissed, in fact?’
‘Ye may ca’ ’t that if ye like.’
‘And how was it that you have not turned up till now?’
‘I have been very ill; and I only noticed to-day that the trial was
coming on. If you send for my landlord he will tell ye I was in bed an’
deleerious when Maister Lindsay was at the police-court.’
‘You were drunk when Mr. Beattie--is that his name?--came to see you at
the gin-palace, or whatever it was?’
‘It is _not_ a gin-palace, and I was _not_ drunk. I had been drinking
certainly.’
‘You know perfectly well what you were about?’ put in the Judge.
‘Brawly--that is, just so, my lord.’
‘Hadn’t we better have this Mr. Beattie in the box, and see what he
says to all this,’ suggested the Judge.
‘Certainly, my lord. He had better be called outside. He was here a
minute ago.’
But Mr. Beattie was not to be found. As soon as MacGowan’s voice fell
on his ears, he had realized that he had come to tell what had passed
at the public-house; and he left the court by one door as his former
subordinate entered by another. Taking a hansom he drove to the bank at
which he kept his account, and drew out all that was due to him. Then
he disappeared and was heard of no more.
The reason why Beattie had absconded was apparent to everyone in court.
The plot which he had concocted was laid bare.
‘I don’t know whether you will think it worth while to address the
jury, Mr. Collithorne,’ said the Judge, after waiting some minutes. ‘If
the last witness is to be believed, it is plain that two wills were
engrossed, in one of which the original bequest to the Free Church of
Scotland was altered to five thousand pounds; and Miss Mowbray has
proved that the latter document may have been substituted for the other
without the defendant’s knowledge. There is nothing to show that Mr.
Alexander Lindsay instigated either Beattie or MacGowan to get the
second engrossment made, or that, in fact, he knew of its existence.’
‘That is true, my lord; and I am altogether in your lordship’s hands,’
said Mr. Collithorne slowly. ‘If your lordship thinks----’ he paused,
for the jury were putting their heads together in a significant way.
‘If you would like the case to go on, gentlemen----’ began the Judge;
but the jurymen separated and returned to their places.
‘Gentlemen of the jury, are you agreed upon your verdict?’ asked the
Clerk of the Arraigns.
‘We are,’ said the foreman.
‘Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?’
‘Not guilty.’
Something very like a cheer broke out in the court; and the usher cried
‘Silence!’ with the air of a man who cared nothing for public opinion.
As for Alec, something seemed to swell in his throat, as if it would
choke him; and his hand trembled as it had not trembled since his
trouble had fallen on him. He looked around, and could see nothing but
a sea of faces.
Then someone guided him to a little doorway in the iron railing, and
helped him down the steps into the body of the court. He was a free man
once more.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
AFTER THE TRIAL.
It was an embarrassing moment for Mr. Lindsay when he stepped up to
his son after the acquittal was pronounced. They were both glad that a
little crowd surrounded them, so that anything like conversation was
impossible. Once only was the matter referred to after that day.
‘I did you an injustice, Alec,’ said the old man gravely; ‘but the
facts were sadly against you at the time.’
‘No doubt they were, father,’ answered his son. And nothing more was
said.
It was pleasant for Alec to see the glad light in his sister’s eyes;
to feel the warm grasp of Blake’s hand, and Cameron’s grip on his
shoulder; to hear Sophy Meredith’s exclamation, ‘I knew all along it
was not your fault!’ And yet, somehow, these sights and sounds seemed
far away. It was almost as if he were walking in a dream, as if his
real self were absent, as if he were as much alone all the time as he
had been in his cell.
When the little group of friends reached the lobby of the court, they
found MacGowan waiting there. He came forward, and offered Alec his
hand with much affability.
‘We put the snecker on him that time, eh, Maister Lindsay?’ he asked,
with a proud smile.
‘You certainly did, MacGowan. But how was it that you did not turn up
before?’
For answer MacGowan began to relate his several interviews with
Beattie, which he described with great satisfaction.
‘He thocht he had me, when he bade me bring the ticket for the passage,
and let him see ’t. But I jist waited aboot the door o’ the shippin’
office till a big Irishman turned up, and he agreed to lend me his
ticket for ten minutes for the price of a bottle of whisky. He was
waitin’ roon’ the corner when I gaed up to Maister Beattie, and I said
I had cheinged my name for ma mither’s, at which he was vastly pleased.’
‘But I thought you said he saw you off,’ put in Cameron.
‘So he did. But I gied him the slip. I saw that before the steamer
could get awa’, she had to gang through the dock-gates, awa’ at the
tither side o’ the docks. So, as she was slippin’ through, I jist
whummled ower the side o’ the boat, an’ landed on the quay. It wasna
muckle o’ a jump; an’ as it was in the gloamin’, my freen Maister
Beattie never saw ’t. Then I awa’ to a sma’ public doon by there; an’
there I stoppit.’
‘And drank a deal more than was good for you, and ran through all your
money, and finally took ill,’ said Cameron, drawing the hero aside.
‘Something like it. I kent naething aboot the hole they had pitten
Maister Lindsay in, till I took up the paper the day, and saw that the
trial was expeckit to come on. Ye see that big man,’ he added suddenly,
pointing to an official with his stave of office. ‘It was fun to hear
him shoutin’ out, “Wull-i-am Beattie!” wi’ a’ his pith, when Wulliam
Beattie had gien them leg-bail a quarter o’ an ’oor before.’
‘How did you know that?’
MacGowan glanced round before he answered, and then put his hand to his
mouth, saying in a loud whisper:
‘I say him slippin’ awa’ as I came in.’
‘Why didn’t you ask the Judge to have him stopped?’
‘Man, did you no hear me say I owed him a heap o’ siller? He’ll never
fash me for that noo.’
‘I doubt you’re an ill stick, MacGowan,’ said Cameron gravely. ‘But
you’ve done my friend a good turn this day; and I wish I could do
something for ye. You just come wi’ me.’
So saying, Cameron took the little man by the arm and marched him off
to a neighbouring tavern, where a long and weighty consultation took
place. The result of it was that the ne’er-do-weel was persuaded to
emigrate, this time in earnest; and he was consigned to a second cousin
of Cameron’s, who had a farm in Manitoba. In his letters home MacGowan
always dwells with pride upon the circumstance that he ‘has been
teetotal’ for three or six months, as the case may be, forgetting to
add that as the nearest public-house is five-and-twenty miles away, it
is next to impossible for him to be anything else.
When Cameron had disappeared with MacGowan, Blake carried off his
friends, after giving Alec a hearty invitation to Highgate, and after
expressing a hope to Mr. Lindsay that they would see him and Miss
Lindsay there once more before they left town. But the old man was
anxious to get back to his farm; London had no attractions for him; and
he intimated his intention of going back to Scotland the next day.
As for Alec, his one desire was to find himself in his own
sitting-room, alone, and at peace. That was impossible, however, for
the present. He could not ignore his father and Margaret’s evident
expectation that he would spend the rest of the day with them. But
the reunion was not in any sense a joyful one. Mr. Lindsay remembered
always that he had refused to believe in his son’s innocence, and had
thus added to his trouble; and now it was but poor comfort to remind
himself that in holding Alec to be guilty, he had only followed the
dictates of his reason. Margaret, too, though she had been always
loving and affectionate to her brother, knew that she had doubted him,
and knew also that he had been aware of the fact. Alec tried his best
to pluck up a lively if not a festive spirit at the dinner-table that
evening, but he was not very successful in his efforts. His father took
the opportunity of saying grace to thank the Almighty publicly that his
son ‘had been delivered from the snare of the fowler,’ and Alec was
annoyed by this open allusion to what was still a very painful theme.
To his surprise, Alec found that his father and sister had seen nothing
of the sights of London during the weeks they had spent in town.
‘How could we go sight-seeing, Alec, when you were in prison, and in
danger?’ asked Margaret, almost reproachfully.
‘But you might at least have gone to Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s.
You really must stay another day and see the Abbey, father. It would be
almost a sin to go north again without paying it a visit.’
‘As a relic of past Popery and modern prelacy,’ said Mr. Lindsay, ‘I
think it might be well if the place were destroyed, even as the Fathers
of the Reformation pulled down the abbeys and cathedrals of the north;
but as a monument of antiquity the place is doubtless interesting. We
will visit it to-morrow.’
‘And the South Kensington Museum is also well worthy of a day’s study,’
said Alec.
‘I am too old to care for sight-seeing, my boy.’
‘If you don’t care for it, Margaret would enjoy it, I am sure. Suppose
you leave her behind with me, sir. She is not particularly wanted at
the farm.’
‘Oh, that is quite out of the question,’ said Mr. Lindsay.
Alec was disposed to protest against this summary way of settling the
matter, but Margaret entreated him by signs to be silent. In the course
of the evening, however, a note came from Miss Lindsay to her cousin
of the Castle Farm, saying that she meant to go north in two or three
weeks, and would be glad if Margaret would spend the intervening time
with her, and accompany her on her journey. And to this arrangement Mr.
Lindsay gave a somewhat reluctant consent.
Alec did not really feel free that day, till, about ten o’clock at
night, he took leave of his father and sister, and set out for his own
lodgings. The air of the street was sweet to him, heavy and polluted as
it was. How different the solitude of his own room from the solitude of
his cell!
He had telegraphed to his landlady, and knew that things would be
in readiness. He was prepared, therefore, for the cheery glow in the
window-panes; but as he opened the door he became sensible of certain
familiar odours. The air was dusky with tobacco-smoke; a steaming
tumbler stood on the table; and before the fire were stretched the
stalwart limbs of Duncan Cameron.
‘Don’t say you’re glad to see me, Alec, for I believe you are not,’
said the visitor. ‘I’ve been here for the last three hours. I might
have kenned that your friends would lay hold on ye, body and soul.’
‘You know very well I’m glad to see you, Duncan.’
‘I don’t believe you. You might have been pleased to see me three hours
ago. But there are times when a lee is more or less excusable. Such a
time is the present.’
‘Have you dined?’
‘Eight hours ago.’
‘Have you supped?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘We’ll have some supper at once, then; and you will stay for the night.’
This was settled; and after supper came pipes and tumblers, seasoned
with scraps of information about old College cronies--memories which,
though only a few years old, seemed to the two young men to lie already
far behind them--and a due proportion of metaphysics.
In the middle of the talk Cameron rose, and pulling a short instrument
from his pocket, begged Alec to unbutton his waistcoat.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Satisfy my curiosity.’
‘You don’t mean that there is anything the matter with me?’
‘That is what I want to find out.’
‘There is no actual disease,’ said Cameron, when his examination was
concluded. ‘The pulmonary organs are sound, but they are far from
strong. You must take care of yourself for some time. Those weeks in
confinement have injured you more than you think.’
Then Cameron lit his pipe for the fourth time, and smoked awhile in
silence.
‘Duncan, what is your religion now?’ asked Alec suddenly.
‘_Religio medici_; that is, none at all.’
‘I’m sorry to hear you say that,’ said Alec gravely. ‘But I don’t
believe you.’
‘I was thinking of definite faith, of dogmas,’ said Cameron. ‘Of course
I have religious instincts, emotions, and so on; but I can’t classify
them.’
‘“True religion consisteth in great part in the affections,” says
Jonathan Edwards. Perhaps you think dogmas are hindrances, not helps.’
‘True houses consist in great part of walls,’ retorted the Highlander;
‘is that to say they should have no foundations?’
‘But I thought you said you had no dogmas.’
‘Exactly; and therefore I don’t profess to have any religion. It
makes me sick,’ he continued, getting up and walking about the room,
‘to hear the way in which men prate about “the fetters of dogma” and
so on. I hate phrases that beg the question like that. Good heavens,
man!’ he went on, turning upon Alec with a frown, as if he had been
personally ill-used or insulted, ‘canna the moles see that it a’
depends on whether the dogma’s _true_ or no? If it’s not true, it
may be a “fetter,” no doubt. But if it’s true, what can it be but a
heaven-sent boon? You might as well talk o’ releasin’ the earth from
the fetter that binds it to the sun. That would be a fine result o’ the
freethinker’s theory carried out in practice.’
‘But I thought----’
‘Look at my own subject,’ continued Cameron, not heeding his companion.
‘Take anatomy. If you have false opinions on the subject printed and
promulgated, they will no doubt do harm. But if certain opinions are
indisputably true----’
‘That is just what is denied.’
‘Then what is the sense of begging the question by assuming that they
are false?’
‘Then you do believe in dogma in religion?’
‘No religion can exist without dogmas, be they many or few, any more
than a tub can exist without a bottom. But whether the dogmas of
Christianity are _true_ is more than I can say.’
‘But there must be a God?’
‘That’s just what I don’t feel sure about,’ said Cameron slowly. ‘Why
may not matter be eternal, and produce of itself all we know of?’
‘Because, for one thing, the chances against its being in a position to
produce anything at all were millions to one.’
‘That is true. But then, how can we tell that under other conditions
of temperature, and so forth, other results, totally different, but
equally wonderful, might not have followed?’
‘All to come out of so many metals and gases?’ asked Alec. ‘I think the
man who believes _that_ must be the most credulous of mortals.’
‘I didn’t say I believed it, did I?’
‘Then there’s the conscience, and the moral law within.’
‘Inherited instincts,’ murmured Cameron.
‘That won’t do; I tell you it won’t do,’ said Alec firmly. ‘There are
virtues that are highly prized nowadays which never could have come
into existence, much less have lived and flourished, if they had been
dependent on those principles alone. Take humility, the power of
self-sacrifice, kindness to the sick, to the aged, to dumb animals,
and so on. Self-sacrifice does not naturally tend to the survival of
the fittest, say what you like. Do stags become less fit to survive
because they butt a wounded deer out of the herd, or leave it to die of
starvation? Why should men who nurse the sick and tend the aged become
stronger than those who do not?’
‘There’s sense in what you say, Alec; and of course, if we find a fact
that natural principles won’t explain, and religious principles will
explain, that is a great matter. But I’m going to turn in. Good-night.’
‘Seems to me you have first of all got to explain how the natural
principles themselves came here,’ said Alec, as a parting shot at his
friend.
Cameron was forced to leave London on the following day, so that it was
impossible for him to accompany the party that was going to visit the
Abbey, as Alec wished him to do. His feeling was that Duncan would help
him to entertain his father. But Alec soon saw that his father needed
no entertaining. From the moment when the old man’s eyes fell on the
pile, standing like a heavenly temple reared by angel hands among the
haunts of men, he neither spoke nor listened to what was said to him.
All his faculties were absorbed in admiration. He walked slowly round
and round, now letting his eye wander at will in the maze of delicate,
lace-like tracery, now stepping back that he might the more fairly
grasp the proportions of the building.
It was with difficulty that Alec managed to draw him inside; and when
he raised his eyes to the forest of columns and arches, the glades of
open stonework, with lanes of light between, whose beauty spoke as
with silver chimes to the listening heart, the old man sank down upon
one of the benches, overpowered with wonder and delight. His son and
daughter left him there, and went to make a tour of the chapels. When
they returned he was still sitting where they had left him, rapt in
admiration.
‘Don’t you think it would be better without all those statues?’
whispered Margaret to her father.
‘You don’t need to look at them!’ said the old man, almost impatiently,
as he let his eyes once more travel slowly upwards to the dim recesses
of the roof.
‘Shall I remind father of what he said last night about the Fathers of
the Reformation and the Scotch abbeys?’ whispered Alec to his sister.
‘Oh, I entreat you not to speak of that! It would be a shame to throw
that in his teeth. He would most likely be very angry; and it would
spoil all his pleasure,’ said Margaret.
Mr. Lindsay was persuaded to make the round of the chapels, and to
visit Livingstone’s grave, and the coronation-stone. But even the
matchless beauties of the Lady Chapel could not detain him long from
the spot at which he could see aisle and nave, choir and transept,
unite to form one glorious whole.
Next day, Mr. Lindsay left London for his own home; and Margaret went
to stay with Miss Lindsay at Claremont Gardens. As a matter of course
Alec was there pretty often, for the short time that his sister was to
be in town.
On one occasion when he called only Laura was at home. It was the first
time they had been alone together since the day of the trial.
‘I have never thanked you yet, Laura,’ said Alec, ‘for what you did for
me at the court. Every day I have hoped for the chance of speaking to
you alone; but I have not had an opportunity until now.’
Laura blushed almost painfully. She was sitting on a low seat near the
fire, while Alec stood at the other end of the hearth-rug, with his
elbow on the mantelpiece, leaning his head on his hand, and looking,
not at his companion, but at the fire smouldering in the grate.
‘It was very brave of you, and very, very good of you.’ He stopped
suddenly. He could not remind her that the special merit of her giving
evidence was the fact that she had brought discredit on herself in
doing so.
‘It was only what I ought to have done; but I should have done it
sooner.’
‘I am very glad you did not,’ said Alec quickly. ‘It was fortunate for
me that you said nothing to the lawyers who were defending me. They
would probably have prevented you from speaking in court at all.’
‘I had hoped that I--that what I told might have done you some good,’
said Laura, almost bitterly. ‘It did no good at all.’
‘Indeed, you are mistaken!’
‘It was the evidence of that queer Scotch clerk that set you free.’
‘No; it was yours. Or rather, you and he together secured the
acquittal. You added the missing link in the chain.’
‘Then I am well repaid.’
‘And I shall be grateful to you as long as I live.’
But Laura was not satisfied with this. If he would only turn and look
at her! But he stood there, gazing at the red embers without seeing
them.
‘Surely,’ thought Laura, ‘he has not ceased to love me? He is not one
who easily forgets.’
‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said gently. But he did not seem to hear her.
She was determined that he should speak.
‘Miss Lindsay is going north sooner than she intended,’ she said,
almost sharply.
‘Ah!’
‘Yes. I leave for Brighton the day after to-morrow.’
‘I am sorry you are going. You are to live with some relations of your
own, are you not?’
‘Yes; with some distant relations of my mother’s. I am sure I shall
dislike them.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Why not? I don’t suppose you care very much what sort of life I lead.’
For answer, Alec turned and met her glance. There was a gentle reproach
in his look; but he said nothing.
‘It is too late,’ said Laura to herself. ‘He does not care for me now.’
‘I, at least, am glad to think that you will be rich,’ said she aloud.
‘I? I shall have about five thousand pounds, I believe.’
‘But I was told that the half-million would not go to the Free
Church--that it would be divided between you and your cousin.’
‘Surely you do not think I could take it?’
The girl stared at him without saying a word.
‘It does not belong to me. My uncle never meant that I should have it.
I have no more right to that money, morally, than you have.’
‘And you mean that you will give it up!’ ejaculated Laura.
‘What else could I do? If you said to me, “Give that sovereign to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and keep that shilling for yourself.” And if
by mistake you gave me the shilling instead of the sovereign, and the
sovereign for the shilling, would I be entitled to keep the sovereign
and hand over the shilling? You can’t say you think so for a moment.’
‘I think you are mad to hand over such an enormous sum to those
Presbyterians; and any sensible person would say just the same.’
‘But you cannot understand. My uncle intended----’
‘I don’t care what your uncle intended. If he did, or meant to do, an
insane thing, that is no reason why you should do one too.’
‘Do you really think it would be honest to keep that money, when it
never was intended for me?’ asked Alec slowly.
‘It matters very little what I think, for I know very well you won’t
listen to me. But I suppose what the law gives you is your own, and
if you give it away, it will be your own act, and, to my mind, a very
foolish one.’
‘I have written to the executors of the will, saying that I would only
take my share of any residue there may be after the half-million is
deducted.’
‘Oh! Well, I suppose there is no more to be said.’
Alec was silent for a minute. Then he started up.
‘I am going now. I won’t wait for my aunt and Margaret.’
Laura rose and gave him her hand.
‘Don’t think I am angry with you,’ she said, with one of her old bright
smiles. ‘I have no business to be, in any case.’
‘I am sure, if you think it over, you will see that I could do nothing
else. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye.’
There was so much he would have liked to say. It seemed so cold, so
ungrateful, to part with a conventional ‘Good-bye,’ without a word of
the past, without a word of the future. But the thoughts in his heart
could not be spoken. It was almost as if he had been watching for an
hour beside the grave of one whom he had loved.
And Laura was sitting in her old attitude over the fire, struggling
hard to keep back her tears.
‘I will not cry for him; I will not,’ she said to herself. ‘He is not
worth it. He is a perfect fool. To fling away all that money! And we
might have been so happy! I could not marry a man so poor as he is now;
but he might have asked me, all the same. Well,’ and here the poor girl
gave a long-drawn sigh, ‘I shall never like anyone else half so well.’
CHAPTER XXXV.
MISS MEREDITH INSISTS ON BEING OBEYED.
It was not until his sister and aunt had left London that Alec Lindsay
began to feel the effect of his imprisonment and of the anxiety he
had suffered. His natural energy had vanished. He was content to
hang all day over the fire, and began to have a morbid shrinking
from intercourse with strangers. He fancied that the shadow of the
accusation yet clung to him. His cough had never left him; and he
felt more and more indisposed for exertion of any kind. He lived
quite alone, often spending whole days without exchanging a word
with any human being. The arrangement with Messrs. Hatchett, Small,
and Hatchett had been tacitly abandoned; and he had not been able to
decide on taking any fresh step. There was little wonder that, living
as he did, he became gloomy and melancholy, tired of his life and of
everything around him.
One afternoon he was surprised by a visit from Hubert Blake.
‘My dear fellow, what is the matter with you?’ were Blake’s first words.
‘Nothing, so far as I know.’
‘You look like a ghost.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘You may call it nonsense if you like, but it is true. What are you
doing with yourself now?’
‘Nothing in particular. A prolonged fit of laziness.’
‘I doubt if it is laziness. Do you live here all alone, without any
regular occupation?’
‘I go to the British Museum and read sometimes.’
There was a pause of a minute or two, and then Blake said gravely:
‘You are not yourself, Alec. You used to be full of energy and spirits.
What has happened to you?’
‘Nothing whatever. Please don’t go on like that.’
‘I’m afraid you were harder hit two months ago than we supposed. A man
can’t come through an experience of that kind without paying for it.’
Alec’s thin face flushed painfully. Blake saw that his friend wished to
be let alone; but he could not help thinking that anything was better
for him than the melancholy into which he seemed to be sinking.
‘You should not live so much alone,’ he began again.
‘There are very few men I would care to live with. I don’t see what
else I can do.’
‘I should take a change--go into the country.’
‘That would not mend matters.’
‘Or travel.’
‘Too much bother.’
‘But you can’t go on like this.’
‘Why not? Blake, you are very good, but you may as well let me alone.
To tell the truth, I don’t care much what happens. I feel as if my life
were ended. I don’t consider,’ he went on, speaking rapidly, as if he
were anxious to finish what he had to say, ‘that my name can ever be
cleared of the taint of the Old Bailey. I fancy men look askance at
me. I have no desire to begin life again. My ambitions are dead, and I
don’t want them to come to life again. What does it matter?’
‘All this simply means that you are run down, out of sorts,’ said
Blake, rising to his feet. ‘You should take a long voyage.’
Alec shook his head.
‘At least, come and dine with us at Highgate to-morrow. I have
something to tell you.’
‘Much obliged, Blake; but I’d rather not.’
‘I do think you might exert yourself as far as that goes,’ said Hubert;
but seeing that Alec was very unwilling to go, he dropped the subject,
and soon afterwards left him.
In a day or two, however, Alec received a note from Sophy Meredith,
repeating the invitation in such terms that he found it impossible to
decline it; and accordingly, a few days afterwards he found himself
once more at Caen House, Highgate.
The master of the house was not present at dinner. It was a late, cold
spring; and Mr. Blake found it better to confine himself to his own
room. Nothing of importance was said at the dinner-table; but Alec
fancied that his hostess seemed brighter and franker than usual, and
once or twice he observed a glance passing between her and his friend
which he did not quite understand.
When the little party returned to the drawing-room, Miss Elmwood at
once settled herself comfortably in an easy-chair by the fire, and
Sophy went over to the piano. Blake went up to her to help her to
choose some music; and Alec, who was sitting close by, was surprised to
see Sophy lay her hand in a familiar way on his friend’s arm, looking
into his face with a bright smile as she did so. The next instant she
caught Alec’s look, and, blushing deeply, she turned to Blake and
whispered:
‘Did you not tell Mr. Lindsay that we are engaged?’
‘No,’ he whispered in reply. ‘The fact is, the poor fellow looked so
wretched, in mind as well as in body, that I did not like the idea of
flaunting my happiness in his face. But go on playing, and I will tell
him now.’
Sophy did as she was bid, but her performance had a good many slips in
it. Meantime Blake had seated himself beside Alec, and answering his
look, said:
‘Yes; Miss Meredith and I have been engaged about a week.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me when you came to see me the other day? But I
beg your pardon; I have no business to ask questions like that.’
‘Not at all, my dear fellow. I--the fact is----’
‘Surely you did not think I would grudge you your good fortune, or envy
you?’
‘Not that, certainly; and yet you seemed so depressed that I did not
care to allude to the subject.’
‘It is a comfort to know that there is some happiness yet in the world.
Sometimes it seems to me there is very little of it left. And I am sure
few people deserve a share of it better than you and Miss Meredith.’
‘Don’t say that of me, Alec. It is very far from the truth.’
‘I wish you joy with all my heart.’
‘You, too, have had your little romance. I remember, at least, that
when we were at Loch Long----’
‘That is all over,’ said Alec quietly, but there was a sad, wistful
look in his face. Presently he found an opportunity of congratulating
Sophy on her engagement.
‘Thank you, Mr. Lindsay. But, do you know, I have something on my mind
to say to you. I do hope you won’t be offended if I say it.’
‘That means you are going to lecture me.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Only a spoonful of jam? I fear the pill is there all the same.’
‘Do you know that is the first thing I have heard you say in your old
manner for months. You are not well. I see it plainly. You are very far
from well.’
‘Which is a polite way of saying that I am lazy, moody, and so on, and
that I should shake off my melancholy, and set to work at something. I
feel I ought to do that; but, to tell the truth, I feel as if I hadn’t
the spirit to attempt it.’
‘It seems to me that you are slipping the medicine into the spoon
yourself; and besides, the close you have chosen is one that doesn’t
suit your complaint. It is the weak state of health you are in which is
to blame. Now, I want you to go and see a doctor.’
‘I assure you, Miss Meredith, it is quite unnecessary. There is very
little, if anything, the matter with me.’
‘Let us say it is unnecessary. Won’t you take the trouble of going, if
I ask you?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Then I do ask you.’
That, of course, settled the matter; and before Alec left the house
Miss Meredith gave him the name and address of the doctor she wished
him to consult.
The following morning, accordingly, Alec spent in the physician’s
waiting-room. The room was nearly full when he entered it; and as most
of those present had made appointments beforehand with the doctor, and
were consequently preferred, he had more than an hour to wait. There
was plenty of time for him to observe his fellow-patients. One little
group, in particular, arrested his attention. It consisted of a young
man, a few years older than himself, a girl who was evidently his
wife, and a child, a merry little fellow about three years old. The
young mother was evidently the patient. She was thin and hollow-eyed;
the colour came and went in her pallid cheeks, and her cough was
sometimes painful to listen to. The husband sat moodily staring before
him. The mother busied herself with the child.
As it happened, the boy took a strong fancy for Alec’s stick; and after
a shy smile and a faint excuse from his mother, the child succeeded
in attaining his object. This led to the interchange of a few remarks
between Alec and the child’s parents, from which it appeared that the
young man was a clerk in some mercantile house in the City, and was
spending an unexpected holiday in the effort to ascertain exactly what
ailed his wife. To Alec it seemed plain that the girl (for she seemed
hardly beyond girlhood) was in consumption. The only question was what
progress the disease had made.
When it was Alec’s turn to enter the consulting-room, he thought that
the doctor made a ridiculously minute examination, and asked him a
number of very unnecessary questions. But he changed his mind when the
physician pronounced his verdict. The substance of it was that Alec was
in a very precarious state of health; that his lungs were exceedingly
delicate, and that he was predisposed to consumption. The prescription
was change of scene and cheerful society in the meantime, and a voyage
to Australia or a winter spent in Egypt.
‘I see you are tempted to make light of the matter,’ said the doctor.
‘All I can say is, that if you go on as you are doing now, you will
not be alive this day twelve months. You had better get one or two of
your relations to take a trip to Ventnor with you. Don’t go alone.
Good-afternoon.’
Alec was startled by what he was told; and yet, so deep was his
melancholy that he was conscious of a certain satisfaction in being
able to think of his death as an event that was possibly not far off.
He had left the house and had gone some little distance before he
noticed that he had taken a wrong turning, and would be forced to
retrace his steps. He had gone back nearly as far as the doctor’s
house, when he met the young couple whom he had noticed in the
waiting-room.
Alec was startled by the fierce look in the husband’s face. It was
the face of a desperate man. He was striding on, apparently without
thinking where he was going, dragging his child carelessly by the hand,
while his staring eyes and clenched teeth told of the storm that was
raging within. His wife trudged on by his side in silence, pale to
the lips, with a scared look in her face. Moved by some impulse, Alec
stopped right in front of them, and, without any formal apology, asked
at once:
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘What did he say? Death. That’s what he said. It may be in a year, or
it may be in three months. My God!’
The humble City clerk was transformed by misery into something like
a madman. He gripped his wife by the arm, as if he would defy Death
himself to tear her from his side.
‘She’s all I have, and I can’t live without her. I can’t, and I won’t.’
Alec shuddered, but he could not meet the man’s eyes, and dropped his
own before them.
‘And the children; what is to become of them?’
‘Come, Tom; come home with me,’ said his wife gently, as she tried to
release her husband’s tightening grasp.
But he did not hear her.
‘Ay; and the doctor says, if she could go to Egypt for a time, or
the south of France, her life would be spared. Egypt! Or the south of
France! For a year, he says. Oh yes, it would save her life. That’s the
good of being rich, you see. You can buy your wife’s life.’
‘What is your name? Where do you live?’ said Alec.
‘What have you to do with that?’
‘Hush, Tom!’ put in the girl at his side. ‘And do let go my arm, you
hold me so tight. Tell the gentleman where we live. He won’t do us any
harm.’
But the man, suddenly dropping his wife’s arm, strode on without saying
another word.
‘Tell me the name of your husband’s employers; he said he was a clerk
in the City,’ said Alec to the girl, walking on by her side.
‘Cole and Fletcher, sir. They’re tea merchants in Devizes Street.’
‘And your name is?’
‘Hardy, sir.’
‘Thank you. Good-day.’
There was sympathy in Alec’s face, if there was none in his language;
and as he slowly walked homewards he asked himself, ‘Why should I not
do it? I have all I need; more, probably, than I shall ever wish to
use. Of course it is a risk; but I don’t think I could do better.’
And next morning Thomas Hardy received a short note, which enclosed a
cheque for three hundred pounds, signed ‘Alexander Lindsay.’
CHAPTER XXXVI.
SICK UNTO DEATH.
It was a wet, cheerless day in the end of March. The rain fell without
ceasing, and the air was bitterly cold. There was not a sign of
spring in field or hedgerow; and here and there, in the furrows and
in sheltered spots where the wind could not penetrate, the snow still
lingered.
Alec Lindsay was seated in the battered old coach, being conveyed to
the Castle Farm. He had determined to see if his native air would
restore him to health. For he could no longer persuade himself that
there was little or nothing the matter with him. He felt weaker every
day. The preparations for leaving London and the long journey had
tired him excessively; and now his one desire was for rest.
As the lumbering vehicle approached the well-remembered corner, he saw
the dog-cart waiting. His father was driving it; and the old man was
startled when he saw his son’s face, and still more when he took his
hand.
‘You are far from well, Alec,’ said the laird.
‘I am tired. I shall be better to-morrow,’ said he, getting into the
dog-cart.
‘I think we had better stop at Dr. Henderson’s, and ask him to come
over and see you to-morrow.’
‘Oh dear me, no,’ said Alec, in an irritated tone. ‘I only want a good
night’s rest.’
But on the following morning he did not come down to breakfast. He had
caught a cold on the journey, and he complained of a pain in his side.
Dr. Henderson was sent for, and when he saw his patient he looked very
grave.
‘Inflammation of the lungs,’ he said to Mr. Lindsay, when he went
downstairs.
‘But there is no danger, is there?’ asked the old laird, with alarm in
his eyes.
‘I would not like to say there’s no danger,’ said the doctor
cautiously. ‘He’s young, and I hope he’ll win through; but he seems
very listless and careless about himself. That’s a bad sign.’
‘You’ll do all that can be done, I’m sure, doctor; but if you think
further advice desirable, you’ll not spare expense.’
‘A’ the doctors in Europe could do no more than I’m doing,’ said the
doctor testily. ‘I’ll come round the morn. He may be easier then, but I
doubt no. We must have patience.’
Margaret nursed her brother with great skill and tenderness. She was
born to be a nurse; and her habitual self-repression made it easy for
her to conceal the anxiety she was feeling.
It was impossible for her to be always in the sick-room, and Alec liked
best to be left alone. It was the room that had always been his own.
Here he had read and worked to prepare himself for College. At that
old-fashioned window he had often sat, dreaming dreams which would
never come true. How fair the world had seemed to him but a few short
years before! How delightful the battle when he would match himself
against his fellows, against men born with greater advantages than
his own, and in which he would come off victorious, winning not only
wealth but honourable renown! And he had succeeded in nothing. It was
only by an accident, he told himself, that he was not now sitting in a
convict’s cell, or lying on a pallet in some prison infirmary. That
he had escaped; but he had learned, or thought he had learned, that
the prizes he had set his heart on were not worth winning. The whole
world did not seem to him to hold anything worthy of the devotion of a
lifetime. All this passed through his mind continually, in spite of the
pain, but in a confused way, as if he had thought it all out and had
wearied of it long ago.
On the third day the doctor looked very grave, and said he would come
again in the evening.
‘You think my son is worse, then?’ said Mr. Lindsay.
The doctor paused for a moment.
‘We must hope for the best,’ he said at last.
A chill struck to the father’s heart. Was it possible that this boy, of
whom in secret he had been so proud, the only hope of his house, was
to die? Inwardly he trembled, but outwardly he was as composed as ever.
‘Do you think,’ he said slowly, ‘that he ought to be told?’
‘I think you might ask him if there is any friend he would like to
see,’ said the doctor. ‘That will make him understand.’
When the doctor left him, the laird sat down in a kind of stupor. He
could not believe it. Was he, an old man, not far from the grave, to
live, while death seized his strong, bright-eyed boy? He shivered; and
as he sat there alone he realized that the bereavement would be worse
to him than it need have been. He had shown the lad but little of a
father’s tenderness, little even of the tenderness which he actually
felt. Alec had never confided in him, and he had resented the want
of confidence. But he had never tried to see things from the boy’s
standpoint; he had never made allowances for him, never yielded to
him, never tried to sympathize with his plans. He had wished his son to
be as himself. That could not be; and he had never acquiesced in the
decree of nature which had given the young man other standards, other
ideas, other aims, than his own. And now the end was come.
He could not bring himself as yet to go upstairs and tell his son the
truth. But Alec had already learned it.
‘Maggie,’ he said suddenly. ‘Does the doctor think I will get better?’
Margaret stepped back so that her brother could not see her face, and
steadied her voice before she answered:
‘He hopes you will. You have a splendid constitution, he says.’
‘But there is a chance that I may not?’
Margaret could not speak. She would have broken down, and she was
determined not to do that. On her brother’s face was a look of
satisfaction, as of one who heard that a long-expected haven was
in sight. Then that expression passed away, and was succeeded by a
wandering, troubled gaze.
‘I would like to see Duncan Cameron,’ Alec whispered. ‘Do you think my
father would send for him?’
‘I am sure he would, dear; I will go and ask him now,’ said Margaret,
as she kissed her brother and softly left the room.
Mr. Lindsay was not well pleased to hear of Alec’s wish.
‘It is a stranger he wishes to be with him at the last,’ he said to
himself bitterly.
But he set off himself to walk the five miles which lay between the
farm and the nearest telegraph office.
That evening Duncan Cameron was at the farm. Little was said between
the two; but Alec seemed to find comfort in his friend’s presence. In
a short time Mr. Lindsay beckoned Cameron out of the room.
‘You are a doctor,’ said the old man, in a hard, constrained voice.
‘What do you think? Is he likely to recover?’
‘I cannot say,’ said Cameron. ‘He is very ill, and very weak. If he
were a patient of my own, or a stranger----’
‘Yes?’
‘I should fear that he would not live through the night.’
The old man turned away without a word, went to his own room, and threw
himself on his knees at the side of his bed. He could not pray. But
under his breath he whispered:
‘Oh, my son, would God I could die for thee! Oh, Alec, my son, my son!’
And the tears ran unbidden down his withered, weather-beaten cheeks.
Meantime Cameron had gone back to the sick-room, and there he sat down
to watch by his friend, while Margaret rested.
‘Cameron,’ said Alec, speaking slowly and with pain, ‘when I am gone
they may put on my tombstone, “Born a man, died a failure.”’
‘Hold your tongue, man.’
‘I have been a failure in everything I ever tried,’ whispered Alec. ‘I
wonder why I was born--it seems to have been such a useless existence.’
‘_You_ say that, and you believe in a God!’ exclaimed Cameron. ‘If you
don’t, you may talk about useless existences, and so forth. But if you
believe in a God, you must believe that there is a reason, and a good
reason, for everything, whether you see it or not. If there is a God,
and God determined to make you, it was better that you should live.
And if you failed, it is better that you should fail, because if God
had wished you to succeed, He might easily have brought that about, I
suppose?’
‘Yes, it must be so. There is comfort in that.’
‘Of course there is. There is more than comfort in it. There is
everything in it. And yet men go on saying they believe in God, and
grumbling at every stone they strike their foot against.’
A long pause followed.
Alec was hardly able to speak, but a faint smile crossed his face.
‘You are always the same, Cameron.’
‘And if you talk any more I will leave the house this instant. If you
have any peace in your mind, keep it, and thank God. But don’t say
another syllable, unless you want to kill yourself.’
All through that night Cameron and Margaret watched by turns.
About four in the morning Cameron touched the bell which stood at the
side of the bed; and in a few seconds Margaret was in the room. Alec
was sitting upright, supported by his friend’s arms and breast, while
he laboured and gasped for breath.
‘Call his father,’ whispered Cameron.
Margaret longed to fly to her brother’s side; but she did as she was
told, and soon the old man obeyed the summons.
‘It cannot last much longer,’ whispered Cameron to Margaret, as she
stood sobbing at his side.
The three stood there and waited helplessly while the life and death
struggle went on. At last the breathing became more regular, and Alec
was able to look at the faces of those around him.
‘I think you had better go now; it only excites him to see so many of
us here,’ said Cameron, still speaking in a whisper. ‘I will call you
again if he should get worse, but I don’t think it will be necessary.
I think he will do now.’
Cameron was right. Alec had youth and a magnificent constitution on his
side; and from that night he grew gradually better.
* * * * *
The sun was shining bright and strong through the little square windows
of the parlour, when the invalid came down for the first time after his
illness. It was May; the rain was over and gone, and the time of the
singing of birds had come. Alec’s heart sang with them, he hardly knew
why. It was partly the reaction of a young and vigorous system after
the illness and the mental depression through which he had passed; but
he had undergone another change of which he said nothing. He no longer
looked on the world as an arena in which success meant all that was
worth living for, and failure irretrievable disaster.
During his convalescence there had been some talk of the future, and it
had been settled that in order to get rid of the weakness in his lungs
Alec should spend one or two years in a dry, warm climate. Cameron had
recommended a voyage to Australia; and finally it was settled that the
invalid should wait at the Castle Farm till he was quite fit to travel,
and then sail for Melbourne. If he found that the climate suited him,
he was to settle down for a year or more, and learn sheep-farming.
In view of so long a parting, he was in no hurry to leave home; and for
the first time since his boyhood he enjoyed staying at the farm.
‘Alec,’ said his father to him one day, not long before the time fixed
for his departure, ‘did I ever tell you that I had heard from your
cousin Semple?’
‘No!’ exclaimed Alec in great astonishment. ‘When? Where is he? What
is he doing?’
‘It was during your illness, so of course I did not mention it to you.
He was in Spain--in hiding. He was miserably poor; in fact, he wrote
begging me to send him money, if it were only a few shillings.’
‘Have you his letter?’
‘I burned it.’
‘And did you----’
‘Send him money? No, indeed! Was it likely? His punishment is nothing
comparatively. But it is written, “Vengeance is Mine.”’
There was an air of decided satisfaction in the old man’s manner as he
quoted the text.
‘Do you remember the address?’ asked Alec, after a pause.
‘No,’ said Mr. Lindsay shortly.
‘It is very strange to hear of his being in poverty,’ said Alec, ‘when
he is entitled to so much wealth. I heard before I left London that
the trustees of the Free Kirk could not hope to succeed in getting the
half-million from a court of law.’
‘So it has been decided; but Semple is afraid to come forward and claim
the money. He fears he may be prosecuted, and, for anything he knows,
sent to penal servitude.’
‘Perhaps he does not even know that in spite of the trick he played he
is entitled to half the residue of the estate.’
‘I dare say he does not.’
‘I wonder what he is doing now.’
‘He won’t starve,’ said Mr. Lindsay calmly. ‘He will manage to exist
somehow till he thinks the worst danger is past, and then we shall hear
of his trying to get hold of the money.’
‘Did you think I did right in renouncing my share of it?’ said Alec,
after a pause.
‘You did not consult me at the time,’ said the old man stiffly; ‘and
there is little use in speaking of it now.’
‘You see, my uncle never intended for one moment that I should get two
hundred and fifty thousand pounds of his money. I felt that I could not
honestly take it.’
‘No doubt. Have you fixed whether you will go by the _Queen of the
South_ or the _Glenstrae_?’
From which Alec understood that his father would have agreed with Laura
Mowbray in thinking that he was not morally bound to carry out his
uncle’s wishes.
‘Conscience must be obeyed, no doubt,’ said the old man, suddenly
returning to the subject. ‘But in important matters it is well to
take time for due deliberation, and to consult those whose opinion is
entitled to respect.’
‘I am afraid, sir, I could hardly have expected a Free Kirk minister to
advise me to retain the money,’ said Alec maliciously. ‘If I had had
recourse to an Established Church pastor, he might perhaps have seen
the matter in a different light.’
Then, seeing that his father looked nettled, Alec hastily began to
speak of something else.
It was the middle of summer before the time of parting came. The
_Glenstrae_ (the ship which had been chosen) sailed from the Clyde; and
Alec’s father and sister, as well as his friend Cameron, went down to
Greenock where the vessel was lying, to see him on board.
The separation was painful, but it was, after all, so different from
that other parting which a few weeks before had seemed so near at hand!
The last hand-shakes were exchanged; and Alec’s friends stepped on
board the tug which was to convey them back to the shore. He saw them
land; he saw his father’s tall, bent form, with Margaret at his side,
standing motionless at the edge of the quay. He watched them until
it was no longer possible to see the signals they made, till their
forms were lost in the distance. A few minutes afterwards he begged a
fellow-passenger for the loan of a field-glass which was lying beside
him, that he might have a nearer look at the land he was leaving. And
happening to turn the glass upon the wharf, he saw that Margaret and
his father were standing there still.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE FUGITIVE’S RETURN.
Before Miss Lindsay left London she accompanied her late cousin’s ward
to Victoria, and saw her depart for Brighton. The old lady was by no
means sorry that this was the last she was to see of Laura Mowbray.
There had been from the first hour of their meeting a natural antipathy
between the two women. Miss Lindsay’s ruling idea was that of duty,
while Laura’s chief aim in life was to get as much amusement, or,
failing that, as much comfort as possible, out of her existence. They
had put up with each other because they happened to be members of the
same household, and each had too much sense to indulge in quarrelling
or recrimination. Naturally they both felt it to be a relief when the
connection came to an end.
But no sooner were Miss Lindsay and Margaret seated in the carriage
which conveyed them back to Claremont Gardens, than the old lady’s
conscience began to trouble her. It told her that she had done nothing
for the girl who had been for some years in a manner under her care.
She had not tried to wean her from her pleasure-loving, selfish habits.
She had not tried to sympathize with her, or to make life in Mr.
Lindsay’s house, which was often cheerless enough, a whit more pleasant
for her. Beyond lending volumes of sermons and religious memoirs to her
to read on Sundays, she had not tried to influence the motherless girl
for good. Why had she not thought of all this before it was too late?
‘It was with a sigh, therefore, that she turned to Margaret, and said:
‘Poor lassie! I wish she may do weel.’
‘I think few people are better able to take care of themselves than
Miss Mowbray,’ responded Margaret.
‘I think Alec was greatly taken with her some time back,’ said Miss
Lindsay, after a pause.
‘She encouraged both him and that wretch, James Semple,’ said Margaret,
with more vehemence than was usual with her; ‘and I believe she meant
to take the one that turned out to be Uncle James’s heir. She has no
principle. I believe she would marry anyone who was rich enough to
give her all the comforts of life and take her to plenty of balls and
parties.’
‘It doesna become you to speak ill o’ the lassie as soon as her back’s
turned,’ said Miss Lindsay; and to this rebuke Margaret vouchsafed no
reply.
Meanwhile Laura was trying to realize that once more a great change
had come into her life. The comfortable, monotonous life of Mr.
Lindsay’s house was already for her a thing of the past. What the
future had in store for her she had no means of guessing. A cousin of
her mother’s, who had married a Mr. Crosby, had offered her a home, and
she had accepted the offer. Of Mr. Crosby she only knew that he was a
coal merchant, and that he lived at Richmond Villa, Brighton. He might
be a poor man, or he might be well-to-do; though from the fact that
Mrs. Crosby had accepted Laura’s proposal to pay her sixty pounds a
year for her board and lodging, it might be supposed that the Crosbys
were not rich.
‘Whatever they are like,’ said Laura to herself, ‘my life can’t be more
dull with them than it has been for the last three years. And if I
don’t like them, I can always go away again.’
But fate had decreed that in both of these points Laura was to be
disappointed.
The girl’s heart sank within her as the cab stopped at ‘Richmond
Villa,’ which was, in fact, nothing more than a shabby, stucco-fronted
cottage. The crying of a baby reached her ears before she had time
to raise the knocker; and no sooner had she done so than she became
conscious that two dirty children were peering at her from the window
at her left hand.
Mrs. Crosby was a large, flabby, good-natured woman, who seemed
incapable of being injuriously affected by any domestic troubles
whatever. She was always in a muddle, always undecided, always
unpresentable in appearance, and always contented. Her husband, on the
contrary, was a little, sharp-eyed, foxy-haired man with a rasping,
disagreeable voice, and an uncertain temper. Each of them had, without
knowing it, drawn a prize in the lottery of marriage. Either Mr. or
Mrs. Crosby would have driven any other man or woman mad in a week; but
they got on together tolerably well.
‘You are very welcome, Miss Mowbray,’ he said to Laura that evening,
‘if you can put up with the discomfort of this house. I’m used to it,
and I don’t mind; but with you it may be different.’
Laura did not know what to say in answer to this speech; but Mrs.
Crosby remarked with the utmost composure:
‘Law, Mr. Crosby, how can you say so? I’m sure everything’s very
comfortable, though at present a little unsettled. But you must never
mind Mr. Crosby, my dear. All men grumble and find fault; and if you
just let them alone, it never does anyone any harm.’
Life at Richmond Villa was certainly uneventful; but very much to her
own surprise Laura found that it interested her. It was the first time
she had ever formed one of a family circle; and though the children
were by no means attractive, they amused her, and pleased her by coming
to her with their little wants and cares, their joys and sorrows.
And before Laura had been long enough in the house to decide whether
it would not be better to leave it and go and live by herself in a
boarding-house, an event happened which settled the question for her.
The Patent Match-box Company, whose shares she had bought on her
lawyer’s advice at twenty per cent. premium, went into liquidation; and
after a miserable period of anxiety Laura found that only nine hundred
pounds of her money could be saved out of the wreck. She was thankful
to remain with Mrs. Crosby as nursery-governess. It was a hard, dull
life; but the very hardness and dulness of it did the girl good. She
was forced to think of other things than her own amusement and her
own pleasure. Almost insensibly she grew less self-indulgent, more
considerate for others, more simple and straightforward.
One day, about six months after Laura had first come to Brighton, she
was returning home, late in the afternoon, when she was stopped by a
man whom she took for a beggar. As she was searching her pocket for a
copper, he spoke to her.
‘Laura--Miss Mowbray, don’t you know me?’
It was James Semple!
The girl was shocked beyond the power of speech. She stood, exactly
as she had been standing when he spoke her name, and stared at him.
His dress was that of a labourer, except for his coat--an old black
overcoat, torn, and indescribably dirty, which had the effect of making
him look a thousand times more disreputable than he would have been
without it. On his head was a battered felt hat, gray with old age.
His face was thin and unshaven, his eyes hungry and wolfish.
‘Well! you needn’t stare at me like that!’ he exclaimed.
But Laura did not hear him. She had burst into tears. She hardly
could have told why she wept; for certainly the man deserved his evil
fortune. Yet it seemed too horrible that a man whom she had lived with
on terms of familiarity should be reduced to this--to actual squalor
and hunger.
‘You’re sorry for me, I see. You’ve a good heart, Laura. But you won’t
care to be seen speaking to me,’ he added, throwing a furtive glance
around him. ‘There’s a policeman coming up the street. Let’s turn down
here,’ and he led the way into a side-alley. Half reluctantly the girl
followed him.
‘I say, do you know if there’s a warrant out against me?’ he whispered,
stretching his unsightly face nearer to her.
‘No; I think not. I never heard of anything of that kind.’
‘Because I’ve been afraid, you know--horribly afraid. I haven’t been
able to sleep at night. I couldn’t go to prison, Laura. Not for long,
you know. It would kill me.’
‘Where have you been? And how did you know I was here?’
‘I’ve been in Spain. I worked my passage from Lisbon. And I went to the
house in Claremont Gardens one night, after dark, and the old woman
who is keeping the place told me where you had gone. I’ve tramped from
London.’
‘And how have you lived, all this time?’
‘I haven’t lived, I’ve starved. That’s what I’ve done. You never knew
what it was to be hungry, I suppose. How would you like to be hungry,
not for days, but weeks and weeks--and cold too at the same time, and
nowhere to sleep. I couldn’t stand it, so I came back and took my
chance. I say, Laura, can you lend me any money?’
Laura took out her purse. There were two sovereigns in it, besides some
silver. She poured it all into the man’s open palm.
‘I am not rich now,’ she said, with a sad smile; ‘I lost nearly all my
money.’ And she then remembered that it would be two months at least
before her purse could be filled again.
‘Have you?’ said Semple. ‘Are you sure you can spare all this?’ He
picked out one of the sovereigns and held it, as if he intended to
return it.
‘Oh yes, I can spare it; and you want it so much.’
‘Don’t I! But you’re a good sort, Laura, returned Semple; slipping the
sovereign into his pocket with the rest of the money.
‘I’m afraid I must go now,’ said the girl, remembering that it was
just possible that they might be observed.
‘All right. I’ll go back to London. It’s easier to pick up coppers
there than anywhere else.’
‘Why don’t you consult a lawyer?’ asked Laura suddenly.
‘What! Don’t you see, I could be caught and put in prison, for the
conspiracy, if it were nothing else?’
‘Yes; but surely the lawyer might act for you, and get your money for
you, even if you lived abroad.’
‘I thought of that. But what lawyer would look at me, dressed as I am
now? Your two sovereigns will change all that, Laura. I will find a
solicitor to take up the case. There ought to be ten thousand pounds
for my share of the residue.’
‘Far more than that. The Free Church----’
‘Yes. What about the Free Church? They get the half-million, don’t
they?’
‘I believe not. Alec gave up his share to them; and they tried to get
your share from the executors; but the court decided that they could
not prove their case, and had no right to it.’
‘Are you sure?’ cried Semple, almost mad with excitement.
‘I am quite sure. I saw it in the papers about a fortnight ago.’
‘You don’t say so! What luck!’ And with sundry half-articulate cries of
wonder and delight, Mr. James Semple disappeared.
Six weeks afterwards he came back to Brighton. It was on a Sunday
morning that Laura and he met. She had a headache which had prevented
her going to church; and she was enjoying the unwonted repose of the
little sitting-room when the door was opened, and Semple walked into
the room. He was no longer an outcast dressed in rags. Every article
of dress he had on was palpably new; and except for an irrepressible
twitch of the eyelids, he had an air of confidence and display.
‘You see I’ve come back again, Laura,’ he said, as soon as the door
was closed. ‘I didn’t forget you. But it was a risk--a tremendous
risk. Curtin--that’s my solicitor--is careful to impress on me that my
getting the money won’t save me from prosecution. It’s a comfortable
truth for him; for he’s charged me fifty per cent. for the money he
has lent me,----him, because he knew very well I didn’t dare to go to
anyone else for it. But how are you?’
‘I don’t feel very well to-day.’
‘I’m sorry for that. Well, I’ve come a good way to see you. I’m in
France, you know--supposed to be in France; and I ran over last night
and came down here this morning. I want to pay you the little debt I
owe you;’ and he counted out the money as he spoke. ‘We’ve made them
pay up,’ he cried in triumphant tone.
‘Indeed,’ said Laura.
‘Yes. Two hundred and eleven thousand four hundred and nineteen pounds
were paid in to my account at the Bank of England on Friday morning.
What do you think of that?’
‘I’m going to buy a yacht,’ he continued, without waiting for an
answer. ‘One feels more comfortable, safer, in fact, on board ship.’
He ceased talking for a moment, and Laura made no effort to supply the
gap.
‘I say, Laura,’ he exclaimed, ‘did you ever hear of such a fool as that
fellow Alec--throwing away all that money?’
Laura reddened. It was exactly what she had thought herself; but it was
a very different thing to hear it from this man’s mouth.
‘So I’m the heir after all!’ He laughed; he actually laughed as he
spoke. ‘And as soon as I’ve come into my inheritance I’ve come back to
you. I’m not a man to forget old friends or old promises, Laura; and
I’ve come to ask you to let bygones be bygones, and go shares with me
in this good luck. You’ll marry me, Laura, won’t you? And we’ll be so
jolly! Think of how jolly we will be! Eh, Laura?’
‘But I have lost my fortune, Mr. Semple,’ she said, without raising her
eyes.
‘What is that to me?--a flea-bite--a mere flea-bite;’ and Mr. Semple
drummed on the table pleasantly with the tips of his fingers.
‘And you might perhaps find someone who was more attractive, more
accomplished, more worthy to be the wife of a rich man than poor me,’
said the girl, almost humbly.
‘Oh, well; I dare say I might pick almost anywhere now; but we are old
friends, and I have always liked you, Laura, so----’
He stretched out his hand and laid it upon hers.
At the touch she sprang to her feet as if she had been stung.
‘You wretch!’ she cried. ‘You cowardly, cruel monster! How dare you ask
an honest girl to marry you! Do you think I would have accepted you as
you were the other day? As little would I listen to you now!’
He shrank back amazed, angry, insulted--cowering before the girl’s
scorn.
‘You think that because I pitied you and gave you money to save you
from starvation that I forgot what a vile being you are. You helped
to lay a snare for your cousin, who never so much as lifted a finger
against you. You would have seen him sent into penal servitude
innocent, that you might get this money. I never heard of such
baseness. I could not have conceived that anyone could have been so
mean, so cruel!’
‘It wasn’t my idea; I never knew what was going on.’
‘You changed the wills; and you were ready to swear your cousin’s
liberty away, and let him spend his life in prison, while you----And
you think you can come here and ask me to marry you as if you were not
known. What did you take me for? Can you not imagine that a girl would
die a thousand times rather than marry such as you? I think you had
better go.’
Her last words were not needed. Semple hung his head like a slave
caught in a theft, and slunk out of the room.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TWO YEARS AFTER.
A tall bearded man walked slowly up the side of a steep ravine, leading
a tired horse by the bridle. His hands were plunged deep in his
trousers-pockets, and his brows were knitted in deep thought. He wore
the regulation Australian costume--flannel shirt and silk scarf, straw
hat, rough trousers, and enormous boots.
It was Alec Lindsay. Two years of the dry bracing air of Australia had
done wonders for him. His cheeks and hands were brown as a nut, his
muscles strong and springy as when he used to run up the sides of the
Highland hills; not a trace of weakness was left in his frame.
When the ascent was climbed, the traveller came upon a rough path
running along the upper edge of the gully, which brought him to a
shepherd’s hut. This had been Alec’s home for the last fifteen months.
Here he had lived, contentedly enough, dreaming now and then of the big
world so far away, but never hankering after it, deeming it a pleasant
piece of excitement if a traveller dropped in with a fortnight-old
newspaper in his pocket.
As he drew near the hut, a short, thick-set man with a black beard,
which resembled a section of a sweep’s brush, appeared at the doorway,
and stood waiting for his companion’s approach.
‘Well?’ he inquired, as Alec came up.
‘I saw Martin,’ said Alec; ‘and I ordered the flour, and the other
things. The wash for the sheep will be sent over on Saturday.’
Bill Cutbush gave a grunt, by way of acknowledging the information.
‘I went round by the post-office.’
‘Ah!’ growled Bill. ‘That’s what’s made you so late. You didn’t get any
letters for me, I fancy? No billy-doos, or such-like?’
‘There was a letter and a paper for you,’ answered Alec, producing them
from his pouch.
Bill stared at them as if he were half afraid of them.
‘Blest if I ain’t forgot how to read such things,’ he said, with a
short laugh, as he thrust them into his pocket, and turned away.
‘I got a letter too,’ began Alec. ‘I think, Bill----’
Then he saw that his rough-spoken comrade was paying no attention to
him, but was striding off to discover what the news was that had
travelled so many thousand miles to find him.
So Alec rubbed down Brown Jim, his horse, and fed him. After that he
went to the brook and washed himself, and then he walked into the hut.
Supper, the never-changing supper of tea, chops, and unleavened bread,
was ready cooked; and when that subject had been adequately discussed,
Alec lit his pipe and sat down on a log outside the hut to ruminate.
Much had happened during the two years of his exile. His father had
died, and Margaret had let the Castle Farm, and the others which the
laird had bought back before his death, and had gone to live with Miss
Lindsay in Glasgow.
Old Mr. Blake, too, was dead; and Hubert Blake and Sophy had been
married for some time. The letter Alec had just received was from
Blake; and pulling it out of his pocket he began to read it once more.
‘MY DEAR LINDSAY’ (so ran the letter),
‘I see it is of no use to blow you up for not writing--so
I spare you. But I have news for you. Your cousin Semple
is dead. Poor fellow, I fear his wealth did him little
good. You know, I dare say, that he managed to hear of an
attorney while he was in Spain, and through this man he
succeeded in recovering the quarter of a million to obtain
which he did you so grievous a wrong. But he never dared
to show his face in England, knowing that if he escaped
imprisonment he would have been shunned by everybody.
‘I have seen his lawyer, who seems a fairly respectable
individual; and he tells me that the two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds are intact; and that your cousin left no
will. So you and your sister inherit this property. You
must come home at once, and see about it. I believe your
sister is to be put into possession of her share very
shortly.
‘You are a rich man now, Lindsay; and if you choose you
may do something towards realizing those schemes of
colonization which in your book, “England’s Hope,” you
recommend to all wealthy philanthropists. At least you may
as well spend the money in that way; for I feel certain you
will get rid of it before long, in one way or another. As
for “England’s Hope,” it has made quite a sensation. It is
talked of and quoted everywhere; and really your doctrine
that the unskilled labourers who are starving should be
helped to emigrate to Australia in large numbers, and
settled on virgin land by the two Governments, seems to me
the only practical way of solving the difficulty. I quite
agree with you in this, that we may expect the agricultural
labourers to find less and less work on English farms,
so that the distress which comes round as regularly every
winter as the first of November, must grow worse every
year, unless it is relieved by a remedy which will be in
some degree commensurate with the evil.
‘But we will talk over all this when we meet. What I want
to impress upon you is that you must, as soon as this
reaches you, saddle your horse, and make for the nearest
seaport. Take the first steamer for England, and as soon
as you land come straight to Brighton. We shall be here
for four or five months at least. I want to have a long
chat with you, and my wife wants to show you the baby,
whose faculties (according to his mother) are well-nigh
superhuman, and whose beauties and graces are infinite.
‘By the way, we lighted upon an old acquaintance of yours
the other day, Miss Mowbray. Poor girl, I fancy she has
rather a hard life of it. She foolishly invested the
greater part of her little fortune in a company which paid
high dividends long enough to enable the promoters to sell
their shares, and then went to smash. So she lives with
some relations as a sort of nursery-governess to a pack
of preternaturally ugly children. But I fancy her hard
fortune has improved her. My wife has taken a great fancy
to her, chiefly, I believe, on account of her courage in
giving evidence on a certain occasion, and on account of
her refusing James Semple, when he wanted to marry her last
year.
‘Now, good-bye, and remember to come to Brighton the moment
your ship comes in.
‘Yours always,
‘HUBERT BLAKE.’
By the time Alec’s pipe was finished, Bill Cutbush had returned to
the hut. He was very quiet and subdued in his manner. Evidently the
contents of his letter had touched him deeply; but he said not a word
about it.
‘Bill,’ said Alec, before they separated for the night, ‘I have had an
important letter from England: and I am going home. I spoke to Martin;
and he will send someone to take my place to-morrow.’
‘When d’you start?’ asked Bill, after a pause.
‘At daybreak.’
‘What are you going to do with Brown Jim?’
‘I shall ride him to Clifford’s, and catch the stage there.’
‘You think of selling him?’
‘I shall leave him to you, Bill.’
‘For my own?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank’ee.’
‘Good-night, Bill.’
Half an hour afterwards Alec suddenly awoke.
‘Who’s there?’ he shouted.
‘It’s only me,’ said the voice of Bill Cutbush. ‘I say, y’know, it was
sort of partickler good in you to give me Brown Jim. He’s the best hoss
for a long way round. I’ll take good care on him. Thought you’d like to
know.’
And before Alec had time to reply, Bill had vanished.
* * * * *
Before two months had passed, Alec was once more in London. And without
waiting to see the solicitor who had charge of his late cousin’s
property, he went down to Brighton the same day.
To his disappointment, however, he found that Blake and his wife were
not at home, and would not probably be back till the evening. Alec
spent the rest of the day in wandering about the pier and the streets,
feeling more lonely than he had been in the Australian bush.
It was late in the afternoon, and he was strolling aimlessly along the
seashore, when happening to look towards the cliffs he caught sight of
Laura Mowbray.
Yes, it was she; a glad surprise shining in her eyes. Alec rushed up to
her, holding out both his hands.
‘Oh, how are you? I am so glad to see you!’ he cried.
Laura gave him her right hand without speaking, but Alec seized her
left as well, and held it, while his eyes devoured her face.
‘Won’t you give me a word of welcome?’ he asked.
‘Welcome back to England!’ she said, gently disengaging her hands.
Then they walked on side by side.
‘When did you return?’ asked Laura.
‘I only reached London this morning.’
‘Had you a pleasant voyage?’
‘Yes; but I want to hear about you. I want to know so much.’
‘No, no; you shall tell me all about Australia, and what you have been
doing all this time.’
There were plenty of topics for conversation, and an hour went by
before they noticed that the sun was near his setting.
‘I must take the children home,’ said Laura. ‘They are under my charge,
you know.’
‘The children? Where are they?’
‘Playing over there. Oh! I have been keeping an eye on them all the
time. I have not been so careless as you think.’
‘You cannot imagine,’ said Alec, as they walked over to the children’s
encampment, ‘how strange it seems to me that I am here, walking by your
side. I can hardly believe it to be true.’
Laura smiled, but she said nothing by way of reply; and just then two
pert-looking little girls came running up and claimed her attention.
Alec drew back a little, and watched the group. He could not help
seeing that in some subtle way Laura was greatly changed. Her manner
was gentle and self-forgetful. The very tones of her voice had altered.
Presently the children scampered off again, and Alec rejoined his
companion.
‘Do you know what I was thinking of just now?’ he said.
Something in his voice startled her. He did not wait for an answer, but
went on:
‘I was thinking of an afternoon in the garden at Glendhu, half a dozen
years ago.’
‘Some things are best forgotten,’ she murmured, hardly knowing what she
said.
‘I was only a foolish boy then,’ went on Alec, ‘but I think my heart
has never changed.’
‘Please stop, Mr. Lindsay. Indeed I cannot listen to you.’
‘Laura--you are not--engaged?’
‘No; oh no!’
‘Then why won’t you listen? You did not doubt me then. Why should you
doubt me now?’
‘I don’t doubt you. But it can never, never be.’
‘You think I am hasty. It may seem so, but I have been longing to tell
you this for weeks and months. And you know my heart was always yours.’
‘Oh, Mr. Lindsay, I entreat you not to say any more! I should not have
allowed you to go on.’
‘Why? If I can win your love, Laura----’
‘No, no; you do not really know me. You do not understand.’
‘I only understand one thing--I love you. Laura, you won’t refuse me?’
‘But I have been so heartless, so unprincipled, so selfish, so----’ the
rest was lost in tears.
‘Hush, hush! I won’t have you say such things.’
‘But they are true.’
‘Laura, just one word,’ whispered Alec, gently taking her hand in his.
‘Can you care for me? Look at me, dearest.’
‘It is better not,’ she said, trying to withdraw her hand. ‘See, there
are Mr. and Mrs. Blake coming down the cliff.’
‘They don’t see us yet. There is time for you to hear me and make me
happy.’
‘Would it make you happy? Are you sure?’ asked Laura; and the sunlight
seemed to play for a moment on her face.
‘Can you doubt it? Come; let us forget the last three years, and
imagine that we are boy and girl again at Glendhu. Will you? And let
me whisper, “Can you love me, Laura?”’
‘Oh, Alec, in my heart I loved you even then!’
THE END.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
Transcriber’s Note:
This book was written in a period when many words had not become
standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
left unchanged. Dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left
unchanged. Misspelled words were not corrected.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the
end of the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside
down, or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected.
Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were
added.
On 1236 line, several words of text in the original were unprinted. A
later edition of this book uses “to an,” which were added to this text.
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