by Ellen Wood
“Almost anything you please — that the boy himself likes. Let him play or rest, ride or walk, eat and drink, or let it alone; it cannot make much difference.”
“Doctor! You yield it, as a last hope, very lightly.”
Dr. Martin shook his head. “I speak as I know. You insisted on having my true opinion.”
“A warmer climate?” suggested Mr. Carlyle eagerly, the idea crossing his mind.
“It might prolong the end for a little while — a few weeks, perhaps — avert it it could not. And who could take him? You could not go; and he has no mother. No! I should not advise it.”
“I wish you would see Wainwright — with reference to William.”
“I have seen him. I met him this afternoon, by chance, and told him my opinion. How is Mrs. Carlyle?”
“Pretty well. She is not in robust health, you are aware, just now.”
Dr. Martin smiled. “These things will happen. Mrs. Carlyle has a thoroughly good constitution; a far stronger one than — than — —”
“Than what?” said Mr. Carlyle, wondering why he hesitated.
“You must grant me pardon. I may as well finish, now I have begun; but I was not thinking when I spoke. She is stronger than was Lady Isabel. I must be off to catch the six train.”
“You will come over from time to time to East Lynne to see William?”
“If you wish it. It may be a satisfaction, perhaps. Bon jour, madame.”
Lady Isabel bowed to him as he left the room with Mr. Carlyle. “How fond that French governess of yours is of the boy!” the doctor whispered, as they crossed the hall. “I detected it when she brought him to Lynneborough. And you saw her just now! That emotion was all because he could not live. Good-bye.”
Mr. Carlyle grasped his hand. “Doctor, I wish you could save him!” he passionately uttered.
“Ah, Carlyle! If we humble mites of human doctors could but keep those whom it is the Great Physician’s pleasure to take, how we should be run after! There’s hidden mercy, remember, in the darkest cloud. Farewell my friend.”
Mr. Carlyle returned to the room. He approached Lady Isabel, looking down upon her as she sat; not that he could see much of her face. “These are grievous tidings. But you were more prepared for them, I fancy, than I was.”
She started suddenly up, approached the window, and looked out, as if she saw somebody passing whom she would gaze at. All of emotion was stirred up within her — her temples throbbed, her throat beat, her breath became hysterical. Could she bear thus to hold confidential converse with him over the state of their child? She pulled off her gloves for coolness to her burning hands, she wiped the moisture from her pale forehead, she struggled manfully for calmness. What excuse could she offer to Mr. Carlyle?
“I had begun to like the boy so very much, sir,” she said, half turning round. “And the doctor’s fiat, too plainly pronounced has given me pain; pain to agitation.”
Again Mr. Carlyle approached her, following close up to where she stood. “You are very kind, thus to feel an interest in my child.”
She did not answer.
“Here, papa, papa! I want you,” cried William, breaking into the room. “Let me walk home with you? Are you going to walk?”
How could he find it in his heart to deny anything to the child then?
“Very well,” he said. “Stay here till I come for you.”
“We are going home with papa,” proclaimed William to Madame Vine.
Madame Vine did not relish the news. But there was no help for it. In a very short time Mr. Carlyle appeared, and they set off; he holding William’s hand; madame walking on the other side of the child.
“Where’s William Vane, papa?” asked the boy.
“He has gone on with Lord Mount Severn.”
Scarcely had the words been spoken, when some one came bolting out of the post-office, and met them face to face; almost ran against them in fact, creating some hindrance. The man looked confused, and slunk off into the gutter. And you will not wonder that he did, when you hear that it was Francis Levison. William, child like, turned his head to gaze at the intruder.
“I would not be an ugly bad man like him for the world,” quoth he, as he turned his back again. “Would you, papa?”
Mr. Carlyle did not answer, and Isabel cast an involuntary glance upon him from her white face. His was impassive, save that a cast of ineffable scorn marred the delicate beauty of his lips. If humiliation for the past had never wrung Lady Isabel’s heart before, it would have wrung it then.
At Mr. Justice Hare’s gate they encountered that gentleman, who appeared to be standing there to give himself an airing. William caught sight of Mrs. Hare seated on the garden bench, outside the window, and ran to kiss her. All the children loved Mrs. Hare. The justice was looking — not pale; that would not be a term half strong enough: but yellow. The curls of his best wig were limp, and all his pomposity appeared to have gone out of him.
“I say, Carlyle, what on earth’s this?” cried he, in a tone that, for him, was wonderfully subdued and meek. “I was not on the bench this afternoon, but Pinner has been telling me — of an application that was made to them in private. It’s not true, you know; it can’t be; it’s too far-fetched a tale. What do you know about it?”
“Nothing,” said Mr. Carlyle. “I do not know what you are talking of. I have been privy to no application.”
“It seems they want to make out now that Dick never murdered Hallijohn,” proceeded the justice, in a half whisper, glancing round as if to be sure that there were no eaves-droppers amidst the trees.
“Oh,” said Mr. Carlyle.
“But that Levison did. Levison!”
Mr. Carlyle made no reply, save by a gesture; his face more impassive than before. Not so another face beside him, a fair face; that turned white again with emotion as she listened.
“But it can’t be, you know. It can’t, I say.”
“So far as Richard’s innocence goes, of that I have long been convinced,” spoke Mr. Carlyle.
“And that Levison’s guilty?” returned the justice, opening his eyes in puzzled wonderment.
“I have no opinion upon that point,” was the cold rejoinder.
“It’s impossible, I say. Dick can’t be innocent. You may as well tell me that the world’s turned upside down.”
“It is, sometimes, I think. That Richard was not the guilty man will be proved yet, justice, in the broad face of day.”
“If — if — that other did do it, I should think you’d take the warrant out of the hands of the police and capture him yourself.”
“I would not touch him with a pair of tongs,” spoke Mr. Carlyle, his lips curling again. “If the man goes to his punishment, he goes; but I do not help him on his road thither.”
“Can Dick be innocent?” mused the justice, returning to the thought which so troubled his mind. “Then why has he kept away? Why did he not come back and say so?”
“That you might deliver him up, justice. You know you took an oath to do it.”
The justice looked green, and remarkably humble.
“Oh, but Carlyle,” impulsively spoke he, the thought occurring to him, “what an awful revenge this would have been for you on — somebody — had she lived. How her false step would have come home to her now!”
“False steps come home to most people,” responded Mr. Carlyle, as he took William by the hand, who then ran up. And, lifting his hat to Mrs. Hare in the distance, he walked on.
She, Lady Isabel, walked on, too, by the side of the child, as before, walked on with a shivering frame, and a heart sick unto death. The justice looked after her, his mind unoccupied. He was in a maze of bewilderment. Richard innocent! Richard, whom he had striven to pursue to a shameful end! And that other the guilty one! The world was turning upside down.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
MRS. CARLYLE IN FULL DRESS, AFY ALSO.
Merrily rose West Lynne on Thursday morning; merrily rang out the bells, clashing and chiming. The stre
et was alive with people; the windows were crowded with heads; something unusual was astir. It was the day of the nomination of the two candidates, and everybody took the opportunity to make a holiday.
Ten o’clock was the hour named; but, before that hour struck, West Lynne was crammed. The country people had come in, thick and threefold; rich and poor; people of note, and people of none; voters and non-voters, all eager to mix themselves up with the day’s proceedings. You see the notorious fact of Sir Francis Levison’s having come forward to oppose Mr. Carlyle, caused greater interest in this election than is usual, even in small country places — and that need not be. Barbara drove in her carriage, the two children with her, and the governess. The governess said she preferred to remain at home. Barbara would not hear of it; almost felt inclined to resent it as a slight; besides, if she took no interest in Mr. Carlyle, she must go to take care of Lucy; she, Barbara, would be too much occupied to look after children. So Madame Vine, perforce, stepped into the barouche and sat opposite to Mrs. Carlyle, her thick veil shading her features, and their pallor contrasting with the blue spectacles.
They alighted at the residence of Miss Carlyle. Quite a gathering was already there. Lady and Miss Dobede, the Herberts, Mrs. Hare, and many others; for the house was in a good spot for seeing the fun; and all the people were eager to testify their respect to Mr. Carlyle, in contradiction to that other one. Miss Carlyle was in full rig; a brocaded dress, and a scarlet-and-purple bow in front of it, the size of a pumpkin. It was about the only occasion, in all Miss Carlyle’s life, that she deemed it necessary to attire herself beyond common. Barbara wore no bow, but she exhibited a splendid bouquet of scarlet-and-purple flowers. Mr. Carlyle had himself given it to her that morning.
Mr. Carlyle saw them all at the windows of the large upper drawing-room, and came in; he was then on his way to the town-hall. Shaking hands, laughter, hearty and hasty good wishes; and he quitted the room again. Barbara stole after him for a sweeter farewell.
“God bless you and prosper you, Archibald, my dearest!”
The business of the day began. Mr. Carlyle was proposed by Sir John Dobede, and seconded by Mr. Herbert. Lord Mount Severn, than whom not a busier man was there, would willingly have been proposer and seconder too, but he had no local influence in the place. Sir Francis Levison was proposed also by two gentlemen of standing. The show of hands was declared to be in favor of Mr. Carlyle. It just was in favor of him; about twenty to one. Upon which the baronet’s friends demanded a poll.
Then all was bustle, and scuffle, and confusion, every one tearing away to the hustings, which had been fixed in a convenient spot, the town-hall, not affording the accommodation necessary for a poll. Candidates, and proposers and seconders, and gentlemen, and officers, and mob, hustling and jostling each other. Mr. Carlyle was linked arm-in-arm with Sir John Dobede; Sir John’s arm was within Lord Mount Severn’s — but, as to order, it was impossible to observe any. To gain the place they had to pass the house of Miss Carlyle. Young Vane, who was in the thick of the crowd, of course, cast his eyes up to its lined windows, took off his hat and waved it. “Carlyle and honor forever!” shouted he.
The ladies laughed and nodded, and shook their handkerchiefs, and displayed their scarlet and purple colors. The crowd took up the shout, till the very air echoed with it. “Carlyle and honor forever!” Barbara’s tears were falling; but she smiled through them at one pair of loving eyes, which sought out hers.
“A galaxy of beauty!” whispered Mr. Drake in the ear of Sir Francis. “How the women rally round him! I tell you what, Levison, you and the government were stupid to go on with the contest, and I said so days ago. You have no more chance against Carlyle than that bit of straw has against the wind. You ought to have withdrawn in time.”
“Like a coward?” angrily returned Sir Francis. “No, I’ll go on with it to the last, though I do get beaten.”
“How lovely his wife is,” observed Mr. Drake, his admiring eyes cast up at Barbara. “I say, Levison, was the first one as charming?”
Sir Francis looked perfectly savage; the allusion did not please him. But, ere another word could be spoken, some one in the garb of a policeman, who had wound his way through the crowd, laid his hand upon the baronet.
“Sir Francis Levison, you are my prisoner.”
Nothing worse than debt occurred at that moment to the mind of Sir Francis. But that was quite enough, and he turned purple with rage.
“Your hands off, vermin! How dare you?”
A quick movement, a slight click, a hustle from the wondering crowd more immediately around, and the handcuffs were on. Utter amazement alone prevented Mr. Drake from knocking down the policeman. A dozen vituperating tongues assailed him.
“I’m sorry to do it in this public place and manner,” spoke the officer, partly to Sir Francis, partly to the gentlemen around, “but I couldn’t come across you last night, do as I would. And the warrant has been in my hands since five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Sir Francis Levison, I arrest you for the wilful murder of George Hallijohn.”
The crowd fell back; the crowd was paralyzed with consternation; the word was passed from one extreme to the other, and back and across again, and the excitement grew high. The ladies looking from Miss Carlyle’s windows saw what had happened, though they could not divine the cause. Some of them turned pale at sight of the handcuffs, and Mary Pinner, an excitable girl, fell into a screaming fit.
Pale! What was their gentle paleness compared with the frightfully livid one of Francis Levison? His agitation was pitiable to witness, his face a terror to look upon; once or twice he gasped, as if in an agony; and then his eyes happened to fall on Otway Bethel, who stood near. Shorn of his adornments — which might not be thought adornments upon paper — the following was the sentence that burst involuntarily from his lips, —
“You hound! It is you who have done this!”
“No! by—” Whether Mr. Otway Bethel was about to swear by Jupiter or Juno never was decided, the sentence being cut ignominiously short at the above two words. Another policeman, in the summary manner exercised towards Sir Francis, had clapped a pair of handcuffs upon him.
“Mr. Otway Bethel, I arrest you as an accomplice in the murder of George Hallijohn.”
You may be sure that the whole assembly was arrested, too — figuratively — and stood with eager gaze and open ears. Colonel Bethel, quitting the scarlet-and-purple, flashed into those of the yellows. He knew his nephew was graceless enough; but — to see him with a pair of handcuffs on!
“What does all this mean?” he authoritatively demanded of the officers.
“It’s no fault of ours, colonel, we have but executed the warrant,” answered one of them. “The magistrate, issued it yesterday against these two gentlemen, on suspicion of their being concerned in the murder of Hallijohn.”
“In conjunction with Richard Hare?” cried the astounded colonel, gazing from one to the other, prisoners and officers, in scared bewilderment.
“It’s alleged now that Richard Hare didn’t have nothing to do with it,” returned the man. “It’s said he is innocent. I’m sure I don’t know.”
“I swear that I am innocent,” passionately uttered Otway Bethel.
“Well, sir, you have only got to prove it,” civilly rejoined the policeman.
Miss Carlyle and Lady Isabel leaned from the window, their curiosity too much excited to remain silent longer. Mrs. Hare was standing by their side.
“What is the matter?” both asked of the upturned faces immediately beneath.
“Them two — the fine member as wanted to be, and young Bethel — be arrested for murder,” spoke a man’s clear voice in answer. “The tale runs as they murdered Hallijohn, and then laid it on the shoulders of young Dick Hare, who didn’t do it after all.”
A faint wailing cry of startled pain, and Barbara flew to Mrs. Hare, from whom it proceeded.
“Oh, mamma, my dear mamma, take comfort! Do not suffer this to agitate you to i
llness. Richard is innocent, and it will surely be so proved. Archibald,” she added, beckoning to her husband in her alarm, “come, if you can, and say a word of assurance to mamma!”
It was impossible that Mr. Carlyle could hear the words, but he could see that his wife was greatly agitated, and wanted him.
“I will be back with you in a few moments,” he said to his friends, as he began to elbow his way through the crowd, which made way when they saw who the elbower was.
Into another room, away from the gay visitors, they got Mrs. Hare, and Mr. Carlyle locked the door to keep them out, unconsciously taking out the key. Only himself and his wife were with her, except Madame Vine, in her bonnet, who had been dispatched by somebody with a bottle of smelling salts. Barbara knelt at her mamma’s feet; Mr. Carlyle leaned over her, her hands held sympathizingly in his. Madame Vine would have escaped, but the key was gone.
“Oh, Archibald, tell me the truth. You will not, deceive me?” she gasped, in earnest entreaty, the cold dew gathering on her pale, gentle face. “Is the time come to prove my boy’s innocence?”
“It is.”
“Is it possible that it can be that false, bad man who is guilty?”
“From my soul I believe him to be,” replied Mr. Carlyle, glancing round to make sure that none could hear the assertion save those present. “But what I say to you and Barbara, I would not say to the world. Whatever be the man’s guilt, I am not his Nemesis. Dear Mrs. Hare, take courage, take comfort — happier days are coming round.”
Mrs. Hare was weeping silently. Barbara rose and laid her mamma’s head lovingly upon her bosom.
“Take care of her, my darling,” Mr. Carlyle whispered to his wife. “Don’t leave her for a moment, and don’t let that chattering crew in from the next room. I beg your pardon, madame.”
His hand had touched Madame Vine’s neck in turning round — that is, had touched the jacket that encased it. He unlocked the door and regained the street, while Madame Vine sat down with her beating and rebellious heart.
Amidst the shouts, the jeers, and the escort of the mob, Sir Francis Levison and Otway Bethel were lodged in the station-house, preparatory to their examination before the magistrates. Never, sure, was so mortifying an interruption known. So thought Sir Francis’s party. And they deemed it well, after some consultation amongst themselves, to withdraw his name as a candidate for the membership. That he never had a shadow of chance from the first, most of them knew.
