"I scarcely think that it is of any use to tell you now," said his wife, quietly. She had got rid of her tears now, and had put her handkerchief away. "I had a sort of fancy that you might like me to tell you with my own lips something that I felt rather strongly, but you would probably resent it--and it is only a trifle after all."
She rose from her chair and drew her fur-lined cloak closely round her, as if preparing to depart.
"I should like to hear it--if I am not troubling you too much," said Caspar.
She averted her eyes and began slowly to draw on her gloves. "It is really nothing--I came on a momentary impulse. I have not seen you for a good many years, and we parted with very angry words on our lips, did we not?--but I wanted to say that--although you were sometimes angry--I never knew you do a cruel thing--you were always kind--kindest of all to creatures that were weak (except, perhaps to me); and I am quite sure--sure as that I stand here--that you never did the thing of which they are accusing you. There!"--and she looked straight into his face--"it is a little thing, no doubt: you have hosts of friends to say the same thing to you: but my tribute is worth having, perhaps, because, after all, I am your wife--and in some ways I do understand!"
Caspar"s face worked strangely: he bit his lip hard as he looked at her.
"You are generous, Alice," he said, in a low voice, after a pause that seemed eternal to her.
"Oh, no. Why should you call it generous? I only wanted to say this--and also--that if I can be of any use to you now, I am ready. A little thing sometimes turns the course of public opinion. If I were to go to Woburn Place--to stay with Lesley, for instance--so that all the world could see that I believed in you----"
"But--I shall be at Woburn Place myself in a day or two, on bail; and then----"
"I could stay," said Lady Alice, again looking at him. Then her eyes dropped and the color mounted to her forehead. He made a sudden step towards her.
"Alice--is it possible--after all these years----"
"No, it is not possible," she said, with a little laugh which yet had something in it of a sob, "and I don"t think we should ever get on together--and I don"t love you at all, except for Lesley"s sake--but just until this horrible affair is over, if I might show everybody that I have all possible faith in you, and that I know you to be good and upright and honorable--just till then, Caspar, I _should_ like to be at your side."
But whether Caspar heard the whole of this speech must remain for ever doubtful, as, long before its close, he had taken her in his arms and was sealing the past between them with a long kiss which might verily be called the kiss of peace.
CHAPTER x.x.xVII.
"OUT ON BAIL."
Miss Brooke was electrified. Such a thing had never occurred to her as possible. After years of separation, of dispute, of ill-feeling on either side, here was Lady Alice appearing in her husband"s house, and expressing a desire to remain in it. She came to Woburn Place on the evening after her interview with Caspar, and at once made known her wishes to Doctor Sophy.
It was a curious interview. Miss Brooke sat bolt upright on a sofa, with an air of repressed indignation which was exceedingly striking: Lady Alice, half enveloped in soft black furs, was leaning back in the lowest and most luxurious chair the room afforded, with rather more the air of the _grande dame_ than she actually wished to convey. In reality her heart was very soft, and there was moisture in her eyes; but it was difficult for her to shake off an appearance of cold indifference to all the world when Miss Sophia Brooke, M. D., was in her society. She had never understood Doctor Sophy, and Miss Brooke had always detested her.
"Am I to understand, Lady Alice," said the spinster, in her stiffest voice, "that my brother wishes you to take up your abode in this house during his absence?"
"Yes, I think so," said Lady Alice, equably. "He has wished me to take up my abode here for some time past."
"Indeed?"
The note of incredulity in her voice angered Caspar"s wife.
"I think you hardly understand," she said with some quiet dignity, "that I have been to see Mr. Brooke this afternoon. Strange circ.u.mstances demand new treatment, Miss Brooke. I consulted with my husband as to what we had better do, and he agreed with me that it would be better for Lesley if I came here--at any rate for the present."
"Better for Lesley!" Miss Brooke was evidently offended. "I do not think that you need put yourself to any inconvenience--even for Lesley"s sake.
I will take care of her."
"But I happen to be her mother," said Lady Alice, with a touch of amus.e.m.e.nt. It struck her as odd that Miss Brooke only amused her now, and did not make her angry at all. "And we have the world to think of, besides."
"I scarcely thought you troubled yourself very much about what the world said," remarked Aunt Sophy, severely. "It has said a good deal during the last ten or twelve years."
"At least it shall not say," responded Lady Alice, "that I believe my husband guilty of murder. I have come back to prevent _that_."
Miss Brooke looked at her doubtfully. She was not a person of very quick perceptions.
"You mean," she said at last, "that you have come back--because----"
"_Because_ he was accused of murder," said Lady Alice, clearly, "and I choose to show the world that I do not believe it."
And Lesley, entering from the library, heard the words, and stood transfixed for a moment with pure delight. Then she sprang forward, fell on her knees before her mother, and embraced her with such fervor that Miss Brooke put up her eye-gla.s.ses and gazed in surprise.
"Mother! my own dearest mother! You do believe in him, then! and you have come to show us that you do! Oh! how delighted he will be when he knows!"
A little color showed itself in Lady Alice"s delicate face. "He does know," she whispered, almost with the coyness of a girl.
"And he _was_ delighted, was he not? It would be such a comfort to him--just now when he wants every kind of comfort. Oh, mamma, it is so good of you, and I am so glad. Aunty Sophy, aren"t you glad, too?"
Lady Alice tried to stifle this nave utterance, but it would not be repressed, and Aunt Sophy had to rise to the occasion as best she could, with rather a grim face, she rose from her seat upon the sofa and advanced towards her brother"s wife, holding out a very reluctant hand.
"I appreciate your motives, Lady Alice, and I see that your conduct may be of service to my brother." Then she relapsed into a more colloquial tone. "But how on earth you mean to live in this part of London, I"m sure I can"t imagine. No doubt it seems rather smoky and grimy to you after Mayfair and Belgravia."
"London is generally a little smoky," said Lady Alice, smiling in spite of herself. "Thank you, Sophy: I thought you would do me justice."
And the hands of the two women met in a friendlier grasp than ever in the days of yore.
"I must see about your room," said Miss Brooke, practically. It was her way of holding out the olive branch. "You would like to be near Lesley, I suppose. We shall try to make you comfortable, but, of course, you won"t expect the luxuries of your own home here."
"I shall be very comfortable, I am sure," said Lady Alice.
"What, does she mean by talking in that tone?" cried Lesley, hotly when Doctor Sophy had left the room. "It was almost insulting!"
"No, my darling, no. It is only a memory of old times when I was--exacting and dissatisfied. Yes, I see that I must have seemed so, then. I had not had much experience in those days; and then your father was not a man of substance as he seems to be now," said Lady Alice, inspecting the room, with a half-smile. The smile died quickly away, however, and was succeeded by a sad look, and a sigh. "Ah, poor Caspar!"
"He will be home in a day or two. Everybody says so."
"I trust so, dearest. And I will stay with--you till he comes home."
"Oh, but now that you have come, mamma you will never be allowed to go away again."
"I never said that, Lesley. I have come to maintain a principle, that is all. A wife ought to show that she trusts her husband, if he is falsely accused."
And then Lady Alice lowered her eyes and changed the subject, for it suddenly occurred to her that she had not been very ready, in her younger years, to give the trust that now seemed to be her husband"s due.
But she settled down quite naturally in her husband"s home during the next few days. Lesley, remembering the discomfort of her own first few weeks, expected her to say that the house was hideous and the neighborhood detestable. But Lady Alice said nothing of the kind. She thought it a fine old house--well-built and roomy--far preferable, she said, to the places she had often occupied in the West End. With different furniture and a little good taste it might be made absolutely charming. And when she got as far as "absolutely charming," uttered with her chin pillowed on one hand, and her eyes roving meditatively over the drawing-room mantelpiece, Lesley smiled to herself, and gave up all fear that she would ever go away again. Lady Alice had evidently come to the conclusion that it was her duty to see that Caspar"s house was thoroughly redecorated from top to bottom.
But she did not come to this conclusion all at once. There were days when the minds of mother and daughter were too full of sorrow and anxiety to occupy themselves with upholstery and bric-a-brac. And the day of the adjourned inquest, when Caspar Brooke was allowed to go to his own house on bail, was one of the worst of all.
He came home quietly that afternoon in company with Maurice Kenyon, greeted his family affectionately but with something of a melancholy air, then went at once to his study, where he shut himself up and began to write and read letters. The cloud was hanging over him still. He knew well enough that if he had been a poor man, of no account in the world, he would at that moment have been occupying a prison cell instead of his own comfortable study. For presumption was strong against him; and it had taken a great deal of influence and extraordinarily high bail to secure his release. At present he stood committed to take his trial for manslaughter within a very short s.p.a.ce of time. And n.o.body had succeeded, or seemed likely to succeed, in throwing any doubt on the testimony of Mary Trent. He was certainly in a very awkward position: it might be a very terrible position by-and-bye.