A clear musical laugh which, to Arthur"s ear, sounded more like the ringing waters of Tivoli than anything he had ever since heard.
Then the door opening, admitted what might have appeared (to pursue the same strain of a.n.a.logy) a wandering sunbeam from the skies of golden Italy, in the person of Carrie Elliott, the judge"s lovely daughter.
"I am disturbing you, I know, Mr. Seaham," she exclaimed blushingly, advancing; "but it is your sister"s fault. She says it is quite time that you should be disturbed; did you not, Miss Seaham?" turning to her companion.
Mary, who, with a faint and gentle smile, very different in its character to that which played so brightly on the features of the other, acquiesced in the truth of the a.s.sertion. But Arthur did not look very angry at the interruption, and was soon standing by the window entering with a very unbusiness-like spirit into conversation with his lively visitor, who, this being her father"s first circuit in a judicial capacity, had been, much to her amus.e.m.e.nt and delight, suffered to accompany him on this occasion.
To this circ.u.mstance had Mary also been indebted for the opportunity thus afforded her of witnessing her brother"s first start in his profession; for having been of late thrown somewhat intimately into the society of the judge"s family, it had finally been arranged that the two young ladies should have the benefit of each other"s society, on an occasion of such especial interest to them both.
"But do tell me something about your case, Mr. Seaham. Is it not a very interesting story? a poor young woman accused of forgery?"
"Yes," Seaham replied, glancing at his sister; "at least an attempt to exchange bank-notes, which on discovery were found to be forged. It is, indeed, an interesting case; and having full internal evidence that she is innocent, I am doubly concerned in her acquittal. That fact at least is in my favour, for I am afraid I shall be never able to plead _con amore_ under contrary circ.u.mstances. The fact is, this poor woman has been for years toiling hard to ama.s.s a sufficient sum to carry her to America to her betrothed husband. When still far from the desired point, sickness and other causes having often interrupted her exertions and r.e.t.a.r.ded her success, she finds her lover, impatient at the delay, beginning to entertain injurious ideas of her constancy and truth. In this distressing emergency, it happened (this is her own statement of the case) that some friend came forward, and made up in those same forged notes the requisite amount; that she received them in perfect ignorance of their real character; but refusing absolutely to give up the name of the guilty donor, she was imprisoned, and now stands arraigned for at least connivance in the delinquency."
"Poor creature!" murmured Mary, "is this then the end of all her deferred hope--and wearing, wasting anxiety of mind and body! Oh!
Arthur, in such a cause you must surely be successful; how much you will have to say to soften the hearts of her judges, and lead them to look upon the case with lenity and pity!"
"Really, Mary!" exclaimed her brother, smiling with affectionate interest at the sudden energy with which the subject of discussion had animated his sister; the thrilling pathos of her tone--the brilliancy which lighted up her languid eye--the earnest spirit shining with almost sublimity from her anxious countenance, all which he had but a moment ago observed as affording so sad a contrast to the beaming brightness of her fair companion; "I really believe you would do more for my client in the way of eloquence than I should, if by eloquence the cause is to be gained. Do you not think so, Miss Elliott?"
"Miss Elliott has not yet tested your powers in that way," Mary rejoined with a smile, whilst Carrie only laughed and blushed.
"As for my eloquence," she added with a sigh, "it could only spring from the sympathetic feeling which one woman must have for the sufferings and the trials of another; at least"--in a low tone she added, "she must be very young or very happy," glancing at Miss Elliott, "if she be found wanting in that most powerful of inspirations."
"Poor woman!" interposed Miss Elliott, who perhaps began to fear she might be considered too uninspired in the eyes of the young barrister, "she seems deemed throughout to suspicion. How dreadful to be suspected wrongfully! But, as for that lover, I am sure he cannot deserve all the trouble she has suffered on his account. I dare say, the faithlessness was all on his side, for no person could suspect or doubt any one they really loved. Do you not think so, Miss Seaham?" turning away her face from Arthur to look at his sister with a pretty blush.
An expression of intense pain shot across Mary"s countenance.
"I thought so once," was the almost gasping utterance which trembled on her lips; but she paused, merely saying in a low tone, her eyes bent mournfully on the ground, "at any rate, the one who doubts and suspects is the greatest sufferer of the two. Yet there are circ.u.mstances, I hope, in which, without faithlessness, our perfect trust and confidence in another may--must indeed be shaken."
"Of course; otherwise the virtue becomes indeed a very weakness,"
rejoined Arthur with some moody significance of tone and manner.
"Now, I must go, for I suppose it is nearly time to dress for dinner,"
exclaimed Miss Elliott, who, though only partially acquainted with the particulars of Mary"s love affair, probably perceived that she had inadvertantly struck upon some tender string; "I suppose, you will soon be doing the same."
And away the gay-hearted creature glided, singing as she went.
"Now, Mary," Arthur cried, his eyes and ears disenchanted; "wait for me just one minute." And down he sat for the s.p.a.ce of several moments, and his pen flew swift as thought over the parchment. Mary also sat patiently, her eyes fixed with a look of affectionate interest on the intelligent countenance of the writer.
At length, his task completed, the pen was thrown, with a gesture of triumph and satisfaction upon the table, and "Now, Mary, it is finished," was the exulting expression of his lips.
There was something in the congratulating smile which met his own, that seemed to change the spirit of the young man"s dream; for more thoughtfully he gathered up his papers, whilst "love, fame, ambition,"
might have seemed at once annihilated from his thoughts, by the tone of voice in which--glancing at Mary, who drew near to a.s.sist him--he abruptly murmured:
"Mary, you are not looking well."
"Am I not?" with forced cheerfulness; "ah! I dare say you think so to-day--by comparison."
"Nonsense!" knitting his brows; "I am _not_ speaking comparatively, but quite positively. You have been looking less well every day for some time. I am becoming impatient. I want to see you looking better, or I should say, _happier_."
"As happy and bright I suppose as--" began Mary, attempting playfully to divert the dreaded theme.
"Pshaw! as bright as no one. I am thinking only of you, Mary."
"But you should think of some one else, now Arthur, that you are a steady, professional man."
"And now that I am this steady, professional man," taking the words out of her mouth, "I feel that I am justified and competent to offer my sister the settled home she once faithfully promised to share with me.
_She_ may have altered her wishes on the subject; mine remain unchanged.
Still, Mary, (whatever you may have taken into your silly little head,) till your happiness is more definitely secure, you will remain the paramount object of my interest and affection. My dear Mary," as his sister putting her hand in his, and smiling gratefully in his face, still shook her head, as if desiring and expecting for that dear brother, less unselfish aims, and more smiling hopes to cheer him on his promising career.
"G.o.d knows," he anxiously continued, "I speak from my heart when I say, that should you give me any hope that I could in any degree succeed in the promotion of your happiness, I should require no greater impetus to any exertion I may be called upon to make, than your affectionate interest in my success. Nay, do you not remember, even when we were children, your encouragement was the greatest incentive to my boyish ambition--how every mark of affection from you was more valuable to me than any bestowed by my other sisters, although I loved them all so well. In short, I declare to you, that the power of making me quite happy lies in your own hands--far more than in any careless-hearted beauty whom I might in a foolish moment take it into my head to ask to be my wife--and find, after all, that she did not care a straw for me.
Therefore, dear Mary, only be persuaded to give up this, as I am sure you must begin to feel it, most equivocal and inauspicious engagement, and let us try if we cannot be happy together, in time perhaps--as happy as if no such cloud had ever arisen--and who knows what more propitious fate may not still be in store for you?
"Mary," he continued, as his sister shook her head despondingly, "only consent to let final measures be taken, and I shall go forth to-morrow with double energy and hope. After all! the pain is more in the idea than in the reality, for the matter is becoming really a mere affair of the imagination; for a year and a half you have not seen or heard of him. But do not think I would make light of the sacrifice. The destruction of a great hope, must be, under any circ.u.mstances, a trial hard to be endured. But cheer up, dear Mary, there may be a brighter sun yet to shine upon you. Will you think this over?"
"I will Arthur," she murmured faintly, "I promise you that your mind shall very soon be set at rest on this subject."
She could promise this with a presentiment that the words were not spoken without foundation--with a certain vague, unaccountable presentiment, that some crisis was at hand in which her future fate would surely be accomplished. But she was little prepared for the communication which her brother now gently broke to her--that the opportunity was indeed, very soon to be afforded her, for that in the forthcoming case for which he had just been preparing his brief, Eugene Trevor would have to appear to give his evidence.
CHAPTER VIII.
Un Dieu descend toujours pour denouer le drame, Toujours la Providence y veille et nous proclame Cette justice occulte et ce divin ressort, Qui fait jouer le temps et gouverne le sort.
LAMARTINE.
The court was crowded early the following morning, for it was not often that cases of such interest as the princ.i.p.al one to be brought forward on this occasion were provided by the inhabitants of ----, a town of the princ.i.p.ality, in which it is well known, crime, comparatively speaking, is more rare than in other portions of the United Kingdom.
The prisoner had also been long known in the vicinity for her blameless career, and the patient industry with which, under disadvantages and discouragements (for she had been at an early age separated from both her parents, and thrown upon her own resources), she had pursued her laborious course for ten long years, her heart set on an ever receding hope, which she had in the end been doomed to see engulphed by the dark cloud which now overshadowed her fame.
The court, therefore, was crowded as we said before, when a few minor cases having been disposed of, the prisoner for the forgery case was summoned to the bar.
There was nothing in the appearance of the accused which could at first sight strike the vulgar gaze. Neither youth nor beauty to excite the feeling in her behalf; for though to adopt the loving language of the poet:
"Fair she was, and young, when in hope She began the long journey; Faded she was, and old, when in disappointment it ended;"
the age of care and trouble, rather than of years, for she was not more than one or two and thirty. Streaks of grey had already spread over her forehead, "and the furrows on her cheek spoke the course of bitter tears." Yet few there were amongst the intelligent and feeling part of her beholders who did not soon begin to have their interest strongly rivetted. And one amongst them, who felt her soul moved to its very depths by pity and womanly compa.s.sion the instant her eyes fell upon the pale meek face which bore such deep traces of sorrow--and patience as great as her sorrow.
And yet it was a pa.s.sive sorrow it expressed, a subdued and pa.s.sive suffering, which the careless might have attributed to dulness or insensibility, so little did the prisoner appear moved to wonder or self pity, by the sharp sense of unmerited misfortunes.
No--rather as one whose mind is all made up of submission and resignation; who, accustomed to the constant anguish of disappointment, considered as no strange thing this last great grief which had befallen her.
And yet, the indictment being read, the prisoner in a low quiet tone pleaded "Not guilty."
The facts, as commented upon by the counsel for the crown, were undeniably against her. Her case was pitiable, it was true. It seemed that at the very last--besides the sickness which had so often r.e.t.a.r.ded her endeavours--a robbery committed in the little shop, in which she carried on a small precarious trade, had despoiled her of the hardly-earned treasure of years; but this circ.u.mstance alone made it more likely that one in her situation should grasp at any means, promising to put such an effectual end to her long course of difficulties and disappointments. She pleaded ignorance as to the nature of the aid administered to her. Had she then only consented to give up the name of the guilty donor, the charge would have been withdrawn; and her pertinacious refusal to do so was enlarged upon by the learned counsel as evidence of her being accessory to the fraud.
From the depositions of the witnesses, it then appeared that Mabel Marryott"s father had originally been a farmer in the county of ----shire; that soon after his daughter"s birth he had emigrated to Australia; that her mother had not followed her husband"s fortunes; had remained in England in the service of a family of consideration and distinction in that above-mentioned county, where she still remained. It appeared that the mother had little intercourse with her daughter. At an early age, the latter had been apprenticed to the business in which she afterwards became a partner; and then, as the phrase goes, this little affectionate parent "washed her hands" of her concerns, and left her to strive for herself. About ten years before, the prisoner became acquainted, and finally engaged herself in marriage, with a young artisan on the point of emigrating to America, a contract which proved indeed one of those "long engagements" so often doomed to misfortune and disappointment. They were not to be united till, by their joint exertions, they had acc.u.mulated a sufficient sum to pay the expenses of the voyage, and supply a capital whereupon to begin with comfort their married life. Now, by an accident which had in a great measure disabled the lover from pursuing his customary avocations, much of this labour of love had been cast upon his betrothed, who, in spite of many discouragements and disadvantages on her side, had, with never-failing courage, persevered in her exertions, up to the time of her last misfortune--that of having all her little possessions stolen--when she seemed, by all accounts, at length to have been well nigh driven to despair, for to add to this distress, her lover"s unkindness--"unkindest cut of all," began (as under the curse of absence, the most confiding lovers are too p.r.o.ne to do) to doubt the alleged causes of her protracted separation, and to write bitter upbraiding letters to that effect.