‘’TIS HELD THAT SORROW MAKES US WISE.’
Throughout the tedious journey by the night mail Alexis supports and
comforts Sibyl by his presence. All bitterness of feeling has passed
out of his mind. He sees his wife the victim of a false accusation,
and he is ready to pity and defend her.
‘You do not believe these men, Alex?’ she repeats many times during
that summer night as she clings closer to her husband with a shiver
as of cold, though the midsummer air is mild and balmy. ‘You do not
believe this horrible accusation, dear?’
‘Not a word, not a breath,’ he answers, cheerily. ‘These mistakes are
common enough, love. It will be easily set right. You have only to
keep up your courage and trust in Providence and me.’
‘Oh, Alex, how good you are! and how little I deserve your goodness!’
she answers, with a stifled sob.
Mr. Judbury, though hardened by much travelling on the stormy path
of official life, shows some delicacy of feeling. He sends his
follower to a second-class carriage, and takes his seat as far from
Mr. and Mrs. Secretan as the limits of a first-class compartment
will allow. Nay, he is benevolent enough to refresh himself with
occasional comfortable naps, but is always wakeful and alert when
speed slackens and the train stops. He apparently considers that an
attempt to escape from the train at full speed is an evil not to be
apprehended.
So the soft summer morning dawns gradually, mysteriously, with a
slow lightening of the landscape and a faint breath of chiller air
creeping among the woods and across the hill-tops, and Aurora sees
Mr. Judbury reposing luxuriously in his padded corner with a red silk
handkerchief draped picturesquely about his bald head, and his manly
chest in a manner doubled up into his shepherd’s plaid waistcoat.
The new-born day sheds but a sickly light upon Sibyl’s worn face, as
it leans against her husband’s shoulder, and Alexis, scrutinizing it
in that clear light, sees how marked and deep is the change that has
been wrought there. Care has engraven lines that happiness can never
erase. This pallid countenance, with sunken eyes, ringed with purple
shadow, is but the ghost of the fair face that shone upon him in Mrs.
Hazleton’s drawing-room. Deepest pity moves him as he gazes on that
altered beauty, lovely still, for the lines have the perfection of
the sculptor’s marble--a beauty that neither age nor death, sickness
nor care can deface,--but the glow and brightness of colouring are
gone. Sibyl is no longer a beauty for the vulgar eye to admire, no
longer the handsomest woman in Redcastle.
That melancholy journey comes to an end at last. They arrive at
Krampston in the early morning, and after waiting nearly an hour in
a labyrinthine terminus get a train to convey them to Redcastle,
which provincial shrine of the genius of quietude they reach at an
hour which Mr. Judbury picturesquely describes as breakfast-time.
From the Redcastle station, naturally half a mile out of the town,
they drive to Redcastle Jail, a clean and modern building, of Gothic
architecture, occupying an important site on the high road above
Bar, an edifice which is described in local handbooks as an ornament
to the town. Sibyl has ridden and driven past its mediæval gateway
many a time, and has glanced at the lancet windows with a ladylike
indifference to the life going on behind them. It seems a curious
thing--a severance from all the outer world and the common round
of life--to be driven under that stony arch, and along that smooth
gravel drive, and to hear the iron gate close behind her with a clang
that sounds like the snap of the shears of Atropos.
They all go into a stone-flagged hall together, a hall in which
cleanliness and order reign supreme, and in which the ticking of a
large clock overpowers all the sound of humanity. Here there is a
brief consultation held between Mr. Judbury and an official, and,
after a little humming and hawing, Sibyl is conducted to a small
plainly furnished room, which is hardly to be called a cell. There is
a bedchamber adjoining, and both rooms are guarded with substantial
doors, ponderously locked and bolted, but the place is not so bad as
the dungeon she has pictured to herself with a shudder during that
long journey. She has fancied herself crouching in a stone cell, with
a little straw in a corner, and a large iron ring against the wall,
to which she would perchance be chained, while between massive iron
bars, high up in the wall, crept a faint gleam of light. This is the
only kind of dungeon with which painters and poets have made her
familiar.
Alexis has not been allowed to accompany his wife to the room
allotted to her, but on his explaining the case to the warder
he is treated with considerable civility, and taken straight to
the governor of the prison, a young man who has lately exchanged
a military career for the guardianship of criminals. From this
gentleman Alexis receives every assurance of sympathy, and to this
gentleman, Captain Heathcote, he gives a brief history of his married
life, telling nothing that can throw discredit upon Sibyl, but
alleging her attachment to her uncle Stephen Trenchard, as the reason
of their separation and her concealment of her marriage.
‘It happened, unfortunately, that the Secretans and Trenchards were,
like the Montagues and Capulets, foes to the death,’ he tells Captain
Heathcote. ‘There was an old feud between my poor father and Stephen
Trenchard, the circumstances of which I need not enter into. I
believe my father was the injured person in that quarrel; my wife
naturally believed her uncle in the right. We were quietly married,
in London, and my wife kept her marriage a secret from her family.
When Mr. Trenchard came home from India he asked her to go and live
with him. My circumstances at that time were at very low water, and
I had no home to give my wife. So she came to Redcastle, resumed her
maiden name, and lived under her uncle’s roof, until his attempt
to force her into a marriage with an East Indian _protégé_ of his
compelled her to leave his house.’
Captain Heathcote listens, and is thoughtful. The story sounds
credible enough, and is in some measure confirmed by the copy of the
marriage register, which Alexis shows the captain. Captain Heathcote,
upon whose military status Redcastle society looks kindly, though
inclined to be somewhat supercilious about his official position,
has met Sibyl at Colonel Stormont’s, and it goes hard with him to
imagine that she can have been capable of this hideous crime which is
imputed to her. Yet it must be confessed that there was never a more
awkward combination of circumstances. Her secret flight--coincident
with her uncle’s death; her possession of the poison--or the same
kind of poison--by which he died; the finding of the empty bottle
in her work-basket; and now this revealment of her marriage, so
long concealed from those among whom she has lived--her nearest
friends and kindred--these things suggest a capacity for deceit--a
disposition in which duplicity is second nature. These considerations
make Captain Heathcote grave and thoughtful, but he is not the less
courteous and obliging.
‘You may be assured I shall do all in my power to lessen the
painfulness of Miss--I beg your pardon--Mrs. Secretan’s position.
We are never very severe in our treatment of persons who are here
only under suspicion; and until Mrs. Secretan is committed for
trial--which I trust she will not be--we shall contrive to relax our
rules as much as possible in her favour. Burton tells me he has given
her comfortable rooms.’
‘You are very good. Please God she will not be long under this
horrible suspicion. I imagine that directly the matter is
investigated her innocence must appear; but in the meanwhile I am
most grateful for your kindness. My wife is looking very ill. I think
she really requires medical attendance. Her uncle is a medical man
in this town, perhaps it would be as well for him to see her, if it
might be allowed.’
‘Certainly. Dr. Faunthorpe is not our official surgeon, but he might
see Mrs. Secretan.’
‘Thanks. And may I be allowed to see her?’
‘As often as you like; but not alone. I shall be obliged to place a
female warder in Mrs. Secretan’s room.’
‘I am not likely to have anything to say which the warder may not
hear; and I shall be glad to know that my wife is not alone. She
is in a very low state of health, and will be all the better for
companionship, however humble.’
‘You would like to see her, perhaps, before you leave?’
‘Very much.’
‘Then we’ll go to her.’
Captain Heathcote leads the way to a clean and airy corridor, beckons
to a warder to unlock a door, and admits Alexis into the prisoner’s
room.
Sibyl is sitting listlessly by the open window--a closely barred
window looking into the stone quadrangle where the prisoners are
solemnly tramping, single file, in a circle, for their regulation
hour of air and exercise. A respectable young woman, in a white
muslin cap, has just brought a cup of tea and a plate of bread and
butter for the new arrival. There is no question of jail fare yet
awhile. Mrs. Secretan could have ortolans or _pâtés de foie gras_, if
she liked to import those delicacies from the outside world.
‘My dear Sibyl, Captain Heathcote has been kind enough to promise
that you shall have all possible indulgence, so you must try to keep
up your spirits.’
‘Yes, Alexis,’ she answers, quietly, ‘I have very little cause for
unhappiness when you are so kind to me. How do you do, Captain
Heathcote?’ she says, turning to the governor with a faint smile. ‘It
seems strange for us to meet like this, does it not? I feel as if I
had come to your house as an uninvited guest.’
‘I shall do all in my power to make your visit agreeable, and shall
be unhospitable enough to wish that it may be brief,’ answers the
captain.
‘I am very anxious to know all about my uncle’s death,’ says
Sibyl. ‘It was a great shock to me to hear that he was dead. Dr.
Mitsand told me that he was in no danger the very day before I left
Redcastle. Can it be true that he died from poison?’
‘Unhappily there is no room to doubt that,’ answers Captain
Heathcote, gravely; ‘but do not let us talk about this sad business,
Mrs. Secretan. Your husband will do all that can be done to protect
your interests--to clear your name. Be assured of that, and give
your mind as much repose as you can. The inquest will be reopened
to-morrow, and you will have to appear.’
‘As a criminal--in the dock?’ asks Sibyl, with a shudder.
‘There is no dock in the coroner’s court.’
‘My dearest, what does it matter?’ says Alexis, soothingly.
‘To-morrow’s examination will doubtless clear you of this shameful
charge. Be patient and trust in God. I am going to call upon your
uncle, Dr. Faunthorpe. I thought perhaps you would like him to come
and see you.’
‘Yes, I should like to see him very much, if he does not believe
that I am----I can’t say the dreadful words, Alex. But no, I am sure
uncle Robert does not believe in this accusation. Dear soul, he never
thought evil of any one.’
‘You shall see him, dear, and he shall prescribe for you, unless
there is any other medical man whose advice you would rather have.’
‘I do not think medicine can do me much good, Alex; but I shall
consult any one you wish. But I want to see uncle Robert--to ask him
about uncle Stephen’s death,--he must know everything; and about the
will.’
‘Ah, by the way,’ exclaims Alexis, ‘there was a will, I suppose. And
pray who is the gainer of Mr. Trenchard’s wealth?’
Captain Heathcote looks at the inquirer with a grave smile.
‘Have you heard nothing? Don’t you know the particulars?’ he asks.
‘We know nothing except that Mr. Trenchard is dead, and is supposed
to have been poisoned. Has his will been read yet?’
‘His will--or rather, a final statement of his circumstances, briefly
set forth in a paper to be read after his death, was made known to
two or three people yesterday. As generally happens in Redcastle,
what was known to three people in the morning had become town talk in
the evening. Mr. Trenchard has not left sixpence to any one.’
Sibyl’s eyes open to their widest. Faintly, dimly during that
wearisome night journey she had seen herself cleared from the
monstrous charge of murder and possessed of Stephen Trenchard’s
fortune. His sudden death would have prevented his disinheriting her.
Death overtook him before he could have known of her flight.
‘Do you mean to say that he has left all his money to hospitals?’
exclaimed Alexis.
‘I mean to say that he has left no money whatever--or hardly enough
for the payment of five shillings in the pound upon his debts. We
are very wise in Redcastle, but with all our wisdom are apt to take
outward show for reality. Mr. Trenchard has contrived to impose
upon us all. He has been living upon a few thousands taken out
of a business on the verge of insolvency, and upon his credit in
Redcastle, which was large. Rather hard upon Mrs. Secretan, whom
everybody supposed to be his heiress.’
‘The policy of his old age is of a piece with the treachery of his
youth,’ replies Alexis, quietly. ‘My wife can afford to do without
his money.’
Sibyl sits silent, in utter bewilderment. What phantom has she
followed in these years that are gone? To what false idol has she
sacrificed love and truth, and duty to husband and child, all fair
things that are honourable in woman? Bad enough to have worshipped
a golden calf; but to find the calf of basest metal is indeed the
lowest depth of humiliation and disgrace.
‘Alexis,’ she says at last, looking piteously at her husband, ‘there
never was any one so foolish, so deluded, as I have been. How you
must despise me!’
‘No, my dear, I am only sorry for you and our mistaken lives, the
lost years that can never come back to us.’