At length, in the midst of perfect stillness, without one preparatory
sound or movement, Lady Arden stood in the witness box, wrapped in the
deep mourning in which the death of her elder son had enveloped her.
The blood ran cold in the veins of all present. A tear startled into
almost every eye; while some of those who were themselves mothers, were
moved by a sympathy so heart-rending, that unconsciously they groaned
aloud.
So pure, so natural, so easily understood are the feelings of the
parent, that every class could enter into them. Nor did the kindly
commiseration of the crowd diminish, when they had leisure to mark the
matronly beauty of her countenance; pride and disdain of the insult
offered to the hitherto unsullied honour of her son, struggling with
agony kindled in her eye, while her cheek was blanched, and her lips
parched: and then the strong resemblance her every feature bore to those
of her son! her favourite child! the prisoner at the bar: while
evidently conscious where he stood, her eye quivered beneath its lid,
longing yet dreading to turn upon him. She could no longer resist--she
looked down at her son--he looked up at her--their eyes met.
To comfort and encourage her he tried almost to smile: it was rather a
radiance from within shining for a moment through all the nobleness of
his countenance, in honour of the dutiful love he bore her; and then a
pang passed across his brow, that he should be to her a source of
suffering. She sank on a chair considerately placed behind her, and for
a few seconds hid her face; lest, however, emotion should be construed
into fear, and fear into acquiescence in the accusation against her son,
she aroused herself and again stood prepared to reply. The judge, from a
feeling of respect, took upon himself a considerable part of the duty of
putting the necessary questions to her ladyship. He did so in the
mildest and most considerate manner, and in a tone of kindly sympathy
which did credit to his heart--the counsel of course assisting, and
assisted himself as hitherto, by the marginal notes to his brief,
supplied by Mr. Fips. These had the effect of drawing from her ladyship
the purport of the confidential conversation overheard by Geoffery,
which, with the remainder of Lady Arden's evidence, clearly proved the
following points; namely--that both brothers had been attached to the
same lady--that Alfred had been accepted previously to the arrival of
his brother--that subsequently he had been discarded and his brother
accepted--that he had felt his disappointment more deeply than he had
suffered to appear--that he had ascribed the fickleness of the lady to
mercenary motives--and that he was in the habit of animadverting
frequently on the unfortunate situation of younger brothers without
fortune, and therefore without pretensions.
In reply to another series of questions, she was compelled to confess,
she had never apprehended that derangement might at any time be the
consequence of the injury Sir Willoughby had in childhood received on
his head--that she had never perceived any symptoms of derangement about
her eldest son--that Alfred had never mentioned to her any apprehensions
of the kind till after the present accusation had been brought against
himself--that in his letter, announcing the sudden death of his brother,
he had ascribed it to a fit of apoplexy, and made no mention of poison
under any circumstances being the supposed cause, or expressed a
suspicion either of insanity or suicide--and lastly, that Sir Willoughby
at the time of his demise was in full possession of a large unencumbered
property, and in expectation of being married to the woman of his
choice, a lady also possessed of large estates, and who, in company with
her mother, he was very shortly to have joined in a tour of pleasure on
the continent.
The evidence of Lady Darlingford, Madeline, and Mrs. Dorothea, were
taken in succession, and though not so full, went to prove the same
points as that of Lady Arden. This closed the prosecution, and the
prisoner was now called upon for his defence.
Who shall describe the throb of his mother's heart, when the first
sounds from those loved lips broke the stillness of the expectant court.
The tones of that voice were harmony itself; they had ever been music to
her ear--what were they now? Oh, how strange is the mingling of agony
with the thrill of love!
A momentary convulsion passed over the mother's features, followed by a
silent flood of tears; yet, with that self-command which dire necessity
alone can teach, no sob that might be heard, no sigh escaped her.
Alfred spoke with solemnity of the melancholy impression which had often
visited his own mind respecting the possibility of his brother becoming
at some time insane; but confessed, that he had never mentioned his
fears to any one. He spoke of a strangeness of temper as the foundation
of the apprehensions to which he alluded; but confessed, that its
ebullitions were confined to private interviews with himself. He spoke
of the state of excitement under which Sir Willoughby laboured on his
last return to Arden; but confessed, that to all less interested
observers than himself, the manner to which he alluded was calculated to
appear but the result of his brother being at the time in particularly
high spirits. He spoke of a great inequality of humour which had
latterly excited his alarm; but confessed, that this inequality had
appeared only in their private interviews. At every but, the solemnity
of the judge's countenance deepened, and the jury looked at each other
with an expression that seemed to say--"That won't do."
Alfred proceeded to state how both the packet of arsenic, and the torn
piece of paper marked poison, had come into his possession, and his
reasons for removing and securing the former;--of his having
subsequently concealed the latter about his own person, he had he said,
from the state of his feelings at the time no recollection.
The judge frowned involuntarily at the vagueness of such a defence.
"People," whispered Mr. Fips to his neighbour, "are not to get off for
committing murder, because they have short memories."
Alfred went on to say, that of the attempt to rinse the glass, he had a
faint remembrance; that the impulse which guided his hand at the moment,
must have been (as far as the thoughts of a season of sudden affliction,
such as that to which he alluded, could be defined) a desire to conceal
the suicide, which he feared had been committed; and that the same
motive, strengthened by the frequently-expressed wishes of the deceased
on the subject, had caused him to oppose, as long as possible, the
examination of his lamented brother's remains.
The testimony of the witnesses had increased the feeling against the
prisoner, while these unsupported attempts at explanation seemed, to
such as were disposed to judge him harshly, but so many ingenious
subterfuges, invented after accusation, to meet each point, and created,
accordingly, in their minds, a strong sense of disgust, arising from the
frightfully powerful contrast between the amiable motives laid claim to,
and the horrible crime of which they still believed him guilty.
The judge demanded to know if the prisoner had, previously to being
himself accused of the murder of the deceased, confided to any person
his alleged belief, that a suicide had been committed, with the reasons
he had now stated to the court for wishing to suppress that supposed
fact?
He had alluded to the subject in conversation with Mr. Geoffery Arden.
Here Geoffery, the sole evidence for the defence was called to the
witness-box.
Did he remember any conversation of the nature referred to?
There was only one occasion on which he could call to mind Sir Alfred
having made allusion to the cause of Sir Willoughby's death.
He was requested to state minutely what had passed on that occasion.
About half an hour after Sir Willoughby had expired, he had followed Sir
Alfred to the bed-chamber of the deceased, where he had found him
reclining his face against the bed, apparently in a state of great
mental suffering. He had made some attempts to calm his agitation, but
without success; when, however, he was about to retire, Sir Alfred had
looked up suddenly, and asked him if the Doctor had not said, that
symptoms similar to those which had attended the dying moments of his
brother, might have been occasioned by a fit of apoplexy. On being
answered in the affirmative, he had added hastily, "Let it be so
supposed then, and discourage all further inquiry;" he then again hid
his face.
Had nothing more passed?
Nothing with which he could charge his memory.
"Bad memories are the fashion," whispered Fips, with a grin of triumph,
and a grunt of approbation.
Here the prisoner's counsel cross-examined Geoffery in the closest and
ablest manner, but could not draw from him that part of the conversation
in which Alfred had expressed a fear of Christian burial being denied,
and his mother's affliction increased, should the suicide be suspected.
Thus mutilated, the evidence of the sole witness for the defence, told
rather against than for the prisoner's cause, but, as there had been no
third person present, the case was without remedy.
The judge asked if the prisoner had any other witnesses to call, or any
thing more to say in his own defence; and on receiving a negative to
both questions, looked disappointed. After a short pause, he commenced
his charge to the jury, in the course of which he clearly and ably
recapitulated the whole of the evidence.
This occupied between two and three hours, so that lights became at
length necessary, though at his lordship's desk only, for the sake of
referring to written notes, the imperfect remains of the daylight being
sufficient for all other purposes.
The feelings of the court were now much excited; the solemn voice of the
judge had for some time been the only sound heard, while the partial
illumination at such a crisis had great effect, rendering more than
ordinarily conspicuous the figure of his lordship; his costume so
strongly associated in our minds with the idea of his being the
arbitrator of life and death; his countenance, which happened to be
peculiarly striking, and, in particular, the flash of his eye, which was
very remarkable; his manner, too, was impressive, the tones of his voice
fine, and his diction clear and forcible; his expositions on points of
law, were luminous even to the humblest apprehensions. He told the jury,
that on such points it was his business to dictate to them, and theirs
to be implicitly guided by his dictum. To decide what facts were proved
in evidence, and the degree of credibility due to such evidence, was, he
told them, their province; and in deliberating on a case which had
naturally excited so intense an interest in the neighbourhood, his
lordship entreated that the jury would dismiss from their consideration
all they might have previously heard, or even thought on the subject,
and confine their whole attention to the evidence delivered in court
this day.
Much, he remarked, had been often and eloquently said respecting the
extreme fallibility of circumstantial evidence; but where all the
circumstances agreed, such might, in his opinion, be even more
conclusive than positive testimony: for, in the one case, we deduced the
fact from known facts, and therefore knew it as it were of our own
knowledge; while in the other case, we staked our belief on the veracity
of a witness or witnesses, which, though generally believed to be
credible, might by possibility be otherwise. In the present instance, he
was sorry to say, that the painful duty of his office compelled him to
point out to their attention, that the chain of circumstantial evidence
seemed more than commonly strong and connected, while every link was
supported by the testimony of a host of, at least credible, and in many
instances more than credible, since they were unwilling witnesses:
still, it was for them to decide whether all the circumstances did
agree, and whether the evidence in support of each circumstance was
undoubted; for, if they felt a doubt, it was their duty to give the
prisoner the benefit of that doubt. It was unfortunately a case so
ultimately connected with the most powerful and agitating feelings, that
it was difficult in the extreme to confine the attention to the naked
force of evidence. He again, therefore, entreated those on whom the
ultimate responsibility of the verdict rested, to lay aside their
feelings, and use only their judgments.
His own feelings were, he confessed, powerfully interested by the
defence of the prisoner; yet, he felt it there again his painful duty,
to point out that there was neither circumstance nor fact, brought
forward in the whole of that defence, based on any evidence whatever;
that all rested on the unsupported assertions of the accused party. That
the plea attempted to be set up, of Sir Willoughby's insanity, was not
only unsustained by evidence, but that the very contrary had been
proved, on the testimony of those most intimately acquainted and closely
connected with the deceased. While there was at least negative proof,
that even the prisoner had never expressed such an opinion, till after
it became necessary to meet the accusation against himself. And lastly,
that the prosperous and peculiarly happy circumstances, in which the
late Sir Willoughby Arden was placed at the time of his sudden demise,
made it wholly incredible, that, being in possession of his reason, he
should of his own will, have taken the poison. It had been proved in
evidence, that Sir Willoughby had been in perfect health, at and for
some time after dinner--that he had supped in company with the prisoner
only--that the remains of arsenic had been found in one of the
glasses--that Sir Willoughby had died immediately after supper--that his
death had been occasioned by arsenic--that the prisoner had attempted to
rinse the glass in which the remains of arsenic were afterwards
found--that a packet containing arsenic had lain on a certain morning,
in a certain apartment--that the prisoner had been seen to come from
that apartment alone, in the afternoon; that it was not an apartment
usually inhabited or visited by the prisoner--that there was evidence
the prisoner was aware the packet of arsenic lay there--that the said
packet was missed the next morning, from the said apartment--that the
said packet was subsequently found in a locked escritoire of the
prisoner's, to which he alone had access--that a torn piece of paper,
visibly a portion of the outer cover of the said packet of arsenic, had
been seen, by a witness whose respectability and credibility were beyond
a doubt, fall from within the breast of the waistcoat of the
prisoner--that the prisoner had resisted the opening of the body--that
Dr. Harman's opinion the deceased had died by the effects of poison,
would not have amounted to evidence, had the body not been opened--and
finally that the defence rested entirely on the unsubstantiated
assertions of the prisoner himself. As probable motives could not become
subjects of proof, though much had been said of them on the trial, he
would say nothing of them here: they were all calculated to awaken
feelings for, or against the prisoner; and once more, he entreated the
jury to dismiss every thing but evidence from their minds, and give
their verdict accordingly. He then told them distinctly what verdict it
was their duty to their country to give, if they considered these facts
proved, and what verdict was due to humanity, and the prisoner, if they
still felt a doubt.
From the circumstance we have already mentioned, of candles being placed
on the desk of the judge only, the twilight-like sort of obscurity
which, by the time his lordship approached the conclusion of his charge,
had stolen over the rest of the court-house, added much to the solemn
effect of this most anxious part of the proceedings. The forms of the
jurymen, but dimly discerned, leaning over with painful eagerness, to
catch, as it were, the very thoughts of the judge; their eyes glancing
in the distant light, as they removed them, from time to time, from his
countenance, to look round on each other; and when he ceased speaking,
the pause that followed--and then--the verdict, which issuing as it now
did, from the gloom in which the whole group was wrapped, sounded more
awfully, more like the condensed, irrecoverable decision of the
_judicial twelve_, than when, in the broad light of day, the foreman,
though in his official capacity in fact the voice of all, still looks
the individual.
The single word pronounced was--Guilty!!!
As though the whole assembly had hitherto held their breath, a sort of
universal gasp was distinctly heard; and during the moment, the judge
was preparing to pronounce the awful sentence of the law, a movement was
observable in the part of the gallery where Lady Arden, though not
visible, was known to be.