"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 circumstances
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
amusement. 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-glasses 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 naive 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 space of time. And nobody 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.
He was aroused from the reverie into which he had fallen by the entry of
a servant with a note. He opened it, read the contents slowly, and then
put it into the fire. He stood frowning a little as he watched it burn.
After a few moments of this hesitation he rang the bell, told Sarah that
he was going out, and left the house. The three women in the
drawing-room upstairs, already nervous and overstrained from long
suspense, all started when the reverberation of that closing door made
itself heard. Lesley felt her mother's hand close on hers with a quick,
convulsive pressure. She looked up.
"He has gone out!" Lady Alice murmured, so that Lesley alone could hear.
"He does not come--to _us_!"
Lesley did not know what to say. She was surprised to find that her
mother expected him to come. But then she was only Caspar Brooke's
daughter and not his wife.
Lady Alice lay back in her chair, closed her eyes and waited. She had
once been a jealous woman: there were the seeds of jealousy in her
still. She sat and wondered whether Caspar had gone for sympathy and
comfort to any other woman. And after wondering this for half an hour it
suddenly occurred to her mind with the vividness of a lightning flash
that if things _were_ so--if her husband _had_ found sympathy
elsewhere--it was her own fault. She had no right to accuse him, or to
blame him, when she had left him for a dozen years.
"I have no right to blame him, perhaps, but I have still a right to
know," she said to herself. And then, disengaging her hand from Lesley's
clinging fingers, she rose and went downstairs--down to the study which
she had so seldom visited. She seated herself in Caspar's arm-chair, and
prepared to wait there for his return. Surely he would not be long!--and
then she would speak to him, and things should be made clear.
Caspar's note had been written by Mrs. Romaine. It was quite formal, and
merely contained a request that he would call on her at his earliest
convenience. And he complied at once, as she had surmised that he would
do. Her confidential maid opened the door to him, and conducted him to
the drawing-room. It was dusk, and the blinds were drawn down. Oliver
Trent's funeral had taken place the day before.
Mr. Brooke did not sit down. He knew that the interview which was about
to take place was likely to be a painful one, but he could not guess in
the least what kind of turn it would take. Did Rosalind believe in his
guilt? Did she know what manner of man her brother Oliver had been? Was
she going to reproach or to condole? She had done a strange thing in
asking him to the house at all, and at another time he might have
thought it wiser not to accede to her request; but he was in the mood in
which the most extraordinary incidents seem possible, and scarcely
anything could have seemed to him too bizarre to happen. He felt
curiously impatient of the ordinary conventionalities of civilized life.
Since this miraculous thing had come to pass--that he, Caspar Brooke, a
respectable, sane, healthy-minded man of middle-age, could be accused of
killing a miserable young scamp like Oliver Trent in a moment of
passion--the world had certainly seemed somewhat crazy and out of joint.
It was not worth while to stand very much on ceremony at such a
conjuncture; and if Rosalind Romaine wanted to talk to him about her
dead brother, he was willing to go and hear her talk. And yet as he
stood in her dainty little drawing-room, it came over him very strongly
that he ought not to be there.
He was still musing when the door opened, and Rosalind stole into the
room. He did not hear her until she was close upon him, and then he
turned with a sudden start. She looked different--she was changed. Her
face was very pale: her eyelids were reddened: she was dressed in the
deepest black, and over her head she had flung a black lace veil, which
gave her--perhaps unintentionally--a tragic look. She held the folds
together with her right hand, and spoke to him quietly.
"It was kind of you to come," she said.
"You summoned me. I should not have come without that," he answered,
quickly.
"No, I suppose not. And of course--in the ordinary course of things--I
ought not to have summoned you. The world would say that I was wrong.
But we have been old friends for many years now, have we not?"
"I always thought so," he answered, gravely. "But now--I fear----"
"You mean"--with a strange vibration in her voice--"you mean that we
must never be friends again--because--because of Oliver----"
"This accusation must naturally tend to separate the families," he said,
in a very calm, grave voice. "Even when it is disproved, we shall not
find it easy to resume old relations. I am very sorry for it, Rosalind,
just as I need not tell you how sorry I am for the cause----"
She interrupted him hurriedly. "Yes, yes, I know all that; but you speak
of _disproving_ the charge. Can you do that?"
He was silent for a moment. "I shall do my best," he said at length,
with some emotion in his voice.
"And if it is not disproved--what then?" she asked. "Suppose they call
it _murder_?"
Caspar drew himself up: a certain displeasure began to mark itself upon
his features.
"Need you ask me?"
"Yes, I need. I want you to consider the answer that you would give. I
have a reason."
Her eager eyes, hot and burning in a face that was strangely white, pled
for her. Caspar relented a little, but bent his brows as he replied--
"The extreme penalty of the law, I suppose. It is absurd--but, of
course, it is possible. It is not a case in which I should expect penal
servitude for life to be substituted, supposing that I were found
guilty. But I fail to see your motive for asking what must be to me a
rather painful question."
"Oh, you are strong! You can bear it!" she said, dropping her face upon
her hands. Caspar gazed at her in amazement. He began to wonder whether
she were going out of her mind. But before he could find any word of
calming or consoling tendency, she flung down her hands and spoke again.
"I want you to fix your mind on it for a moment, even although it hurts
you," she said. "You are a strong man--you do not shrink from a thing
because, it is a little painful. Think what it would mean for yourself,
and not for yourself only; for your friends, for those who love you! A
perpetual disgrace--a misery!"
"You seem anxious to assume that I shall be convicted," he said, still
with displeasure.
"I tell you I am doing so on purpose. I want you to think of it. You
know--you know as well as I do--that the chances are against you!"
"And if they are?"
"If they are--why do you incur such a risk!"
"Mrs. Romaine," said Caspar, gently, but with a steady coldness of tone,
of which she did not at first feel the import, "I think you hardly know
the force of what you are saying. I do not incur any risk unnecessarily
or wantonly: I only wish the truth to be made known. What can I do
more--or less?"
"You could go away," she said, almost in a whisper.
If the room had been lighter, she might, perhaps, have seen the frown
that was gathering on his brow, the wrath that darkened his eyes as he
spoke: but his face was in shadow, and for a moment anger made him
speechless. She went on eagerly, breathlessly, without waiting for a
reply.
"You might get off quite easily to--to Spain, perhaps, or some place
where there was no extradition treaty. You are out on bail, I know; but
your friends could not complain. Surely it is a natural enough thing for
a man, situated as you are, to wish to escape: nobody would blame you in
the long run--they would only say that you were wise. And if you stay,
everything is against you. You had so much better take your present
chance!"
Caspar muttered something inarticulate, then seemed to choke back
further utterance, and kept silence for a minute. When he spoke it was
in a curiously tranquil tone.
"You do not seem to have heard of the quality that men call their
honor?"
"Oh, honor! I have heard enough about honor," she answered with
a nervous, rasping laugh. "And you--_you_ to talk about
honor--after--after _what you have done_!"
Caspar Brooke fell back a step or two and surveyed her curiously. "Good
God!" The exclamation broke from him, as if against his will. "You speak
as though you thought I was guilty--as though I had--_murdered_ Oliver!"
And she, looking at him as intently as he looked at her, said only, in
the simplest possible way--
"And did you not?"