THE trial dragged its way through the rest of the afternoon and all
the next day, the colonel sitting dutifully beside his good friend,
Johnson Carter. The old man leaned forward on his cane, an interested
spectator, hoping in his heart that he was thus killing off any gossip
about that old attachment between William Carter and his granddaughter.
It was from him that Virginia got her news of the proceedings, and an
account of Daniel as a lawyer.
“Say, Jinny, that boy’s as smart as a steel trap,” said the colonel
delightedly. “If William had had half his gumption, he wouldn’t be
in the fix he’s in now. You ought to see Dan get a jury. By gum, I
had to laugh at the way he got Haskins on the hip every time. Got the
indictment in the second degree, too, Jessup says.”
“It would have been terrible to try that boy for murder in the first
degree,” said Virginia. “Why, grandpa, I don’t believe Major Haskins
would do it.”
“Jinny, Haskins would indict his own grandmother for grand larceny if
he thought it would get him a seat in the Legislature,” retorted the
colonel with asperity. “I reckon I know Jim Haskins!”
At which Virginia had to laugh; but she felt very little like laughing
as the trial dragged on. She went over twice to carry flowers, and what
comfort she could to Mrs. Carter and Emily. The last time she regretted
it, for Mrs. Carter lost her head and sobbed on the young comforter’s
shoulder.
“Oh, Jinny, if William had only married you!” she gasped.
Virginia went away with a red face. It seemed to her that the thing
pursued her, whichever way she turned. The rest of that day she devoted
to close attention to the household affairs.
“I shan’t be home until late, Jinny,” her grandfather ’phoned her
during the afternoon. “I reckon it’ll go to the jury to-day. Say,
Jinny!”
“Yes, grandpa, I’m listening.”
“Mrs. William Carter’s going on the stand. Jinny, the court-room’s
packed, just like sardines in a box. They’re sitting on the
window-sills this minute. Don’t you wait dinner if I’m late.”
Virginia hung up the receiver with a pale face. She had heard an
account of William in the corridor from her grandfather, and she had
divined how William felt.
The old man’s robust anger against “that lummox” for spoiling his own
life did not reach Virginia. She remembered William’s boyish figure
trudging home from school with her books, William reading the “Iliad”
with her, and William, when he told her that he loved her. It had all
been a youthful affair. She knew that, so she told herself; but she
could never quite forget it when she thought of him. She thought of it
now, and tried in vain to picture him sitting there, helplessly, and
hearing all the whispers and gossiping when his wife went on the stand
to try to save his brother--for such a cause!
Virginia, who had been standing by the telephone, walked slowly across
the room to a window that overlooked the town. It was a spot that
showed the old place in its most homelike and friendly aspect, with
its wreath of foliage--now, in midsummer, at the full height of its
beauty--and its background of lovely hills. She could see from here
the long gable of Dr. Barbour’s roof, and over there the chimneys of
the Paysons’ more pretentious mansion. Behind the tall poplars was
the Carter house, and yonder the cross-tipped spire of the church.
Beyond these she caught a glimpse of a distant cupola, and knew it
to be the apex of the court-house. A pleasant, warm haze hung in the
summer atmosphere, and she could hear the tinkling bell on a passing
peddler’s cart.
Virginia tried not to think. She did not want to think of William
watching his wife go on the stand for such a cause; but as she leaned
forward her hands gripped the window-sill until the delicate knuckles
whitened.
She was still there when Lucas came driving back from town. He had
taken the colonel to court in an antiquated rockaway that belonged in
the family. He was returning alone now, with a number of bundles in the
rockaway, topped by a large ripe watermelon. Virginia watched him drive
in the gate and on to the stables.
Presently he came along on foot, with his watermelon on his shoulder.
Virginia called to him.
“Where did you get your melon, Lucas?”
“Presen’ fo’ de col’nel, Miss Jinny.” Lucas turned his shoulder around
for her to look at the melon. “Ain’t he a beauty! Sho’ he is! Mist’
Payson, he give him to me. He say: ‘Luke, yo’ take him to de col’nel
fo’ a presen’.’”
Virginia admired the melon.
“Grandfather isn’t coming back until late,” she said. “Did he tell you
when to come for him, Lucas?”
“No, Miss Jinny, he ain’t a comin’ till it’s over, I reckon. Yo’
oughter see dat court-house! Ain’t no gettin’ inter it. Mis’ Wilyum
Carter, she testifyin’. Seems like it mus’ be motion-picture show,
Miss Jinny. I saw Mist’ Wilyum Carter myse’f. He was goin’ in ayonnah,
an’ he look--Miss Jinny, he look like one ob dese yere white-spine
cucumbers--he ain’t got no more colluh ’cept green.”
“That’s all right, Lucas. Take that watermelon down to the kitchen and
get Lucy to put it on ice. The colonel may want it when he comes home.”
“Yes, Miss Jinny, I sho’ will. I’s-- Say, Miss Jinny, Mirandy, Miz
Carter’s help, she say Mist’ Wilyum gwine to get divorcement.”
“Never mind about Miranda,” said Virginia hastily. “You get that melon
out of the sun.”
“He ain’t gwine to get hurt in de sun, Miss Jinny. He’s jus’ ripe--yo’
heah him?” Lucas gave the melon a scientific tap. “Yo’ heah him? He’s
all right, he sho’ is, Miss Jinny. Mirandy, she say Mist’ Carter--de
ole man--he raise ruction ’bout it when Mist’ Leigh shoot dat man----”
“Lucas,” said Virginia, “I never listen to gossip. You take that melon
to the kitchen!”
“Yes, Miss Jinny, yes, miss, I’s goin’, but Mirandy----”
Virginia thrust her fingers into her ears and retreated. Half laughing,
half crying, she threw herself into a chair beside the piano. Her heart
was beating stormily, and she hated herself for it. Then she lifted her
eyes slowly, reluctantly, to the little picture of William as a child.
It still hung beside her piano. The sight of it filled her mind with a
strange tumult of thoughts; yet, strangely enough, the vision she saw
most clearly was Daniel’s face of pain as she stood beside him, her
hand on his shoulder. She blushed at the thought of it now.
At that very moment, when Virginia sat with her eyes hidden in her
hands, trying to shut out the little tormenting imps that thrust
that picture before her, a stranger scene was being staged in the
old court-house. The court-room was so densely crowded that even the
sweet summer air which came in through the open windows grew close and
stifling. The window-sills were full, and the trees outside bore human
fruit upon the branches that commanded the upper panes of those windows.
The crowd dimmed the light like a flock of locusts darkening the sun in
the east, and some one had lit a green-shaded lamp on the recorder’s
desk. The light from it flared up on the face of the prisoner--a pale,
boyish face with girlish eyes. Near him sat his family. Mrs. Carter had
summoned all her courage to be with her boy at the supreme moment, and
Emily was there, too, with tearful eyes and a red nose, looking very
unlike the Emily who had painted her lashes. Beside her sat William
Carter, then his father and Colonel Denbigh.
William sat with his eyes down and his hands clenched on the arms of
his chair. He never looked up, not even when Daniel and Judge Jessup
scored a victory and got Mrs. William Carter’s testimony admitted as
being relevant to the defense. Bernstein had already told his story--a
story of the scandal, and of Corwin’s slanders.
Poor Mrs. Carter hardly dared to look up. She had a terrible sensation
of sinking and falling through space, common to nightmare. William’s
wife talked about like that! She put out a groping hand, caught Emily’s
hot, moist fingers, and held them. They didn’t dare even to look at
each other, and Emily sniffed hard to keep back the tears. It was the
first time she had heard the details.
The prisoner went white; he realized suddenly that his reckless act had
given the scandal huge publicity, that it was ruinous to the woman whom
he had tried to defend. Humiliation swept over him, and he sank down in
his chair, staring straight in front of him. Like William, he did not
look up when Fanchon was called.
There was an expectant stir, followed by a hush. A small figure in
black, with a huge hat and a floating veil, came slowly forward and
took the oath. Judge Jessup stepped gallantly aside, and Daniel
Carter, very pale, very relentless, took the witness.
For the first time William looked up. He looked persistently at his
brother, and seemed to be trying to avoid looking at his wife; but he
was aware of her, even before she began to answer Daniel’s terrible
questions that seemed to drive straight into her past, to lay it open
and set it, throbbing and pitiful and full of pain, before the jury,
before the packed court-room, before the little world in which the
Carters had always lived quiet and sober and respected.
At first William did not listen. He was filled with a blind fury that
Daniel should do it, that his own brother should drag him out into
public view as a young man who had made a fool of himself and married
a dancer. Then her sweet, vibrating, captivating voice, with a French
note in it and the spell of sex, reached him, and he had to listen.
First came the story of their marriage--he knew that; then the story
of her birth and childhood--he knew that in part, and it was sad.
The stillness in the room affected him. He began to feel the wave
of sympathy rising. They liked her; she was winning them. Something
stirred in his heart. His old passion for her was not yet cold, and
that voice--that delightful, hurrying voice--he couldn’t shut it out.
Reluctantly he raised his eyes.
Row upon row of faces! He had never seen so many faces. He knew many of
them. His old friends and his acquaintances were there, and strangers.
Then he heard Daniel’s voice, and it cut like a knife-thrust:
“And your first meeting with this man Corwin?”
William turned and looked at her then. The light from the little lamp
on the recorder’s desk was playing strange tricks. It caught Fanchon’s
face now and illuminated it--a face small and pale and piquant, with
the eyes of a wild fawn, the adorable face that William had seen first
in Paris--only a few months ago!
He gazed fixedly at it, breathing hard. The old spell laid hold of him,
for she had turned and was looking at him. There was an appeal in that
look, almost a cry for help, and it held him.
Then he heard her voice again, and he began to listen, in a dull way
at first, and then with growing amazement, with rising fury. She was
telling her story--her pitiful, sordid story. Women wept; but there was
nothing touching in it to her husband. It was a revelation, a cruel,
sordid revelation of a lie. She had lied to him and deceived him.
Pity died in his heart, the spell broke, he leaned back in his chair
with folded arms and regarded her coldly and scornfully and bitterly.
His look worked upon her like something alien and fierce and inimical;
and she broke under it. At the very moment when it seemed as if she had
planned it to work upon the jury, Fanchon broke down--broke down into
pitiful, passionate tears.
An hour later--after Major Haskins had tried in vain to destroy her
story--Daniel rose in his place, and simply, eloquently, without
gesture or oratory, he made the plea that won him fame--a brother’s
plea for a brother. So eloquent was it that Judge Jessup never spoke at
all. There seemed nothing else to say.
Major Haskins summed up for the prosecution. He did it with acrimony,
in the old way, tearing Fanchon’s past to pieces and fairly pinning
the Carter family, like a lot of butterflies stuck on the board of
the cruelest of naturalists, and leaving Mr. Carter gasping with mute
fury. Then, at a late hour, Judge Barbour charged the jury, and William
Carter rose, white as a sheet, and left the court-house.
Virginia, having eaten her dinner in solitary state, sat on the piazza
waiting for her grandfather. It was late in August, and the sweet
darkness fell early. She watched the earth grow darker and darker
until the hilltops stood out, etched in black against a pale sky.
Behind her the old house was dark except for the light in the hall,
and silent except for the occasional sound of mellow laughter from the
kitchen, where the negroes awaited their share of Mr. Payson’s prize
watermelon.
Virginia sat very still as the night deepened. The air was full of
delicate fragrance from the flower-beds below her feet. Far off at
first, and then nearer at hand, the insects began their incessant
clamor, which seemed only to make the stillness more complete by
contrast. Above, the pale sky began to darken, and one by one the stars
came out, softly obscured by clouds and shining through them, as the
candles at an altar sometimes shine through a fog of incense.
Time passed; the old clock in the hall chimed. Virginia counted the
strokes--ten. How late the colonel was! Then she heard the sound
of wheels on the gravel outside the main gate, and Lucas drove the
rockaway up to the front door. Her grandfather’s tall head appeared at
the steps. He stopped to say a word to Lucas and then came slowly up.
Not until then did Virginia rise from her corner.
“Grandpa--is it over?”
He was startled; then he smiled, taking off his hat.
“How cool it is out here--we were baked down-town! I reckon I’ll sit
with you, Jinny.”
“Have you dined? Mr. Payson sent a watermelon; it’s on ice for you.”
“I dined with Payson down-town. No, let the watermelon wait. What did
you say, Jinny? No, it isn’t over. We waited, but they’ve locked up the
jury for the night, so I came home.”
Virginia, who had dropped into her seat again, was trying to be calm.
“There’s a disagreement, then?”
The colonel nodded thoughtfully.
“I reckon there is. Haskins made a big fight, Jinny, but”--the old man
drew a long breath--“by gum, I’ve heard that girl’s story--Fanchon’s.
She told it on the stand!”
He stopped, drawing a deep breath. He seemed to be contemplating
something amazing. Virginia said nothing. She clasped her hands tightly
in her lap, looking not at him but at the constellation in front of
her. It happened to be the Scorpion, and she began to count the stars
silently.
“By gum!” said the colonel again.
Plato came to the door.
“Col’nel, have a julep, suh, or dat watermelon?”
“Nothing at all; I’m not hungry.”
The colonel waved him away; then he turned to Virginia and told her
Fanchon’s story. He told it better than she could have hoped to have
him tell it.
“She hasn’t been a bad girl, Jinny. That was a relief to me. Haskins
tried to slur her, but Daniel brought it out point by point. Married at
fifteen, and her old aunt swore that she was eighteen to get money out
of it, by gum!”
Virginia, who had listened with emotion, shivered.
“I think it was cruel, grandfather, to make her tell it.”
The old man nodded.
“Not to save Leigh, though. Lordy, Jinny, I never saw Leigh look
younger, except that day I caught him with the lollypop. It ought to
save him.” He added reluctantly, with a fine sense of justice: “Jinny,
I can’t blame William. He got up and left the court. Mr. Carter told me
about it. He never knew a darned thing about his wife being a divorced
woman, nor about Corwin, nor anything. She lied to him, Jinny.” The
colonel leaned back and thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his
waistcoat. “I’m kind of sorry for him. He’s going to get a divorce, so
they say; but the girl--Fanchon, I mean--she’s tried to save Leigh,
and she’s about ruined herself. Jinny, I felt as if it was heroic.
I--by gum, come inside, I can’t stand those crickets to-night! They’re
on my nerves--shouting ‘Here again, here again!’ Jinny, I’m sorry for
them all, but I’m a darned sight sorrier for the girl!”