Philip had never been in a court of law before. I am almost as ignorant
as he was, yet I cannot imagine anything more deeply interesting than to
find one’s self suddenly one of a crowded assembly trying more or
less--for is not the public but a larger jury, sometimes contradicting
the verdict of the other, and when it does so almost invariably winning
the cause?--a fellow-creature, following out the traces of his crime or
his innocence, looking on while a human drama is unrolled, often far
more interesting than any dramatic representation of life. He was
confused for the moment by the crowd, by the new and unusual spectacle,
by the bewilderment of seeing for the first time what he had so often
heard of, the judge on the bench, the wigged barristers below, the one
who was speaking, so different from any other public speaker Philip had
ever heard, addressing not the assembly, but the smaller circle round
him, interrupted by other voices: the accused in his place and the
witness--standing there more distinctly at the bar than the culprit
was--bearing his testimony before earth and heaven, with the fate of
another hanging on his words. The boy was so full of the novel
sight--which yet he had heard of so often that he could identify every
part of it, and soon perceived the scope of what was going on--that he
did not at first listen, so full was he of the interest of what he saw.
The imperturbable judge, grave, letting no emotion appear on his face;
the jury, just the reverse, showing how this and that piece of evidence
affected them; the barristers who were engaged, so keenly alive to
everything, starting up now and then when the witness swerved from the
subject, when the opposition proposed a leading question, or one that
was irrelevant to the issue; the others who were not “in it,” as Simmons
said, so indifferent; and then the spectators who had places about or
near the central interest. Philip saw, with a sudden leap of his heart,
the ladies of the theatre and park, the witch and the girl with the keen
eyes, in a conspicuous place; the old lady, as he called her, full of
movement and gesture, making signs to others near her, keeping up an
interrupted whispering, the girl at her side as impassive as the judge
himself. And then Pippo’s roving eye caught a figure seated among the
barristers with an opera-glass, which made his heart jump still more.
Was that the man? He had, at the moment Philip perceived him, his
opera-glass in his hand: a tall man leaning back with a look of
interest, very conspicuous among the wigged heads about him, with grey
hair in a mass on his forehead as if it had grown thin and had been
coaxed to cover some denuded place, and a face which it seemed to Philip
he had seen before, a face worn--was it with study, was it with trouble?
Pippo knew of no other ways in which the eyes could be so hollowed out,
and the lines so deeply drawn. A man, perhaps, hard worn with life and
labor and sorrow. A strange sympathy sprang up in the boy’s mind: he was
sure he knew the face. It was a face full of records, though young
Philip could not read them--the face, he thought, of a man who had had
much to bear. Was it the same man who had fixed so strange a gaze upon
himself at the theatre? And what interest could this man have in the
trial that was going on?
The accused at the bar was certainly not of a kind to arouse the
interest which sprang into being at sight of this worn and noble hero.
He had the air of a comfortable man of business, a man evidently well
off, surprised at once and indignant to find himself there, sometimes
bursting with eagerness to explain, sometimes leaning back with an air
of affected contempt--not a good man in trouble, as Philip would have
liked to think him, nor a criminal fully conscious of what might be
awaiting him; but a man of the first respectability, indignant and
incredulous that anything should be brought against him. Philip felt
himself able to take no interest whatever in Mr. Brown.
It was not till he had gone through all these surprises and observations
that he began to note what was being said. Philip was not learned in the
procedure of the law, nor did he know anything about the case; but it
became vaguely apparent to him after awhile that the immediate question
concerned the destruction of the books of a joint-stock company, of
which Brown was the manager, an important point which the prosecution
had some difficulty in bringing home to him. After it had been proved
that the books had been destroyed, and that so far as was known it was
to Brown’s interest alone to destroy them, the evidence as to what had
been seen on the evening on which this took place suddenly took a new
turn, and seemed to introduce a new actor on the scene. Some one had
been seen to enter the office in the twilight who could not be
identified with Brown; whom, indeed, even Philip, with his boyish
interest in the novelty of the proceedings, vaguely perceived to be
another man. The action of the piece, so to speak (for it was like a
play to Philip), changed and wavered here--and he began to be sensible
of the character of the different players in it. The counsel for the
prosecution was a well-known and eminent barrister, one of the most
noted of the time, a man before whom witnesses trembled, and even the
Bench itself was sometimes known to quail. That this was the case on the
present occasion Philip vaguely perceived. There were points continually
arising which the opposing counsel made objections to, appealing to the
judge; but it rarely failed that the stronger side, which was that of
the prosecution, won the day. The imperious accuser, whose resources of
precedent and argument seemed boundless, carried everything with a high
hand. The boy, of course, was not aware of the weakness of the
representative of the majesty of the law, nor the inferiority, in force
and skill, of the defence; but he gradually came to a practical
perception of how the matter stood.
Philip listened with growing interest, sometimes amused, sometimes
indignant, as the remorseless prosecutor ploughed his way through the
witnesses, whom he bullied into admissions that they were certain of
nothing, and that in the dusk of that far-off evening, the man whom they
had sworn at the time to be quite unlike him, might in reality have been
Brown. Philip got greatly interested in this question. He took up the
opposite side himself with much heat, feeling as sure as if he had been
there that it was not Brown: and he was delighted in his excitement,
when there stood up one man who would not be bullied, a man who had the
air of a respectable clerk of the lower class, and who held his own. He
had been an office boy, the son apparently of the housekeeper in charge
of the premises referred to when the incident occurred, and the gist of
his evidence was that the prisoner at the bar--so awful a personage once
to the little office boy, so curtly discussed now as Brown--had left the
office at four o’clock in the afternoon of the 6th of September, and had
not appeared again.
“A different gentleman altogether came in the evening, a much taller
man, with a large moustache.”
“Where was it that you saw this man?”
“Slipping in at the side door of the office as if he didn’t want to be
seen.”
“Was that a door which was generally open, or used by the public?”
“Never, sir; but none of the doors were used at that time of night.”
“And how, then, could any one get admittance there?”
“Only those that had private keys; the directors had their private
keys.”
“Then your conclusion was that it was a director, and that he had a
right to be there?”
“I knew it was a director, sir, because I knew the gentleman,” the
witness said.
“You say it was late in the evening of the 6th of September. Was it
daylight at the time?”
“Oh, no, sir; nearly dark--a sort of a half light.”
“Did the person you saw go in openly, or make any attempt at
concealment?”
“He had a light coat on, like the coats gentlemen wear when they go to
the theatre, and something muffled round his throat, and his hat pulled
down over his face.”
“Like a person who wished to conceal himself?”
“Yes, sir,” said the witness.
“And how, then, if he was muffled about the throat, and his hat pulled
over his face, in the half light late in the evening, could you see that
he had a large moustache?”
The witness stood and stared with his mouth open, and made no reply.
The counsel, with a louder voice and those intonations of contemptuous
insinuation which are calculated to make a man feel that he is convicted
of the basest perjury, and is being held up to the reprobation of the
world, repeated the question, “How could you see that he had a large
moustache?”
“I saw it,” said the witness, hotly, “because I knew the gentleman.”
“And how did you know the gentleman? You thought you recognised the
gentleman, and therefore, though you could not possibly perceive it, you
saw his moustache? I fear that is not an answer that will satisfy the
jury.”
“I submit,” said the counsel for the defence, “that it is very evident
what the witness means. He recognised a man with whose appearance he was
perfectly familiar.”
“I saw him,” said the witness, “as clear as I see you, sir.”
“What! in the dark, late on a September night, with a coat collar up to
his ears, and a hat pulled down over his face? You see my learned friend
in broad daylight, and with the full advantage of standing opposite to
him and studying his looks at your leisure. You might as well say
because you know the gentleman that you could see his hair was dark and
abundant under his wig.”
At this a laugh ran through the court, at which Philip, listening, was
furiously indignant, as it interrupted the course of the investigation.
It was through the sound of this laugh that he heard the witness demand
loudly, “How could I be mistaken, when I saw Mr. Compton every day?”
Mr. Compton! Philip’s heart began to beat like the hammers of a
steam-engine. Was this, then, the real issue? And who was Mr. Compton?
He could not have told how it was that he somehow identified the man
whom the witness had seen, or had not seen, with the man who had the
opera-glass, and who had fixed a dreadful blank stare upon the other in
the witness-box during a great part of this discussion. Was it he who
was on his trial, and not Brown? And who was he? And where was it that
Philip had known and grown familiar with that face, which, so far as he
could remember, he had never seen before, but which belonged to the man
who bore his own name?
When the counsel for the prosecution had turned the unfortunate witness
outside in, and proved that he knew nothing and had seen nobody: and
that, besides, he was a man totally unworthy of credit, who had lied
from his cradle, and whose own mother and friends put no trust in him,
the court adjourned for lunch. But Philip forgot that he required any
lunch. His mind was filled with echoes of that name. He began to feel a
strange certainty that it was the same man who had fixed him with the
same gaze in the theatre. Who was Mr. Compton, and what was he? The
question took the boy’s breath away.
He sat through the interval, finding a place where he could see better,
through the kind offices of the usher to whom Simmons had commended
him, and waiting with impatience till the trial should be resumed.
Nobody remarked the boy among the crowd of the ordinary public, many of
whom remained, as he did, to see it out. Philip cared nothing about
Brown: all that he wanted to know was about this namesake of his--this
Compton, this other man, who was not Brown. If it was the man with the
opera-glass, he was not so much excited as his young namesake, for he
went to luncheon with the rest; while the boy remained counting the
minutes, eager to begin the story, the drama, again. The impression
left, however, on Philip’s impartial mind was that the last witness,
though driven and badgered out of what wits he had by the examination,
had really seen a man whom he perfectly knew, his recognition of whom
was not really affected either by the twilight or the disguise.
The thrill of interest which he felt running through all his veins as
the court filled again was like, but stronger than, the interest with
which he had ever seen the curtain rise in the theatre. His heart beat:
he felt as if in some sort it was his own fate that was going to be
decided: all his prepossessions were in favour of that other accused,
yet not openly accused, person who was not Brown; and yet he felt almost
as sure as if he had been there that the office boy of twenty years ago
had seen that man stealing in at the side door.
Young Philip did not catch the name of the next witness who was called;
such a thing will happen sometimes even with the quickest ear at a
moment when every whisper is important. If he had heard he would
probably have thought that he was deceived by his excitement, impossible
as it was that such a name should have anything to do with this or any
other trial. The shock therefore was unbroken when, watching with all
the absorbed interest of a spectator at the most exciting play, the boy
saw a lady come slowly forward into the witness-box. Philip had the same
strange sense of knowing who it was that he had felt the previous
witness to have in respect to the man whom he could not see, but yet had
infallibly recognised: but he said to himself, No! it was not possible!
No! it was not possible! She came forward slowly, put up the veil that
had covered her face, and grasped the bar before her to support herself;
and then the boy sprang to his feet, in the terrible shock which
electrified him from head to feet! His movements, and the stifled cry he
uttered, made a little commotion in the crowd, and called forth the cry
of “Silence in the court.” His neighbours around him hustled him back
into his place, where he sank down incapable indeed of movement, knowing
that he could not go and pluck her from that place--could not rush to
her side, could do nothing but sit there and gasp and gaze at his
mother. His mother, in such a place! in such a case! with which--surely,
surely--she could have nothing to do. Elinor Compton, at the time
referred to Elinor Dennistoun, of Windyhill, in Surrey--there was no
doubt about the name now. And Philip had time enough to identify
everything, name and person, for there rose a vague surging of
contention about the first questions put to her, which were not
evidence, according to the counsel on the other side, which he felt with
fury was done on purpose to prolong the agony. During this time she
stood immovable, holding on by the rail before her, her eyes fixed upon
it, perfectly pale, like marble, and as still. Among all the moving,
rustling, palpitating crowd, and the sharp volleys of the lawyers’
voices, and even the contradictory opinions elicited from the harassed
judge himself--to look at that figure standing there, which scarcely
seemed to breathe, had the most extraordinary effect. For a time Philip
was like her, scarcely breathing, holding on in an unconscious sympathy
to the back of the seat before him, his eyes wide open, fixed upon her.
But as his nerves began to accustom themselves to that extraordinary,
inconceivable sight, the other particulars of the scene came out of the
mist, and grew apparent to him in a lurid light that did not seem the
light of day. He saw the eager looks at her of the ladies in the
privileged places, the whispers that were exchanged among them. He saw
underneath the witness-box, almost within reach of her, John Tatham,
with an anxious look on his face. And then he saw, what was the most
extraordinary of all, the man--who had been the centre of his interest
till now--the man whose name was Philip Compton, like his own; he who
fixed the last witness with the stare of his opera-glass, who had kept
it in perpetual use. He had put it down now on the table before him,
his arms were folded on his breast, and his head bent. Philip thought he
detected now and then a furtive look under his brows at the motionless
witness awaiting through the storm of words the moment when her turn
would come; but though he had leant forward all the time, following
every point of the proceedings with interest, he now drew back, effaced
himself, retired as it were from the scene. What was there between these
two? Was there any link between them? What was the drama about to be
played out before Pippo’s innocent and ignorant eyes? At last the storm
and wrangling seemed to come to an end, and there came out low but clear
the sound of her voice. It seemed only now, when he heard his mother
speak, that he was certified that so inconceivable a thing as that she
should be here was a matter of fact: his mother here! Philip fixed his
whole being upon her--eyes, thoughts, absorbed attention, he scarcely
seemed to breathe except through her. Could she see him, he wondered,
through all that crowd? But then he perceived that she saw nothing with
those eyes that looked steadily in front of her, not turning a glance
either to the right or left.
For some time Philip was baffled completely by the questions put, which
were those to which the counsel on the other side objected as not
evidence, and which seemed, even to the boy’s inexperienced mind, to be
mere play upon the subject, attempts to connect her in some way with
the question as to Brown’s guilt or innocence. Something in the
appearance, at this stage, of a lady so unlike the other witnesses,
seemed to exercise a certain strange effect, however, quickening
everybody’s interest, and when the examining counsel approached the
question of the date which had already been shown to be so momentous,
all interruptions were silenced, and the court in general, like Philip,
held its breath. There were many there expecting what are called in the
newspapers “revelations:” the defence was taken by surprise, and did not
know what new piece of evidence was about to be produced: and even the
examining counsel was, for such a man, subdued a little by the other
complicating threads of the web among which he had to pick his way.
“You recollect,” he said in his most soothing tones, “the evening of the
6th September, 1863?”
She bowed her head in reply. And then as if that was sparing herself too
much, added a low “Yes.”
“As I am instructed, you were not then married, but engaged to Mr.
Philip Compton. Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“One of the directors of the company of which the defendant was
manager?”
“I believe so.”
“I am sorry to have to enter upon matters so private: but there was some
question, I believe, about an investment to be made of a portion of your
fortune in the hands of this company?”
“Yes.”
“You received a visit from Mr. Compton on the subject on the day I have
mentioned.”
The witness made a slight movement and pause: then answered as before,
but more firmly, “Yes:” she added, “not on this subject,” in a lower
tone.
“You can recollect, more or less exactly, the time of his arrival?”
“Yes. It was in the evening, after dinner; in the darkening before the
lamps were lit.”
“Were you looking for him on that night?”
“No; it was an unexpected visit. He was going to Ireland, and paused on
his way through town to come down to Windyhill.”
“You have particular reasons for remembering the date, which make it
impossible that there could be any mistake?”
“No; there could be no mistake.”
“You will perhaps inform the court, Mrs. Compton, why your memory is so
exact on this point.”
Once more she hesitated for a moment, and then replied--
“It was exactly ten days before my marriage.”
“I think that will do, Mrs. Compton. I will trouble you no further,” the
counsel said.
The hubbub which sprang up upon this seemed to Philip for the moment as
if it were directed against his mother, which, of course, was not the
case, but intended to express the indignant surprise of the defence at
the elaborate examination of a witness who had nothing to say on the
main subject.
The leader on the other side, however, though taken by surprise, and
denouncing the trick which his learned brother had played upon the court
by producing evidence which had really nothing to do with the matter,
announced his intention to put a further question or two to Mrs.
Compton. Young Philip in the crowd started again from his seat with the
feeling that he would like to fly at that man’s throat.
“Twenty years is a long time,” he said, “and it is difficult to be sure
of any circumstance at such a distance. Perhaps the witness will kindly
inform us what were the circumstances which fixed this, no doubt one of
many visits, on her mind?”
Elinor turned for the first time to the side from which the question
came with a little movement of that impatience which was habitual to
her, which three persons in that crowd recognised in a moment as
characteristic. One of these was John Tatham, who had brought her to the
court, and kept near that she might feel that she was not alone; the
other was her son, of whose presence there nobody knew; the third, sat
with his eyes cast down, and his arms folded on his breast, not looking
at her, yet seeing every movement she made.
“It was a very simple circumstance,” she said with the added spirit of
that impetuous impulse: but then the hasty movement failed her, and she
came back to herself and to a consciousness of the scene in which she
stood. A sort of tremulous shiver came into her voice. She paused and
then resumed, “There was a calendar hanging in the hall; it caught Mr.
Compton’s eye, and he pointed it out to me. It marked the 6th. He said,
‘Just ten days----’”
Here her voice stopped altogether. She could say no more. And there was
an answering pause throughout the whole crowded court, a holding of the
general breath, the response to a note of passion seldom struck in such
a place. Even in the cross-examination there was a pause.
“Till when? What was the other date referred to?”
“The sixteenth of September,” she said in a voice that was scarcely
audible to the crowd. She added still more low so that the judge curved
his hand over his ear to hear her, “Our wedding day.”
“I regret to enter into private matters, Mrs. Compton, but I believe it
is not a secret that your married life came to a--more rapid conclusion
than could have been augured from such a beginning. May I ask what your
reasons were for----”
But here the other counsel sprang to his feet, and the contention arose
again. Such a question was not clearly permissible. And the prosecution
was perfectly satisfied with the evidence. It narrowed the question by
the production of this clear and unquestionable testimony--the gentleman
whom it had been attempted to involve being thus placed out of the
question, and all the statements of the previous witness about the
moustache which he could not see, etc., set aside.
Philip, it may be supposed, paid little attention to this further
discussion. His eyes and thoughts were fixed upon his mother, who for a
minute or two stood motionless through it, as pale as ever, but with her
head a little thrown back, facing, though not looking at, the circling
lines of faces. Had she seen anything she must have seen the tall boy
standing up as pale as she, following her movements with an unconscious
repetition which was more than sympathy, never taking his gaze from her
face.
And then presently her place was empty, and she was gone.
Philip was not aware how the discussion of the lawyers ended, but only
that in a moment there was vacancy where his mother had been standing,
and his gaze seemed thrown back to him by the blank where she had been.
He was left in the midst of the crowd, which, after that one keen
sensation, fell back upon the real trial with interest much less keen.