Rose Tracy sat in her own room, with her head resting on her hand. The
tears were streaming from her eyes; and yet the expression of her
countenance was not altogether that of grief. It seemed more as if her
heart and feelings had been touched for another, than as if she were
affected by personal sorrow. Such indeed was the case. The letter
before her was from Horace Fleming. It was the first she had ever
received from him; and it was couched in language which was guarded by
delicate feeling towards her sister, while it plainly suffered to
appear the deep anguish of spirit which he himself endured.
After wiping the tears from her eyes, she re-read several detached
passages from the letter, which we may as well place before the
reader:--
"You will think it strange, my dear Miss Tracy," was the commencement,
"that I should venture to write to you; but you have not only taken a
kind interest in me, and in feelings which I know you saw without
pain; but you also interested yourself much in the poor of my parish,
and in the schools which I had established. However, I will not make
an excuse which is not sincere for writing to you, for I have no one
to whom I can pour out the feelings of my heart but yourself; and I
should have written had my poor and my schools been out of the
question. Your sister, of course, I cannot venture to address, though
I should wish her to know that morning and night I offer earnest
prayers for her happiness, and beseech Him from whom alone all good
things come to avert those evils from her which I, perhaps weakly,
apprehend. I would not have her made aware of the sorrow and
disappointment I myself endure; for, if hers is a cup of joy, the
grief of a friend would but turn the sweet drops to bitterness; and if
it be already bitter, I would not for anything that earth can give add
to the sorrow of one so well deserving happiness."
After some further expressions of the same kind, he went on to say,
"Do not suppose, however, my dear Miss Tracy, that I give myself up to
grief; I trust that my religious feelings are too strong for that. I
struggle hard to cast all sorrowful thoughts from my mind. I occupy
myself all day in the duties of the small living I hold in this part
of the diocese, and I leave nothing undone--not to drive your sister
from my mind, but--to reconcile myself to the knowledge that she is
lost to me for ever, and to bow my heart humbly before the will of
God. Nevertheless, I think it will be wise for me, in all respects,
not to return to Northferry for some months; for I must avoid
everything that can reawaken regret and make me discontented with the
lot which it has pleased God to assign to me. Under these
circumstances, I will request you, in your kindness, to do one or two
things for me in the parish; for my curate, though an excellent man,
has not much experience, and moreover cannot be so well acquainted
with the wants and character of the people of the place as yourself."
I will not pause upon all the details he gave, nor mention whom he
recommended to Rose's bounty, nor to whom he called Mr. Tracy's
attention; but will proceed at once to another part of the letter,
which was the only portion thereof in which Rose could be said to have
a personal interest.
"I have seen in the daily papers," continued Mr. Fleming, "some most
extraordinary statements regarding a horrible event which has taken
place at Northferry, in your own grounds. I allude, of course, to the
murder of Mr. Roberts; and I am shocked to find that an innocent man
has not only been charged with the crime, but has actually been
committed for trial on the coroner's warrant. From your father's
account of his head-gardener, who under the name of Acton excited so
much wonder by his erudition, I was speedily led to believe that he
was superior to the station he assumed. To hear therefore that he was
in reality no other than Mr. Chandos Winslow, did not excite in me the
same surprise which it did, I dare say, in others. I never spoke with
him but once; and then he affected a certain roughness of manner,
mingled strangely enough with quotations from Roman poets; but I saw
him several times at a distance in your grounds, and felt sure from
his walk and carriage that he was no ordinary man. I was informed
accidentally of his relationship to Sir William Winslow the night
before I left Northferry; but little expected to hear such a charge
against him. Doubtless he will be able to prove his innocence; but
still such things ought not to be left to chance, and I shall
therefore tender my evidence, which, if the statements in the
newspapers be correct, must have some weight."
The letter was dated from Sandbourne Vicarage, a place about forty
miles distant, on the other side of the county; and Rose had just
finished looking over it again, when her maid entered her room to tell
her that a gentleman from London was below in the library, and wished
to speak with her immediately. At the same time the girl handed her a
card, on which was printed a name of which she had no knowledge,
except from having seen it mentioned frequently in the public
journals, as that of the most eminent barrister of the day.
Putting the letter she had previously received into her bag, she went
down with some degree of trepidation to the library, to meet a
complete, stranger, at a moment when her mind was by no means disposed
to society of any kind; but her visitor soon put her at her ease, by
the winning gentleness of his manner.
"I have to apologize Miss Tracy," he said, "for intruding thus upon a
lady without any proper introduction; but my anxiety for the safety of
a very dear friend must plead my excuse. Chandos Winslow, whom I think
you know, and whom you must at all events be acquainted with under the
strange guise of a gardener, is an old and intimate acquaintance of
mine; and I have undertaken, against my ordinary rule, to conduct his
defence, in the painful and dangerous circumstances in which he is now
placed."
"Oh, I am so glad to see you," said Rose; "but your words frighten me.
I had hoped that it would be perfectly easy to establish his
innocence, of which I am sure you can have no more doubt than I have."
"None," answered the barrister; "but I must not deceive you, my
dear young lady. His case is one of very great danger; for there
never was a stronger chain of circumstantial evidence against any
man than against him. But let us sit down and talk the matter over
calmly;--nay, do not weep;--for on the evidence that you can give, may
very likely depend the result of the trial."
Rose nevertheless wept only the more from that announcement; for to
think that the life of the man she loved might depend upon the manner
in which she told a tale, simple enough, but susceptible of being
turned in various ways by the skill of any unscrupulous counsel, did
not at all tend to decrease her agitation.
"This is very foolish of me," she said, at length, drying her eyes;
"but I shall be better in a moment. Pray go on: what is it you wished
to say?"
"I am altogether stepping out of the ordinary professional course,
Miss Tracy," replied the barrister; "but I have thought it better to
see you myself rather than trust the task to another, in order to
ascertain the nature of the evidence you can give; first, for the
purpose of judging whether it will be expedient to call you at all on
the part of my friend Winslow; and secondly, that I may so direct the
questions to be put to you in your examination in chief as to prevent
the cross-examining counsel from torturing you, or damaging the case
of my client. Winslow tells me that he was speaking with you the
moment before he quitted the garden. Now mind, in anything I say, my
dear young lady, I wish to suggest nothing; for, in the first place, I
am sure you are incapable of falsehood; and in the next, nothing can
serve our friend but the simple truth."
"But that is quite true," said Rose, "he was speaking with me near a
little basin of gold and silver fish, close by the spot where the body
was afterwards found. He then ran across the path and the greensward
beyond, and jumped over the hedge just above the haw-haw. I can show
you the precise spot."
"By and by that may be useful," said the other; "but at present tell
me, if you have no objection, what made you part so suddenly?"
Rose coloured a little: but she replied frankly, "We heard the voices
of two people coming down the arbutus walk, as we call it--a path
bounded by evergreens, which leads, with several turns, into the broad
walk past the fish-pond."
"Were the persons speaking at any great distance?" inquired the
barrister.
"In a direct line, I should think forty or fifty yards," she answered;
"but by the arbutus walk more than a hundred, I dare say."
"Then were they speaking loud that you heard them so far?" asked her
companion; "or only conversing quietly?"
"Oh, they were speaking very loud and angrily," replied the young
lady, "Sir William Winslow especially."
"Then Sir William Winslow was one of the speakers," said the
barrister.
Rose coloured a good deal, and was evidently agitated, but she
answered, "He was, beyond all doubt. His voice is very peculiar. It
was raised high; and I can have no doubt of it."
The lawyer played slowly with the eye-glass at his buttonhole, and
looked her full in the face; for he saw that there were suspicions in
her mind; but he answered deliberately and with some emphasis: "We
will avoid that point, Miss Tracy, in the examination in chief, and,
if possible, so frame our questions as to give the opposite counsel no
opportunity of inquiring who was the speaker; but, nevertheless, you
may be pressed upon the subject, and then of course the truth must be
told, whatever be the result. Where is Sir William now?"
"He has gone to the Continent, I believe," said Rose, with some
embarrassment.
"And probably has taken with him the servants who were here during his
stay," said the lawyer, drily: "nevertheless, we may get at some facts
regarding him, perhaps, from your own domestics. But you will swear he
was in the garden at that hour, should it be needed?"
"Without hesitation," answered Rose.
"And that he was conversing in loud and angry tones with some other
person?" continued the barrister.
"Undoubtedly," she replied.
"Did you know the other person's voice?" asked her interrogator.
"No; it was quite strange to me," answered the lady. "It was not the
voice of any of our own people, I am sure; but I remarked that he had
a slight hesitation in his speech; for when he said 'No, Sir William;
I tell you I will not,' he stammered at the word 'tell.'"
"You heard him say that?" inquired the lawyer.
"I did, distinctly," she answered; "but that was after Mr. Winslow was
gone."
A long pause succeeded, during which the barrister seemed totally to
forget Miss Tracy's presence, and leaned his head upon his hand,
looking forth from the window with an air of anxious thoughtfulness.
At length he said, as if reasoning with himself, "Perhaps it might
do--yet it would be a hazardous game--but what is not? I must remember
my promise, however, and that will turn the balance." Then again he
paused and thought; but at length turning to Rose, who began to feel
her position somewhat embarrassing, he said, "I thank you very much,
Miss Tracy, for your frankness, and will make use of your evidence to
a certain extent. It may not be necessary to enter into all the
particulars, and the best way under examination and cross-examination
is to answer perfectly sincerely and frankly the exact question that
is asked, without going at all beyond it. I say this because it must
be a painful thing at any time for a young lady like yourself to be
put into a witness-box. It is true, a better feeling exists at the bar
at present than was to be found some thirty or forty years ago. We do
not now think it necessary to brow-beat a witness, nor clever to
puzzle one, unless we find that there is a determination to conceal
the truth or to pervert it. However, I shall tell the solicitor in the
case to apply to your father, who I find is out, for a list of all the
servants in the family, who could, perhaps, be serviceable as
witnesses on behalf of our poor friend; and if you know of any other
evidence which could be brought forward in his favour, either to show
the probability of the unfortunate gentleman, Mr. Roberts, having been
engaged in a personal dispute with any other person, or to prove that
Chandos could not be guilty of the act, you would--"
"Why, I have received a letter this very morning," cried Rose, "from a
gentleman who seems to think that his testimony would be important. I
will read you what he says;" and, taking out Mr. Fleming's epistle,
she read all that referred to the case of Chandos Winslow.
"From whom might that come?" asked the barrister.
"From the clergyman of our parish," answered Rose, "the Honourable Mr.
Fleming. He is not at all likely to speak without good cause."
"Might I hear it again?" said the other.
Rose read it once more; and the lawyer, rising, took up his hat,
saying, "I will go to him at once. There are some remarkable
expressions there. He must have important evidence to give."
"I think so too," answered Rose Tracy; "for he never lays stress upon
trifles. But yet I cannot see how he can know much, for he was not
here that evening, and went away for Sandbourne early the next
morning, I hear."
"We cannot tell what information he may possess," said her companion.
"This gentleman is evidently a man of observation and ability. His
character and holy calling will give weight to his testimony; and I
will ascertain this very night what he knows of the circumstances."
"Unfortunately, he is absent," replied Rose; "Sandbourne, where he now
is, lies fifteen or sixteen miles on the other side of S----."
The lawyer took out his watch. "That shall not stop me," he said. "It
is now twelve: I can be there before dark, hold a consultation at
S---- after dinner, and get to London by six to-morrow. Thanks to the
marvellous combinations of railroads and post-horses, one sets
distance at defiance. But I must have the address, Miss Tracy, if you
will have the kindness to put it down for me."
Rose did as he required, and with a certain sort of antique
gallantry--though for his standing in the profession he was a young
man--the great lawyer, in taking his leave, raised his fair
companion's hand to his lips, saying, "If I win this cause, Miss
Tracy, my pleasure will be threefold: first, as I shall save my
friend; secondly, as I shall triumph over some difficulties; and
thirdly, as I shall gain a victory in which I think you have some
interest."
In four hours he was at the door of Sandbourne Vicarage, for he had
the secret of saving time by casting away sixpences, and the post-boys
did their best. There was some difficulty as to his admission, for the
servant informed him that Mr. Fleming did not like to see any one on
Saturday night after four in the evening, unless the business was very
important.
"Mine is business of life and death," answered the lawyer, with a
faint and fatigued smile. "Give your master that card, and assure him
I will not detain him long."
The servant went, returned, and admitted him. He remained nearly
half-an-hour, and when he went forth he shook Mr. Fleming's hand,
saying, "I would mention it to no one, my dear Sir; for we barristers
are sometimes apt to puzzle counsel when we find testimony goes
against us. The only place to state the fact is in the open court."
Then bidding him adieu, he got into his carriage again, waved his
hand, and the horses dashed away towards S----.
As soon as he was out of sight of the vicarage, he cast himself back
on the cushions, saying aloud, "Well, this is most extraordinary.
There must be some great falsehood amongst people who all seem the one
more sincere than the other. God grant neither judge nor jury may find
it out; but at all events we must keep to our story. Which shall it
be?--" and, laying his finger on a temple that ached more often than
the world knew of, he gave himself up to contemplation, the result of
which the reader will see hereafter.