Kitabı oku: «Mildred Arkell. Vol. 3 (of 3)», sayfa 7

CHAPTER VII.
CARR VERSUS CARR

It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and a crowd of busy idlers was gathered round the Guildhall at Westerbury, for the great cause was being brought on—Carr versus Carr.

That they could not get inside, you may be very sure, or they would not have been round it. In point of fact, the trial had not been expected to come on before the Tuesday; but in the course of Monday morning two causes had been withdrawn, and the Carr case was called on. The Nisi Prius Court immediately became filled to inconvenience, and at two o'clock the trial began.

It progressed equably for some time, and then there arose a fierce discussion touching the register. Mr. Fauntleroy's counsel, Serjeant Wrangle, declaring the marriage was there up to very recently; and Mynn and Mynn's counsel, Serjeant Siftem, ridiculing the assertion. The judge called for the register.

It was produced and examined. The marriage was not there, neither was there any sign of its having been abstracted. Lawrence Omer was called by Serjeant Wrangle; and he testified to having searched the register, seen the inscribed marriage, and copied the names of the witnesses to it. In proof of this, he tendered his pocket-book, where the names were written in pencil.

Up rose Serjeant Siftem. "What day was this, pray?"

"It was the 4th of November."

"And so you think you saw, amidst the many marriages entered in the register, that of Robert Carr and Martha Ann Hughes?"

"I am sure I saw it," replied Mr. Omer.

"Were you alone?"

"I looked over the book alone. Hunt, the clerk of the church, was present in the vestry."

"It must appear to the jury as a singular thing that you only, and nobody else, should have seen this mysterious entry," continued Serjeant Siftem.

"Perhaps nobody else looked for it; they'd have seen it if they had," shortly returned the witness, who felt himself an aggrieved man, and spoke like one, since Mynn and Mynn had publicly accused him that day of having gone down to St. James's in his sleep, and seen the entry in a dream alone.

"Does it not strike you, witness, as being extraordinary that this one particular entry, professed to have been seen by your eyes, and by yours alone, should have been abstracted from a book safely kept under lock and key?" pursued Serjeant Siftem. "I am mistaken if it would not strike an intelligent man as being akin to an impossibility."

"No, it does not strike me so. But events, hard of belief, happen sometimes. I swear the marriage was in the book last November: why it is not there now, is the extraordinary part of the affair."

It was no use to cross-examine the witness further; he was cross and obstinate, and persisted in his story. Serjeant Siftem dismissed him; and Hunt was called, the clerk of the church, who came hobbling in.

The old man rambled in his evidence, but the point of it was, that he didn't believe any abstraction had been made, not he; it must be a farce to suppose it; a crotchet of that great lawyer, Fauntleroy; how could the register be touched when he himself kept it sure and sacred, the key of the safe in a hiding-place in the vestry, and the key of the church hanging up in his own house, outside his kitchen door? His rector said it had been robbed, and in course he couldn't stand out to his face as it hadn't, but he were upon his oath now, and must speak the truth without shrinking.

Serjeant Wrangle rose. "Did the witness mean to tell the court that he never saw or read the entry of the marriage?"

"No, he never did. He never heard say as it were there, and he never looked."

"But you were present when the witness Omer examined the register?" persisted Serjeant Wrangle.

"Master Omer wouldn't have got to examine it, unless I had been," retorted Hunt to Serjeant Wrangle. "I was a-sitting down in the vestry, a-nursing of my leg, which were worse than usual that day; it always is in damp weather, and—"

"Confine yourself to evidence," interrupted the judge.

"Well, sir, I was a-nursing of my leg whilst Master Omer looked into the book. I don't know what he saw there; he didn't say; and when he had done looking I locked it safe up again."

"Did you see him make an extract from it?" demanded Serjeant Wrangle.

"Yes, I saw him a-writing' something down in his pocket-book."

"Have you ever entrusted the key of the safe to strange hands?"

"I wouldn't do such a thing," angrily replied the witness. "I never gave it to nobody, and never would; there's not a soul knows where it is to be found, but me, and the rector, and the other clergyman, Mr. Prattleton, what comes often to do the duty. I couldn't say as much for the key of the church, which sometimes goes beyond my custody, for the rector allows one or two of the young college gents to go in to play the organ. By token, one on 'em—the quietest o' the pair, it were, too—flung in that very key on to our kitchen floor, and shivered our cat's beautiful chaney saucer into seven atoms, and my missis–"

"That is not evidence," again interrupted the judge.

Nothing more, apparently, that was evidence, could be got from the witness, so he was dismissed.

Call the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce.

The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce, rector of St. James the Less, minor canon and sacrist of Westerbury Cathedral, and head-master of the collegiate school, came forward, and was sworn.

"You are the rector of St. James the Less?" said Serjeant Wrangle.

"I am," replied Mr. Wilberforce.

"Did you ever see the entry of Robert Carr's marriage with Martha Ann Hughes in the church's register."

"Yes, I did." Serjeant Siftem pricked up his ears.

"When did you see it?"

"On the 7th of last November."

"How do you fix the date, Mr. Wilberforce?" inquired, the judge, recognising him as the minor canon who had officiated in the chanter's desk the previous day in the cathedral.

"I had been marrying a couple that morning, my lord, the 7th. After I had entered their marriage, I turned back and looked for the registry of Robert Carr's, and I found it and read it."

"What induced you to look for it?" asked the counsel.

"I had heard that his marriage was discovered to have taken place at St. James's, and that it was recorded in the register;" and Mr. Wilberforce then told how he had heard it. "Curiosity induced me to turn back and read it," he continued.

"You both saw it and read it?" continued Serjeant Wrangle.

"I both saw it and read it," replied Mr. Wilberforce.

"Then you testify that it was undoubtedly there?"

"Most certainly it was."

"The reverend gentleman will have the goodness to remember that he is upon his oath," cried Serjeant Siftem, impudently bobbing up.

"Sir!" was the indignant rebuke of the clergyman. "You forget to whom you are speaking," he added, amidst the dead silence of the court.

"Can you remember the words written?" resumed Serjeant Wrangle.

"The entry was properly made; in the same manner that the others were, of that period. Robert Carr and Martha Ann Hughes had signed it; also her brother and sister as witnesses."

"You have no doubt that the entry was there, then, Mr. Wilberforce?" observed the judge.

"My lord," cried the reverend gentleman, somewhat nettled at the question, "I can believe my own eyes. I am not more certain that I am now giving evidence before your lordship, than I am that the marriage was in the register."

"It is not in now?" said the judge.

"No, my lord; it must have been cleverly abstracted."

"The whole leaf, I presume?" said Serjeant Wrangle.

"Undoubtedly. The marriage entered below Robert Carr's was that of Sir Thomas Ealing: I read that also, with its long string of witnesses: that is also gone."

"Can you account for its disappearance?" asked Serjeant Wrangle.

"Not in the least. I wish I could: and find out the offenders."

"The incumbent of the parish at that time is no longer living, I believe?" observed Serjeant Wrangle.

"He has been dead many years," replied Mr. Wilberforce. "But it was not the incumbent who married them: it was a strange clergyman who performed the ceremony, a friend of Robert Carr's."

"How do you know that?" snapped Serjeant Siftem, bobbing up again.

"Because he signed the register as having performed it," replied Mr. Wilberforce, confronting the Serjeant with a look as undaunted as his own.

What cared Serjeant Siftem for being confronted? "How do you know he was a friend of Robert Carr's?" went on he.

"In that I speak from hearsay. But there are many men of this city, older than I am, who remember that the Reverend Mr. Bell and Robert Carr were upon exceedingly intimate terms: they can testify it to you, if you choose to call them."

Serjeant Siftem growled, and sat down; but was up again in a moment. "Who was clerk of the parish at that time?" asked he.

"There was no clerk," replied the witness. "The office was in abeyance. Some of the parishioners wanted to abolish it; but they did not succeed in doing so."

"Allow me to ask you, sir," resumed Serjeant Wrangle, "whether the entrance of the marriage there is not a proof of its having taken place?"

"Most assuredly," replied Mr. Wilberforce. "A proof indisputable."

But courts of justice, judges, and jury require ocular and demonstrative proof. It is probable there was not a soul in court, including the judge and Serjeant Siftem, but believed the evidence of the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce, even had they chosen to doubt that of Lawrence Omer; but the register negatively testified that there had been no marriage, and upon the register, in law, must rest the onus of proof. Had there been positive evidence, not negative, of the abstraction of the leaf from the register, had the register itself afforded such, the aspect of affairs would have been very different. Mr. Mynn testified that on the 2nd day of December he had looked and could find no trace of the marriage in the register: it was certainly evident that it was not in now. When the court rose that night, the trial had advanced down to the summing-up of the judge, which was deferred till morning: but it was felt by everybody that that summing-up would be dead against the client of Mr. Fauntleroy, and that Squire Carr had gained the cause.

The squire, and his son Valentine, and Mynn and Mynn, and one or two of the lesser guns of the bar, but not the great gun, Serjeant Siftem, took a late dinner together, and drank toasts, and were as merry and uproarious as success could make them: and Westerbury, outside, echoed their sentiments—that 'cute old Fauntleroy had not a leg to stand upon.

'Cute old Fauntleroy—'cute enough, goodness knew, in general—was thinking the same thing, as he took a solitary chop in his own house: for he did not get home until long past the dinner-hour, and his daughters were out. After the meal was finished, he sat over the fire in a dreamy mood, he scarcely knew how long, he was so full of vexation.

The extraordinary revelation, that the disputed marriage had taken place at St. James the Less, and lain recorded all those years unsuspiciously in the register, with the still more extraordinary fact that it had been mysteriously taken out of it, electrified Westerbury. The news flew from one end of the city to the other, and back again, and sideways, and everywhere.

But not until late in the evening was it carried to Peter Arkells. Cookesley, the second senior of the school, went in to see Henry, and told it; and then, for the first time, Henry found that the abstraction of the leaf had reference to the great cause—Carr versus Carr.

"Will Mrs. Carr lose her verdict through it?" he asked of Cookesley.

"Of course she will. There's no proof of the leaf's having been taken out. If they could only prove that, she'd gain it; and very unjust it will be upon her, poor thing! We had such a game in school!" added Cookesley, passing to private interests. "Wilberforce was at the court all the afternoon, giving evidence; and Roberts wanted to domineer over us upper boys; as if we'd let him! He was so savage."

Cookesley departed. Henry had his head down on the table: Mrs. Arkell supposed it ached, and bade him go to bed. He apparently did not hear her; and presently started up and took his trencher.

"Where are you going?" she asked, in surprise.

"Only to Prattleton's. I want to speak to George."

"But, Henry–"

Remonstrance was useless. He had already gone. Prattleton senior came to the door to him.

"George? George is at Griffin's; Griffin has got a bachelor's party. Whatever do you want with him? I say, Arkell, have you heard of the row in school this morning? The dean came in about that medal business—what a fool Aultane junior was for splitting!—and St. John spoke about one of the fellows having been at Rutterley's on Saturday, trying to pledge a spoon with the Aultane crest upon it: he didn't say actually the crest was the Aultanes', or that the fellow was Aultane, but his manner let us know it. Wasn't Aultane in a way! He said afterwards that if he had had a pistol ready capped and loaded, he should have shot himself, or the dean, or St. John, or somebody else. Serve him right for his false tongue! There'll be an awful row yet. I know I'd shoot myself, before I'd go and peach to the dean!"

But Prattleton was wasting his words on air. Henry had flown on to Griffin's—the house in the grounds formerly occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. The Reverend Mr. Griffin was the old minor canon, with the cracked voice, and it was his son and heir who was holding the bachelor's party. George Prattleton came out.

There ensued a short, sharp colloquy—Henry insisting upon being released from his promise; George Prattleton, whom the suggestion had startled nearly out of his senses, refusing to allow him to divulge anything.

"She'll not get her cause," said Henry, "unless I speak. It will be awfully unjust."

"You'll just keep your tongue quiet, Arkell. What is it to you? The Carr folks are not your friends or relatives."

"If I were to let the trial go against her, for the want of telling the truth, I should have it on my conscience always."

"My word!" cried George Prattleton, "a schoolboy with a conscience! I never knew they were troubled with any."

"Will you release me from my promise of not speaking?"

"Not if you go down on your knees for it. What a green fellow you are!"

"Then I shall speak without."

"You won't," cried Prattleton.

"I will. I gave the promise only conditionally, remember; and, as things are turning out, I am under no obligation to keep it. But I would not speak without asking your consent first, whether I got it or not."

"I have a great mind to carry you by force, and fling you into the river," uttered Prattleton, in a savage tone.

"You know you couldn't do it," returned Henry, quietly: "if I am not your equal in age and strength, I could call those who are. But there's not a moment to be lost. I am off to Mr. Fauntleroy's."

Henry Arkell meant what he said: he was always resolute in right: and Prattleton, after a further confabulation, was fain to give in. Indeed he had been expecting nothing less than this for the last hour, and had in a measure prepared himself for it.

"I'll tell the news myself," said George Prattleton, "if it must be told: and I'll tell it to Mr. Prattleton, not to Fauntleroy, or any of the law set."

"I must go to Mr. Prattleton with you," returned Henry.

"You can wait for me out here, then. We are at whist, and my coming out has stopped the game. I shan't be more than five minutes."

George Prattleton retreated indoors, and Henry paced about, waiting for him. He crossed over towards the deanery, and came upon Miss Beauclerc. She had been spending an hour at a neighbouring house, and was returning home, attended by an old man-servant. Muffled in a shawl and wearing a pink silk hood, few would have known her, except the college boy. His heart beat as if it would burst its bounds.

"Why, it's never you!" she cried. "Thank you, Jacob, that will do," she added to the servant. "Don't stand, or you'll catch your rheumatism; Mr. Arkell will see me indoors."

The old man turned away with a bow, and she partially threw back her pink silk hood to talk to Henry, as they moved slowly on to the deanery door.

"Were you going to call upon us, Harry?"

"No, Miss Beauclerc. I am waiting for George Prattleton. He is at Griffin's."

"Miss Beauclerc!" she echoed; "how formal you are to-night. I'd not be as cold as you, Henry Arkell, for the whole world!"

"I, cold!"

He said no more in refutation. If Georgina could but have known his real feelings! If she could but have divined how his pulses were beating, his veins coursing! Perhaps she did.

"Are you better? What a fall you had! And to faint after it!"

"Yes, I think I am better, thank you. It hurt my head a little."

"And you had been annoyed with those rebellious school boys! You are not half strict enough with the choristers. I hope Aultane will get a flogging, as Lewis did for locking you up in St. James's Church. I asked Lewis the next day how he liked it: he was so savage. I think he'd murder you if he could: he's jealous, you know."

She laughed as she spoke the last words, and her gay blue eyes were bent on him; he could discern them even in the dark, obscure corner where the deanery door stood. Henry did not answer: he was in wretched spirits.

"Harry, tell me—why is it you so rarely come to the deanery? Do you think any other college boy would dare to set at nought the dean's invitations—and mine?"

"Remembering what passed between us one night at the deanery—the audit night—can you wonder that I do not oftener come?" he inquired.

"Oh, but you were so stupid."

"Yes, I know. I have been stupid for years past."

Miss Beauclerc laughed. "And you think that stopping away will cure you?"

"It will not cure me; years will not cure me," he passionately broke forth, in a tone whose anguish was irrepressible. "Absence and you alone will do that. When I go to the university–" He stopped, unable to proceed.

"When you go to the university you will come back a wise man. Henry," she continued, changing her manner to seriousness, "it was the height of folly to suffer yourself to care for me. If I—if it were reciprocated, and I cared for you, if I were dying of love for you, there are barriers on all sides, and in all ways."

"I am aware of it. There is the barrier between us of disparity of years; there is a wide barrier of station; and there is the greatest barrier of all, want of love on your side. I know that my loving you has been nothing short of madness, from the first: madness and double madness since I knew where your heart was given."

"So you will retain that crotchet in your head!"

"It is no crotchet. Do you think my loving eyes—my jealous eyes, if you so will it—have been deceived? You must be happy, now that he has come back to Westerbury."

"Stupid!" echoed Miss Beauclerc.

"But it has been your fault, Georgina," he resumed, reverting to himself. "I must reiterate it. You saw what my feelings were becoming for you, and you did all you could to draw them on; you may have deemed me a child then in years; you knew I was not, in heart. They might have been checked in the onset, and repressed: why did you not do it? why did you do just the contrary, and give me encouragement? You called it flirting; you thought it good sport: but you should have remembered that what is sport to one, may be death to another."

"This estrangement makes me uncomfortable," proceeded Miss Beauclerc, ignoring the rest. "Papa keeps saying, 'What is come to Henry Arkell that he is never at the deanery?' and then I invent white stories, about believing that your studies take up your time. I miss you every day; I do, Henry; I miss your companionship; I miss your voice at the piano; I miss your words in speaking to me. But here comes your friend George Prat, for that's the echo of old Griffin's door. I know the different sounds of the doors in the grounds. Good night, Harry: I must go in."

She bent towards him to put her hand in his, and he—he was betrayed out of his propriety and his good manners. He caught her to his heart, and held her there; he kissed her face with his fervent lips.

"Forgive me, Georgina," he murmured, as she released herself. "It is the first and the last time."

"I will forgive you for this once," cried the careless girl; "but only think of the scandal, had anybody come up: my staid mamma would go into a fit. It is what he has never done," she added, in a deeper tone. "And why your head should run upon him I cannot tell. Mine doesn't."

Henry wrung her hand. "But for him, Georgina, I should think you cared for me. Not that the case would be less hopeless."

Miss Beauclerc rang a peal on the door-bell, and was immediately admitted—whilst Henry Arkell walked forward to join George Prattleton, his heart a compound of sweet and bitter, and his brain in a mazy dream.

But we left Mr. Fauntleroy in a dream by the side of his fire, and by no means a pleasant one. He sat there he did not know how long, and was at length interrupted by one of his servants.

"You are wanted, sir, if you please."

"Wanted now! Who is it?"

"The Rev. Mr. Prattleton, sir, and one or two more. They are in the drawing-room, and the fire's gone out."

"He has come bothering about that tithe case," grumbled Mr. Fauntleroy to himself. "I won't see him: let him come at a proper time. My compliments to Mr. Prattleton, Giles, but I am deep in assize business, and cannot see him."

Giles went out and came in again. "Mr. Prattleton says they must see you, sir, whether or no. He told me to say, sir, that it is about the cause that's on, Carr and Carr."

Mr. Fauntleroy proceeded to his drawing-room, and there he was shut in for some time. Whatever the conference with his visitors may have been, it was evident, when he came out, that for him it had borne the deepest interest, for his whole appearance was changed; his manners were excited, his eyes sparkling, and his face was radiant.

They all left the house together, but the lawyer's road did not lie far with theirs. He stopped at the lodgings occupied by Serjeant Wrangle, and knocked. A servant-maid came to the door.

"I want to see Serjeant Wrangle," said Mr. Fauntleroy, stepping in.

"You can't sir. He is gone to bed."

"I must see him for all that," returned Mr. Fauntleroy.

"Missis and master's gone to bed too," she added, by way of remonstrance. "I was just a-going."

"With all my heart," said Mr. Fauntleroy. "I must see the serjeant."

"'Tain't me, then, sir, that'll go and awaken him," cried the girl. "He's gone to bed dead tired, he said, and I was not to disturb him till eight in the morning."

"Give me your candle," replied Mr. Fauntleroy, taking it from her hand. "He has the same rooms as usual, I suppose; first floor."

Mr. Fauntleroy went up the stairs, and the girl stood at the bottom, and watched and listened. She did not approve of the proceedings, but did not dare to check them; for Mr. Fauntleroy was a great man in Westerbury, and their assize lodger, the serjeant, was a greater.

Tap—tap—tap: at Serjeant Wrangle's door.

No response.

Tap—tap—tap, louder.

"Who the deuce is that?" called out the serjeant, who was only dignified in his wig and gown. "Is it you, Eliza? what do you want? It's not morning, is it?"

"'Tain't me, sir," screamed out Eliza, who had now followed Mr. Fauntleroy. "I told the gentleman as you was dead tired and wasn't to be woke up till eight in the morning, but he took my light and would come up."

"I must see you, Serjeant," said Mr. Fauntleroy.

"See me! I'm in bed and asleep. Who the dickens is it?"

"Mr. Fauntleroy. Don't you know my voice? Can I come in?"

"No; the door's bolted."

"Then just come and undo it. For, see you, I must."

"Can't it wait?"

"If it could I should not have disturbed you. Open the door and you shall judge for yourself."

Serjeant Wrangle was heard to tumble out of bed in a lump, and undo the bolt of the door. Eliza concluded that he was in his night attire, and modestly threw her apron over her face. Mr. Fauntleroy entered.

"The most extraordinary thing has turned up in Carr versus Carr," cried he. "Never had such a piece of luck, just in the nick of time, in all my practice."

"Do shut the door," responded Serjeant Wrangle; "I shall catch the shivers."

Mr. Fauntleroy shut the door, shutting out Eliza, who forthwith sat down on the top stair, and wished she had ten ears. "Have you not a dressing-gown to put on?" cried he to the serjeant.

"I'll listen in bed," replied the serjeant, vaulting into it.

A whole hour did that ill-used Eliza sit on the stairs, and not a syllable could she distinguish, listen as she would, nothing but an eager murmuring of voices. When Mr. Fauntleroy came out, he put the candle in her hand and she attended him to the door, but not in a gracious mood.

"I thought you were going to stop all night, sir," she ventured to say. "Dreadful dreary it was, sitting there, a-waiting."

"Why did you not wait in the kitchen?"

"Because every minute I fancied you must be coming out. Good night, sir."

"Good night," returned Mr. Fauntleroy, putting half-a-crown in her hand. "There; that's in case you have to wait on the stairs for me again."

Eliza brightened up, and officiously lighted Mr. Fauntleroy some paces down the street, in spite of the gas-lamp at the door, which shone well. "What a good humour the old lawyer's in!" quoth she. "I wonder what his business was? I heard him say something had arose in Carr and Carr."