Kitabı oku: «Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)», sayfa 21

CHAPTER XXVIII. SCENE OF THE MURDER – THE CORONER’S VERDICT

 
Are there not proofs enough?
Or can the stubborn mind reject all truth
And cling to fallacy?
 

The Will.

What a change did Tubbermore present to its aspect of the day before! All the emblems of joy and festivity, all the motley of pleasure, all the gay troops of guests hastening onward in glowing eagerness and anticipation, were gone; and in their stead a dreary and mysterious silence brooded over the place, interrupted at intervals by the bustle of some departure. For thus, without one word of sympathy, without even a passing good-bye, Roland’s “friends” hurried away, as if flying from the very memories of the spot.

It was a dreary winter’s day; the dark leaden clouds that flitted past, and the long-sighing wind, seemed to add their sad influence to the melancholy. The house itself already appeared to feel its altered fortunes. Most of the windows were closed and shuttered; the decorations of rare plants and shrubs and lamps were removed; instead of the movement of liveried servants to and fro, ill-favored and coarse-clad men, the underlings of the law, crept stealthily about, noticing each circumstance of the locality, and conferring together in mysterious whispers. Mounted messengers, too, came and went with a haste that boded urgency; and post-horses were each moment arriving to carry away those whose impatience to leave was manifested in a hundred ways. Had the air of the place been infected with some pestilential malady, their eagerness could scarce have been greater. All the fretful irritability of selfishness, all the peevish discontent of petty natures, exhibited themselves without shame; and envious expressions towards those fortunate enough to “get away first,” and petulant complaints over their own delay, were bandied on every side.

A great table was laid for breakfast in the dining-room, as usual. All the luxuries and elegances that graced the board on former occasions were there, but a few only took their places. Of these, Frobisher and some military men were the chief; they, indeed, showed comparatively little of that anxiety to be gone so marked in the others. The monotony of the barrack and the parade was not attractive, and they lingered like men who, however little they had of pleasure here, had even less of inducement to betake them elsewhere.

Meek had been the first to make his escape, by taking the post-horses intended for another, and already was many miles on his way towards Dublin. The Chief Justice and his family were the next. From the hour of the fatal event, Mrs. Malone had assumed a judicial solemnity of demeanor that produced a great impression upon the beholders, and seemed to convey, by a kind of reflected light, the old judge’s gloomiest forebodings of the result.

Mrs. Leicester White deferred her departure to oblige Mr. Howie, who was making a series of sketches for the “Pictorial Paul Pry,” showing not only the various façades of Tubbermore House, but several interesting “interiors:” such as the “Ball-room, when the fatal tidings arrived:” “Dressing-room of Roland Cashel, Esq., when entered by the Chief Justice and his party;” the most effective of all being a very shadowy picture of the “Gap of Ennismore – the scene of the murder;” the whole connected by a little narrative so ingeniously drawn up as to give public opinion a very powerful bias against Cashel, whose features, in the woodcut, would in themselves have made a formidable indictment.

Of the Kennyfecks, few troubled themselves with even a casual inquiry: except the fact that a fashionable physician had been sent for to Dublin, little was known about them. But where was Linton all this while? Some averred that he had set out for the capital, to obtain the highest legal assistance for his friend; others, that he was so overwhelmed by the terrible calamity as to have fallen into a state of fatuous insensibility. None, however, could really give any correct account of him; he had left Tubbermore, but in what direction none could tell.

As the day wore on, a heavy rain began to fall; and of those who still remained in the house, little knots of two and three assembled at the windows, to watch for the arrival of their wished-for “posters,” or to speculate upon the weather. Another source of speculation there was besides. Some hours before, a magistrate, accompanied by a group of ill-dressed and vulgar-looking men, had been seen to pass the house, and take the path which led to the Gap of Ennismore. These formed the inquest, who were to inquire into the circumstances of the crime, and whose verdict, however unimportant in a strictly legal sense, was looked for with considerable impatience by some of the company. To judge from the anxious looks that were directed towards the mountain road, or the piercing glances which at times were given through telescopes in that direction, one would have augured that some, at least, of those there, were not destitute of sympathy for him whose guests they had been, and beneath whose roof they still lingered. A very few words of those that passed between them will best answer how this impression is well founded.

“Have you sent your groom off, Upton?” asked Frobisher, as he stood with a coffee-cup in his hand at the window.

“Yes, he passed the window full half an hour ago.”

“They are confoundedly tedious,” said Jennings, half suppressing a yawn. “I thought those kind of fellows just gave a look at the body, and pronounced their verdict at once.”

“So they do when it’s one of their own class; but in the case of a gentleman they take a prodigious interest in examining his watch and his purse and his pocket-book; and, in fact, it is a grand occasion for prying as far as possible into his private concerns.”

“I ‘ll double our bet, Upton, if you like,” said Frobisher, languidly.

The other shook his head negatively.

“Why, the delay is clearly in your favor, man. If they were strong in their convictions, they ‘d have brought him in guilty an hour ago.”

“That is my opinion too,” said Jennings.

“Well, here goes. Two fifties be it,” cried Upton.

Frobisher took out his memorandum-book and wrote something with a pencil.

“Is n’t that it?” said he, showing the lines to Upton.

“Just so. ‘Wilful murder,’” muttered the other, reading.

“You have a great ‘pull’ upon me, Upton,” said Frobisher; “by Jove! if you were generous, you’d give me odds.”

“How so?”

“Why, you saw his face since the affair, and I did n’t.”

“It would need a better physiognomist than I am to read it. He looked exactly as he always does; a thought paler, perhaps, but no other change.”

“Here comes a fellow with news,” said Jennings, throwing open the window. “I say, my man, is it over?”

“No, sir; the jury want to see one of Mr. Cashel’s boots.”

Jennings closed the sash, and, lighting a cigar, sat down in an easy-chair. A desultory conversation here arose among some of the younger military men whether a coroner’s verdict were final, and whether a “fellow could be hanged” when it pronounced him guilty; the astute portion of the debaters inclining to the opinion that although this was not the case in England, such would be “law” in Ireland. Then the subject of confiscation was entertained, and various doubts and surmises arose as to what would become of Tubbermore when its proprietor had been executed; with sly jests about the reversionary rights of the Crown, and the magnanimity of extending mercy at the price of a great landed estate. These filled up the time for an hour or so more, interspersed with conjectures as to Cashel’s present frame of mind, and considerable wonderment why he had n’t “bolted” at once.

At last Upton’s groom was seen approaching at a tremendous pace; and in a few minutes after he had pulled up at the door, and dismounting with a spring, hastened into the house.

“Well, Robert, how did it go?” cried Upton, as, followed by the rest, he met him in the hall.

“You ‘ve lost, sir,” said the man, wiping his forehead.

“Confound the rascals! But what are the words of the verdict?”

“‘Wilful murder,’ sir.”

“Of course,” said Frobisher, coolly; “they could give no other.”

“It’s no use betting against you,” cried Upton, pettishly. “You are the luckiest dog in Europe.”

“Come, I ‘ll give you a chance,” said Frobisher; “double or quit that they hang him.”

“No, no; I ‘ve lost enough on him. I ‘ll not have it.”

“Well, I suppose we’ve nothing to wait for now,” yawned Jennings. “Shall we start?”

“Not till we have luncheon, I vote,” cried an infantry sub.; and his suggestion met general approval. And while they are seated at a table where exquisite meats and rarest wines stimulated appetite and provoked excess, let us turn for a few brief moments to him who, still their entertainer, sat in his lone chamber, friendless and deserted.

So rapid had been the succession of events which occupied one single night, that Roland could not believe it possible months had not passed over. Even then, he found it difficult to disentangle the real circumstances from those fancied results his imagination had already depicted; many of the true incidents appearing far more like fiction than the dreamy fancies his mind invented. His meeting with Enrique, for instance, was infinitely less probable than that he should have fought a duel with Linton; and so, in many other cases, his faculties wavered between belief and doubt, till his very senses reeled with the confusion. Kennyfeck’s death alone stood out from this chaotic mass, clear, distinct, and palpable, and, as he sat brooding over this terrible fact, he was totally unconscious of its bearing upon his own fortunes. Selfishness formed no part of his nature; his fault lay in the very absence of self-esteem, and the total deficiency of that individuality which prompts men to act up to a self-created standard. He could sorrow for him who was no more, and from whom he had received stronger proofs of devotion than from all his so-called friends; he could grieve over the widowed mother and the fatherless girls, for whose destitution he felt, he knew not how, or wherefore, a certain culpability; but of himself and his own critical position, not a thought arose. The impressions that no effort of his own could convey fell with a terrific shock upon him when suggested by another.

He was seated at his table, trying, for the twentieth time, to collect his wandering thoughts, and determine what course to follow, when a tap was heard at his door, and it opened at the same instant.

“I am come, sir,” said Mr. Goring, with a voice full of feeling, “to bring you sad tidings; but for which events may have, in a measure, prepared you.” He paused, perhaps hoping that Cashel would spare him the pain of continuing; but Roland never spoke.

“The inquest has completed its labors,” said Goring, with increasing agitation; “and the verdict is one of ‘wilful murder.’”

“It was a foul and terrible crime,” said Cashel, shuddering; “the poor fellow was animated with kind intentions and benevolent views towards the people. In all our intercourse he displayed but one spirit – ”

“Have a care, sir,” said Goring, mildly. “It is just possible that, in the frankness of the moment something may escape you which hereafter you might wish unsaid; and standing in the position you now do – ”

“How so? What position, sir, do I occupy, that should preclude me from the open expression of my sentiments?”

“I have already told you, sir, that the verdict of the jury was wilful murder, and I hold here in my hand the warrant for your arrest.”

“As the criminal? as the murderer?” cried Cashel, with a voice almost like a shriek of agony. Goring bowed his head, and Roland fell powerless on the floor.

Summoning others to his aid, Goring succeeded in lifting him up and placing him on a bed. A few drops of blood that issued from his mouth, and his heavy snoring respiration, indicated an apoplectic seizure. Messengers were sent in various directions to fetch a doctor. Tiernay was absent, and it was some hours ere one could be found. Large bleeding and quiet produced the usual effects, and towards evening Cashel’s consciousness had returned; but memory was still clouded and incoherent, and he lay without speaking, and almost without thought.

After the lapse of about a week he was able to leave his bed and creep about his chamber, whose altered look contributed to recall his mind to the past. All his papers and letters had been removed; the window was secured with iron stanchions; and policemen stood sentry at the door. He remembered everything that had occurred, and sat down in patient thought to consider what he should do.

He learned without surprise, but not without a pang, that of all his friends not one had remained, – not one had offered a word of counsel in his affliction, or of comfort in his distress. He asked after Mr. Corrigan, and heard that he had quitted the country, with his granddaughter, on the day before the terrible event. Tiernay, it was said, had accompanied them to Dublin, and not since returned. Roland was, then, utterly friendless! What wonder if he became as utterly reckless, as indifferent to life, as life seemed valueless? And so was it: he heard with indifference the order for his removal to Limerick, although that implied a Jail! He listened to the vulgar but kindly meant counsels of his keepers, who advised him to seek legal assistance, with a smile of half-contempt. The obdurate energy of a martyrdom seemed to take possession of him; and, so far from applying his mind to disentangle the web of suspicion around him, he watched, with a strange interest, the convergence of every minute circumstance towards the proof of his guilt; a secret vindictiveness whispering to his heart that the day would come when his innocence should be proclaimed; and then, what tortures of remorse would be theirs who had brought him to a felon’s death!

Each day added to the number of these seeming proofs, and the newspapers, in paragraphs of gossiping, abounded with circumstances that had already convinced the public of Cashel’s guilt: and how often do such shadowy convictions throw their gloom over the prisoner’s dock! One day, the fact of the boot-track tallying precisely with Roland’s, filled the town; another, it was the pistol-wadding – part of a letter addressed to Cashel – had been discovered. Then, there were vague rumors afloat that the causes of Cashel’s animosity to Kennyfeck were not so secret as the world fancied; that there were persons of credit to substantiate and explain them; and, lastly, it was made known that among the papers seized on Cashel’s table was a letter, just begun by himself, but to whom addressed uncertain, which ran thus: —

“As these in all likelihood may be the last lines I shall eyer write – ”

Never, in all the gaudy glare of his prosperity, had he occupied more of public attention. The metaphysical penny-a-liners speculated upon the influence his old buccaneer habits might have exercised upon a mind so imperfectly trained to civilization; and amused themselves with guesses as to how far some Indian “cross” in blood might not have contributed to his tragic vengeance. Less scrupulous scribes invented deeds of violence: in a word, there seemed a kind of impulse abroad to prove him guilty; and it would have been taken as a piece of casuistry, or a mawkish sympathy with crime, to assume the opposite. Not, indeed, that any undertook so ungracious a task; the tide of accusation ran uninterrupted and unbroken. The very friendless desolation in which he stood was quoted and commented on to this end. One alone of all his former friends made an effort in his favor, and ventured to insinuate that his guilt was far from certain. This was Lord Charles Frobisher, who, seeing in the one-sidedness of public opinion the impossibility of obtaining a bet, tried thus to “get up” an “innocent party,” in the hope of a profitable wager.

But what became of Linton all this time? His game was a difficult one; and to enable him to play it successfully he needed reflection. To this end he affected to be so shocked by the terrible event as to be incapable of mixing in society. He retired, therefore, to his cottage near Dublin, and for some weeks lived a life of perfect seclusion. Mr. Phillis accompanied him; for Linton would not trust him out of his sight till – as he muttered in his own phrase – “all was over.”

This was, indeed, the most eventful period of Linton’s life; and with consummate skill he saw that any move on his part would be an error. It is true that, through channels with whose workings he was long conversant, he contributed the various paragraphs to the papers by which Cashel’s guilt was foreshadowed; his knowledge of Roland suggesting many a circumstance well calculated to substantiate the charge of crime. If he never ventured abroad into the world, he made himself master of all its secret whisperings; and heard how he was himself commended for delicacy and good feeling, with the satisfaction of a man who glories in a cheat. And how many are there who play false in life, less from the gain than the gratification of vanity! – a kind of diabolical pride in outwitting and overreaching those whose good faith has made them weak! The polite world does not take the same interest in deeds of terror as do their more humble brethren; they take their “horrors” as they do their one glass of Tokay at dessert, – a something, of which a little more would be nauseating. The less polished classes were, therefore, those who took the greatest pleasure in following up every clew and tracing each circumstance that pointed to Roland’s guilt; and so, at last, his name was rarely mentioned among those with whom so lately he had lived in daily, almost hourly, companionship.

When Linton, then, deemed the time expired which his feelings of grief and shame had demanded for retirement, he reappeared in the world pretty much as men had always seen him. A very close observer, if he would have suffered any one to be such, might have perhaps detected the expression of care in certain wrinkles round his mouth, and in the extra blackness of his whiskers, where gray hairs had dared to show themselves; but to the world at large these signs were inappreciable. To them he was the same even-tempered, easy-mannered man they ever saw him. Nor was this accomplished without an effort; for, however Linton saw the hour of his vengeance draw nigh, he also perceived that all his personal plans of fortune and aggrandizement had utterly failed. The hopes he had so often cherished were all fled. His title to the cottage, his prospect of a seat in Parliament, the very sums he had won at play, and which to a large amount remained in Cashel’s hands, he now perceived were all forfeited to revenge. The price was, indeed, a heavy one! and already he began to feel it so. Many of his creditors had abstained from pressing him so long as his intimacy with Cashel gave promise of future solvency. That illusion was now dispelled, and each post brought him dunning epistles, and threatening notices of various kinds. Exposures menaced him from men whose vindictiveness he was well aware of; but far more perilous than all these were his relations with Tom Keane, who continued to address letter after letter to him, craving advice and pecuniary assistance, in a tone where menace was even more palpable than entreaty. To leave these unreplied to might have been dangerous in the extreme; to answer them even more perilous. No other course was, then, open than to return to Tubbermore, and endeavor, in secret, to confer with this man face to face. There was not any time to lose. Cashel’s trial was to take place at the ensuing assizes, which now were close at hand. Keane was to figure there as an important witness. It was absolutely necessary to see him, and caution him as to the nature of the evidence he should give, nor suffer him in the exuberance of his zeal to prove “too much.”

Under pretence, therefore, of a hurried trip to London, he left his house one evening, and went on board the packet at Kingstown, dismissing his carriage as if about to depart; then, suddenly affecting to discover that his luggage had been carried away by mistake, he landed, and set out with post-horses across country towards the western road. Before midnight he was safe in the mail, on his way to Limerick; and by daybreak on the following morning he was standing in the wood of Tubbermore, and gazing with a thoughtful head upon the house, whose shuttered windows and barred doors told of its altered destiny.

From thence he wandered onward towards the cottage – some strange, inexplicable interest over him – to see once more the spot he had so often fancied to be his own, and where, with a fervor not altogether unreal, he had sworn to pass his days in tranquil solitude. Brief as had been the interval since last he stood there, the changes were considerable. The flower-plots were trampled and trodden down, the palings smashed, the ornamental trees and shrubs were injured and broken by the cattle; traces of reckless haste and carelessness were seen in the broken gates and torn gate-posts; while fragments of packing-cases, straw, and paper littered the walks and the turf around.

Looking through the windows, broken in many places, he could see the cottage was perfectly dismantled. Everything was gone: not a trace remained of those who for so many years had called it home! The desolation was complete; nor was it without its depressing influence upon him who stood there to mark it; for, strange enough, there are little spots in the minds of those, where evil actions are oftenest cradled, that form the refuge of many a tender thought! Linton remembered the cottage as he saw it bright in the morning sun; or, more cheerful still, as the closed curtains and the blazing fire gave a look of homelike comfort to which the veriest wanderer is not insensible; and now it was cold and dark. He had no self-accusings as to the cause. It was, to him, one of those sad mutations which the course of fortune is ever effecting. He even went further, and fancied how different had been their fate if they had not rejected his own alliance.

“In this world of ours,” muttered he, “the cards we are dealt by Fortune would nearly always suffice to win, had we but skill. These people had a noble game before them, but, forsooth, they did not fancy their partner! And see what is come of it – ruin on every side!”

Gloomy thoughts over his own opportunities neglected – over eventful moments left to slip by unprofitably – stole over him. Many of his late speculations had been unsuccessful; he had had heavy losses on the “turf” and the “‘Change.” He had failed in promises by which menacing dangers had been long averted. His enemies would soon be upon him, and he was ill provided for the encounter. Vengeance alone, of all his aspirations, seemed to prosper; and he tried to revel in that thought as a compensation for every failure.

Nor was this unmixed with fear. What if Cashel should enter upon a defence by exposing the events of that last night at Tubbermore? What if he should produce the forged deed in open court? Who was to say that Enrique himself might not be forthcoming to prove his falsehood? Again: how far could he trust Tom Keane? might not the fellow’s avarice suggest a tyranny impossible to endure? Weighty considerations were these, and full of their own peril. Linton paused beside the lake to ruminate, and for some time was deep buried in thought A light rustling sound at last aroused him; he looked up, and perceived, directly in front of him, the very man of whom he was thinking – Tom Keane himself.

Both stood still, each fixedly regarding the other without speaking. It seemed a game in which he who made the first move should lose. So, certainly, did Linton feel; but not so Tom Keane, who, with an easy composure that all the other’s “breeding” could not compass, said, —

“Well, sir, I hope you like your work?”

“My work! my work! How can you call it mine, my good friend?” replied Linton, with a great effort to appear as much at ease as the other.

“Just as ould Con Corrigan built the little pier we’re standin’ on this minit, though his own hands did n’t lay a stone of it.”

“There’s no similarity between the cases whatever,” said Linton, with a well-feigned laugh. “Here there was a plan – an employer – hired laborers engaged to perform a certain task.”

“Well, well,” broke in Keane, impatiently; “sure we’re not in ‘Coort,’ that you need make a speech. ‘T was your own doing: deny it if you like, but don’t drive me to prove it.”

The tone of menace in which these words were uttered was increased by the fact, now for the first time apparent to Linton, that Tom Keane had been drinking freely that morning, and was still under the strong excitement of liquor.

Linton passed his arm familiarly within the other’s, and in a voice of deep meaning, said: “Were you only as cautious as you are courageous, Tom, there’s not a man in Europe I ‘d rather take as my partner in a dangerous enterprise. You are a glorious fellow in the hour of peril, but you are a child, a mere child, when it’s over.”

Keane did not speak, but a leer of inveterate cunning seemed to answer this speech.

“I say this, Tom,” said Linton, coaxingly, “because I see the risk to which your natural frankness will expose you. There are fellows prowling about on every side to scrape up information about this affair; and as, in some unguarded moment, when a glass too much has made the tongue run freely, any man may say things, to explain which away afterwards he is often led to go too far – You understand me, Tom?”

“I do, sir,” said the other, nodding shortly.

“It was on that account I came down here to-day, Tom. The trial is fixed for the 15th: now, the time is so short between this and that, you can surely keep a strict watch over yourself till ‘all is over’?”

“And what then, sir?” asked Tom, with a cunning glance beneath his brows.

“After that,” rejoined Linton, affecting to mistake the meaning of the question – “after that, the law takes its course, and you trouble yourself no more on the matter.”

“And is that all, Mr. Linton? – is that all?” asked the man, as, freeing himself from the other’s arm, he drew himself up to his full height, and stood directly in front of him.

“I must own, Tom, that I don’t understand your question.”

“I’ll make it plain and azy for you, then,” said Keane, with a hardened determination in his manner. “‘T was you yourself put me up to this business. ‘T was you that left the pistol in my possession. ‘T was you that towld me how it was to be done, and where to do it; and” – here his voice became deep, thick, and guttural with passion – “and, by the ‘mortal God! if I ‘m to hang for it, so will you too.”

“Hang!” exclaimed Linton. “Who talks of hanging? or what possible danger do you run – except, indeed, what your own indiscreet tongue may bring upon you?”

“Is n’t it as good to die on the gallows as on the roadside?” asked the other, fiercely. “What betther am I for what I done, tell me that?”

“I have told you before, and I tell you again, that when ‘all is over’ you shall be amply provided for.”

“And why not before?” said he, almost insolently.

“If you must know the reason,” said Linton, affecting a smile, “you shall hear it. Your incaution would make you at once the object of suspicion, were you to be seen with money at command as freely as you will have it hereafter.”

“Will you give me that in writin’? – will you give it to me undher your hand?” asked Keane, boldly.

“Of course I will,” said Linton, who was too subtle a tactician to hesitate about a pledge which could not be exacted on the instant.

“That’s what I call talkin fair,” said Keane; “an’, by my sowl, it’s the best of your play to trate me well.”

“There is only one thing in the world could induce me to do otherwise.”

“An’ what’s that, sir?”

“Your daring to use a threat to me!” said Linton, sternly. “There never was the man that tried that game – and there have been some just as clever fellows as Tom Keane who did try it – who did n’t find that they met their match.”

“I only ax what’s right and fair,” said the other, abashed by the daring effrontery of Linton’s air.

“And you shall have it, and more. You shall either have enough to settle in America, or, if you prefer it, to live abroad.”

“And why not stay at home here?” said Tom, doggedly.

“To blurt out your secret in some drunken moment, and be hanged at last!” said Linton, with a cutting irony.

“An’, maybe, tell how one Misther Linton put the wickedness first in my head,” added Tom, as if finishing the sentence.

Linton bit his lip, and turned angrily away to conceal the mortification the speech had caused him. “My good friend,” said he, in a deliberate voice, “you think that whenever you upset the boat you will drown me; and I have half a mind to dare you to it, just to show you the shortness of your calculation. Trust me” – there was a terrible distinctness in his utterance of these words – “trust me, that in all my dealings with the world, I have left very little at the discretion of what are called men of honor. I leave nothing, absolutely nothing, in the power of such as you.”

At last did Linton strike the right chord of the fellow’s nature; and in his subdued and crestfallen countenance might be read the signs of his prostration.

“Hear me now attentively, Keane, and let my words rest well in your memory. The trial comes on on the 15th; your evidence will be the most important of all; but give it with the reluctance of a man who shrinks from bringing his landlord to the scaffold. You understand me? Let everything you say show the desire to screen Mr. Cashel. Another point: affect not to know anything save what you actually saw. You never can repeat too often the words, ‘I did n’t see it.’ This scrupulous reliance on eyesight imposes well upon a jury. These are the only cautions I have to give you. Your own natural intelligence will supply the rest. When all is finished you will come up to Dublin, and call at a certain address which will be given you hereafter. And now we part. It is your own fault if you lose a friend who never deserted the man that stood by him.”