CHAPTER VIII.
THE ANGEL OF LIGHT UNDER A CLOUD.
On the following morning, according to appointment, the judge visited Felix Graham in his room. It was only the second occasion on which he had done so since the accident, and he was therefore more inclined to regard him as an invalid than those who had seen him from day to day.
'I am delighted to hear that your bones have been so amenable,' said the judge. 'But you must not try them too far. We'll get you down stairs into the drawing-room, and see how you get on there by the next few days.'
'I don't want to trouble you more than I can help,' said Felix, sheepishly. He knew that there were reasons why he should not go into that drawing-room, but of course he could not guess that those reasons were as well known to the judge as they were to himself.
'You sha'n't trouble us—more than you can help. I am not one of those men who tell my friends that nothing is a trouble. Of course you give trouble.'
'I am so sorry!'
'There's your bed to make, my dear fellow, and your gruel to warm. You know Shakspeare pretty well by heart I believe, and he puts that matter,—as he did every other matter,—in the best and truest point of view. Lady Macbeth didn't say she had no labour in receiving the king. "The labour we delight in physics pain," she said. Those were her words, and now they are mine.'
'With a more honest purpose behind,' said Felix.
'Well, yes; I've no murder in my thoughts at present. So that is all settled, and Lady Staveley will be delighted to see you down stairs to-morrow.'
'I shall be only too happy,' Felix answered, thinking within his own mind that he must settle it all in the course of the day with Augustus.
'And now perhaps you will be strong enough to say a few words about business.'
'Certainly,' said Graham.
'You have heard of this Orley Farm case, in which our neighbour Lady Mason is concerned.'
'Oh yes; we were all talking of it at your table;—I think it was the night, or a night or two, before my accident.'
'Very well; then you know all about it. At least as much as the public knows generally. It has now been decided on the part of Joseph Mason,—the husband's eldest son, who is endeavouring to get the property—that she shall be indicted for perjury.'
'For perjury!'
'Yes; and in doing that, regarding the matter from his point of view, they are not deficient in judgment.'
'But how could she have been guilty of perjury?'
'In swearing that she had been present when her husband and the three witnesses executed the deed. If they have any ground to stand on—and I believe they have none whatever, but if they have, they would much more easily get a verdict against her on that point than on a charge of forgery. Supposing it to be the fact that her husband never executed such a deed, it would be manifest that she must have sworn falsely in swearing that she saw him do so.'
'Why, yes; one would say so.'
'But that would afford by no means conclusive evidence that she had forged the surreptitious deed herself.'
'It would be strong presumptive evidence that she was cognizant of the forgery.'
'Perhaps so,—but uncorroborated would hardly bring a verdict after such a lapse of years. And then moreover a prosecution for forgery, if unsuccessful, would produce more painful feeling. Whether successful or unsuccessful it would do so. Bail could not be taken in the first instance, and such a prosecution would create a stronger feeling that the poor lady was being persecuted.'
'Those who really understand the matter will hardly thank them for their mercy.'
'But then so few will really understand it. The fact however is that she will be indicted for perjury. I do not know whether the indictment has not been already laid. Mr. Furnival was with me in town yesterday, and at his very urgent request, I discussed the whole subject with him. I shall be on the Home Circuit myself on these next spring assizes, but I shall not take the criminal business at Alston. Indeed I should not choose that this matter should be tried before me under any circumstances, seeing that the lady is my near neighbour. Now Furnival wants you to be engaged on the defence as junior counsel.'
'With himself?'
'Yes; with himself,—and with Mr. Chaffanbrass.'
'With Mr. Chaffanbrass!' said Graham, in a tone almost of horror—as though he had been asked to league himself with all that was most disgraceful in the profession;—as indeed perhaps he had been.
'Yes—with Mr. Chaffanbrass.'
'Will that be well, judge, do you think?'
'Mr. Chaffanbrass no doubt is a very clever man, and it may be wise in such a case as this to have the services of a barrister who is perhaps unequalled in his power of cross-examining a witness.'
'Does his power consist in making a witness speak the truth, or in making him conceal it?'
'Perhaps in both. But here, if it be the case as Mr. Furnival suspects, that witnesses will be suborned to give false evidence———'
'But surely the Rounds would have nothing to do with such a matter as that?'
'No, probably not. I am sure that old Richard Round would abhor any such work as you or I would do. They take the evidence as it is brought to them. I believe there is no doubt that at any rate one of the witnesses to the codicil in question will now swear that the signature to the document is not her signature.'
'A woman—is it?'
'Yes; a woman. In such a case it may perhaps be allowable to employ such a man as Mr. Chaffanbrass; and I should tell you also, such another man as Mr. Solomon Aram.'
'Solomon Aram, too! Why, judge, the Old Bailey will be left bare.'
'The shining lights will certainly be down at Alston. Now under those circumstances will you undertake the case?'
'Would you;—in my place?'
'Yes; if I were fully convinced of the innocence of my client at the beginning.'
'But what if I were driven to change my opinion as the thing progressed?'
'You must go on, in such a case, as a matter of course.'
'I suppose I can have a day or two to think of it?'
'Oh yes. I should not myself be the bearer to you of Mr. Furnival's message, were it not that I think that Lady Mason is being very cruelly used in the matter. If I were a young man in your position, I should take up the case con amore, for the sake of beauty and womanhood. I don't say that that Quixotism is very wise; but still I don't think it can be wrong to join yourself even with such men as Chaffanbrass and Mr. Solomon Aram, if you can feel confident that you have justice and truth on your side.' Then after a few more words the interview was over, and the judge left the room making some further observation as to his hope of seeing Graham in the drawing-room on the next day.
On the following morning there came from Peckham two more letters for Graham, one of course from Mary Snow, and one from Mrs. Thomas. We will first give attention to that from the elder lady. She commenced with much awe, declaring that her pen trembled within her fingers, but that nevertheless she felt bound by her conscience and that duty which she owed to Mr. Graham, to tell him everything that had occurred,—'word by word,' as she expressed it. And then Felix, looking at the letter, saw that he held in his hand two sheets of letter paper, quite full of small writing, the latter of which was crossed. She went on to say that her care had been unremitting, and her solicitude almost maternal; that Mary's conduct had on the whole been such as to inspire her with 'undeviating confidence;' but that the guile of the present age was such, especially in respect to female servants—who seemed, in Mrs. Thomas's opinion to be sent in these days express from a very bad place for the express assistance of a very bad gentleman—that it was impossible for any woman, let her be ever so circumspect, to say 'what was what, or who was who.' From all which Graham learned that Mrs. Thomas had been 'done;' but by the middle of the third page he had as yet learned nothing as to the manner of the doing.
But by degrees the long reel unwinded itself;—angel of light, and all. Mary Snow had not only received but had answered a lover's letter. She had answered that lover's letter by making an appointment with him; and she had kept that appointment,—with the assistance of the agent sent express from that very bad gentleman. All this Mrs. Thomas had only discovered afterwards by finding the lover's letter, and the answer which the angel of light had written. Both of these she copied verbatim, thinking probably that the original documents were too precious to be intrusted to the post; and then ended by saying that an additional year of celibacy, passed under a closer espionage, and with more severe moral training, might still perhaps make Mary Snow fit for the high destiny which had been promised to her.
The only part of this letter which Felix read twice was that which contained the answer from the angel of light to her lover. 'You have been very wicked to address me,' the angel of light said severely. 'And it is almost impossible that I should ever forgive you!' If only she could have brought herself to end there! But her nature, which the lover had greatly belied in likening it to her name, was not cold enough for this. So she added a few more words very indiscreetly. 'As I want to explain to you why I can never see you again, I will meet you on Thursday afternoon, at half-past four, a little way up Clapham Lane, at the corner of the doctor's wall, just beyond the third lamp.' It was the first letter she had ever written to a lover, and the poor girl had betrayed herself by keeping a copy of it.
And then Graham came to Mary Snow's letter to himself, which, as it was short, the reader shall have entire.
'My dear Mr. Graham,
'I never was so unhappy in my life, and I am sure I don't know how to write to you. Of course I do not think you will ever see me again unless it be to upbraid me for my perfidy, and I almost hope you won't, for I should sink into the ground before your eyes. And yet I didn't mean to do anything very wrong, and when I did meet him I wouldn't as much as let him take me by the hand;—not of my own accord. I don't know what she has said to you, and I think she ought to have let me read it; but she speaks to me now in such a way that I don't know how to bear it. She has rummaged among everything I have got, but I am sure she could find nothing except those two letters. It wasn't my fault that he wrote to me, though I know now I ought not to have met him. He is quite a genteel young man, and very respectable in the medical line; only I know that makes no difference now, seeing how good you have been to me. I don't ask you to forgive me, but it nearly kills me when I think of poor papa.
'Yours always, most unhappy, and very sorry for what I have done,Poor Mary Snow! Could any man under such circumstances have been angry with her? In the first place if men will mould their wives, they must expect that kind of thing; and then, after all, was there any harm done? If ultimately he did marry Mary Snow, would she make a worse wife because she had met the apothecary's assistant at the corner of the doctor's wall, under the third lamp-post? Graham, as he sat with the letters before him, made all manner of excuses for her; and this he did the more eagerly, because he felt that he would have willingly made this affair a cause for breaking off his engagement, if his conscience had not told him that it would be unhandsome in him to do so.
When Augustus came he could not show the letters to him. Had he done so it would have been as much as to declare that now the coast was clear as far as he was concerned. He could not now discuss with his friend the question of Mary Snow, without also discussing the other question of Madeline Staveley. So he swept the letters away, and talked almost entirely about the Orley Farm case.
'I only wish I were thought good enough for the chance,' said Augustus. 'By heavens! I would work for that woman as I never could work again for any fee that could be offered me.'
'So would I; but I don't like my fellow-labourers.'
'I should not mind that.'
'I suppose,' said Graham, 'there can be no possible doubt as to her absolute innocence?'
'None whatever. My father has no doubt. Furnival has no doubt. Sir Peregrine has no doubt,—who, by-the-by, is going to marry her.'
'Nonsense!'
'Oh, but he is though. He has taken up her case con amore with a vengeance.'
'I should be sorry for that. It makes me think him a fool, and her—a very clever woman.'
And so that matter was discussed, but not a word was said between them about Mary Snow, or as to that former conversation respecting Madeline Staveley. Each felt then there was a reserve between them; but each felt also that there was no way of avoiding this. 'The governor seems determined that you sha'n't stir yet awhile,' Augustus said as he was preparing to take his leave.
'I shall be off in a day or two at the furthest all the same,' said Graham.
'And you are to drink tea down stairs to-night. I'll come and fetch you as soon as we're out of the dining-room. I can assure you that your first appearance after your accident has been duly announced to the public, and that you are anxiously expected.' And then Staveley left him.
So he was to meet Madeline that evening. His first feeling at the thought was one of joy, but he soon brought himself almost to wish that he could leave Noningsby without any such meeting. There would have been nothing in it,—nothing that need have called for observation or remark,—had he not told his secret to Augustus. But his secret had been told to one, and might be known to others in the house. Indeed he felt sure that it was suspected by Lady Staveley. It could not, as he said to himself, have been suspected by the judge, or the judge would not have treated him in so friendly a manner, or have insisted so urgently on his coming down among them.
And then, how should he carry himself in her presence? If he were to say nothing to her, his saying nothing would be remarked; and yet he felt that all his powers of self-control would not enable him to speak to her in the same manner that he would speak to her sister. He had to ask himself, moreover, what line of conduct he did intend to follow. If he was still resolved to marry Mary Snow, would it not be better that he should take this bull by the horns and upset it at once? In such case, Madeline Staveley must be no more to him than her sister. But then he had two intentions. In accordance with one he would make Mary Snow his wife; and in following the other he would marry Miss Staveley. It must be admitted that the two brides which he proposed to himself were very different. The one that he had moulded for his own purposes was not, as he admitted, quite equal to her of whom nature, education, and birth had had the handling.
Again he dined alone; but on this occasion Mrs. Baker was able to elicit from him no enthusiasm as to his dinner. And yet she had done her best, and placed before him a sweetbread and dish of sea-kale that ought to have made him enthusiastic. 'I had to fight with the gardener for that like anything,' she said, singing her own praises when he declined to sing them.
'Dear me! They'll think that I am a dreadful person to have in the house.'
'Not a bit. Only they sha'n't think as how I'm going to be said 'no' to in that way when I've set my mind on a thing. I know what's going and I know what's proper. Why, laws, Mr. Graham, there's heaps of things there and yet there's no getting of 'em;—unless there's a party or the like of that. What's the use of a garden I say,—or of a gardener neither, if you don't have garden stuff? It's not to look at. Do finish it now;—after all the trouble I had, standing over him in the cold while he cut it.'
'Oh dear, oh dear, Mrs. Baker, why did you do that?'
'He thought to perish me, making believe it took him so long to get at it; but I'm not so easy perished; I can tell him that! I'd have stood there till now but what I had it. Miss Madeline see'd me as I was coming in, and asked me what I'd been doing.'
'I hope you didn't tell her that I couldn't live without sea-kale?'
'I told her that I meant to give you your dinner comfortable as long as you had it up here; and she said———; but laws, Mr. Graham, you don't care what a young lady says to an old woman like me. You'll see her yourself this evening, and then you can tell her whether or no the sea-kale was worth the eating! It's not so badly biled; I will say that for Hannah Cook, though she is rampagious sometimes.' He longed to ask her what words Madeline had used, even in speaking on such a subject as this; but he did not dare to do so. Mrs. Baker was very fond of talking about Miss Madeline, but Graham was by no means assured that he should find an ally in Mrs. Baker if he told her all the truth.
At last the hour arrived, and Augustus came to convoy him down to the drawing-room. It was now many days since he had been out of that room, and the very fact of moving was an excitement to him. He hardly knew how he might feel in walking down stairs, and could not quite separate the nervousness arising from his shattered bones from that other nervousness which came from his—shattered heart. The word is undoubtedly a little too strong, but as it is there, there let it stay. When he reached the drawing-room, he almost felt that he had better decline to enter it. The door however was opened, and he was in the room before he could make up his mind to any such step, and he found himself being walked across the floor to some especial seat, while a dozen kindly anxious faces were crowding round him.
'Here's an arm-chair, Mr. Graham, kept expressly for you, near the fire,' said Lady Staveley. 'And I am extremely glad to see you well enough to fill it.'
'Welcome out of your room, sir,' said the judge. 'I compliment you, and Pottinger also, upon your quick recovery; but allow me to tell you that you don't yet look like a man fit to rough it alone in London.'
'I feel very well, sir,' said Graham.
And then Mrs. Arbuthnot greeted him, and Miss Furnival, and four or five others who were of the party, and he was introduced to one or two whom he had not seen before. Marian too came up to him,—very gently, as though he were as brittle as glass, having been warned by her mother. 'Oh, Mr. Felix,' she said, 'I was so unhappy when your bones were broken. I do hope they won't break again.'
And then he perceived that Madeline was in the room and was coming up to him. She had in truth not been there when he first entered, having thought it better, as a matter of strategy, to follow upon his footsteps. He was getting up to meet her, when Lady Staveley spoke to him.
'Don't move, Mr. Graham. Invalids, you know, are chartered.'
⟨'⟩I am very glad to see you once more downstairs,' said Madeline, as she frankly gave him her hand,—not merely touching his—'very, very glad. But I do hope you will get stronger before you venture to leave Noningsby. You have frightened us all very much by your terrible accident.'
All this she said in her peculiarly sweet silver voice, not speaking as though she were dismayed and beside herself, or in a hurry to get through a lesson which she had taught herself. She had her secret to hide, and had schooled herself how to hide it. But in so schooling herself she had been compelled to acknowledge to herself that the secret did exist. She had told herself that she must meet him, and that in meeting him she must hide it. This she had done with absolute success. Such is the peculiar power of women; and her mother, who had listened not only to every word, but to every tone of her voice, gave her exceeding credit.
'There's more in her than I thought there was,' said Sophia Furnival to herself, who had also listened and watched.
'It has not gone very deep with her,' said the judge, who on this matter was not so good a judge as Miss Furnival.
'She cares about me just as Mrs. Baker does,' said Graham to himself, who was the worst judge of them all. He muttered something quite unintelligible in answer to the kindness of her words; and then Madeline, having gone through her task, retired to the further side of the round table, and went to work among the teacups.
And then the conversation became general, turning altogether on the affairs of Lady Mason. It was declared as a fact by Lady Staveley that there was to be a marriage between Sir Peregrine Orme and his guest, and all in the room expressed their sorrow. The women were especially indignant. 'I have no patience with her,' said Mrs. Arbuthnot. 'She must know that such a marriage at his time of life must be ridiculous, and injurious to the whole family.'
The women were very indignant,—all except Miss Furnival, who did not say much, but endeavoured to palliate the crimes of Lady Mason in that which she did say. 'I do not know that she is more to blame than any other lady who marries a gentleman thirty years older than herself.'
'I do then,' said Lady Staveley, who delighted in contradicting Miss Furnival. 'And so would you too, my dear, if you had known Sir Peregrine as long as I have. And if—if—if—but it does not matter. I am very sorry for Lady Mason,—very. I think she is a woman cruelly used by her own connections; but my sympathies with her would be warmer if she had refrained from using her power over an old gentleman like Sir Peregrine, in the way she has done.' In all which expression of sentiment the reader will know that poor dear Lady Staveley was wrong from the beginning to the end.
'For my part,' said the judge, 'I don't see what else she was to do. If Sir Peregrine asked her, how could she refuse?'
'My dear!' said Lady Staveley.
'According to that, papa, every lady must marry any gentleman that asks her,' said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
'When a lady is under so deep a weight of obligation I don't know how she is to refuse. My idea is that Sir Peregrine should not have asked her.'
'And mine too,' said Felix. 'Unless indeed he did it under an impression that he could fight for her better as her husband than simply as a friend.'
'And I feel sure that that is what he did think,' said Madeline, from the further side of the table. And her voice sounded in Graham's ears as the voice of Eve may have sounded to Adam. No; let him do what he might in the world;—whatever might be the form in which his future career should be fashioned, one thing was clearly impossible to him. He could not marry Mary Snow. Had he never learned to know what were the true charms of feminine grace and loveliness, it might have been possible for him to do so, and to have enjoyed afterwards a fair amount of contentment. But now even contentment would be impossible to him under such a lot as that. Not only would he be miserable, but the woman whom he married would be wretched also. It may be said that he made up his mind definitely, while sitting in that arm-chair, that he would not marry Mary Snow. Poor Mary Snow! Her fault in the matter had not been great.
When Graham was again in his room, and the servant who was obliged to undress him had left him, he sat over his fire, wrapped in his dressing-gown, bethinking himself what he would do⟨.⟩ 'I will tell the judge everything,' he said at last. 'Then, if he will let me into his house after that, I must fight my own battle.' And so he betook himself to bed.