Phineas Redux Part 81

Confusion in the Court

On the following morning it was observed that before the judges took their seats Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s entered the Court with a manner much more brisk than was expected from him now that his own work was done.

As a matter of course he would be there to hear the charge, but, almost equally as a matter of course, he would be languid, silent, cross, and unenergetic. They who knew him were sure, when they saw his bearing on this morning, that he intended to do something more before the charge was given. The judges entered the Court nearly half an hour later than usual, and it was observed with surprise that they were followed by the Duke of Omnium. Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s was on his feet before the Chief Justice had taken his seat, but the judge was the first to speak. It was observed that he held a sc.r.a.p of paper in his hand, and that the barrister held a similar sc.r.a.p. Then every man in the Court knew that some message had come suddenly by the wires. "I am informed, Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, that you wish to address the Court before I begin my charge."

"Yes, my lud; and I am afraid, my lud, that I shall have to ask your luds.h.i.+p to delay your charge for some days, and to subject the jury to the very great inconvenience of prolonged incarceration for another week;--either to do that or to call upon the jury to acquit the prisoner. I venture to a.s.sert, on my own peril, that no jury can convict the prisoner after hearing me read that which I hold in my hand." Then Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s paused, as though expecting that the judge would speak;--but the judge said not a word, but sat looking at the old barrister over his spectacles.

Every eye was turned upon Phineas Finn, who up to this moment had heard nothing of these new tidings,--who did not in the least know on what was grounded the singularly confident,--almost insolently confident a.s.sertion which Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s had made in his favour. On him the effect was altogether distressing. He had borne the trying week with singular fort.i.tude, having stood there in the place of shame hour after hour, and day after day, expecting his doom. It had been to him as a lifetime of torture. He had become almost numb from the weariness of his position and the agonising strain upon his mind.

The gaoler had offered him a seat from day to day, but he had always refused it, preferring to lean upon the rail and gaze upon the Court.

He had almost ceased to hope for anything except the end of it. He had lost count of the days, and had begun to feel that the trial was an eternity of torture in itself. At nights he could not sleep, but during the Sunday, after Ma.s.s, he had slept all day. Then it had begun again, and when the Tuesday came he hardly knew how long it had been since that vacant Sunday. And now he heard the advocate declare, without knowing on what ground the declaration was grounded, that the trial must be postponed, or that the jury must be instructed to acquit him.

"This telegram has reached us only this morning," continued Mr.

Chaffanbra.s.s. "'Mealyus had a house door-key made in Prague. We have the mould in our possession, and will bring the man who made the key to England.' Now, my lud, the case in the hands of the police, as against this man Mealyus, or Emilius, as he has chosen to call himself, broke down altogether on the presumption that he could not have let himself in and out of the house in which he had put himself to bed on the night of the murder. We now propose to prove that he had prepared himself with the means of doing so, and had done so after a fas.h.i.+on which is conclusive as to his having required the key for some guilty purpose. We a.s.sert that your luds.h.i.+p cannot allow the case to go to the jury without taking cognisance of this telegram; and we go further, and say that those twelve men, as twelve human beings with hearts in their bosoms and ordinary intelligence at their command, cannot ignore the message, even should your luds.h.i.+p insist upon their doing so with all the energy at your disposal."

Then there was a scene in Court, and it appeared that no less than four messages had been received from Prague, all to the same effect. One had been addressed by Madame Goesler to her friend the d.u.c.h.ess,--and that message had caused the Duke's appearance on the scene. He had brought his telegram direct to the Old Bailey, and the Chief Justice now held it in his hand. The lawyer's clerk who had accompanied Madame Goesler had telegraphed to the Governor of the gaol, to Mr. Wickerby, and to the Attorney-General. Sir Gregory, rising with the telegram in his hand, stated that he had received the same information. "I do not see," said he, "that it at all alters the evidence as against the prisoner."

"Let your evidence go to the jury, then," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, "with such observations as his lords.h.i.+p may choose to make on the telegram. I shall be contented. You have already got your other man in prison on a charge of bigamy."

"I could not take notice of the message in charging the jury, Mr.

Chaffanbra.s.s," said the judge. "It has come, as far as we know, from the energy of a warm friend,--from that hearty friends.h.i.+p with which it seemed yesterday that this gentleman, the prisoner at the bar, has inspired so many men and women of high character. But it proves nothing. It is an a.s.sertion. And where should we all be, Mr.

Chaffanbra.s.s, if it should appear hereafter that the a.s.sertion is fict.i.tious,--prepared purposely to aid the escape of a criminal?"

"I defy you to ignore it, my lord."

"I can only suggest, Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s," continued the judge, "that you should obtain the consent of the gentlemen on the other side to a postponement of my charge."

Then spoke out the foreman of the jury. Was it proposed that they should be locked up till somebody should come from Prague, and that then the trial should be recommenced? The system, said the foreman, under which Middles.e.x juries were chosen for service in the City was known to be most horribly cruel;--but cruelty to jurymen such as this had never even been heard of. Then a most irregular word was spoken.

One of the jurymen declared that he was quite willing to believe the telegram. "Every one believes it," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s. Then the Chief Justice scolded the juryman, and Sir Gregory Grogram scolded Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s. It seemed as though all the rules of the Court were to be set at defiance. "Will my learned friend say that he doesn't believe it?" asked Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s. "I neither believe nor disbelieve it; but it cannot affect the evidence," said Sir Gregory.

"Then send the case to the jury," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s. It seemed that everybody was talking, and Mr. Wickerby, the attorney, tried to explain it all to the prisoner over the bar of the dock, not in the lowest possible voice. The Chief Justice became angry, and the guardian of the silence of the Court bestirred himself energetically.

"My lud," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, "I maintain that it is proper that the prisoner should be informed of the purport of these telegrams.

Mercy demands it, and justice as well." Phineas Finn, however, did not understand, as he had known nothing about the latch-key of the house in Northumberland Street.

Something, however, must be done. The Chief Justice was of opinion that, although the preparation of a latch-key in Prague could not really affect the evidence against the prisoner,--although the facts against the prisoner would not be altered, let the manufacture of that special key be ever so clearly proved,--nevertheless the jury were ent.i.tled to have before them the facts now tendered in evidence before they could be called upon to give a verdict, and that therefore they should submit themselves, in the service of their country, to the very serious additional inconvenience which they would be called upon to endure. Sundry of the jury altogether disagreed with this, and became loud in their anger. They had already been locked up for a week. "And we are quite prepared to give a verdict," said one. The judge again scolded him very severely; and as the Attorney-General did at last a.s.sent, and as the unfortunate jurymen had no power in the matter, so it was at last arranged.

The trial should be postponed till time should be given for Madame Goesler and the blacksmith to reach London from Prague.

If the matter was interesting to the public before, it became doubly interesting now. It was of course known to everybody that Madame Goesler had undertaken a journey to Bohemia,--and, as many supposed, a roving tour through all the wilder parts of unknown Europe, Poland, Hungary, and the Princ.i.p.alities for instance,--with the object of looking for evidence to save the life of Phineas Finn; and grandly romantic tales were told of her wit, her wealth, and her beauty. The story was published of the Duke of Omnium's will, only not exactly the true story. The late Duke had left her everything at his disposal, and, it was hinted that they had been privately married just before the Duke's death. Of course Madame Goesler became very popular, and the blacksmith from Prague who had made the key was expected with an enthusiasm which almost led to preparation for a public reception.

And yet, let the blacksmith from Prague be ever so minute in his evidence as to the key, let it be made as clear as running water that Mealyus had caused to be constructed for him in Prague a key that would open the door of the house in Northumberland Street, the facts as proved at the trial would not be at all changed. The lawyers were much at variance with their opinions on the matter, some thinking that the judge had been altogether wrong in delaying his charge.

According to them he should not have allowed Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s to have read the telegram in Court. The charge should have been given, and the sentence of the Court should have been p.r.o.nounced if a verdict of guilty were given. The Home Secretary should then have granted a respite till the coming of the blacksmith, and have extended this respite to a pardon, if advised that the circ.u.mstances of the latch-key rendered doubtful the propriety of the verdict. Others, however, maintained that in this way a grievous penalty would be inflicted on a man who, by general consent, was now held to be innocent. Not only would he, by such an arrangement of circ.u.mstances, have been left for some prolonged period under the agony of a condemnation, but, by the necessity of the case, he would lose his seat for Tankerville. It would be imperative upon the House to declare vacant by its own action a Seat held by a man condemned to death for murder, and no pardon from the Queen or from the Home Secretary would absolve the House from that duty. The House, as a House of Parliament, could only recognise the verdict of the jury as to the man's guilt. The Queen, of course, might pardon whom she pleased, but no pardon from the Queen would remove the guilt implied by the sentence. Many went much further than this, and were prepared to prove that were he once condemned he could not afterwards sit in the House, even if re-elected.

Now there was unquestionably an intense desire,--since the arrival of these telegrams,--that Phineas Finn should retain his seat. It may be a question whether he would not have been the most popular man in the House could he have sat there on the day after the telegrams arrived.

The Attorney-General had declared,--and many others had declared with him,--that this information about the latch-key did not in the least affect the evidence as given against Mr. Finn. Could it have been possible to convict the other man, merely because he had surrept.i.tiously caused a door-key of the house in which he lived to be made for him? And how would this new information have been received had Lord Fawn sworn unreservedly that the man he had seen running out of the mews had been Phineas Finn? It was acknowledged that the latchkey could not be accepted as sufficient evidence against Mealyus. But nevertheless the information conveyed by the telegrams altogether changed the opinion of the public as to the guilt or innocence of Phineas Finn. His life now might have been insured, as against the gallows, at a very low rate. It was felt that no jury could convict him, and he was much more pitied in being subjected to a prolonged incarceration than even those twelve unfortunate men who had felt sure that the Wednesday would have been the last day of their unmerited martyrdom.

Phineas in his prison was materially circ.u.mstanced precisely as he had been before the trial. He was supplied with a profusion of luxuries, could they have comforted him; and was allowed to receive visitors. But he would see no one but his sisters,--except that he had one interview with Mr. Low. Even Mr. Low found it difficult to make him comprehend the exact condition of the affair, and could not induce him to be comforted when he did understand it. What had he to do,--how could his innocence or his guilt be concerned,--with the manufacture of a paltry key by such a one as Mealyus? How would it have been with him and with his name for ever if this fact had not been discovered? "I was to be hung or saved from hanging according to the chances of such a thing as this! I do not care for my life in a country where such injustice can be done." His friend endeavoured to a.s.sure him that even had nothing been heard of the key the jury would have acquitted him. But Phineas would not believe him. It had seemed to him as he had listened to the whole proceeding that the Court had been against him. The Attorney and Solicitor-General had appeared to him resolved upon hanging him,--men who had been, at any rate, his intimate acquaintances, with whom he had sat on the same bench, who ought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life.

He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence.

But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite broken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of the interview. "I feel that I had better take to my bed and die. Even when I think of all that friends have done for me, it fails to cheer me. In this matter I should not have had to depend on friends. Had not she gone for me to that place every one would have believed me to be a murderer."

And yet in his solitude he thought very much of the marvellous love shown to him by his friends. Words had been spoken which had been very sweet to him in all his misery,--words such as neither men nor women can say to each other in the ordinary intercourse of life, much as they may wish that their purport should be understood. Lord Chiltern, Lord Cantrip, and Mr. Monk had alluded to him as a man specially singled out by them for their friends.h.i.+p. Lady Cantrip, than whom no woman in London was more discreet, had been equally enthusiastic. Then how gracious, how tender, how inexpressibly sweet had been the words of her who had been Violet Effingham! And now the news had reached him of Madame Goesler's journey to the continent.

"It was a wonderful thing for her to do," Mr. Low had said. Yes, indeed! Remembering all that had pa.s.sed between them he acknowledged to himself that it was very wonderful. Were it not that his back was now broken, that he was prostrate and must remain so, a man utterly crushed by what he had endured, it might have been possible that she should do more for him even than she yet had done.

CHAPTER LXV

"I hate her!"

Lady Laura Kennedy had been allowed to take no active part in the manifestations of friends.h.i.+p which at this time were made on behalf of Phineas Finn. She had, indeed, gone to him in his prison, and made daily efforts to administer to his comfort; but she could not go up into the Court and speak for him. And now this other woman, whom she hated, would have the glory of his deliverance! She already began to see a fate before her, which would make even her past misery as nothing to that which was to come. She was a widow,--not yet two months a widow; and though she did not and could not mourn the death of a husband as do other widows,--though she could not sorrow in her heart for a man whom she had never loved, and from whom she had been separated during half her married life,--yet the fact of her widowhood and the circ.u.mstances of her weeds were heavy on her. That she loved this man, Phineas Finn, with a pa.s.sionate devotion of which the other woman could know nothing she was quite sure. Love him! Had she not been true to him and to his interests from the very first day in which he had come among them in London, with almost more than a woman's truth? She knew and recalled to her memory over and over again her own one great sin,--the fault of her life. When she was, as regarded her own means, a poor woman, she had refused to be this poor man's wife, and had given her hand to a rich suitor. But she had done this with a conviction that she could so best serve the interests of the man in regard to whom she had promised herself that her feeling should henceforth be one of simple and purest friends.h.i.+p. She had made a great effort to carry out that intention, but the effort had been futile. She had striven to do her duty to a husband whom she disliked,--but even in that she had failed. At one time she had been persistent in her intercourse with Phineas Finn, and at another had resolved that she would not see him. She had been madly angry with him when he came to her with the story of his love for another woman, and had madly shown her anger; but yet she had striven to get for him the wife he wanted, though in doing so she would have abandoned one of the dearest purposes of her life. She had moved heaven and earth for him,--her heaven and earth,--when there was danger that he would lose his seat in Parliament. She had encountered the jealousy of her husband with scorn,--and had then deserted him because he was jealous. And all this she did with a consciousness of her own virtue which was almost as sublime as it was ill-founded. She had been wrong. She confessed so much to herself with bitter tears. She had marred the happiness of three persons by the mistake she had made in early life. But it had not yet occurred to her that she had sinned.

To her thinking the jealousy of her husband had been preposterous and abominable, because she had known,--and had therefore felt that he should have known,--that she would never disgrace him by that which the world calls falsehood in a wife. She had married him without loving him, but it seemed to her that he was in fault for that. They had become wretched, but she had never pitied his wretchedness. She had left him, and thought herself to be ill-used because he had ventured to reclaim his wife. Through it all she had been true in her regard to the one man she had ever loved, and,--though she admitted her own folly and knew her own s.h.i.+pwreck,--yet she had always drawn some woman's consolation from the conviction of her own constancy.

He had vanished from her sight for a while with a young wife,--never from her mind,--and then he had returned a widower. Through silence, absence, and distance she had been true to him. On his return to his old ways she had at once welcomed him and strove to aid him.

Everything that was hers should be his,--if only he would open his hands to take it. And she would tell it him all,--let him know every corner of her heart. She was a married woman, and could not be his wife. She was a woman of virtue, and would not be his mistress. But she would be to him a friend so tender that no wife, no mistress should ever have been fonder! She did tell him everything as they stood together on the ramparts of the old Saxon castle. Then he had kissed her, and pressed her to his heart,--not because he loved her, but because he was generous. She had partly understood it all,--but yet had not understood it thoroughly. He did not a.s.sure her of his love,--but then she was a wife, and would have admitted no love that was sinful. When she returned to Dresden that night she stood gazing at herself in the gla.s.s and saw that there was nothing there to attract the love of such a man as Phineas Finn,--of one who was himself glorious with manly beauty; but yet for her sadness there was some cure, some possibility of consolation in the fact that she was a wife. Why speak of love at all when marriage was so far out of the question? But now she was a widow and as free as he was,--a widow endowed with ample wealth; and she was the woman to whom he had sworn his love when they had stood together, both young, by the falls of the Linter! How often might they stand there again if only his constancy would equal hers?

She had seen him once since Fate had made her a widow; but then she had been but a few days a widow, and his life had at that moment been in strange jeopardy. There had certainly been no time then for other love than that which the circ.u.mstances and the sorrow of the hour demanded from their mutual friends.h.i.+p. From that day, from the first moment in which she had heard of his arrest, every thought, every effort of her mind had been devoted to his affairs. So great was his peril and so strange, that it almost wiped out from her mind the remembrance of her own condition. Should they hang him,--undoubtedly she would die. Such a termination to all her aspirations for him whom she had selected as her G.o.d upon earth would utterly crush her. She had borne much, but she could never bear that. Should he escape, but escape ingloriously;--ah, then he should know what the devotion of a woman could do for a man! But if he should leave his prison with flying colours, and come forth a hero to the world, how would it be with her then? She could foresee and understand of what nature would be the ovation with which he would be greeted. She had already heard what the d.u.c.h.ess was doing and saying. She knew how eager on his behalf were Lord and Lady Cantrip. She discussed the matter daily with her sister-in-law, and knew what her brother thought. If the acquittal were perfect, there would certainly be an ovation,--in which, was it not certain to her, that she would be forgotten? And she heard much, too, of Madame Goesler. And now there came the news. Madame Goesler had gone to Prague, to Cracow,--and where not?--spending her wealth, employing her wits, bearing fatigue, openly before the world on this man's behalf; and had done so successfully. She had found this evidence of the key, and now because the tracings of a key had been discovered by a woman, people were ready to believe that he was innocent, as to whose innocence she, Laura Kennedy, would have been willing to stake her own life from the beginning of the affair!

Why had it not been her lot to go to Prague? Would not she have drunk up Esil, or swallowed a crocodile against any she-Laertes that would have thought to rival and to parallel her great love? Would not she have piled up new Ossas, had the opportunity been given her?

Womanlike she had gone to him in her trouble,--had burst through his prison doors, had thrown herself on his breast, and had wept at his feet. But of what avail had been that? This strange female, this Moabitish woman, had gone to Prague, and had found a key,--and everybody said that the thing was done! How she hated the strange woman, and remembered all the evil things that had been said of the intruder! She told herself over and over again that had it been any one else than this half-foreigner, this German Jewess, this intriguing unfeminine upstart, she could have borne it. Did not all the world know that the woman for the last two years had been the mistress of that old doting Duke who was now dead? Had one ever heard who was her father or who was her mother? Had it not always been declared of her that she was a pus.h.i.+ng, dangerous, scheming creature?

And then she was old enough to be his mother, though by some Medean tricks known to such women, she was able to postpone,--not the ravages of age,--but the manifestation of them to the eyes of the world. In all of which charges poor Lady Laura wronged her rival foully;--in that matter of age especially, for, as it happened, Madame Goesler was by some months the younger of the two. But Lady Laura was a blonde, and trouble had told upon her outwardly, as it is wont to do upon those who are fair-skinned, and, at the same time, high-hearted. But Madame Goesler was a brunette,--swarthy, Lady Laura would have called her,--with bright eyes and glossy hair and thin cheeks, and now being somewhat over thirty she was at her best. Lady Laura hated her as a fair woman who has lost her beauty can hate the dark woman who keeps it.

"What made her think of the key?" said Lady Chiltern.

"I don't believe she did think of it. It was an accident."

"Then why did she go?"

"Oh, Violet, do not talk to me about that woman any more, or I shall be mad."

"She has done him good service."

"Very well;--so be it. Let him have the service. I know they would have acquitted him if she had never stirred from London. Oswald says so. But no matter. Let her have her triumph. Only do not talk to me about her. You know what I have thought about her ever since she first came up in London. Nothing ever surprised me so much as that you should take her by the hand."

"I do not know that I took her specially by the hand."

"You had her down at Harrington."

"Yes; I did. And I do like her. And I know nothing against her. I think you are prejudiced against her, Laura."

"Very well. Of course you think and can say what you please. I hate her, and that is sufficient." Then, after a pause, she added, "Of course he will marry her. I know that well enough. It is nothing to me whom he marries--only,--only,--only, after all that has pa.s.sed it seems hard upon me that his wife should be the only woman in London that I could not visit."

"Dear Laura, you should control your thoughts about this young man."

"Of course I should;--but I don't. You mean that I am disgracing myself."

"No."

"Yes, you do. Oswald is more candid, and tells me so openly. And yet what have I done? The world has been hard upon me, and I have suffered. Do I desire anything except that he shall be happy and respectable? Do I hope for anything? I will go back and linger out my life at Dresden, where my disgrace can hurt no one." Her sister-in-law with all imaginable tenderness said what she could to console the miserable woman;--but there was no consolation possible.

They both knew that Phineas Finn would never renew the offer which he had once made.