The Law and the Lady Part 25

"Helena is no longer condemned to the seclusion of widowhood. Time enough has pa.s.sed to permit of her mixing again in society. She is paying visits to friends in our part of Scotland; and, as she and I are cousins, it is universally understood that she cannot leave the North without also spending a few days at my house. She writes me word that the visit, however embarra.s.sing it may be to us privately, is nevertheless a visit that must be made for the sake of appearances.

Blessings on appearances! I shall see this angel in my purgatory--and all because Society in Mid-Lothian would think it strange that my cousin should be visiting in my part of Scotland and not visit Me!

"But we are to be very careful. Helena says, in so many words, 'I come to see you, Eustace, as a sister. You must receive me as a brother, or not receive me at all. I shall write to your wife to propose the day for my visit. I shall not forget--do you not forget--that it is by your wife's permission that I enter your house.'

"Only let me see her! I will submit to anything to obtain the unutterable happiness of seeing her!"

The last extract followed, and consisted of these lines only:

"A new misfortune! My wife has fallen ill. She has taken to her bed with a bad rheumatic cold, just at the time appointed for Helena's visit to Gleninch. But on this occasion (I gladly own it!) she has behaved charmingly. She has written to Helena to say that her illness is not serious enough to render a change necessary in the arrangements, and to make it her particular request that my cousin's visit shall take place upon the day originally decided on.

"This is a great sacrifice made to me on my wife's part. Jealous of every woman under forty who comes near me, she is, of course, jealous of Helena--and she controls herself, and trusts me!

"I am bound to show my grat.i.tude for this and I will show it. From this day forth I vow to live more affectionately with my wife. I tenderly embraced her this very morning, and I hope, poor soul, she did not discover the effort that it cost me."

There the readings from the Diary came to an end.

The most unpleasant pages in the whole Report of the Trial were--to me--the pages which contained the extracts from my husband's Diary.

There were expressions here and there which not only pained me, but which almost shook Eustace's position in my estimation. I think I would have given everything I possessed to have had the power of annihilating certain lines in the Diary. As for his pa.s.sionate expressions of love for Mrs. Beauly, every one of them went through me like a sting. He had whispered words quite as warm into my ears in the days of his courts.h.i.+p.

I had no reason to doubt that he truly and dearly loved me. But the question was, Had he just as truly and dearly loved Mrs. Beauly before me? Had she or I--won the first love of his heart? He had declared to me over and over again that he had only fancied himself to be in love before the day when we met. I had believed him then. I determined to believe him still. I did believe him. But I hated Mrs. Beauly!

As for the painful impression produced in Court by the readings from the letters and the Diary, it seemed to be impossible to increase it.

Nevertheless it _was_ perceptibly increased. In other words, it was rendered more unfavorable still toward the prisoner by the evidence of the next and last witness called on the part of the prosecution.

William Enzie, under-gardener at Gleninch, was sworn, and deposed as follows:

On the twentieth of October, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, I was sent to work in the shrubbery, on the side next to the garden called the Dutch Garden. There was a summer-house in the Dutch Garden, having its back set toward the shrubbery. The day was wonderfully fine and--warm for the time of year.

"Pa.s.sing to my work, I pa.s.sed the back of the summer-house. I heard voices inside--a man's voice and a lady's voice. The lady's voice was strange to me. The man's voice I recognized as the voice of my master.

The ground in the shrubbery was soft, and my curiosity was excited. I stepped up to the back of the summer-house without being heard, and I listened to what was going on inside.

"The first words I could distinguish were spoken in my master's voice.

He said, 'If I could only have foreseen that you might one day be free, what a happy man I might have been!' The lady's voice answered, 'Hus.h.!.+

you must not talk so.' My master said upon that, 'I must talk of what is in my mind; it is always in my mind that I have lost you.' He stopped a bit there, and then he said on a sudden, 'Do me one favor, my angel!

Promise me not to marry again.' The lady's voice spoke out thereupon sharply enough, 'What do you mean?' My master said, 'I wish no harm to the unhappy creature who is a burden on my life; but suppose--' 'Suppose nothing,' the lady said; 'come back to the house.'

"She led the way into the garden, and turned round, beckoning my master to join her. In that position I saw her face plainly, and I knew it for the face of the young widow lady who was visiting at the house. She was pointed out to me by the head-gardener when she first arrived, for the purpose of warning me that I was not to interfere if I found her picking the flowers. The gardens at Gleninch were shown to tourists on certain days, and we made a difference, of course, in the matter of the flowers between strangers and guests staying in the house. I am quite certain of the ident.i.ty of the lady who was talking with my master. Mrs. Beauly was a comely person--and there was no mistaking her for any other than herself. She and my master withdrew together on the way to the house. I heard nothing more of what pa.s.sed between them."

This witness was severely cross-examined as to the correctness of his recollection of the talk in the summer-house, and as to his capacity for identifying both the speakers. On certain minor points he was shaken.

But he firmly a.s.serted his accurate remembrance of the last words exchanged between his master and Mrs. Beauly; and he personally described the lady in terms which proved that he had corruptly identified her.

With this the answer to the third question raised by the Trial--the question of the prisoner's motive for poisoning his wife--came to an end.

The story for the prosecution was now a story told. The staunchest friends of the prisoner in Court were compelled to acknowledge that the evidence thus far pointed clearly and conclusively against him. He seemed to feel this himself. When he withdrew at the close of the third day of the Trial he was so depressed and exhausted that he was obliged to lean on the arm of the governor of the jail.

CHAPTER XIX. THE EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENSE.

THE feeling of interest excited by the Trial was prodigiously increased on the fourth day. The witnesses for the defense were now to be heard, and first and foremost among them appeared the prisoner's mother. She looked at her son as she lifted her veil to take the oath. He burst into tears. At that moment the sympathy felt for the mother was generally extended to the unhappy son.

Examined by the Dean of Faculty, Mrs. Macallan the elder gave her answers with remarkable dignity and self-control.

Questioned as to certain private conversations which had pa.s.sed between her late daughter-in-law and herself, she declared that Mrs. Eustace Macallan was morbidly sensitive on the subject of her personal appearance. She was devotedly attached to her husband; the great anxiety of her life was to make herself as attractive to him as possible.

The imperfections in her personal appearance--and especially in her complexion--were subjects to her of the bitterest regret. The witness had heard her say, over and over again (referring to her complexion), that there was no risk she would not run, and no pain she would not suffer, to improve it. "Men" (she had said) "are all caught by outward appearances: my husband might love me better if I had a better color."

Being asked next if the pa.s.sages from her son's Diary were to be depended on as evidence--that is to say, if they fairly represented the peculiarities in his character, and his true sentiments toward his wife--Mrs. Macallan denied it in the plainest and strongest terms.

"The extracts from my son's Diary are a libel on his character," she said. "And not the less a libel because they happen to be written by himself. Speaking from a mother's experience of him, I know that he must have written the pa.s.sages produced in moments of uncontrollable depression and despair. No just person judges hastily of a man by the rash words which may escape him in his moody and miserable moments. Is my son to be so judged because he happens to have written _his_ rash words, instead of speaking them? His pen has been his most deadly enemy, in this case--it has presented him at his very worst. He was not happy in his marriage--I admit that. But I say at the same time that he was invariably considerate toward his wife. I was implicitly trusted by both of them; I saw them in their most private moments. I declare--in the face of what she appears to have written to her friends and correspondents--that my son never gave his wife any just cause to a.s.sert that he treated her with cruelty or neglect."

The words, firmly and clearly spoken, produced a strong impression.

The Lord Advocate--evidently perceiving that any attempt to weaken that impression would not be likely to succeed--confined himself, in cross-examination, to two significant questions.

"In speaking to you of the defects in her complexion," he said, "did your daughter-in-law refer in any way to the use of a.r.s.enic as a remedy?"

The answer to this was, "No."

The Lord Advocate proceeded:

"Did you yourself ever recommend a.r.s.enic, or mention it casually, in the course of the private conversations which you have described?"

The answer to this was, "Never."

The Lord Advocate resumed his seat. Mrs. Macallan the elder withdrew.

An interest of a new kind was excited by the appearance of the next witness. This was no less a person than Mrs. Beauly herself. The Report describes her as a remarkably attractive person; modest and lady-like in her manner, and, to all appearance, feeling sensitively the public position in which she was placed.

The first portion of her evidence was almost a recapitulation of the evidence given by the prisoner's mother--with this difference, that Mrs.

Beauly had been actually questioned by the deceased lady on the subject of cosmetic applications to the complexion. Mrs. Eustace Macallan had complimented her on the beauty of her complexion, and had asked what artificial means she used to keep it in such good order. Using no artificial means, and knowing nothing whatever of cosmetics, Mrs. Beauly had resented the question, and a temporary coolness between the two ladies had been the result.

Interrogated as to her relations with the prisoner, Mrs. Beauly indignantly denied that she or Mr. Macallan had ever given the deceased lady the slightest cause for jealousy. It was impossible for Mrs.

Beauly to leave Scotland, after visiting at the houses of her cousin's neighbors, without also visiting at her cousin's house. To take any other course would have been an act of downright rudeness, and would have excited remark. She did not deny that Mr. Macallan had admired her in the days when they were both single people. But there was no further expression of that feeling when she had married another man, and when he had married another woman. From that time their intercourse was the innocent intercourse of a brother and sister. Mr. Macallan was a gentleman: he knew what was due to his wife and to Mrs. Beauly--she would not have entered the house if experience had not satisfied her of that. As for the evidence of the under-gardener, it was little better than pure invention. The greater part of the conversation which he had described himself as overhearing had never taken place. The little that was really said (as the man reported it) was said jestingly; and she had checked it immediately--as the witness had himself confessed. For the rest, Mr. Macallan's behavior toward his wife was invariably kind and considerate. He was constantly devising means to alleviate her sufferings from the rheumatic affection which confined her to her bed; he had spoken of her, not once but many times, in terms of the sincerest sympathy. When she ordered her husband and witness to leave the room, on the day of her death, Mr. Macallan said to witness afterward, "We must bear with her jealousy, poor soul: we know that we don't deserve it." In that patient manner he submitted to her infirmities of temper from first to last.

The main interest in the cross-examination of Mrs. Beauly centered in a question which was put at the end. After reminding her that she had given her name, on being sworn, as "Helena Beauly," the Lord Advocate said:

"A letter addressed to the prisoner, and signed 'Helena,' has been read in Court. Look at it, if you please. Are you the writer of that letter?"

Before the witness could reply the Dean of Faculty protested against the question. The Judges allowed the protest, and refused to permit the question to be put. Mrs. Beauly thereupon withdrew. She had betrayed a very perceptible agitation on hearing the letter referred to, and on having it placed in her hands. This exhibition of feeling was variously interpreted among the audience. Upon the whole, however, Mrs. Beauly's evidence was considered to have aided the impression which the mother's evidence had produced in the prisoner's favor.

The next witnesses--both ladies, and both school friends of Mrs. Eustace Macallan--created a new feeling of interest in Court. They supplied the missing link in the evidence for the defense.

The first of the ladies declared that she had mentioned a.r.s.enic as a means of improving the complexion in conversation with Mrs. Eustace Macallan. She had never used it herself, but she had read of the practice of eating a.r.s.enic among the Styrian peasantry for the purpose of clearing the color, and of producing a general appearance of plumpness and good health. She positively swore that she had related this result of her reading to the deceased lady exactly as she now related it in Court.

The second witness, present at the conversation already mentioned, corroborated the first witness in every particular; and added that she had procured the book relating to the a.r.s.enic-eating practices of the Styrian peasantry, and their results, at Mrs. Eustace Macallan's own request. This book she had herself dispatched by post to Mrs. Eustace Macallan at Gleninch.

There was but one a.s.sailable point in this otherwise conclusive evidence. The cross-examination discovered it.

Both the ladies were asked, in turn, if Mrs. Eustace Macallan had expressed to them, directly or indirectly, any intention of obtaining a.r.s.enic, with a view to the improvement of her complexion. In each case the answer to that all-important question was, No. Mrs. Eustace Macallan had heard of the remedy, and had received the book. But of her own intentions in the future she had not said one word. She had begged both the ladies to consider the conversation as strictly private--and there it had ended.

It required no lawyer's eye to discern the fatal defect which was now revealed in the evidence for the defense. Every intelligent person present could see that the prisoner's chance of an honorable acquittal depended on tracing the poison to the possession of his wife--or at least on proving her expressed intention to obtain it. In either of these cases the prisoner's Declaration of his innocence would claim the support of testimony, which, however indirect it might be, no honest and intelligent men would be likely to resist. Was that testimony forthcoming? Was the counsel for the defense not at the end of his resources yet?