The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney Part 17

La Houssaye vehemently objected to delay; but finding Eugenie inexorable, sullenly acquiesced. It was precisely at this time that the engagement with Mrs. Rushton was accepted. On the previous afternoon Mademoiselle de Tourville, on leaving Harley Street after the scene with the deceased lady, went directly home, and there found both her father and the chevalier in hot contention and excitement. As soon as La Houssaye saw her, he seized his hat, and rushed out of the apartment and house. Her father, who was greatly excited, had barely time to say that he had fortunately discovered the chevalier to be a married man, whose wife, a woman of property, was still living in Languedoc, when what had always been predicted would follow any unusual agitation happened: M. de Tourville suddenly placed his hand on his side, uttered a broken exclamation, fell into a chair, and expired. It was about two hours after this melancholy event that Mrs. Rushton arrived. The account before given of the interview which followed was substantially confirmed by Mademoiselle de Tourville; who added, that the cordial she had given Mrs.

Rushton was one her father was in the constant habit of taking when in the slightest degree excited, and that she was about to give him some when he suddenly fell dead.

We had no doubt, none whatever, that this was the whole, literal truth, as far as the knowledge of Mademoiselle de Tourville extended; but how could we impart that impression to an Old Bailey jury of those days, deprived as we should be of the aid of counsel to address the jury, when in reality a speech, pointing to the improbabilities arising from character, and the altogether _un_guilty-like mode of administering the fatal liquid, was the only possible defence? Cross-examination promised nothing; for the evidence would consist of the dying deposition of Mrs.

Rushton, the finding of the laurel-water, and the medical testimony as to the cause of death. The only person upon whom suspicion glanced was La Houssaye, and that in a vague and indistinct manner. Still, it was necessary to find him without delay, and Mr. White at once sought him at his lodgings, of which Mademoiselle de Tourville furnished the address.

He had left the house suddenly with all his luggage early in the morning, and our efforts to trace him proved fruitless. In the meantime the _post-mortem_ examination of the body had taken place, and a verdict of willful murder against Eugenie de Tourville been unhesitatingly returned.

She was soon afterwards committed to Newgate for trial.

The Old Bailey session was close at hand, and Arthur Rushton, though immediate danger was over, was still in too delicate and precarious a state to be informed of the true position of affairs when the final day of trial arrived. The case had excited little public attention. It was not the fas.h.i.+on in those days to exaggerate the details of crime, and, _especially before trial_, give the wings of the morning to every fact or fiction that rumor with her busy tongue obscurely whispered. Twenty lines of the "Times" would contain the published record of the commitment of Eugenie de Tourville for poisoning her mistress, Caroline Rushton; and, alas! spite of the crippled but earnest efforts of the eminent counsel we had retained, and the eloquent innocence of her appearance and demeanor, her conviction and condemnation to death without hope of mercy! My brain swam as the measured tones of the recorder, commanding the almost immediate and violent destruction of that beauteous masterpiece of G.o.d, fell upon my ear; and had not Mr.

White, who saw how greatly I was affected, fairly dragged me out of court into the open air, I should have fainted. I scarcely remember how I got home--in a coach, I believe; but face Rushton after that dreadful scene with a kindly-meant deception--_lie_--in my mouth, I could not, had a king's crown been the reward. I retired to my chamber, and on the plea of indisposition directed that I should on no account be disturbed.

Night had fallen, and it was growing somewhat late, when I was startled out of the painful reverie in which I was still absorbed by the sudden pulling up of a furiously-driven coach, followed by a thundering summons at the door, similar to that which aroused me on the evening of Mrs.

Rushton's death. I seized my hat, rushed down stairs, and opened the door. It was Mr. White!

"Well!--well!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Quick--quick!" he exclaimed in reply. "La Houssaye--he is found--has sent for us--quick! for life--life is on our speed!"

I was in the vehicle in an instant. In less than ten minutes we had reached our destination--a house in Duke Street, Manchester Square.

"He is still alive," replied a young man in answer to Mr. White's hurried inquiry. We rapidly ascended the stairs, and in the front apartment of the first floor beheld one of the saddest, mournfulest spectacles which the world can offer--a fine, athletic man, still in the bloom of natural health and vigor, and whose pale features, but for the tracings there of fierce, ungoverned pa.s.sions, were strikingly handsome and intellectual, stretched by his own act upon the bed of death! It was La Houssaye! Two gentlemen were with him--one a surgeon, and the other evidently a clergyman, and, as I subsequently found, a magistrate, who had been sent for by the surgeon. A faint smile gleamed over the face of the dying man as we entered, and he motioned feebly to a sheet of paper, which, closely written upon, was lying upon a table placed near the sofa upon which the unhappy suicide was reclining. Mr. White s.n.a.t.c.hed, and eagerly perused it. I could see by the vivid lighting up of his keen gray eye that it was, in his opinion, satisfactory and sufficient.

"This," said Mr. White, "is your solemn deposition, knowing yourself to be dying?"

"Yes, yes," murmured La Houssaye; "the truth--the truth!"

"The declaration of a man," said the clergyman with some asperity of tone, "who defyingly, unrepentingly, rushes into the presence of his Creator, can be of little value!"

"Ha!" said the dying man, rousing himself by a strong effort; "I repent--yes--yes--I repent! I believe--do you hear?--and repent--believe. Put that down," he added, in tones momently feebler and more husky, as he pointed to the paper; "put that down, or--or perhaps--Eu--genie--perhaps"--

As he spoke, the faint light that had momently kindled his glazing eye was suddenly quenched; he remained for perhaps half a minute raised on his elbow, and with his outstretched finger pointing towards the paper, gazing blindly upon vacancy. Then the arm dropped, and he fell back dead!

We escaped as quickly as we could from this fearful death-room, and I found that the deposition which Mr. White brought away with him gave a full, detailed account, written in the French language, of the circ.u.mstances which led to the death of Mrs. Rushton.

La Houssaye, finding that M. de Tourville had by some means discovered the secret of his previous marriage, and that consequently all hope of obtaining the hand of Eugenie, whom he loved with all the pa.s.sion of his fiery nature, would be gone unless De Tourville could be prevented from communicating with his daughter, resolved to compa.s.s the old man's instant destruction. The chevalier persuaded himself that, as he should manage it, death would be attributed to the affection of the heart, from which M. de Tourville had so long suffered. He procured the distilled laurel-water--how and from whom was minutely explained--colored, flavored it to resemble as nearly as possible the cordial which he knew M. de Tourville--and he only--was in the habit of frequently taking. A precisely-similar bottle he also procured--the shop at which it was purchased was described--and when he called in King Street, he found no difficulty, in an un.o.bserved moment, of subst.i.tuting one bottle for the other. That containing the real cordial he was still in possession of, and it would be found in his valise The unexpected arrival of Mademoiselle de Tourville frustrated his design, and he rushed in fury and dismay from the house. A few hours afterwards, he heard of the sudden death of M. de Tourville, and attributing it to his having taken a portion of the simulated cordial, he, La Houssaye, fearful of consequences, hastily and secretly changed his abode. He had subsequently kept silence till the conviction of Eugenie left him no other alternative, if he would not see her perish on the scaffold, than a full and unreserved confession. This done--Eugenie saved, but lost to him--he had nothing more to live for in the world, and should leave it.

This was the essence of the doc.u.ment; and all the parts of it which were capable of corroborative proof having been substantiated, a free pardon issued from the crown--the technical mode of quas.h.i.+ng an unjust criminal verdict--and Mademoiselle de Tourville was restored to liberty.

She did not return to France. Something more perhaps than a year after the demonstration of her innocence, she was married to Arthur Rushton in the Sardinian Catholic Chapel, London, the bridegroom having by her influence been induced to embrace the faith of Rome. The establishments in Harley Street and Mayfair were broken up; and the newly-espoused pair settled in the county of Galway, Ireland, where Mr. Rushton made extensive landed purchases. They have lived very happily a long life, have been blessed with a large and amiable family, and are now--for they are both yet alive--surrounded with grandchildren innumerable.

EXPERIENCES OF A BARRISTER.

THE LIFE POLICY.

Besides being the confidential advisers, attorneys are the "confessors"

of modern England; and the revelations--delicate, serious, not unfrequently involving life as well as fortune and character--confided to the purchased fidelity and professional honor of men whom romancers of all ages have stereotyped as the ghouls and vampires of civilized society, are, it is impossible to deny, as rarely divulged as those which the penitents of the Greek and Latin churches impart to their spiritual guides and helpers; and this possibly for the somewhat vulgar, but very sufficient reason, that "a breach of confidence" would as certainly involve the professional ruin of an attorney as the commission of a felony. An able but eccentric jurisconsult, Mr. Jeremy Bentham, was desirous that attorneys should be compelled to disclose on oath whatever guilty secrets might be confided to them by their clients; the only objection to which ingenious device for the conviction of rogues being, that if such a power existed, there would be no secrets to disclose; and, as a necessary consequence, that the imperfectly-informed attorney would be unable to render his client the justice to which every person, however criminal, is clearly ent.i.tled--that of having his or her case presented before the court appointed to decide upon it in the best and most advantageous manner possible. Let it not be forgotten either that the attorney is the only real, practical defender of the humble and needy against the illegal oppressions of the rich and powerful--the shrewd, indomitable agent who gives prosaic reality to the figurative eloquence of old Chancellor Fortescue, when he says, "that the lightning may flash through, the thunder shake, the tempest beat, upon the English peasant's hut, but the king of England, with all his army, cannot lift the latch to enter in." The chancellor of course meant, that in this country overbearing violence cannot defy, or put itself in the place of the law.

This is quite true; and why? Chiefly because the attorney is ready, in all cases of provable illegality, with his potent strip of parchment summoning the great man before "her Sovereign Lady the Queen," there to answer for his acts; and the richer the offender, the more keen and eager Mr. Attorney to prosecute the suit, however needy his own client; for he is then sure of his costs, if he succeed! Again, I cheerfully admit the extreme vulgarity of the motive; but its effect in protecting the legal rights of the humble is not, I contend, lessened because the reward of exertion and success is counted out in good, honest sovereigns, or notes of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England.

Thus much by way of conciliatory prologue to the narrative of a few incidents revealed in the attorney's privileged confessional; throughout which I have of course, in order to avoid any possible recognition of those events or incidents, changed the name of every person concerned.

Our old city firm, then, which, I am happy to say, still flourishes under the able direction of our active successors, I will call--adopting the nomenclature appropriated to us by imaginative ladies and gentlemen who favor the world with fancy pen-and-ink portraits of the lawyer tribe--that of Flint and Sharp; Sharp being myself, and Flint the silver-haired old bachelor we buried a few weeks since in Kensal Green Cemetery.

"Mr. Andrews," said a clerk as he threw open the door of the inner office one afternoon; "Mr. Jesse Andrews."

"Good-day, Mr. Andrews," was my prompt and civil greeting: "I have good news for you. Take a chair."

The good-humored, rather intelligent, and somewhat clouded countenance of the new-comer brightened up at these words. "News from my Cousin Archibald?" he asked, as he seated himself.

"Yes: He laments your late failure, and commiserates the changed position and prospects of your wife and boy, little Archibald, his G.o.dson. You he has not much compa.s.sion for, inasmuch as he attributes your misfortunes entirely to mismanagement, and the want of common prudence."

"Candid, certainly," grumbled out Mr. Jesse Andrews; "but an odd sort of good news!"

"His deeds are kinder than his words. He will allow, till Archibald attains his majority--Let me see--how old is that boy of yours now?"

"Ten. He was two years old when his G.o.dfather went to India."

"Well, then, you will receive two hundred pounds per annum, payable half-yearly, in advance, for the next ten years--that is, of course, if your son lives--in order to enable you to bring him up, and educate him properly. After that period has elapsed, your cousin intimates that he will place the young man advantageously, and I do not doubt will do something for you, should you not by that time have conquered a fair position for yourself."

"Is that all?" said Mr. Andrews.

"All! Why, what did you expect?"

"Two or three thousand pounds to set me afloat again. I know of a safe speculation, that with, say three thousand pounds capital, would realize a handsome fortune in no time."

Mr. Jesse Andrews, I may observe, was one of that numerous cla.s.s of persons who are always on the threshold of realizing millions--the only and constant obstacle being the want of a sufficient "capital."

I condoled with him upon his disappointment; but as words, however civil, avail little in the way of "capital," Mr. Jesse Andrews, having pocketed the first half-yearly installment of the annuity, made his exit in by no means a gracious or grateful frame of mind.

Two other half-yearly payments were duly paid him. When he handed me the receipt on the last occasion, he said, in a sort of off-hand, careless way, "I suppose, if Archy were to die, these payments would cease?"

"Perhaps not," I replied unthinkingly. "At all events, not, I should say, till you and your wife were in some way provided for. But your son is not ill?" I added.

"No, no; not at present," replied Andrews, coloring, and with a confusion of manner which surprised me not a little. It flashed across my mind that the boy was dead, and that Andrews, in order not to risk the withdrawal or suspension of the annuity, had concealed the fact from us.

"Let me see," I resumed, "we have your present address--Norton Folgate, I think?"

"Yes, certainly you have."

"I shall very likely call in a day or two to see Mrs. Andrew! and your son."

The man smiled in a rea.s.sured, half-sardonic manner. "Do," he answered.

"Archy is alive, and very well, thank G.o.d!"

This confidence dispelled the suspicion I had momentarily entertained, and five or six weeks pa.s.sed away, during which Andrews and his affairs were almost as entirely absent from my thoughts as if no such man existed.