The Law and the Lady

W >> Wilkie Collins >> The Law and the Lady

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31

This illustrious lawyer struck the right note at starting.

"I yield to no one," he began, "in the pity I feel for the wife.
But I say, the martyr in this case, from first to last, is the
husband. Whatever the poor woman may have endured, that unhappy
man at the Bar has suffered, and is now suffering, more. If he
had not been the kindest of men, the most docile and most devoted
of husbands, he would never have occupied his present dreadful
situation. A man of a meaner and harder nature would have felt
suspicions of his wife's motives when she asked him to buy
poison--would have seen through the wretchedly commonplace
excuses she made for wanting it--and would have wisely and
cruelly said, 'No.' The prisoner is not that sort of man. He is
too good to his wife, too innocent of any evil thought toward
her, or toward any one, to foresee the inconveniences and the
dangers to which his fatal compliance may expose him. And what is
the result? He stands there, branded as a murderer, because he
was too high-minded and too honorable to suspect his wife."

Speaking thus of the husband, the Dean was just as eloquent and
just as unanswerable when he came to speak of the wife.

"The Lord Advocate," he said, "has asked, with the bitter irony
for which he is celebrated at the Scottish Bar, why we have
failed entirely to prove that the prisoner placed the two packets
of poison in the possession of his wife. I say, in answer, we
have proved, first, that the wife was passionately attached to
the husband; secondly, that she felt bitterly the defects in her
personal appearance, and especially the defects in her
complexion; and, thirdly, that she was informed of arsenic as a
supposed remedy for those defects, taken internally. To men who
know anything of human nature, there is proof enough. Does my
learned friend actually suppose that women are in the habit of
mentioning the secret artifices and applications by which they
improve their personal appearance? Is it in his experience of the
sex that a woman who is eagerly bent on making herself attractive
to a man would tell that man, or tell anybody else who might
communicate with him, that the charm by which she hoped to win
his heart--say the charm of a pretty complexion--had been
artificially acquired by the perilous use of a deadly poison? The
bare idea of such a thing is absurd. Of course nobody ever heard
Mrs. Eustace Macallan speak of arsenic. Of course nobody ever
surprised her in the act of taking arsenic. It is in the evidence
that she would not even confide her intention to try the poison
to the friends who had told her of it as a remedy, and who had
got her the book. She actually begged them to consider their
brief conversation on the subject as strictly private. From first
to last, poor creature, she kept her secret; just as she would
have kept her secret if she had worn false hair, or if she had
been indebted to the dentist for her teeth. And there you see her
husband, in peril of his life, because a woman acted _like_ a
woman--as your wives, gentlemen of the Jury, would, in a similar
position, act toward You."

After such glorious oratory as this (I wish I had room to quote
more of it!), the next, and last, speech delivered at the
Trial--that is to say, the Charge of the Judge to the Jury--is
dreary reading indeed.

His lordship first told the Jury that they could not expect to
have direct evidence of the poisoning. Such evidence hardly ever
occurred in cases of poisoning. They must be satisfied with the
best circumstantial evidence. All quite true, I dare say. But,
having told the Jury they might accept circumstantial evidence,
he turned back again on his own words, and warned them against
being too ready to trust it! "You must have evidence satisfactory
and convincing to your own minds," he said, "in which you find no
conjectures--but only irresistible and just inferences." Who is
to decide what is a just inference? And what is circumstantial
evidence _but_ conjecture?

After this specimen, I need give no further extracts from the
summing up. The Jury, thoroughly bewildered no doubt, took refuge
in a compromise. They occupied an hour in considering and
debating among themselves in their own room. (A jury of women
would not have taken a minute!) Then they returned into Court,
and gave their timid and trimming Scotch Verdict in these words:

"Not Proven."

Some slight applause followed among the audience, which was
instantly checked. The prisoner was dismissed from the Bar. He
slowly retired, like a man in deep grief: his head sunk on his
breast--not looking at any one, and not replying when his friends
spoke to him. He knew, poor fellow, the slur that the Verdict
left on him. "We don't say you are innocent of the crime charged
against you; we only say there is not evidence enough to convict
you." In that lame and impotent conclusion the proceedings ended
at the time. And there they would have remained for all time--but
for Me.

CHAPTER XXI.

I SEE MY WAY.

IN the gray light of the new morning I closed the Report of my
husband's Trial for the Murder of his first Wife.

No sense of fatigue overpowered me. I had no wish, after my long
hours of reading and thinking, to lie down and sleep. It was
strange, but it was so. I felt as if I _had_ slept, and had now
just awakened--a new woman, with a new mind.

I could now at last understand Eustace's desertion of me. To a
man of his refinement it would have been a martyrdom to meet his
wife after she had read the things published of him to all the
world in the Report. I felt that as he would have felt it. At the
same time I thought he might have trusted Me to make amends to
him for the martyrdom, and might have come back. Perhaps it might
yet end in his coming back. In the meanwhile, and in that
expectation, I pitied and forgave him with my whole heart.

One little matter only dwelt on my mind disagreeably, in spite of
my philosophy. Did Eustace still secretly love Mrs. Beauly? or
had I extinguished that passion in him? To what order of beauty
did this lady belong? Were we by any chance, the least in the
world like one another?

The window of my room looked to the east. I drew up the blind,
and saw the sun rising grandly in a clear sky. The temptation to
go out and breathe the fresh morning air was irresistible. I put
on my hat and shawl, and took the Report of the Trial under my
arm. The bolts of the back door were easily drawn. In another
minute I was out in Benjamin's pretty little garden.

Composed and strengthened by the inviting solitude and the
delicious air, I found courage enough to face the serious
question that now confronted me--the question of the future.

I had read the Trial. I had vowed to devote my life to the sacred
object of vindicating my husband's innocence. A solitary,
defenseless woman, I stood pledged to myself to carry that
desperate resolution through to an end. How was I to begin?

The bold way of beginning was surely the wise way in such a
position as mine. I had good reasons (founded, as I have already
mentioned, on the important part played by this witness at the
Trial) for believing that the fittest person to advise and assist
me was--Miserrimus Dexter. He might disappoint the expectations
that I had fixed on him, or he might refuse to help me, or (like
my uncle Starkweather) he might think I had taken leave of my
senses. All these events were possible. Nevertheless, I held to
my resolution to try the experiment. If he were in the land of
the living, I decided that my first step at starting should take
me to the deformed man with the strange name.

Supposing he received me, sympathized with me, understood me?
What would he say? The nurse, in her evidence, had reported him
as speaking in an off-hand manner. He would say, in all
probability, "What do you mean to do? And how can I help you to
do it?"

Had I answers ready if those two plain questions were put to me?
Yes! if I dared own to any human creatu re what was at that very
moment secretly fermenting in my mind. Yes! if I could confide to
a stranger a suspicion roused in me by the Trial which I have
been thus far afraid to mention even in these pages!

It must, nevertheless, be mentioned now. My suspicion led to
results which are part of my story and part of my life.

Let me own, then, to begin with, that I closed the record of the
Trial actually agreeing in one important particular with the
opinion of my enemy and my husband's enemy--the Lord Advocate! He
had characterized the explanation of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's
death offered by the defense as a "clumsy subterfuge, in which no
reasonable being could discern the smallest fragment of
probability." Without going quite so far as this, I, too, could
see no reason whatever in the evidence for assuming that the poor
woman had taken an overdose of the poison by mistake. I believed
that she had the arsenic secretly in her possession, and that she
had tried, or intended to try, the use of it internally, for the
purpose of improving her complexion. But further than this I
could not advance. The more I thought of it, the more plainly
justified the lawyers for the prosecution seemed to me to be in
declaring that Mrs. Eustace Macallan had died by the hand of a
poisoner--although they were entirely and certainly mistaken in
charging my husband with the crime.

My husband being innocent, somebody else, on my own showing, must
be guilty. Who among the persons inhabiting the house at the time
had poisoned Mrs. Eustace Macallan? My suspicion in answering
that question pointed straight to a woman. And the name of that
woman was--Mrs. Beauly!

Yes! To that startling conclusion I had arrived. It was, to my
mind, the inevitable result of reading the evidence.

Look back for a moment to the letter produced in court, signed
"Helena," and addressed to Mr. Macallan. No reasonable person can
doubt (though the Judges excused her from answering the question)
that Mrs. Beauly was the writer. Very well. The letter offers, as
I think, trustworthy evidence to show the state of the woman's
mind when she paid her visit to Gleninch.

Writing to Mr. Macallan, at a time when she was married to
another man--a man to whom she had engaged herself before she met
with Mr. Macallan what does she say? She says, "When I think of
your life sacrificed to that wretched woman, my heart bleeds for
you." And, again, she says, "If it had been my unutterable
happiness to love and cherish the best, the dearest of men, what
a paradise of our own we might have lived in, what delicious
hours we might have known!"

If this is not the language of a woman shamelessly and furiously
in love with a man--not her husband--what is? She is so full of
him that even her idea of another world (see the letter) is the
idea of "embracing" Mr. Macallan's "soul." In this condition of
mind and morals, the lady one day finds herself and her embraces
free, through the death of her husband. As soon as she can
decently visit she goes visiting; and in due course of time she
becomes the guest of the man whom she adores. His wife is ill in
her bed. The one other visitor at Gleninch is a cripple, who can
only move in his chair on wheels. The lady has the house and the
one beloved object in it all to herself. No obstacle stands
between her and "the unutterable happiness of loving and
cherishing the best, the dearest of men" but a poor, sick, ugly
wife, for whom Mr. Macallan never has felt, and never can feel,
the smallest particle of love.

Is it perfectly absurd to believe that such a woman as this,
impelled by these motives, and surrounded by these circumstances,
would be capable of committing a crime--if the safe opportunity
offered itself?

What does her own evidence say?

She admits that she had a conversation with Mrs. Eustace
Macallan, in which that lady questioned her on the subject of
cosmetic applications to the complexion." Did nothing else take
place at that interview? Did Mrs. Beauly make no discoveries
(afterward turned to fatal account) of the dangerous experiment
which her hostess was then trying to improve her ugly complexion?
All we know is that Mrs. Beauly said nothing about it.

What does the under-gardener say?

He heard a conversation between Mr. Macallan and Mrs. Beauly,
which shows that the possibility of Mrs. Beauly becoming Mrs.
Eustace Macallan had certainly presented itself to that lady's
mind, and was certainly considered by her to be too dangerous a
topic of discourse to be pursued. Innocent Mr. Macallan would
have gone on talking. Mrs. Beauly is discreet and stops him.

And what does the nurse (Christina Ormsay) tell us?

On the day of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death, the nurse is
dismissed from attendance, and is sent downstairs. She leaves the
sick woman, recovered from her first attack of illness, and able
to amuse herself with writing. The nurse remains away for half an
hour, and then gets uneasy at not hearing the invalid's bell. She
goes to the Morning-Room to consult Mr. Macallan, and there she
hears that Mrs. Beauly is missing. Mr. Macallan doesn't know
where she is, and asks Mr. Dexter if he has seen her. Mr. Dexter
had not set eyes on her. At what time does the disappearance of
Mrs. Beauly take place? At the very time when Christina Ormsay
had left Mrs. Eustace Macallan alone in her room!

Meanwhile the bell rings at last--rings violently. The nurse goes
back to the sick-room at five minutes to eleven, or thereabouts,
and finds that the bad symptoms of the morning have returned in a
gravely aggravated form. A second dose of poison--larger than the
dose administered in the early morning--has been given during the
absence of the nurse, and (observe) during the disappearance also
of Mrs. Beauly. The nurse looking out into the corridor for help,
encounters Mrs. Beauly herself, innocently on her way from her
own room--just up, we are to suppose, at eleven in the
morning!--to inquire after the sick woman.

A little later Mrs. Beauly accompanies Mr. Macallan to visit the
invalid. The dying woman casts a strange look at both of them,
and tells them to leave her. Mr. Macallan understands this as the
fretful outbreak of a person in pain, and waits in the room to
tell the nurse that the doctor is sent for. What does Mrs. Beauly
do?

She runs out panic-stricken the instant Mrs. Eustace Macallan
looks at her. Even Mrs. Beauly, it seems, has a conscience!

Is there nothing to justify suspicion in such circumstances as
these--circumstances sworn to on the oaths of the witnesses?

To me the conclusion is plain. Mrs. Beauly's hand gave that
second dose of poison. Admit this; and the inference follows that
she also gave the first dose in the early morning. How could she
do it? Look again at the evidence. The nurse admits that she was
asleep from past two in the morning to six. She also speaks of a
locked door of communication with the sickroom, the key of which
had been removed, nobody knew by whom. Some person must have
stolen that key. Why not Mrs. Beauly?

One word more, and all that I had in my mind at that time will be
honestly revealed.

Miserrimus Dexter, under cross-examination, had indirectly
admitted that he had ideas of his own on the subject of Mrs.
Eustace Macallan's death. At the same time he had spoken of Mrs.
Beauly in a tone which plainly betrayed that he was no friend to
that lady. Did _he_ suspect her too? My chief motive in deciding
to ask his advice before I applied to any one else was to find an
opportunity of putting that question to him. If he really thought
of her as I did, my course was clear before me. The next step to
take would be carefully to conceal my identity--and then to
present myself, in the character of a harmless stranger, to Mrs.
Beauly.

There were difficulties, of course, in my way. The first and
greatest difficulty was to obtain an introduction to Miserrimus
Dexter.

The composing influence of the fresh air in the garden had by
this time made me readier to lie down and rest than to occupy my
mind in reflecting on my difficulties. Little by little I grew
too drowsy to think--then too lazy to go on walking. My bed
looked wonderfully inviting as I passed
by the open window of my room.

In five minutes more I had accepted the invitation of the bed,
and had said farewell to my anxieties and my troubles. In five
minutes more I was fast asleep.

A discreetly gentle knock at my door was the first sound that
aroused me. I heard the voice of my good old Benjamin speaking
outside.

"My dear! I am afraid you will be starved if I let you sleep any
longer. It is half-past one o'clock; and a friend of yours has
come to lunch with us."

A friend of mine? What friends had I? My husband was far away;
and my uncle Starkweather had given me up in despair.

"Who is it?" I cried out from my bed, through the door.

"Major Fitz-David," Benjamin answered, by the same medium.

I sprang out of bed. The very man I wanted was waiting to see me!
Major Fitz-David, as the phrase is, knew everybody. Intimate with
my husband, he would certainly know my husband's old
friend--Miserrimus Dexter.

Shall I confess that I took particular pains with my toilet, and
that I kept the luncheon waiting? The woman doesn't live who
would have done otherwise--when she had a particular favor to ask
of Major Fitz-David.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE MAJOR MAKES DIFFICULTIES.

As I opened the dining-room door the Major hastened to meet me.
He looked the brightest and the youngest of living elderly
gentlemen, with his smart blue frock-coat, his winning smile, his
ruby ring, and his ready compliment. It was quite cheering to
meet the modern Don Juan once more.

"I don't ask after your health," said the old gentleman; "your
eyes answer me, my dear lady, before I can put the question. At
your age a long sleep is the true beauty-draught. Plenty of
bed--there is the simple secret of keeping your good looks and
living a long life--plenty of bed!"

"I have not been so long in my bed, Major, as you suppose. To
tell the truth, I have been up all night, reading."

Major Fitz-David lifted his well-painted eyebrows in polite
surprise.

"What is the happy book which has interested you so deeply?" he
asked.

"The book," I answered, "is the Trial of my husband for the
murder of his first wife."

"Don't mention that horrid book!" he exclaimed. "Don't speak of
that dreadful subject! What have beauty and grace to do with
Trials, Poisonings, Horrors? Why, my charming friend, profane
your lips by talking of such things? Why frighten away the Loves
and the Graces that lie hid in your smile. Humor an old fellow
who adores the Loves and the Graces, and who asks nothing better
than to sun himself in your smiles. Luncheon is ready. Let us be
cheerful. Let us laugh and lunch."

He led me to the table, and filled my plate and my glass with the
air of a man who considered himself to be engaged in one of the
most important occupations of his life. Benjamin kept the
conversation going in the interval.

"Major Fitz-David brings you some news, my dear," he said. "Your
mother-in-law, Mrs. Macallan, is coming here to see you to-day."

My mother-in-law coming to see me! I turned eagerly to the Major
for further information.

"Has Mrs. Macallan heard anything of my husband?" I asked. "Is
she coming here to tell me about him?"

"She has heard from him, I believe," said the Major, "and she has
also heard from your uncle the vicar. Our excellent Starkweather
has written to her--to what purpose I have not been informed. I
only know that on receipt of his letter she has decided on paying
you a visit. I met the old lady last night at a party, and I
tried hard to discover whether she were coming to you as your
friend or your enemy. My powers of persuasion were completely
thrown away on her. The fact is," said the Major, speaking in the
character of a youth of five-and-twenty making a modest
confession, "I don't get on well with old women. Take the will
for the deed, my sweet friend. I have tried to be of some use to
you and have failed."

Those words offered me the opportunity for which I was waiting. I
determined not to lose it.

"You can be of the greatest use to me," I said, "if you will
allow me to presume, Major, on your past kindness. I want to ask
you a question; and I may have a favor to beg when you have
answered me."

Major Fitz-David set down his wine-glass on its way to his lips,
and looked at me with an appearance of breathless interest.

"Command me, my dear lady--I am yours and yours only," said the
gallant old gentleman. "What do you wish to ask me?"

"I wish to ask if you know Miserrimus Dexter."

"Good Heavens!" cried the Major; "that _is_ an unexpected
question! Know Miserrimus Dexter? I have known him for more years
than I like to reckon up. What _can_ be your object--"

"I can tell you what my object is in two words," I interposed. "I
want you to give me an introduction to Miserrimus Dexter."

My impression is that the Major turned pale under his paint.
This, at any rate, is certain--his sparkling little gray eyes
looked at me in undisguised bewilderment and alarm.

"You want to know Miserrimus Dexter?" he repeated, with the air
of a man who doubted the evidence of his own senses. "Mr.
Benjamin, have I taken too much of your excellent wine? Am I the
victim of a delusion--or did our fair friend really ask me to
give her an introduction to Miserrimus Dexter?"

Benjamin looked at me in some bewilderment on his side, and
answered, quite seriously,

"I think you said so, my dear."

"I certainly said so," I rejoined. "What is there so very
surprising in my request?"

"The man is mad!" cried the Major. "In all England you could not
have picked out a person more essentially unfit to be introduced
to a lady--to a young lady especially--than Dexter. Have you
heard of his horrible deformity?"

"I have heard of it--and it doesn't daunt me."

"Doesn't daunt you? My dear lady, the man's mind is as deformed
as his body. What Voltaire said satirically of the character of
his countrymen in general is literally true of Miserrimus Dexter.
He is a mixture of the tiger and the monkey. At one moment he
would frighten you, and at the next he would set you screaming
with laughter. I don't deny that he is clever in some
respects--brilliantly clever, I admit. And I don't say that he
has ever committed any acts of violence, or ever willingly
injured anybody. But, for all that, he is mad, if ever a man were
mad yet. Forgive me if the inquiry is impertinent. What can your
motive possibly be for wanting an introduction to Miserrimus
Dexter?"

"I want to consult him?"

"May I ask on what subject?"

"On the subject of my husband's Trial."

Major Fitz-David groaned, and sought a momentary consolation in
his friend Benjamin's claret.

"That dreadful subject again!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Benjamin, why
does she persist in dwelling on that dreadful subject?"

"I must dwell on what is now the one employment and the one hope
of my life," I said. "I have reason to hope that Miserrimus
Dexter can help me to clear my husband's character of the stain
which the Scotch Verdict has left on it. Tiger and monkey as he
may be, I am ready to run the risk of being introduced to him.
And I ask you again--rashly and obstinately as I fear you will
think--to give me the introduction. It will put you to no
inconvenience. I won't trouble you to escort me; a letter to Mr.
Dexter will do."

The Major looked piteously at Benjamin, and shook his head.
Benjamin looked piteously at the Major, and shook _his_ head.

"She appears to insist on it," said the Major.

"Yes," said Benjamin. "She appears to insist on it."

"I won't take the responsibility, Mr. Benjamin, of sending her
alone to Miserrimus Dexter."

"Shall I go with her, sir?"

The Major reflected. Benjamin, in the capacity of protector, did
not appear to inspire our military friend with confidence. After
a moment's consideration a new idea seemed to strike him. He
turned to me.

"My charming friend," he said, "be more charming than
ever--consent to a compromise. Let us treat this difficulty about
Dexter from a social point of view. What do you say to a little
dinner?"

"A little dinner?" I repeated, not in the least understanding
him.

"A little dinner," the Major reiterated, "at my house. You insist
on my introducing you to Dexter, and I refuse to trust you alone
with th at crack-brained personage. The only alternative under
the circumstances is to invite him to meet you, and to let you
form your own opinion of him--under the protection of my roof.
Who shall we have to meet you besides?" pursued the Major,
brightening with hospitable intentions. "We want a perfect galaxy
of beauty around the table, as a species of compensation when we
have got Miserrimus Dexter as one the guests. Madame Mirliflore
is still in London. You would be sure to like her--she is
charming; she possesses your firmness, your extraordinary
tenacity of purpose. Yes, we will have Madame Mirliflore. Who
else? Shall we say Lady Clarinda? Another charming person, Mr.
Benjamin! You would be sure to admire her--she is so sympathetic,
she resembles in so many respects our fair friend here. Yes, Lady
Clarinda shall be one of us; and you shall sit next to her, Mr.
Benjamin, as a proof of my sincere regard for you. Shall we have
my young prima donna to sing to us in the evening? think so. She
is pretty; she will assist in obscuring the deformity of Dexter.
Very well; there is our party complete! I will shut myself up
this evening and approach the question of dinner with my cook.
Shall we say this day week," asked the Major, taking out his
pocketbook, "at eight o'clock?"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31