The task of seeing an important trial at the Old Bailey is by no means a pleasant business, unless you be what the denizens of the Court would call “one of the swells’ — so as to enjoy the privilege of being a benchfellow with the judge on the seat of judgment. And even in that case the pleasure is not unalloyed. You have, indeed, the gratification of seeing the man whom all the world has been talking about for the last nine days, face to face, and of being seen in a position which causes you to be acknowledged as a man of mark; but the intolerable stenches of the Court and its horrid heat come up to you there, no doubt, as powerfully as they fall on those below. And then the tedium of a prolonged trial, in which the points of interest are apt to be few and far between, grows upon you till you begin to feel that though the Prime Minister who is out should murder the Prime Minister who is in, and all the members of the two Cabinets were to be called in evidence, you would not attend the trial, though the seat of honour next to the judge were accorded to you. Those bewigged ones, who are the performers, are so insufferably long in their parts, so arrogant in their bearing — so it strikes you, though doubtless the fashion of working has been found to be efficient for the purposes they have in hand — and so uninteresting in their repetition, that you first admire, and then question, and at last execrate the imperturbable patience of the judge, who might, as you think, force the thing through in a quarter of the time without any injury to justice. And it will probably strike you that the length of the trial is proportioned not to the complicity but to the importance, or rather to the public interest, of the case — so that the trial which has been suggested of a disappointed and bloody-minded ex-Prime Minister would certainly take at least a fortnight, even though the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Chancellor had seen the blow struck, whereas a collier may knock his wife’s brains out in the dark and be sent to the gallows with a trial that shall not last three hours. And yet the collier has to be hung — if found guilty — and no one thinks that his life is improperly endangered by reckless haste. Whether lives may not be improperly saved by the more lengthened process is another question.
But the honours of such benchfellowship can be accorded but to few, and the task becomes very tiresome when the spectator has to enter the Court as an ordinary mortal. There are two modes open to him, either of which is subject to grievous penalties. If he be the possessor of a decent coat and hat, and can scrape any acquaintance with anyone concerned, he may get introduced to that overworked and greatly perplexed official, the under-sheriff, who will stave him off if possible — knowing that even a under-sheriff cannot make space elastic — but, if the introduction has been acknowledged as good, will probably find a seat for him if he persevere to the end. But the seat when obtained must be kept in possession from morning to evening, and the fight must be renewed from day to day. And the benches are hard, and the space is narrow, and you feel that the under-sheriff would prod you with his sword if you ventured to sneeze, or to put to your lips the flask which you have in your pocket. And then, when all the benchfellows go out to lunch at half-past one, and you are left to eat your dry sandwich without room for your elbows, a feeling of unsatisfied ambition will pervade you. It is all very well to be the friend of an under-sheriff, but if you could but have known the judge, or have been a cousin of the real sheriff, how different it might have been with you!
But you may be altogether independent, and, as a matter of right, walk into an open English court of law as one of the British public. You will have to stand of course — and to commence standing very early in the morning if you intend to succeed in witnessing any portion of the performance. And when you have made once good your entrance as one of the British public, you are apt to be a good deal knocked about, not only by your public brethren, but also by those who have to keep the avenues free for witnesses, and who will regard you from first to last as a disagreeable excrescence on the officialities of the work on hand. Upon the whole it may be better for you, perhaps, to stay at home and read the record of the affair as given in the next day’s Times. Impartial reporters, judicious readers, and able editors between them will preserve for you all the kernel, and will save you from the necessity of having to deal with the shell.
At this trial there were among the crowd who succeeded in entering the Court three persons of our acquaintance who had resolved to overcome the various difficulties. Mr Monk, who had formerly been a Cabinet Minister, was seated on the bench — subject, indeed, to the heat and stenches, but priviledged to eat the lunch. Mr Quintus Slide, of the People’s Banner — who knew the Court well, for in former days he had worked many an hour in it as a reporter — had obtained the good graces of the under-sheriff. And Mr Bunce, with all the energy of the British Public, had forced his way in among the crowd, and had managed to wedge himself near to the dock, so that he might be able by a hoist of the neck to see his lodger as he stood at the bar. Of these three men, Bunce was assured that the prisoner was innocent — led to such assurance partly by belief in the man, and partly by an innate spirit of opposition to all exercise of restrictive power. Mr Quintus Slide was certain of the prisoner’s guilt, and gave himself considerable credit for having assisted in running down the criminal. It seemed to be natural to Mr Quintus Slide that a man who had openly quarrelled with the Editor of the People’s Banner should come to the gallows. Mr Monk, as Phineas himself well knew, had doubted. He had received the suspected murderer into his warmest friendship, and was made miserable even by his doubts. Since the circumstances of the case had come to his knowledge, they had weighed upon his mind so as to sadden his whole life. But he was a man who could not make his reason subordinate to his feelings. If the evidence against his friend was strong enough to send his friend for trial, how should he dare to discredit the evidence because the man was his friend? He had visited Phineas in prison, and Phineas had accused him of doubting. “You need not answer me,” the unhappy man had said, “but do not come unless you are able to tell me from your heart that you are sure of my innocence. There is no person living who could comfort me by such assurance as you could do.” Mr Monk had thought about it very much, but he had not repeated his visit.
At a quarter past ten the Chief Justice was on the bench, with a second judge to help him, and with lords and distinguished commoners and great City magnates crowding the long seat between him and the doorway; the Court was full, so that you would say that another head could not be made to appear; and Phineas Finn, the member for Tankerville, was in the dock. Barrington Erle, who was there to see — as one of the great ones, of course — told the Duchess of Omnium that night that Phineas was thin and pale, and in many respects an altered man — but handsomer than ever.
“He bore himself well?” asked the Duchess.
“Very well — very well indeed. We were there for six hours, and he maintained the same demeanour throughout. He never spoke but once, and that was when Chaffanbrass began his fight about the jury.”
“What did he say?”
“He addressed the judge, interrupting Slope, who was arguing that some man would make a very good juryman, and declared that it was not by his wish that any objection was raised against any gentleman.”
“What did the judge say?”
“Told him to abide by his counsel. The Chief Justice was very civil to him — indeed better than civil.”
“We’ll have him down to Matching, and make ever so much of him,” said the Duchess.
“Don’t go too fast, Duchess, for he may have to hang poor Phineas yet.”
“Oh dear; I wish you wouldn’t use that word. But what did he say?”
“He told Finn that as he had thought fit to employ counsel for his defence — in doing which he had undoubtedly acted wisely — he must leave the case to the discretion of his counsel.”
“And then poor Phineas was silenced?”
“He spoke another word. “My lord,”” said he, ““I for my part wish that the first twelve men on the list might be taken.’” But old Chaffanbrass went on just the same. It took them two hours and a half before they could swear a jury.”
“But, Mr Erle — taking it altogether — which way is it going?”
“Nobody can even guess as yet. There was ever so much delay besides that about the jury. It seemed that somebody had called him Phinees instead of Phineas, and that took half an hour. They begin with the quarrel at the club, and are to call the first witness tomorrow morning. They are to examine Ratler about the quarrel, and Fitzgibbon, and Monk, and, I believe, old Bouncer, the man who writes, you know. They all heard what took place.”
“So did you?”
“I have managed to escape that. They can’t very well examine all the club. But I shall be called afterwards as to what took place at the door. They will begin with Ratler.”
“Everybody knows there was a quarrel, and that Mr Bonteen had been drinking, and that he behaved as badly as a man could behave.”
“It must all be proved, Duchess.”
“I’ll tell you what, Mr Erle. If — if — if this ends badly for Mr Finn I’ll wear mourning to the day of my death. I’ll go to the Drawing Room in mourning, to show what I think of it.”
Lord Chiltern, who was also on the bench, took his account of the trial home to his wife and sister in Portman Square. At this time Miss Palliser was staying with them, and the three ladies were together when the account was brought to them. In that house it was taken as doctrine that Phineas Finn was innocent. In the presence of her brother, and before her sister-in-law’s visitor, Lady Laura had learned to be silent on the subject, and she now contented herself with listening, knowing that she could relieve herself by speech when alone with Lady Chiltern. “I never knew anything so tedious in my life,” said the Master of the Brake hounds. “They have not done anything yet.”
“I suppose they have made their speeches?” said his wife.
“Sir Gregory Grogram opened the case, as they call it; and a very strong case he made of it. I never believe anything that a lawyer says when he has a wig on his head and a fee in his hand. I prepare myself beforehand to regard it all as mere words, supplied at so much the thousand. I know he’ll say whatever he thinks most likely to forward his own views. But upon my word he put it very strongly. He brought it all within so very short a space of time! Bonteen and Finn left the club within a minute of each other. Bonteen must have been at the top of the passage five minutes afterwards, and Phineas at that moment could not have been above two hundred yards from him. There can be no doubt of that.”
“Oswald, you don’t mean to say that it’s going against him!” exclaimed Lady Chiltern.
“It’s not going anyway at present. The witnesses have not been examined. But so far, I suppose, the Attorney-General was right. He has got to prove it all, but so much no doubt he can prove. He can prove that the man was killed with some blunt weapon, such as Finn had. And he can prove that exactly at the same time a man was running to the spot very like to Finn, and that by a route which would not have been his route, but by using which he could have placed himself at that moment where the man was seen.”
“How very dreadful!” said Miss Palliser.
“And yet I feel that I know it was that other man,” said Lady Chiltern. Lady Laura sat silent through it all, listening with her eyes intent on her brother’s face, with her elbow on the table and her brow on her hand. She did not speak a word till she found herself alone with her sister-in-law, and then it was hardly more than a word. “Violet, they will murder him!” Lady Chiltern endeavoured to comfort her, telling her that as yet they had heard but one side of the case; but the wretched woman only shook her head. “I know they will murder him”, she said, “and then when it is too late they will find out what they have done!”
On the following day the crowd in Court was if possible greater, so that the benchfellows were very much squeezed indeed. But it was impossible to exclude from the high seat such men as Mr Ratler and Lord Fawn when they were required in the Court as witnesses — and not a man who had obtained a seat on the first day was willing to be excluded on the second. And even then the witnesses were not called at once. Sir Gregory Grogram began the work of the day by saying that he had heard that morning for the first time that one of his witnesses had been — “tampered with” was the word that he unfortunately used — by his learned friend on the other side. He alluded, of course, to Lord Fawn, and poor Lord Fawn, sitting up there on the seat of honour, visible to all the world, became very hot and very uncomfortable. Then there arose a vehement dispute between Sir Gregory, assisted by Sir Simon, and old Mr Chaffanbrass, who rejected with disdain any assistance from the gentler men who were with him. “Tampered with! That word should be recalled by the honourable gentleman who was at the head of the bar, or — or — .” Had Mr Chaffanbrass declared that as an alternative he would pull the Court about their ears, it would have been no more than he meant. Lord Fawn had been invited — not summoned to attend; and why? In order that no suspicion of guilt might be thrown on another man, unless the knowledge that was in Lord Fawn’s bosom, and there alone, would justify such a line of defence. Lord Fawn had been attended by his own solicitor, and might have brought the Attorney-General with him had he so pleased. There was a great deal said on both sides, and something said also by the judge. At last Sir Gregory withdrew the objectionable word, and substituted in lieu of it an assertion that his witness had been “indiscreetly questioned”, Mr Chaffanbrass would not for a moment admit the indiscretion, but bounced about in his place, tearing his wig almost off his head, and defying everyone in the Court. The judge submitted to Mr Chaffanbrass that he had been indiscreet — “I never contradicted the Bench yet, my lord,” said Mr Chaffanbrass — at which there was a general titter throughout the bar — “but I must claim the privilege of conducting my own practice according to my own views. In this Court I am subject to the Bench. In my own chamber I am subject only to the law of the land.” The judge looking over his spectacles said a mild word about the profession at large. Mr Chaffanbrass, twisting his wig quite on one side, so that it nearly fell on Mr Serjeant Birdbott’s face, muttered something as to having seen more work done in that Court than any other living lawyer, let his rank be what it might. When the little affair was over, everybody felt that Sir Gregory had been vanquished.
Mr Ratler, and Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Mr Monk, and Mr Bouncer were examined about the quarrel at the club, and proved that the quarrel had been a very bitter quarrel. They all agreed that Mr Bonteen had been wrong, and that the prisoner had had cause for anger. Of the three distinguished legislators and statesmen above named Mr Chaffanbrass refused to take the slightest notice. “I have no question to put to you,” he said to Mr Ratler. “Of course there was a quarrel. We all know that.” But he did ask a question or two of Mr Bouncer. “You write books, I think, Mr Bouncer?”
“I do,” said Mr Bouncer, with dignity. Now there was no peculiarity in a witness to which Mr Chaffanbrass was so much opposed as an assumption of dignity.
“What sort of books, Mr Bouncer?”
“I write novels,” said Mr Bouncer, feeling that Mr Chaffanbrass must have been ignorant indeed of the polite literature of the day to make such a question necessary.
“You mean fiction.”
“Well, yes; fiction — if you like that word better.”
“I don’t like either, particularly. You have to find plots, haven’t you?”
Mr Bouncer paused a moment. “Yes; yes,” he said. “In writing a novel it is necessary to construct a plot.”
“Where do you get ’em from?”
“Where do I get ’em from?”
“Yes — where do you find them? You take them from the French mostly — don’t you?” Mr Bouncer became very red. “Isn’t that the way our English writers get their plots?”
“Sometimes — perhaps.”
“Yours ain’t French then?”
“Well — no — that is — I won’t undertake to say that — that — ”
“You won’t undertake to say that they’re not French.”
“Is this relevant to the case before us, Mr Chaffanbrass?” asked the judge.
“Quite so, my lud. We have a highly-distinguished novelist before us, my lud, who, as I have reason to believe, is intimately acquainted with the French system of the construction of plots. It is a business which the French carry to perfection. The plot of a novel should, I imagine, be constructed in accordance with human nature?”
“Certainly,” said Mr Bouncer.
“You have murders in novels?”
“Sometimes,” said Mr Bouncer, who had himself done many murders in his time.
“Did you ever know a French novelist have a premeditated murder committed by a man who could not possibly have conceived the murder ten minutes before he committed it; with whom the cause of the murder anteceded the murder no more than ten minutes?” Mr Bouncer stood thinking for a while. “We will give you your time, because an answer to the question from you will be important testimony.”
“I don’t think I do,” said Mr Bouncer, who in his confusion had been quite unable to think of the plot of a single novel.
“And if there were such a French plot that would not be the plot that you would borrow?”
“Certainly not,” said Mr Bouncer.
“Did you ever read poetry, Mr Bouncer?”
“Oh yes — I read a great deal of poetry.”
“Shakespeare, perhaps?” Mr Bouncer did not condescend to do more than nod his head. “There is a murder described in Hamlet. Was that supposed by the poet to have been devised suddenly?”
“I should say not.”
“So should I, Mr Bouncer. Do you remember the arrangements for the murder in Macbeth? That took a little time in concocting — didn’t it?”
“No doubt it did.”
“And when Othello murdered Desdemona, creeping up to her in her sleep, he had been thinking of it for some time?”
“I suppose he had.”
“Do you ever read English novels as well as French, Mr Bouncer?” The unfortunate author again nodded his head. “When Amy Robsart was lured to her death, there was some time given to the preparation — eh?”
“Of course there was.”
“Of course there was. And Eugene Aram, when he murdered a man in Bulwer’s novel, turned the matter over in his mind before he did it?”
“He was thinking a long time about it, I believe.”
“Thinking about it a long time! I rather think he was. Those great masters of human nature, those men who knew the human heart, did not venture to describe a secret murder as coming from a man’s brain without premeditation?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Such also is my impression. But now, I bethink me of a murder that was almost as sudden as this is supposed to have been. Didn’t a Dutch smuggler murder a Scotch lawyer, all in a moment as it were?”
“Dirk Hatteraick did murder Glossin in Guy Mannering very suddenly — but he did it from passion.”
“Just so, Mr Bouncer. There was no plot there, was there? No arrangement; no secret creeping up to his victim; no escape even?”
“He was chained.”
“So he was; chained like a dog — and like a dog he flew at his enemy. If I understand you, then, Mr Bouncer, you would not dare so to violate probability in a novel, as to produce a murderer to the public who should contrive a secret hidden murder — contrive it and execute it, all within a quarter of an hour?”
Mr Bouncer, after another minute’s consideration, said that he thought he would not do so. “Mr Bouncer,” said Mr Chaffanbrass, “I am uncommonly obliged to our excellent friend, Sir Gregory, for having given us the advantage of your evidence.”
A crowd of witnesses were heard on the second day after Mr Chaffanbrass had done with Mr Bouncer, but none of them were of much interest to the public. The three doctors were examined as to the state of the dead man’s head when he was picked up, and as to the nature of the instrument with which he had probably been killed; and the fact of Phineas Finn’s life-preserver was proved — in the middle of which he begged that the Court would save itself some little trouble, as he was quite ready to acknowledge that he had walked home with the short bludgeon, which was then produced, in his pocket. “We would acknowledge a great deal if they would let us,” said Mr Chaffanbrass. “We acknowledge the quarrel, we acknowledge the walk home at night, we acknowledge the bludgeon, and we acknowledge a grey coat.’. But that happened towards the close of the second day, and they had not then reached the grey coat. The question of the grey coat was commenced on the third morning — on the Saturday — which day, as was well known, would be opened with the examination of Lord Fawn. The anxiety to hear Lord Fawn undergo his penance was intense, and had been greatly increased by the conviction that Mr Chaffanbrass would resent upon him the charge made by the Attorney-General as to tampering with a witness. “I’ll tamper with him by and bye,” Mr Chaffabrass had whispered to Mr Wickerby, and the whispered threat had been spread abroad. On the table before Mr Chaffanbrass, when he took his place in the Court on the Saturday, was laid a heavy grey coat, and on the opposite side of the table, just before the Solicitor-General, was laid another grey coat, of much lighter material. When Lord Fawn saw the two coats as he took his seat on the bench his heart failed him.
He was hardly allowed to seat himself before he was called upon to be sworn. Sir Simon Slope, who was to examine him, took it for granted that his lordship could give his evidence from his place on the bench, but to this Mr Chaffanbrass objected. He was very well aware, he said, that such a practice was usual. He did not doubt but that in his time he had examined some hundreds of witnesses from the bench. In nineteen cases out of twenty there could be no objection to such a practice. But in this case the noble lord would have to give evidence not only as to what he had seen, but as to what he then saw. It would be expedient that he should see colours as nearly as possible in the same light as the jury, which he would do if he stood in the witness-box. And there might arise questions of identity, in speaking of which it would be well that the noble lord should be as near as possible to the thing or person to be identified. He was afraid that he must trouble the noble lord to come down from the Elysium of the bench. Whereupon Lord Fawn descended, and was sworn in at the witness-box.
His treatment from Sir Simon Slope was all that was due from a Solicitor-General to a distinguished peer who was a member of the same Government as himself. Sir Simon put his questions so as almost to reassure the witness; and very quickly — only too quickly — obtained from him all the information that was needed on the side of the prosecution. Lord Fawn, when he had left the club, had seen both Mr Bonteen and Mr Finn preparing to follow him, but he had gone alone, and had never seen Mr Bonteen since. He walked very slowly down into Curzon Street and Bolton Row, and when there, as he was about to cross the road at the top of Clarges Street — as he believed, just as he was crossing the street — he saw a man come at a very fast pace out of the mews which runs into Bolton Row, opposite to Clarges Street, and from thence hurry very quickly towards the passage which separates the gardens of Devonshire and Lansdowne Houses. It had already been proved that had Phineas Finn retraced his steps after Erle and Fitzgibbon had turned their backs upon him, his shortest and certainly most private way to the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen the man would have been by the mews in question. Lord Fawn went on to say that the man wore a grey coat — as far as he could judge it was such a coat as Sir Simon now showed him; he could not at all identify the prisoner; he could not say whether the man he had seen was as tall as the prisoner; he thought that as far as he could judge, there was not much difference in the height. He had not thought of Mr Finn when he saw the man hurrying along, nor had he troubled his mind about the man. That was the end of Lord Fawn’s evidence-in-chief, which he would gladly have prolonged to the close of the day could he thereby have postponed the coming horrors of his cross-examination. But there he was — in the clutches of the odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising him because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey barrister — and yet fearing him with so intense a fear!
Mr Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite soft with him — as a cat is soft with a mouse. The reporters could hardly hear his first question — “I believe you are an Under-Secretary of State?” Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact. Now it was the case that in the palmy days of our hero’s former career he had filled the very office which Lord Fawn now occupied, and that Lord Fawn had at the time filled a similar position in another department. These facts Mr Chaffanbrass extracted from his witness — not without an appearance of unwillingness, which was produced, however, altogether by the natural antagonism of the victim to his persecutor; for Mr Chaffanbrass, even when asking the simplest questions, in the simplest words, even when abstaining from that sarcasm of tone under which witnesses were wont to feel that they were being flayed alive, could so look at a man as to create an antagonism which no witness could conceal. In asking a man his name, and age, and calling, he could produce an impression that the man was unwilling to tell anything, and that, therefore, the jury were entitled to regard his evidence with suspicion. “Then”, continued Mr Chaffanbrass, “you must have met him frequently in the intercourse of your business?”
“I suppose I did — sometimes.”
“Sometimes? You belonged to the same party?”
“We didn’t sit in the same House.”
“I know that, my lord. I know very well what House you sat in. But I suppose you would condescend to be acquainted with even a commoner who held the very office which you hold now. You belonged to the same club with him.”
“I don’t go much to the clubs,” said Lord Fawn.
“But the quarrel of which we have heard so much took place at a club in your presence?” Lord Fawn assented. “In fact you cannot but have been intimately and accurately acquainted with the personal appearance of the gentleman who is now on his trial. Is that so?”
“I never was intimate with him.”
Mr Chaffanbrass looked up at the jury and shook his head sadly. “I am not presuming, Lord Fawn, that you so far derogated as to be intimate with this gentleman — as to whom, however, I shall be able to show by and by that he was the chosen friend of the very man under whose mastership you now serve. I ask whether his appearance is not familiar to you?” Lord Fawn at last said that it was. “Do you know his height? What should you say was his height?” Lord Fawn altogether refused to give an opinion on such a subject, but acknowledged that he should not be surprised if he were told that Mr Finn was over six feet high. “In fact you consider him a tall man, my lord? There he is, you can look at him. Is he a tall man?” Lord Fawn did look, but wouldn’t give an answer. “I’ll undertake to say, my lord, that there isn’t a person in the Court at this moment, except yourself, who wouldn’t be ready — to express an opinion on his oath that Mr Finn is a tall man. Mr Chief Constable, just let the prisoner step out from the dock for a moment. He won’t run away. I must have his lordship’s opinion as to Mr Finn’s height.” Poor Phineas, when this was said, clutched hold of the front of the dock, as though determined that nothing but main force should make him exhibit himself to the Court in the manner proposed.
But the need for exhibition passed away. “I know that he is a very tall man,” said Lord Fawn.
“You know that he is a very tall man. We all know it. There can be no doubt about it. He is, as you say, a very tall man — with whose personal appearance you have long been familiar? I ask again, my lord, whether you have not been long familiar with his personal appearance?” After some further agonising delay Lord Fawn at last acknowledged that it had been so. “Now we shall get on like a house on fire,” said Mr Chaffanbrass.
But still the house did not burn very quickly. A string of questions was then asked as to the attitude of the man who had been seen coming out of the mews wearing a grey great coat — as to his attitude, and as to his general likeness to Phineas Finn. In answer to these Lord Fawn would only say that he had not observed the man’s attitude, and had certainly not thought of the prisoner when he saw the man. “My lord,” said Mr Chaffanbrass, very solemnly, “look at your late friend and colleague, and remember that his life depends probably on the accuracy of your memory. The man you saw — murdered Mr Bonteen. With all my experience in such matters, which is great; and with all my skill — which is something, I cannot stand against that fact. It is for me to show that that man and my client were not one and the same person, and I must do so by means of your evidence — by sifting what you say today, and by comparing it with what you have already said on other occasions. I understand you now to say that there is nothing in your remembrance of the man you saw, independently of the colour of the coat, to guide you to an opinion whether that man was or was not one and the same with the prisoner?”
In all the crowd then assembled there was no man more thoroughly under the influence of conscience as to his conduct than was Lord Fawn in reference to the evidence which he was called upon to give. Not only would the idea of endangering the life of a human being have been horrible to him, but the sanctity of an oath was imperative to him. He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he knew how to speak the truth. He would have sacrificed much to establish the innocence of Phineas Finn — not for the love of Phineas, but for the love of innocence — but not even to do that would he have lied. But he was a bad witness, and by his slowness, and by a certain unsustained pomposity which was natural to him, had already taught the jury to think that he was anxious to convict the prisoner. Two men in the Court, and two only, thoroughly understood his condition. Mr Chaffanbrass saw it all, and intended without the slightest scruple to take advantage of it. And the Chief Justice saw it all, and was already resolving how he could set the witness right with the jury.
“I didn’t think of Mr Finn at the time,” said Lord Fawn in answer to the last question.
“So I understand. The man didn’t strike you as being tall.”
“I don’t think that he did.”
“But yet in the evidence you gave before the magistrate in Bow Street I think you expressed a very strong opinion that the man you saw running out of the mews was Mr Finn?” Lord Fawn was again silent. “I am asking your lordship a question to which I must request an answer. Here is the Times report of the examination, with which you can refresh your memory, and you are of course aware that it was mainly on your evidence as here reported that my client stands there in jeopardy of his life.”
“I am not aware of anything of the kind,” said the witness.
“Very well. We will drop that then. But such was your evidence, whether important or not important. Of course your lordship can take what time you please for recollection.”
Lord Fawn tried very hard to recollect, but would not look at the newspaper which had been handed to him. “I cannot remember what words I used. It seems to me that I thought it must have been Mr Finn because I had been told that Mr Finn could have been there by running round.”
“Surely, my lord, that would not have sufficed to induce you to give such evidence as is there reported?”
“And the colour of the coat,” said Lord Fawn.
“In fact you went by the colour of the coat, and that only?”
“Then there had been the quarrel.”
“My lord, is not that begging the question? Mr Bonteen quarrelled with Mr Finn. Mr Bonteen was murdered by a man — as we all believe — whom you saw at a certain spot. Therefore you identified the man whom you saw as Mr Finn. Was that so?”
“I didn’t identify him.”
“At any rate you do not do so now? Putting aside the grey coat there is nothing to make you now think that that man and Mr Finn were one and the same? Come, my lord, on behalf of that man’s life, which is in great jeopardy — is in great jeopardy because of the evidence given by you before the magistrate — do not be ashamed to speak the truth openly, though it be at variance with what you may have said before with ill-advised haste.”
“My lord, is it proper that I should be treated in this way?” said the witness, appealing to the Bench.
“Mr Chaffanbrass,” said the judge, again looking at the barrister over his spectacles, “I think you are stretching the privilege of your position too far.”
“I shall have to stretch it further yet, my lord. His lordship in his evidence before the magistrate gave on his oath a decided opinion that the man he saw was Mr Finn — and on that evidence Mr Finn was committed for murder. Let him say openly, now, to the jury — when Mr Finn is on his trial for his life before the Court, and for all his hopes in life before the country — whether he thinks as then he thought, and on what grounds he thinks so.”
“I think so because of the quarrel, and because of the grey coat.”
“For no other reasons?”
“No — for no other reasons.”
“Your only ground for suggesting identity is the grey coat?”
“And the quarrel,” said Lord Fawn.
“My lord, in giving evidence as to identity, I fear that you do not understand the meaning of the word.” Lord Fawn looked up at the judge, but the judge on this occasion said nothing. “At any rate we have it from you at present that there was nothing in the appearance of the man you saw like to that of Mr Finn except the colour of the coat.”
“I don’t think there was,” said Lord Fawn, slowly.
Then there occurred a scene in the Court which no doubt was gratifying to the spectators, and may in part have repaid them for the weariness of the whole proceeding. Mr Chaffanbrass, while Lord Fawn was still in the witness-box, requested permission for a certain man to stand forward, and put on the coat which was lying on the table before him — this coat being in truth the identical garment which Mr Meager had brought home with him on the morning of the murder. This man was Mr Wickerby’s clerk, Mr Scruby, and he put on the coat — which seemed to fit him well. Mr Chaffanbrass then asked permission to examine Mr Scruby, explaining that much time might be saved, and declaring that he had but one question to ask him. After some difficulty this permission was given him, and Mr Scruby was asked his height. Mr Scruby was five feet eight inches, and had been accurately measured on the previous day with reference to the question. Then the examination of Lord Fawn was resumed, and Mr Chaffanbrass referred to that very irregular interview to which he had so improperly enticed the witness in Mr Wickerby’s chambers. For a long time Sir Gregory Grogram declared that he would not permit any allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference — a conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong language. But Mr Chaffanbrass, smiling blandly — smiling very blandly for him — suggested that the impropriety of the conference, let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding to it. “Suppose, my lord, that Lord Fawn had confessed in Mr Wickerby’s chambers that he had murdered Mr Finn himself, and had since repented of that confession, would Mr Camperdown and Mr Wickerby, who were present, and would I, be now debarred from stating that confession in evidence, because, in deference to some fanciful rules of etiquette, Lord Fawn should not have been there?” Mr Chaffanbrass at last prevailed, and the evidence was resumed.
“You saw Mr Scruby wear that coat in Mr Wickerby’s chambers.” Lord Fawn said that he could not identify the coat. “We’ll take care to have it identified. We shall get a great deal out of that coat yet. You saw that man wear a coat like that.”
“Yes; I did.”
“And you see him now.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Does he remind you of the figure of the man you saw come out of the mews?” Lord Fawn paused. “We can’t make him move about here as we did in Mr Wickerby’s room; but remembering that as you must do, does he look like the man?”
“I don’t remember what the man looked like.”
“Did you not tell us in Mr Wickerby’s room that Mr Scruby with the grey coat on was like the figure of the man?”
Questions of this nature were prolonged for near half an hour, during which Sir Gregory made more than one attempt to defend his witness from the weapons of their joint enemies; but Lord Fawn at last admitted that he had acknowledged the resemblance, and did, in some faint ambiguous fashion, acknowledge it in his present evidence.
“My lord,” said Mr Chaffanbrass as he allowed Lord Fawn to go down, “you have no doubt taken a note of Mr Scruby’s height.” Whereupon the judge nodded his head.
The case for the prosecution was completed on the Saturday evening, Mrs Bunce having been examined as the last witness on that side. She was only called upon to say that her lodger had been in the habit of letting himself in and out of her house at all hours with a latch-key — but she insisted on saying more, and told the judge and the jury and the barristers that if they thought that Mr Finn had murdered anybody they didn’t know anything about the world in general. Whereupon Mr Chaffanbrass said that he would like to ask her a question or two, and with consummate flattery extracted from her her opinion of her lodger. She had known him for years, and thought that, of all the gentlemen that ever were born, he was the least likely to do such a bloody-minded action. Mr Chaffanbrass was, perhaps, right in thinking that her evidence might be as serviceable as that of the lords and countesses.
During the Sunday the trial was, as a matter of course, the talk of the town. Poor Lord Fawn shut himself up, and was seen by no one — but his conduct and evidence were discussed everywhere. At the clubs it was thought that he had escaped as well as could be expected; but he himself felt that he had been disgraced for ever. There was a very common opinion that Mr Chaffanbrass had admitted too much when he had declared that the man whom Lord Fawn had seen was doubtless the murderer. To the minds of men generally it seemed to be less evident that the man so seen should have done the deed, than that Phineas Finn should have been that man. Was it probable that there should be two men going about in grey coats, in exactly the same vicinity, and at exactly the same hour of the night? And then the evidence which Lord Fawn had given before the magistrates was to the world at large at any rate as convincing as that given in the Court. The jury would, of course, be instructed to regard only the latter; whereas the general public would naturally be guided by the two combined. At the club it was certainly believed that the case was going against the prisoner.
“You have read it all, of course,” said the Duchess of Omnium to her husband, as she sat with the Observer in her hand on that Sunday morning. The Sunday papers were full of the report, and were enjoying a very extended circulation.
“I wish you would not think so much about it,” said the Duke.
“That’s very easily said, but how is one to help thinking about it? Of course I am thinking about it. You know all about the coat. It belonged to the man where Mealyus was lodging.”
“I will not talk about the coat, Glencora. If Mr Finn did commit the murder it is right that he should be convicted.”
“But if he didn’t?”
“It would be doubly right that he should be acquitted. But the jury will have means of arriving at a conclusion without prejudice, which you and I cannot have; and therefore we should be prepared to take their verdict as correct.”
“If they find him guilty, their verdict will be damnable and false,” said the Duchess. Whereupon the Duke turned away in anger, and resolved that he would say nothing more about the trial — which resolution, however, he was compelled to break before the trial was over.
“What do you think about it, Mr Erle?” asked the other Duke.
“I don’t know what to think — I only hope.”
“That he may be acquitted?”
“Of course.”
“Whether guilty or innocent?”
“Well — yes. But if he is acquitted I shall believe him to have been innocent. Your Grace thinks —?”
“I am as unwilling to think as you are, Mr Erle.” It was thus that people spoke of it. With the exception of some very few, all those who had known Phineas were anxious for an acquittal, though they could not bring themselves to believe that an innocent man had been put in peril of his life.
On the Monday morning the trial was recommenced, and the whole day was taken up by the address which Mr Chaffanbrass made to the jury. He began by telling them the history of the coat which lay before them, promising to prove by evidence all the details which he stated. It was not his intention, he said, to accuse anyone of the murder. It was his business to defend the prisoner, not to accuse others. But, as he should prove to them, two persons had been arrested as soon as the murder had been discovered — two persons totally unknown to each other, and who were never for a moment supposed to have acted together — and the suspicion of the police had in the first instance pointed, not to his client, but to the other man. That other man had also quarrelled with Mr Bonteen, and that other man was now in custody on a charge of bigamy chiefly through the instrumentality of Mr Bonteen, who had been the friend of the victim of the supposed bigamist. With the accusation of bigamy they would have nothing to do, but he must ask them to take cognisance of that quarrel as well as of the quarrel at the club. He then named that formerly popular preacher, the Rev. Mr Emilius, and explained that he would prove that this man, who had incurred the suspicion of the police in the first instance, had during the night of the murder been so circumstanced as to have been able to use the coat produced. He would prove also that Mr Emilius was of precisely the same height as the man whom they had seen wearing the coat. God forbid that he should bring an accusation of murder against a man on such slight testimony. But if the evidence, as grounded on the coat, was slight against Emilius, how could it prevail at all against his client? The two coats were as different as chalk from cheese, the one being what would be called a gentleman’s fashionable walking coat, and the other the wrap-rascal of such a fellow as was Mr Meager. And yet Lord Fawn, who attempted to identify the prisoner only by his coat, could give them no opinion as to which was the coat he had seen! But Lord Fawn, who had found himself to be debarred by his conscience from repeating the opinion he had given before the magistrate as to the identity of Phineas Finn with the man he had seen, did tell them that the figure of that man was similar to the figure of him who had worn the coat on Saturday in presence of them all. This man in the street had therefore been like Mr Emilius, and could not in the least have resembled the prisoner. Mr Chaffanbrass would not tell the jury that this point bore strongly against Mr Emilius, but he took upon himself to assert that it was quite sufficient to snap asunder the thin thread of circumstantial evidence by which his client was connected with the murder. A great deal more was said about Lord Fawn, which was not complimentary to that nobleman. “His lordship is an honest, slow man, who has doubtless meant to tell you the truth, but who does not understand the meaning of what he himself says. When he swore before the magistrate that he thought he could identify my client with the man in the street, he really meant that he thought that there must be identity, because he believed from other reasons that Mr Finn was the man in the street. Mr Bonteen had been murdered — according to Lord Fawn’s thinking had probably been murdered by Mr Finn. And it was also probable to him that Mr Bonteen had been murdered by the man in the street. He came thus to the conclusion that the prisoner was the man in the street. In fact, as far as the process of identifying is concerned, his lordship’s evidence is altogether in favour of the prisoner. The figure seen by him we must suppose was the figure of a short man, and not of one tall and commanding in his presence, as is that of the prisoner.”
There were many other points on which Mr Chaffanbrass insisted at great length — but, chiefly, perhaps, on the improbability, he might say impossibility, that the plot for a murder so contrived should have entered into a man’s head, have been completed and executed, all within a few minutes. “But under no hypothesis compatible with the allegations of the prosecution can it be conceived that the murder should have been contemplated by my client before the quarrel at the club. No, gentlemen — the murderer had been at his work for days. He had examined the spot and measured the distances. He had dogged the steps of his victim on previous nights. In the shade of some dark doorway he had watched him from his club, and had hurried by his secret path to the spot which he had appointed for the deed. Can any man doubt that the murder has thus been committed, let who will have been the murderer? But, if so, then my client could not have done the deed.” Much had been made of the words spoken at the club door. Was it probable — was it possible — that a man intending to commit a murder should declare how easily he could do it, and display the weapon he intended to use? The evidence given as to that part of the night’s work was, he contended, altogether in the prisoner’s favour. Then he spoke of the life-preserver, and gave a rather long account of the manner in which Phineas Finn had once taken two garotters prisoner in the street. All this lasted till the great men on the bench trooped out to lunch. And then Mr Chaffanbrass, who had been speaking for nearly four hours, retired to a small room and there drank a pint of port wine. While he was doing so, Mr Serjeant Birdbott spoke a word to him, but he only shook his head and snarled. He was telling himself at the moment how quick may be the resolves of the eager mind — for he was convinced that the idea of attacking Mr Bonteen had occurred to Phineas Finn after he had displayed the life-preserver at the club door; and he was telling himself also how impossible it is for a dull conscientious man to give accurate evidence as to what he had himself seen — for he was convinced that Lord Fawn had seen Phineas Finn in the street. But to no human being had he expressed this opinion; nor would he express it — unless his client should be hung.
After lunch he occupied nearly three hours in giving to the jury, and of course to the whole assembled Court, the details of about two dozen cases, in which apparently strong circumstantial evidence had been wrong in its tendency. In some of the cases quoted, the persons tried had been acquitted; in some, convicted and afterwards pardoned; in one pardoned after many years of punishment — and in one the poor victim had been hung. On this he insisted with a pathetic eloquence which certainly would not have been expected from his appearance, and spoke with tears in his eyes — real unaffected tears — of the misery of those wretched jurymen who, in the performance of their duty, had been led into so frightful an error. Through the whole of this long recital he seemed to feel no fatigue, and when he had done with his list of judicial mistakes about five o’clock in the afternoon, went on to make what he called the very few remarks necessary as to the evidence which on the next day he proposed to produce as to the prisoner’s character. He ventured to think that evidence as to the character of such a nature — so strong, so convincing, so complete, and so free from all objection, had never yet been given in a criminal court. At six o’clock he completed his speech, and it was computed that the old man had been on his legs very nearly seven hours. It was said of him afterwards that he was taken home speechless by one of his daughters and immediately put to bed, that he roused himself about eight and ate his dinner and drank a bottle of port in his bedroom, that he then slept — refusing to stir even when he was waked, till half-past nine in the morning, and that then he scrambled into his clothes, breakfasted, and got down to the Court in half an hour. At ten o’clock he was in his place, and nobody knew that he was any the worse for the previous day’s exertion.
This was on a Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial, and upon the whole perhaps the most interesting. A long array of distinguished persons — of women as well as men — was brought up to give to the jury their opinion as to the character of Mr Finn. Mr Low was the first, who having been his tutor when he was studying at the bar, knew him longer than any other Londoner. Then came his countryman Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Barrington Erle, and others of his own party who had been intimate with him. And men, too, from the opposite side of the House were brought up, Sir Orlando Drought among the number, all of whom said that they had known the prisoner well, and from their knowledge would have considered it impossible that he should have become a murderer. The two last called were Lord Cantrip and Mr Monk, one of whom was, and the other had been, a Cabinet Minister. But before them came Lady Cantrip — and Lady Chiltern, whom we once knew as Violet Effingham, whom this very prisoner had in early days fondly hoped to make his wife, who was still young and beautiful, and who had never before entered a public Court.
There had of course been much question as to the witnesses to be selected. The Duchess of Omnium had been anxious to be one, but the Duke had forbidden it, telling his wife that she really did not know the man, and that she was carried away by a foolish enthusiasm. Lady Cantrip when asked had at once consented. She had known Phineas Finn, when he had served under her husband, and had liked him much. Then what other woman’s tongue should be brought to speak of the man’s softness and tender bearing! It was out of the question that Lady Laura Kennedy should appear. She did not even propose it when her brother with unnecessary sternness told her it could not be so. Then his wife looked at him. “You shall go”, said Lord Chiltern, “if you feel equal to it. It seems to be nonsense, but they say that it is important.”
“I will go,” said Violet, with her eyes full of tears. Afterwards when her sister-in-law besought her to be generous in her testimony, she only smiled as she assented. Could generosity go beyond hers?
Lord Chiltern preceded his wife. “I have”, he said, “known Mr Finn well, and have loved him dearly. I have eaten with him and drank with him, have ridden with him, have lived with him, and have quarrelled with him; and I know him as I do my own right hand.” Then he stretched forth his arm with the palm extended.
“Irrespectively of the evidence in this case you would not have thought him to be a man likely to commit such a crime?” asked Serjeant Birdbott.
“I am quite sure from my knowledge of the man that he could not commit a murder,” said Lord Chiltern; “and I don’t care what the evidence is.”
Then came his wife, and it certainly was a pretty sight to see as her husband led her up to the box and stood close beside her as she gave her evidence. There were many there who knew much of the history of her life — who knew that passage in it of her early love — for the tale had of course been told when it was whispered about that Lady Chiltern was to be examined as a witness. Every ear was at first strained to hear her words — but they were audible in every corner of the Court without any effort. It need hardly be said that she was treated with the greatest deference on every side. She answered the questions very quietly, but apparently without nervousness. “Yes; she had known Mr Finn long, and intimately, and had very greatly valued his friendship. She did so still — as much as ever. Yes; she had known him for some years, and in circumstances which she thought justified her in saying that she understood his character. She regarded him as a man who was brave and tenderhearted, soft in feeling and manly in disposition. To her it was quite incredible that he should have committed a crime such as this. She knew him to be a man prone to forgive offences, and of a sweet nature.” And it was pretty too to watch the unwonted gentleness of old Chaffanbrass as he asked the questions, and carefully abstained from putting any one that could pain her. Sir Gregory said that he had heard her evidence with great pleasure, but that he had no question to ask her himself. Then she stepped down, again took her husband’s arm, and left the Court amidst a hum of almost affectionate greeting.
And what must he have thought as he stood there within the dock, looking at her and listening to her? There had been months in his life when he had almost trusted that he would succeed in winning that fair, highly-born, and wealthy woman for his wife; and though he had failed, and now knew that he had never really touched her heart, that she had always loved the man whom — though she had rejected him time after time because of the dangers of his ways — she had at last married, yet it must have been pleasant to him, even in his peril, to hear from her own lips how well she had esteemed him. She left the Court with her veil down, and he could not catch her eye; but Lord Chiltern nodded to him in his old pleasant familiar way, as though to bid him take courage, and to tell him that all things would even yet be well with him.
The evidence given by Lady Cantrip and her husband and by Mr Monk was equally favourable. She had always regarded him as a perfect gentleman. Lord Cantrip had found him to be devoted to the service of the country — modest, intelligent, and high-spirited. Perhaps the few words which fell from Mr Monk were as strong as any that were spoken. “He is a man whom I have delighted to call my friend, and I have been happy to think that his services have been at the disposal of his country.”
Sir Gregory Grogram replied. It seemed to him that the evidence was as he had left it. It would be for the jury to decide, under such directions as his lordship might be pleased to give them, how far that evidence brought the guilt home to the prisoner. He would use no rhetoric in pushing the case against the prisoner; but he must submit to them that his learned friend had not shown that acquaintance with human nature which the gentleman undoubtedly possessed in arguing that there had lacked time for the conception and execution of the crime. Then, at considerable length, he strove to show that Mr Chaffanbrass had been unjustly severe upon Lord Fawn.
It was late in the afternoon when Sir Gregory had finished his speech, and the judge’s charge was reserved for a sixth day.
On the following morning it was observed that before the judges took their seats Mr Chaffanbrass 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 Chaffanbrass 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 scrap of paper in his hand, and that the barrister held a similar scrap. Then every man in the Court knew that some message had come suddenly by the wires. “I am informed, Mr Chaffanbrass, 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 ludship 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 assert, on my own peril, that no jury can convict the prisoner after hearing me read that which I hold in my hand.” Then Mr Chaffanbrass 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 assertion which Mr Chaffanbrass had made in his favour. On him the effect was altogether distressing. He had borne the trying week with singular fortitude, 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 Mass, 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 Chaffanbrass. ““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 fashion which is conclusive as to his having required the key for some guilty purpose. We assert that your ludship 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 ludship 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 Duchess — 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 Chaffanbrass, “with such observations as his lordship 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 Chaffanbrass,” said the judge. “It has come, as far as we know, from the energy of a warm friend — from that hearty friendship 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 assertion. And where should we all be, Mr Chaffanbrass, if it should appear hereafter that the assertion is fictitious — prepared purposely to aid the escape of a criminal?”
“I defy you to ignore it, my lord.”
“I can only suggest, Mr Chaffanbrass,” 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 Middlesex 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. “Everyone believes it,” said Mr Chaffanbrass. Then the Chief Justice scolded the juryman, and Sir Gregory Grogram scolded Mr Chaffanbrass. 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 Chaffanbrass. “I neither believe nor disbelieve it; but it cannot affect the evidence,” said Sir Gregory. “Then send the case to the jury,” said Mr Chaffanbrass. 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 Chaffanbrass, “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 entitled 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 assent, 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 Principalities 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 Chaffanbrass to have read the telegram in Court. The charge should have been given, and the sentence of the Court should have been pronounced 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 circumstances 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 circumstances, 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 surreptitiously 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 circumstanced 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 assure 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 everyone 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 friendship. 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 passed 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.
Lady Laura Kennedy had been allowed to take no active part in the manifestations of friendship 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 circumstances of her weeds were heavy on her. That she loved this man, Phineas Finn, with a passionate 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 friendship. 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 shipwreck — 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 assure 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 glass 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 circumstances and the sorrow of the hour demanded from their mutual friendship. 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 god 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 Duchess 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, 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 anyone 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 pushing, 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.”
“When 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 passed 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.
In the meantime Madame Goesler, having accomplished the journey from Prague in considerably less than a week, reached London with the blacksmith, the attorney’s clerk, and the model of the key. The trial had been adjourned on Wednesday, the 24th of June, and it had been suggested that the jury should be again put into their box on that day week. All manner of inconvenience was to be endured by various members of the legal profession, and sundry irregularities were of necessity sanctioned on this great occasion. The sitting of the Court should have been concluded, and everybody concerned should have been somewhere else, but the matter was sufficient to justify almost any departure from routine. A member of the House of Commons was in custody, and it had already been suggested that some action should be taken by the House as to his speedy deliverance. Unless a jury could find him guilty, let him be at once restored to his duties and his privileges. The case was involved in difficulties, but in the meantime the jury, who had been taken down by train every day to have a walk in the country in the company of two sheriff’s officers, and who had been allowed to dine at Greenwich one day and at Richmond on another in the hope that whitebait with lamb and salad might in some degree console them for their loss of liberty, were informed that they would be once again put into their box on Wednesday. But Madame Goesler reached London on the Sunday morning, and on the Monday the whole affair respecting the key was unravelled in the presence of the Attorney-General, and with the personal assistance of our old friend, Major Mackintosh. Without a doubt the man Mealyus had caused to be made for him in Prague a key which would open the door of the house in Northumberland Street. A key was made in London from the model now brought which did open the door. The Attorney-General seemed to think that it would be his duty to ask the judge to call upon the jury to acquit Phineas Finn, and that then the matter must rest for ever, unless further evidence could be obtained against Yosef Mealyus. It would not be possible to hang a man for a murder simply because he had fabricated a key — even though he might possibly have obtained the use of a grey coat for a few hours. There was no tittle of evidence to show that he had ever had the great coat on his shoulders, or that he had been out of the house on that night. Lord Fawn, to his infinite disgust, was taken to the prison in which Mealyus was detained, and was confronted with the man, but he could say nothing. Mealyus, at his own suggestion, put on the coat, and stalked about the room in it. But Lord Fawn would not say a word. The person whom he now saw might have been the man in the street, or Mr Finn might have been the man, or any other man might have been the man. Lord Fawn was very dignified, very reserved, and very unhappy. To his thinking he was the great martyr of this trial. Phineas Finn was becoming a hero. Against the twelve jurymen the finger of scorn would never be pointed. But his sufferings must endure for his life — might probably embitter his life to the very end. Looking into his own future from his present point of view he did not see how he could ever again appear before the eye of the public. And yet with what persistency of conscience had he struggled to be true and honest! On the present occasion he would say nothing. He had seen a man in a grey coat, and for the future would confine himself to that. “You did not see me, my lord,” said Mr Emilius with touching simplicity.
So the matter stood on the Monday afternoon, and the jury had already been told that they might be released on the following Tuesday — might at any rate hear the judge’s charge on that day — when another discovery was made more wonderful than that of the key. And this was made without any journey to Prague, and might, no doubt, have been made on any day since the murder had been committed. And it was a discovery for not having made which the police force generally was subjected to heavy censure. A beautiful little boy was seen playing in one of those gardens through which the passage runs with a short loaded bludgeon in his hand. He came into the house with the weapon, the maid who was with him having asked the little lord no question on the subject. But luckily it attracted attention, and his little lordship took two gardeners and a coachman and all the nurses to the very spot at which he found it. Before an hour was over he was standing at his father’s knee, detailing the fact with great open eyes to two policemen, having by this time become immensely proud of his adventure. This occurred late on the Monday afternoon, when the noble family were at dinner, and the noble family was considerably disturbed, and at the same time very much interested, by the occurrence. But on the Tuesday morning there was the additional fact established that a bludgeon loaded with lead had been found among the thick grass and undergrowth of shrubs in a spot to which it might easily have been thrown by anyone attempting to pitch it over the wall. The news flew about the town like wildfire, and it was now considered certain that the real murderer would be discovered.
But the renewal of the trial was again postponed till the Wednesday, as it was necessary that an entire day should be devoted to the bludgeon. The instrument was submitted to the eyes and hands of persons experienced in such matters, and it was declared on all sides that the thing was not of English manufacture. It was about a foot long, with a leathern thong to the handle, with something of a spring in the shaft, and with the oval loaded knot at the end cased with leathern thongs very minutely and skilfully cut. They who understood modern work in leather gave it as their opinion that the weapon had been made in Paris. It was considered that Mealyus had brought it with him, and concealed it in preparation for this occasion. If the police could succeed in tracing the bludgeon into his hands, or in proving that he had purchased any such instrument, then — so it was thought — there would be evidence to justify a police magistrate in sending Mr Emilius to occupy the place so lately and so long held by poor Phineas Finn. But till that had been done, there could be nothing to connect the preacher with the murder. All who had heard the circumstances of the case were convinced that Mr Bonteen had been murdered by the weapon lately discovered, and not by that which Phineas had carried in his pocket — but no one could adduce proof that it was so. This second bludgeon would no doubt help to remove the difficulty in regard to Phineas, but would not give atonement to the shade of Mr Bonteen.
Mealyus was confronted with the weapon in the presence of Major Mackintosh, and was told its story — how it was found in the nobleman’s garden by the little boy. At the first moment, with instant readiness, he took the thing in his hand, and looked at it with feigned curiosity. He must have studied his conduct so as to have it ready for such an occasion, thinking that it might some day occur. But with all his presence of mind he could not keep the tell-tale blood from mounting.
“You don’t know anything about it, Mr Mealyus?” said one of the policemen present, looking closely into his face. “Of course you need not criminate yourself.”
“What should I know about it? No — I know nothing about the stick. I never had such a stick, or, as I believe, saw one before.” He did it very well, but he could not keep the blood from rising to his cheeks. The policemen were sure that he was the murderer — but what could they do?
“You saved his life, certainly,” said the Duchess to her friend on the Sunday afternoon. That had been before the bludgeon was found.
“I do not believe that they could have touched a hair of his head,” said Madame Goesler.
“Would they not? Everybody felt sure that he would be hung. Would it not have been awful? I do not see how you are to help becoming man and wife now, for all the world are talking about you.” Madame Goesler smiled, and said that she was quite indifferent to the world’s talk. On the Tuesday after the bludgeon was found, the two ladies met again, “Now it was known that it was the clergyman,” said the Duchess.
“I never doubted it.”
“He must have been a brave man for a foreigner — to have attacked Mr Bonteen all alone in the street, when anyone might have seen him. I don’t feel to hate him so very much after all. As for that little wife of his, she has got no more than she deserved.”
“Mr Finn will surely be acquitted now.”
“Of course he’ll be acquitted. Nobody doubts about it. That is all settled, and it is a shame that he should be kept in prison even over today. I should think they’ll make him a peer, and give him a pension — or at the very least appoint him secretary to something. I do wish Plantagenet hadn’t been in such a hurry about that nasty Board of Trade, and then he might have gone there. He couldn’t very well be Privy Seal, unless they do make him a peer. You wouldn’t mind — would you, my dear?”
“I think you’ll find that they will console Mr Finn with something less gorgeous than that. You have succeeded in seeing him, of course?”
“Plantagenet wouldn’t let me, but I know who did.”
“Some lady?”
“Oh, yes — a lady. Half the men about the clubs went to him, I believe.”
“Who was she?”
“You won’t be ill-natured?”
“I’ll endeavour at any rate to keep my temper, Duchess.”
“It was Lady Laura.”
“I supposed so.”
“They say she is frantic about him, my dear.”
“I never believe those things. Women do not get frantic about men in these days. They have been very old friends, and have known each other for many years. Her brother, Lord Chiltern, was his particular friend. I do not wonder that she should have seen him.”
“Of course you know that she is a widow.”
“Oh, yes — Mr Kennedy had died long before I left England.”
“And she is very rich. She has got all Loughlinter for her life, and her own fortune back again. I will bet you anything you like that she offers to share it with him.”
“It may be so,” said Madame Goesler, while the slightest blush in the world suffused her cheek.
“And I’ll make you another bet, and give you any odds.”
“What is that?”
“That he refuses her. It is quite a common thing nowadays for ladies to make the offer, and for gentlemen to refuse. Indeed, it was felt to be so inconvenient while it was thought that gentlemen had not the alternative, that some men became afraid of going into society. It is better understood now.”
“Such things have been done, I do not doubt,” said Madame Goesler, who had contrived to avert her face without making the motion apparent to her friend.
“When this is all over we’ll get him down to Matching, and manage better than that. I should think they’ll hardly go on with the Session, as nobody has done anything since the arrest. While Mr Finn has been in prison legislation has come to a standstill altogether. Even Plantagenet doesn’t work above twelve hours a day, and I’m told that poor Lord Fawn hasn’t been near his office for the last fortnight. When the excitement is over they’ll never be able to get back to their business before the grouse. There’ll be a few dinners of course, just as a compliment to the great man — but London will break up after that, I should think. You won’t come in for so much of the glory as you would have done if they hadn’t found the stick. Little Lord Frederick must have his share, you know.”
“It’s the most singular case I ever knew,” said Sir Simon Slope that night to one of his friends. “We certainly should have hanged him but for the two accidents, and yet neither of them brings us a bit nearer to hanging anyone else.”
“What a pity!”
“It shows the danger of circumstantial evidence — and yet without it one never could get at any murder. I’m very glad, you know, that the key and the stick did turn up. I never thought much about the coat.”
On the Wednesday morning Phineas Finn was again brought into the Court, and again placed in the dock. There was a general feeling that he should not again have been so disgraced; but he was still a prisoner under a charge of murder, and it was explained to him that the circumstances of the case and the stringency of the law did not admit of his being seated elsewhere during his trial. He treated the apology with courteous scorn. He should not have chosen, he said, to have made any change till after the trial was over, even had any change been permitted. When he was brought up the steps into the dock after the judges had taken their seats there was almost a shout of applause. The crier was very angry, and gave it to be understood that everybody would be arrested unless everybody was silent; but the Chief Justice said not a word, nor did those great men the Attorney and Solicitor-General express any displeasure. The bench was again crowded with Members of Parliament from both Houses, and on this occasion Mr Gresham himself had accompanied Lord Cantrip. The two dukes were there, and men no bigger than Laurence Fitzgibbon were forced to subject themselves to the benevolence of the Under-Sheriff.
Phineas himself was pale and haggard. It was observed that he leaned forward on the rail of the dock all the day, not standing upright as he had done before; and they who watched him closely said that he never once raised his eyes on this day to meet those of the men opposite to him on the bench, although heretofore throughout the trial he had stood with his face raised so as to look directly at those who were there seated. On this occasion he kept his eyes fixed upon the speaker. But the whole bearing of the man, his gestures, his gait, and his countenance were changed. During the first long week of his trial, his uprightness, the manly beauty of his countenance, and the general courage and tranquillity of his deportment had been conspicuous. Whatever had been his fatigue, he had managed not to show the outward signs of weariness. Whatever had been his fears, no mark of fear had disfigured his countenance. He had never once condescended to the exhibition of any outward show of effrontery. Through six weary days he had stood there, supported by a manhood sufficient for the terrible emergency. But now it seemed that at any rate the outward grace of his demeanour had deserted him. But it was known that he had been ill during the last few days, and it had been whispered through the Court that he had not slept at nights. Since the adjournment of the Court there had been bulletins as to his health, and everybody knew that the confinement was beginning to tell upon him.
On the present occasion the proceedings of the day were opened by the Attorney-General, who began by apologising to the jury. Apologies to the jury had been very frequent during the trial, and each apology had called forth fresh grumbling. On this occasion the foreman expressed a hope that the Legislature would consider the condition of things which made it possible that twelve gentlemen all concerned extensively in business should be confined for fourteen days because a mistake had been made in the evidence as to a murder. Then the Chief Justice, bowing down his head and looking at them over the rim of his spectacles with an expression of wisdom that almost convinced them, told them that he was aware of no mistake in the evidence. It might become their duty, on the evidence which they had heard and the further evidence which they would hear, to acquit the prisoner at the bar; but not on that account would there have been any mistake or erroneous procedure in the Court, other than such error on the part of the prosecution in regard to the alleged guilt of the prisoner as it was the general and special duty of jurors to remedy. Then he endeavoured to reconcile them to their sacrifice by describing the importance and glorious British nature of their position. “My lord,” said one of the jurors, “if you was a salesman, and hadn’t got no partner, only a very young ’un, you’d know what it was to be kept out of your business for a fortnight.” Then that salesman wagged his head, and put his handkerchief up to his eyes, and there was pity also for him in the Court.
After that the Attorney-General went on. His learned friend on the other side — and he nodded to Mr Chaffanbrass — had got some further evidence to submit to them on behalf of the prisoner who was still on his trial before them. He now addressed them with the view of explaining to them that if that evidence should be such as he believed, it would become his duty on behalf of the Crown to join with his learned friend in requesting the Court to direct the jury to acquit the prisoner. Not the less on that account would it be the duty of the jury to form their own opinion as to the credibility of the fresh evidence which would be brought before them.
“There won’t be much doubt about the credibility,” said Mr Chaffanbrass, rising in his place. “I am not a bit afraid about the credibility, gentlemen; and I don’t think that you need be afraid either. You must understand, gentlemen, that I am now going on calling evidence for the defence. My last witness was the Right Honourable M. Monk, who spoke as to character. My next will be a Bohemian blacksmith named Praska — Peter Praska — who naturally can’t speak a word of English, and unfortunately can’t speak a word of German either. But we have got an interpreter, and I dare say we shall find out without much delay what Peter Praska has to tell us.” Then Peter Praska was handed up to the rostrum for the witnesses, and the man learned in Czech and also in English was placed close to him, and sworn to give a true interpretation.
Mealyus the unfortunate one was also in Court, brought in between two policemen, and the Bohemian blacksmith swore that he had made a certain key on the instructions of the man he now saw. The reader need not be further troubled with all the details of the evidence about the key. It was clearly proved that in a village near to Prague a key had been made such as would open Mr Meager’s door in Northumberland Street, and it was also proved that it was made from a mould supplied by Mealyus. This was done by the joint evidence of Mr Meager and of the blacksmith. “And if I lose my key,” said the reverend gentleman, “why should I not have another made? Did I ever deny it? This, I think, is very strange.” But Mr Emilius was very quickly walked back out of the Court between the two policemen, as his presence would not be required in regard to the further evidence regarding the bludgeon.
Mr Chaffanbrass, having finished his business with the key, at once began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed up to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting the thread of the evidence. It was not held to be proper to administer an oath to an infant. But in a roundabout way it was proved that the identical bludgeon had been picked up in the garden. There was an elaborate surveyor’s plan produced of the passage, the garden, and the wall — with the steps on which it was supposed that the blow had been struck; and the spot was indicated on which the child had said that he had found the weapon. Then certain workers in leather were questioned, who agreed in asserting that no such instrument as that handed to them had ever been made in England. After that, two scientific chemists told the jury that they had minutely examined the knob of the instrument with reference to the discovery of human blood — but in vain. They were, however, of opinion that the man might very readily have been killed by the instrument without any effusion of blood at the moment of the blows. This seemed to the jury to be the less necessary, as three or four surgeons who had examined the murdered man’s head had already told them that in all probability there had been no such effusion. When the judges went out to lunch at two o’clock the jury were trembling as to their fate for another night.
The fresh evidence, however, had been completed, and on the return of the Court Mr Chaffanbrass said that he should only speak a very few words. For a few words he must ask indulgence, though he knew them to be irregular. But it was the speciality of this trial that everything in it was irregular, and he did not think that his learned friend the Attorney-General would dispute the privilege. The Attorney-General said nothing, and Mr Chaffanbrass went on with his little speech — with which he took up the greatest part of an hour. It was thought to have been unnecessary, as nearly all that he said was said again — and was sure to have been so said — by the judge. It was not his business — the business of him, Mr Chaffanbrass — to accuse another man of the murder of Mr Bonteen. It was not for him to tell the jury whether there was or was not evidence on which any other man should be sent to trial. But it was his bounden duty in defence of his client to explain to them that a collection of facts tending to criminate another man — which when taken together made a fair probability that another man had committed the crime — rendered it quite out of the question that they should declare his client to be guilty. He did not believe that there was a single person in the Court who was not now convinced of the innocence of his client — but it was not permitted to him to trust himself solely to that belief. It was his duty to show them that, of necessity, they must acquit his client. When Mr Chaffanbrass sat down, the Attorney-General waived any right he might have of further reply.
It was half past three when the judge began his charge. He would, he said, do his best to enable the jury to complete their tedious duty, so as to return to their families on that night. Indeed he would certainly finish his charge before he rose from the seat, let the hour be what it might: and though time must be occupied by him in going through the evidence and explaining the circumstances of this very singular trial, it might not be improbable that the jury would be able to find their verdict without any great delay among themselves. “There won’t be any delay at all, my lord,” said the suffering and very irrational salesman. The poor man was again rebuked, mildly, and the Chief Justice continued his charge.
As it occupied four hours in the delivery, of which by far the greater part was taken up in recapitulating and sifting evidence with which the careful reader, if such there be, has already been made too intimately acquainted, the account of it here shall be very short. The nature of circumstantial evidence was explained, and the truth of much that had been said in regard to such evidence by Mr Chaffanbrass admitted — but, nevertheless, it would be impossible — so said his lordship — to administer justice if guilt could never be held to have been proved by circumstantial evidence alone. In this case it might not improbably seem to them that the gentleman who had so long stood before them as a prisoner at the bar had been the victim of a most singularly untoward chain of circumstances, from which he would have to be liberated, should he be at last liberated, by another chain of circumstances as singular; but it was his duty to inform them now, after they had heard what he might call the double evidence, that he could not have given it to them as his opinion that the charge had been brought home against the prisoner, even had those circumstances of the Bohemian key and of the foreign bludgeon never been brought to light. He did not mean to say that the evidence had not justified the trial. He thought that the trial had been fully justified. Nevertheless, had nothing arisen to point to the possibility of guilt in another man, he should not the less have found himself bound in duty to explain to them that the thread of the evidence against Mr Finn had been incomplete — or, he would rather say, the weight of it had been, to his judgment, insufficient. He was the more intent on saying so much, as he was desirous of making it understood that, even had the bludgeon still remained buried beneath the leaves, had the manufacturer of that key never been discovered, the great evil would not, he thought, have fallen upon them of punishing the innocent instead of the guilty — that most awful evil of taking innocent blood in their just attempt to punish murder by death. As far as he knew, to the best of his belief, that calamity had never fallen upon the country in his time. The administration of the law was so careful of life that the opposite evil was fortunately more common. He said so much because he would not wish that this case should be quoted hereafter as showing the possible danger of circumstantial evidence. It had been a case in which the evidence given as to character alone had been sufficient to make him feel that the circumstances which seemed to affect the prisoner injuriously could not be taken as establishing his guilt. But now other and imposing circumstances had been brought to light, and he was sure that the jury would have no difficulty with their verdict. A most frightful murder had no doubt been committed in the dead of the night. A gentleman coming home from his club had been killed — probably by the hand of one who had himself moved in the company of gentlemen. A plot had been made — had probably been thought of for days and weeks before — and had been executed with extreme audacity, in order that an enemy might be removed. There could, he thought, be but little doubt that Mr Bonteen had been killed by the instrument found in the garden, and if so, he certainly had not been killed by the prisoner, who could not be supposed to have carried two bludgeons in his pocket, and whose quarrel with the murdered man had been so recent as to have admitted of no preparation. They had heard the story of Mr Meager’s grey coat, and of the construction of the duplicate key for Mr Meager’s house-door. It was not for him to tell them on the present occasion whether these stories, and the evidence by which they had been supported, tended to affix guilt elsewhere. It was beyond his province to advert to such probability or possibility; but undoubtedly the circumstances might be taken by them as an assistance, if assistance were needed, in coming to a conclusion on the charge against the prisoner. “Gentlemen,” he said at last, “I think you will find no difficulty in acquitting the prisoner of the murder laid to his charge,” whereupon the jurymen put their heads together; and the foreman, without half a minute’s delay, declared that they were unanimous, and that they found the prisoner Not Guilty. “And we are of opinion”, said the foreman, “that Mr Finn should not have been put upon his trial on such evidence as has been brought before us.”
The necessity of liberating poor Phineas from the horrors of his position was too urgent to allow of much attention being given at the moment to this protest. “Mr Finn,” said the judge, addressing the poor broken wretch, “you have been acquitted of the odious and abominable charge brought against you, with the concurrence, I am sure, not only of those who have heard this trial, but of all your countrymen and countrywomen. I need not say that you will leave that dock with no stain on your character. It has, I hope, been some consolation to you in your misfortune to hear the terms in which you have been spoken of by such friends as they who came here to give their testimony on your behalf. It is, and it has been, a great sorrow to me to see such a one as you subjected to so unmerited an ignominy; but a man educated in the laws of his country, as you have been, and understanding its constitution fundamentally, as you do, will probably have acknowledged that, great as has been the misfortune to you personally, nothing more than a proper attempt has been made to execute justice. I trust that you may speedily find yourself able to resume your place among the legislators of the country.” Thus Phineas Finn was acquitted, and the judges, collecting up their robes, trooped off from the bench, following the long line of their assessors who had remained even to that hour to hear the last word of the trial. Mr Chaffanbrass collected his papers, with the assistance of Mr Wickerby — totally disregardful of his junior counsel, and the Attorney and Solicitor-General congratulated each other on the successful termination of a very disagreeable piece of business.
And Phineas was discharged. According to the ordinary meaning of the words he was now to go about his business as he pleased, the law having no further need of his person. We can understand how in common cases the prisoner discharged on his acquittal — who probably in nine cases out of ten is conscious of his own guilt — may feel the sweetness of his freedom and enjoy his immunity from danger with a light heart. He is received probably by his wife or young woman — or perhaps, having no wife or young woman to receive him, betakes himself to his usual haunts. The interest which has been felt in his career is over, and he is no longer the hero of an hour — but he is a free man, and may drink his gin-and-water where he pleases. Perhaps a small admiring crowd may welcome him as he passes out into the street, but he has become nobody before he reaches the corner. But it could not be so with this discharged prisoner — either as regarded himself and his own feelings, or as regarded his friends. When the moment came he had hardly as yet thought about the immediate future — had not considered how he would live, or where, during the next few months. The sensations of the moment had been so full, sometimes of agony and at others of anticipated triumph, that he had not attempted as yet to make for himself any schemes. The Duchess of Omnium had suggested that he would be received back into society with an elaborate course of fashionable dinners; but that view of his return to the world had certainly not occurred to him. When he was led down from the dock he hardly knew whither he was being taken, and when he found himself in a small room attached to the Court, clasped on one arm by Mr Low and on the other by Lord Chiltern, he did not know what they would propose to him — nor had he considered what answer he would make to any proposition. “At last you are safe,” said Mr Low.
“But think what he has suffered,” said Lord Chiltern.
Phineas looked round to see if there was any other friend present. Certainly among all his friends he had thought most of her who had travelled half across Europe for evidence to save him. He had seen Madame Goesler last on the evening preceding the night of the murder, and had not even heard from her since. But he had been told what she had done for him, and now he had almost fancied that he would have found her waiting for him. He smiled first at the one man and then at the other, and made an effort to carry himself with his ordinary tranquillity. “It will be all right now, I dare say,” he said. “I wonder whether I could have a glass of water.”
He sat down while the water was brought to him, and his two friends stood over him, hardly knowing how to do more than support him by their presence.
Then Lord Cantrip made his way into the room. He had sat on the bench to the last, whereas the other two had gone down to receive the prisoner when acquitted — and with him came Sir Harry Coldfoot, the Home Secretary. “My friend,” said the former, “the bitter day has passed over you, and I hope that the bitterness will soon pass away also.” Phineas again attempted to smile as he held the hand of the man with whom he had formerly been associated in office.
“I should not intrude, Mr Finn,” said Sir Harry, “did I not feel myself bound in a special manner to express my regret at the great trouble to which you have been subjected.” Phineas rose, and bowed stiffly. He had conceived that everyone connected with the administration of the law had believed him to be guilty, and none in his present mood could be dear to him but they who from the beginning trusted in his innocence. “I am requested by Mr Gresham,” continued Sir Harry, “to express to you his entire sympathy, and his joy that all this is at last over.” Phineas tried to make some little speech, but utterly failed. Then Sir Harry left them, and he burst out into tears.
“Who can be surprised?” said Lord Cantrip. “The marvel is that he should have been able to bear it so long.”
“It would have crushed me utterly, long since,” said the other lord. Then there was a question asked as to what he would do, and Mr Low proposed that he should be allowed to take Phineas to his own house for a few days. His wife, he said, had known their friend so long and so intimately that she might perhaps be able to make herself more serviceable than any other lady, and at their house Phineas could receive his sisters just as he would at his own. His sisters had been lodging near the prison almost ever since the committal, and it had been thought well to remove them to Mr Low’s house in order that they might meet their brother there.
“I think I’ll go to my — own room — in Marlborough Street.” These were the first intelligible words he had uttered since he had been led out of the dock, and to that resolution he adhered. Lord Cantrip offered the retirements of a country house belonging to himself within an hour’s journey of London, and Lord Chiltern declared that Harrington Hall, which Phineas knew, was altogether at his service — but Phineas decided in favour of Mrs Bunce, and to Great Marlborough Street he was taken by Mr Low.
“I’ll come to you tomorrow — with my wife,” — said Lord Chiltern, as he was going.
“Not tomorrow, Chiltern. But tell your wife how deeply I value her friendship.” Lord Cantrip also offered to come, but was asked to wait awhile. “I am afraid I am hardly fit for visitors yet. All the strength seems to have been knocked out of me this last week.”
Mr Low accompanied him to his lodgings, and then handed him over to Mrs Bunce, promising that his two sisters should come to him early on the following morning. On that evening he would prefer to be quite alone. He would not allow the barrister even to go upstairs with him; and when he had entered his room, almost rudely begged his weeping landlady to leave him.
“Oh, Mr Phineas, let me do something for you,” said the poor woman. “You have not had a bit of anything all day. Let me get you just a cup of tea and a chop.”
In truth he had dined when the judges went out to their lunch — dined as he had been wont to dine since the trial had been commenced — and wanted nothing. She might bring him tea, he said, if she would leave him for an hour. And then at last he was alone. He stood up in the middle of the room, stretching forth his hands, and putting one first to his breast and then to his brow, feeling himself as though doubting his own identity. Could it be that the last week had been real — that everything had not been a dream? Had he in truth been suspected of a murder and tried for his life? And then he thought of him who had been murdered, of Mr Bonteen, his enemy. Was he really gone — the man who the other day was to have been Chancellor of the Exchequer — the scornful, arrogant, loud, boastful man? He had hardly thought of Mr Bonteen before, during these weeks of his own incarceration. He had heard all the details of the murder with a fulness that had been at last complete. The man who had oppressed him, and whom he had at times almost envied, was indeed gone, and the world for awhile had believed that he, Phineas Finn, had been the man’s murderer!
And now what should be his own future life? One thing seemed certain to him. He could never again go into the House of Commons, and sit there, an ordinary man of business, with other ordinary men. He had been so hacked and hewed about, so exposed to the gaze of the vulgar, so mauled by the public, that he could never more be anything but the wretched being who had been tried for the murder of his enemy. The pith had been taken out of him, and he was no longer a man fit for use. He could never more enjoy that freedom from self-consciousness, that inner tranquillity of spirit, which are essential to public utility. Then he remembered certain lines which had long been familiar to him, and he repeated them aloud, with some conceit that they were apposite to him:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain — For the reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds in the river .
He sat drinking his tea, still thinking of himself — knowing how infinitely better it would be for him that he should indulge in no such thought, till an idea struck him, and he got up, and, drawing back the blinds from the open window, looked out into the night. It was the last day of June, and the weather was very sultry; but the night was dark, and it was now near midnight. On a sudden he took his hat, and feeling with a smile for the latch-key which he always carried in his pocket — thinking of the latch-key which had been made at Prague for the lock of a house in Northumberland Street, New Road, he went down to the front door. “You’ll be back soon, Mr Finn, won’t you now?” said Mrs Bunce, who had heard his step, and had remained up, thinking it better this, the first night of his return, not to rest till he had gone to his bed.
“Why should I be back soon?” he said, turning upon her. But then he remembered that she had been one of those who were true to him, and he took her hand and was gracious to her. “I will be back soon, Mrs Bunce, and you need fear nothing. But recollect how little I have had of liberty lately, I have not even had a walk for six weeks. You cannot wonder that I should wish to roam about a little.” Nevertheless she would have preferred that he should not have gone out all alone on that night.
He had taken off the black morning coat which he had worn during the trial, and had put on that very grey garment by which it had been sought to identify him with the murderer. So clad he crossed Regent Street into Hanover Square, and from thence went a short way down Bond Street, and by Bruton Street into Berkeley Square. He took exactly the reverse of the route by which he had returned home from the club on the night of the murder. Every now and then he trembled as he passed some figure which might be that of a man who would recognise him. But he walked fast, and went on till he came to the spot at which the steps descend from the street into the passage — the very spot at which the murder had been committed. He looked down it with an awful dread, and stood there as though he were fascinated, thinking of all the details which he had heard throughout the trial. Then he looked around him, and listened whether there were any step approaching through the passage. Hearing none and seeing no one he at last descended, and for the first time in his life passed through that way into Bolton Row. Here it was that the wretch of whom he had now heard so much had waited for his enemy — the wretch for whom during the last six weeks he had been mistaken. Heavens! — that men who had known him should have believed him to have done such a deed as that! He remembered well having shown the life-preserver to Erle and Fitzgibbon at the door of the club; and it had been thought that after having so shown it he had used it for the purpose to which in his joke he had alluded! Were men so blind, so ignorant of nature, so little capable of discerning the truth as this? Then he went on till he came to the end of Clarges Street, and looked up the mews opposite to it — the mews from which the man had been seen to hurry. The place was altogether unknown to him. He had never thought whither it had led when passing it on his way up from Piccadilly to the club. But now he entered the mews so as to test the evidence that had been given, and found that it brought him by a turn close up to the spot at which he had been described as having been last seen by Erle and Fitzgibbon. When there he went on, and crossed the street, and looking back saw the club was lighted up. Then it struck him for the first time that it was the night of the week on which the members were wont to assemble. Should he pluck up courage, and walk in among them? He had not lost his right of entry there because he had been accused of murder. He was the same now as heretofore — if he could only fancy himself to be the same. Why not go in, and have done with all this? He would be the wonder of the club for twenty minutes, and then it would all be over. He stood close under the shade of a heavy building as he thought of this, but he found that he could not do it. He had known from the beginning that he could not do it. How callous, how hard, how heartless, must he have been, had such a course been possible to him! He again repeated the lines to himself —
The reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds in the river .
He felt sure that never again would he enter that room, in which no doubt all those assembled were now talking about him.
As he returned home he tried to make out for himself some plan for his future life — but, interspersed with any idea that he could weave were the figures of two women, Lady Laura Kennedy and Madame Max Goesler. The former could be nothing to him but a friend: and though no other friend would love him as she loved him, yet she could not influence his life. She was very wealthy, but her wealth could be nothing to him. She would heap it all upon him if he would take it. He understood and knew that. Taking no pride to himself that it was so, feeling no conceit in her love, he was conscious of her devotion to him. He was poor, broken in spirit, and almost without a future — and yet could her devotion avail him nothing!
But how might it be with that other woman? Were she, after all that had passed between then, to consent to be his wife — and it might be that she would consent — how would the world be with him then? He would be known as Madame Goesler’s husband, and have to sit at the bottom of her table — and be talked of as the man who had been tried for the murder of Mr Bonteen. Look at it in which way he might, he thought that no life could any longer be possible to him in London.
Ten days passed by, and Phineas Finn had not been out of his lodgings till after daylight, and then he only prowled about in the manner described in the last chapter. His sisters had returned to Ireland, and he saw no one, even in his own room, but two or three of his most intimate friends. Among those Mr Low and Lord Chiltern were the most frequently with him, but Fitzgibbon, Barrington Erle, and Mr Monk had also been admitted. People had called by the hundred, till Mrs Bunce was becoming almost tired of her lodger’s popularity; but they came only to inquire — because it had been reported that Mr Finn was not well after his imprisonment. The Duchess of Omnium had written to him various notes, asking when he would come to her, and what she could do for him. Would he dine, would he spend a quiet evening, would he go to Matching? Finally, would he become her guest and the Duke’s next September for the partridge shooting? They would have a few friends with them, and Madame Goesler would be one of the number. Having had this by him for a week, he had not as yet answered the invitation. He had received two or three notes from Lady Laura, who had frankly explained to him that if he were really ill she would of course go to him, but that as matters stood she could not do so without displeasing her brother. He had answered each note by an assurance that his first visit should be made in Portman Square. To Madame Goesler he had written a letter of thanks — a letter which had in truth cost him some pains. “I know”, he said, “for how much I have to thank you, but I do not know in what words to do it. I ought to be with you telling you in person of my gratitude; but I must own to you that for the present what has occurred has so unmanned me that I am unfit for the interview. I should only weep in your presence like a school-girl, and you would despise me.” It was a long letter, containing many references to the circumstances of the trial, and to his own condition of mind throughout its period. Her answer to him, which was very short, was as follows:
“ Park Lane, Sunday — MY DEAR MR FINN
I can well understand that for a while you should be too agitated by what has passed to see your friends. Remember, however, that you owe it to them as well as to yourself not to sink into seclusion. Send me a line when you think that you can come to me that I may be at home. My journey to Prague was nothing. You forget that I am constantly going to Vienna on business connected with my own property there. Prague lies but a few hours out of the route.
Most sincerely yours M . M . G .”
His friends who did see him urged him constantly to bestir himself, and Mr Monk pressed him very much to come down to the House. “Walk in with me tonight, and take your seat as though nothing had happened,” said Mr Monk.
“But so much has happened.”
“Nothing has happened to alter your outward position as a man. No doubt many will flock round you to congratulate you, and your first half-hour will be disagreeable; but then the thing will have been done. You owe it to your constituents to do so.” Then Phineas for the first time expressed an opinion that he would resign his seat — that he would take the Chiltern Hundreds, and retire altogether from public life.
“Pray do nothing of the kind,” said Mr Monk.
“I do not think you quite understand”, said Phineas, “how such an ordeal as this works upon a man, how it may change a man, and knock out of him what little strength there ever was there. I feel that I am broken, past any patching up or mending. Of course it ought not to be so. A man should be made of better stuff — but one is only what one is.”
“We’ll put off the discussion for another week,” said Mr Monk.
“There came a letter to me when I was in prison from one of the leading men in Tankerville, saying that I ought to resign. I know they all thought that I was guilty. I do not care to sit for a place where I was so judged — even if I was fit any longer for a seat in Parliament.” He had never felt convinced that Mr Monk had himself believed with confidence his innocence, and he spoke with soreness, and almost with anger.
“A letter from one individual should never be allowed to create interference between a member and his constituents. It should simply be answered to that effect, and then ignored. As to the belief of the townspeople in your innocence — what is to guide you? I believed you innocent with all my heart.”
“Did you?”
“But there was always sufficient possibility of your guilt to prevent a rational man from committing himself to the expression of an absolute conviction.” The young member’s brow became black as he heard this. “I can see that I offend you by saying so — but if you will think of it, I must be right. You were on your trial; and I as your friend was bound to await the result — with much confidence, because I knew you; but with no conviction, because both you and I are human and fallible. If the electors at Tankerville, or any great proportion of them, express a belief that you are unfit to represent them because of what has occurred, I shall be the last to recommend you to keep your seat — but I shall be surprised indeed if they should do so. If there were a general election tomorrow, I should regard your seat as one of the safest in England.”
Both Mr Low and Lord Chiltern were equally urgent with him to return to his usual mode of life — using different arguments for their purpose. Lord Chiltern told him plainly that he was weak and womanly — or rather that he would be were he to continue to dread the faces of his fellow-creatures. The Master of the Brake hounds himself was a man less gifted than Phineas Finn, and therefore hardly capable of understanding the exaggerated feelings of the man who had recently been tried for his life. Lord Chiltern was affectionate, tender-hearted, and true — but there were no vacillating fibres in his composition. The balance which regulated his conduct was firmly set, and went well. The clock never stopped, and wanted but little looking after. But the works were somewhat rough, and the seconds were not scored. He had, however, been quite true to Phineas during the dark time, and might now say what he pleased. “I am womanly,” said Phineas. “I begin to feel it. But I can’t alter my nature.”
“I never was so much surprised in my life,” said Lord Chiltern. “When I used to look at you in the dock, by heaven I envied you your pluck and strength.”
“I was burning up the stock of coals, Chiltern.”
“You’ll come all right after a few weeks. You’ve been knocked out of time — that’s the truth of it.”
Mr Low treated his patient with more indulgence; but he also was surprised, and hardly understood the nature of the derangement of the mechanism in the instrument which he was desirous of repairing. “I should go abroad for a few months if I were you,” said Mr Low.
“I should stick at the first inn I got to,” said Phineas. “I think I am better here. By and bye I shall travel, I dare say — all over the world, as far as my money will last. But for the present I am only fit to sit still.”
Mrs Low had seen him more than once, and had been very kind to him; but she also failed to understand. “I always thought that he was such a manly fellow,” she said to her husband.
“If you mean personal courage, there is no doubt that he possesses it — as completely now, probably, as ever.”
“Oh yes — he could go over to Flanders and let that lord shoot at him; and he could ride brutes of horses, and not care about breaking his neck. That’s not what I mean. I thought that he could face the world with dignity — but now it seems that he breaks down.”
“He has been very roughly used, my dear.”
“So he has — and tenderly used too. Nobody has had better friends. I thought he would have been more manly.”
The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps there is none that is less understood — which is more generally accorded where it does not exist, or more frequently disallowed where it prevails. There are not many who ever make up their minds as to what constitutes manliness, or even inquire within themselves upon the subject. The woman’s error, occasioned by her natural desire for a master, leads her to look for a certain outward magnificence of demeanour, a pretended indifference to stings and little torments, a would-be superiority to the bread-and-butter side of life, an unreal assumption of personal grandeur. But a robe of State such as this — however well the garment may be worn with practice — can never be the raiment natural to a man; and men, dressing themselves in women’s eyes, have consented to walk about in buckram. A composure of the eye, which has been studied, a reticence as to the little things of life, a certain slowness of speech unless the occasion call for passion, an indifference to small surroundings, these — joined, of course, with personal bravery — are supposed to constitute manliness. That personal bravery is required in the composition of manliness must be conceded, though, of all the ingredients needed, it is the lowest in value. But the first requirement of all must be described by a negative. Manliness is not compatible with affectation. Women’s virtues, all feminine attributes, may be marred by affectation, but the virtues and the vice may co-exist. An affected man, too, may be honest, may be generous, may be pious — but surely he cannot be manly. The self-conscious assumption of any outward manner, the striving to add — even though it be but a tenth of a cubit to the height — is fatal, and will at once banish the all but divine attribute. Before the man can be manly, the gifts which make him so must be there, collected by him slowly, unconsciously, as are his bones, his flesh, and his blood. They cannot be put on like a garment for the nonce — as may a little learning. A man cannot become faithful to his friends, unsuspicious before the world, gentle with women, loving with children, considerate to his inferiors, kindly with servants, tender-hearted with all — and at the same time be frank, of open speech, with springing eager energies — simply because he desires it. These things, which are the attributes of manliness, must come of training on a nature not ignoble. But they are the very opposites, the antipodes, the direct antagonism, of that staring, posed, bewhiskered and bewigged deportment, that nil admirari, self-remembering assumption of manliness, that endeavour of twopence halfpenny to look as high as threepence, which, when you prod it through, has in it nothing deeper than deportment. We see the two things daily, side by side, close to each other. Let a man put his hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with affectation or true nature. The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.
Mrs Low was wrong when she accused our hero of being unmanly. Had his imagination been less alert in looking into the minds of men, and in picturing to himself the thoughts of others in reference to the crime with which he had been charged, he would not now have shrunk from contact with his fellow-creatures as he did. But he could not pretend to be other than he was. During the period of his danger, when men had thought that he would be hung — and when he himself had believed that it would be so — he had borne himself bravely without any conscious effort. When he had confronted the whole Court with that steady courage which had excited Lord Chiltern’s admiration, and had looked the Bench in the face as though he at least had no cause to quail, he had known nothing of what he was doing. His features had answered the helm from his heart, but had not been played upon by his intellect. And it was so with him now. The reaction had overcome him, and he could not bring himself to pretend that it was not so. The tears would come to his eyes, and he would shiver and shake like one struck by palsy.
Mr Monk came to him often, and was all but forgiven for the apparent defection in his faith. “I have made up my mind to one thing,” Phineas said to him at the end of the ten days.
“And what is the one thing?”
“I will give up my seat.”
“I do not see a shadow of a reason for it.”
“Nevertheless I will do it. Indeed, I have already written to Mr Ratler for the Hundreds. There may be and probably are men down at Tankerville who still think that I am guilty. There is an offensiveness in murder which degrades a man even by the accusation. I suppose it wouldn’t do for you to move for the new writ.”
“Ratler will do it, as a matter of course. No doubt there will be expressions of great regret, and my belief is that they will return you again.”
“If so, they’ll have to do it without my presence.”
Mr Ratler did move for a new writ for the borough of Tankerville, and within a fortnight of his restoration to liberty Phineas Finn was no longer a Member of Parliament. It cannot be alleged that there was any reason for what he did, and yet the doing of it for the time rather increased than diminished his popularity. Both Mr Gresham and Mr Daubeny expressed their regret in the House, and Mr Monk said a few words respecting his friend, which were very touching. He ended by expressing a hope that they soon might see him there again, and an opinion that he was a man peculiarly fitted by the tone of his mind, and the nature of his intellect, for the duties of Parliament.
Then at last, when all this had been settled, he went to Lord Brentford’s house in Portman Square. He had promised that that should be the first house he would visit, and he was as good as his word. One evening he crept out, and walked slowly along Oxford Street, and knocked timidly at the door. As he did so he longed to be told that Lady Laura was not at home. But Lady Laura was at home — as a matter of course. In those days she never went into society, and had not passed an evening away from her father’s house since Mr Kennedy’s death. He was shown up into the drawing-room in which she sat, and there he found her — alone. “Oh, Phineas, I am so glad you have come.”
“I have done as I said, you see.”
“I could not go to you when they told me that you were ill. You will have understood all that?”
“Yes; I understand.”
“People are so hard, and cold, and stiff, and cruel, that one can never do what one feels, oneself, to be right. So you have given up your seat.”
“Yes — I am no longer a Member of Parliament.”
“Barrington says that they will certainly re-elect you.”
“We shall see. You may be sure at any rate of this — that I shall never ask them to do so. Things seem to be so different now from what they did. I don’t care for the seat. It all seems to be a bore and a trouble. What does it matter who sits in Parliament? The fight goes on just the same. The same falsehoods are acted. The same mock truths are spoken. The same wrong reasons are given. The same personal motives are at work.”
“And yet, of all believers in Parliament, you used to be the most faithful.”
“One has time to think of things, Lady Laura, when one lies in Newgate. It seems to me to be an eternity of time since they locked me up. And as for that trial, which they tell me lasted a week, I look back at it till the beginning is so distant that I can hardly remember it. But I have resolved that I will never talk of it again. Lady Chiltern is out probably.”
“Yes — she and Oswald are dining with the Baldocks.”
“She is well?”
“Yes — and most anxious to see you. Will you go to their place in September?”
He had almost made up his mind that if he went anywhere in September he would go to Matching Priory, accepting the offer of the Duchess of Omnium; but he did not dare to say so to Lady Laura, because she would have known that Madame Goesler also would be there. And he had not as yet accepted the invitation, and was still in doubt whether he would not escape by himself instead of attempting to return into the grooves of society. “I think not — I am hardly as yet sufficiently master of myself to know what I shall do.”
“They will be much disappointed.”
“And you? — what will you do?”
“I shall not go there. I am told that I ought to visit Loughlinter, and I suppose I shall. Oswald has promised to go down with me before the end of the month, but he will not remain above a day or two.”
“And your father?”
“We shall leave him at Saulsby. I cannot look it all in the face yet. It is not possible that I should remain all alone in that great house. The people all around would hate and despise me. I think Violet will come down with me, but of course she cannot remain there. Oswald must go to Harrington because of the hunting. It has become the business of his life. And she must go with him.”
“You will return to Saulsby.”
“I cannot say. They seem to think that I should live at Loughlinter — but I cannot live there alone.”
He soon took leave of her, and did so with no warmer expressions of regard on either side than have here been given. Then he crept back to his lodgings, and she sat weeping alone in her father’s house. When he had come to her during her husband’s lifetime at Dresden, or even when she had visited him at his prison, it had been better than this.
Our pages have lately been taken up almost exclusively with the troubles of Phineas Finn, and indeed have so far not unfairly represented the feelings and interest of people generally at the time. Not to have talked of Phineas Finn from the middle of May to the middle of July in that year would have exhibited great ignorance or a cynical disposition. But other things went on also. Moons waxed and waned; children were born; marriages were contracted; and the hopes and fears of the little world around did not come to an end because Phineas Finn was not to be hung. Among others who had interests of their own there was poor Adelaide Palliser, whom we last saw under the affliction of Mr Spooner’s love — but who before that had encountered the much deeper affliction of a quarrel with her own lover. She had desired him to free her — and he had gone. Indeed, as to his going at that moment there had been no alternative, as he considered himself to have been turned out of Lord Chiltern’s house. The red-headed lord, in the fierceness of his defence of Miss Palliser, had told the lover that under such and such circumstances he could not be allowed to remain at Harrington Hall. Lord Chiltern had said something about “his roof’. Now, when a host questions the propriety of a guest remaining under his roof, the guest is obliged to go. Gerard Maule had gone; and, having offended his sweetheart by a most impolite allusion to Boulogne, had been forced to go as a rejected lover. From that day to this he had done nothing — not because he was contented with the lot assigned to him, for every morning, as he lay on his bed, which he usually did till twelve, he swore to himself that nothing should separate him from Adelaide Palliser — but simply because to do nothing was customary with him. “What is a man to do?” he not unnaturally asked his friend Captain Boodle at the club. “Let her out on the grass for a couple of months”, said Captain Boodle, “and she’ll come up as clean as a whistle. When they get these humours there’s nothing like giving them a run.” Captain Boodle undoubtedly had the reputation of being very great in council on such matters; but it must not be supposed that Gerard Maule was contented to take his advice implicitly. He was unhappy, ill at ease, half conscious that he ought to do something, full of regrets — but very idle.
In the meantime Miss Palliser, who had the finer nature of the two, suffered grievously. The Spooner affair was but a small addition to her misfortune. She could get rid of Mr Spooner — of any number of Mr Spooners: but how should she get back to her the man she loved? When young ladies quarrel with their lovers it is always presumed, especially in books, that they do not wish to get them back. It is to be understood that the loss to them is as nothing. Miss Smith begs that Mr Jones may be assured that he is not to consider her at all. If he is pleased to separate, she will be at any rate quite as well pleased — probably a great deal better. No doubt she had loved him with all her heart, but that will make no difference to her, if he wishes — to be off. Upon the whole Miss Smith thinks that she would prefer such an arrangement, in spite of her heart. Adelaide Palliser had said something of the kind. As Gerard Maule had regarded her as a “trouble”, and had lamented that prospect of “Boulogne” which marriage had presented to his eyes, she had dismissed him with a few easily spoken words. She had assured him that no such troubles need weigh upon him. No doubt they had been engaged — but, as far as she was concerned, the remembrance of that need not embarrass him. And so she and Lord Chiltern between them had sent him away. But how was she to get him back again?
When she came to think it over, she acknowledged to herself that it would be all the world to her to have him back. To have him at all had been all the world to her. There had been nothing peculiarly heroic about him, nor had she ever regarded him as a hero. She had known his faults and weaknesses, and was probably aware that he was inferior to herself in character and intellect. But, nevertheless, she had loved him. To her he had been, though not heroic, sufficiently a man to win her heart. He was a gentleman, pleasant-mannered, pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, not educated in the high sense of the word, but never making himself ridiculous by ignorance. He was the very antipodes of a Spooner, and he was — or rather had been — her lover. She did not wish to change. She did not recognise the possibility of changing. Though she had told him that he might go if he pleased, to her his going would be the loss of everything. What would life be without a lover — without the prospect of marriage? And there could be no other lover. There could be no further prospect should he take her at her word.
Of all this Lord Chiltern understood nothing, but Lady Chiltern understood it all. To his thinking the young man had behaved so badly that it was incumbent on them all to send him away and so have done with him. If the young man wanted to quarrel with anyone, there was he to be quarrelled with. The thing was a trouble, and the sooner they got to the end of it the better. But Lady Chiltern understood more than that. She could not prevent the quarrel as it came — or was coming; but she knew that “the quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love’. At any rate, the woman always desires that it may be so, and endeavours to reconcile the parted ones. “You’ll see him in London,” Lady Chiltern had said to her friend.
“I do not want to see him,” said Adelaide proudly.
“But he’ll want to see you, and then — after a time — you’ll want to see him. I don’t believe in quarrels, you know.”
“It is better that we should part, Lady Chiltern, if marrying will cause him — dismay. I begin to feel that we are too poor to be married.”
“A great deal poorer people than you are married every day. Of course people can’t be equally rich. You’ll do very well if you’ll only be patient, and not refuse to speak to him when he comes to you.” This was said at Harrington after Lady Chiltern had returned from her first journey up to London. That visit had been very short, and Miss Palliser had been left alone at the hall. We already know how Mr Spooner took advantage of her solitude. After that, Miss Palliser was to accompany the Chilterns to London, and she was there with them when Phineas Finn was acquitted. By that time she had brought herself to acknowledge to her friend Lady Chiltern that it would perhaps be desirable that Mr Maule should return. If he did not do so, and that at once, there must come an end to her life in England. She must go away to Italy — altogether beyond the reach of Gerard Maule. In such case all the world would have collapsed for her, and she would become the martyr of a shipwreck. And yet the more that she confessed to herself that she loved the man so well that she could not part with him, the more angry she was with him for having told her that, when married, they must live at Boulogne.
The house in Portman Square had been practically given up by Lord Brentford to his son; but nevertheless the old Earl and Lady Laura had returned to it when they reached England from Dresden. It was, however, large, and now the two families — if the Earl and his daughter can be called a family — were lodging there together. The Earl troubled them but little, living mostly in his own rooms, and Lady Laura never went out with them. But there was something in the presence of the old man and the widow which prevented the house from being gay as it might have been. There were no parties in Portman Square. Now and then a few old friends dined there; but at the present moment Gerard Maule could not be admitted as an old friend. When Adelaide had been a fortnight in London she had not as yet seen Gerard Maule or heard a word from him. She had been to balls and concerts, to dinner parties and the play; but no one had as yet brought them together. She did know that he was in town. She was able to obtain so much information of him as that. But he never came to Portman Square, and had evidently concluded that the quarrel — was to be a quarrel.
Among other balls in London that July there had been one at the Duchess of Omnium’s. This had been given after the acquittal of Phineas Finn, though fixed before that great era. “Nothing on earth should have made me have it while he was in prison,” the Duchess had said. But Phineas was acquitted, and cakes and ale again became permissible. The ball had been given, and had been very grand. Phineas had been asked, but of course had not gone. Madame Goesler, who was a great heroine since her successful return from Prague, had shown herself there for a few minutes. Lady Chiltern had gone, and of course taken Adelaide. “We are first cousins,” the Duke said to Miss Palliser — for the Duke did steal a moment from his work in which to walk through his wife’s drawing-room. Adelaide smiled and nodded, and looked pleased as she gave her hand to her great relative. “I hope we shall see more of each other than we have done,” said the Duke. “We have all been sadly divided, haven’t we?” Then he said a word to his wife, expressing his opinion that Adelaide Palliser was a nice girl, and asking her to be civil to so near a relative.
The Duchess had heard all about Gerard Maule and the engagement. She always did hear all about everything. And on this evening she asked a question or two from Lady Chiltern. “Do you know”, she said, “I have an appointment tomorrow with your husband?”
“I did not know — but I won’t interfere to prevent it, now you are generous enough to tell me.”
“I wish you would, because I don’t know what to say to him. He is to come about that horrid wood, where the foxes won’t get themselves born and bred as foxes ought to do. How can I help it? I’d send down a whole Lying-in Hospital for the foxes if I thought that that would do any good.”
“Lord Chiltern thinks it’s the shooting.”
“But where is a person to shoot if he mayn’t shoot in his own woods? Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn’t know one if he saw it. And he’d rather that there wasn’t such a thing as a pheasant in the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do? — for he tells me that I must settle it.”
“Lord Chiltern says that Mr Fothergill has the foxes destroyed. I suppose Mr Fothergill may do as he pleases if the Duke gives him permission.”
“I hate Mr Fothergill, if that’ll do any good,” said the Duchess; “and we wish we could get rid of him altogether. But that, you know, is impossible. When one has an old man on one’s shoulders one never can get rid of him. He is my incubus; and then you see Trumpeton Wood is such a long way from us at Matching that I can’t say I want the shooting for myself. And I never go to Gatherum if I can help it. Suppose we made out that the Duke wanted to let the shooting?”
“Lord Chiltern would take it at once.”
“But the Duke wouldn’t really let it, you know. I’ll lay awake at night and think about it. And now tell me about Adelaide Palliser. Is she to be married?”
“I hope so — sooner or later.”
“There’s a quarrel or something — isn’t there? She’s the Duke’s first cousin, and we should be so sorry that things shouldn’t go pleasantly with her. And she’s a very good-looking girl, too. Would she like to come down to Matching?”
“She has some idea of going back to Italy.”
“And leaving her lover behind her! Oh, dear, that will be very bad. She’d much better come to Matching, and then I’d ask the man to come too. Mr Maud, isn’t he?”
“Gerard Maule.”
“Ah, yes; Maule. If it’s the kind of thing that ought to be, I’d manage it in a week. If you get a young man down into a country house, and there has been anything at all between them, I don’t see how he is to escape. Isn’t there some trouble about money?”
“They wouldn’t be very rich, Duchess.”
“What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they’d be very poor.”
“They would be rather poor.”
“Which is not a blessing. Isn’t there some proverb about going safely in the middle? I’m sure it’s true about money, only perhaps you ought to be put a little beyond the middle. I don’t know why Plantagenet shouldn’t do something for her.”
As to this conversation Lady Chiltern said very little to Adelaide, but she did mention the proposed visit to Matching.
“The Duchess said nothing to me,” replied Adelaide, proudly.
“No; I don’t suppose she had time. And then she is so very odd; sometimes taking no notice of one, and at others so very loving.”
“I hate that.”
“But with her it is neither impudence nor affectation. She says exactly what she thinks at the time, and she is always as good as her word. There are worse women than the Duchess.”
“I am sure I wouldn’t like going to Matching,” said Adelaide.
Lady Chiltern was right in saying that the Duchess of Omnium was always as good as her word. On the next day, after that interview with Lord Chiltern about Mr Fothergill and the foxes — as to which no present further allusion need be made here — she went to work and did learn a good deal about Gerard Maule and Miss Palliser. Something she learned from Lord Chiltern — without any consciousness on his lordship’s part, something from Madame Goesler, and something from the Baldock people. Before she went to bed on the second night she knew all about the quarrel, and all about the money. “Plantagenet,” she said the next morning, “what are you going to do about the Duke’s legacy to Marie Goesler?”
“I can do nothing. She must take the things, of course.”
“She won’t.”
“Then the jewels must remain packed up. I suppose they’ll be sold at last for the legacy duty, and, when that’s paid, the balance will belong to her.”
“But what about the money?”
“Of course it belongs to her.”
“Couldn’t you give it to that girl who was here last night?”
“Give it to a girl!”
“Yes — to your cousin. She’s as poor as Job, and can’t get married because she hasn’t got any money. It’s quite true; and I must say that if the Duke had looked after his own relations instead of leaving money to people who don’t want it and won’t have it, it would have been much better. Why shouldn’t Adelaide Palliser have it?”
“How on earth should I give Adelaide Palliser what doesn’t belong to me? If you choose to make her a present, you can, but such a sum as that would, I should say, be out of the question.”
The Duchess had achieved quite as much as she had anticipated. She knew her husband well, and was aware that she couldn’t carry her point at once. To her mind it was “all nonsense” his saying that the money was not his. If Madame Goesler wouldn’t take it, it must be his; and nobody could make a woman take money if she did not choose. Adelaide Palliser was the Duke’s first cousin, and it was intolerable that the Duke’s first cousin should be unable to marry because she would have nothing to live upon. It became, at least, intolerable as soon as the Duchess had taken it into her head to like the first cousin. No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether they were rich or poor — married or single; but then they were first cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess.
“My dear,” said the Duchess to her friend, Madame Goesler, “you know all about those Maules?”
“What makes you ask?”
“But you do?”
“I know something about one of them,” said Madame Goesler. Now, as it happened, Mr Maule, senior, had on that very day asked Madame Goesler to share her lot with his, and the request had been — almost indignantly, refused. The general theory that the wooing of widows should be quick had, perhaps, misled Mr Maule. Perhaps he did not think that the wooing had been quick. He had visited Park Lane with the object of making his little proposition once before, and had then been stopped in his course by the consternation occasioned by the arrest of Phineas Finn. He had waited till Phineas had been acquitted, and had then resolved to try his luck. He had heard of the lady’s journey to Prague, and was acquainted of course with those rumours which too freely connected the name of our hero with that of the lady. But rumours are often false, and a lady may go to Prague on a gentleman’s behalf without intending to marry him. All the women in London were at present more or less in love with the man who had been accused of murder, and the fantasy of Madame Goesler might be only as the fantasy of others. And then, rumour also said that Phineas Finn intended to marry Lady Laura Kennedy. At any rate a man cannot have his head broken for asking a lady to marry him — unless he is very awkward in the doing of it. So Mr Maule made his little proposition.
“Mr Maule,” said Madame, smiling, “is not this rather sudden?” Mr Maule admitted that it was sudden, but still persisted. “I think, if you please, Mr Maule, we will say no more about it,” said the lady, with that wicked smile still on her face. Mr Maule declared that silence on the subject had become impossible to him. “Then, Mr Maule, I shall have to leave you to speak to the chairs and tables,” said Madame Goesler. No doubt she was used to the thing, and knew how to conduct herself well. He also had been refused before by ladies of wealth, but had never been treated with so little consideration. She had risen from her chair as though about to leave the room, but was slow in her movement, showing him that she thought it was well for him to leave it instead of her. Muttering some words, half of apology and half of self-assertion, he did leave the room; and now she told the Duchess that she knew something of one of the Maules.
“That is, the father?”
“Yes — the father.”
“He is one of your tribe, I know. We met him at your house just before the murder. I don’t much admire your taste, my dear, because he’s a hundred and fifty years old — and what there is of him comes chiefly from the tailor.”
“He’s as good as any other old man.”
“I dare say — and I hope Mr Finn will like his society. But he has got a son.”
“So he tells me.”
“Who is a charming young man.”
“He never told me that, Duchess.”
“I dare say not. Men of that sort are always jealous of their sons. But he has. Now I am going to tell you something and ask you to do something.”
“What was it the French Minister said. If it is simply difficult it is done. If it is impossible, it shall be done.”
“The easiest thing in the world. You saw Plantagenets first cousin the other night — Adelaide Palliser. She is engaged to marry young Mr Maule, and they neither of them have a shilling in the world. I want you to give them five-and-twenty thousand pounds.”
“Wouldn’t that be peculiar?”
“Not in the least.”
“At any rate it would be inconvenient.”
“No it wouldn’t, my dear. It would be the most convenient thing in the world. Of course I don’t mean out of your pocket. There’s the Duke’s legacy.”
“It isn’t mine, and never will be.”
“But Plantagenet says it never can be anybody else’s. If I can get him to agree, will you? Of course there will be ever so many papers to be signed; and the biggest of all robbers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will put his fingers into the pudding and pull out a plum, and the lawyers will take more plums. But that will be nothing to us. The pudding will be very nice for them let ever so many plums be taken. The lawyers and people will do it all, and then it will be her fortune — just as though her uncle had left it to her. As it is now, the money will never be of any use to anybody.” Madame Goesler said that if the Duke consented she also would consent. It was immaterial to her who had the money. If by signing any receipt she could facilitate the return of the money to anyone of the Duke’s family, she would willingly sign it. But Miss Palliser must be made to understand that the money did not come to her as a present from Madame Goesler.
“But it will be a present from Madame Goesler,” said the Duke.
“Plantagenet, if you go and upset everything by saying that, I shall think it most ill-natured. Bother about true! Somebody must have the money. There’s nothing illegal about it.” And the Duchess had her own way. Lawyers were consulted, and documents were prepared, and the whole thing was arranged. Only Adelaide Palliser knew nothing about it, nor did Gerard Maule; and the quarrels of lovers had not yet become the renewal of love. Then the Duchess wrote the two following notes:
MY DEAR ADELAIDE
We shall hope to see you at Matching on the 15th of August. The Duke, as head of the family, expects implicit obedience. You’ll meet fifteen young gentlemen from the Treasury and the Board of Trade, but they won’t incommode you, as they are kept at work all day. We hope Mr Finn will be with us, and there isn’t a lady in England who wouldn’t give her eyes to meet him. We shall stay ever so many weeks at Matching, so that you can do as you please as to the time of leaving us.
Yours affectionately, G . O .
“Tell Lord Chiltern that I have my hopes of making Trumpeton Wood too hot for Mr Fothergill — but I have to act with the greatest caution. In the meantime I am sending down dozens of young foxes, all labelled Trumpeton Wood, so that he shall know them.”
The other was a card rather than a note. The Duke and Duchess of Omnium presented their compliments to Mr Gerard Maule, and requested the honour of his company to dinner on — a certain day named. When Gerard Maule received this card at his club he was rather surprised, as he had never made the acquaintance either of the Duke or the Duchess. But the Duke was the first cousin of Adelaide Palliser, and of course he accepted the invitation.
The end of July came, and it was settled that Lady Laura Kennedy should go to Loughlinter. She had been a widow now for nearly three months, and it was thought right that she should go down and see the house, and the lands, and the dependents whom her husband had left in her charge. It was now three years since she had seen Loughlinter, and when last she had left it, she had made up her mind that she would never place her foot upon the place again. Her wretchedness had all come upon her there. It was there that she had first been subjected to the unendurable tedium of Sabbath Day observances. It was there she had been instructed in the unpalatable duties that had been expected from her. It was there that she had been punished with the doctor from Callender whenever she attempted escape under the plea of a headache. And it was there, standing by the waterfall, the noise of which could be heard from the front-door, that Phineas Finn had told her of his love. When she accepted the hand of Robert Kennedy she had known that she had not loved him; but from the moment in which Phineas had spoken to her, she knew well that her heart had gone one way, whereas her hand was to go another. From that moment her whole life had quickly become a blank. She had had no period of married happiness — not a month, not an hour. From the moment in which the thing had been done she had found that the man to whom she had bound herself was odious to her, and that the life before her was distasteful to her which before had seemed worthy to her, and full at any rate of interest, became at once dull and vapid. Her husband was in Parliament, as also had been her father, and many of her friends — and, by weight of his own character and her influence, was himself placed high in office; but in his house politics lost all the flavour which they had possessed for her in Portman Square. She had thought that she could at any rate do her duty as the mistress of a great household, and as the benevolent lady of a great estate; but household duties under the tutelage of Mr Kennedy had been impossible to her, and that part of a Scotch Lady Bountiful which she had intended to play seemed to be denied to her. The whole structure had fallen to the ground, and nothing had been left to her.
But she would not sin. Though she could not bring herself to love her husband, she would at any rate be strong enough to get rid of that other love. Having so resolved, she became as weak as water. She at one time determined to be the guiding genius of the man she loved — a sort of devoted elder sister, intending him to be the intimate friend of her husband; then she had told him not to come to her house, and had been weak enough to let him know why it was that she could not bear his presence. She had failed altogether to keep her secret, and her life during the struggle had become so intolerable to her that she had found herself compelled to desert her husband. He had shown her that he, too, had discovered the truth, and then she had become indignant, and had left him. Every place that she had inhabited with him had become disagreeable to her. The house in London had been so odious, that she had asked her intimate friends to come to her in that occupied by her father. But, of all spots upon earth, Loughlinter had been the most distasteful to her. It was there that the sermons had been the longest, the lessons in accounts the most obstinate, the lectures the most persevering, the dullness the most heavy. It was there that her ears had learned the sound of the wheels of Dr Macnuthrie’s gig. It was there that her spirit had been nearly broken. It was there that, with spirit not broken, she had determined to face all that the world might say of her, and fly from a tyranny which was insupportable. And now the place was her own, and she was told that she must go there as its owner — go there and be potential, and beneficent, and grandly bland with persons, all of whom knew what had been the relations between her and her husband.
And though she had been indignant with her husband when at last she had left him — throwing it in his teeth as an unmanly offence that he had accused her of the truth; though she had felt him to be a tyrant and herself to be a thrall; though the sermons, and the lessons, and the doctor had each, severally, seemed to her to be horrible cruelties; yet she had known through it all that the fault had been hers, and not his. He only did that which she should have expected when she married him — but she had done none of that which he was entitled to expect from her. The real fault, the deceit, the fraud — the sin had been with her — and she knew it. Her life had been destroyed — but not by him. His life had also been destroyed, and she had done it. Now he was gone, and she knew that his people — the old mother who was still left alone, his cousins, and the tenants who were now to be her tenants, all said that had she done her duty by him he would still have been alive. And they must hate her the worse, because she had never sinned after such a fashion as to liberate him from his bond to her. With a husband’s perfect faith in his wife, he had immediately after his marriage, given to her for her life the lordship over his people, should he be without a child and should she survive him. In his hottest anger he had not altered that. His constant demand had been that she should come back to him, and be his real wife. And while making that demand — with a persistency which had driven him mad — he had died; and now the place was hers, and they told her that she must go and live there!
It is a very sad thing for any human being to have to say to himself — with an earnest belief in his own assertion — that all the joy of this world is over for him; and is the sadder because such conviction is apt to exclude the hope of other joy. This woman had said so to herself very often during the last two years, and had certainly been sincere. What was there in store for her? She was banished from the society of all those she liked. She bore a name that was hateful to her. She loved a man whom she could never see. She was troubled about money. Nothing in life had any taste for her. All the joys of the world were over — and had been lost by her own fault. Then Phineas Finn had come to her at Dresden, and now her husband was dead!
Could it be that she was entitled to hope that the sun might rise again for her once more and another day be reopened for her with a gorgeous morning? She was now rich and still young — or young enough. She was two and thirty, and had known many women — women still honoured with the name of girls — who had commenced the world successfully at that age. And this man had loved her once. He had told her so, and had afterwards kissed her when informed of her own engagement. How well she remembered it all. He, too, had gone through vicissitudes in life, had married and retired out of the world, had returned to it, and had gone through fire and water. But now everybody was saying good things of him, and all he wanted was the splendour which wealth would give him. Why should he not take it at her hands, and why should not the world begin again for both of them?
But though she would dream that it might be so, she was quite sure that there was no such life in store for her. The nature of the man was too well known to her. Fickle he might be — or rather capable of change than fickle; but he was incapable of pretending to love when he did not love. She felt that in all the moments in which he had been most tender with her. When she had endeavoured to explain to him the state of her feelings at K?nigstein — meaning to be true in what she said, but not having been even then true throughout — she had acknowledged to herself that at every word he spoke she was wounded by his coldness. Had he then professed a passion for her she would have rebuked him, and told him that he must go from her — but it would have warmed the blood in all her veins, and brought back to her a sense of youthful life. It had been the same when she visited him in the prison — the same again when he came to her after his acquittal. She had been frank enough to him, but he would not even pretend that he loved her. His gratitude, his friendship, his services, were all hers. In every respect he had behaved well to her. All his troubles had come upon him because he would not desert her cause — but he would never again say he loved her.
She gazed at herself in the glass, putting aside for the moment the hideous widow’s cap which she now wore, and told herself that it was natural that it should be so. Though she was young in years her features were hard and worn with care. She had never thought herself to be a beauty, though she had been conscious of a certain aristocratic grace of manner which might stand in the place of beauty. As she examined herself she found that that was not all gone — but she now lacked that roundness of youth which had been hers when first she knew Phineas Finn. She sat opposite the mirror, and pored over her own features with an almost skilful scrutiny, and told herself at last aloud that she had become an old woman. He was in the prime of life; but for her was left nothing but its dregs.
She was to go to Loughlinter with her brother and her brother’s wife, leaving her father at Saulsby on the way. The Chilterns were to remain with her for one week, and no more. His presence was demanded in the Brake country, and it was with difficulty that he had been induced to give her so much of his time. But what was she to do when they should leave her? How could she live alone in that great house, thinking, as she ever must think, of all that had happened to her there? It seemed to her that everybody near to her was cruel in demanding from her such a sacrifice of her comfort. Her father had shuddered when she had proposed to him to accompany her to Loughlinter; but her father was one of those who insisted on the propriety of her going there. Then, in spite of that lesson which she had taught herself while sitting opposite to the glass, she allowed her fancy to revel in the idea of having him with her as she wandered over the braes. She saw him a day or two before her journey, when she told him her plans as she might tell them to any friend. Lady Chiltern and her father had been present, and there had been no special sign in her outward manner of the mingled tenderness and soreness of her heart within. No allusion had been made to any visit from him to the North. She would not have dared to suggest it in the presence of her brother, and was almost as much cowed by her brother’s wife. But when she was alone, on the eve of her departure, she wrote to him as follows:
Sunday, 1st August — DEAR FRIEND
I thought that perhaps you might have come in this afternoon, and I have not left the house all day. I was so wretched that I could not go to church in the morning — and when the afternoon came, I preferred the chance of seeing you to going out with Violet. We two were alone all the evening, and I did not give you up till nearly ten. I dare say you were right not to come. I should only have bored you with my complaints, and have grumbled to you of evils which you cannot cure.
We start at nine tomorrow, and get to Saulsby in the afternoon. Such a family party as we shall be! I did fancy that Oswald would escape it; but, like everybody else, he has changed — and has become domestic and dutiful. Not but that he is as tyrannous as ever; but his tyranny is now that of the responsible father of a family. Papa cannot understand him at all, and is dreadfully afraid of him. We stay two nights at Saulsby, and then go on to Scotland, leaving papa at home.
Of course it is very good in Violet and Oswald to come with me — if, as they say, it be necessary for me to go at all. As to living there by myself, it seems to me to be impossible. You know the place well, and can you imagine me there all alone, surrounded by Scotch men and women, who, of course, must hate and despise me, afraid of every face that I see, and reminded even by the chairs and tables of all that is past? I have told papa that I know I shall be back at Saulsby before the middle of the month. He frets, and says nothing; but he tells Violet, and then she lectures me in that wise way of hers which enables her to say such hard things with so much seeming tenderness. She asks me why I do not take a companion with me, as I am so much afraid of solitude. Where on earth should I find a companion who would not be worse than solitude? I do feel now that I have mistaken life in having so little used myself to the small resources of feminine companionship. I love Violet dearly, and I used to be always happy in her society. But even with her now I feel but a half sympathy. That girl that she has with her is more to her than I am, because after the first half-hour I grow tired about her babies. I have never known any other woman with whom I cared to be alone. How then shall I content myself with a companion, hired by the quarter, perhaps from some advertisement in a newspaper?
No companionship of any kind seems possible to me — and yet never was a human being more weary of herself. I sometimes wonder whether I could go again and sit in that cage in the House of Commons to hear you and other men speak — as I used to do. I do not believe that any eloquence in the world would make it endurable to me. I hardly care who is in or out, and do not understand the things which my cousin Barrington tells me — so long does it seem since I was in the midst of them all. Not but that I am intensely anxious that you should be back. They tell me that you will certainly be re-elected this week, and that all the House will receive you with open arms. I should have liked, had it been possible, to be once more in the cage to see that. But I am such a coward that I did not even dare to propose to stay for it. Violet would have told me that such manifestation of interest was unfit for my condition as a widow. But in truth, Phineas, there is nothing else now that does interest me. If, looking on from a distance, I can see you succeed, I shall try once more to care for the questions of the day. When you have succeeded, as I know you will, it will be some consolation to me to think that I also helped a little.
I suppose I must not ask you to come to Loughlinter? But you will know best. If you will do so I shall care nothing for what anyone may say. Oswald hardly mentions your name in my hearing, and of course I know of what he is thinking. When I am with him I am afraid of him, because it would add infinitely to my grief were I driven to quarrel with him; but I am my own mistress as much as he is his own master, and I will not regulate my conduct by his wishes. If you please to come you will be welcome as the flowers in May. Ah, how weak are such words in giving any idea of the joy with which I should see you!
God bless you, Phineas. Your most affectionate friend, LAURA KENNEDY
Write to me at Loughlinter. I shall long to hear that you have taken your seat immediately on your re-election. Pray do not lose a day. I am sure that all your friends will advise you as I do.
Throughout her whole letter she was struggling to tell him once again of her love, and yet to do it in some way of which she need not be ashamed. It was not till she had come to the last words that she could force her pen to speak of her affection, and then the words did not come freely as she would have had them. She knew that he would not come to Loughlinter. She felt that were he to do so he could come only as a suitor for her hand, and that such a suit, in these early days of her widowhood, carried on in her late husband’s house, would be held to be disgraceful. As regarded herself, she would have faced all that for the sake of the thing to be attained. But she knew that he would not come. He had become wise by experience, and would perceive the result of such coming — and would avoid it. His answer to her letter reached Loughlinter before she did:
“ Great Marlborough Street Monday night DEAR LADY LAURA—
I should have called in the Square last night, only that I feel that Lady Chiltern must be weary of the woes of so doleful a person as myself. I dined and spent the evening with the Lows, and was quite aware that I disgraced myself with them by being perpetually lachrymose. As a rule I do not think that I am more given than other people to talk of myself, but I am conscious of a certain incapability of getting rid of myself what has grown upon me since those weary weeks in Newgate and those frightful days in the dock; and this makes me unfit for society. Should I again have a seat in the House I shall be afraid to get up upon my legs, lest I should find myself talking of the time in which I stood before the judge with a halter round my neck.
I sympathise with you perfectly in what you say about Loughlinter. It may be right that you should go there and show yourself — so that those who knew the Kennedys in Scotland should not say that you had not dared to visit the place, but I do not think it possible that you should live there as yet. And why should you do so? I cannot conceive that your presence there should do good, unless you took delight in the place.
I will not go to Loughlinter myself, although I know how warm would be my welcome. [When he had got so far with his letter he found the difficulty of going on with it to be almost insuperable. How could he give her any reasons for his not making the journey to Scotland?] People would say that you and I should not be alone together after all the evil that has been spoken of us — and would be specially eager in saying so were I now to visit you, so lately made a widow, and to sojourn with you in the house that did belong to your husband. Only think how eloquent would be the indignation of the People’s Banner were it known that I was at Louglinter. [Could he have spoken the truth openly, such were the reasons that he would have given; but it was impossible that such truths should be written by him in a letter to herself. And then it was almost equally difficult for him to tell her of a visit which he had resolved to make. But the letter must be completed, and at last the words were written.] I could be of no real service to you there, as will be your brother and your brother’s wife, even though their stay with you is to be so short. Were I you I would go out among the people as much as possible, even though they should not receive you cordially at first. Though we hear so much of clanship in the Highlands, I think the Highlanders are prone to cling to anyone who has territorial authority among them. They thought a great deal of Mr Kennedy, but they had never heard his name fifty years ago. I suppose you will return to Saulsby soon, and then, perhaps, I may be able to see you.
In the meantime I am going to Matching. [This difficulty was worse even than the other.] Both the Duke and Duchess have asked me, and I know that I am bound to make an effort to face my fellow-creatures again. The horror I feel at being stared at, as the man that was not — hung as a murderer, is stronger than I can describe; and I am well aware that I shall be talked to and made a wonder of on that ground. I am told that I am to be re-elected triumphantly at Tankerville without a penny of cost or the trouble of asking for a vote, simply because I didn’t knock poor Mr Bonteen on the head. This to me is abominable, but I cannot help myself, unless I resolve to go away and hide myself. That I know cannot be right, and therefore I had better go through it and have done with it. Though I am to be stared at, I shall not be stared at very long. Some other monster will come up and take my place, and I shall be the only person who will not forget it all. Therefore I have accepted the Duke’s invitation, and shall go to Matching some time in the end of August. All the world is to be there.
This re-election — and I believe I shall be re-elected tomorrow — would be altogether distasteful to me were it not that I feel that I should not allow myself to be cut to pieces by what has occurred. I shall hate to go back to the House, and have somehow learned to dislike and distrust all those things that used to be so fine and lively to me. I don’t think that I believe any more in the party — or rather in the men who lead it. I used to have a faith that now seems to me to be marvellous. Even twelve months ago, when I was beginning to think of standing for Tankerville, I believed that on our side the men were patriotic angels, and that Daubeny and his friends were all fiends or idiots — mostly idiots, but with a strong dash of fiendism to control them. It has all come now to one common level of poor human interests. I doubt whether patriotism can stand the wear and tear and temptation of the front benches in the House of Commons. Men are flying at each other’s throats, thrusting and parrying, making false accusations and defences equally false, lying and slandering — sometimes picking and stealing — till they themselves become unaware of the magnificence of their own position, and forget that they are expected to be great. Little tricks of sword-play engage all their skill. And the consequence is that there is no reverence now for any man in the House — none of that feeling which we used to entertain for Mr Mildmay.
Of course I write — and feel — as a discontented man; and what I say to you I would not say to any other human being. I did long most anxiously for office, having made up my mind a second time to look to it as a profession. But I meant to earn my bread honestly, and give it up — as I did before, when I could not keep it with a clear conscience. I knew that I was hustled out of the object of my poor ambition by that unfortunate man who has been hurried to his fate. In such a position I ought to distrust, and do, partly, distrust my own feelings. And I am aware that I have been soured by prison indignities. But still the conviction remains with me that parliamentary interests are not those battles of gods and giants which I used to regard them. Our Gyas with the hundred hands is but a Three-fingered Jack, and I sometimes think that we share our great Jove with the Strand Theatre. Nevertheless I shall go back — and if they will make me a joint lord tomorrow I shall be in heaven!
I do not know why I should write all this to you except that there is no one else to whom I can say it. There is no one else who would give a moment of time to such lamentations. My friends will expect me to talk to them of my experiences in the dock rather than politics, and will want to know what rations I had in Newgate. I went to call on the Governor only yesterday, and visited the old room. “I never could really bring myself to think that you did it, Mr Finn,” he said. I looked at him and smiled, but I should have liked to fly at his throat. Why did he not know that the charge was a monstrous absurdity? Talking of that, not even you were truer to me than your brother. One expects it from a woman — both the truth and the discernment.
I have written to you a cruelly long letter; but when one’s mind is full such relief is sometimes better than talking. Pray answer it before long, and let me know what you intend to do.
Yours most affectionately PHINEAS FINN
She did read the letter through — read it probably more than once; but there was only one sentence in it that had for her any enduring interest. “I will not go to Loughlinter myself.” Though she had known that he would not come her heart sank within her, as though now, at this moment, the really fatal wound had at last been inflicted. But, in truth, there was another sentence as a complement to the first, which rivetted the dagger in her bosom. “In the meantime I am going to Matching.” Throughout his letter the name of that woman was not mentioned, but of course she would be there. The thing had all been arranged in order that they two might be brought together. She told herself that she had always hated that intriguing woman, Lady Glencora. She read the remainder of the letter and understood it; but she read it all in connection with the beauty, and the wealth, and the art — and the cunning of Madame Max Goesler.