Kitobni o'qish: «A Secret Inheritance. Volume 3 of 3»

BOOK THE SECOND (Continued)

IN WHICH THE SECRET OF THE INHERITANCE TRANSMITTED TO GABRIEL CAREW IS REVEALED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS FROM ABRAHAM SANDIVAL, ESQ., ENGLAND, TO HIS FRIEND, MAXIMILIAN GALLENGA, ESQ., CONTRA COSTA CO., CALIFORNIA.

VOL. III.

VII

The investigations in the course of which Emilius related his version of what had passed between him and his ill-fated brother-I use the phrase to give expression to my meaning, but indeed it is hard to say to which of the brothers, the living or the dead, it can be applied with the greater force-took place in private, only the accused and the magistrate, with a secretary to write down what was said, being present. The magistrate in his conversations with Doctor Louis and Gabriel Carew, did not hesitate to declare his belief in the prisoner's guilt. He declined altogether to entertain the sentimental views which Doctor Louis advanced in Emilius's favour-such as the love which it was well known had existed between the brothers since their birth, the character for gentleness which Emilius had earned, the numberless acts of kindness which could be set to his credit, and the general esteem which was accorded to him by those among whom he had chiefly lived.

"My experience is," he said, "that all pervious records of a man's life and character are not only valueless but misleading when the passions of love and jealousy enter his soul. They dominate him utterly; they are sufficiently baleful to transform him from an angel to a demon. He sees things through false light, and justifies himself for the commission of any monstrous act. Reason becomes warped, the judgment is distorted, the sense of right-doing vanishes; he is the victim of delusions."

Doctor Louis caught at the word. "The victim!"

"Will that excuse crime?" asked the magistrate severely.

Doctor Louis did not reply.

"No," said the magistrate, "it aggravates it. Admit such a defence, and let it serve as a palliation of guilt, and the whole moral fabric is destroyed. What weighs heavily against the prisoner is his evident disinclination to reveal all he knows in connection with the hours he passed in the forest on the night of his brother's death. He is concealing something, and he seeks refuge in equivocation. When I accused him of this his confusion increased. I asked him whether his meeting with his brother was accidental or premeditated, and he was unable or unwilling to give me a satisfactory reply. He made a remark to which he evidently wished me to attach importance. 'There are matters between me and my brother,' he said, 'which it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for an unsympathetic person to understand.' 'I am such a person,' I said. 'Undoubtedly,' was his reply; 'you are seeking to convict me out of my own mouth of a crime I did not commit.' 'I am seeking to elicit the truth,' I said. 'Have these mysterious matters between you and your brother of which you speak any bearing upon his death?' Observe, that out of regard for the prisoner's feelings I used the word death instead of murder; but he corrected me. 'They have,' he said, 'a distinct bearing upon his murder.' 'And you cannot explain them to me?' I asked. 'I cannot,' he replied. 'You expect me, however, to place credence in what you say?' I asked. 'I do not,' he said; 'it is so strange even to me that, if you were in possession of the particulars, I should scarcely be justified in expecting you to believe me.' After that there was, of course, but little more to be said on the point. If a criminal chooses to intrench himself behind that which he is pleased to call a mystery, but which is simply an absurd invention for the purpose of putting justice off the track, he must take the consequences. Before our interview was ended it occurred to me to ask him whether he intended to persist in a concealment of his so-called mystery. He considered a little, and said that he would speak of it to one person, and to one person only. Upon that I inquired the name of the person, saying that I would seek him and send him to the prisoner. Emilius refused to mention the name of the person. Another mystery. As you may imagine, this did not dispose me more favourably towards him, and I left him to his meditations."

"Having," said Doctor Louis, "a thorough belief in his guilt."

"There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind," said the magistrate.

"You once entertained an esteem for him."

"True; but it only serves to prove how little we really know of each other. This mask that we wear, and which even in private we seldom remove, hides so much!"

"So much that is evil?"

"That is my meaning."

"You are growing pessimistic," said Doctor Louis sadly.

"Late events and a larger experience are driving me in that direction," replied the magistrate.

"Have you any objection to granting me a private interview with Emilius?"

"None whatever. You have but to name your own time."

"May Mr. Carew see him also?"

"If he wishes."

In this conversation Gabriel Carew had borne no share. This was due to an absolute fairness on Carew's part. Prejudiced as he was against Emilius, he was aware that he could say nothing in favour of the accused, and he did not wish to pain Doctor Louis by expressing what he felt. When the magistrate left them, Doctor Louis said, "The one person to whom Emilius is willing to confide is either you or myself."

To this view Gabriel Carew did not subscribe. In his remarks to Doctor Louis he touched lightly but firmly upon the instinctive aversion which, from the first, he and the brothers had felt towards each other, and said that this aversion, on the part of Emilius, must have been strengthened rather than modified by the opinions he had felt it his duty to express with respect to Emilius's dealings with Patricia.

"But he behaved honourably to her," contended Doctor Louis, and endeavoured to win Carew to a more favourable judgment of the unhappy man. He was not successful.

"There are sentiments," said Carew, "which it would be folly to struggle against. Emilius was always my enemy, and is still more so now. If he wishes to see me I will go to him. Not otherwise."

Shortly afterwards Doctor Louis had an interview with Emilius.

"I thought you might come to me," said the prisoner, but he refused the hand which Doctor Louis held out to him. "Not till I am free," he said, "and pronounced innocent of this horrible charge."

"You will be-soon," said Doctor Louis with inward sinking, the evidence was so black against Emilius.

"I scarcely dare to hope it," said Emilius gloomily. "A fatality dogs our family. It destroyed my father and his brother; it has destroyed Eric; it will destroy me."

"Under any circumstances," said Doctor Louis, not pursuing the theme, "I should have endeavoured to see you, but there is a special reason for my present visit. The magistrate by whom you have been examined informed me that there is a certain matter in connection with this deplorable event which you will disclose to one person only. Am I he-and should you make the disclosure, is it likely to serve you?"

"I was not quite exact," said Emilius, "when I made that statement to the magistrate, in answer to a question he put to me. There were, indeed, two persons in my mind-but you are the first, by right."

"And the other-is it Gabriel Carew?"

"Yes, it is he-though I doubt whether he would come of his own free will. He bears me no friendship."

"He is an honourable, upright man," said Doctor Louis. "Though you have not been drawn to each other, as I hoped would be the case, I am sure he would be willing to serve you if it were in his power."

"Does he believe me to be innocent?" Doctor Louis was silent. "Then why should he be willing to serve me? You are mistaken. But it is not of this I wish to speak. What I have to disclose will be received with sympathy by you, who knew and loved my poor father, and who are acquainted with all the particulars of his strange story. Related to any other than yourself it would be regarded as the ravings of a maniac, or as a wild and impotent invention to help me to freedom. For this reason I held my tongue in the presence of the magistrate."

"Before hearing it," said Doctor Louis, "I ought to say that, though I am groping in the dark, I can understand dimly why you would not confide in an officer of the law. But I cannot understand why you should be willing to confide in Gabriel Carew. I speak in the light of your belief that Carew bears you no friendship."

"I cannot explain myself to you," said Emilius, "and should most likely fail in the attempt with Mr. Carew. But there are promptings which a man sometimes feels it a duty to obey, and this is one of them. I perceive that you do not receive these apparent inconsistencies with favour. It is natural. But reflect. Had you not, through your close intimacy and almost brotherly friendship with my father, been made familiar with his story-had it been related to you as a stranger, would you not have received it with incredulity, would you not have refused to believe it?" Doctor Louis nodded. "A wild effort of imagination could alone have invented it-had it not happened. But it was true, in the teeth of improbabilities and inconsistencies. For his sake you will bear with me, for his sake you will be indulgent and merciful to his unhappy son."

Doctor Louis was inexpressibly moved. He again offered Emilius his hand, who again refused it.

"Circumstantial evidence," he said, "is so strong against me that I fear I have played out my part in the active world. Should my fears be confirmed, I shall ask you to render me an inestimable service. Meanwhile, there is that which should not be concealed from you, my father's dearest friend, and mine. It relates chiefly to the murder of my brother. That part of my story which affects my wife, Patricia, may be briefly passed over. I have known her for nearly five years, and grew insensibly to love her. It is only lately that my poor Eric made her acquaintanceship, and surrendered his heart to her. I should have been frank with him; I should have spoken of my love for Patricia instead of concealing it. It may be that it would not have averted his doom and mine, for when men are pursued by an inexorable fate, there are a thousand roads open for its execution. Why did I not go frankly to Patricia's father, and ask him for his daughter's hand? It is a question that may well be asked, but there is some difficulty in answering it. Chiefly, I think, it was Patricia who guided me here, and who desired to keep our love locked in our breasts. She feared her father; he is a man of stern and fixed ideas, and, once resolved, is difficult to move. His daughter, he declared, should marry in her own station in life; never would he consent to her marrying a gentleman. Patricia chose to consider me one, and had a genuine and honest dread that her father would tear her from me if he discovered our love. I did not argue with her; I simply agreed to all she said. We were married in secret, at her wish; and when concealment was no longer possible, we fled. This flight was not undertaken in haste; it was discussed and deliberately planned. We hoped for her father's pardon when he discovered that his intervention would be useless. I was for an earlier revealment to Martin Hartog of his daughter's union with me, but I yielded to Patricia's pleadings. She had a deep, unconquerable fear of her father's curse. 'It would kill me,' she said; and I believed it would.

"This is the end to which love has led us. I will speak now of my brother Eric."

VIII

"It was arranged," said Emilius, after a pause, during which he recalled with clearness the momentful history of the few short hours which had sealed his brother's fate, "that Patricia should leave her father's cottage at midnight, when her father was asleep. I was to wait for her about a quarter of a mile from Mr. Carew's house with a horse and cart, in which we were to travel to the lodgings I had taken for her. This portion of our plan was successfully carried out, and Patricia and I were journeying to our new home. It was midnight by my watch when we started, and we had ridden for less than an hour when Patricia was overtaken with a sudden faintness. I was alarmed, and upon questioning her she said that she felt too weak to bear the jolting of the cart. The fact is, she was exhausted and worn with fatigue and anxiety. With her contemplated flight in her mind she had had but little sleep for two or three nights; her strength was overtaxed, and I saw that she needed immediate rest. I proposed that we should stop for three or four hours, so that she could sleep without disturbance, and upon my assuring her that we were quite safe she gratefully acceded to my proposal. In a very short time I made preparations for her repose; some hay I had brought with me furnished her a tolerably comfortable bed, and I had also provided rugs, with which I covered her. I took the horse from the cart, and tethered it, and before this was accomplished Patricia was in a peaceful slumber.

"There was no fear of our being disturbed. We were in a secluded part of the forest, which even in daylight is seldom traversed. The night was fine, though dark. All being secure, I sat me down on some dry moss by the side of the cart, and in a few moments was myself asleep. I awoke suddenly and in terrible agitation. In outward aspect nothing was changed. All was as I had left it but fifteen minutes ago; for, upon consulting my watch by means of a lighted match, I found that I had been asleep but a quarter of an hour. The horse was grazing quietly and contentedly; Patricia was sleeping peacefully, and I judged that she would continue to do so for many hours unless she were aroused. Nature's demands upon her exhausted frame were imperative.

"Everything being so secure, what cause was there for agitation?

"The cause lay in myself, and had been created during the last few minutes when I was in a state of unconsciousness. It seems incredible that so much should have passed through my brain in so short a time, but I have heard that a dream of years may take place in a moment's sleep.

"I dreamt of my father and his brother, and I was living a dual existence as it were, my father's and my own; and as I was associated with him, so was my brother Eric with our uncle Kristel. There was a strange similarity in the positions; as my father had flown, unknown to his brother, with the woman he loved, so was I flying, unknown to my brother, with the woman to whom I was bound in strongest bonds of love, and who had inspired in his heart feelings akin to my own. The tragic end of my father and uncle seemed to be woven into my life and the life of my brother. It was a phantasmagoria of shadow, belonging both to the past and the present; and it was succeeded by another, which was the chief cause of my violent awaking.

"Eric was walking in the forest at some distance from the spot upon which I was sleeping. I saw him distinctly, though he was walking through darkness, and although I do not remember in my conscious moments to have ever taken note of the particular conformation of the ground and the arrangement of the trees, the scene, with all its details of natural growth, was strangely familiar to me. And behind him, unknown to himself, stalked a threatening Shadow, with Death in its aspect. Then came a whisper, 'Your brother is in danger. Seek, and warn him!'

"This spiritual whisper was in my ears when I awoke.

"'Seek, and warn him!' It was clearly my duty. Such visitations had come to my father, and were fatally realised. Dare I neglect the warning?

"But what was to be done must be done instantly and without delay. Could I leave Patricia? I leant over her, and gently called her name. She did not reply. I softly shook her, but did not succeed in arousing her. And while I was thus engaged I continued to hear the whisper, 'Your brother is in danger. Seek, and warn him!'

"I decided. Patricia could be safely left for a little while. If I awoke her she would probably prevail upon me to remain with her, and I might have cause in all my after life to reproach myself for having neglected the spiritual warning. To be lightly regarded perhaps by other men, but not by me. I was Silvain's son.

"I wrote on a leaf torn from my pocketbook, 'Do not be alarmed at my absence; I shall be back at sunrise. There is something I have forgotten, which must be done immediately. Sleep in peace. All is well. – Your lover and husband, EMILIUS.' I pinned this paper at her breast, arranged the rugs securely about her, and left her.

"I cannot describe to you how I was directed, but I plunged without hesitation and in perfect confidence into the labyrinths of the forest, and my steps were directed aright. I walked swiftly, and recognised certain natural aspects made familiar to me in my dreams. And in little more than an hour I saw Eric a few yards ahead of me, strolling aimlessly and in a disturbed mood. I called to him.

"'Eric!'

"'Emilius!'

"But there was no friendliness in his tone.

"'It is you who have been dogging me!' he cried.

"'I have but this moment arrived,' I replied.

"'In search of me?'

"'Yes, my dear brother,' I said, passing my arm around him. 'We must speak together, in love and confidence, as we have ever done.'

"Already he was softened, and I breathed a grateful sigh.

"'Have you been followed, Eric?' I asked.

"'I do not know,' he replied. 'I cannot say. I have been racked and tormented by torturing fancies. Trees have taken ominous shapes; shadows have haunted me; my mind is distraught; my heart is bleeding!'

"It would occupy me for too long a time to narrate circumstantially all that passed between me and Eric on that our last interview. Suffice it that I succeeded to some extent in calming him, that I succeeded in making him understand that I had done him no conscious wrong; that Patricia was my wife and loved me.

"'Had it been your lot, Eric,' I said, 'to have won her love, I should have suffered as you are suffering; but believe me, my dear brother, that I should have endeavoured to bear my sufferings like a man. It lay not with us that this should have occurred; it lay with Patricia. It is not so much our happiness, but hers, that is at stake.'

"It is a consolation to me in my present peril to know that I succeeded in wooing him back to our old relations, in which we were guided wholly and solely by brotherly love. You are not to believe that this was accomplished without difficulty. There were, on his side, paroxysms of rebellion and despair, in one of which-after he had learned that I and Patricia were man and wife-he cried, 'Well, kill me, for I do not care to live!' These were the words heard by the witness who has testified against me. They bear, I well know, an injurious construction, but my conscience is not disturbed. My heart is-and I am racked by a torture which threatens to undermine my reason when I think of my wife and unborn child.

"At length peace was established between me and my dear brother. And then it was that I told him of my dream, and of the uncontrollable impulse which had urged me to seek for him in the forest. I asked him to accompany me back to Patricia, but he said that was impossible, and that he could not endure the agony of it. I put myself in his place, and recognised that his refusal was natural. But I could not entirely dismiss my fears for his safety. Eric, however, refused to share them. 'What is to be will be,' he said; 'otherwise it would not have been fated that our father and his brother-twins, as we are-should have loved the same woman, and that we should have done the same.'

"I was anxious to get back to Patricia, and I left him in the forest. I knew nothing further until I was arrested and thrown into prison."

"An innocent man?" said Doctor Louis.

"As innocent as yourself," was Emilius's reply.

IX

Throughout this narration Doctor Louis was impressed by the suspicion that something was hidden from him. He pressed Emilius upon the point, and his suspicion was strengthened by the evasive replies he received.

"Enough, for the present, of myself," said Emilius; "let me hear something of the outside world-of the world that is dead to me."

"What do you wish to know?" asked Doctor Louis sadly.

"Of yourselves," replied Emilius. "Of your good wife, whom I used to look upon as a second mother. She is well?"

"She is well," said Doctor Louis, "but in deep unhappiness because of these terrible events."

"How does she regard me-as innocent or guilty?"

"She has the firmest belief in your innocence. When I told her I was about to visit you, she desired me to give you her love and sympathy."

"It is like her. And Lauretta?"

"I did not inform her that I was coming. She is in great distress. You and Eric were as brothers to her."

"And now," said Emilius, with a certain recklessness of manner which puzzled Doctor Louis, "one is dead and the other disgraced. But she will live through it. She has a happy future before her?"

He put this somewhat in the form of a question, to which Doctor Louis replied without hesitation: "We have the best of reasons for hoping so. But our conversation, Emilius, appears to have taken a heartless turn. Let us rather consider the chances of establishing your innocence and setting you free."

"No, let us continue to speak of your family. There may not be another opportunity-who knows? My judges may take it into their heads to keep me in solitary confinement, and to deprive me entirely of the solace of friendly intercourse, until they have got rid of me altogether. The chances of establishing my innocence are scarcely worth considering; they are so slender. Slender! They are not even that. I see no loophole, nor do you. What is wanted is fact-hard, solid fact, such as an actual witness, or a frank confession from the murderer. Everything tangible and intangible is against me. Eric and I were rivals in a woman's love; we had a meeting, in which we reconciled our differences, and in which the horror of brotherly hatred was scotched clean dead. Who were present at this meeting? My dear brother, who is gone and cannot testify; and I, whose interest it is to say whatever my tongue can utter in my defence. To prove my innocence I can bring forward-what? Shadows. I could forgive my judges for laughing at me were I to set up such a defence. Easier to believe that I killed my brother in a dream. Could that be proved, there would be some hope for me, for it might be argued that I was not accountable. Let us dismiss it. I have told you all I know positively; for the rest, I am strong enough to keep it to myself, being aware of the manner in which it would be received."

"Surely you are not wearied of life!" said Doctor Louis, shocked at this reckless mood.

"That is not to the point. Wearied or not, it is not in my power to choose. Were I free, were my fate in my own hands, it would be worth my while to consider how to act in order that the crime might be fixed upon the guilty one. And hearken, Doctor, I am not swayed by impulse; there is something of inward direction which holds me up. I hear voices, I see visions-not to be heard or seen or taken into account in a court of justice; of value only in a prison. They assure me that, though I may suffer and be disgraced, I shall not die until my innocence is proved."

"Heaven grant it!" exclaimed Doctor Louis.

"Meanwhile, I wait and take the strokes which fate deals out to me. A crushed manhood, a ruined life, a blasted happiness! And there is a happy future, you say, before Lauretta? You have every confidence in Mr. Carew? Lauretta loves him?"

"With her whole heart."

"And you and your good wife approve-are content to intrust her happiness into his keeping?"

"We are content-we approve."

"May all be as you hope! Say nothing to them of me. The best mercy that can be accorded to me is the mercy of forgetfulness. I have a favour to beg of you."

"It is granted."

"You will be kind to my wife; you will not desert her-you will, if necessary, protect her from her father, who, I fear, will never forgive her?"

"I will do all that lies in my power to further your wishes-though I still hope for a favourable turn in your affairs."

"Your hope is vain," said Emilius. "I thank you for your promise."