CHAPTER XXI.
When Dudley was taken out of the library where the coroner's jury sat, he was surrounded in the hall by several persons, all eager to have some conversation with him. Mr. Conway, the magistrate who had signed the warrant for his apprehension, spoke to him in a good-humoured way, expressing his sorrow that he had been called upon to perform so unpleasant a duty. Dudley bowed stiffly, but did not reply, for he was neither pleased with the act nor the apology; but he was immediately succeeded by another magistrate, who, with as much kindness and more judgment, pressed him to call every little particular of his walk on the preceding night to his mind; to put them down while they were still fresh in his memory; and to try to recollect every one he had seen or spoken with between the period of his quitting Brandon and his return, in order to prepare an unbroken chain of evidence for his defence. "I have known a man's life saved," he said, "by keeping a note-book, in which he wrote down at night everything that had occurred to him during the day."
Dudley thanked him for his suggestions, and felt that he did not believe him guilty; but at the same time he perceived very clearly that the magistrate concluded the coroner's jury would give a verdict against him. Almost at the same moment Sir Arthur Adelon came up, and with a very peculiar expression of countenance pressed his hand, but without speaking. The next moment Edgar came in from the park, through the glass doors. His whole appearance betrayed great agitation. His eye was flashing, his cheek flushed, and there was a nervous, excitable quivering of his lip as he approached Dudley, which told how much he was moved. He wrung the prisoner's hand hard, with a swimming moisture in his eyes which he seemed ashamed of; but his tongue failed him when he tried to speak, and all he could say was, "Oh, Dudley!"
"You do not think me guilty, I am sure, my young friend," said Dudley.
"Guilty!" cried Edgar--"guilty! Oh! no, no; guilty of nothing but of too high and noble a heart. I have been out all the morning since I heard of this dreadful affair, seeking for evidence all the way you went; but I have been able to find none. Which way did you take after you passed the lodge?"
"It matters not, Edgar, at present," answered Dudley. "Many thanks for your kindness, but all that must be thought of hereafter. I can easily see how these good gentlemen will decide, and I must have counsel down from London, who will gather together the necessary testimony to prove my innocence of an act I never even dreamed of. I shall call upon your kindness, I dare say, Edgar, in the course of this affair."
"Believe me, my dear sir," said Sir Arthur Adelon, "nothing shall be wanting on my part to give you every assistance. I need not tell you that, as I said before the jury, I am fully and entirely convinced of your innocence, and shall ever remain so, being certain, from what I know of your character, that you are quite incapable of committing such an act, even in a moment of anger."
"Let me add my assurance, also, Mr. Dudley," said the priest, approaching with his quiet step. "You are not a man to give way to hasty bursts of passion."
"I trust not, Mr. Filmer," replied Dudley; "and on the present occasion there was no provocation. In the morning, indeed, Lord Hadley used very intemperate language towards me; but at night, though he had evidently drunk more wine than was wise, yet, as I have often remarked with him before, the effect was to render him more placable and good-humoured."
"Showing that he was not bad at heart," said Mr. Conway: "in vino veritas, Mr. Dudley."
"I do not think he was bad at heart, by any means," replied Dudley. "Prosperity and weakness of character ought to bear many of the sins which are laid upon the shoulders of a bad disposition. I trust, Sir Arthur," he continued, "you will have the kindness to break this sad event to poor Lady Hadley, who, although she has, thank heaven, other children to console her, will feel her loss most bitterly."
Some farther conversation of the same kind took place, during which the same little crowd continued round the prisoner, while Edgar Adelon kept his place close to Dudley's side, with a look of impatience and anxiety which led the latter to believe that his young friend had something of importance to communicate. It was by this time about half-past nine, the usual breakfast hour at Brandon House, and the spot where Dudley stood was directly opposite the foot of the great staircase. The two constables were close behind him; and as I said before, the magistrates and others who had been present at the inquest as spectators, had remained around him in the hall, not expecting that the coroner's address to his jury would be so tediously long as it proved.
"They are a long time in finding their verdict," said one of the magistrates; and as he spoke Edgar Adelon crossed over to his father, and said, "Would it not be better that we should wait in your justice-room? Eda will be down directly, depend upon it."
"I forgot--I forgot," said his father. "I had better go and communicate to her what has taken place."
"Does she not know?" asked Dudley.
"Nothing, nothing," replied the baronet, and was advancing towards the stairs; but he was too late, for Miss Brandon had turned the first flight from her own room before he reached the foot. She paused for an instant, seeing such a number of people in the hall; but the next moment she proceeded, with a look of apprehension; for the sight at once awakened fears in regard to her uncle, though she had been assured, before she retired to rest the night preceding, that Sir Arthur had returned safe and well.
The baronet advanced to meet her; and Dudley, yielding to the impulse of his heart, took a step or two forward to say a few words, the last, perhaps, he might be able to speak to her for some months. Eda's eyes were fixed upon him as she came down the last two steps; but ere he could reach her the head constable caught him rudely by the collar, exclaiming, "Come, come, master, I mustn't lose hold of ye, seeing as how this is a case of murder."
Eda gazed wildly in Dudley's face for an instant, and then dropped fainting on the floor of the hall.
"Look to her, Edgar; look to her, Edgar!" said Dudley, in a low voice. "Do not let her alarm herself so. Tell her, for heaven's sake! that the charge is false, nay, absurd."
A number of persons ran forward to assist Miss Brandon, and carried her into the breakfast-room. At the same moment the door of the library opened, and the constables were ordered to bring in the prisoner. They hurried him in without ceremony, and he found the jury still seated round the table, and the coroner on his feet, with a written paper in his hand. "The verdict of the jury," he said, aloud, "is Manslaughter against Edward Dudley, Esquire. Constables, I have here made out a warrant for the committal of that gentleman to the county jail; but of course, if the magistrates who ordered his apprehension think fit to proceed with their own separate investigation of the case, it will be your duty to consult their convenience as to the time of his removal; and I will add, that you are bound to put him to no unnecessary inconvenience consistent with his safe custody, a course which I must say you do not seem to have followed hitherto."
The chief constable held down his head with a dogged look, but without reply; and Mr. Conway, standing forward, addressed the coroner, saying, "I, as the magistrate who issued the warrant, do not see any necessity, sir, for taking this matter at all out of the hands of your court. The case has undergone here a very minute and well-conducted investigation, and I do not think anything could be added which may not quite as well be brought forward at the assizes."
The two gentlemen bowed to each other with mutual polite speeches, and Dudley was removed in custody of the two officers.
"A pack of fools," murmured Edgar Adelon, in no very inaudible tone; and following Dudley out of the room, he crossed the hall to the breakfast-room, when the constables seemed somewhat puzzled how to proceed with their prisoner. The next moment, however, Edgar returned with his father, who advanced direct towards Dudley, saying, "I grieve very much, Mr. Dudley, that the jury have thought fit to come to this conclusion; but you must use my carriage over to ----, and as I am one of the visiting magistrates, I will take care that the short residence which you must submit to in a prison shall be rendered as little inconvenient to you as possible."
Dudley thanked him for his kindness, took leave of Edgar, and in a few minutes was rolling away to a town at the distance of about sixteen miles, with one constable by his side, and the other on the box.
The first reflections of the prisoner were naturally not very pleasant; but those which succeeded were still less agreeable. A hard fate seemed to pursue him. Born to station, affluence, and ease, he had set out in life filled with bright hopes and eager expectations. The sparkling cup of youth had seemed replete with pleasant drops of every kind, and he had little dreamed, while such bright things appeared upon the surface, that there was such a bitter draught below. He had indulged in many a wild and ardent fancy, and sated, if not spoiled, by the cup of success, had longed, as every young man has longed, for change, for new pleasures, for pursuits opposite to those which he had followed, for enjoyments differing in their novelty to the joys which he had tasted. Ah! little does one know in youth, when we seek a change of condition, what it is we pray for. Even if that very alteration which we desire is granted to us, we find it loaded with evils unforeseen, with inherent cares and anxieties which we had never perceived, with consequences destructive of all our bright expectations. But how often does it happen that when pampered happiness seeks mere abstract change, from satiated appetite and the desire of fresh enjoyment, the chastening hand on high sends bitter reverses, to teach us the value of the blessings we despised, and to lead us to that humble thankfulness which is rarely to be found in the ungrateful heart of prosperity. Adverse fortune had fallen upon him early, and coming to a strong and thoughtful mind, had produced the full fruits of the wholesome lesson. Fortune, and all that fortune gives, had been lost, and even the society of a wise and affectionate parent had been taken away. He had had to soothe the departing hours of a beloved father through a long sickness; he had had to struggle with difficulties and to undertake labours never contemplated at the outset of his career; and now, when both love and fortune smiled upon him for an instant again, like a gleam of sunshine through a stormy cloud, the light seemed snatched away as soon as given, the flame of hope extinguished as soon as kindled. But he had felt and acknowledged the uses of adversity; and although, with the natural superstition which is in every man's heart, which led men in ancient, and even some in modern times, to believe in the ascendancy of a propitious or unpropitious star, he had first felt inclined to suppose that his evil fortunes dogged him as a destiny from which he could not fly, yet reason and religion taught him that the sorrows which are sent by the Almighty are ordained in mercy, and in the end, he said, "This may be salutary too."
The first fruit of true Christian resignation is exertion; and giving up all useless ponderings upon the past, as he rode along, he turned to provide against the future; but strange to say, his thoughts became more gloomy as he did so. He tried to collect and arrange in his mind all the evidence he could bring forward in his defence; but with a feeling of pain and apprehension, to which he had never before given way, he perceived nothing that he could add at the assizes to that which had been brought forward before the coroner's jury. He had seen nobody from the moment when Lord Hadley quitted him, till he came upon the men on watch at Mead's Farm. Of these he knew not one even by name; and he was too clear-sighted not to perceive, even in his own case, that his having met them some time afterwards, was no proof whatever that he had not committed previously the act with which he was charged. To show an object in going out at that late hour of the evening might indeed have some effect; but yet he felt it would be impossible, with a regard to his own honour, for so small an advantage, to betray the confidence which had been placed in him, and to ruin Sir Arthur Adelon, with very little benefit to himself. One slight probability, indeed, in his favour might be raised, by his proving the cause of the angry discussions which had taken place between himself and Lord Hadley; and yet he felt a repugnance either to cast an imputation upon the dead, or to bring forward the name of Helen Clive under such circumstances. He did not indeed entertain such romantic notions of honour and chivalrous courtesy, as to think that it would be unjustifiable to do either, if his own safety absolutely depended upon it; but he resolved, in the first place, to consult his counsel as to whether it was necessary, and then to send a message to Mr. Clive, telling him that such was the case. With that exception he had nothing to add to what he had already said; and although it would tell in his favour to show that the dispute between himself and his pupil was honourable to himself, and showed a mind not likely to commit a crime, yet he saw very clearly that it was no distinct evidence of innocence. All these thoughts occupied him long; his companion, though more civil than before, was dull and gloomy; and Dudley was still meditating on his course, when the first houses of a town came in view, and then a large stone building, with emblematic fetters over the gate; and in two minutes more he was within the walls of a prison.