The Advocate: A Novel

by Charles Heavysege

Meantime the advocate, tortured by increasing alarm, and with his imagination filling with tragic touches the picture of the possible fate of Amanda, had lost both recollection and temper; and for the first time when conducting a cross-examination, had been not merely baffled, but successfully bearded and insulted by an irritated witness, to relieve himself from whom, he was obliged abruptly to bid him leave the box. The occurrence stung him to the quick, though he strove to hide his chagrin;—no wonder. Taken at disadvantage, and in a moment of weakness, the old pleader was obliged to perceive that the wager of mental duel between himself and the witness had been decided against him; and to feel that, in an unsought encounter and fair affray, he had been publicly worsted. To add to his mortification, the witness walked from the box with the air of a conqueror, and cast an insolent look of triumph around the court and upon his antagonist, whose discomfiture was so signal as to be evident to judge, jurors, witnesses, spectators, all. Still more to increase the advocate's perturbation, the heat of the court had become excessive, and the rebuff—which, at an earlier period of his career, and with an unwounded heart, would have provoked only such a grim and threatening smile as a powerful wrestler might wear, when, in the careless security of proud contempt, he had been thrown by a boy—now, in the self-esteem of age and the anguish of bereavement, moved him almost to madness. Seizing his gown, he half cast it from his form, regardless of decorum, and stood the picture of misery, rage, and scorn.

Just then the court arose for a brief recess. Glad to breathe for a moment the fresher air, the spectators retired, the jury returned into their room, the sheriff and the crown prosecutor sauntered to their respective offices, the panel of petit jurors escaped in a body, the prisoner withdrew from the front of the dock, and sat unseen, pondering his chances between the gallows and an acquittal;—even the criers of the court abandoned their posts, and the younger members of the bar, who usually gathered round the advocate on these occasions, greeting him with pleasant compliments, and polite and reverent attentions, seeing him thus moody, drifted to the lobby, and in it paid court to some other, and secondary legal luminary who was there holding his levee. For awhile the advocate was left alone; then, emerging through the large folding doors into the corridor or lobby, now cumbered with the gossipping groups, through which he passed, solitary and in his gown, like Caesar in his robe passing through the midst of the conspirators, he proceeded past the doors of the offices occupied by the various crown officials. None spoke to the old man, he spoke to none, but his breast burned in agony, and a cloud was on his brow, like the smoke that wreathes around the crater of a volcano. His eyes seemed to shoot forth sparks, and his lips were muttering. Anger and sorrow were upon his face, but, turning a corner in the building, he was now hidden from the view of the multitude, and strode along the main corridor towards the huge double staircase that, midway therein, wound down to the dim entrance hall, that was divided by ponderous doors from the esplanade between the building and the busy street. A low, massive balustrade guarded the bridge-like portion of the corridor that hung between the heads of the twin flights of stairs, and whence, on looking down, was seen the paved abyss below. Approaching this part, what did he behold but the truant Narcisse, unconscious of his presence, ascending one of these flights of stairs. At the sight of him the gloomy elements of his soul seemed to flash within him and explode, rending all resolution of restraint, and leaving him a puppet of some destructive power, as he stood eyeing his son's approach, as the cat eyes that of the marauding mouse, motionless, allowing the culprit to draw near, until, detected, he stood, too nigh to retreat, too terrified to advance, and, as the fascinated bird drops into the open jaws of the serpent, fell resistless into the grasp of the advocate's extended hand. Then, as the firedamp when met by the miner's candle must explode, or as the liberated lightning must rend the cloud, though the latter be near Jove's throne, so the frenzied father, regardless, nay, forgetful, of the place, the time, the occasion, of himself and natural ties, assailed the scared Narcisse, clutching him by the throat with the strength of a maniac, and pushing him backwards against the balustrade, and holding him there transfixed, while, with eyes seething with wrath beneath the blanched, and big, umbrageous brows, and showing like a sudden opening of the infernal pit, he cried: “Demon, degenerate dog, where hast thou been walking to and fro in the earth? whom helping to devour? Ah, son of Satan, ah! Aroint thee, Imp, Abortion.”

The astonished wretch strove to reply, but terror and strangulation forbade him; and the enraged parent, like an incarnate storm, at arm's-length shook him, as the dog shakes the rat which it has caught, or the lion its prey; and each moment the shuddering youth, hearing his father's deep curses, and stiffening with horror, was urged further and yet further over the abyss, and still with aimless, outstretched arms, and disparted, claw-like fingers, strove to clutch the advocate's gown; while with upturned and beseeching eyes starting from their sockets, and still half on the balustrade and half in air, with nothing but the grasp of his adversary retaining him, he hung, while the arm that held him quivered, and surged uneasily from side to side, as if irresolute whether to plunge him or to draw him back; until a growl of satisfaction, followed by an execration, gurgling in the advocate's throat, announced the coming climax: the arm was jerked outwards, the clenched fingers unclutched themselves, like an automaton's, and the miserable mannikin tumbled with a yell down to the stones beneath. An instant all was silent, then a faint groan rose from the bruised form, that the next moment lay on the bloody flags a senseless corpse. Drawing a loud sigh of indescribable relief, after his fearful and protracted agitation, the advocate—and now murderer—stood glaring downwards with fixed eyes and yet clenched teeth; then, sickening at the horrid sight which loomed beneath, turned and leaned for support against the balustrade over which he had cast his child. Hearing the noise of the scuffle, some stragglers from the mixed crowd on the lobby came running to the spot, and one enquired of the advocate if he were seized with a sudden sickness. But he only pointed downwards to where lay his ill-fated victim; and shook his head, looking all woebegone, in mad, mute misery. Astonished, some descended, and bearing the body up the stairs, laid it on a bench that stood against the wall, and opposite its destroyer; while a still increasing and motley multitude, including jurors, witnesses, constables, criers, counsellors, clerks of the court, crown prosecutor, sheriff, and lastly, the judge himself, hurrying, gathered round the scene of the catastrophe. A surgeon who happened to have been subpoened upon the current trial, opened a vein, but the blood refused to flow; and a barrister, stripping himself of his gown, threw it over the body as a pall. No one dared enquire the origin of what he saw, until the judge arriving, demanded: “Who has done this?”

“I,” feebly answered the advocate, ghastly pale, and yet leaning for support on the fatal balustrade. Alas! what a change! His countenance was grown haggard, and his white hair hung dishrevelled about his collapsed visage, like icicles round the pinched countenance of Winter. Despair was in his look, and he uttered the name of Amanda, and gazed bewildered around him, as if awaking from a sorrowful dream; and now began to whimper, to gaze upon the pall-like gown, and now to call upon the spirit that had flown—as a scared bird from a bush—forth from the body that lay beneath it.

“Narcisse,” he feebly cried, “Narcisse, my son,—for thou wert yet my son,—Narcisse, Narcisse,” he reiterated piteously; and the Sheriff advanced in his purple gown, and girt with his golden hilted sword, laid his hand on the shoulder of the old man, the lately proud advocate, but now wretched culprit, as a sign of his being put under arrest. But none else moved; the Sheriff himself shrinking from ordering the constable to give effect to the signal. All seemed transfixed with pain or chained with horror, as in tremulous tones of touching tenderness the slayer continued to call upon the dead.

“Narcisse, my son, my son,” he cried in agony; “Oh, I have killed thee, child; oh, thou art dead, dead, dead.—But thou didst steal thy sister; yes, I know thou didst; ay, that thou didst, and hast delivered her to dishonor, therefore have I killed thee. Come, Amanda, come hither, dearest, and behold thy brother; behold thy father, see what he has done, and all for thee. Yes, I did it, all you curious crowd. Amanda, oh, where art thou? let me see thee ere I die: Amanda dear, Amanda;” and at the words, Amanda, leaning on the arm of Claude, and followed by the elder Montigny and André Duchatel, appeared upon the corridor, a sweet smile playing upon her features, and hastening forwards she fell upon the neck of her guardian, who was still leaning against the balustrade, pale, haggard and forlorn. Her companions, restrained by astonishment and fear, gazed aloof and mute, whilst the wretched criminal, eyeing them with a look of misery and suspicion, in a tone of inexpressible sadness at length exclaimed:

“Come you to see me, then, before I die; do you come to triumph over me, Seigneur Montigny? Look, see there, but do not touch it, for it is abhorred, abominable, a foul spirit, a black imp of hell. Amanda, art thou found?—Do not tremble, girl, do not weep; my daughter, child, for, without a figure, thou art my daughter; art, to the very letter, love, my child. Oh, we have much to tell each other; see what I have done—but hear me, then condemn me. Oh, Amanda, it is bliss to see, to feel thee here;—but here, here in this breast is sadness. I have been a rash and hasty fool, a madman, if you will, but no, no murderer; we kill mere vermin, we exterminate rats, roaches; and what worse than that is this which I have done. Pshaw, he was a reptile, a black beetle that came flying against me. He, my son! Oh, slander, where wilt thou not cast thy slime? the thing that the deceitful, wily woman palmed upon me, he my son, thy brother? preposterous conception. Yet sad has been the creature's end; and sad, sad, sad, I felt this morning when I left my home, with a presentiment which seemed to say, that I should never enter it again; and that presentiment is now fulfilled. Fate urged me on. Unnatural hate has pushed me to the ledge, and now I sink to lose myself in the abyss. Oh, foul fate! this deed foul, foul! Fair, fair Amanda, close thine eyes on this enormity; or be content to see it, yet not understand it, for knowledge here would surely drive thee mad.”

“Oh, sir, am I not mad, delirious?” enquired Amanda: “Oh, my kind guardian, my good angel, more than father, friend. What have you done? you have done nothing evil!” and she sobbed upon his bosom, and Claude stood transfixed and silent, until his eyes meeting those of the advocate, he demanded passionately:

“Sir, what may this mean; what horrible allusions drop like venom from your tongue; whence comes this change; tell me, I charge you, sir, why are you now so shaken, so wandering in your noble intellect, even mad; you whom I left this morning, sad indeed, yet sane?”