When the enormous sum was sworn to, many a one sighed involuntarily to think, from how many anxious cares one year's income of such estates would relieve them.
Lady Arden's evidence being the next required, and every consideration being granted to her ladyship's feelings, the Judge had humanely sent a message round to request that Lady Arden might not be hurried.
A pause therefore ensued, during which were wrought up to the highest pitch, expectation, compassion, and that strange curiosity incident to human nature, to see how others can endure when suffering is extreme.
CHAPTER X.
At length, in the midst of perfect stillness, without one preparatory sound or movement, Lady Arden stood in the witness box, wrapped in the deep mourning in which the death of her elder son had enveloped her.
The blood ran cold in the veins of all present. A tear startled into almost every eye; while some of those who were themselves mothers, were moved by a sympathy so heart-rending, that unconsciously they groaned aloud.
So pure, so natural, so easily understood are the feelings of the parent, that every class could enter into them. Nor did the kindly commiseration of the crowd diminish, when they had leisure to mark the matronly beauty of her countenance; pride and disdain of the insult offered to the hitherto unsullied honour of her son, struggling with agony kindled in her eye, while her cheek was blanched, and her lips parched: and then the strong resemblance her every feature bore to those of her son! her favourite child! the prisoner at the bar: while evidently conscious where he stood, her eye quivered beneath its lid, longing yet dreading to turn upon him. She could no longer resist—she looked down at her son—he looked up at her—their eyes met.
To comfort and encourage her he tried almost to smile: it was rather a radiance from within shining for a moment through all the nobleness of his countenance, in honour of the dutiful love he bore her; and then a pang passed across his brow, that he should be to her a source of suffering. She sank on a chair considerately placed behind her, and for a few seconds hid her face; lest, however, emotion should be construed into fear, and fear into acquiescence in the accusation against her son, she aroused herself and again stood prepared to reply. The judge, from a feeling of respect, took upon himself a considerable part of the duty of putting the necessary questions to her ladyship. He did so in the mildest and most considerate manner, and in a tone of kindly sympathy which did credit to his heart—the counsel of course assisting, and assisted himself as hitherto, by the marginal notes to his brief, supplied by Mr. Fips. These had the effect of drawing from her ladyship the purport of the confidential conversation overheard by Geoffery, which, with the remainder of Lady Arden's evidence, clearly proved the following points; namely—that both brothers had been attached to the same lady—that Alfred had been accepted previously to the arrival of his brother—that subsequently he had been discarded and his brother accepted—that he had felt his disappointment more deeply than he had suffered to appear—that he had ascribed the fickleness of the lady to mercenary motives—and that he was in the habit of animadverting frequently on the unfortunate situation of younger brothers without fortune, and therefore without pretensions.
In reply to another series of questions, she was compelled to confess, she had never apprehended that derangement might at any time be the consequence of the injury Sir Willoughby had in childhood received on his head—that she had never perceived any symptoms of derangement about her eldest son—that Alfred had never mentioned to her any apprehensions of the kind till after the present accusation had been brought against himself—that in his letter, announcing the sudden death of his brother, he had ascribed it to a fit of apoplexy, and made no mention of poison under any circumstances being the supposed cause, or expressed a suspicion either of insanity or suicide—and lastly, that Sir Willoughby at the time of his demise was in full possession of a large unencumbered property, and in expectation of being married to the woman of his choice, a lady also possessed of large estates, and who, in company with her mother, he was very shortly to have joined in a tour of pleasure on the continent.