Mr. Bristow was downstairs. He had brought some photographs for Miss Culpepper to look at.
“Tell Mr. Bristow how sorry I am that I cannot see him to-day,” said Jane. “But my head aches so badly that I cannot possibly go down.” Then when the girl was gone, “I won’t see him to-day,” she added to herself. “When Edward and I are married he will come and see us sometimes, perhaps. Edward will always be glad to see him.”
Hearing the front-door clash, she ran to the window and pulled aside a corner of the blind. In a minute or two she saw Tom walking leisurely down the avenue. Presently he paused, and turned, and began to scan the house as if he knew that Jane were watching him. It was quite impossible that he should see her, but for all that she shrank back, with a blush and a shy little smile. But she did not loose her hold of the blind; and presently she peeped again, and never moved her eyes till Tom was lost to view.
Then she went downstairs into the drawing-room, and found there the photographs which Tom had left for her inspection. There, too, lying close by, was a glove which he had dropped and had omitted to pick up again. “I will give it to him next time he comes,” she said softly to herself. Strange to relate, her next action was to press the glove to her lips, after which she hid it away in the bosom of her dress. But young ladies’ memories are proverbially treacherous, and Jane’s was no exception to the rule. Tom Bristow’s glove never found its way back into his possession.
Jane Culpepper had drifted into her engagement with Edward Cope almost without knowing how such a state of affairs had been brought about. When her father first mentioned the matter to her, and told her that Edward was fond of her, she laughed at the idea of Edward being fond of anything but his horses and his gun. When, later on, the young banker, in obedience to parental instructions, blundered through a sort of declaration of love, she laughed again, but neither repulsed nor encouraged him. She was quite heart-whole and fancy-free; but certainly Mr. Cope, junior, bore only the faintest resemblance to the vague hero of her girlish dreams—who would come riding one day out of the enchanted Kingdom of Love, and, falling on his knees before her, implore her to share his heart and fortune for evermore. To speak the truth, there was no romance of any kind about Edward. He was hopelessly prosaic: he was irredeemably commonplace; but they had known each other from childhood, and she had a kindly regard for him, arising from that very fact. So, pending the arrival of Prince Charming, she did not altogether repulse him, but went on treating his suit as a piece of pleasant absurdity which could never work itself out to a serious issue either for herself or him. She took the alarm a little when some whispers reached her that she would be asked, before long, to fix a day for the wedding; but, latterly, even those whispers had died away. Nobody seemed in a hurry to press the affair forward to its legitimate conclusion: even Edward himself showed no impatience on the point. So long as he could come and go at Pincote as he liked, and hover about Jane, and squeeze her hand occasionally, and drive her out once or twice a week behind his high-stepping bays, he seemed to want nothing more. They were just the same to each other as they had been when they were children, Jane said to herself—and why should they not remain so?
But, of late, a slight change had come o’er the spirit of Miss Culpepper’s dream. New hopes, and thoughts, and fears, to which she had hitherto been a stranger, began to nestle and flutter round her heart, like love-birds building in spring. The thought of becoming the wife of Edward Cope was fast becoming—nay, had already become, utterly distasteful to her. She began to realize the fact that it is impossible to keep on playing with fire without getting burnt. She had allowed herself to drift into an engagement with a man for whom she really cared nothing, thinking, probably, at the time that for her no Prince Charming would ever come riding out of the woods; and that, if it would please her father, she might as well marry Edward Cope as any one else. But behold! all at once Prince Charming had come, and although, as yet, he had not gone down on his knees and offered his hand and heart for evermore, she felt that she could never love but him alone. She felt, too, with a sort of dumb despair, that she had already given herself away beyond recall—or, at least, had led the world to think that she had so given herself away; and that she could not, with any show of maidenly honour, reclaim a gift which she had let slip from her so lightly and easily that she hardly knew herself when it was gone.
The eve of Lionel Dering’s trial came at last. The Duxley assizes had opened on the previous Thursday. All the minor cases had been got through by Saturday night, and one of the two judges had already gone forward to the next town. The Park Newton murder case had been left purposely till Monday, and by those who were supposed to know best, it was considered not unlikely that trial, verdict, and sentence would all be got through in the course of one sitting.
The celebrated Mr. Tressil, who had been specially engaged for the defence, found it impossible to get down to Duxley before the five o’clock train on Sunday afternoon. He was met on the platform by Mr. Hoskyns and Mr. Bristow. His junior in the case, Mr. Little, was to meet him by appointment at his rooms later on. Tom was introduced to Mr. Tressil by Hoskyns as a particular friend of Mr. Dering’s, and the three gentlemen at once drove to the prison. Mr. Tressil had gone carefully through his brief as he came down in the train. The information conveyed therein was so ample and complete that it was more as a matter of form than to serve any real purpose that he went to see his client. The interview was a very brief one. The few questions Mr. Tressil had to ask were readily answered, but it was quite evident that there was no fresh point to be elicited. Then Mr. Tressil went away, accompanied by Mr. Hoskyns; and Tom was left alone with his friend.
Edith had taken leave of her husband an hour before. They would see each other no more till after the trial was over. What the result of the trial might possibly be they neither of them dared so much as whisper. Each of them put on a make-believe gaiety and cheerfulness of manner, hoping thereby to deceive the other—as if such a thing were possible.
“In two days’ time you will be back again at Park Newton,” Edith had said, “and will find yourself saddled with a wife, whom, while a prisoner, you were compelled to marry against your will. Surely, in so extreme a case, the Divorce Court would take pity on you, and grant you some relief.”