The Haunted Room Part 27

"Ah! how changed the poor boy looks--how shamefaced!" whispered Alice to a companion; for Alice was there in her fas.h.i.+onable hat with its scarlet feather. "To think that I should have danced and talked nonsense with one who is standing where all the low thieves and pickpockets stand!"

The little lady rose on tiptoe to have a better view over the shoulders of those in front of her; but had the grace to hope that the poor prisoner would not turn his eyes in her direction. There was no danger of his so doing, the wretched youth could not raise his eyes from their fixed stare on the floor.

"Vibert's brother looks more ill than the prisoner does," observed the companion of Alice; "he has a bandage on his head. One would think that Bruce had been brought to the bar for prize-fighting, or for leading the roughs in a row!"

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ he is going to be sworn as a witness,--some one is giving him a gla.s.s of cold water; I wish that I could hand him my scent-bottle," whispered Alice, who was touched by Bruce's evident struggle to overcome physical suffering and mental exhaustion by the force of strong will.

Bruce was sworn as a witness. Very simply and concisely he gave evidence as to what the reader knows already. He told of his hearing a noise, entering the chamber next to his own, seeing the forgers, and receiving, while struggling with Standish, a stunning blow from some heavy instrument wielded by Harper.

Harper's name had not even been mentioned in the evidence given on the preceding day, Vibert not being in the slightest degree aware of the strange old man's complicity in the crime of forging bank-notes. Bruce's narrative, given in a low but clear and steady voice, commanded breathless attention. The silence observed in the crowded court was scarcely broken even by the rustle of a lady's silk dress.

"You say that you were stunned by the blow given by this man Harper,"

observed the magistrate. "Did you long continue in an unconscious state?"

"I know not how long I remained senseless," was the answer of Bruce; "probably the cold night air revived me, for I found, when I came to life, that the two forgers were bearing me into the wood. I lay perfectly still, and they doubtless considered me dead, for the men uttered words to each other which I was certainly not intended to hear."

"Can you recall to memory any of those words?" the magistrate inquired.

Bruce had a tenacious memory, and what had pa.s.sed on that eventful night had been as it were branded on it, never to be erased. He at once replied to the magistrate's question.

"The first words which I remember hearing were some spoken by Harper--'How could you trust Vibert Trevor to pa.s.s my notes?' said he.

"'I trusted him no more than in angling I trust the fly on my hook,'

answered Standish. 'I use him to make the gudgeons bite; but the fool knows no more of the nature of the work to which I have put him than does the senseless fly that covers the barb.'"

A thrill of satisfaction went through the court. Mr. Trevor could not restrain a faint exclamation of thankfulness at this clear testimony to the innocence of his unfortunate son drawn from Standish himself.

"Proceed, sir, with your evidence," said the magistrate to Bruce Trevor.

The witness went on with his story.

"'How then is the lad to forward the jewels?' asked Harper.

"'He is to direct them to me under my a.s.sumed name,' replied Standish; 'but I shall be too wary to claim the box myself. Aunt Jael, whom no one suspects, will call at the office for the jewels, and bring them to us at the White Raven, where we shall keep close till the _Penguin_ sails.'"

"Did you hear anything more regarding the plans of these men?" the magistrate asked.

"No; but I had heard enough to put the police on the right scent on my return to Myst Court," answered Bruce.

This was all the evidence which young Trevor could give which bore directly on the charge against his brother; but so much of interest remained to be learned, that the examination went on.

"What do you suppose that this man Harper and his accomplice intended to do with you, when they carried you through the wood?" asked the magistrate.

"They intended to throw my corpse into the pond on the heath," answered Bruce in the same calm tone. "I knew as much from what they muttered, though I cannot recall the words; and I reserved myself for one last desperate struggle for life. As we left the wood, Harper found out, perhaps by some involuntary movement that I made, that I was alive. I was set down under a hedge, and there followed some conversation between the two men regarding my fate, of the nature of which I could guess more than I heard. There was something said about 'gallows' and 'hanging for it,' so I concluded that the ruffians thought it a more serious matter to be tried for murder than for the forgery of bank-notes. The men lifted me up again, and carried me into the house of the woman hitherto called Jael Jessel, whom I now found to be the wife of the one and the aunt of the other. In that house I was blindfolded, gagged, and bound to a table. Half swooning as I was, I knew little of what was pa.s.sing around me, save that I judged from the sounds that I heard that the forgers were moving their goods and leaving the place. How many hours I pa.s.sed alone after their departure I cannot tell. A great storm came on, and at last a fire-bolt struck the dwelling, shattering the door, and setting the place on fire. Then followed the entrance of my sister, who, alarmed at my absence, was searching for me, and who found me in the helpless condition in which the forgers had doubtless hoped that I would have remained for days undiscovered. I was scarcely likely to have survived till the evening, had not timely succour arrived."

Before Bruce had quite finished giving his evidence, tidings were brought to the magistrate from Liverpool, which excited such interest amongst the crowd thronging the court that an irrepressible murmur of satisfaction arose. The police, following the clue given by Bruce Trevor, had arrested at a low public-house, called the White Raven, three persons answering to the description given of Harper and his a.s.sociates. The woman, it appeared, had inquired at the coach-office for a box directed to Colonel Standish, which, it could not be doubted, was that which was to contain the jewels. Other suspicious circ.u.mstances seemed to place it beyond question that the individuals now in custody were Harper, Standish, and Jael. The first named had been recognized by a policeman as an engraver, who had been taken up before on a charge of forgery, but who had been dismissed for want of sufficient evidence to convict him. Jael, it appeared, was his wife; and Harper had found in her nephew, Horace Standish, _alias_ John s...o...b.. an unscrupulous accomplice in carrying out his guilty designs. It afterwards appeared that the Harpers and their confederate had taken their pa.s.sages in the _Penguin_ under three different a.s.sumed names.

Vibert still stood as a prisoner at the bar, but he was not long to remain in so humiliating a position. The magistrate, who had from the first doubted the young man's guilt, was now convinced, by Bruce's testimony, that the prisoner had never been an accomplice in the crime of the forgers, but in pure ignorance had pa.s.sed false notes so skilfully engraved as almost to defy detection. The magistrate therefore dismissed the charge against the prisoner, and Vibert once more was free.

A louder hum of approbation, accompanied by some clapping of hands, followed the order for Vibert's release. But to Vibert that release brought no joyful sense of freedom, and the favourable verdict no feeling of exultation. The youth was humiliated--even to the dust. He had only escaped condemnation as a felon, by being convicted of acting as a fool. He had been the easy dupe, the senseless tool of a designing villain. His emblem was the gaudy fly hiding the hook of the angler!

Under such circ.u.mstances the congratulations of the so-called friends who now pressed around him were to Vibert but as a stinging insult. His one wish was to escape all notice, to fly from his fellow-creatures, and to hide his head where no one should know of his folly and the disgrace to which it had brought him. Many hands were held out to the late prisoner, words were spoken which were meant to be kind; but Vibert would not notice the hands, nor listen to the words. He bent down his head till his long hair almost hid his cheeks, which were glowing with shame. Vibert pushed his way through the crowd, scarcely able to draw a full breath till he had reached the street, rushed into his uncle's carriage, in which Emmie was anxiously waiting, and pulled down the blinds to shut himself out from the sight of mankind.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

TREMBLING IN THE BALANCE.

Another and a yet sharper trial was further to humble and sober the once gay and thoughtless Vibert. If ever a gush of warm grat.i.tude had arisen in his heart, it was drawn forth by the generous effort made in his behalf by his elder brother. Bruce, when in a state of exhaustion and suffering which rendered him fit only for the silence and repose of a sick-chamber, had taken a long journey in winter, and had then encountered the fatigue and excitement of giving evidence in a police-court, acting as one who felt that he had no leisure to be ill, that it was a time for action and not for repose. Bruce had been as a rider forcing his horse to a leap almost beyond its strength; the brave steed just clearing the stone wall, and falling on the opposite side, crus.h.i.+ng its rider beneath its weight. An effort had been made, successfully made; but reaction was certain to follow, and in the case of Bruce Trevor terrible was that reaction. Ere nightfall straw was laid down before one of the houses in Grosvenor Square to deaden the sound of pa.s.sing wheels, and the most skilful physician in London was counting the quick throbs in the pulse of a patient in a high delirious fever.

Emmie had never before watched by a sick-bed; she had been far too young at the time of her mother's last illness to have had anything to do with nursing. All those who best knew Emmie, with her delicate nerves and timid character, declared that she was utterly unfit to nurse in a case that required both strength and courage; for Bruce's ravings were often those of a maniac. He had sometimes to be held down in his bed by main force. But the painful lessons of the last few days had not been taught to Emmie in vain. The timid nervous girl had learned to go to the Fount of Strength, and the firmness and faith which she thence received astonished her father and Vibert. When her younger brother would quit the sick-room, unable to endure the harrowing sight of Bruce struggling like a demoniac, Emmie remained at her painful post. The sound of his sister's voice, the gentle touch of her hand, would sometimes soothe the poor sufferer when nothing else had the slightest effect.

"How can you bear to see him thus?" exclaimed Vibert once to his pale but tearless sister, after one of Bruce's most distressing paroxysms of brain-fever.

"I try to trust and not be afraid," the poor girl faintly replied. "I try to trust him to G.o.d, to my--his Heavenly Father. I repeat to myself, _G.o.d is love_. He can--oh! He _will_ make all things, even this most fearful anguish, work together for good to those who trust Him!"

But for the ravings of fever, when the mind of Bruce had lost all power of self-control, never would mortal but himself have known the extent of the sufferings which he had endured whilst in the power of the forgers, and during the hours of torture when he had remained pinioned and gagged. In the police-court Bruce had described with calm brevity the events of that trying night and morning. But when reason had fled from the sufferer, what images of horror those events had branded on his mind was apparent to all who approached him. The dreadful scenes through which Bruce had pa.s.sed were, in the delirium of fever, acted over and over again: now he was struggling with fearful violence to unloose a murderer's grasp on his throat, calling for help in tones so piercing that they thrilled to the hearts of those watching beside him, and even reached the ears of pa.s.sengers in the street. Then the sufferer seemed to be listening, gasping and trembling as he listened, to sounds which none but himself could hear. Bruce would mutter words about the pool--the deep, black, icy-cold pool--and clutch the bed-clothes, as if to save himself from being dragged down to a watery grave. At another time the fever-stricken youth would imagine himself as being again bound in the house of Jael, would writhe and struggle to free himself from imaginary cords that cut into his flesh as he struggled; and anon would convulsively start, as if again he heard the thunderbolt strike the dwelling close to his head.

Day after day pa.s.sed, night after night, in dreadful transitions from frenzy to stupor, deathlike stupor, only exchanged for more fearful frenzy, till even Emmie could scarcely wish for a prolongation of the terrible struggle. Humbly and submissively she prayed that if her loved brother were indeed now pa.s.sing through the river of death, one ray of reason might gleam through the awful darkness around him, and that the waves and billows might indeed not go over his head.

But Bruce had youth in his favour, and all that man's skill or woman's tenderness could throw into the opposite scale to that in which his life appeared to be gradually sinking. With alternations of hope and fear, the watchers by the sick-bed marked the trembling of the balance, scarcely able to believe that from so fearful an attack of fever the sufferer ever again could rise. But the crisis came at last, and the worst was over; the maddening fever quitted the suffering Bruce, but left him helpless as an infant, and more nervous than the most weak and timid of women.

For weeks Bruce could hardly endure the noise of a step crossing his room; a shadow alarmed him, a voice would make every nerve in his frame quiver. The doctor said that for long his patient would be incapable of any mental exertion; he who had been so steady and regular in his work, was condemned to the idleness and inaction which, to a character like that of Bruce, was in itself a most humiliating trial and disappointment.

As soon as the invalid could be with safety removed from London, he was sent to a watering-place in the south of England. Emmie, whose health had suffered from her devoted nursing, accompanied her sick brother.

After a while she exchanged places with Vibert, and rejoined at Myst Court her father, who was actively fulfilling his duties as a landlord and benefactor to the poor. In the latter character Mr. Trevor needed the help of his daughter, whose health was now sufficiently restored to enable her to become his able a.s.sistant.

Vibert had not seen his brother for more than a month when he joined him at Torquay, and with the sanguine expectations natural to youth he hoped that the change of air and scene, and the effect of so many weeks pa.s.sed in perfect repose, might have brought back health and strength to the shattered frame of Bruce Trevor. The youth was disappointed to find how slow had been the progress made by the invalid towards recovery. It was not merely the hollow eye, the transparent skin, the faint voice and feeble step that told how far removed convalescence was from vigorous health, for it seemed to Vibert as if his brother's firmness of mind, and even his moral courage, were gone. Bruce so shrank from any allusions to the sufferings of the past, that Vibert, who had come full of news which he was eager to impart, found that he must avoid even mentioning the names of the Harpers. For some time Bruce did not hear the result of the trial of the forgers, who had all been convicted and condemned to various terms of imprisonment.

But if Bruce's shattered state was distressing both to himself and to others, it was evident that the character of the young man was ripening under the trial. Bruce had been proud in his self-dependence, impatient of the weakness of others; he had trusted in the power of his own strong will to overcome all difficulties before him. He was now, in conscious infirmity, learning to cast himself simply, humbly, unreservedly upon the strength of his G.o.d. The proud soul had had to learn that the kingdom of heaven can only be entered by those who come in the spirit of a little child, and that the haughtiness of man must be brought down, that the Lord alone may be exalted.

"There are many things in life that one can't understand," observed Vibert one day, when he had just placed a footstool before the brother who had formerly taunted him with an effeminate love of luxurious ease.

"It seems natural enough that I should have had some rough discipline, seeing what a thoughtless, selfish life I had been leading, till I was pulled up sharp by that horrid affair. But you--the steadiest fellow in Christendom--you, who never broke bounds, or turned to the right or the left--I can't see why the heaviest strokes should be laid upon you, or what good such a long trying illness can possibly do you."

"Vibert, do you remember what our uncle wrote on those fragments of paper when we were together at Summer Villa?"

Vibert nodded an affirmative reply.

"I have often thought over his words," continued the invalid; "they conveyed a salutary warning, all the more needed because it raised my anger against him who had laid his finger upon the tender spot. Vibert, I, as well as yourself, had my haunted chamber within the heart, and it has needed the thunderbolt which has smitten me so low to burst open a way for the light to enter."

A few months before nothing could have extorted from the lips of Bruce Trevor such a confession.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

CHANGES.