The Storm Centre Part 27

On the last day of the trial Captain Baynell was beginning to breathe more freely, all the testimony having been taken except the necessarily formal questioning of the dumb child. As she was sworn and interrogated, one of the other children, sworn anew for the purpose, acted as her interpreter, being more accustomed than the elders to the use of the manual alphabet. The court-room was interested in the quaint situation.

The aspect of the two little children, in their white summer attire, in this incongruous environment, with their tiny hands lifted in signalling to each other, their eyes s.h.i.+ning with excitement, touched the spectators to smiles and a stir of pleasant sympathy. Now and then Geraldine's silvery treble faltered while repeating the question, to demonstrate her comprehension of it, and she desisted from her task to gaze in blue-eyed wonder over her shoulder at the crowd. The deaf-mute was pa.s.sed over cursorily by the defence, only summoned in fact that no one of the household might be omitted or seem feared. Suddenly one of the members of the court asked a question in cross-examination. In civil life this officer, a colonel of volunteers, had been an aurist of some note and the physician in attendance in a deaf-and-dumb asylum. He was a portly, robust man, whose prematurely gray hair and mustache were at variance with his florid complexion and his bright, still youthful, dark eyes. He had a manner peculiarly composed, bland, yet commanding. He leaned forward abruptly on the table; with an intent, questioning gaze he caught the child's eyes as she stood lounging against the tall witness-chair. Then as he lifted his hands it was obvious that he was far more expert in the manual alphabet than Geraldine. In three minutes it was evident to the a.s.sembled members of the court-martial on each side of the long table, the president at its head, the judge-advocate at its foot, that the line of communication was as perfect as if both spoke. Delighted to meet a stranger who could converse fluently with her, the child's blue eyes glittered, her cheek flushed; she was continually laughing and tossing back the curls of her rich chestnut hair, as if she wished to be free of its weight while she gave every capacity to this matter. And yet in her youth, her innocence, her inexperience, she knew naught of the ultimate significance of the detail.

It was an evidence of the degree to which she was isolated by her infirmity, how slight was her partic.i.p.ation in the subtler interests of the life about her, that she had no remote conception of the intents and results of the investigation. Even her curiosity was manacled--it stretched no grasp for the fact. She did not question. She did not dream that it concerned Captain Baynell. She had no idea that trouble had fallen upon him. Tears to her expressed woe, or a visage of sadness, or the environment of poverty or physical hurt--but this bright room, with its crowd of intent spectators; this splendid array of uniformed men of an august aspect; her own friend, Captain Baynell, present, himself in full regimentals, calm, composed, quiet, as was his wont, looking over a paper in his hand--how was the restricted creature to imagine that this was the arena of a life-and-death conflict.

"Yes!" the little waxen-white fingers flashed forth. "Yes, indeed, she had known that Soldier-Boy was in the house. That was Julius!"

She gave the military salute with her accustomed grace and spirit, lifting her hand to the brim of her hat, and looked laughing along the line of stern, bearded faces and military figures on either side of the long table.

The other "ladies" did not know that Soldier-Boy was there, though they saw him, and she saw him, too! It was in the library, and it was just about dusk. They were surprised, and came and told the family that they had seen a ghost. They knew no better! They were young and they were little. They were only six, the twins, and she was eight; a great girl indeed!

Once more she tossed back her hair, and, with her eyes intent from under the wide Leghorn brim of her hat, bedecked with bows of a broad white ribbon with fluffy fringed edges, she watched his white military gauntlets, uplifted as he asked the next question on his slow fingers.

How her own swiftly flickered!

Yes, indeed, she had told the family better. It was no ghost, but only Soldier-Boy! She had told Captain Baynell. She wanted him to see Soldier-Boy. He was beautiful--the most beautiful member of the family!

Oh, yes, Baynell knew he was in the house. She had told him by her sign.

When she had first shown him Soldier-Boy's fine portrait, they had told him what she meant.

No! Captain Baynell had not forgotten! For when she said it was no ghost, but Soldier-Boy, Cousin Leonora cried out, "Oh, she means Julius; that is her sign for him!" Cousin Leonora did not use the manual alphabet; she read the motion of her lips. None of them used the alphabet except a little bit; Soldier-Boy the best of all.

Throughout there was a continual ripple of excitement among the members and several heads were dubiously shaken. More than once Baynell's counsel sought to interpose an objection,--mindful of the preposterous restrictions of his position, swiftly writing his views, transmitted, as if he himself were dumb, through the prisoner to the judge-advocate and by him to the court. The testimony of the witness could not be legally taken this way, he insisted, merely by the repet.i.tion of what she had said, by a member of the court-martial for the benefit of the rest.

The peculiar petulance of those who lack a sense was manifested in the acrimony which shone in the child's eyes as she perceived that he sought to restrict and repress her statement of her views. When he ventured himself to ask her a question, having some knowledge of the manual alphabet, she merely gazed at his awkward gesticulations with an expression of polite tolerance, making no attempt to answer, then cast up her eyes, as who should say, "Saw ever anybody the like of that!" and catching the intent gaze of the brigadier, she burst into a sly coquettish ripple of laughter that had all the effect of a roguish aside. Then, turning to the ex-surgeon, her fingers flickered forth the hope that he would come and see her and talk. When the war was over, she was going back to school where she had learned the manual alphabet,--there, although dumb, they talked much.

The mention of the word "school" suggested an idea which obviated the difficulty as to how this extraordinary testimony could be put into such shape as to render it available, impervious to cavil, strictly in accordance with precedent in the case of witnesses who are "mute by the visitation of G.o.d." The cross-examiner asked her if she could write. How she tossed her head in pride and scorn of the question! Write--of course she could write. Cousin Leonora had taught her.

When she was placed in a chair, and mounted on a great book beside the judge-advocate--looking like a learned mushroom under her big white hat, her white flounced skirts fluttering out, her long white hose and slippered feet dangling--he wrote the questions and accommodated her with a blotting-pad and pen, and it may be doubted if ever hitherto a small bunch of fabric and millinery contained so much vainglory. In truth the triumph atoned for many a soundless day--to note the surprise on his solemn visage, between his Burnside whiskers, as she glanced covertly up into his face, watching the effect of her first answer, five or six lines of clear, round handwriting, sensibly expressed, and perfectly spelled. She wrote much the more legibly of the two, and once there occurred a break when one of the members of the court asked a question in writing, and she was constrained to put one hand before her face to laugh gleefully, for one of his capital letters was so bad--she was great on capitals--that she must needs ask what was meant by it.

Baynell, in rexamination, himself wrote to ask what he had said when he was told that the ghost in the library was Julius Roscoe.

"Nothing," she wrote in answer, all unaware how she was destroying him.

"Nothing at all. You just looked at me and then looked at Cousin Leonora.

But Grandpa said, 'Oh, fie! oh, fie!' all the time."

Thus the extraordinary testimony was taken. The paper, with her answers in her round childish characters and flouris.h.i.+ng capitals, all as plain as print and exhibiting a thorough comprehension of what she was asked, was handed to each of the members of the court-martial, here and there eliciting a murmur of surprise at her proficiency. The prosecution, that had practically broken down, now had the point of the sword at the throat of the defence.

There was naught further necessary but to confront the earlier witnesses with this episode. Mrs. Gwynn, recalled, stared in amazement for a moment as a question was put as to the significant event of the discovery of a ghost in the library, one afternoon. Then as the reminiscence grew clear to her mind, she rehea.r.s.ed the circ.u.mstance, stating in great confusion that she had disregarded it at the time, and had forgotten it since.

So unimportant, was it?

She had thought it merely some folly of the children's; they were always taking silly little frights. She did remember that she had told Captain Baynell once before that the military salute was the child's sign for Julius Roscoe, and that she had repeated this information then.

No--Captain Baynell made no search in the library where the supposed ghost was seen,--no,--nor elsewhere.

When Mrs. Gwynn, under the stress of these revelations, broke down and burst into tears, the eyes of the members of the court-martial intently regarding her were unsympathetic eyes, despite her beauty and charm,--the more unsympathetic because Judge Roscoe had also remembered these circ.u.mstances, stating, however, that they had not alarmed him, for Captain Baynell evidently did not understand.

"Is his knowledge of English, then, so limited?" he was ironically asked.

Old Ephraim, too, was able to recollect the fact of the child's disclosure of the presence of Julius Roscoe in the house to Captain Baynell,--declaring, though, that he himself had hindered its comprehension by upsetting the coffee urn full of scalding coffee, which he had just brought to the table where the group were sitting, thus effecting a diversion of interest.

All the witnesses were dismissed at last, and the final formal defence was presented in writing. The room was cleared and the judge-advocate read aloud to the members of the court the proceedings from the beginning. Laboriously, earnestly, impartially, they bent their minds to weigh all the details, and then for a time they sat in secluded deliberation--a long time, despite the fact that the conclusions of the majority admitted of no doubt. Several of the members revolted against the inevitable result, argued with vehemence, recapitulated all in Baynell's favor with the fervor of eager partisans, and at last protested with a pa.s.sion of despair against the decision, for the finding was adverse and the unanimity of two-thirds of the votes rendered the penalty death.

The sentence was of course kept secret until it should be approved and formally promulgated by authority. But the public had readily divined the result and antic.i.p.ated naught from the revision of the proceedings.

Suspense is itself a species of calamity. It has all the poignant acuteness of hope without the buoyancy of a sustained expectation, and all the anguish of despair without its sense of conclusiveness and the surcease of striving. Pending the review of the action of the court-martial Baynell discovered the wondrous scope of human suffering disa.s.sociated from physical pain. He had seriously thought he might die of his wounded pride, thus touched in honor, in patriotism, in life itself, and therefore he was amazed by the degree of solace he experienced in the sight of a woman's tears shed for his sake. For to Leonora Gwynn he seemed a persecuted martyr, with all a soldier's valor and a saint's impeccability. No one could know better than she the falsity of the charges against him, and in her resentment against the unhappy chances and the military law that had overwhelmed him, and her absolute despair for his fate, he enlisted all her heart. Those high and n.o.ble qualities which he possessed and which she revered were elicited in the extremity of his mortal peril. His exacting conscientiousness; his steadfast courage on the brink of despair; his absolute truth; his constancy in adversity; his strict sense of justice which would not suffer him to blame his friends whose concealments had wrought his ruin, nor his enemies who seemed indeed rancorously zealous in aspersing him that they might exculpate themselves at his risk; his lofty sense of honor which he valued more than life itself,--all showed in genuine proportions in the bleak unidealizing light which an actual vital crisis brings to bear on the incidents of personal character.

She had even a more tender sympathy for his simpler traits, the filial friends.h.i.+p which he still manifested for Judge Roscoe, his affectionate remembrance of the little children of the household, the blended pride and delicacy with which he restrained all expression of the feeling he entertained toward her, that might seem to seek to utilize and magnify her unguarded admissions on the witness-stand,--influenced, as he feared, by her anxiety lest her rejection of his suit should militate to his disadvantage in the estimation of the court. In truth, however, there was scant need of his reserve on this point, for she made no disguise of her sentiment toward him. It became obvious, not only to him, but to all with whom she spoke. Indeed, she would have married him then, that she might be near him, that she might share his calamities, even while his disgrace, his everlasting contumely, seemed already accomplished, and he had scarcely a chance for life itself. And yet, hardly less than he, she valued those finer vibrations of chivalric ethics to which his every fibre thrilled. "I know that you are the very soul of honor," she said to him, "and that this certain a.s.surance ought to be sufficient to nullify the stings of calumny,--but I had rather that you had died long ago, that I had never seen you, that I were dead myself, than that your record as a soldier, your probity as a man, the truth, the eternal truth, should even be questioned."

Judge Roscoe, too, was infinitely dismayed by this strange blunder of circ.u.mstance, and flinched under the sense of responsibility, of a breach of hospitality, albeit unintentional, that his guest should incur so desperate a disaster by reason of a sojourn under his roof. Baynell was constrained to comfort them both, but in the hope to which he magnanimously affected to appeal he had scant confidence indeed.

Even amidst the turmoil of his emotions and the crisis of his personal jeopardy he did not forget that the hand that hurled the bolts of doom had been innocent of cruel intent. "Never let her know," he warned Judge Roscoe, again and again. For although the testimony of the deaf-mute must needs have been elicited, she would be grieved to learn that she had wrought all these woes. Though literally the truth, it had the deceptive functions of a lie. It traduced him. It convicted him, the faithful soldier, of treachery. It hurled him down from his honorable esteem, and he seemed the basest of the base, traitor to his comrades, false to his oath, renegade to his cause, recreant to every sanction that can control a gentleman, and stained with blood-guiltiness for every life that was sacrificed in the skirmish by reason of his secret colloguing with the enemy.

Nevertheless, he tenderly considered how frightful a shock she would experience should she realize that it was she who had set this hideous monster of falsehood grimly a-stalk as fact. "But never let her know!"

he insisted with an unselfish thoughtfulness that endeared him the more to those who already loved him. In that silent life of hers, so much apart, he would fain that not even a vague echo of reproach should sound. In those mute thoughts, which none might divine, he would not evoke a suggestion of regret. One could hardly forecast the effect, he urged. A sorrow like this might prove beyond the reach of reason, of remonstrance, of consolation. She loved him, the silent, little thing!

and he loved her. Never, never, let her know.

And thus, although in the storm centre all else was changed, swept with sudden gusts of tempestuous grief, now and again reverberating with strange echoes of tumults beyond, all a-tremor with terror and frightful presage, calm still prevailed in her restricted little life. But to maintain this placidity was not without its special difficulties. More than once her grandfather's deep depression caught her intelligent attention, and she would pause to gaze wistfully, helplessly, sadly, upon him. Upon discovering Leonora in tears one day she flung herself on her knees beside her cousin, and kissing her hands wept and sobbed bitterly in sympathy with she knew not what. Sometimes she was moved to ask the dreary little twins if aught were amiss, and when they shook their heads in negation, she promptly signed that she did not believe them. Once she came perilously near the solution of the mystery that baffled her. Missing the visits of Baynell, who of course was still in arrest, she asked the twins if he were ill, and when they hysterically protested that he was well, a shadow of aghast apprehension hovered over her face, and she solemnly queried if he were dead.

The phrase, "Never let her know," was like a dying wish, as sacred, as imperative, and Judge Roscoe hastily interfered to a.s.sure her that Baynell was indeed alive and well, and affected to rebuke the twins, saying that they were getting so dull and slow in the manual alphabet that they could scarcely answer a simple question of their sister's, and set them to spelling on their fingers under Lucille's instruction the first stanza of "The boy stood on the burning deck."

Thus the continued calm of her life was akin to the quiet languors of the sweet summer evening so mutely reddening in the west, so softly changing to the azure and silver of twilight, so splendid in the vast diffusive radiance of the soundless moon. All the growths were as speechless. The rose was full of the voiceless dew. What need of words when the magnolia buds burst into bloom without a rustle. With a placid heart she watched the echoless march of the constellations. The daily brightening of the sumptuous season, the vivid presentment of the great pageant of the distant mountains glowed noiselessly. Amidst this encompa.s.sing hush, in suave content she thought out her inconceivable, unexpressed thoughts, with a smile in her eyes and the seal of eternal silence on her lips. For his behest was a sacred charge,--and she did not know,--she never knew!

The evidence on which Baynell had been convicted and which had seemed so conclusive to the general court-martial, present during the testimony of the deaf-mute and its subsequent unwilling confirmation by the other witnesses for the defence, was not so decisive on a calm revision of the papers. The doubt remained as to how much he could be presumed to understand from the peculiar methods of the dumb child's disclosure and the scattered haphazard comments of the household. The circ.u.mstances were deemed by the reviewing authorities extra hazardous, difficult, and peculiar. The matter hung for a time in abeyance, but at last the court was ordered to reconvene for the rectification of certain irregularities in its proceedings, and for the reconsideration of its action in this case.

The interval of time which had elapsed, with its proclivity to annul the effects of surprise and the first convincing force of a definite and irrefutable testimony, had served to foster doubt, not of the fact itself, but as to Baynell's comprehension of it. Perhaps the incredulity obviously entertained in high quarters rendered certain members of the court-martial less sure of the justifiability of their own conclusions.

The maturer deliberation of the body accomplished the amendment of those points in the record which had challenged criticism, and the ripened judgment exercised in the reconsideration was manifested in such modifications of the view of the evidence adduced that, although several members still adhered to the earlier findings, the strength of the opposing opinion was so recruited that a majority of the number concurred in it, and the vote resulted in an acquittal.

Hence Captain Baynell had again the stern pleasure of leading his battery into action. His pride never fully recovered its elasticity after the days of his humiliation, but his martyrdom was not altogether without guerdon. His marriage to Leonora, which was a true union of hearts and hands, took place almost immediately. Compa.s.sion, faith, the admiration of strength and courage in adversity, proved more potent elements with Leonora Gwynn than her appreciation of the prowess that stormed the fort.

Beyond his promotion and a captain's shoulder straps, Julius Roscoe gained naught by his signal victory. Although he seemed to meet his disappointment in love jauntily enough, he went abroad almost immediately after the cessation of hostilities in America, and still later attained distinction as a soldier of fortune especially in the Franco-Prussian war. Now and again echoes from those foreign drum-beats penetrated the tranquillities of the storm centre, and Lucille, looking over the shoulders of the other two "ladies," officiously opening the evening paper to discern some item perchance of the absent, would glance up elated at the elders of the group, lifting her hand to her forehead with that spirited military salute, so expressive of Soldier-Boy.

THE END