The House of the Whispering Pines (34 page)

Recoiling from the prospect, I buried my face in my hands, and so missed
the surprising sight of this young girl, still in her teens, conquering a
dismay which might well unnerve one of established years and untold
experiences. In a few minutes, as I was afterward told by my friends, her
features had settled into a strange placidity, undisturbed by the
levelled gaze of a hundred eyes. Her whole attention was concentrated on
her brother, and wavered only, when the duties of the occasion demanded a
recognition of the various gentlemen concerned in the trial.

Mr. Moffat prefaced his examination by the following words:

"May it please your Honour, I wish to ask the indulgence of the court in
my examination of this witness. She is just recovering from a long and
dangerous illness; and while I shall endeavour to keep within the rules
of examination, I shall be grateful for any consideration which may be
shown her by your Honour and by the counsel on the other side."

Mr. Fox at once rose. He had by this time recovered from his astonishment
at seeing before him, and in a fair state of health, the young girl whom
he had every reason to believe to be still in a condition of partial
forgetfulness at Lakewood, and under the care of a woman entirely in his
confidence and under his express orders. He had also mastered his chagrin
at the triumph which her presence here, and under these dramatic
circumstances, had given his adversary. Moved, perhaps, by Miss
Cumberland's beauty, which he saw for the first time—or, perhaps, by the
spectacle of this beauty devoting its first hours of health to an attempt
to save a brother, of whose precarious position before the law she had
been ignorant up to this time—or more possibly yet, by a fear that it
might be bad tactics to show harshness to so interesting a personality
before she had uttered a word of testimony, he expressed in warmer tones
than usual, his deep desire to extend every possible indulgence.

Mr. Moffat bowed his acknowledgments, and waited for his witness to take
the oath, which she did with a simple grace which touched all hearts,
even that of her constrained and unreconciled brother. Compelled by the
silence and my own bounding pulses to look at her in my own despite, I
caught the sweet and elevated look with which she laid her hand on the
Book, and asked myself if her presence here was not a self-accusation,
which would bring satisfaction to nobody—which would sink her and hers
into an ignominy worse than the conviction of the brother whom she was
supposedly there to save.

Tortured by this fear, I awaited events in indescribable agitation.

The cool voice of Mr. Moffat broke in upon my gloom. Carmel had
reseated herself, after taking the oath, and the customary question
could be heard:

"Your name, if you please."

"Carmel Cumberland."

"Do you recognise the prisoner, Miss Cumberland?"

"Yes; he is my brother."

A thrill ran through the room. The lingering tone, the tender accent,
told. Some of the feeling she thus expressed seemed to pass into every
heart which contemplated the two. From this moment on, he was looked upon
with less harshness; people showed a disposition to discern innocence,
where, perhaps, they had secretly desired, until now, to discover guilt.

"Miss Cumberland, will you be good enough to tell us where you were, at
or near the hour of ten, on the evening of your sister's death?"

"I was in the club-house—in the house you call The Whispering Pines."

At this astounding reply, unexpected by every one present save myself and
the unhappy prisoner, incredulity, seasoned with amazement, marked every
countenance. Carmel Cumberland in the club-house that night—she who had
been found at a late hour, in her own home, injured and unconscious! It
was not to be believed—or it would not have been, if Arthur with less
self-control than he had hitherto maintained, had not shown by his morose
air and the silent drooping of his head that he accepted this statement,
wild and improbable as it seemed. Mr. Fox, whose mind without doubt had
been engaged in a debate from the first, as to the desirability of
challenging the testimony of this young girl, whose faculties had so
lately recovered from a condition of great shock and avowed forgetfulness
that no word as yet had come to him of her restored health, started to
arise at her words; but noting the prisoner's attitude, he hastily
reseated himself, realising, perhaps, that evidence of which he had never
dreamed lay at the bottom of the client's manner and the counsel's
complacency. If so, then his own air of mingled disbelief and
compassionate forbearance might strike the jury unfavourably; while, on
the contrary, if his doubts were sound, and the witness were confounding
the fancies of her late delirium with the actual incidents of this fatal
night, then would he gain rather than lose by allowing her to proceed
until her testimony fell of its own weight, or succumbed before the fire
of his cross-examination.

Modifying his manner, he steadied himself for either exigency, and, in
steadying himself, steadied his colleagues also.

Mr. Moffat, who saw everything, smiled slightly as he spoke encouragingly
to his witness, and propounded his next question:

"Miss Cumberland, was your sister with you when you went to the
club-house?"

"No; we went separately"

"How? Will you explain?"

"I drove there. I don't know how Adelaide went."

"You drove there?"

"Yes. I had Arthur harness up his horse for me and I drove there."

A moment of silence; then a slow awakening—on the part of judge, jury,
and prosecution—to the fact that the case was taking a turn for which
they were ill-prepared. To Mr. Moffat, it was a moment of intense
self-congratulation, and something of the gratification he felt crept
into his voice as he said:

"Miss Cumberland, will you describe this horse?"

"It was a grey horse. It has a large black spot on its left shoulder."

"To what vehicle was it attached?"

"To a cutter—my brother's cutter."

"Was that brother with you? Did he accompany you in your ride to The
Whispering Pines?"

"No, I went quite alone."

Entrancement had now seized upon every mind. Even if her testimony were
not true, but merely the wanderings of a mind not fully restored, the
interest of it was intense. Mr. Fox, glancing at the jury, saw there
would be small use in questioning at this time the mental capacity of the
witness. This was a story which all wished to hear. Perhaps he wished to
hear it, too.

Mr. Moffat rose to more than his accustomed height. The light which
sometimes visited his face when feeling, or a sense of power, was
strongest in him, shone from his eye and irradiated his whole aspect as
he inquired tellingly:

"And how did you return? With whom, and by what means, did you regain
your own house?"

The answer came, with simple directness:

"In the same way I went. I drove back in my brother's cutter and being
all alone just as before, I put the horse away myself, and went into my
empty home and up to Adelaide's room, where I lost consciousness."

The excitement, which had been seething, broke out as she ceased; but
the judge did not need to use his gavel, or the officers of the court
exert their authority. At Mr. Moffat's lifted hand, the turmoil ceased
as if by magic.

"Miss Cumberland, do you often ride out alone on nights like that?"

"I never did before. I would not have dared to do it then, if I had not
taken a certain precaution."

"And what was this precaution?"

"I wore an old coat of my brother's over my dress, and one of his hats
on my head."

It was out—the fact for the suppression of which I had suffered arrest
without a word; because of which Arthur had gone even further, and
submitted to trial with the same constancy. Instinctively, his eyes and
mine met, and, at that moment, there was established between us an
understanding that was in strong contrast to the surrounding turmoil,
which now exceeded all limits, as the highly wrought up spectators
realised that these statements, if corroborated, destroyed one of the
strongest points which had been made by the prosecution. This caused a
stay in the proceedings until order was partially restored, and the
judge's voice could be heard in a warning that the court-room would be
cleared of all spectators if this break of decorum was repeated.

Meanwhile, my own mind had been busy. I had watched Arthur; I had watched
Mr. Moffat. The discouragement of the former, the ill-concealed elation
of the latter, proved the folly of any hope, on my part, that Carmel
would be spared a full explanation of what I would have given worlds to
leave in the darkness and ignorance of the present moment. To save
Arthur, unwilling as he was, she was to be allowed to consummate the
sacrifice which the real generosity of her heart drove her into making.
Before these doors opened again and sent forth the crowd now pulsating
under a preamble of whose terrible sequel none as yet dreamed, I should
have to hear those sweet lips give utterance to the revelation which
would consign her to opprobrium, and break, not only my heart, but her
brother's.

Was there no way to stop it? The district attorney gave no evidence of
suspecting any issue of this sort, nor did the friendly and humane judge.
Only the scheming Moffat knew to what all this was tending, and Moffat
could not be trusted. The case was his and he would gain it if he could.
Tender and obliging as he was in his treatment of the witness, there was
iron under the velvet of his glove. This was his reputation; and this I
must now see exemplified before me, without the power to stop it. The
consideration with which he approached his subject did not deceive me.

"Miss Cumberland, will you now give the jury the full particulars of that
evening's occurrences, as witnessed by yourself. Begin your relation, if
you please, with an account of the last meal you had together."

Carmel hesitated. Her youth—her conscience, perhaps—shrank in manifest
distress from this inquisition.

"Ask me a question," she prayed. "I do not know how to begin."

"Very well. Who were seated at the dinner-table that night?"

"My sister, my brother, Mr. Ranelagh, and myself."

"Did anything uncommon happen during the meal?"

"Yes, my sister ordered wine, and had our glasses all filled. She never
drank wine herself, but she had her glass filled also. Then she dismissed
Helen, the waitress; and when the girl was gone, she rose and held up
her glass, and invited us to do the same. 'We will drink to my coming
marriage,' said she; but when we had done this, she turned upon Arthur,
with bitter words about his habits, and, declaring that another bottle of
wine should never be opened again in the house, unclosed her fingers and
let her glass drop on the table where it broke. Arthur then let his fall,
and I mine. We all three let our glasses fall and break."

"And Mr. Ranelagh?"

"He did not let his fall. He set it down on the cloth. He had not
drank from it."

Clear, perfectly clear—tallying with what we had heard from other
sources. As this fact forced itself in upon the minds of the jury,
new light shone in every eye and each and all waited eagerly for the
next question.

It came with a quiet, if not insinuating, intonation.

"Miss Cumberland, where were you looking when you let your glass fall?"

My heart gave a bound. I remembered that moment well. So did she, as
could be seen from the tremulous flush and the determination with which
she forced herself to speak.

"At Mr. Ranelagh," she answered, finally.

"Not at your brother?"

"No."

"And at whom was Mr. Ranelagh looking?"

"At—at me."

"Not at your sister?"

"No."

"Was anything said?"

"Not then. With the dropping of the glasses, we all drew back from the
table, and walked towards a little room where we sometimes sat before
going into the library. Arthur went first, and Mr. Ranelagh and I
followed, Adelaide coming last. We—we went this way into the little room
and—what other question do you wish to ask?" she finished, with a
burning blush.

Mr. Moffat was equal to the appeal.

"Did anything happen? Did Mr. Ranelagh speak to you or you to him, or did
your sister Adelaide speak?"

"No one spoke; but Mr. Ranelagh put a little slip of paper into my
hand—a—a note. As he did this, my brother looked round. I don't know
whether he saw the note or not; but his eye caught mine, and I may have
blushed. Next moment he was looking past me; and presently he had flung
himself out of the room, and I heard him going upstairs. Adelaide had
joined me by this time, and Mr. Ranelagh turned to speak to her, and—and
I went over to the book-shelves to read my note."

"And did you read it then?"

"No, I was afraid. I waited till Mr. Ranelagh was gone; then I went up to
my room and read it. It was not a—a note to be glad of. I mean, proud
of. I'm afraid I was a little glad of it at first. I was a wicked girl."

Mr. Moffat glanced at Mr. Fox; but that gentleman, passing over this
artless expression of feeling, as unworthy an objection, he went
steadily on:

"Miss Cumberland, before you tell us about this note, will you be good
enough to inform us whether any words passed between you and your sister
before you went upstairs?"

"Oh, yes; we talked. We all three talked, but it was about indifferent
matters. The servants were going to a ball, and we spoke of that. Mr.
Ranelagh did not stay long. Very soon he remarked that he had a busy
evening before him, and took his leave. I was not in the room with them
when he did this. I was in the adjoining one, but I heard his remark and
saw him go. I did not wait to talk to Adelaide."

"Now, about the note?"