CHAPTER XXVIII. SCENE OF THE MURDER--THE CORONER'S VERDICT

Are there not proofs enough?

Or can the stubborn mind reject all truth And cling to fallacy?

The Will.

What a change did Tubbermore present to its aspect of the day before!

All the emblems of joy and festivity, all the motley of pleasure, all the gay troops of guests hastening onward in glowing eagerness and antic.i.p.ation, were gone; and in their stead a dreary and mysterious silence brooded over the place, interrupted at intervals by the bustle of some departure. For thus, without one word of sympathy, without even a pa.s.sing good-bye, Roland's "friends" hurried away, as if flying from the very memories of the spot.

It was a dreary winter's day; the dark leaden clouds that flitted past, and the long-sighing wind, seemed to add their sad influence to the melancholy. The house itself already appeared to feel its altered fortunes. Most of the windows were closed and shuttered; the decorations of rare plants and shrubs and lamps were removed; instead of the movement of liveried servants to and fro, ill-favored and coa.r.s.e-clad men, the underlings of the law, crept stealthily about, noticing each circ.u.mstance of the locality, and conferring together in mysterious whispers. Mounted messengers, too, came and went with a haste that boded urgency; and post-horses were each moment arriving to carry away those whose impatience to leave was manifested in a hundred ways. Had the air of the place been infected with some pestilential malady, their eagerness could scarce have been greater. All the fretful irritability of selfishness, all the peevish discontent of petty natures, exhibited themselves without shame; and envious expressions towards those fortunate enough to "get away first," and petulant complaints over their own delay, were bandied on every side.

A great table was laid for breakfast in the dining-room, as usual. All the luxuries and elegances that graced the board on former occasions were there, but a few only took their places. Of these, Frobisher and some military men were the chief; they, indeed, showed comparatively little of that anxiety to be gone so marked in the others. The monotony of the barrack and the parade was not attractive, and they lingered like men who, however little they had of pleasure here, had even less of inducement to betake them elsewhere.

Meek had been the first to make his escape, by taking the post-horses intended for another, and already was many miles on his way towards Dublin. The Chief Justice and his family were the next. From the hour of the fatal event, Mrs. Malone had a.s.sumed a judicial solemnity of demeanor that produced a great impression upon the beholders, and seemed to convey, by a kind of reflected light, the old judge's gloomiest forebodings of the result.

Mrs. Leicester White deferred her departure to oblige Mr. Howie, who was making a series of sketches for the "Pictorial Paul Pry," showing not only the various facades of Tubbermore House, but several interesting "interiors:" such as the "Ball-room, when the fatal tidings arrived:"

"Dressing-room of Roland Cashel, Esq., when entered by the Chief Justice and his party;" the most effective of all being a very shadowy picture of the "Gap of Ennismore--the scene of the murder;" the whole connected by a little narrative so ingeniously drawn up as to give public opinion a very powerful bias against Cashel, whose features, in the woodcut, would in themselves have made a formidable indictment.

Of the Kennyf.e.c.ks, few troubled themselves with even a casual inquiry: except the fact that a fashionable physician had been sent for to Dublin, little was known about them. But where was Linton all this while? Some averred that he had set out for the capital, to obtain the highest legal a.s.sistance for his friend; others, that he was so overwhelmed by the terrible calamity as to have fallen into a state of fatuous insensibility. None, however, could really give any correct account of him; he had left Tubbermore, but in what direction none could tell.

As the day wore on, a heavy rain began to fall; and of those who still remained in the house, little knots of two and three a.s.sembled at the windows, to watch for the arrival of their wished-for "posters," or to speculate upon the weather. Another source of speculation there was besides. Some hours before, a magistrate, accompanied by a group of ill-dressed and vulgar-looking men, had been seen to pa.s.s the house, and take the path which led to the Gap of Ennismore. These formed the inquest, who were to inquire into the circ.u.mstances of the crime, and whose verdict, however unimportant in a strictly legal sense, was looked for with considerable impatience by some of the company. To judge from the anxious looks that were directed towards the mountain road, or the piercing glances which at times were given through telescopes in that direction, one would have augured that some, at least, of those there, were not dest.i.tute of sympathy for him whose guests they had been, and beneath whose roof they still lingered. A very few words of those that pa.s.sed between them will best answer how this impression is well founded.

"Have you sent your groom off, Upton?" asked Frobisher, as he stood with a coffee-cup in his hand at the window.

"Yes, he pa.s.sed the window full half an hour ago."

"They are confoundedly tedious," said Jennings, half suppressing a yawn. "I thought those kind of fellows just gave a look at the body, and p.r.o.nounced their verdict at once."

"So they do when it's one of their own cla.s.s; but in the case of a gentleman they take a prodigious interest in examining his watch and his purse and his pocket-book; and, in fact, it is a grand occasion for prying as far as possible into his private concerns."

"I 'll double our bet, Upton, if you like," said Frobisher, languidly.

The other shook his head negatively.

"Why, the delay is clearly in your favor, man. If they were strong in their convictions, they 'd have brought him in guilty an hour ago."

"That is my opinion too," said Jennings.

"Well, here goes. Two fifties be it," cried Upton.

Frobisher took out his memorandum-book and wrote something with a pencil.

"Is n't that it?" said he, showing the lines to Upton.

"Just so. 'Wilful murder,'" muttered the other, reading.

"You have a great 'pull' upon me, Upton," said Frobisher; "by Jove! if you were generous, you'd give me odds."

"How so?"

"Why, you saw his face since the affair, and I did n't."

"It would need a better physiognomist than I am to read it. He looked exactly as he always does; a thought paler, perhaps, but no other change."

"Here comes a fellow with news," said Jennings, throwing open the window. "I say, my man, is it over?"

"No, sir; the jury want to see one of Mr. Cashel's boots."

Jennings closed the sash, and, lighting a cigar, sat down in an easy-chair. A desultory conversation here arose among some of the younger military men whether a coroner's verdict were final, and whether a "fellow could be hanged" when it p.r.o.nounced him guilty; the astute portion of the debaters inclining to the opinion that although this was not the case in England, such would be "law" in Ireland. Then the subject of confiscation was entertained, and various doubts and surmises arose as to what would become of Tubbermore when its proprietor had been executed; with sly jests about the reversionary rights of the Crown, and the magnanimity of extending mercy at the price of a great landed estate. These filled up the time for an hour or so more, interspersed with conjectures as to Cashel's present frame of mind, and considerable wonderment why he had n't "bolted" at once.

At last Upton's groom was seen approaching at a tremendous pace; and in a few minutes after he had pulled up at the door, and dismounting with a spring, hastened into the house.

"Well, Robert, how did it go?" cried Upton, as, followed by the rest, he met him in the hall.

"You 've lost, sir," said the man, wiping his forehead.

"Confound the rascals! But what are the words of the verdict?"

"'Wilful murder,' sir."

"Of course," said Frobisher, coolly; "they could give no other."

"It's no use betting against you," cried Upton, pettishly. "You are the luckiest dog in Europe."

"Come, I 'll give you a chance," said Frobisher; "double or quit that they hang him."

"No, no; I 've lost enough on him. I 'll not have it."

"Well, I suppose we've nothing to wait for now," yawned Jennings. "Shall we start?"

"Not till we have luncheon, I vote," cried an infantry sub.; and his suggestion met general approval. And while they are seated at a table where exquisite meats and rarest wines stimulated appet.i.te and provoked excess, let us turn for a few brief moments to him who, still their entertainer, sat in his lone chamber, friendless and deserted.

So rapid had been the succession of events which occupied one single night, that Roland could not believe it possible months had not pa.s.sed over. Even then, he found it difficult to disentangle the real circ.u.mstances from those fancied results his imagination had already depicted; many of the true incidents appearing far more like fiction than the dreamy fancies his mind invented. His meeting with Enrique, for instance, was infinitely less probable than that he should have fought a duel with Linton; and so, in many other cases, his faculties wavered between belief and doubt, till his very senses reeled with the confusion. Kennyf.e.c.k's death alone stood out from this chaotic ma.s.s, clear, distinct, and palpable, and, as he sat brooding over this terrible fact, he was totally unconscious of its bearing upon his own fortunes. Selfishness formed no part of his nature; his fault lay in the very absence of self-esteem, and the total deficiency of that individuality which prompts men to act up to a self-created standard.

He could sorrow for him who was no more, and from whom he had received stronger proofs of devotion than from all his so-called friends; he could grieve over the widowed mother and the fatherless girls, for whose dest.i.tution he felt, he knew not how, or wherefore, a certain culpability; but of himself and his own critical position, not a thought arose. The impressions that no effort of his own could convey fell with a terrific shock upon him when suggested by another.

He was seated at his table, trying, for the twentieth time, to collect his wandering thoughts, and determine what course to follow, when a tap was heard at his door, and it opened at the same instant.

"I am come, sir," said Mr. Goring, with a voice full of feeling, "to bring you sad tidings; but for which events may have, in a measure, prepared you." He paused, perhaps hoping that Cashel would spare him the pain of continuing; but Roland never spoke.

"The inquest has completed its labors," said Goring, with increasing agitation; "and the verdict is one of 'wilful murder.'"

"It was a foul and terrible crime," said Cashel, shuddering; "the poor fellow was animated with kind intentions and benevolent views towards the people. In all our intercourse he displayed but one spirit--"

"Have a care, sir," said Goring, mildly. "It is just possible that, in the frankness of the moment something may escape you which hereafter you might wish unsaid; and standing in the position you now do--"