The Trial [107]
Nay, there's proof enough in what it has done for him already. If you could only see him!' 'I mean to see him, if it should go against him,' said Ethel, 'if you will let me. I would go to him as I would if he were in a decline, and with more reverence.' 'Don't talk of it,' cried her father. 'For truth's sake, for justice's sake, for the country's sake, I can not, will not, believe it will go wrong. There is a Providence, after all, Ethel!' And the Doctor went away, afraid alike of hope and despondency, and Ethel thought of the bright young face, of De Wilton, of Job, and of the martyrs; and when she was not encouraging Aubrey, or soothing Averil, her heart would sink, and the tears that would not come would have been very comfortable. It was well for all that the assizes were so near that the suspense was not long protracted; for it told upon all concerned. Leonard, when the Doctor saw him again, was of the same way of thinking, but his manner was more agitated; he could not sleep, or if he slept, the anticipations chased away in the day-time revenged themselves in his dreams; and he was very unhappy, also, about his sister, whose illness continued day after day. She was not acutely ill, but in a constant state of low fever, every faculty in the most painful state of tension, convinced that she was quite able to get up and go to Leonard, and that her detention was mere cruelty; and then, on trying to rise, refused by fainting. Her searching questions and ardent eyes made it impossible to keep any feature in the case from her knowledge. Sleep was impossible to her; and once when Henry tried the effect of an anodyne, it produced a semi-delirium, which made him heartily repent of his independent measure. At all times she was talking--nothing but the being left with a very stolid maid-servant ever closed her lips, and she so greatly resented being thus treated, that the measure was seldom possible. Henry seldom left her. He was convinced that Leonard's sentence would be hers likewise, and he watched over her with the utmost tenderness and patience with her fretfulness and waywardness, never quitting her except on their brother's behalf, when Ethel or Mary would take his place. Little Minna was always to be found on her small chair by the bed-side, or moving about like a mouse, sometimes whispering her one note, 'They can't hurt him, if he has not done it,' and still quietly working at the pair of slippers that had been begun for his birthday present. Mary used to bring Ella, and take them out walking in the least- frequented path; but though the little sisters kissed eagerly, and went fondly hand in hand, they never were sorry to part: Ella's spirits oppressed Minna, and Minna's depression vexed the more volatile sister; moreover, Minna always dreaded Mary's desire to carry her away--as, poor child, she looked paler, and her eyes heavier and darker, every day. No one else, except, of course, Dr. May, was admitted. Henry would not let his sister see Mr. Scudamour or Mr. Wilmot, lest she should be excited; and Averil's 'No one' was vehement as a defence against Mrs. Pugh or Mrs. Ledwich, whom she suspected of wanting to see her, though she never heard of more than their daily inquiries. Mrs. Pugh was, in spite of her exclusion, the great authority with the neighbourhood for all the tidings of 'the poor Wards,' of whom she talked with the warmest commiseration, relating every touching detail of their previous and present history, and continually enduring the great shock of meeting people in shops or in the streets, whom she knew to be reporters or photographers. In fact, the catastrophe had taken a strong hold on the public mind; and 'Murder of an Uncle by his Nephew,' 'The Blewer Tragedy,' figured everywhere in the largest type; newsboys on the railway shouted, 'To- day's paper-account of inquest;' and the illustrated press sent down artists, whose three-legged cameras stared in all directions, from the Vintry Mill to Bankside, and who aimed at the school, the Minster, the volunteers, and Dr. Hoxton himself. Tom