The Trial [196]
half-comprehending assents. Late in the afternoon he reached Stoneborough, found no one come in, and sat down in the fire-light, where, for all his impatience, fatigue had made him drop asleep, when he was roused by Gertrude's voice, exclaiming, 'Here really is Tom come, as you said he would, without writing. Here are all his goods in the hall.' 'Is it you, Tom!' cried Ethel. 'Notice or no notice, we are glad of you. But what is the matter?' 'Where's my father?' 'Coming. Charles Cheviot took him down to look at one of the boys. Is there anything the matter?' she added, after a pause. 'No, nothing.' 'You look very odd,' added Gertrude. He gave a nervous laugh. 'You would look odd, if you had travelled all night.' They commented, and began to tell home news; but Ethel noted that he neither spoke nor heard, only listened for his father. Gertrude grew tired of inattentive answers, and said she should go and dress. Ethel was turning to follow, when he caught hold of her cloak, and drew her close to him. 'Ethel,' he said, in a husky, stifled voice, 'do you know this?' On her knees, by the red fire-light, she saw the 'L. A. Ward,' and looked up. 'Is it?' she said. He bowed his head. And then Ethel put her arm round his neck, as he knelt down by her; and he found that her tears, her rare tears, were streaming down, silent but irrepressible. She had not spoken, had asked no question, made no remark, when Dr. Mays entrance was heard, and she loosed her hold on her brother, out without rising from the floor, looked up from under the shade of her hat, and said, '0, papa! it is found, and he has done it! Look there!' Her choked voice, and tokens of emotion, startled the Doctor; but Tom, in a matter-of-fact tone, took up the word: 'How are you, father?--Yes. I have only met with this little memorandum.' Dr. May recognized it with a burst of incoherent inquiry and exclamation, wringing Tom's hand, and giving no time for an answer; and, indeed, his son attempted none--till, calming himself, the Doctor subsided into his arm-chair, and with a deep sigh, exclaimed, 'Now then, Tom, let us hear. Where does this come from?' 'From the casualty ward at the Hotel Dieu.' 'And from--' 'He is dead,' said Tom, answering the unspoken question. 'You will find it all here. Ethel, do I sleep here to-night? My old room?' As he spoke, he bent to light a spill at the fire, and then the two candles on the side-table; but his hand shook nervously, and though he turned away his face, his father and sister saw the paleness of his cheek, and knew that he must have received a great shock. Neither spoke, while he put one candle conveniently for his father, took up the other, and went away with it. With one inquisitive glance at each other, they turned to the papers, and with eager eyes devoured the written narratives of Tom himself and of the attache, then, with no less avidity, the French reports accompanying them. Hardly a word was spoken while Ethel leant against her father's knee, and he almost singed his hair in the candle, as they helped one another out in the difficulties of the crooked foreign writing. 'Will it be enough?' asked Ethel, at last, holding her breath for the answer. 'If there is justice in England!' said Dr. May. 'Heaven forgive me, Ethel, this business has tried my trust more than anything that ever befell me; but it will all be right now, and righter than right, if that boy comes out what I think him.' 'And oh, how soon?' 'Not a moment longer than can be helped. I'd go up by the mail train this very night if it would do any good.' Tom, who reappeared as soon as he had spared himself the necessity of the narration, was willing and eager to set out; but Dr. May, who by this time had gathered some idea of what he had gone through, and saw that he was restless, nervous, and unhinged, began to reconsider the expedience of another night journey, and was, for once in his life, the person cool enough to see that it would be wisest to call Bramshaw into their counsels, and only that night to send up a note mentioning that they would