Part 43 (2/2)

She could not speak, but she lifted up her eyes, with infinite relief in all her sorrow, as for a moment she rested against him; but they had to move apart, for a servant came up with some wine, and Charles, putting her into a chair, began to wait on her and on his father.

”I have not quite forgotten my manners,” he said lightly, as if to relieve the tension of feeling, ”though in Germany the ladies serve the gentlemen.”

It was very hard not to burst into tears at these words, but Anne knew that would be the way to distress her companions and to have to leave the room and lose these precious moments. Sir Philip, after swallowing the wine, succeeded in saying, ”Have you been at home?”

Charles explained that he had landed at Gravesend, and had ridden thence, sleeping at Basingstoke, and taking the road through Winchester in case his parents should be wintering there, and on arriving a couple of hours previously and inquiring for them, he had heard the tidings that Sir Philip Archfield was indeed there, for his nephew was being tried for his life for the wilful murder of Major Oakshott's son seven years ago.

”And you had none of my warnings? I wrote to all the ports,” said his father, ”to warn you to wait till all this was over.”

No; he had crossed from Sluys, and had met no letter. ”I suppose,”

he said, ”that I must not ride home to-morrow. It might make my sureties uneasy; but I would fain see them all.”

”It would kill your mother to be here,” said Sir Philip. ”She knows nothing of what Anne told me on Sedley's arrest. She is grown very feeble;” and he groaned. ”But we might send for your sister, if she can leave her, and the boy.”

”I should like my boy to be fetched,” said Charles. ”I should wish him to remember his father--not as a felon convicted!” Then putting a knee to the ground before Sir Philip, he said, ”Sir, I ask your blessing and forgiveness. I never before thoroughly understood my errors towards you, especially in hiding this miserable matter, and leaving all this to come on you, while my poor Anne there was left to bear all the load. It was a cowardly and selfish act, and I ask your pardon.”

The old man sobbed with his hand on his son's head. ”My dear boy!

my poor boy! you were distraught.”

”I was then. I did it, as I thought, for my poor Alice's sake at first, and as it proved, it was all in vain; but at the year's end, when I was older, it was folly and wrong. I ought to have laid all before you, and allowed you to judge, and I sincerely repent the not having so done. And Anne, my sweetest Anne, has borne the burthen all this time,” he added, going back to her. ”Let no one say a woman cannot keep secrets, though I ought never to have laid this on her.”

”Ah! it might have gone better for you then,” sighed Sir Philip.

”No one would have visited a young lad's mischance hardly on a loyal house in those days. What is to be done, my son?”

”That we will discuss when the lawyer fellow comes. Is it old Lee?

Meantime let us enjoy our meeting. So that is Lucy's husband.

Sober and staid, eh? And my mother is feeble, you say. Has she been ill?”

Charles was comporting himself with the cheerfulness that had become habitual to him as a soldier, always in possible danger, but it was very hard to the others to chime in with his tone, and when a message was brought to ask whether his Honour would be served in private, the cheery greeting and shake of the hand broke down the composure of the old servant who brought it, and he cried, ”Oh, sir, to see you thus, and such a fine young gentleman!”

Charles, the only person who could speak, gave the orders, but they did not eat alone, for Sir Edmund Nutley and Sedley arrived with the legal advisers, and it was needful, perhaps even better, to have their company. The chief of the conversation was upon Hungarian and Transylvanian politics and the Turkish war. Mr. Harcourt seeming greatly to appreciate the information that Colonel Archfield was able to give him, and the anecdotes of the war, and descriptions of scenes therein actually brightened Sir Philip into interest, and into forgetting for a moment his son's situation in pride in his conduct, and at the distinction he had gained. ”We must save him,”

said Mr. Harcourt to Sir Edmund. ”He is far too fine a fellow to be lost for a youthful mischance.”

The meal was a short one, and a consultation was to follow, while Sedley departed. Anne was about to withdraw, when Mr. Lee the attorney said, ”We shall need Mistress Woodford's evidence, sir, for the defence.”

”I do not see what defence there can be,” returned Charles. ”I can only plead guilty, and throw myself on the King's mercy, if he chooses to extend it to one of a Tory family.”

”Not so fast, sir,” said Mr. Harcourt; ”as far as I have gathered the facts, there is every reason to hope you may obtain a verdict of manslaughter, and a nominal penalty, although that rests with the judge.”

On this the discussion began in earnest. Charles, who had never heard the circ.u.mstances which led to the trial, was greatly astonished to hear what remains had been discovered. He said that he could only declare himself to have thrown in the body, full dressed, just as it was, and how it could have been stripped and buried he could not imagine. ”What made folks think of looking into the vault?” he asked.

”It was Mrs. Oakshott,” said Lee, ”the young man's wife, she who was to have married the deceased. She took up some strange notion about stories of phantoms current among the vulgar, and insisted on having the vault searched, though it had been walled up for many years past.”

Charles and Anne looked at each other, and the former said, ”Again?”

”Oh yes!” said Anne; ”indeed there have been enough to make me remember what you bade me do, in case they recurred, only it was impossible.”

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