The House of the White Shadows

CHAPTER II

THE WHITE SHADOW

He entered the room with a cloud upon his face. Gautran's horrible confession had deeply moved him, and, almost for the first time in his life, he found himself at fault. His heart was heavy, and his mind was troubled; but he had never yet lost his power of self-control, and the moment he saw his guests the mask fell over his features, and they assumed their usual tranquil expression. He greeted one and another with calmness and courtesy, leaving his wife and Christian Almer to the last.

"I am happy to tell you, Adelaide," he said, "that the trial is over."

"Oh, we have already had the news," she said coldly. "Fool Fritz has given us a glowing account of it, and the excitement the verdict created."

"Did it create excitement?" he asked. "I was not aware of it."

"I take no interest in such cases, as you are aware," she rejoined. "You knew the man was innocent, or you would not have defended him. It is a pity the monster is set free."

"Last, but not least," said the Advocate, turning to Christian Almer, and cordially pressing his hand. "Welcome, and again welcome! You have come to stay?"

Adelaide answered for him:

"Certainly he has: I have his promise."

"That is well," said the Advocate. "I am glad to see you looking so bright, Christian."

"You have not derived much benefit from your holiday," said Christian Almer, gazing at the Advocate's pale face. "Was it wise to take upon yourself the weight of so harassing a trial?"

"Do we always do what is wise?" asked the Advocate, with a smile in which there was no light.

"But seldom, I should say," replied Almer. "I once had great faith in the power of Will; but I am beginning to believe that we are as completely slaves to independent forces as feathers in a fierce wind: driven this way or that in spite of ourselves. Not inward, but outward magnetism rules us. Perhaps the best plan is to submit without a struggle."

"Of course it is," said Adelaide with a bright look, "if it is pleasant to submit. It is ridiculous to make one's head ache over things. I can teach you, in a word, a wiser lesson than either of you have ever learnt."

"What is that word, Adelaide?" asked the Advocate.

"Enjoy," she replied.

"A butterfly's philosophy. What say you, Christian? Shall we follow the teaching of this Solon in petticoats?"

"May I join you?" said Pierre Lamont, who had caused himself to be drawn to this group. "My infirmities make me a privileged person, and unless I thrust myself forward, I might be left to languish like a decrepit spider in a ruined web."

"Ill-natured people," remarked Adelaide, "might say that your figure of speech is a dangerous one for a lawyer to employ."

"Fairest of dames," said Pierre Lamont, "your arrows are sugar-tipped; there is no poison in them. Use me as your target, I beg. You put new life into this old frame."

"The old school can teach the new," said Christian Almer. "You should open a class of gallantry, Master Lamont."

"I! with my useless limbs! You mock me!"

"He will not allow me to be angry with him," said Adelaide, smiling on the lawyer.

Then Pierre Lamont drew the Advocate into a conversation on the trial which the Advocate would gladly have avoided, could he have done so without being considered guilty of a breach of courtesy. But Pierre Lamont was not a man to be denied, and the Advocate was fain to answer the questions put to him until the old lawyer was acquainted with every detail of the line of defence.

"Excellent-excellent!" he exclaimed. "A masterstroke! You do not share my enthusiasm," he said, addressing Jacob Hartrich, who had stood silently by, listening to the conversation. "You have no understanding of the intense, the fierce delight of such a battle and such a victory."

"The last word is not spoken here on earth," said Jacob Hartrich. "There is a higher tribunal."

"Well said, my son," said Father Capel.

"Son!" said Pierre Lamont to the banker, with a little scornful laugh. "Resent the familiarity, man of another faith."

"Better any faith than none," warmly remarked Jacob Hartrich, cordially taking the hand which Father Capel held out to him.

"Good! good! good!" cried Pierre Lamont. "I stand renounced by church and synagogue."

"You are uncharitable only to yourself," said Father Capel. "I, for one, will not take you at your word."

Pierre Lamont lowered his eyes. "You teach me humility," he said.

"Profit by it," rejoined Father Capel.

"You formed the opinion that Gautran was guilty," said Pierre Lamont to the banker. "Upon what evidence?"

"Inward conviction," briefly replied Jacob Hartrich.

"You, at least," said Pierre Lamont, turning his wily face to Father Capel, "although you look at human affairs through Divine light, have a respect for the law."

"Undoubtedly," was the reply.

"But this man of finance," said Pierre Lamont, "would destroy its very fabric when it clashes with his inward conviction. Argue with him, and your words fall against a steel wall, impenetrable to logic, reason, natural deduction, and even common sense-and behind this wall lurks a self-sufficient imp which he calls Inward Conviction. Useful enough, nay, necessary, in religion, for it needs no proof. Faith answers for all. Accept, and rest content. I congratulate you, Jacob Hartrich. But does it not occur to you that others, besides yourself, may have inward convictions antagonistic to yours, and that occasionally theirs may be the true conviction and yours the false? Our friend the Advocate, for instance. Do you think it barely possible that he would have undertaken the defence of Gautran unless he had an inward conviction, formed upon a sure foundation, that the man was innocent of the crime imputed to him?"

It was with some indignation that Jacob Hartrich replied, "That a man of honour would voluntarily come forward as a defender under any conditions than that of the firmest belief in the prisoner's innocence is incredible."

"We agree upon this point I am happy to know, and upon another-that in the profession to which I have the honour to belong, there are men whose actions are guided by the highest and finest principles, and whose motives spring from what I conceive to be the most ennobling of all impulse, a desire for justice."

"Who can doubt it?"

"How, then, stands the case as between you and my brother the Advocate? You have an inward conviction of Gautran's guilt-he an inward conviction of Gautran's innocence. Up to a certain time you and he are on an equality; your knowledge of the crime is derived from hearsay and newspaper reports. Upon that evidence you rest; you have your business to attend to-the value of money, the fluctuations of the Exchanges, the public movements which affect securities, in addition to the anxieties springing from your private transactions. The Advocate cannot afford to depend upon hearsay and the newspapers. It is his business to investigate, to unearth, to bring together the scattered bones and fit them one with another, to reason, to argue, to deduce. As all the powers of your mind are brought to bear upon your business, which is money, so all the powers of his mind are brought to bear upon his, which is Gautran, in connection with the crime of which he stands accused. His inward conviction of the man's innocence is strengthened no less by the facts which come to light than by the presumptive evidence he is enabled by his patience and application to bring forward in favour of his client. You and he are no longer on an equality. He is a man informed, you remain in ignorance. He has dissected the body, and all the arteries of the crime are exposed to his sight and judgment. You merely raise up a picture-a dark night, a river, a girl vainly struggling with her fate, a murderer (with veiled face) flying from the spot, or looking with brutal calmness upon his victim. That is the entire extent of your knowledge. You seize a brush-you throw light upon the darkness-you paint the river and the girl-you paint the portrait of the murderer, Gautran. All is clear to you. You have formed your own court of justice, imagination affords the proof, and prejudice is the judge. It is an easy and agreeable task to find the prisoner guilty. You are satisfied. You believe you have fulfilled a duty, whereas you have been but a stumbling-block in the path of justice."

"Notwithstanding which," said Jacob Hartrich, who had thoroughly recovered his good humour, "I have as firm a conviction as ever in the guilt of Gautran the woodman."

"Admonish this member of a stiff-necked race, Father Capel," said Pierre Lamont, "and tell him why reason was given to man."

Earnest as the old lawyer was in the discussion, and apparently engaged in it to the exclusion of all other subjects, he had eyes and ears for everything that passed in the room. Retirement from the active practice of his profession had by no means rusted his powers; on the contrary, indeed, for it had developed in him a finer and more subtle capacity of observation. It gave him time, also, to devote himself to matters which, at an earlier period of his life, he would have considered trivial. Thus, when he moved in private circles, freed from larger duties, there lurked in him always a possible danger, and although he would not do mischief for mischief's sake, he was irresistibly drawn in its direction. The quality of his mind was such as to seek out for itself, and unerringly detect, human blemish. He was ready, when it was presented to him, to recognise personal goodness, but while he recognised he did not admire it. The good man was in his eyes a negative character, pithless, uninteresting; his dominant qualities, being on the surface, presented no field for study. He himself, as has already been seen, was not loth to bestow money in charity, but he was destitute of benevolence; his soul never glowed with pity, nor did the sight of suffering touch his heart. While goodness did not attract him, he took no interest in the profligate or dissolute. His magnet was of the Machiavellian type. Cunning, craft, duplicity, guile-here he was at home in his glory. As easy to throw him off the scent as a bloodhound.

Chiefly on this occasion was his attention given to the Advocate's wife. Not a movement, not a gesture, not a varying shade of expression escaped him. Any person, noting his observance of her, would have detected in it nothing but admiration; and to this conclusion Adelaide herself-she knew when she was admired-was by no means averse. But his eye was upon her when she was not aware of it.

"Have I not heard of a case," asked a guest of Pierre Lamont, "in which a lawyer defended a murderer, knowing him to be guilty?"

"Yes," said Pierre Lamont, "there was such a case. The murder was a ruthless murder; the lawyer a man of great attainments. His speech to the court was eloquent and thrilling, and in it he declared his solemn belief in the prisoner's innocence, and made an appeal to God to strengthen the declaration. It created a profound impression. But the evidence was conclusive, and the prisoner was found guilty. It then transpired that the accused, in his cell, had confessed to his advocate that he had perpetrated the murder."

"Confessed before his trial?"

"Yes, before the trial."

"What became of the lawyer?"

"He was ruined, socially and professionally. A great career was blighted."

"A deserved punishment," remarked Father Capel.

"Yet it is an open question," said Pierre Lamont, "whether the secrets of the prison-cell should not be held as sacred as those of the confessional."

"Nothing can justify," said Father Capel, "the employment of such an appeal, used to frustrate the ends of justice."

"Then," said Pierre Lamont with malicious emphasis, "you admit the doctrine of responsibility. Your prompting of evil spirits, what becomes of it?"

Father Capel did not have time to reply, for a cry of terror from a visitor gave an unexpected turn to the gossip of the evening, and diverted it into a common channel. The person who had uttered this cry was the youngest daughter of Jacob Hartrich. She had been standing at a window, the heavy curtains of which she had held aside, in an idle moment, to look out upon the grounds, which were wrapped in a pall of deep darkness. Upon the utterance of her terrified scream she had retreated into the room, and was now gazing with affrighted eyes at the curtains, which her loosened hold had allowed to fall over the window. Her mother and sister hurried to her side, and most of the other guests clustered around her. What had occasioned her alarm? When she had sufficiently recovered she gave an explanation of it. She was looking out, without any purpose in her mind, "thinking of nothing," as she expressed it, when, in a distant part of the grounds, there suddenly appeared a bright light, which moved slowly onward, and within the radius of this light, of which it seemed to form a part, she saw distinctly a white figure, like a spirit. The curtains of the window were drawn aside, and all within the room, with the exception of Pierre Lamont, who was left without an audience, peered into the grounds below.

Nothing was to be seen; no glimpse of light or white shadow; no movement but the slight stir of leaf and branch, but the young lady vehemently persisted in her statement, and, questioned more closely, declared that the figure was that of a woman; she had seen her face, her hair, her white robe.

The three persons whom her story most deeply impressed were the Advocate's wife, Christian Almer, and Father Capel. With the Advocate it was a simple delusion of the senses; with Jacob Hartrich, "nerves." Christian Almer and Father Capel went out to search the grounds, and when they returned reported that nothing was to be seen.

During this excitement Pierre Lamont was absolutely unnoticed, and it was not till a groan proceeded from the part of the room where he sat huddled up in the wheeled chair in which he was imprisoned that attention was directed to him. He was evidently in great pain; his features were contracted with the spasms which darted through his limbs.

"It almost masters me," he said to the Advocate, as he laughed and winced, "this physical anguish. I will not allow it to conquer me, but I must humour it. I am tempted to ask you to give me a bed to-night."

"Stop with us by all means," said the Advocate; "the night is too dark, and your house too far, for you to leave while you are suffering."

So it was arranged, and within half an hour all the other guests had taken their departure.

CHAPTER III

THE WATCH ON THE HILL

For more than twenty years the House of White Shadows may be said to have been without a history. Its last eventful chapter ended with the death of Christian Almer's father, the tragic story of whose life has been related by Mother Denise. Then followed a blank-a dull uniformity of days and months and years, without the occurrence of a single event worthy of record in the annals of the family who had held the estate for four generations. The doors and windows of the villa were but seldom opened, and on those rare occasions only by Mother Denise, who had too strict a regard for the faithful discharge of her duties to allow the costly furniture to fall into decay. Suddenly all this was altered. Light and life reigned again. Startling was the transformation. Within a few short weeks the House of White Shadows had become the centre of a chain of events, in which the affections which sway and the passions which dominate mankind were displayed in all their strangest variety.

At a short distance from the gate, on this dark night, upon the rise of a hill which commanded a view of the villa, sometimes stood and sometimes lay a man in the prime of life. Not a well-looking man, nor a desirable man, and yet one who in his better days might have passed for a gentleman. Even now, with the aid of fine feathers, he might have reached such a height in the judgment of those who were not given to close observation. His feathers at the present time were anything but fine-a sad fall, for they have been once such as fine birds wear; no barn-door fowl's, but of the partridge's quality. So that, between the man and his garments, there was something of an affinity. He was tall and fairly presentable, and he bore himself with a certain air which, in the eyes of the vulgar, would have passed for grace. But his swagger spoilt him; and his sensual mouth, which had begot a coarseness from long and unrestrained indulgence, spoilt him; and the blotches on his face spoilt him. His hands were white, and rings would have looked well on them, if rings ever looked well on the hands of a man-which may be doubted.

As he stood, or lay, his eyes were for the chief part of his time fixed on the House of White Shadows. Following with precision his line of sight, it would have been discovered that the point which claimed his attention were the windows of the Advocate's study. There was a light in them, but no movement.

"Yet he is there," muttered the man, whose name was John Vanbrugh, "for I see his shadow."

His sight unassisted would not have enabled him to speak with authority upon this, but he held in his hand a field-glass, and he saw by its aid what would otherwise have been hidden from him.

"His guests have gone," continued John Vanbrugh, "and he has time to attend to me. I have that to sell, Edward, which it is worth your while to purchase-nay, which it is vital you should purchase. Every hour's delay increases its price. It must be near midnight, and still no sign. Well, I can wait-I can wait."

He had no watch to take count of the time, which passed slowly; but he waited patiently nevertheless, until the sound of footsteps, approaching in his direction, diverted his attention. They came nearer, nearer, until this other wanderer of the night was close upon him.

"Who," he thought, "has taken it into his head to come my way? This is no time for honest men to be about."

And then he said aloud-for the intruder had paused within a yard of him:

"What particular business brings you here, friend, and why do you not pass on?"

A sigh of intense relief escaped the breast of the newcomer, who was none other than Gautran. With the cuff of his shirt he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and muttered in a grateful tone:

"A man's voice! That is something to be thankful for."

The sound of this muttering, but not the words, reached Vanbrugh's ears.

"Well, friend?" said Vanbrugh, who, being unarmed, felt himself at a disadvantage.

"Well?" repeated Gautran.

"Are you meditating an attack upon me? I am not worth the risk, upon my honour. If you are poor, behold in me a brother in misfortune. Go to a more profitable market."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I'll take your word for it. Pass on, then. The way is clear for you."

He stepped aside, and observed that Gautran took step with him instead of from him.

"Are you going to pass on?" asked Gautran.

"Upon my soul this is getting amusing, and I should enjoy it if I were not angry. Am I going to pass on? No, I am not going to pass on."

"Neither am I."

"In the name of all that is mischievous," cried Vanbrugh, "what is it you want?"

"Company," was the answer, "till daylight. That is all. You need not be afraid of me."

"Company!" exclaimed Vanbrugh. "My company?"

"Yours or any man's. Something human-something living. And you must talk to me. I'm not going to be driven mad by silence."

"You are a cool customer, with your this and that. Are you aware that you are robbing me?"

"I don't want to rob you."

"But you are-of solitude. And you appropriate it! No further fooling. Leave me."

"Not till daylight."

"There is something strange in your resolve. Let me have a better look at you."

He laid his hand upon Gautran's shoulder, and the man did not resent the movement. In the evening, when he had arrived in Geneva, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the court-house; therefore, Gautran being otherwise a stranger to him, he did not recognise in the face of the man he was now looking into, and which he could but dimly see in consequence of the darkness of the night, the prisoner whose trial for murder had caused so great an excitement.

"If I am any judge of human nature," he said, "you are in a bad way. I can see sufficient of you to discern that from a social point of view you are a ruin, a very wreck of respectability, if your lines ever crossed in that direction. In which respect I, who was once a gentleman, and am still, cannot deny that there is something of moral kinship between us. This confers distinction upon you-upon me, a touch of obloquy. But I am old enough not to be squeamish. We must take the world as we find it-a villainous world! What say you?"

"A villainous world! Go on talking."

Vanbrugh stood with his face towards the House of White Shadows, watching for the signal he had asked the Advocate to give him. Gautran, facing the man upon whom he had forced his company, stood, therefore, with his back to the villa, the lights in which he had not yet seen.

"Our condition may be borne," continued Vanbrugh, "with greater or lesser equanimity, so long as we feed the body-the quality of our food being really of no great importance, so far as the tissues are concerned; but when the mind is thrown off its balance, as I see by your eyes is the case with you, the condition of the man becomes serious. What is it you fear?"

"Nothing human."

"Yet you are at war with society."

"I was; but I am a free man now."

"You have been in peril, then-plainly speaking, a gaol-bird. What matters? The world is apt to be too censorious; I find no fault with you for your misfortune. Such things happen to the best of us. But you are free now, you say, and you fear nothing in human shape. What is it, then, you do fear?"

"Were you ever followed by a spirit?" asked Gautran, in a hoarse whisper.

"A moment," said Vanbrugh. "Your question startles me. I have about me two mouthfuls of an elixir without which life would not be worth the living. Share and share alike."

He produced a bottle containing about a quarter of a pint of brandy, and saying, "Your health, friend," put it to his lips.

Gautran watched him greedily, and, when he received the bottle, drained it with a gasp of savage satisfaction.

"That is fine, that is fine!" he said; "I wish there were more of it."

"To echo your wish is the extent of my power in the direction of fulfilment. Now we can continue. Was I ever followed by a spirit? Of what kind?"

"Of a woman," replied Gautran with a shudder.

"Being a spirit, necessarily a dead woman!"

"Aye, a dead woman-one who was murdered."

A look of sudden and newly-awakened intelligence flashed into Vanbrugh's face. He placed his hand again upon Gautran's shoulder.

"A young woman?" he said.

"Aye," responded Gautran.

"Fair and beautiful?"

"Yes."

"Who met her death in the river Rhone?'

"Aye-it is known to all the world."

"One who sold flowers in the streets of Geneva-whose name was Madeline?"

The utterance of the name conjured up the phantom of the murdered girl, and Gautran, with violent shudders, gazed upon the spectre.

"She is there-she is there!" he muttered, in a voice of agony. "Will she never, never leave me?"

These words confirmed Vanbrugh's suspicion. It was Gautran who stood before him.

"Another winning card," he said, in a tone of triumph, and with a strange smile. "The man is guilty, else why should he fear? Vanbrugh, a life of ease is yours once more. Away with these rags, this money-pinch which has nipped you for years. Days of pleasure, of luxury, are yours to enjoy. You step once more into the ranks of gentlemen. What would the great Advocate in yonder study think of this chance encounter, knowing-what he has yet to learn-that I hold in my hands what he prizes most-his fame and honour?"

Gautran heard the words; he turned, and followed the direction of Vanbrugh's gaze.

"There is but one great Advocate, the man who set me free. He lives yonder, then?"