The Finger of Fate: A Romance
- -
- 100%
- +
Possession has been said to be nine points of the law. Coupled with wealth, it is generally so in the eyes of legal gentlemen, and often of juries.
The plaintiffs case appeared hopeless. Notwithstanding all that is known to the reader, it trembled on the edge of being decreed an attempt at usurpation, and he himself declared an attempted usurper and defrauder.
The trial had reached this crisis, and was expected soon to terminate.
But before the end came, the plaintiff’s counsel begged leave to call a witness, one who had already stood upon the stand, but on the side of the defendant. Then, he had been a witness against his own will – having to give testimony that seemed favourable to the plaintiff’s opponent.
The witness was Mr Lawson, of the firm of Lawson and Son, solicitors, of Lincoln’s Inn. It was the senior partner, Mr Lawson himself, who was called. As he took his place in the box, there was a twinkle in the old lawyer’s eye; that, although comical, seemed to have meaning of mischief in it. The “twelve good men and true” could not guess at what it meant, though they understood it before the examining counsel had done with him.
“You say General Harding received another letter from Italy?” questioned the latter, after Lawson senior had kissed the Book, and been put through the usual preliminaries of examination.
“I do.”
“I don’t mean either of those already submitted to the jury. The letter I refer to is one written, not by his son, but by the bandit chief, Corvino. Did General Harding receive such a letter?”
“He did.”
“You can prove that?”
“I can prove it; from his having told me he did, and placed it in my hands for safe keeping.”
“When did this occur?”
“Shortly before the General’s death. In fact, on the same day he made the will.”
“Which will?”
“The one under which the plaintiff claims.”
“You mean that was the date when he placed the letter in your hands?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell when the General received it?”
“I can. The postmark will show that: as also whence it came.”
“Can you produce this letter?”
“It is here.”
The witness took an epistle out of his pocket, and handed it to the examining counsel; who, in turn, passed it up to the judge.
It was a dingy-looking document, blotched over with postmarks, stained by travel, and a good deal embrowned by being kept several years in the atmosphere of a London law-office.
“My Lord,” said the plaintiff’s counsel, “I have to request that that letter be read to the gentlemen of the jury.”
“Certainly, let it be read,” was the response of his Lordship.
It was read. It was the letter which the chief Corvino had addressed to the father of his captive, conveying the terrible threat and still more fearful enclosure.
The reading caused “sensation in the court.”
“Mr Lawson,” pursued the same questioner, after the excitement had a little subsided, “may I ask you to state to the jury what you know about the enclosure spoken of in this letter? Tell us all about it.”
“I shall tell you what General Harding told me. He said he received in it a finger, which was that of his son. He recognised it by a scar well known to him: it was the scar of a cut given him by his elder brother, when they were boys out shooting together.”
“Can you tell what became of that finger?”
“I can. It is here. General Harding placed it in my hands, along with the letter in which it had been enclosed.”
The witness then handed up the finger spoken of. It was a ghastly confirmation of his testimony, and produced a tremendous sensation in court; which continued, long after Mr Lawson had been noticed to leave the witness-box.
“My Lord!” called out the plaintiff’s counsel, “I have one more witness to examine, and then we shall be done. This is Mr Henry Harding.”
“The gentleman who so calls himself!” interposed one of the barristers who had been briefed by the party for the defence.
“And who will so prove himself!” confidently retorted the plaintiff’s counsel.
By consent of the judge, the claimant was put upon the stand, and became emphatically the cynosure of every eye in the crowded court.
He was elegantly, though not foppishly dressed, wearing upon his hands a pair of stout dogskin gloves.
“May I ask you, sir,” said his counsel, “to draw off your gloves? The left-hand one will be enough.”
The request was complied with, the witness making no other answer.
“Now, sir, have the goodness to hold out your hand, so that the jury may see it.”
The hand was stretched forth. It wanted the little finger!
Increased sensation in the court!
“My Lord, and gentlemen of the jury, you perceive there is a finger missing? It is here.”
As the counsel said this, he stepped towards the witness-box, holding the strange object in his hand. Then, quietly raising the hand of his client, he placed the missing finger in juxtaposition with the stump, from which it had long ago been so cruelly severed.
There could be no doubt about the correspondence. The white cartilaginous seam that indicated the scar, commencing upon the back of the hand, and running longitudinally, was continued to the finger’s tip. The jury could not help being convinced. The claimant was Henry Harding.
The sensation in court had now come to its climax; and so had the trial to its end.
The case of “Harding versus Harding” was by an unanimous verdict decided in plaintiff’s favour – defendant “to pay costs in the suit!”
Chapter Sixty Six
What Became of Them
Six months after the trial I received an invitation to spend a week at Beechwood Park, and take a share in its shootings.
Start not, reader! My host was not Nigel Harding, nor my hostess his wife, née Belle Mainwaring. The new master and mistress of the mansion were both better people, and both old acquaintances, whom I had encountered in the campo of the Parana. They were Henry Harding and his fair Italian sposa, now fully put in possession of their English estate.
I was not the only guest they were entertaining. The house was full of company, among whom were the ci-devant sindico of the Val di Orno, his son, and South American daughter-in-law.
If Henry Harding had lost one of his fingers, he had recovered all his old friends, and added a host of others, while Lucetta was surrounded by her own kindred.
In the mansion of Beechwood Park there was as much cheer, and perhaps far more contentment, than when the unamiable Nigel and his equally unamiable wife had the ordering of its entertainments.
I never met either of them again; nor were they ever after seen in that neighbourhood. But I have heard of them: their life since then, though dark – compared with the splendour that had for a time surrounded it – has not been one that should be deemed unendurable.
The generous Henry did not prove resentful for the wrong his half-brother had done him. Though of different mothers, they were sons of the same father; and for that father’s sake, Henry abstained from any act of revenge. Not only this, but he behaved towards Nigel with a noble generosity. To the thousand pounds left to the latter, in the second will, he added several other thousands – giving Nigel enough to keep him and his wife from want, even in England.
But England was no longer a land to Nigel’s liking. No more did it suit the taste of Belle Mainwaring. No more that of Belle Mainwaring’s match-making mother, who had signally failed in her schemes.
India was the country for them, and to India they went – Nigel to become a resident magistrate, and perhaps mete out injustice to the talookdars – his wife to distribute bewitching smiles to various subalterns, captains, and colonels; while the mother would find solace in dealing out Oriental scandal.
Of most of the other characters who have been conspicuous in our tale I am able to record something of later date.
Mr Woolet is still pettifogging – still robbing a poor clientèle, out of sufficient to keep a carriage at their expense; but not enough to tempt being employed by the rich. Of these, General Harding was his first client, his son Nigel the last.
Doggy Dick in due time gave up being a bandit; not from any repentance, but because the life was to him a hard one. He had found brigandage in Italy not quite so safe, nor even so pleasant, as poaching in England.
He was stupid enough to return both to the country and the practice, now and then varying the latter with a job of burglary or garotting. The consequence was, getting his own neck into a noose as tight as ever he had twined for any of his victims. It was a halter he had already earned – by the deed of blood done before going abroad.
From the contemplation of such a dark character, let us turn to those of lighter and pleasanter complexion.
Tommaso – the wronged, misguided Tommaso – is no more either wronged or misguided. As head groom at Beechwood, he may be seen every day about the yard, or the stables, of that splendid establishment – faithful as ever to the man he rescued from captivity, and to the woman he was instrumental in saving from dishonour. To him is the writer of this tale indebted for a knowledge of much of the brigand life it has depicted.
Through the influence of his new client – the squire of Beechwood Park – Lawson père has succeeded in obtaining a seat in Parliament, and Lawson fils expects some day to tread in the footsteps of his father.
It is an agreeable task to record the after-fate of those who have agreeably interested us when we can speak only of their prosperity. And we can testify to this in the case of Luigi Torreani, his pretty wife, and his worthy father.
The three, after a prolonged sojourn among the Chiltern Hills, returned once more to their home upon the Parana – their home not only by adoption, but from choice. There they are still residing; the old Italian sindico playing patriarch, on his estancia; his son still living a life, part planter, part painter; while his daughter-in-law keeps house for both.
It is not improbable that, some day, his son-in-law and daughter may seek them there, for more than once has Henry Harding been heard to say – Lucetta joyfully listening to it – that he was never so happy as in his South American home!
And this, too, in the midst of wealth, power, and splendour! To the true heart, there is no wealth to compare with contentment – no power so enjoyable as that of free physical strength – no splendour of our so-called civilisation comparable to the savage charm of an American scene – be it forest, prairie, or pampa!
There lies the future of Freedom! There points the “Finger of Fate!”
The End