The Imperialist Read online

  Rawlins of the Express did not overdo the sensation which was caused in the court-room when the name of this lady herself was called to summon her to the witness-box. It was indeed the despair of his whole career. He thought despondingly ever after of the thrill, to which he himself was not superior, and which, if he had only been able to handle it adequately, might have led him straight up the ladder to a night editorship. Miss Belton appeared from some unsuspected seat near the door, throwing back a heavy veil, and walking as austerely as she could, considering the colour of her hair. She took her place without emotion, and there she corroborated the evidence of the servants of the hotel. To the grave questions of the prosecution she fluently replied that the distraction of these evenings had been cards – cards played, certainly, for money, and that she, certainly, had won very considerable sums from the defendant from time to time. In Elgin the very mention of cards played for money will cause a hush of something deeper than disapproval; there was silence in the court at this. In producing several banknotes for Miss Belton’s identification Mr. Cruickshank seemed to profit by the silence. Miss Belton identified them without hesitation, as she might easily, since they had been traced to her possession. Asked to account for them, she stated, without winking, that they had been paid to her by Mr. Walter Ormiston at various times during the fortnight preceding the burglary, in satisfaction of debts at cards. She, Miss Belton, had left Elgin for Chicago the day after the burglary. Mr. Ormiston knew that she was going. He had paid her the four fifty-dollar notes actually traced, the night before she left, and said, “You won’t need to break these here, will you?” He seemed anxious that she should not, but it was the merest accident that she hadn’t. In all, she had received from Mr. Ormiston four hundred and fifty dollars. No, she had no suspicion that the young man might not be in a position to make such payments. She understood that Mr. Ormiston’s family was wealthy, and never thought twice about it.

  She spoke with a hard dignity, the lady, and a great effect of doing business, a kind of assertion of the legitimate. The farmers of Fox County told each other in chapfallen appreciation that she was about as level-headed as they make them. Lawyer Cruickshank, as they called him, brought forth from her detail after detail, and every detail fitted damningly with the last. The effect upon young Ormiston was so painful that many looked another way. His jaw was set and his features contorted to hold himself from the disgrace of tears. He was generally acknowledged to be overwhelmed by the unexpected demonstration of his guilt, but distress was so plain in him that there was not a soul in the place that was not sorry for him. In one or two resolute faces hope still glimmered, but it hardly survived the cross-examination of the Crown’s chief witness by the counsel for the defence, which, as far as it went, had a perfunctory air and contributed little to the evidence before the Court. It did not go all the way, however. The case having opened late, the defence was reserved till the following day, when proceedings would be resumed with the further cross-examination of Miss Belton.

  As the defendant’s counsel went down the courthouse steps Rawlins came up to him to take note of his demeanour and anything else that might be going.

  “Pretty stiff row to hoe you’ve got there, Lorne,” he said.

  “Pretty stiff,” responded Lorne.

  ELEVEN

  Imagination, one gathers, is a quality dispensed with of necessity in the practice of most professions, being that of which nature is, for some reason, most niggardly. There is no such thing as passing in imagination for any department of public usefulness, even the government of Oriental races; the list of the known qualified would be exhausted, perhaps, in getting the papers set. Yet neither poet nor philosopher enjoys it in monopoly; the chemist may have it, and the inventor must; it has been proved the mainspring of the mathematician, and I have hinted it the property of at least two of the Murchisons. Lorne was indebted to it certainly for his constructive view of his client’s situation, the view which came to him and stayed with him like a chapter in a novel, from the hour in which Ormiston had reluctantly accounted for himself upon the night of the burglary. It was a brilliant view, that perceived the young clerk the victim of the conspiracy he was charged with furthering; its justification lay back, dimly, among the intuitions about human nature which are part of the attribute I have quoted. I may shortly say that it was justi fied; another day’s attendance at the Elgin Courthouse shall not be compulsory here, whatever it may have been there. Young Ormiston’s commercial probity is really no special concern of ours; the thing which does matter, and considerably, is the special quality which Lorne Murchison brought to the task of its vindication, the quality that made new and striking appeal, through every channel of the great occasion, to those who heard him. It was that which reinforced and comforted every friend Ormiston had in the court-room, before Lorne proceeded either to deal with the evidence of the other side, or to produce any jot or tittle of his own; and it was that which affected his distinguished opponent to the special interest which afterwards showed itself so pleasantly superior to the sting of defeat. The fact that the defence was quite as extraordinarily indebted to circumstantial evidence as the prosecution in no way detracted from the character of Lorne’s personal triumph; rather, indeed, in the popular view and Rawlins’s, enhanced it. There was in it the primitive joy of seeing a ruffian knocked down with his own illegitimate weapons, from the moment the dropped formula was proved to be an old superseded one, and unexpected indication was produced that Ormiston’s room, as well as the bank vault, had been entered the night of the robbery, to the more glorious excitement of establishing Miss Belton’s connection – not to be quoted – with a cracksman at that moment being diligently inquired for by the New York police with reference to a dramatically bigger matter. You saw the plot at once as he constructed it; the pipe ash became explicable in the seduction of Miss Belton’s charms. The cunning net unwove itself, delicately and deliberately, to tangle round the lady. There was in it that superiority in the art of legerdemain, of mere calm, astonishing manipulation, so applauded in regions where romance has not yet been quite trampled down by reason. Lorne scored; he scored in face of probability, expectation, fact; it was the very climax and coruscation of score. He scored not only by the cards he held but by the beautiful way he played them, if one may say so. His nature came into this, his gravity and gentleness, his sympathy, his young angry irony. To mention just one thing, there was the way he held Miss Belton up, after the exposure of her arts, as the lady for whom his client had so chivalric a regard that he had for some time refused to state his whereabouts at the hour the bank was entered in the fear of compromising her. For this, no doubt, his client could have strangled him, but it operated, of course, to raise the poor fellow in the estimation of everybody, with the possible exception of his employers. When, after the unmistakable summing-up, the foreman returned in a quarter of an hour with the verdict of “Not guilty,” people noticed that the young man walked out of court behind his father with as drooping a head as if he had gone under sentence; so much so that by common consent he was allowed to slip quietly away. Miss Belton departed, followed by the detective, whose services were promptly transferred to the prosecution, and by a proportion of those who scented further entertainment in her perfumed, perjured wake. But the majority hung back, leaving their places slowly; it was Lorne the crowd wanted to shake hands with, to say just a word of congratulation to, Lorne’s triumph that they desired to enhance by a hearty sentence, or at least an admiring glance. Walter Winter was among the most genial.

  “Young man,” he said, “what did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you you ought to take this case?” Mr. Winter, with his chest thrust out, plumed and strutted in justifiable pride of prophecy. “Now, I’ll tell you another thing: to-day’s event will do more for you than it has for Ormiston. Mark my words!”

  They were all of that opinion, all the fine foretellers of the profit Lorne should draw from his spirited and conspicuous success; they stood about in knots
discussing it; to some extent it eclipsed the main interest and issue of the day, at that moment driving out, free and disconsolate, between the snake-fences of the South Riding to Moneida Reservation. The quick and friendly sense of opportunity was abroad on Lorne Murchison’s behalf; friends and neighbours and Dr. Drummond, and people who hardly knew the fellow, ex changed wise words about what his chance would do for him. What it would immediately do was present to nobody so clearly, however, as to Mr. Henry Cruickshank, who decided that he would, after all, accept Dr. Drummond’s invitation to spend the night with him, and find out the little he didn’t know already about this young man.

  That evening the Murchisons’ doorbell rang twice. The first time it was to admit the Rev. Hugh Finlay, who had come to return Sordello, which he had borrowed from Advena, and to find out whether she thought with him about the interpretation of certain passages, and if not – there was always the possibility – wherein their divergence lay. The second time the door opened to Dr. Drummond and Mr. Cruickshank; and the electric light had to be turned on in the drawing-room, since the library was already occupied by Mr. Finlay and Advena, Mr. and Mrs. Murchison never having got over their early habit of sitting in the dining-room after tea. Even then Mrs. Murchison had to put away her work-basket, and John Murchison to knock the ashes out of his pipe, looking at one another with surprised inquiry when Eliza informed them of their visitors. Luckily, Mr. Lorne was also in, and Eliza was sent to tell him, and Mr. Lorne came down the stairs two at a time to join the party in the drawing-room, which was presently supplied by Eliza with a dignified service of cake and wine. The hall divided that room from the library, and both doors were shut. We cannot hesitate about which to open; we have only, indeed, to follow the recognized tradition of Elgin, which would never have entered the library. No vivid conclusion should be drawn, no serious situation may even be indicated. It would simply have been considered, in Elgin, stupid to go into the library.

  “It isn’t a case for the High Commissioner for Canada,” Mr. Cruickshank was saying. “It’s a case for direct representation of the interests concerned, and their view of the effect upon trade. That’s the only voice to speak with if you want to get anything done. Conviction carries conviction. The High Commissioner is a very useful fellow to live in London and look after the ornamental, the sentimental, and immigration – nobody could do it better than Selkirk. And in England, of course, they like that kind of agency. It’s the good old dignified way; but it won’t do for everything. You don’t find our friend Morgan operating through the American equivalent of a High Commissioner.”

  “No, you don’t,” said John Murchison.

  “He goes over there as a principal, and the British Government, if he wants to deal with it, is only another principal. That’s the way our deputation will go. We’re practically all shippers, though of course the matter of tenders will come later. There is big business for them here, national business, and we propose to show it. The subsidy we want will come back to the country four times over in two years. Freights from Boston alone –”

  “It’s the patriotic, imperial argument you’ll have to press, I doubt,” said John Murchison. “They’re not business people over there – the men in office are not. How should they be? The system draws them from the wrong class. They’re gentlemen – noblemen, maybe – first, and they’ve no practical education. There’s only one way of getting it, and that’s to make your own living. How many of them have ever made tuppence? There’s where the Americans beat them so badly – they’ve got the sixth sense, the business sense. No; you’ll not find them responding greatly to what there is in it for trade – they’d like to well enough, but they just won’t see it; and, by George! what a fine suspicion they’ll have of ye! As to freights from Boston,” he continued, as they all laughed, “I’m of opinion you’d better not mention them. What! steal the trade of a friendly Power! Tut, tut!”

  It was a long speech for John Murchison, but they were all excited to a pitch beyond the usual. Henry Cruickshank had brought with him an event of extraordinary importance. It seemed to sit there with him, significant and propitious, in the middle of the sofa; they all looked at it in the pauses. Dr. Drummond, lost in an armchair, alternately contemplated it and remembered to assert himself part of it. As head of a deputation from the United Chambers of Commerce of Canada shortly to wait on the British Government to press for the encouragement of improved communications within the Empire, Cruickshank had been asked to select a secretary. The appointment, in view of the desirability, for political reasons, of giving the widest publicity to the hopes and motives of the deputation, was an important one. The action of the Canadian Government, in extending conditional promises of support, had to be justified to the Canadian taxpayer; and that shy and weary person whose shoulders uphold the greatness of Britain, had also to receive such conciliation and reassurance as it was possible to administer to him, by way of nerving the administrative arm over there to an act of enterprise. Mr. Cruickshank had had two or three young fellows, mostly newspaper men, in his mind’s eye; but when Lorne came into his literal range of vision, the others had promptly been retired in our friend’s favour. Young Mr. Murchison, he had concluded, was the man they wanted; and if his office could spare him, it would probably do young Mr. Murchison no harm in any sort of way to accompany the deputation to London and throw himself into the matter the deputation had at heart.

  “But it’s the Empire!” said Lorne, with a sort of shy fire, when Mr. Cruickshank enunciated this.

  We need not, perhaps, dwell upon the significance of his agreement. It was then not long since the maple leaf had been stained brighter than ever, not without honour, to maintain the word that fell from him. The three older men looked at him kindly; John Murchison, rubbing his chin as he considered the situation, slightly shook his head. One took it that in his view the Empire was not so readily envisaged.

  “That has a strong bearing,” Mr. Cruickshank assented.

  “It’s the whole case – it seems to me,” repeated young Murchison.

  “It should help to knit us up,” said Dr. Drummond. “I’ll put my name down on the first passenger list, if Knox Church will let me off. See that you have special rates,” he added, with a twinkle, “for ministers and missionaries.”

  “And only ten days to get him ready in,” said Mrs. Murchison. “It will take some seeing to, I assure you; and I don’t know how it’s to be done in the time. For once, Lorne, I’ll have to order you ready-made shirts, and you’ll just have to put up with it. Nothing else could possibly get back from the wash.”

  “I’ll put up with it, mother.”

  They went into other details of Lorne’s equipment while Mrs. Murchison’s eye still wandered over the necessities of his wardrobe. They arranged the date on which he was to meet the members of the deputation in Montreal, and Mr. Cruickshank promised to send him all available documents, and such presentation of the project as had been made in the newspapers.

  “You shall be put in immediate possession of the bones of the thing,” he said, “but what really matters,” he added, pleasantly, “I think you’ve got already.”

  It took, of course, some discussion, and it was quite ten o’clock before everything was gone into, and the prospect was clear to them all. As they emerged into the hall together, the door of the room opposite also opened, and the Rev. Hugh Finlay found himself added to their group. They all made the best of the unexpected encounter. It was rather an elaborate best, very polite and entirely grave, except in the instance of Dr. Drummond, who met his subaltern with a smile in which cordiality struggled in vain to overcome the delighted humour.

  TWELVE

  It was the talk of the town, the pride of the market-place, Lorne Murchison’s having been selected to accompany what was known as the Cruickshank deputation to England. The general spirit of congratulation was corrected by a tendency to assert it another proof of sagacity on the chairman’s part; Elgin wouldn’t be too flattered; Lawyer
Cruickshank couldn’t have done better. You may be sure the Express was well ahead with it. “Honour to Our Young Fellow Townsman. A Well-Merited Compliment,” and Rawlins was round promptly next morning to glean further particulars. He found only Mrs. Murchison, on a step-ladder tying up the clematis that climbed about the verandah, and she told him a little about clematis and a good deal about the inconvenience of having to abandon superintending the spring cleaning in order to get Lorne ready to go to the old country at such short notice, but nothing he could put in the paper. Lorne, sought at the office, was hardly more communicative. Mr. Williams himself dropped in there. He said the Express would now have a personal interest in the object of the deputation, and proposed to strike out a broad line, a broader line than ever.