UNDER A BAN.

Patea Mail, 20 January 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

UNDER A BAN.

IN TWO .CHAPTERS. ■ . Chapter I. : One of the most curious cases that ever came under my notice in a long course of criminal practice was not brought into any court,, and, as I believe, has never been published until now. The details of the affair came under my personal cognizance in the following manner :r—----,ln 1858 I went down into the Shenandoah Valley to spend my summer vacation among the innumerable Pages, Marshalls, and Cookes who all hailed me as. cousin, by right of traditional inter-marriages generations back. My first visit was to the- house of M'Cormick Beardsley, a kinsman and school-fellow whom I had not seen since we parted at the university twenty years before. ; l '• ■ We were both grey-haired, old .fellows now, but I had grown thin and sharp in the courts of Baltimore and Washington, while he had lived quietly bn his plantation, more fat and jovial and genial with every year. Beardsley possessed large means then, and maintained the unlimited hospitality usual among large Virginia planters before the war. The house was crowded during my stay with my old friends from the valley and southern countries. His daughter, too, was not only a beauty, but a favourite among the young people, and brought many attractive well-bred girls about her, and young men who were not so attractive or well-bred. Lack of occupation and a definite career had reduced the sons of too many Virginia families at that time to cards and horses as their sole pursuits; the war, while it left them penniless, was in one sense their salvation.

One evening, sitting on the verandah with Beardsley, smoking, and looking in the open windows of the parlour, I noticed a woman who sat a little apart, and who, as I fancied, was avoided by the younger girls. In a Virginia country - party there are always two or three unmarried women; past their first youth, with merry blue eyes,, brown hair, and delicate features—women with ” a history,” but who.are none the less good dancers, riders, and able to put all their cleverness into the making of a pie of a match for their cousins. This woman was blueeyed and brown-haired, but she had none of the neat, wide-awake, self-possession of her class. She had a more childish expression, and spoke with a more timid uncertainty than even Lottie ‘ Beardsley; who was still in the schoolroom. I called, riiy host’s attention to her and asked who she was.

“ It is the daughter of my cousin, General George Waring! You remember him surely—of the Henrico branch of Waring P ” “Certainly. But he had ; only one child— Louisa; and I remember receiving an invitation to her wedding, years ago.” “ Yes. This is Louisa. The wedding never took place. It’s an odd story,” he said, after a pause, “ and the truth is, Floyd, I brought the girl here while you were with us in the hope that you, with your legal acumen, could solve, the mystery that surrounds her. I’ll give the facts to you tomorrow—its impossible to do it now. But tell me, in the meantime, how she impresses you, looking at her as a lawyer would at a client or a—a prisoner on trial. Do you observe anything peculiar in her face or manner?”

“ I observed a very peculiar manner in all those about her—an effort at cordiality in which they did not succeed; a certain constraint in look and tone while speaking to her. I even saw it in yourself, just now as soon as you mentioned her name.” ,f You did ?, lam sorry for that —exceedingly sorry ! ” anxiously. “ I believe in Louisa Waring’s innocence as I do in that of my own child ; and if I thought she was hurt or neglected in tills house—But there’s a cloud on the girl, Floyd —that’s a fact. It don’t amount even to suspicion, if it did, one could argue it down. But —well, what do you make of her—her face now ? ” “ It is not an especially clever face, nor one that indicates power of any kind j not the face of a woman who of her own will would be the hero of any remarkable story. I should judge her to have been a few years ago one of the.sensible, light-hearted, sweettempered girls of whom there are so many in Virginia ; a nice housekeeper, and one who would have made a tender wife and mother.-” “ Well, well ? Nothing more ? ”

“ Yes, She has not matured into womanhood as such girls do. She looks as if her growth in every-day experiences had stopped years ago ; that while her body grew older her mind had halted, immature, and incomplete. A great grief might have had that effect, or the absorption of all her faculties by one sudden mastering idea.” “You are a little too metaphysical for me,” said Beardsley. “ Poor Lou isn’t shrewd by any means, and always gives me the feeling that- she needs care; and protec-

tion more than most women, if that is what you mean.” “There is a singular expression in her face at times/’I resumed. “Ah ! Now you have it! ”he muttered. “Sitting there in your parlour, where there is certainly nothing to dread, she has glanced behind and about her again and again, as though she heard a sound that frightened her. I observed, too, that when any man speaks to her she fixes on him, a keen, suspicious look. - She does not have it with women. It passes quickly, but it is there. It is precisely the expression of an insane person, or a guilty one dreading arrest.” “ You are a close observer, Floyd. I told my wife that we could not do better than submit the whole case to your judgment. ;We are all Lou’s friends in the neighbourhood; but we cannot look at the matter with your legal experience and unprejudiced eyes. ; Come, let us go in to supper now.” The next morning I was summoned to Beardsley’s “ study ” (so called probably from the total absence of either book or newspaper), and found himself and his wife awaiting, me ; and also a Dr. Scheffer, whom I had previously noticed among the. guests —a gaunt, hectic young man, apparently on tKe iiig’la road to death, the victim of an incurable consumption. ■ “ I asked William Scheffer to meet us here,” said Mr. Beardsley, “ as Louisa Waring was an inmate of his father’s .house at the time of the occurrence. She and William were children and playmates together. I believe I am right, William. You know all the circumstances of that terrible night ? ” , ;, , ' ... , ; ■ The young man’s heavy face changed painfully. " Yes| as much as was known to anyone but Louisa, and—the guilty man, whoever he was. But why are you dragging but that wretched affair ? ” turning angrily on Mrs. Beardsley. “ Surely any friend of Miss Waring’s . would try to bury the past for her!” “No,” said the lady, calmly. “It has been buried quite too long in: my opinion ; for she has carried her burden for six years. It is time now that we should try to lift it for her. You are sitting in a draught, William. Sit on the sofa.”

Scheffer, coughing frightfully, and complaining with all the testiness of a longhumoured invalid, was disposed of .at last, and Beardsley began: “ The story is briefly this : Louisa, before, her father’s death, was engaged to be married to Colonel Paul Merrick (Merricks of Clarke County, you know.) The wedding was postponed for ; a year when General Waring died, and Louisa went to her uncle’s —your father, William—to live during that time. When the year was over'eyery preparation was unade for the marriage; invitations were sent to! all the! kinsfolk ion iboth* sides (and that included three or four counties, on a rough.guess), and we—the immediate family were assembled; at Major Scheffer’s 1 preparing' for- the grand event ; Beardsley became now excessively hofand flurried, and getting up, > thumped heavily up. and down the r00m.,, . " After, all, there is nothing to tell. Why should we bring in a' famous lawyer to sit in judgment on her as if the girl were a criminal? She only : did; ; Floyd, what women have done since thej beginning—-changed he.r mind without reason. Paul Merrick was as clever and loveable, a young fellow as you would find in the State, and Louisa was faithful to him—she’s faithful to him yet ; but on thenight before the wedding- she refused to marry him, and has persisted in the refusal ever since, without assigning a cause.” “Is that all the story ?” I asked.

Beardsley was silent, ’; - “ No,” said his wife [gently; “that is not all. I thought McCormack’s courage would fail before he gave, you the facts. I shall try and tell you—” “ Only the facts; if you please; without any inferences or opinions of others.” The old lady paused for a moment and then began: “ A couple of. days before the wedding we went over toMajor Scheffer's to help prepare for it. You know we have no restauraunts nor confectioners to depend upon, and such occasions are busy seasons. The gentlemen, played whist, rode about the plantation, or tried the Major’s.wines, while indoors we, all .of us—married ladies and girls and a dozen old aunties—were at work with cakes, cream, .and pastry. I recollect I took over our cook,-True, because. Lou fancied nobody could make such wine-jelly as hers. Then;Lou’s trousseau was a very rich one, and she wanted to try on all her pretty dresses that we might see how—” r ‘ “My dear,”; interrupted Mr. Beardsley, this really appears irrelevant to the matter—” .. ■_ . ... - ; Not at all., I wish Mr. Floyd to gain an, idea of Loiusa’s. temper arid mood at that time. The truth; m she was: passionately 1 fond of her lover, and very happy that her marriage was so near ; and being a modest little thing,; she hid her feeling under an incessant merry chatter about dress and jellies. Don’t you agree with ine, WillihiV?” The sick man turned on the sofa with a laugh, which looked ghastly enough on his haggard face. “ I submit, Aunt Sophie, that it is hardly fair,to call me in as a witness in this case.! I waited on Lou for two of three years, Mr. Floyd, and she threw me over for Merrick. It is not likely that I was an unprejudiced observer of her moods just then.” “ Nonsense,, William, I knew that was but the idlest flirtation between you, or I should not have brought you here, now,” said his aunt.”

“ Well, Mr. Floyd, the preparations all were completed on the afternoon before the wedding. Some of . the young people had gathered in the library—Paul Merrick and his sisters and—you were there, William ? ” “ Yes, I was there.” “ And they persuaded Lou to put on her wedding-dress and veil to give them a glimpse of the bride. I think it was Paul vvho wished it. He was a hot, eager, young fellow, and he was impatient t6 taste his happiness by anticipation. It was a dull, gusty afternoon in October. 1 remember the contrast she made to the grey, cold day as she came in, shy and blushing, and her eyes sparkling, in her haze of white, and stood in front of the window. She was so lovely and pure that we were all silent. It seemed as if she belonged then to her lover alone, and none of us had a right to utter a word. He went up to her, but no one heard what he said, and then took her by the hand and led her reverently to the door. Presently I met her coming out of her chamber in a cloak and hat. Her maid Abby was inside, folding the white dress and veil. ‘ I am going down to Aunt Huldah’s,’ Lou said to me. ‘I promised her to come again before I was married and tell her the ai’rangements all over once more.’ Hnldah was an old coloured woman, Lou’s nurse, who lived down oh the creek’s bank and had long been bedridden. I remember that ! said to Louisa that the walk would be long and lonely, and told her to call Paul to accompany her. She hesitated a moment, and then turned to the door, saying Huldah would probably be in one of her most funereal moods, and that she would po£ have Paul troubled on the eve of his wedding,day. She started,- funning ; and ‘Woking

back with a laugh down the hill.” Mrs ■Beardsley faltered and stopped.

: “Go on,” said Dr. Scheffer. “ The incidents which follow are all that really affect Louisa’s guilt.or innocence.” “Goon, mother,” said Beardsley, hastily.. “ Louisa’s innocence is not called in question. Remember that. Tell everything you know without scruple.” The old lady began again in a lower voice: “We expected an arrival, that afternoon - Houston Simms, a distant kinsman of Major Scheffer’s. He was from Kentucky—a large owner of blooded stock—and was on his way home from New York, where his horses had just won the prizes at the fall races. He. had,promised to stop for the wedding, and the carriage had been sent to the station, to meet him. The station, as you know, is five miles up the road. By some mistake the carriage was late, and Houston started, with his valise in his hand,to-walk to-the house, making a short cut through the woods.. When 'the carriage came back empty, and the driver told this to us, some of the young men started down to meet the old gentleman.. It was then about four o’clock, and growing dark rapidly. The wind, I recollect, blew sharply, and a' cold rain set in. I came out on the long porch, and walked up and down, feeling uneasy and annoyed at Louisa’s prolonged - absence- ' - Colonel Merrick, who had been looking for her all through the house, had just learned from me where she had, gone, and was starting with umbrellas to meet her, when she came suddenly up to us,’ crossing the ploughed field, not from the direction of Huldah’s’ cabin, but from the road. We both hurried toward her ; but when she caught sight of Colonel Merrick, she stopped short, putting out her hands with a look of terror and misery r quite indescribable. ‘ Take me away; from him ! Oh, for, God’s sake ! ’ she cried., I saw she had suffered some great shock, and taking , her in my arras, led hex in, motioning him to keep back. She was so weak as to fall, but did not faint; nor lose consciousness for a single moment! All night she lay, her eyes .wandering from side to side as in momentary expectancy of the appearance of someone.,. No anodyne had any effect upon her —every nerve seemed strained to its utmost tension. But she did not! speak a word except ; at the sound of Colonel Merrick’s voice or step, when she would beg piteously that he should be kept away from her.. Toward morning she fell into a kind of stupor, and when she awoke appeared to be calmer: She beckoned to me, and asked . that her Uncle Scheffer: and Judge Grove, her other, guardian, should be; sent for. She received them -standing, appatently quite grave and composed. She,' asked that several other persons should' be called in, desiring, she said, to have as many witnesses as possible to, what she was about-toi-make.known. ‘ You all know,’- she said,, ‘ that to-morrow was to have, been my wedding-day, ‘ I wish you pow to 'bear, witness that ! refuse tb-ddy or at- any futiird 1 time to marry Paul Merrick; and that 'no> argument or persuasion will induce me todo so. i And ..I; wish,’ raising, her hand tq keep silence-— ‘ I wish 'to say publicly;that it, is ho fault or ill,-doing of Colonel Merrick’s' that has driven me to this, resolve. !: I hay 1 this as in the sight of Almghty God.’ Nobody argufed, or scarcely ' indeed, spokq to her. Everyone saw that sh ( e vsras, physically, a very ill. woman j, and it was,commonly be-, liev.ed that she bad received’ some sudden' shock which had unhinged 1 her mind.’ ; ■Ah hour afterward the searching party came: in (for the young men not finding Houstoh; Simms, had gone out again, to search for. him). They had found his dead body con-' cealed in the woods by. Mill’s spring. Yeti’ know the place. There was a pistol shot through the head, i and a /leathern pocketbook, which had apparently, contained money, was found empty a few feet away. That, was the end of it all, Mr. Floyd.” .

“You mean that Simms’ 1 murderer was never found P ”

“Never,” said Beardsley, “ though detectives were brought down from Richmond and set on the track. , Their theory—-a plausible one enough, too—was. that Simms had been followed from New York by men who knew the large sum he carried from the races, and that they had robbed and murdered him, and readily escaped through the swamps.”, •: .... “It never was my belief,” said Dr. Scheffer, “ that he was murdered at all. It v\as hinted ;.that he had stopped in a gambling house, in New York,. and there lost whatever sum he had won at the races; and that rather than meet his family in debt and penniless, he blew but his brains in the first lonely place to which he came. That explanation was plain enough.” 1 ; ■ : . , “ What was the end of the story so far as Miss Waring was.concerned ? ”• I asked.... “ Unfortunately, it never has had an end,” said " Mrs. - ;, Beardsley. “ The mystery remains." 1 ' Shewas ill'afterWards ; indeed; it was years before she! regained her bodily strength as before. But her mind has never been unhinged, as Paul Merrick thought. He waited patiently, thinking that some day her reason would return, and she would come back to him. But Louisa Waring was perfectly sane, even hi the midst of her agony, on that night. From; that day until how she has never by word; or look given any clue by which the reason of her refusal to marry him could be discovered. Of course the murder and her strange conduct produced a great excitement in this quiet neighbourhood. But you can imagine. all that. I simply have given you the facts which bear oh the case.”

“The first suspicion, 1 suppose; rested on Merrick ? ” I said. “Yes. The natural explanation of her conduct was that she had witnessed an encounter in the woods between Simms and her lover, in which the old man was killed. Fortunately, however, Paul Merrick had not left the house once during the afternoon until he; went out with me to meet her.” “And then Miss Waring was selected as the guilty party ? ” No one answered for a moment. Young Scheffer lay with his arm over his face, which had grown so worn and haggard as the story was told that; I doubted whether his affection for the girl had been the slight matter which he had chosen to represent itl “No,” said Beardsley, “she never" was openly accused, nor even subjected to any public interrogation. She came'to the house in the opposite direction from the spot where the murder took place. And there was no rational proof that she had any cog: nisance of it. But there were not wanting busy bodies to ' suggest that . she' had met Simms in the woods, and at .some proffered insult from him had fired the fatal shot.’’ His wife’s fair old face flushed. “ How can ■ you repeat such • absurdity, ‘ McCormack ? ” she said. “ Louisa Waring was as likely to go about armed as—asT! ” knitting vehemently at a woollen stocking she , had held idly until now. ; “I know it was absurd, my dear. But you know as well as I that though it was but the mere breath of suspicion, it has always clung to the girl and set her apart, as it were, from other women.” ; ,; “What effect did that report have on Merrick?” 1 asked. *• The effect' it would have on any* man deserving the name,” isaid Be&rdsleyv If ■he loved her passionately ; before, sfeb*hks

been, ! believe, doubly dear to hi mi since. ■ But she has never aUowed him to meet her since that night.” | “ You think her feeling is unchanged for him ? ” . I have no doubt of it,” Mrs. Beardsley said. “ There is nothing in Lou’s nature out of which you could make a heroine of tragedy. After the first shock of that night was over she was just the commonplace little body she was before, and could not help showing how fond she was of her old lover. But she quietly refused to ever see him again.” " Merrick went abroad three years ago,” interposed her husband. “I’ll let you into a secret, Floyd. I’ve determined there shall be an end of this folly. I have heard from him that he will be at home next week, and is as firm as ever in his resolve to marry Miss Waring. I brought her here so that' she could not avoid meeting him. Now, if you, Floyd, could only manage—could loot into this matter before the meeting, and set it to rights, clear the poor child of this wretched suspicion that hangs about her ? Well, how you know why I have told you the story.” “ You have certainly a sublime faith in Mr. Floyd’s skill,” said Scheffer with a digt agreeable laugh. “I wish him success.’** He -rose with, difficulty, and wrapping- his shawl about him, went feebly out of the room. “ William is soured through his long illness,” Beardsley hastened to say apologetically. “ And he cared more for Lou than I supposed. We were wrong to bring him in this morning j ” and he hurried out to help him up the stairs. Mrs. Beardsley laid down her knitting, and glanced cautiously about her. I saw. that the vital point of her testimony had been omitted until now. “T think it but right to tell you—nobody, has ever heard of it before” —coming close to me, her old face quite pale. When I undressed Louisa that night her shoes and stocking were stained, and a long reddish hair clung to her sleeve. She had irodderi over the Moody ground and handled the murdered man." Every professional man will understand me when I say I was glad to hear this; Hitherto the girl’s whim and the murder appeared to me two events connected only, by the accident of occurrence on the same day. Now there was but one mystery to solve. . (To he continued.)