Foxwood court was alive with gaiety. At least, what stood for gaiety in that inwardly sad and sober house. Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve had come for a fortnight's stay. Visits were being exchanged with the neighbours; dinner parties reigned. It was not possible for Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian to accept hospitality and not return it: and--at any rate during the sojourn of the Colonel and his wife--Sir Karl dared not shut themselves up as hermits lest comment should be excited. So the Court held its receptions, and went out to other people's: and Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian dressed, and talked, and comported themselves just as though there was no shadow between them.
Lady Andinnian was growing graver day by day: her very heart seemed to be withering. That Sir Karl paid his secret visits to the Maze at night two or three times a week, she knew only too well. One of the most innocent and naturally unsuspicious persons in the world was she: but, now that her eyes had been opened, she saw all clearly. Without watching and tracking the movements of her husband as Miss Blake had tracked them; in her guileless honour she could never have done that; Lady Andinnian was only too fully awake now to the nightly strolls abroad of her husband, and instinct told her for what purpose they were taken.
Life for her at this present time seemed very hard to bear. The task she had imposed on herself--to endure in patience and silence--seemed well nigh an impracticable one. The daily cross that she had apportioned herself to take up felt too heavy for mortal frame to carry. Humiliation, jealousy, love, waged war with each other within her, and rendered her very wretched. It needed all the good and gentle and patient principles instilled into her from early childhood, it needed all the strength she was ever praying for, to hold on perseveringly in her bitter path, and make no sign. At times she thought that the silence to which she was condemned must eat away her heart; but a chance occurrence or two showed her that silence was not the worst phase she might have to bear.
On the day after Mrs. Cleeve's arrival, she was upstairs in her daughter's chamber. Miss Blake was also there. Lucy had come in, hot and tired, from at afternoon walk to Margaret Sumnor's, and Aglaé had been summoned to help her to change her silk dress for an unpretending muslin.
"I did not know it was so hot before I went out, or I would not have put on the silk," observed Lucy, "Sitting so quietly with you all the morning, mamma, in that cool drawing-room, talking of old times, I forgot the heat."
Mrs. Cleeve made no particular reply. She was looking about her; taking silent notice. The doors of communication to the further chamber stood open, as was usual during the day: Lucy took care of that, to keep down suspicion in the house of there being any estrangement between herself and her husband.
"And you have made this your sleeping room, Lucy, my dear?" observed Mrs. Cleeve.
"Yes, mamma."
"And that further one is Sir Karl's! Well, I'm sure you are getting quite a fashionable couple--to have separate rooms. I and your papa never had such a thing in our lives, Lucy."
Lucy Andinnian grew crimson; as if a flush of the summer heat were settling in her face. She murmured, in reference to the remarks, some words about the nights being so very hot, and that she had felt a sort of fever upon her. The very consciousness of having the truth to conceal caused her to be more urgent in rendering some plea of excuse. Aglaé, whose national prejudice had been particularly gratified at the alteration, and who had lived too long in Mrs. Cleeve's service to keep in whatever opinion might rise to her tongue's end, hastened to speak.
"But, and is it not the most sensible arrangement, madame, that my lady and Sir Karl could have made, when the summer is like an Afric summer for the hotness? Mademoiselle here knows that."
"Don't appeal to me, Aglaé," cried Miss Blake, in a frozen tone.
"Yes, yes, Aglaé; I say the fashion is coming up in England; and perhaps it induces to comfort," said Mrs. Cleeve.
"But certainly. And, as madame sees"--pointing through the little sitting-room to the further chamber--"it is but like the same chamber. When Sir Karl is in that and my lady in this, they can look straight at one another."
"Aglaé, see to these shoulder-knots," sharply interposed Lady Andinnian. "You have not put them on evenly."
"And talk to each other too, if they please," persisted Aglaé, ignoring the ribbons to uphold her opinion. "Madame ought to see that the arrangement is good."
"At any rate, Lucy, I think you should have kept to the large room yourself, and Sir Karl have come to the smaller one," said Mrs. Cleeve.
"It's the very remark I made to my lady," cried Aglaé, turning at length to regard the ribbons with a critical eye. "But my lady chose herself this. It is commodious; I say nothing to the contrary; but it is not as large as the other."
Oh how Lucy wished they would be silent. Her poor flushed face knew not where to hide itself; her head and heart were aching with all kinds of perplexity. Taking up the eau-de-cologne flask, she saturated her handkerchief and passed it over her brow.
"Has my lady got ache to her head!"
"Yes. A little. Alter these ribbons, Aglaé, and let me go."
"It is because of this marvellous heat," commented Aglaé. "Paris this summer would not be bearable."
Aglaé was right in the main; for it was an unusually hot summer. The intense heat began with Easter, and lasted late into autumn. In one sense it was favourable to Lucy, for it upheld her given excuse in regard to the sleeping arrangements.
Miss Blake had stood all the while with in-drawn lips. It was a habit of hers to show it in her lips when displeased. Seeing always the doors open in the day-time, no suspicion of the truth crossed her. She believed that what she had disclosed to Lucy was no more to her than the idle wind, once Sir Karl had made good his own false cause.
A question was running through Miss Blake's mind now--had been in it more or less since Mrs. Cleeve came: should she, or should she not, tell that lady what she knew' She had deliberated upon it; she had set herself to argue the point, for and against; and yet, down deep in her heart from the first had laid the innate conviction that she should tell. In the interests of religion and morality, she told herself that she ought not to keep silence; for the suppression of iniquity and deceit, she was bound to speak. Had Lucy but taken up the matter rightly, there would have been no necessity for her to have again interfered: neither should she have done it. But Lucy had set her communication at naught: and therefore, in Miss Blake's judgment, the obligation was laid upon her. Why--how could she, who was only second to the Rev. Guy Cattacomb in the management and worship at St. Jerome's, and might have been called his lay curate; who prostrated herself there in prayer ever so many times a day, to the edification and example of Foxwood--how could she dare to hold cognizance of a mine of evil, and not strive to put an end to it, and bring it home to its enactors? Every time she went to that holy shrine, St. Jerome's, every time she came back from it, its sacred dust, as may be said, hallowing her shoes, she had to pass those iniquitous gates, and was forced into the undesirable thoughts connected with them!
If Miss Blake had wavered before, she fully made her mind up now; now, as she stood there in the chamber, the conversation dying away on her ears. Aglaé was attending to the shoulder-knots; Lucy was passive under the maid's hands; and Mrs. Cleeve had wandered into the little intermediate sitting-room. No longer a dressing-room; Lucy had given it up as such when she changed her chamber. She had some books and work and her desk there now, and sat there whenever she could. Miss Blake stood on, gazing from the window and perfecting her resolution. She thought she was but acting in the strict line of wholesome duty, just as disinterestedly as the Archbishop of Canterbury might have done: and she would have been very much shocked had anybody told her she was only actuated by a desire of taking vengeance on Karl Andinnian. She wanted to bring home a little confusion to him; she hoped to see the young lady at the Maze turned out of the village amidst an escorting flourish of ironical drums and shrieking fifes, leaving Foxwood Court to its peace. But Miss Blake was in no hurry to speak: she must watch her opportunity.
They were engaged to dine the following day at a distance, four or five miles off; a ball was to follow it. When the time came, Lady Andinnian, radiant in her white silk bridal dress, entered the reception-room leaning on the arm of her good-looking husband. Who could have dreamt that they were living on ill terms, seeing them now? In public they were both cautiously courteous to each other, observing every little obligation of society: and in truth Karl at all times, at home and out, was in manner affectionate to his wife.
Two carriages had conveyed them: and, in going, Lucy had occupied one with her father; Karl, Mrs. Cleeve, and Miss Blake the other. Lucy had intended to return in the same order, but found she could not. Colonel Cleeve, unconscious of doing wrong, entered the carriage with his wife and Miss Blake: Lucy and her husband had to sit together. The summer's night was giving place to dawn.
"I fear you are tired, Lucy," he kindly said, as they drove off.
"Yes, very. I wish I was at home."
She drew her elegant white cloak about her with its silken tassels, gathered herself into the corner of the carriage, and shut her eyes, seemingly intending to go to sleep. Sleep! her heart was beating too wildly for that. But she kept them resolutely closed, making no sign; and never another word was spoken all the way. Sir Karl helped her out: the others had already arrived.
"Good night," she whispered to him, preparing to run up the stairs.
"Good night, Lucy."
But, in spite of Lady Andinnian's efforts to make the best of things and show no sign, a mother's eye could not be deceived; and before Mrs. Cleeve had been many days in the house, she was struck with the underlying aspect of sadness that seemed to pervade Lucy. Her cheerfulness appeared to be often forced; this hidden sadness was real. Unsuspecting Mrs. Cleeve could come to but one conclusion--her daughter's health must be deranged.
"Since when have you not felt well, Lucy?" she asked her confidentially one day, when they were alone in Lucy's littlesitting-room.
Lucy, buried in a reverie, woke up with a start at the question. "I am very well, mamma. Why should you think I am not?"
"Your spirits are unequal, Lucy, and you certainly do not look well; neither do you eat as you ought. My dear, I think--I hope--there must be a cause for it."
"What cause?" returned Lucy, not taking her meaning.
"We should be so pleased to welcome a little heir, my dear. Is it so?"
Lucy--she had just dressed for dinner, and dismissed Aglaé--coloured painfully. Mrs. Cleeve smiled.
"No, mamma, I think there is no cause of that kind," she answered, in a low, nervous tone. And only herself knew the bitter pang that pierced her as she remembered how certain it was that there could be no such cause for the future.
But Mrs. Cleeve held to her own private opinion. "The child is shy in these early days, even with me," she thought. "I'll say no more."
One morning during this time, Karl was sitting alone in his room, when Hewitt came to him to say Smith the agent was asking to see him. Karl did not like Smith the agent: he doubted, dreaded, and did not comprehend him.
"Will you see him, sir?" asked Hewitt, in a low tone, perceiving the lines on his master's brow.
"I suppose I must see him, Hewitt," was the reply--and the confidential, faithful servant well understood the force of the must. "Show him in."
"Beg pardon for disturbing you so early, Sir Karl," said the agent, as Hewitt brought him in and placed a chair. "There's one of your small tenants dropping into a mess, I fancy. He has got the brokers in for taxes, or something of that kind. I thought I'd better let you know at once."
Hewitt shut the door, and Karl pushed away the old letters he had been sorting. Sir Joseph's papers and effects had never been examined yet; but Karl was settling to the work now. That Mr. Smith had spoken in an unusually loud and careless tone, he noticed: and therefore judged that this was but the ostensible plea for his calling, given lest any ears should be about.
"Which of my tenants is it, Mr. Smith!" he quietly asked.
Mr. Smith looked round to be sure that the door was closed, and then asked Sir Karl if he'd mind having the window shut; he felt a bit of a draught. And he shut the glass doors himself with his one hand, before Karl could assent to the proposal, or rise to do it himself.
"It is Seaford the miller," he answered. "And"--dropping his voice to the lowest and most cautious tone--"it is a fact that he has the brokers in for some arrears of Queen's rates. But the man has satisfied me that it is but a temporary embarrassment; and I think, Sir Karl, your rent is in no danger. Still it was right that you should know of it; and it has served, just in the nick of time, to account for my object in coming."
"What is the real object?" inquired Karl, in a voice as cautious as the other voice.
Mr. Smith took a newspaper out of the pocket of his light summer coat; borrowed his disabled hand from the sling to help unfold it, and then, pointed to a small paragraph. It ran as follows:--
"Curious rumours are afloat connected with a recorded attempt at escape from Portland Island, in which the unfortunate malefactor met his death. A mysterious whisper has arisen, we know not how or whence, that the death was but a fiction, and that the man is at large."
"What paper is it?" cried Karl, trying to force some colour into his white lips.
"Only one in which all kinds of stories are got up," rejoinedMr. Smith, showing the title of a sensational weekly paper. "The paragraph may have resulted from nothing but the imagination of some penny-a-liner, Sir Karl, at fault for real matter."
"I don't like it," observed Karl, after a pause. "Assume that it may be as you suggest, and nothing more, this very announcement will be the means of drawing people's thoughts towards it."
"Not it," spoke Mr. Smith. "And if it does?--nobody will think it points to Sir Adam Andinnian. Another prisoner has been killed since then, trying to escape."
"How do you know that?"
"Idoknow it," replied Mr. Smith, emphatically. But he advanced no further proof. "It was a curious thing, my getting this paper," he continued. "Yesterday I was over at Basham, mistook the time of the returning train, and found when I reached the station that I had to wait three-quarters of an hour. The only newspapers on the stand were these weekly ones; I bought this to while away the time, and saw the paragraph."
"These events, looked upon as chances and errors, are in reality ordained," spoke Karl dreamily. "What can be done, Mr. Smith?"
"Nothing; nothing, Sir Karl. There's nothing to do. He is safe enough where he is--even if the rumour did come to be looked into by the law's authorities. Rely upon it, the Maze will never be suspected."
"I wish to heaven he had never come to the Maze!" was Karl Andinnian's pained rejoinder.
"It might be better on the whole that he had not," acknowledged Mr. Smith. "The plan originated with himself and with the late Mrs. Andinnian--and they carried it out."
"I wish," said Karl, speaking upon sudden impulse, "that you would allow me to know how you became connected with this affair of my unfortunate brother--and what you still have to do with it."
"How I became connected with it does not signify," was the short and ready answer. "As to what I have to do with it still, you know as well as I. I just watch over him--or rather the place that contains him--and if danger should arise I shall be at hand to, I hope, give him warning and to protect him from it."
"He ought to be got away from the Maze," persisted Karl.
"He'd never get away in safety. Especially if there's anything in this"--striking his hand on the newspaper paragraph. "With my consent, he will never try to."
Karl did not answer; but he thought the more. That this man was the true impediment to his brother's escape; that he was in fact keeping him where he was, he believed with his whole heart. Once Sir Adam could be safe away from the kingdom, Mr. Smith no doubt foresaw that he might no longer enjoy Clematis Cottage to live in, or the handsome sum which he received quarterly. A sum that Mrs. Andinnian had commenced to pay, and Karl did not dare to discontinue. The words were but a confirmation of his opinion. Mr. Smith was Adam's enemy, not friend; he was keeping him there for his own self-interest: and Karl feared that if Adam attempted to get away in spite of him, he might in revenge deliver him up to justice. In dangers of this secret kind, fear has no limit.
"He could not be as safe anywhere in England as here," concluded Mr. Smith, as if he divined Karl's thoughts. "The police would suspect every hole and corner of the country, every town, little and big, before they would suspect his own home. As to the sailing away for another land, the danger of his recognition would be too great both on the voyage and on embarking for it, for him to dare it. He'd be discovered as sure as apple-trees grow apples."
"Will it be better to tell him of this!" cried Karl, alluding to the newspaper.
"I think not. Just as you please, though, Sir Karl. Rely upon it, it is only what I suggest--an emanation from some penny-a-liner's inventive brain."
"The paper had better be burnt," suggested Karl.
"The very instant I get home," said Mr. Smith, putting the paper in his pocket and taking his hat from the table. "I wish I could burn the whole impression--already gone forth to the world. I'll go out this way, Sir Karl, if you will allow me."
Opening the glass doors again, he stepped across the terrace to the lawn, talking still, as though continuing the conversation. Other windows stood open, and the agent was cautious.
"I'll be sure to see Seaford in the course of the day. You may trust to me not to let any of them get behind-hand with their rents. Good morning, Sir Karl."
The agent, however, did not turn into his house. Deep in thought, he strolled on, up the road, his free hand in his light coat pocket, his head bent in meditation. He wished he could obtain some little light as to this mysterious announcement; he fancied he might be able to. On he strolled, unthinkingly, until he came to St. Jerome's, the entrance door of which edifice was ajar.
"Holding one of their services," thought the agent. "I'll have a look in, and see Cattacomb surrounded by his flock of lambs."
Mr. Smith was disappointed: for the reverend gentleman was not there. It appeared to be the hour for cleaning the room, instead of one for holding service. Four or five young ladies, their gowns turned up round their waists and some old gloves on, were dusting, sweeping, and brushing with all their might and main; Miss Blake presiding as high priestess of the ceremonies.
"They'd not do such a thing in their own homes to save their lives," laughed the agent, coming softly out again unseen. "Cattacomb must be in clover among 'em!"
He went home then, looked attentively once more at the alarming paragraph, and burnt the newspaper. After that, he paced his little garden, as if in a fit of restlessness, and then leaned over the gate, lost in reflection. The trees of the Maze were perfectly still in the hot summer air; the road was dusty and not a single passenger to be seen on it.
A few minutes, and footsteps broke upon his ear. They were Miss Blake's, bringing her home from St. Jerome's. She stopped to shake hands.
"Well," said he, with a laugh, "all the scrubbing done?"
"How do you know anything about the scrubbing?" returned Miss Blake.
"I looked in just now, and saw you all at it, dusting and brushing, and thought what an enviable young priest that Cattacomb must be. Now, my lad! don't ride over us if you can help it."
The very same butcher-boy, in the same blue frock, had come galloping up to the Maze gate, rung the bell, and was now prancing backwards across the road on his horse, which was very restive. Something appeared to have startled the animal; and it was to the boy the last remark had been addressed. Miss Blake stepped inside the garden gate, held open for her--for the horse seemed to think the path his own ground as well as the highway.
"He have been shoed this morning, and he's always in this dratted temper after it," spoke the boy gratuitously.
The woman-servant came out with her dish, received some meat, and disappeared again, taking care to lock the gate after her. She had never left it unlocked since the unlucky day when Miss Blake got in. Glancing over the road, she saw the lady and the agent watching her, and no doubt recognized the former.
"Looks like a faithful servant, that," remarked Mr. Smith.
"Faithful," echoed Miss Blake--"well yes, she does. But to what a mistress! Fidelity to such a person does her no credit."
Mr. Smith turned as grave as a judge. "Hush!" said he, impressively. "Unless one has sure and good ground to go upon, it is better not to assume evil."
"No ground was ever surer than this."
"My dear young lady, you may be utterly mistaken."
She liked the style of address from him--my dearyounglady: it flattered her vanity. But she would not give way.
"I have seen what I have seen, Mr. Smith. Sir Karl Andinnian would not be stealing in there at night, if it were proper for him to be going in the open day."
"Never speak of it," cried Mr. Smith, his tone one of sharp, strong command. "What could you prove? I ask, Miss Blake, what you could prove--if put to it?"
She did not answer.
"Why, nothing, madam. Absolutelynothing. How could you?"
Miss Blake considered. "I think there's a good deal of negative proof," she said, at length.
"Moonshine," cried Mr. Smith. "Negative proof in a case of this kind always is moonshine. Listen, my dear Miss Blake, for I am advising you now as a good friend. Never breathe a word of this matter to living soul. You don't know what the consequences to yourself might be."
"Consequences to myself!"
"To yourself, of course: there's no one else in question--at least in my mind. You might be sued for libel, and get sentenced to pay heavy damages and to a term of imprisonment besides. For goodness sake, be cautious! Remember Jane Shore! She had to stand in the pillory in a white sheet in the face and eyes of a gaping multitude, a lighted taper in her hand."
"Jane Shore!" cried Miss Blake, who at the above suggestion had begun to go as pale as she could well go. "Jane Shore! But that was not for libel. It was for--for--"
Miss Blake broke down.
"Shoreditch is named after her, you know," put in Mr. Smith. "Poor thing! she was very lovely: raven hair and eyes of a violet blue, say the old chronicles. Keep your own counsel, young lady, implicitly--and be silent for your own sake."
Miss Blake said good morning, and walked away. The prospect suggested to her, as to the fine and imprisonment, looked anything but a pleasant one. She resolved henceforth tobesilent; to Mrs. Cleeve and to all else: and, under the influence of this new and disagreeable suggestion, she wished to her heart she had never opened her lips to Lady Andinnian.
"Meddlesome tabby cat," aspirated the gallant Mr. Smith. "She might play up Old Beans with her tongue. Women are the very deuce for being ill-natured to one another."
Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve had departed again, and the time went on. Foxwood Court was comparatively quiet. The opening visits on all sides had been paid and returned, and there was a lull in the dinner parties. The weather continued most intensely hot; and people were glad to be still.
Never had poor Lucy Andinnian felt the estrangement from her husband so cruelly as now. At first the excitement of resentment had kept her up, and the sojourn of her father and mother, together with the almost daily gaiety, had served to take her out of herself: it was only at night during the lonely hours, when trouble prevented sleep, that she had felt its keenest sting. But now: now when she and Karl were alone, save for Miss Blake: when she sat in her lonely room hour after hour, and had leisure to realize her true position, Lucy gave way to all the abandonment of grief her trial brought. It was indeed a bitter one; a fiery trial: and when she looked back to it in after days, she could never imagine how she had contrived to bear it.
Love is an all-powerful master: an overfilling tyrant. In the first torments of awakened jealousy, it is all very well to take refuge in revengeful anger, and snap our fingers metaphorically at the beloved one, and say he may go promener. The reaction comes. Jealousy, alas, does not tend to extinguish love, but rather to increase it. Lucy Andinnian found it so to her cost. Her love for Karl had in no whit abated: and the very fact of knowing he paid these stolen night visits to the Maze, while it tortured her jealousy, in no way diminished her love. She was growing pale and thin; she questioned whether she had done wisely in undertaking this most cruel task of bearing in silence and patience, hoping it might bring him back to his true allegiance; for she knew not whether she could endure on to the end.
There were moments when in her desolation she almost wished she was reconciled to her husband on any terms, even to the extent of condoning the wrong and the evil. The strict reader must pardon her, for she was very desolate. The idea always went away at once, and she would arouse herself with a shiver. Perhaps, of all phases of the affair, the one that told most upon her, that she felt to be more humiliating than the rest, was the fact of its having been brought close to her home, to its very gates: and a thousand times she asked herself the ambiguous question--Why could not Sir Karl rid the Maze of its inmates, and convey them to a distance?
She might have schooled her heart to care for Karl less had they been separated: he at the North Pole, say: she at the South. But they were living under the same roof, and met hourly. They went to church together, and paid visits with each other, and sat at the same breakfast and dinner tables. For their public intercourse was so conducted that no suspicion of the truth should get abroad, within doors or without. As to Karl, he was waiting on his side with what patience he might until his wife's mood should alter; in fact, he had no other alternative; but he treated her with the most anxious kindness and consideration. That she had taken the matter up with unjustifiable harshness, he thought; but he excused it, knowing himself to be the real culprit for having married her. And thus they went on; Lucy's spirit wounded to the core, and her anguished heart pining for the love that she believed was not hers.
She was sitting one Saturday evening under the acacia tree, in the delicate muslin she had worn in the day, when Karl came down from his dressing-room ready for dinner, and crossed the lawn to her. He had been to Basham, and she had not seen him since the morning.
"You are very pale, Lucy."
"My head aches badly: and it was so pleasant to remain here in the cool that I did not go in to dress," she said to him in a tone of apology.
"And why should you?" returned Karl. "That is as pretty a dress as any you have. What has given you the headache?"
"I--always have it now, more or less," had been on the tip of her tongue; but she broke off in time. "The heat, I think. I got very hot to-day, walking to Margaret Sumnor's."
"It is too hot for walking, Lucy. You should take the carriage."
"I don't like the parade of the carriage when I go to Margaret's."
"Would you like a little pony-chaise? I will buy you one if you----"
"No, thank you," she interrupted hastily, her tone a cold one. "I prefer to walk when I go about Foxwood. The heat will pass away sometime."
"You were saying the other day, Lucy, to some one who called, that you would like to read that new book on the Laplanders. I have been getting it for you."
He had a white paper parcel in his hand, undid it, and gave her a handsomely-bound volume. She felt the kindness, and her sad face flushed slightly.
"Thank you; thank you very much. It was good of you to think of me."
"And I have been subscribing to the Basham library, Lucy, and brought home the first parcel of books. It may amuse you to read them."
"Yes, I think it will. Thank you, Sir Karl."
She had never called him "Karl" when they were alone, since the explosion. Now and then occasionally before people, she did, especially before her father and mother. But he understood quite well that it was only done for appearance' sake.
The dinner hour was at hand, and they went in. Very much to the surprise of both, Mr. Cattacomb was in the drawing-room with Miss Blake. Lucy had neither heard nor seen him: but the acacia tree was out of sight of the front entrance.
"I have been telling Mr. Cattacomb--he came to me in the heat, on business of St. Jerome's--that you will be charitable enough to give him some dinner," said Miss Blake, introducing Mr. Cattacomb to Sir Karl in form--for it was the first time he had met that reverend man. Of course Karl could only return a civil answer; but he had not been at all anxious for the acquaintanceship of Mr. Cattacomb, and was determined not to treat him precisely as though he had been an invited guest.
"I think you may perhaps prefer to take in your friend Miss Blake, as Lady Andinnian is a stranger to you," he said, when Hewitt announced dinner. "We are not on ceremony now."
And Sir Karl caught his wife's hand within his. "I was not going to leave you tohim, Lucy," he whispered.
So they went parading in to dinner arm-in-arm, this estranged man and wife, brushing past Hewitt and the tall new footman, who wore powdered hair.
"It is just as though he did care for me!" thought Lucy, glancing at her husband as he placed her in her seat at the table's head.
Mr. Cattacomb and Miss Blake, seated opposite each other, talked a great deal, Karl scarcely at all. When alone, the dinners at the Court were simply served, Sir Karl carving. He was attentive to his impromptu guest, and sent him of the best: but he thought he had never in all his life been in company with so affected and vain a man as that belauded clergyman. Once, with the fish before him, Karl fell into a reverie. He woke up with a start, looking about him like a man bewildered.
"Some more fish, Lucy, my darling?"
Lucy's plate had gone away long before. They all saw that he had been, so to speak, unconscious of what he said. He rallied then; and did not lose himself again.
Dinner over, Mr. Cattacomb, making an apology, hurried away for some slight service at St. Jerome's, Miss Blake accompanying him as a matter of course. Lucy disappeared: and Karl, thus abandoned, went to his smoking-room. Not to smoke; but to muse upon the acute angles of his position--as he was too much given to do. Karl Andinnian was as a man in a net: as things looked at present, there seemed to be no chance of freedom from it, no hope of it at present or in the future. And his ill-fated brother again! The past night he, Karl, had dreamt one of those ugly dreams. He thought he saw Adam fleeing from his pursuers; a number of them, and they all looked like warders of Portland Prison. Panting, crying, Adam rushed in, seized hold of Karl, and begged him, as he valued salvation hereafter, to hide and save him. But the warders burst in and surrounded them. Poor Karl woke up as usual in fright and agony. This dream had been recurring to his mind all day: it was very vivid now in the silent evening hour after sunset.
"I'd give my life to place him in safety," ran his thoughts. "Not much of a gift, either, for I verily believe this constant, distressing suspense will kill me. If he were but safe in some distant land! He might--Why, what is Lucy doing?"
Opposite this south window there was a beautiful vista through the trees of the grounds beyond. Sir Karl had seen his wife running swiftly from one walk to another, and suddenly stoop--as he fancied. Looking still, he found she did not get up again.
"She must have fallen," he exclaimed, and rushed out.
He was with her in a minute. She was getting up after her fall, but her ankle felt intolerably painful. Karl was very tender: he had her in his arms, and took her to a leafy arbour close by. There he put her to sit down, and held her to him for support.
"I have twisted my ankle," she said. "It's nothing."
But the tears of pain stood in her eyes. He soothed her as he would have soothed her in the bygone days; holding her in his firm protection, whispering terms of sweet endearment. What with the ankle's sharp twinges, what with his loving words, and what with her chronic state of utter wretchedness, poor Lucy burst into sobs, and sobbed them out upon his breast.
"My darling! The ankle is giving you pain."
"The ankle's nothing," she said. "It will soon be well." But she lay there still and sobbed pitiably. He waited in silence until she should grow calmer, his arm round her. A distant nightingale was singing its love-song.
"Lucy," began Karl, then, "I would ask you--now that we seem to be for the moment alone with the world and each other--whether there is anysensein living in the way we do? Is there any happiness for either of us? I want you to forgive all, and be reconciled: I want you to see the matter in its proper light, apart from prejudice. The past is past and cannot be recalled: but it leaves no just reason in the sight of God or man for our living in estrangement."
Her head was hidden against him still. She did not lift her eyes as she whispered her answer.
"Is there no reason for it now, Karl? Now, at the present time. None?"
"No. As I see it, NO; on my word of honour as a gentleman. The notion you have taken up is an unsound and utterly mistaken one. You had grave cause to complain: granted: to resent; I admit it all: but surely it was not enough to justify the rending asunder of man and wife. The past cannot be undone--Heaven knows I would undo it if I could. But there is no just cause for your visiting the future upon me in this way, and making us both pay a heavy penalty. Won't you forgive and forget? Won't you be my own dear wife again? Oh, Lucy, I am full of trouble, and I want your sympathy to lighten it."
Her whole heart yearned to him. He drew her face to his and kissed her lips with the sweetest kisses. In the bliss and rest that the reconciliation brought to her spirit, Lucy momentarily forgot all else. Her kisses met his; her tears wet his cheeks. What with one emotion and another--pain, anguish, grief and bliss, the latter uppermost--poor Lucy felt faint. The bitter past was effaced from her memory: the change seemed like a glimpse of Paradise. It all passed in a moment, or so, of time.
"Oh, Karl, I should like to be your wife again!" she confessed. "The estrangement we are living in is more cruel for me than for you. Shall it be so?"
"Shall it!" repeated Karl. "Is there need to ask me, Lucy?"
"It lies with you."
"With me! Why, how? How does it lie with me? You know, my darling----"
A slight ruffle, as if some one were brushing past the shrubs in the opposite path, caused Sir Karl to withdraw his arm from his wife. Miss Blake came up: a note in her hand. Sir Karl politely, in thought, wished Miss Blake at York.
"As I was coming in, Sir Karl, I overtook a woman with this note, which she was bringing you. It was the servant at the Maze--or some one very like her."
Miss Blake looked full at Sir Karl as she spoke, wishing no doubt that looks were daggers. She had added the little bit of information, as to the messenger, for Lucy's especial benefit. Karl thanked her coolly, and crushed the note, unopened, into his pocket. Lucy, shy, timid Lucy, was limping away. Miss Blake saw something was wrong and held out her arm.
"What is the matter, Lucy? You are in pain! You have been crying!"
"I slipped and hurt my ankle, Theresa. It was foolish to cry, though. The pain is much less already."
Miss Blake helped her indoors in lofty silence. Anything like the contempt she felt for the weakness of Lucy Andinnian, she perhaps had never felt for any one before in all her life. Not for the weakness of crying at a hurt: though that was more befitting a child than a woman: but for the reprehensible weakness she was guilty of in living on terms of affection with her husband. "Must even sit in a garden arbour together hand in hand, listening to the nightingales," shrieked Miss Blake mentally, with rising hair. "And yet--she knows what I disclosed to her!"
The note was from Mrs. Grey. Had Miss Blake herself presided at its opening, she could not reasonably have found fault with it. Mrs. Grey presented her compliments to Sir Karl Andinnian, and would feel obliged by his calling to see her as soon as convenient, as she wished to speak with him on a little matter of business concerning the house.
There was nothing more. But Karl knew, by the fact of her venturing on the extreme step of writing to the Court, that he was wanted at the Maze for something urgent. It was several days since he had been there: for he could not divest himself of the feeling that some one of these nightly visits of his, more unlucky than the rest, might bring on suspicion and betrayal. To his uneasy mind there was danger in every surrounding object. The very sound of the wind in the trees seemed to whisper it to him as he passed; hovering shades of phantom shape glanced out to his fancy from the hedges.
He stayed a short while pacing his garden, and then went indoors. It was getting dusk. Miss Blake had her things off and was alone in the drawing-room. The tea waited on the table.
"Where's Lucy?" he asked.
"She went to her room to have her ankle seen to. I would have done anything for her, but she declined my services."
Karl knocked at his wife's little sitting-room door, and entered. She was leaning on the window-sill, and said her ankle felt much betterafter the warm water, and since Aglaé had bound it up. Karl took her hand.
"We were interrupted, Lucy, when I was asking an important question," he began--"for indeed I think I must have misunderstood you. How does the putting an end to our estrangement lie with me?"
"It does lie with you, Karl," she answered, speaking feelingly and pleasantly, not in the cold tone of reserve she had of late maintained when they were alone. "The estrangement is miserable for me; you say it is for you; and the efforts we have to make, to keep up the farce before the household and the world, make it doubly miserable for both of us. We cannot undo our marriage: but to continue to live as we are living is most unsatisfactory and deplorable."
"But it is you who insisted on living so, Lucy--to my surprise and pain."
"Could I do otherwise?" she rejoined. "It is a most unhappy business altogether: and at times I am tempted to wish that it had been always kept from me. As you say--and I am willing to believe you, and do believe you--the past is past: but you know how much of the consequences remain. It seems to me that I must give way a little: perhaps, having taken my vows as your wife, it may be what I ought to do; a duty even in God's sight."
"Do you recollect your words to me on the eve of our wedding-day, Lucy, when I was speaking of the possibility that a deeper blow might fall: one that would dishonour us both in the world's eyes, myself primarily, you through me, and cause you to repent of our union? You should never repent, you said; you took me for richer for poorer, for better or for worse."
"But I did not know the blow would be of this kind," murmured Lucy. "Still, I will do as you wish me--forget and forgive. At least if I cannot literally forget, for that would not be practicable, it shall be as though I did, for I will never allude to it by word or deed. That will be my concession, Karl. You must make one on your side."
"Willingly. What is it?"
"Clear the Maze immediately of its tenants."
He gave a slight start, knitting his brow. Lucy saw the proposal was unpalatable.
"Their being there is an insult to me, Karl," she softly said, as if beseeching the boon. "You must get them away."
"I cannot, Lucy," he answered, his face wrung with pain. "I wish I could! Don't you understand that I have no control over this?"
"I think I understand," she said, her manner growing cold. "You have said as much before. Why can you not? It seems to me, if things be as you intimate, that the matter would be easily accomplished. You need only show firmness."
He thought haw little she understood. But he could not bear to enlarge upon it, and said nothing.
"There are houses enough, and to spare, in the world, Karl."
"Plenty of them."
"Then why not let the Maze be left?"
"More things than one are against it, Lucy. There are wheels within wheels," he added, thinking of Smith the mysterious agent. "One great element against it is the risk--the danger."
"Danger of exposure, do you mean?"
"Of discovery. Yes."
Never had Karl Andinnian and his wife been so near coming to an enlightenment on the misunderstanding that lay between them and their peace. It passed off--just as many another good word passes off, unsaid, in life.
"My hands are tied, Lucy. If wishing the Maze empty would effect it, it would be vacant to-morrow. I can do nothing."
"I understand," she said bitterly, even as she had said once before, all the old resentful indignation rising up within her. "I understand, Sir Karl. There are complications, entanglements; and you cannot free yourself from them."
"Precisely so."
"Isthe sin of the past?" she asked with flashing eyes and a rising colour; her voice betraying her frame of mind. He gazed at her, unable to understand.
"Why of course it is past, Lucy. What can you mean?"
"Oh, you know, you know. Never mind. We must go on again as we have been going on."
"No, Lucy."
"YES, Sir Karl. As long as those people remain in the Maze, tacitly to insult me, I will never be more to you than I am now."
It was a strangely harsh decision; and one he could not account for. He asked for her reasons in detail, but she would not give any. All she said further was, that if he felt dissatisfied, she could--and should--seek the protection of her father and declare the truth.
So they parted again as they had parted before. Hemmed in on all sides, afraid to move an inch to the left or the right, Karl could only submit; he could do nothing.
"I was charged by Miss Blake to tell you that tea is ready," he said, turning on his heel to quit the room.
"Ask her to send me a cup by Aglaé, please. I shall stay here to rest my ankle." And as Karl closed the door upon her, poor Lucy burst into a flood of tears, and sobbed as though her heart would break. Underlying all else in her mind was a keen sense of insult, of slight, of humiliation: and she asked herself whether she ought to bear it.
Pacing the gravel path round the trees of the Maze after dark had fallen--as much dark as a summer's night ever gives us--were Karl Andinnian and Mrs. Grey. She, expecting him, went to wait for him just within the gate: as she did the evening Miss Blake had the satisfaction of watching and seeing. It was a still, hot night, and Mrs. Grey proposed that they should walk round the outer circle once, before going in: for she had things to say to him.
"Why have you 'kept away these last few days, Karl?" she asked, taking the arm he offered her. "Adam has been so vexed and impatient over it: but I should not have ventured to write to you for only that--I hope you were not angry with me."
He told her he was not angry. He told her why he had kept away--that an instinct warned him it might be imprudent to come in too often. It seemed to him, he added, that the very hedges had eyes to watch him. She shivered a little, as though some chill of damp had struck her; and proceeded to relate what she had to say.
By a somewhat singular coincidence, a copy of the same newspaper that contained the mysterious paragraph had been bought at the little newsvendor's in Foxwood by Ann Hopley, who was fond of reading the news when her day's work was over. She saw the paragraph, took alarm, and showed it to her master and mistress.
"It has nearly frightened me to death, Karl," said Mrs. Grey. "The paper was a week old when Ann bought it: and I am glad it was, or I should have been living upon thorns longer than I have been."
He told her that he had seen it. And he did what he could to reassureher, saying it was probably but an unmeaning assertion, put in fromdearth of news.
"That is just what Mr. Smith says," she replied. "He thinks it is from the brain of some poor penny-a-liner."
"Mr. Smith!" exclaimed Karl. "How do you know?"
"Adam would see him about it, and I sent for him. He, Smith, says there's nothing for it now but staying here; and Adam seems to be of the same opinion."
"Were you present at their interview?"
"No. I never am. The man is keeping us here for purposes of his own. I feel sure of it. He has been a good friend to us in many ways: I don't know what we should have done without him; but it is his fault that we are staying on here."
"Undoubtedly it is."
"Adam is just as careless and gay as ever in manner, but I think the announcement in the newspaper has made him secretly uneasy. He is not well to-night."
"What is the matter with him?"
"It is some inward pain: he has complained of it more than once lately. And he has been angry and impatient of an evening because you did not come. It is so lonely for him, you know."
"I do know it, Rose. Nothing brings me here at all but that."
"It was he who at last made me write to you to-day. I was not sorry to do it, for I had wanted to see you myself and to talk to you. I think I have discovered something that may be useful; at least that we may turn to use. First of all--Do you remember a year or two ago there was a public stir about one Philip Salter?"
"No. Who is Philip Salter?"
"Philip Salter committed a great crime: forgery, I think: and he escaped from the hands of the police as they were bringing him to London by rail. I have nearly a perfect recollection of it," continued Mrs. Grey, "for my uncle and aunt took great interest in it, because they knew one of the people whom Salter had defrauded. He was never retaken. At least, I never heard of it."
"How long ago was this?"
"More than two years. It was in spring-time, I think."
Karl Andinnian threw his recollection back. The name, Philip Salter, certainly seemed to begin to strike on some remote chord of his memory; but he had completely forgotten its associations.
"What of him, Rose?" he asked.
"This," she answered, her voice taking even a lower tone: "I should not be surprised if this Mr. Smith is the escaped man, Philip Salter! I think he may be."
"This man, Smith, Philip Salter!" exclaimed Karl. "But what grounds have you for thinking it?"
"I will tell you. When Mr. Smith came over a day or two ago, it was in the evening, growing dusk. Adam saw him in the upstairs room. They stood at the window--perhaps for the sake of the light, and seemed to be looking over some memorandum paper. I was walking about outside, and saw them. All at once something fell down from the window. I ran to pick it up, and found it was a pocket-book, lying open. Mr. Smith shouted out, 'Don't touch it, Mrs. Grey: don't trouble yourself,' and came rushing down the stairs. But I had picked it up, Karl; and I saw written inside it the name, Philip Salter. Without the least intention or thought of prying, I saw it: 'Philip Salter.' Mr. Smith was up with me the next moment, and I gave him the pocket-book, closed:"
"His Christian name is certainly Philip," observed Karl after a pause of thought. "I have seen his signature to receipts for rent--'Philip Smith.' This is a strange thing, Rose."
"Yes--if it be true. While he is planted here, spying upon Adam, he may be hiding from justice himself, a criminal."
Karl was in deep thought. "Was the name in the pocket-book on thefly-leaf, Rose--as though it were the owner's name?"
"I think so, but I cannot be sure. It was at the top of a leaf certainly. If we could but find it out--find that it is so, it might prove to be a way of release from him," she added; "I mean some way or other of release might come of it. Oh, and think of the blessing of feeling free! I am sure that, but for him, Adam would contrive to escape to a safer land."
There was no time to say more. The night was drawing on, and Karl had to go in to his impatient brother. Impatient! What should we have been in his place? Poor Adam Andinnian! In his banned, hidden, solitary days, what interlude had he to look forward to but these occasional visits from Karl?
"I will think it over, Rose, and try and find something out," said Karl as they went in. "Have you told Adam?"
"No. He is so hot and impulsive, you know. I thought it best to speak to you first."
"Quite right. Say nothing to him at present."
In quitting the Maze that evening, Adam, in spite of all Karl could say or do, would walk with him to the gate: only laughing when Karl called it dangerous recklessness. There were moments when the same doubt crossed Karl's mind that had been once suggested to him by Mr. Plunkett--Was Adam always and altogether sane? This moment, was one. He absolutely stood at the gate, talking and laughing in an undertone, as Karl went through it.
"Rubbish, Karlo, old fellow," said he to the last remonstrance. "It's a dark night, and not a soul within miles of us. Besides, who knows me here?"
Karl had locked the gate and was putting the key in his pocket, when a sound smote his ear and he turned it to listen. The tramp, tramp, as of policemen walking with measured steps was heard, coming from the direction of the railway-station, and with it the scuffle and hum of a besetting crowd. It brought into his mind with a rush and a whirl that fatal night some twelve months before, when he had heard the tramp of policemen on the other side the hedge--and their prisoner, though he knew it not, was his brother, Adam Andinnian.
"Adam, do you hear!" he cried hoarsely. "For the love of heaven, hide yourself." And Sir Adam disappeared in the Maze.
What with the past recollection, what with his brother's near presence, what with the approach of these police--as he took them to be--what with the apprehension ever overlying his heart, Karl was seized with a panic of terror. Were they coming in search of Adam? He thought so: and all the agony that he often went over in his dreams, he suffered now in waking reality. The hubbub of exposure; the public disgrace; the renewed hard life for him at Portland Island; even perhaps--Karl's imagination was vivid just then--the scaffold in the distance as an ending! These visions surging through his brain, Karl flew to the other side of the road--lest his being on the side of the Maze might bring suspicion on it--and then walked quietly to his own entrance gates. There he stood, and turned to await the event, his head beating, his pulses leaping.
With a relief that no tongue could express, Karl saw them pass the Maze and come onwards. Presently, in the night's imperfect light, he distinguished a kind of covered stretcher, or hand-barrow, borne by a policeman and other men, a small mob following.
"Is anything amiss!" he asked, taking a few steps into the road, and speaking in the quietest tones he could just then command.
"It's poor Whittle, Sir Karl," replied the policeman--who knew him. There were a few scattered cottages skirting the wood beyond the Court, and Karl recognized the name, Whittle, as that of a man who lived in one of them and worked at the railway-station.
"Is he ill?" asked Karl.
"He is dead, Sir Karl. He was missed from his work in the middle of the afternoon and not found till an hour ago: there he was, stretched out in the field, dead. We got Mr. Moore round, and he thinks it must have been a sun-stroke."
"What a sad thing!" cried Karl, in his pitying accents. "Does his wife know?"
"We've sent on to prepare her, poor woman! There's four or five little children, Sir Karl, more's the pity!"
"Ay; I know there are some. Tell her I will come in and see her in the morning."
A murmur of approbation at the last words arose from the bystanders. It seemed to them an earnest that the new baronet, Sir Karl, would turn out to be a kind and considerate man; as good for them perhaps as Sir Joseph had been.
He listened to the tramp, tramp, until it had died away, and then turned in home with all his trouble and care: determined to search the newspapers--filed by Sir Joseph--before he went to rest, for some particulars of this Philip Salter.
"Oh that Adam were but safe in some less dangerous land!" was the refrain, ever eating itself into his brain.