With death on his face, and a look of resignation than which nothing could be more peaceful, lay Sir Adam for the last time. His weary life, with all its bitter turmoil, was nearly at an end; nightherewas closing, morningtherewas opening. Karl's grey eyes were wet as he bent over him.
"Don't grieve too much," said Adam with a smile, as he put his cold hand into Karl's clasp. "You know how much better off I shall be. Rose knows it."
"You were so full of hope yesterday, Adam."
"Was II It cheated the wife into a few hours of pleasantness, and did its mission. I did not think I tookyouin. Why, Karlo, I have just been waiting from day to day for what has now come: moreover, I have seen how much best it all is as itisthan anything else would be. I would not accept life if you'd give it to me, unless the whole time since that Midsummer Eve could be blotted out."
Karl swallowed a sob.
"You don't know what it has been, Karl. No one can know what it is to live under a hanging sword, as I have, unless they experience it. And few in this world can do that. It was all a mistake together. The shooting of Scott when I ought to have horsewhipped him; the escape from Portland; the taking up my abode here; everything: and these mistakes, Karl, have to be worked out. I have paid for mine with life."
Karl did not answer. He was only nervously pressing the wasted hand in his.
"It is all, I say, for the best. I see it now. It was best that the little lad should go; it is best that I should; it is best that you should be the true owner of Foxwood. It would have been too much of a complication otherwise. The boy could never have put forth a claim to it while I lived; and, after that, people might but have pointed their scornful finger at him as the son of a convict. I thank God for taking him."
"Should you talk so much, Adam?"
"I don't know. A man in my condition, about to leave the world behind, prefers to talk while he can. You will take care of my wife, Karl. There was no settlement, you know, and----"
"I will take care of her to the best of my power, Adam," came the earnest interruption. "She shall have a proper and suitable jointure as the widowed Lady Andinnian."
"No, Karl; not that. She and I have talked over the future at odd moments, and we do not wish it. Rose does not mean to acknowledge her marriage with me, or to live in any kind of state in accordance with it. She will be Mrs. Grey to the end. Unless, indeed, any occasion were to arise, such as a tarnishing breath of scandal brought against this past period of her life. Then, of course, the truth must be declared, and you, Karl would have to come forward and testify to it. I leave that in your hands."
"With every surety," assented Karl.
"A few hundreds a year, say four or five, are all that she will want from you, or take. Her late uncle's money must come to her sometime, and that of itself would be almost enough. She purposes to live a retired life with her aunt; and I think it will be the happiest for her. In my desk, Karl, you will find a paper in my handwriting, setting forth all these wishes of hers and mine; it will serve as a direction for you.--No," he went on, after a pause, "for her own peace, the world must never know her as Lady Andinnian. She dreads it too much. See you not the reason? She would have to stand before the public convicted of perjury. That past trial is rarely out of her mind, Karl--when she appeared falsely as Miss Rose Turner. The foolish things people do in their blindness! It was my fault.Her faultlay only in obeying me: but your charitable people would not accept that as an excuse. Be it as it may, Karl, Rose's life henceforth will be one of modest position and strict retirement. Ann Hopley goes with her."
Looking at the matter from all points of view, it might be, as Sir Adam said, for the best.
"And you will be Sir Karl in reality as well as in seeming, brother mine; and Foxwood will be your true home and your children's after you. That is only justice. When you arranged to marry Lucy Cleeve, you deemed yourself to be the inheritor, and she deemed it. My death will set all right. And now about Smith, Karl. The man did me a great service, for I should have been retaken but for him; and he has been faithful to me since. I should like you to allow him something in the shape of an annuity--a hundred and fifty pounds a year, or so. Not the cottage: he will not stay in this neighbourhood when I am gone. It was through me that his arm got injured: which, of course, partly incapacitates him for work; and I think I am bound to provide for him."
"It shall be done," said Karl. "Ungrudgingly."
"I have mentioned it in the paper, and the sum. He--he--he--"
Sir Adam's hesitation was caused by faintness. He broke down, and for the time said no more. Nor did he recur to the subject again.
The day went on, Adam partially sleeping through it. At other times he lay in a kind of stupor. Mr. Moore attended at intervals; but nothing further could be done. At dusk Hewitt came over for a last sight of his old master; for a last farewell: and he sobbed bitterly as he said it.
Karl did not go home--at which Miss Blake was in much private wonder. Discarding the poacher theory, she shrewdly suspected now that he must be at the Maze, taking the opportunity of his wife's absence to play the gay bachelor away from home. She asked Hewitt, she questioned Giles; Giles knew nothing, Hewitt fancied Sir Karl, might be "detained at Basham" on some business.
And so, the night set in. When quite awake Adam had the full possession of his senses, and exchanged a few words, sometimes with his wife, sometimes with Karl. About three o'clock he fell into a calm sleep. Karl watched on; Rose, weak and sick and weary, dropped into a doze in a distant chair. Ann Hopley was in the kitchen below.
Save for the faint sighing of the wind as it swept round the house, stirring the branches of the trees, there was no sound to be heard. Stillness reigned unbroken in the dying chamber. How many of us have kept these watches! But who has kept them as this was being kept by Karl Andinnian!
With that bitter aching of the heart known but to few, and which when felt in its greatest intensity is the saddest pain the troubles of the world can give, Karl sat gazing on his brother. In his love for him, every pang endured by Adam in the past was a sting for him, every hazard run had reflected on him its dread apprehension. He sat thinking of what might have been; looking on what was: and an awful regret, than which nothing like unto it could be ever again experienced, tore at his heart-strings for the wasted life, cut short ere it had reached its prime. More than willingly in that moment would Karl have given his own remaining days to undo what his brother had done, and to restore to him freedom and honour. It might not be. Adam's course was run: and he was passing away in obscurity from the world in which he had virtually no longer a place. Never for a moment did the immunity from perplexity it would bring to himself or the release from the false position he had been compelled to assume, occur to Karl; or, if it did, it was not dwelt upon: all of self and self-interest was lost in the regret and grief for his brother. He saw Adam living at Foxwood Court with his wife; its master; held in repute by men; he saw himself settled near with Lucy; his fortunes advanced by his brother's aid to a position not unacceptable to Colonel Cleeve; he saw his mother alive still and happy: a united family, enjoying comfort the one with the other. This might have been. His mother dead of a broken heart; Adam, dying before his eyes, an escaped fugitive; his own life blighted with pain and sorrow unutterable for Adam's sake, his wife estranged from him--this was what was. Be you very sure that no earthly pang could be keener than that despairing heart-ache felt by Karl Andinnian.
How many a night at that still hour had Adam lain in his terror, listening to this moaning wind with supernaturally quick ear, lest it should be only covering other sounds--the approach of his deadly enemies! How many times in a night had he quitted his bed, his heart beating, and stolen a cautious peep beside the blind to see whether they might not be there, in battle array, waiting until the dawn should come and they might get in to take him! Ah, it was all at an end now; the fever, and the fear, and the wasting restlessness. Why! if the men were drawn up round his bed, they would not care to touch him. But the terror from force of habit stayed with him to the last.
He started up. How long he had slept, and how the night was going, Karl in his abstraction hardly knew. Adam's eyes looked somewhat wild in the shade of the night-light, and he put up his feeble hand.
"What is it?" asked Karl gently.
"I thought they were here, Karl; I saw them in the room,"--he whispered--and his eyes went round it. "They had muskets I think. Was it a dream?"
"Nothing but a dream, Adam. I am with you. Rose is asleep in the arm-chair."
"Ay. I have not dreamt of them for a week past. Stay by me, Karlo."
Karl would have risen to administer some cordial: but Adam was holding his hand in a tight grasp; had shut his eyes, and seemed to be dropping asleep again.
He slept about half-an-hour, and Karl's imprisoned arm went from a state of pins and needles into the cramp. When Adam awoke, there was a smile on his face and a peaceful rest in his eyes. He was quite collected.
"Karl, I dreamt of them again: but they had turned to angels. They were here, all about my bed. Oh Karl, I wish you could see them as I saw them! you'd never be afraid of anything more in this world. What's that?"
Karl turned round: for Adam's eyes were fixed on something or other behind him. He could see nothing save a streak of light, herald of the dawn, that came in at the side of the blind.
"Do you mean the light, Adam? It's the dawn breaking."
"Ay.Mydawn. Draw up the blind. Karl."
Softly, not to awake Rose, Karl drew it up. Rose-coloured clouds, heralds of a beauteous sunrise, flooded the East. Adam lay and gazed at it, the smile on his face changing to a rapt look that seemed to speak of heaven, more than of earth.
"It will be better there than here, Karl. For me."
"Better for all of us."
"I am very happy, Karl. The world is fading from me: heaven opening. Forgive me all that I have cost you."
Karl's heart and eyes were alike full.
"Just as the men who had troubled me were changed into angels, so my fear has changed to rest. The angels are about the bed still, Karl; I know they are; waiting for me. The same lovely light shone on them that is shining yonder; and they told me without words that they were come to bear me up to God. I read it in their tender faces--so full of pitying love for me. It won't be so very long, Karl: you'll come later."
Karl's tears were falling on the up-turned face.
"I should like to have seen your wife, Karl; just once. Tell her so, with my love. Ask her to forgive me the worry I know I have caused her."
"I will, I will."
"Oh, Karl, it has been a dreadful life for me; you know it has. I began to think that God had forgotten me--how foolish I was! He was full of mercy all the while, and kept me here in safety, and has now changed it all into peace. Listen, Karl! there's a sound of sweet music."
Karl could hear nothing but the wind.
"It is the angels singing," whispered Adam, a smile of ineffable beauty on his face. "They sing on the journey, you know. Goodbye, Karl, goodbye!"
Karl bent his face, his tears streaming, his heart aching. These partings are too bitter to be told of. This was most essentially so.
"Where's Rose, Karl?"
She was already by Karl's side. He yielded his place to her, and went down to Ann; and there sobbed over the kitchen fire as a woman might have done.
But in the midst of it all, he could say as his brother had done, "Thank God." If ever a poor sinful weary man had need to rejoice that he was removed to that better world, it was Adam Andinnian.
Rose's bell called Karl up again. The last moment was at hand. Ann Hopley followed: and they all stood round the bed and saw him die. The red clouds had dispersed; the sun was just showing itself above the verge of the horizon.
Foxwood heard the news. Mrs. Grey's shakey old gardener was dead, James Hopley. Mr. Moore, when applied to for particulars, went into a learned dissertation on chronic rheumatism, and said that he was not able to save him.
Ann Hopley astonished the undertaker. She gave orders for three coffins: and they must be of the best, she said, if it cost her a hundred pounds. Her poor husband and she had saved money, and she should like to spend it on him.
There was again a battle with the clerk. It had been bad enough when Ann Hopley chose the ground for Mrs. Grey's little child, within the precincts of that belonging to the Andinnian family; but to insist upon it that her own husband, a servant, should also lie there, was a piece of presumption the equal of which the clerk had never before heard of. However, Sir Karl, not waiting to be appealed to this time, called on the clerk, and said the woman might bury her husband there if she pleased; he did not think it right in people to assume exclusiveness after death, whatever they might do in life. The clerk lifted his hands when Sir Karl's back was turned: radical notions such as these would tend to demoralize the best conservative community.
It was while his brother was lying dead, that Sir Karl--truly Sir Karl now--heard from his wife. She was ready to come to Foxwood, as Mrs. Cleeve was about to return to Winchester, and she appointed the following day, Tuesday, for Sir Karl to fetch her. It happened to be the day fixed for the funeral, and Karl wrote back to say that he could not leave home that day, but would fetch her on the Wednesday instead. To this he received no reply; and he of course intended to abide by it.
Tuesday came. About twelve o'clock in the day the funeral turned out of the Maze gates; sundry curious ones amid the juveniles being assembled to witness the exit. A funeral was not an every-day event at Foxwood: and, besides, the Maze had been exciting interest of late. It was a simple funeral. The plumed hearse and one mourning coach; the undertaker and carriers walking. In the coach went Ann Hopley, smothered in a hood, with Hewitt to bear her company. Foxwood said it was very neighbourly and civil of the butler: but Miss Blake felt sure he had received private orders from Sir Karl, and she wondered what Sir Karl was coming to.
Now Lucy, Lady Andinnian, looking at things as she had been looking, poor wife, for some time past, was very resentful that Sir Karl would not fetch her on the day she named. She reasoned with herself that his refusal must arise from one of two causes: either he was neglectfully indifferent; or else he had some engagement with Mrs. Grey: for, of deterring occupation, she believed he possessed none. Proudly angry, she determined to take her own way, and return home without him.
Accordingly, on the Tuesday she started with her maid from London. But, like many a one who does things in off-hand inexperience, she made a mistake, and took the wrong train. That is, she took one that did not stop at Foxwood. Lucy discovered this after she was in the carriage, and found they must get out at Basham. Leaving Aglaé and the luggage to wait for the next train, which would not be up for two hours, Lucy took one of the waiting flies, and drove on.
Lucy was full of thoughts and anticipations. She wondered where her husband was, what she should find him doing, and what excuse he would make. It lasted her all the way: and they were close on Foxwood village before anything occurred to arouse her. She woke up to find the driver, who was a Foxwood man, had come very nearly to a standstill, and was staring at a funeral procession just then entering the churchyard.
The first object that caught Lucy's eye was Hewitt. Hewitt attired as a mourner, and following the coffin. For a moment Lucy's heart beat quicker, and her gaze was strained: who could it be that was inside Gradually her eyes took in the whole of the scene: the spectators collected in the distance, watching; the person enveloped in a silk hood and cloak at Hewitt's side: Mr. Sumnor in his surplice.
All in a moment, as it seemed, just as the clergyman began to read, springing she could not tell from whence, there advanced Sir Karl Andinnian. He was in black attire, but wore neither crape band nor scarf; and it might have been thought he was only an ordinary spectator. Hewitt, however, drew a step back to give his master the place of precedence, as though out of proper respect, as did Ann Hopley: and Sir Karl took off his hat and stood there, close to the coffin, his head bent low.
"How very strange it is!" thought Lucy. "Who can be in the coffin?--and who is the woman in the black silk cloak and hood? There is Mr. Smith, the agent, too!--he is standing near with his hat off now."
"Lucy! Can it be you? We did not expect you until to-morrow."
The voice was Miss Blake's. St. Jerome's devotees were no more free from curiosity than their inferiors; and a few of them had chanced to be taking a walk past the churchyard just at the critical moment; of whom Miss Blake was one.
"I thought I would come to-day, and not give Sir Karl the trouble of fetching me," replied Lucy. "Aglaé is coming on from Basham by the next train with the luggage. How are you, Theresa? Will you come inside?"
Miss Blake's answer was to open the fly door, seat herself by Lady Andinnian, and turn her gaze on the churchyard. The scene bore a charm for her as well as for Lucy.
"Why, that's Sir Karl there!" she exclaimed in surprise, the spectators' heads having intercepted her view while on the ground.
"Yes," assented Lucy. "And there's Hewitt--and Sir Karl's agent--and a mourner with her face hidden. Who is it that is being buried, Theresa?"
"Why, it's only the old gardener at the Maze. As to Hewitt, I suppose he had to go to keep the woman in countenance. The old man was her husband, you know."
"But what should bring Sir Karl there?"
"And standing first, as though he were chief mourner!" commented Miss Blake, devouring the scene with her condemning eyes, and giving the reins to her thoughts. "Idon't know why he is there, Lucy. There are several things that I have not attempted to understand for some time past."
"Is not that the part of the churchyard where the Andinnians lie?-- where their vault is?"
"It is. But Hopley is being buried there, you see: and that infant, that you know of, was buried there. The clerk is in a fine way over it, people say: but Sir Karl ruled that it should be so."
Thoughts connected with Mrs. Grey, and the inexplicable manner in which Sir Karl seemed to yield to her humours, even to the honouring of her servants, flashed into Lucy's brain. It did not tend to appease her previous anger against him.
"Why could not Sir Karl come for me to-day, Theresa?"
"It is of no use to ask me, Lucy. Sir Karl does not explain his motives to me. This funeral perhaps kept him," added Miss Blake, sarcastically, unconscious how very near she was to the truth. "After you left he seemed almost to live at the Maze. Last week he was there, as I believe, for a whole day and a whole night. Imustspeak, Lucy. Out of regard to decency that girl ought to quit the Maze, or you quit Foxwood."
"Drive on," cried Lucy to the coachman, in a tone as though the world and all things in it were grating on her. And the man did not dare to disobey the sharp command.
But Miss Blake preferred to get out; and did so. She had said what she did say from good motives: and she took credit for not making worse of the account--as she might have done. Not a word would she say about his being called up in the night--and she knew now that it was to the Maze he was summoned. With her whole heart she pitied Lucy.
"May I be forgiven if my duty ought to lie in silence!" she muttered as she joined the Miss St. Henrys and others in the crowd. "Lucy seems to have no friend about her in the World but me."
The interment was over. The procession--what was left of it--went its way back again, Hewitt and Ann Hopley side by side in the coach. Sir Karl strolled away over the fields, and presently found himself joined by Mr. Smith.
"So your mission at Foxwood is over," he sadly cried to the latter. "I have no more need to make believe I want an agent now."
"Ay, it's over, Sir Karl. Better for him almost that he had fallen in the fray off Weymouth; that I had never saved him; than have lived to what his life has since been."
"Better for him had he never come to the Maze," rejoined Sir Karl.
"It was none of my doing. As you know, sir."
"No: but you opposed his leaving it."
"As he was here, I did. I had but his interest at heart, Sir Karl: although I know you have thought the contrary. The chances were that he could not have got away in safety. In his own person he dared not have risked it; and a decrepid figure like Old Hopley's must have attracted attention. But for that detective's pitching upon Foxwood to make a hunting place of, I believe Sir Adam would have been most secure here."
"Well, it is over, with all its risks and chances," sighed Karl. "He did not forget you when he was dying. His wish was that you should enjoy a moderate annuity during your life: which I have undertaken to pay."
The agent's thanks, and they appeared very heartfelt and genuine, were cut short by the approach of Mr. Moore. He joined them as they walked along; and the conversation fell on the illness of the deceased.
"There was no real hope from the beginning, once the disease had set fairly in," cried the surgeon. "There never is. In Sir Adam's case, the terrible anxiety he endured day and night brought it on, and caused it to develop with unusual rapidity: there was not a shadow of chance for him."
"You did not tell me that," said Karl.
"I was not quite sure of it myself at first: though I suspected it. I did not tell you, you say, Sir Karl: well, no, not in so many words: but your own eyes might have seen it as its progress went on. Sir Adam knew it himself, I fancy, as surely as I."
"Do you remember saying you wished he could have further advice?" asked Karl. "Did not that prove that you had hope!"
"I wished it chiefly for the satisfaction of those connected with him. All the advice in the world could not--as I suspected then, and soon saw--have availed to save his life. We sometimes say of people, death has been a happy release for them. In his case, Sir Karl, it has been most unquestionably so: he is at rest."
Down on her knees, in self-abasement, the tears of contrition raining from her eyes, her face scarlet in its agony of shame, cowered Lucy Andinnian at her husband's feet. She would not let him raise her. It seemed to her that a whole lifetime of repentance could never wash out her sin.
The elucidation of the misunderstanding that had kept them apart for months was taking place.
On the day after the funeral, Karl sought his wife in the dressing-room to tell her of what had occurred. She had scarcely spoken a word to him since her return, or allowed him to speak one to her. Very briefly, in half a dozen words, he informed her his brother was dead, and delivered the message Adam had left for her. For a few minutes Lucy's bewilderment was utter; and, when she did at length grasp somewhat of the truth, her confusion and distress were pitiable.
"Oh, Karl, Karl, do you think you will ever be able to forgive me? What can I do?--what can I do to atone for it?"
"You must get up, Lucy, before I say whether I forgive you or not."
"I cannot get up. It seems to me that I ought never to get up again. Yourbrotherat the Maze!--your brother's wife! Oh, what must you have thought of my conduct? Oh, Karl, why do you not strike me as I lie?"
Sir Karl put forth his arms and his strength, and raised her to the sofa. She bent her face down on its pillow, to weep out her tears of shame.
"Come, Lucy," he said, when he had waited a few minutes, sitting beside her. "We shall not arrive at the end in this way. Is itpossiblethat you did not know my brother was alive?"
"How could I know it, Karl?" she asked, amid her streaming tears. "How was I likely to know it?"
"You told me you knew it. You said to me that you had discovered the secret at the Maze. I thought you were resenting the fact of his being alive. Or, rather, of my having married you, knowing that he was."
"Why should I resent it? How could you think, so? Wasthatthe secret you spoke of in Paris the night before our wedding?--that Adam was alive."
"That, and no other. But I did not know then that he was married--or suspect that he ever would marry. I learnt that fact only during my mother's last illness."
"Oh, Karl, this is dreadful," she sobbed. "What must you have thought of me all this time? I almost wish I could die!"
"You still care for me, then; a little?"
With a burst of anguish she turned and hid her face upon his breast. "I have only loved you the better all the while," she whispered.
"Lucy, my dear, I say we shall not get to the end in this way. Look up. If you were in ignorance of my brother's existence, and of all the complications for you and for me that it involved, what then was it that you were resenting?"
"Don't ask me, Karl," she said, her face growing scarlet again. "I could not tell you for the very shame."
He drew a little away, making a movement to put her from him. Never had his countenance been so stern to her as it was now; never could he be so little trifled with.
"If there is to be an explanation between us, Lucy, it must be full and complete. I insist upon its being so. If you refuse to give it now--why, I shall never ask you for it again. Do you not think you owe me one?"
Again she bent her face upon him. "I owe you everything, Karl; I owe you more reparation than I can ever pay. Never, as long as our lives shall last, will I have a secret from you again, heaven helping me. If I hesitate to tell you this, it is because I am ashamed for you to know how foolish I could be, and the wicked thoughts I could have."
"Not more foolish or wicked, I dare say, than I was for making you my wife. Speak out, Lucy. It must be so, you see, if there is to be a renewal of peace between us."
Keeping her head where it was, her face hidden from him, Lucy whispered her confession. Karl started from her in very astonishment.
"Lucy! You could think that! Of me!"
She put up her hands beseechingly. "Oh, forgive me, Karl; for the sake of the pain, forgive me! It has been killing me all the while. See how worn and thin I am."
He put his arm out and drew her to his side. "Go on, my dear. How did you pick up the notion?"
"It was Theresa." And now that the ice was broken, anxious to tell all and clear herself, Lucy described the past in full: the cruel anguish she had battled with, and her poor, ever-to-be renewed efforts to endure patiently, for his sake and for God's. Karl's arm involuntarily tightened around her.
"Why did you not speak to me of this at once, Lucy?" he asked, after a pause. "It would have cleared it up, you see."
"I did speak to you, Karl; and you seemed to understand me perfectly, and to accept it all as truth. You must remember your agitation, and how you begged me not to let it come to an exposure."
"But I thought you alluded to the trouble about my poor brother; that it was the fact of his being alive you had discovered and were resenting.Thatwas the exposure I dreaded. And no wonder: for, if it had come, it would have sent him back to Portland Island."
Lucy wrung her hands. "What a miserable misapprehension it has been!--and how base and selfish and cruel I must have appeared to you! I wonder, Karl, you did not put me away from you for ever!"
"Will you go now?"
She knew it was asked in jest: she probably knew that neither would have parted from the other for the wealth of the world. And she nestled the least bit closer to him.
"Karl!"
"Well?"
"Why did you not tell me about your brother when you found I knew nothing, and was resenting it. If I had but known the real truth, we never should have been at issue for a day."
"Remember, Lucy, that I thought it was what you knew, and spoke of. I thought you knew he was alive and was at the Maze with his wife. When I would have given you the whole history from the first, you stopped me and refused to hear. I wished to give it; that you might see I was less to blame than you seemed to be supposing. It has been a wretched play at cross-purposes on both sides: and neither of us, that I see, is to blame for it."
"Poor Sir Adam!" she cried, the tears again falling. "Living in that dreadful fear day after day! And what must his poor wife have suffered! And her baby dying, and now her husband! And I, instead of giving sympathy, have thought everything that was ill of her, and hated her and despised her. And Karl--why, Karl--shemust have been the real Lady Andinnian."
He nodded. "Until Adam's death, I was not Sir Karl, you see. The day you came with her from Basham, and they told her the fly waiting at the station was for Lady Andinnian, she was stricken with terror, believing they meant herself."
"Oh, if I had known all this time!" bewailed Lucy. "Stuck up here in my false pride and folly, instead of helping you to shield them and to lighten their burthen! I cannot hope that you will ever quite forgive me in your heart, Karl."
"Had it been as I supposed it was, I am not quite sure that I should. Not quite, Lucy, even to our old age. You took it up so harshly and selfishly, looking at it from my point of view, and resented it in so extraordinary a fashion, so bitter a spirit----"
"Oh don't, don't!" she pleaded, slipping down to his feet again in the depth of her remorse, the old sense of shame on her burning cheeks. "Won't you be merciful to me? I have suffered much."
"Why, my darling, you are mistaking me again," he cried tenderly, as he once more raised her. "I said, 'Looking at it from my point of view.' Looking at it from yours, Lucy, I am amazed at your gentle forbearance. Few young wives would have been as good and patient as you."
"Then do you really forgive me?" she asked, raising her eyes and her wet cheeks.
"Before I answer that, I think I must ask whether you forgive my having married you--now that you know all."
"Oh, Karl!"
She fell upon his shoulder, her arms round his neck. Karl caught her face to his. He might take what kisses he chose from it again.
"Karl, would you please let me go to see her?" she whispered.
"See whom?" asked Karl, in rather a hard tone, his mind pretty full just then of Miss Blake.
"Poor Lady Andinnian."
"Yes, if you will," he softly said. "I think she would like it. But, my dear, you must call her 'Mrs. Grey' remember. Not only for safety, but that she would prefer it."
They went over in the afternoon. Miss Blake, quite accidentally this time, for she was returning home quietly from confession at St. Jerome's--and a wholesale catalogue of peccadilloes she must have been disclosing, one would say, by the length of the hearing--saw them enter. It puzzled her not a little. Sir Karl taking his wifethere!What fresh ruse, what further deceit was he going to try? Oh but it was sinful! Worse than anything ever taken for Mr. Cattacomb's absolution at St. Jerome's.
Lucy behaved badly: without the slightest dignity whatever. The first thing she did was to burst out crying, and kiss Mrs. Grey's hand: as if--it really seemed so to Mrs. Grey--she did not dare to offer to kiss her cheek. Very sad and pretty she looked in her widow's mourning.
It was a sad interview: though in some respects a soothing and satisfactory one. Lucy explained, without entering into any details whatever, that she had not known who it was residing at the Maze, or she should have been over before, Karl and Sir Adam permitting her. Rose supposed that for safety's sake Karl had deemed it well to keep the secret intact. And there the matter ended.
"You will come and stay with me at the Court before you leave," pleaded Lucy.
Rose shook her head. "It is very kind of you to wish it, Lady Andinnian; very kind indeed under the circumstances; but it could not be. I shall not pass through these gates until I pass through them with Ann Hopley for good. That will be very soon."
"At least, you will come and stay with us sometime in the future."
"I think not. Unless I should get a fever upon me to see the spot once more that contains my husband and child. In that case, I might trespass on you for a day or two if you would have me. Thank you very much, Lady Andinnian."
"You will let me come over again before you leave?"
"Oh, I should be pleased--if Sir Karl has no objection. Thank you, Karl," she added, holding out her hands to him, "thank you for all. You have been to us ever the most faithful friend and brother."
The church bell at Foxwood was ringing for the late afternoon service as they quitted the Maze--for Mr. Sumnor, in spite of his discouragement and nonattendance, kept on the daily service. The ting-tang was sounding from St. Jerome's, and several damsels, who had come round by the Court to call for Miss Blake, were trooping past. Lucy bowed; Karl lifted his hat: he had ceased to care who saw him going in and out of the Maze gate now.
"Karl," said Lucy, "I should like to go to prayers this evening. I shall take no harm: it is scarcely dusk yet."
He turned to take her. Mr. Sumnor and the clerk were in the church; hardly anybody else--just as it had been that other evening when Lucy had crept in. Even Miss Diana was off to St. Jerome's, in the wake of her flighty nieces. Lucy went on to her own pew this time.
Oh, what a contrast it was!--this evening and that. Now she was utterly still in her rapt thankfulness; then she had lain on the floor, her heart crying aloud to God in its agony. What could she do to show her gratitude to Him, who had turned the darkness into this radiant light? She could do nothing. Nothing, save strive to let her whole life be spent as a thank-offering. Karl noted her excessive stillness, her blinding tears; and he probably guessed her thoughts.
While he was talking with Mr. Sumnor after the service, Lucy went in to the vicarage. Margaret, lying in the dusk, for the room was only lighted by its bit of fire, could not see who had entered.
"Is it you, Martha?" she said, thinking it was her sister. "You are back early."
"It is I--Lucy," said Lady Andinnian. "Oh, Margaret, I was obliged to come to you just for a minute. Karl is outside, and we have been to church. I have something to tell."
Margaret Sumnor put out both her hands in token of welcome. Instead of taking them, Lucy knelt by the reclining board, and brought her face close to her friend's, and spoke in a hushed whisper.
"Margaret, I want to thank you, and I don't know how. I have been thinking how impossible it will be for me ever to thank God: and it seems to be nearly as impossible ever to thank you. Do you remember what you once said to me, Margaret, about bearing and waiting? Well, but for you, I don't think Icouldhave borne or waited, even in the poor way I have; and--and--"
She broke down: sobs of emotion checked her utterance.
"Be calm, my dear," said Margaret. "You have come to tell me that the trouble is over."
"Yes: God has ended it. And, Margaret, I never need have had a shade of it: I was on a wrong track all the while. I--I was led to think ill of my husband; I treated him worse than any one will ever know or would believe: while he was good and loyal to the core in all ways, and in the most bitter trouble the world can inflict. Oh, Margaret, had I been vindictive instead of patient--I might have caused the most dire injury and tribulation, and what would have been my condition now, my dreadful remorse through life? When the thought comes over me, I shiver as I did in that old ague fever."
A fit of shivering took her actually. Miss Sumnor saw how the matter had laid hold upon her.
"Lucy, my dear, it seems to me that you may put away these thoughts now. God has been merciful and cleared it to you, you say; and you ought to be happy."
"Oh, so merciful!" she sobbed. "So happy! But it might have been otherwise, and I cannot forget, or forgive myself."
"Do you remember, Lucy, what I said? That some day when the cloud was removed your heart would go up with a bound of joyous thankfulness?"
"Yes. Because I did--and have done--as Margaret told me; and endured."
The affair had indeed laid no slight hold of Lucy. She could not forget what might have been the result, and quite an exaggerated remorse set in.
A few nights afterwards Karl was startled out of his sleep by her. She had awakened, it appeared, in a state of terror, and had turned to him with a nervous grasp as of one who is drowning. Shaking, sobbing, moaning, she frightened her husband. He would have risen for a light, but she clung to him too tightly.
"But what has alarmed you, Lucy--what is it?" he reiterated.
"A dream, Karl; a dream," she sobbed, in her bitter distress. "I am always thinking of it by day, but this time I dreamt it; and I awoke believing it was true."
"Dreamt what?" he asked.
"I thought that cruel time was back again. I thought that I had not been quiet and patient, as Margaret enjoined, leaving vengeance to God, but had taken it into my own hands, and so had caused the Maze's secret to be discovered. You and Adam had both died through it; and I was left all alone to my dreadful repentance, on some barren place surrounded by turbid water."
"Lucy, you will assuredly make yourself ill."
"But, oh Karl, if it had been true! If God had not saved me from it!"
They stood together in the north parlour: Sir Karl Andinnian and Miss Blake. In the least severe terms he knew how to employ, Sir Karl was telling her of her abuse of his hospitality--the setting his wife against him--and intimating that her visit to them had better for the present terminate.
It took Miss Blake by surprise. She had remarked a difference in their behaviour to one another, in the past day or two. Lucy scarcely left Sir Karl alone a minute: she was with him in his parlour; she clung to his arm in unmistakable fondness in the garden; her eyes were for ever seeking his with a look of pleading, deprecating love. "They could not have been two greater simpletons in their honeymoon," severely thought Miss Blake.
Something else had rather surprised her. Walking past the Maze on this same morning, she saw the gate propped open, and a notice, that the house was to let, erected on a board. The place was empty; the late tenants of it, the lady and her maid, had departed. Turning to ask Mr. Smith the meaning of this, she saw a similar board at his house: Mr. Smith was packing up, and Clematis Cottage was in the market.
"Good gracious! Are you going to leave us, Mr. Smith?" she asked, she asked, as that gentleman showed himself for a moment at the open window, with an armful of books and papers.
"Sorry to say that I am, madam. Business is calling me to London."
"I hear that Mrs. Grey has left, too. What can have taken her away?"
"Don't know," said Mr. Smith. "Does not care to stop in the house, perhaps, after a death has taken place in it. Servants must die as well as other people, though."
Without another word to her, he went to the back of the room with his load, and began stuffing it into a trunk with his one arm. Miss Blake summed up the conclusion in her mind.
"Sir Karl must have summarily dismissed him."
Little did she foresee that Sir Karl was about, so to say, summarily to dismiss herself. On this same day it was that he sought the interview. When the past was touched upon by Karl, and her part in it, Miss Blake, for once in her life, showed signs that she had a temper, and her face turned white.
"You might have done me incalculable mischief, Miss Blake: mischief that could never be repaired in this world," he said, standing to face her. "I do not allude to the estrangement that might have been caused between myself and my wife, but evil of a different nature. What could possibly have induced you to take up so outrageous a notion in regard to me?"
Miss Blake, in rather a shrill tone--for she was one of those unfortunate individuals whose voices grow harsh with annoyance--ventured upon a disparaging word of Mrs. Grey, but evaded the true question. Karl did not allow her to go on.
"That lady, madam," he said, raising his hand with a kind of solemnity, "was good and pure, and honourable as is my own wife; and my dear wife knows it now. She was sacred to me as a sister. Her husband was my dear and long-tried friend; and he was for some months in great trouble and distress. I wished to do what I could to alleviate it: my visits there were paid tohim."
"But he was not living there," rejoined Miss Blake, partly in hardy contest, partly in surprise.
"Indeed he was living there. He had his reasons for not wishing to make any acquaintance in the place, and so kept himself in retirement; reasons in which I fully acquiesced. However, his troubles are at an end now; and--and the family have ceased to be my tenants."
Whether Miss Blake felt more angry or more vexed, she was not collected enough at the moment to know. It was a very annoying termination to her long and seemingly well-grounded suspicions. She always wished to do right, and had the grace to feel somewhat ashamed of the past.
"What I said to Lucy I believed I had perfectly good grounds for, Sir Karl. I had the interests of religion at heart when I spoke."
"Religion!" repeated Sir Karl, his lips involuntarily curling. "Religion is as religion does, Miss Blake."
"After all, she did not heed me; so, if it did no good, it did no harm. Lucy is so very weak-minded--"
"Weak-minded!" interposed Sir Karl. "If to act as she did--to bear patiently and make no stir under extreme provocation, trusting to the future to right the wrong--if this is to be weak-minded, why I thank God that she is so. Had she been strong-minded as you, Miss Blake, the result might have been terribly different."
Miss Blake was nettled. Her manner froze.
"I see what it is, Sir Karl; you and your wife are so displeased with me that I feel my presence in your house is no longer welcome. As soon as I can make arrangements I will quit it--thanking you both for your hospitality."
She paused. Sir Karl paused too. Perhaps she had a faint expectation that he would hasten to refute the decision, and request her to stay on. But he did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he, in a word or two of politeness, acquiesced in the proposal of departure, as though it admitted of no question.
"I should not have trespassed on you so long--in fact, I should not have stayed at all after your first return here with Lady Andinnian, but for St. Jerome's," she rejoined, her temper getting up again, while there ran in her mind an undercurrent of thought, as to whether she could find suitable lodgings in Foxwood.
"You will not have to regret that, in leaving," he observed. "I am about to do away with St. Jerome's."
"To do away with St. Jerome's!"
"In a week's time from this it will be shut up, and all the nonsense within its walls cleared away."
"The nonsense!" shrieked Miss Blake.
"Why you cannot call it sense--or religion either. To tell you the truth, Miss Blake, the place has been an offence to me for some time. It has caused a scandal--"
"For shame, Sir Karl Andinnian! Scandal, indeed!"
"And this little bit of fresh scandal that has arisen now, people don't like at all," quietly persisted Sir Karl. "Neither do I. So, to prevent the bishop coming down upon us here, Miss Blake, I close the place."
Miss Blake compressed her lips. She could have struck him as he stood.
"What do you mean by a 'fresh' scandal, pray?"
"Well, the story runs that Mr. Cattacomb was seen to kiss one of the young ladies in the vestry."
Miss Blake started, Miss Blake shrieked, Miss Blake wondered that the very ceiling did not drop down upon the bold false tongue. To do her justice, she believed St. Jerome's pastor was by far too holy a man for any wickedness of the sort. Not to speak of restraining prudence.
"Sir Karl, may you be forgiven! Where do you expect to go to when you die?"
"To the heaven, I hope, that our merciful God has provided for us," he answered, meeting the query solemnly and with some emotion. "Some of those dearer to me than life have gone on thither to wait for me."
At which Miss Blake drew up her pious head, and intimated that she feared it might be another kind of place, unless he should mend his manners. And Sir Karl closed the interview, leaving her to understand that she had received her congé.
The circumstance to which he alluded was this. A day or two before, some prying boys, comrades of Tom Pepp's, were about St. Jerome's as usual. For, ever since its establishment, the place had been quite a point of attraction to these young reptiles; and keep off they would not. On the morning in question, hovering around the vestry window and the walls generally, a slight inlet of view was discovered, in consequence of the blinds being accidentally drawn somewhat aside. Of course as many eyes were applied to the chink as could find space; and they had the pleasure of seeing the parson steal a kiss or two from the blushing cheek of Miss Jemima Moore. Rare nuts for the boys to crack! Before the day had closed, it was being talked of in Foxwood, and reached the ears of Miss Diana. She handed the case over to the doctor.
Down he went to St. Jerome's on the following morning, and caught Mr. Cattacomb alone in the vestry, just getting into his sheep-skin. Mr. Moore wasted no time in circumlocution or superfluous greeting.
"You were seen to kiss my daughter, yesterday, young man."
To be pounced upon in this unprepared manner is enough to try the nerves of almost any hero; what must it have been then for a modest young clergyman, with a character for holiness, like Guy Cattacomb? He stammered and stuttered, and blushed to the very roots of his scanty hair. The tippet itself turned of a rosy hue.
"No equivocation, sir. Do you acknowledge it, or do you not?"
Gathering up his scared wits, and a modicum of courage, in the best way he could, the Reverend Guy virtually acknowledged it to be true. He added that he and Miss Jemima were seriously attached to each other; that he hoped sometime to win her for his wife; and that a sense of his utter want of means had alone prevented his speaking to the doctor.
"Now, look here," said the surgeon, after a pause of consideration, perceiving from the young man's earnest manner that this was the actual state of the case, "I sayNoto you at present. It lies with yourself whether I ever say yes. If you and she care for one another, I should be the last to stand in your way, once you have proved yourself worthy of her. Get rid of all the rubbish that's filling up your foolish brain;"--and he gave his hand a sweep around--"become a faithful, honest clergyman of the Church of England, serving your Master to the best of your power; and then you may ask for her. A daughter of mine shall never tie herself to a vain fop. No; though I had to banish her to the wilds of Kamschatka."
"I'll do my best, sir, to become what you will approve of," returned the parson humbly, "if you will only give me hope of Miss Jemima."
"It is because I think you have some good in you, that I do give you hope, Mr. Cattacomb. The issue lies with you."
Now, this was what Sir Karl alluded to. When it fell to Miss Blake's lot to find it was true and to hear the particulars, she thought, in her mortification, that the world must be drawing to an end: at least, it was signally degenerating. That adored saint to have turned out to be only a man after all--with all a man's frail nature! All Miss Blake's esteemed admirers seemed to be slipping from her one by one.
She and the congregation generally were alike incensed. Mr. Cattacomb, lost to any future hopes, fell in their estimation from fever-heat down to zero: and they really did not much care, after this, whether St. Jerome's was shut up or not. So Sir Karl and Farmer Truefit found their way was made plain before them.
"What a heap of silk we have wasted on cushions and things for him?" cried Charlotte St. Henry, in a passion. "And all through that sly little cat, Jemima Moore!"