Turning his face towards the railway station after quitting the Maze, with the view of making some enquiries, as to what passengers had alighted there the previous day and had gone back again--not that he believed one syllable of the tale told him--Mr. Strange encountered the gig of Dr. Cavendish bowling down. The physician recognised him and pulled up.
"What's this I hear, sir, about my patient's having gone off again?" cried the doctor in a sharp tone.
"I have heard the same," replied Mr. Strange. "But I don't believe it."
"Oh then--you are not privy to it? You did not send him?"
"Not I, Dr. Cavendish. I went to the Maze betimes this morning to--to pay him a visit; and I was met with a tale that the bird had flown."
"I can tell you, sir, that he was in amost unfitstate to travel," said the doctor with angry emphasis. "I don't know what the consequences will be."
"Ay, if he had gone. But it's all moonshine."
"What do you mean by 'moonshine?' Has he gone, or has he not?"
"They say at the Maze he has; but I am sure he has not," was the answer. "There was a motive for his being denied to me, Dr. Cavendish; and so--and so--when I went in this morning they concocted an impromptu tale of his departure. That's what I think."
"They must have concocted it last night then," said the doctor. "The letter, informing me of the circumstance, was posted last night at Foxwood--and therefore must have been written last night."
"Did they write to tell you he had gone?" asked the detective, after a slight pause.
"Mrs. Grey wrote. I got it by the post this morning. She would not trouble me to come over again, she said, as Illy patient had found himself obliged to leave last night. But Ihavetroubled myself to come," added the doctor, wrathfully, "and to see about it; for, of all mad acts, that man's getting up from his bed yesterday, and starting off by a shaking railway train was the maddest. Drive on, James."
The groom touched the horse at the short command, and the animal sprang forward. Mr. Strange thought he would let the station alone for a bit, and loiter about where he was. This letter, written last night, to tell of the departure, somewhat complicated matters.
A very short while, and the doctor came out again. Mr. Strange accosted him as he was about to step into his gig.
"Well, Dr. Cavendish, have you seen your patient?"
"No, I have not seen him," was the reply. "It is quite true that he is gone. I find he is embarking on a sea voyage, going off somewhere to the other end of the world, and he had to go up, or forfeit his passage-money."
"They told you, then, what they told me. As, of course, theywould," he added inwardly.
"But there's something in it I don't altogether understand," resumed the doctor. "Not a syllable was spoken by the patient yesterday to denote that he was on the move, or that he had been on the move, even only to journey down from London. On the contrary, I gathered, or fancied I gathered, from the tenor of his remarks that he had been for some time stationary, and would be stationary for an indefinite period to come. It was when I spoke to him about the necessity of keeping himself quiet and free from exertion. What I don't understand is why he should not candidly have told me that he had this voyage before him."
Mr. Strange did not answer. Various doubts were crowding upon him.Hadthe man got away? in disguise, say? But no, he did not think it.
"By the way, you did not tell me your name," said the doctor, as he took his seat in the gig.
"My name! oh, did I not? My name is Tatton."
Dr. Cavendish bent down his head and spoke in a low tone. His groom was adjusting the apron.
"You hinted last night at some great trouble that this gentleman was in, Mr. Tatton. I have been wondering whether that has to do with this sudden departure--whether he had reasons for being afraid to stay?"
"Just the question that has occurred to me, Dr. Cavendish," confessed the detective. "If he has gone away, it is fear that has driven him."
The gig bowled onwards. Mr. Strange stood still as he looked after it: and had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Philip Smith smoking his long pipe at his own window, and regarding the landscape with equanimity. He went on the other way.
"Good morning, Mr. Tatton."
Mr. Tatton turned on his heel and saluted Sir Karl Andinnian, who had followed him up. There was a degree of suppressed indignation in Karl's face rarely seen.
"Is this true that I have just heard, Mr. Tatton," he began, calling the man by his true name--"that you have been again searching the Maze? My butler informs me that he saw you and two policemen quit it but now."
"It is true enough, Sir Karl. Salter is there. At least, he was there yesterday. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the sick man to whom Dr. Cavendish was called was Salter. I obtained a description of him from the doctor, and should have recognized it anywhere."
What was Karl to say? He could not attempt to deny that a sick man had been there. It was an unfortunate circumstance that Sir Adam, in regard to height and colour of hair, somewhat answered to the description of Philip Salter.
"Sir Karl, you must yourself see that there's a mystery somewhere," resumed the detective, who (having taken his clue from Superintendent Game) honestly believed that the baronet of Foxwood Court cared not a rap for Salter, and had no covert interest in the matter, beyond that of protecting his tenant at the Maze. "Some one, who is never seen by the public, is living at the Maze, that's certain; or, at any rate, dodging us there. Remember the gentleman in evening attire seen by the surgeon and nurse; and now there's this gentleman sick abed yesterday. These men could not be myths, Sir Karl. Who, then, are they?"
From sheer inability to advance any theory upon the point, lest he should do mischief, Karl was silent. These repeated trials, these shocks of renewed dread, were getting more than he knew how to bear. Had they come upon Adam this morning? He did not dare to ask.
"As to the tale told me by the woman servant and Mrs. Grey--that the sick gentleman was a relative who had come down by train and left again, it will not hold water," contemptuously resumed the detective. "Men don't go out for a day's journey when they are as ill as he is--no, nor take long sea voyages. Why, if what Dr. Cavendish fears is correct, there cannot be many weeks of life left in the man he saw yesterday; neither, if it be so, can the man himself be unconscious of it."
Karl's heart stood still with its shock of pain.
"Did Dr. Cavendish tell you that, Mr. Tatton?"
"Yes. Well, now, Sir Karl, that man is at the Maze still--I am convinced of it; and that man is Salter."
"What did you find this morning?"
"Nothing. Nothing more than I found before. When I spoke of the sick man, and asked where he was, this cock-and-bull tale was told me, which, of course, they had got up among themselves."
"As I said before, Mr. Tatton, I feel certain--I am certain--that you will never find Salter at the Maze; from the simple fact that he is not there to find--I am sure of it. I must most earnestly protest against these repeated annoyances to my tenant, Mrs. Grey; and if you do not leave her alone for the future, I shall see whether the law will not compel you. I do not--pray understand--I do not speak this in enmity to you, but simply to protect her."
"Of course I understand that, Sir Karl," was the ready answer. "There's no offence meant, and none taken. But if you could put yourself in my place, you'd see my difficulty. Upon my word, I never was so mystified before.There Salter is. Other people can see him, and have seen him; and yet, when I search I find no traces of him. A thought actually crossed my mind just now, whether there could be a subterranean passage from the Maze to Clematis Cottage, and that Salter makes his escape there to his cousin on occasion. I should like to search it."
"Come and do so at once," said Karl, half laughing. "Nothing convinces like ocular demonstration. I give you full permission, as owner of the cottage; I doubt not Smith will, as its tenant. Come and ask him."
The detective was in earnest, and they crossed over. Seeing them making for the gate, Mr. Smith came out of his house, pipe in hand. It was one of those long churchwardens. Karl spoke a few words of explanation. Mr. Detective Tatton suspected there might be secret rooms, or doors, or fugitives hidden in Clematis Cottage, and would like to search it. After the first momentary look of surprise, the agent remained unruffled.
"Pass on, sir," said he, extending the thin end of his pipe to indicate the way. "You are welcome. Go where you please: search into every nook and corner; up the spouts and down the drains. If you surprise old Betty, tell her you're the plumber."
Mr. Strange took him at his word. Karl and the agent waited in the sitting-room together.
"Is it after Sir Adam, sir?" breathed the agent.
"No. No suspicion of him. It's after the other I told you of. Hush! Better be silent."
The agent put his pipe away. Karl stood at the open window. Old Betty, the ancient servant, came in with a scared face. She was a little deaf, but not with a deafness like Hopley's over the way.
"It's all right, Betty," called out her master. "Only looking to the drains and spouts."
Satisfied in one sense of the word--for in truth it was readily seen by the most unprofessional eye that there were no means afforded for concealment in the shallow-built cottage--the officer soon joined them again. He had not had really a suspicion of the cottage, he said by way of apology: it was merely a thought that crossed him. Mr. Smith, however, did not seem inclined to take the matter quite indifferently now, and accosted him.
"Now that you are satisfied, sir, perhaps you will have no objection to tell me who the individual may be, that you have fancied I would harbour in my house. I heard before from Sir Karl that you were after some one."
From the tone he spoke in, a very civil tone, tinged with mockery, the detective caught up the notion that Smith already knew; that Sir Karl must have told him: therefore he saw no occasion for observing any reticence.
"When you know that we are looking for Philip Salter, you need not be so much surprised that we have cast a thought to this house as Salter's possible occasional refuge, Mr. Smith."
The very genuine astonishment that seized hold of Smith, pervading his every look, and word, and gesture, was enough to convince those who saw it that he was unprepared for the news.
"Philip Salter!" he exclaimed, gazing from one to the other, as if unable to believe. "Philip Salter!Why, is he here? Have you news that he is back in England?"
"We have news that heishere," said the detective blandly. "We suspect that he is concealed at the Maze. Did you not know it, Mr. Smith?"
Mr. Smith sat down in the chair that was behind him as if sitting came easier than standing, in his veritable astonishment.
"As Heaven is my judge, it is a mistake," he declared. "Salter is not at the Maze; never has been. We have never heard that he is back in England."
"Did you know that he left England?"
"Yes. At least, we had good reason to believe that he got away shortly after that dangerous escape of his. It's true it was never confirmed; but the confirmation to his family lies in the fact that we have never since heard of him, or from him."
"Never?"
"Never. Were he in England we should have been sure to have had some communication from him, had it only been an application for aid--for he could not live upon air; and outlets of earning are here closed to him. One thing you and ourselves may alike rest assured of, Mr. Detective--that, once he got safely away from the country he would not venture into it again."
What with one disappointment and another, the detective almost questioned whether it were not as Smith said; and that Salter, so far as Foxwood was concerned, would turn out to be indeed a myth. But then--who was this mysterious man at the Maze? He was passing out with a good day when Mr. Smith resumed.
"Have you any objection to tell me what gave rise to your suspicion that Salter was at Foxwood? Or in England at all?"
But the officer had tact; plenty of it; or he would not have done for his post; and he turned the question off without any definite answer. For the true originator of the report, he who had caused it to reach the ears of Great Scotland Yard, was Sir Karl Andinnian.
Very conscious of the fact was Karl himself. He raised his hat from his brow as he went home, to wipe away the fever-damp gathered there. He remembered to have read somewhere of one of the tortures devised by inquisitionists in the barbarous days gone by. An unhappy prisoner would be shut in a spacious room; and, day by day, watched the walls contracting by some mysterious agency, and closing around him. It seemed to Karl that the walls of the world were closing around him now. Or, rather, round one who had become dearer to him in his dread position than himself--his most ill-fated brother.
At home or abroad there was not a single ray of light to illumine or cheer the gloom. Abroad lay apprehension; at home only unhappiness, an atmosphere of estrangement that seemed to have nothing homelike or true in it. Karl went in, expecting to see the pony-chaise waiting. He had been about to drive his wife out; but, alarmed by the report whispered to him by Hewitt, and unable to rest in tranquillity, he had gone forth to see about what it meant. But the chaise was not there. Maclean was at work on the lawn.
"Has Lady Andinnian gone!" he enquired, rather surprised--for Lucy had not learned to drive yet.
"My leddy is somewhere about the garden I think, Sir Karl," was the gardener's answer. "She sent the chay away again."
He found his wife sitting in a retired walk, a book in her hand, apparently reading it. Lucy was fading. Her face, worn and thin, had that indescribable air of pitiful sadness in it that tells of some deep-seated, ever-present sorrow. Karl was all too conscious of it. He blamed her for her course of conduct; but he did not attempt to conceal from himself that the trouble had originated with him.
"I am very sorry to have kept you waiting, Lucy," he began. "I had to go to Smith's on a little matter of business. You have sent the chaise away."
"I sent it away. The pony was tired of waiting. I don't care to go out at all to-day."
She spoke in an indifferent, almost a contemptuous tone. We must not blame her. Her naturally-sweet temper was being sorely tried: day by day her husband seemed to act so as to afford less promise of any reconciliation.
"I could not help it," was all he answered.
She glanced up at the weary accent. If ever a voice spoke of unresisted despair, his did then. Her resentment vanished: her sympathy was aroused.
"You look unusually ill," she said.
"I am ill," he replied. "So ill that I should be almost glad to die."
Lucy paused. Somehow she never liked these semi-explanations. They invariably imbued her with a sense of self-reproach, an idea that she was acting harshly.
"Do you mean ill because of our estrangement?"
"Yes, for one thing. That makes all other trouble so much worse for me that at times I find it rather difficult to put up with."
Lucy played with her book. She wished she knew where her true duty lay. Oh how gladly, but for that dreadful wrong ever being enacted upon herself, would she fall upon his arm and whisper out her beseeching prayer: "Take me to you again, Karl!"
"Should the estranged terms we are living on, end in a total and visible separation, you will have the satisfaction of remembering in your after life, Lucy, that you have behaved cruelly to me. I repeat it: cruelly."
"I do not wish to separate," murmured Lucy.
"The time may soon come when you will be called upon to decide, one way or the other; when there will be nothing left to wait for; when all will be known to the world as it is known to us."
"I cannot understand you," said Lucy.
"Let it pass," he answered, declining as usual to speak openly upon the dreaded subject; for, to him, every word, so spoken, seemed fraught with danger. "You can guess what I mean, I daresay: and the less said the better."
"You seem always to blame me, Karl," she rejoined, her voice softening almost to tears.
"Your own heart should tell you that I have cause."
"It has been very hard for me to bear."
"Yes; no doubt. It has hurt your pride."
"And something besides my pride," rejoined Lucy, with a faint flush of resentment.
"What has the bearing and the pain for you been, in comparison with what I have had to bear and suffer!" he asked with emotion. "I, at least, have not tried to make it worse for you, Lucy, though you have for me. In my judgment, we ought to havesharedthe burden; and so made it lighter, if possible, for one another."
Ay, sometimes she had thought that herself. But then her womanly sense of insult, her justifiable resentment, would step in and scatter the thought to the winds. It was too bad of Karl to reflect on her "pride."
"Is it to last for ever?" she asked, after a pause.
"Heaven knows!" he answered. "Heaven knows that I have striven to do my best. I have committed no sin against you, Lucy, save that of having married you when--when I ought not. I have most bitterly expiated it."
He spoke like one from whom all hope in life has gone; his haggard and utterly spiritless face was bent downwards. Lucy, her love all in force, her conscience aroused, touched his hand.
"If I have been more harshly judging than I ought, Karl, I pray you and heaven alike to forgive me."
He gave no answer: but he turned his hand upwards so that hers lay in it. Thus they sat for some time, saying nothing. A singing bird was perched on a tree in front of them; a light cloud passed over the face of the blue sky.
"But--you know, Karl," she began again in a half whisper, "it has not been right, or well, for--for those to have been at the Maze who have been there."
"I do know it. I have repeatedly told you I knew it. I would almost have given my life to get them out. It will not be long now; I fear, one way or the other, the climax I have been dreading seems to be approaching."
"What climax?"
"Discovery. Bringing with it disgrace and pain and shame. It is when I fear that, Lucy, that I feel most bitterly how wrong it was of me to marry. But I did not know all the complication; I never anticipated the evils that would ensue. You must forgive me, for I did it three-parts in ignorance."
He clasped her hand as he spoke. Her tears were gathering fast. Karl rose to depart, but she kept his fingers in hers, her tears dropping as she looked up at him.
"I ask, Karl, if we are to live this kind of life for ever?"
"As you shall will, Lucy. The life is of your choosing, not of mine."
One long look of doubt, of compassion, of love, into each other's eyes; and then the hand-clasp that so thrilled through each of them was loosed; the fingers fell apart. Karl went off to the house, and Lucy burst into a storm of sobs so violent as to startle the little bird, and stop its song.
Dreadful commotion at Mrs. Jinks's. Young ladies coming in, all in excitement; the widow nearly off her head. Their pastor was ill.
On a sofa before his parlour fire, he lay extended, the Reverend Guy; his head on a soft pillow, his feet (in embroidered slippers) on an embroidered cushion. The room was quite an epitome of sacred decorations, crosses lay embedded amid ferns; illuminated scrolls adorned the walls. Something was wrong with the reverend gentleman's throat: his hands and brow were feverish. Whether it was merely a relaxed throat, or a common soreness, or a quinsy threatening him could not be decided in the general dismay. Some thought one way, some another; all agreed in one thing--that it must be treated promptly. The dear man was passive as any lamb in their ministering hands, and submitted accordingly. What rendered the case more distressing and its need of recovering treatment all-urgent, was the fact that the morrow would be some great day in the calendar, necessitating high services at St. Jerome's. How were they to be held when the chief priest was disabled? Damon Puff was all very well; but he was not the Reverend Guy Cattacomb.
The Widow Jinks, assuming most experience by reason of years, and also in possessing a cousin who was a nurse of renown, as good as any doctor on an emergency, had recommended the application of "plant" leaves. The ladies seized upon it eagerly: anything to allay the beloved patient's sufferings and stop the progress of the disorder. The leaves had been procured without loss of time; Lawyer St. Henry's kitchen garden over the way having had the honour of supplying them; and they were now in process of preparation in the ladies' fair hands. Two were picking, three boiling and bruising, four sewing, all inwardly intending to apply them. The Widow Jinks had her hands full below: gruel, broth, jelly, arrow-root, beef-tea, custard puddings, and other things being alike in the course of preparation over the kitchen fire: the superabundant amount of sick dainties arising from the fact that each lady had ordered that which seemed to her best. What with the care of so many saucepans at once, and the being called off perpetually to answer the knocks at the front door, the widow felt rather wild; and sincerely wished all sore throats at Jericho. For the distressing news had spread; and St. Jerome's fair worshippers were coming up to the house in uninterrupted succession.
It fell to Miss Blake to apply the cataplasm. As many assisting, by dint of gingerly touching the tip of the reverend gentleman's ears or holding back his shirt collar as could get their fingers in. Miss Blake, her heart attuned to sympathy, felt stirred by no common compassion. She was sure the patient's eyes sought hers: and, forgetting the few years' difference in their ages, all kinds of flattering ideas and sweet hopes floated into her mind--for it was by no means incumbent on her to waste her charms in wearing the willows for that false renegade--false in more ways than one--Karl Andinnian. Looking on passively, but not tendering her own help amid so many volunteers, sat Jemima Moore in a distant chair, her face betokening anything but pleasurable ease. There were times when she felt jealous of Miss Blake.
The leaves applied, the throat bound up, and some nourishment administered in the shape of a dish of broth, nothing remained to be essayed, save that the patient should endeavour to get some sleep. To enable him to do this, it was obvious, even to the anxious nurses themselves, that he should be left alone. Miss Blake suggested that they should all make a pilgrimage to St. Jerome's to pray for him. Eagerly was it seized upon, and bonnets were tied on. A thought crossed each mind almost in unison--that one at least might have been left behind to watch the slumbers: but as nobody would help another to the office, and did not like very well to propose herself, it remained unspoken.
"You'll come back again!" cried the reverend sufferer, retaining Miss Blake's hand in his, as she was wishing him goodbye.
"Relyupon me, dear Mr. Cattacomb," was the response--and Miss Blake regarded the promise as sacred, and would not have broken it for untold gold.
So they trooped out: and Mr. Cattacomb, left to himself and to quiet, speedily fell into the desired sleep. He was really feeling ill and feverish.
The time was drawing on for the late afternoon service, and Tom Pepp stood tinkling the bell as the pilgrims approached. Simultaneously with their arrival, there drove up an omnibus, closely packed with devotees from Basham, under the convoy of Mr. Puff. That reverend junior, his parted hair and moustache and assumed lisp in perfect order, conducted the service to the best of his ability; and the foreheads of some of his fair hearers touched the ground in humility when they put up their prayers for the sick pastor.
The autumn days were short now; the service had been somewhat long, and when St. Jerome turned out its flock, evening had set in. You could hardly see your hand before you. Some went one way, some another. The omnibus started back with its freight: Mr. Puff, however (to the utter mental collapse of those inside it) joined the pilgrims on their return to Mr. Cattacomb's. Miss Blake went straight on to Foxwood Court: for, mindful of her promise to the patient, she wished to tell Lady Andinnian that she should not be in to dinner.
Margaret Sumnor was staying with Lucy: her invalid sofa and herself having been transported to the Court. The rector and his wife had been invited to an informal dinner that evening; also Mr. Moore and his sister: so Miss Blake thought it better to give notice that she should be absent, that they might not wait for her. Jemima Moore, a very good-natured girl on the whole, offered to accompany her, seeing that nobody else did; for they all trooped off in the clerical wake of Mr. Puff. As the two ladies left the Court again, they became aware that some kind of commotion was taking place before the Maze gate. It was too dark to see so far, but there was much howling and groaning.
"Do let us go and see what it is!" cried Miss Jemima. And she ran off without further parley. The irruption into the Maze of Mr. Detective Tatton--who was by this time known in his real name and character--had excited much astonishment and speculation in Foxwood; the more especially as no two opinions agreed as to what there was within the Maze that he could be after. The prevailing belief amid the juvenile population was, that a menagerie of wild beasts had taken up its illegitimate abode inside. They collected at hours in choice groups around the gate, pressing their noses against the iron work in the hope of getting a peep at the animals, or at least of hearing them roar. On this evening a dozen or two had come down as usual: Tom Pepp, having cut short the ringing out, in his ardour to make one, had omitted to put off the conical cap.
But these proceedings did not please Sir Karl Andinnian's agent at Clematis Cottage. That gentleman, after having warned them sundry times to keep away, and enlarged on the perils that indiscriminate curiosity generally brought to its indulgers, had crossed the road to-night armed with a long gig-whip, which he began to lay about him kindly. The small fry, yelling and shrieking, dispersed immediately.
"Little simpletons!" cried Miss Jemima Moore, as the agent walked back with his whip, after explaining to her. "Papa says the police only went in to take the boundaries of the parish. And--oh! There's Tom Pepp in his sacred cap! Miss Blake, look at Tom Pepp. Oh! Oh, if Mr. Cattacomb could but see him!"
Miss Blake, who never did things in a hurry, walked leisurely after the offending boy, intending to pounce upon him at St. Jerome's. In that self-same moment the Maze gate was thrown open, and Mrs. Grey, her golden hair disordered, herself in evident tribulation, came forth wringing her hands, and amazing Miss Jemima more considerably than even the whip had amazed the boys.
What she said, Jemima hardly caught. It was to the effect that her baby was in convulsions; that she wanted Mr. Moore on the instant, and had no one to send.
"I'll run for papa," cried the good-natured girl. "I will run at once; I am his daughter. But you should get it into a warm bath, instantly, you know. There's nothing else does for convulsions. I would come and help you if there were any one else to go for papa."
In answer to this kind suggestion, Mrs. Grey stepped inside again, and shut the gate in Miss Jemima's face. But she thanked her in a few heartfelt words, and begged her to get Mr. Moore there without delay: her servant was already preparing a bath for the baby.
Jemima ran at the top of her speed, and met her father and aunt walking to Foxwood Court. The doctor hastened to the Maze, leaving his sister to explain the cause of his absence to Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian.
Dinner was nearly over at the Court when the doctor at length got there. The baby was better, he said: but he was by no means sure that it would not have a second attack. If so, he thought it could not live: it was but weakly at the best.
As may readily be imagined, scarcely any other topic formed the conversation at the dinner-table. Not one of the guests seated round it had the slightest notion that it was, of all others, the most intensely unwelcome to their host and hostess: the one in his dread to hear the Maze alluded to at all; the other in her bitter pain and jealousy. The doctor enlarged upon the isolated position of Mrs. Grey, upon her sweetness and beauty, upon her warm love for her child, and her great distress. Sir Karl made an answering remark when obliged. Lucy sat in silence, bearing her cross. Every word seemed to be an outrage on her feelings. The guests talked on; but somehow each felt that the harmony of the meeting had left it.
Making his dinner of one dish, in spite of the remonstrances of Sir Karl and the attentions of Mr. Giles and his fellows, the doctor drank a cup of coffee, and rose to leave again. His sister, begging Lady Andinnian to excuse her, put on her hat and shawl, and left with him.
"Are you going over to the Maze, William?" she asked, when they got out.
"I am, Diana."
"Then I will go with you. That's why I came away. The poor young thing is alone, save for her servants, and I think it only a charity that some one should be with her."
The surgeon gave a grin of satisfaction in the darkness of the night. "Take care, Diana," said he, with assumed gravity. "You know the question the holy ones at St. Jerome's are raising--whether that lovely lady is any better than she should be."
"Bother to St. Jerome's," independently returned Miss Diana.
"If the holy ones, as you call them, would expend a little more time in cultivating St. Paul's enjoined charity, and a little less in praying with those two parsons of theirs, Heaven might be better served. Let the lady be what she will, she is to be pitied in her distress, and I am going to her. Brother William!"
"Well?"
"I cannot think what is the matter with Lady Andinnian. She looks just like one that's pining away."
The evening went on at the Court. Miss Blake came back, bringing the news that the Reverend Mr. Cattacomb's throat was easier, which was of course a priceless consolation. At ten o'clock Mr. and Mrs. Sumnor took their departure, Sir Karl walking with them as far as the lodge. Lost in thought, he had gone out without his hat: in returning for it he saw his wife at one of the flower beds.
"Lucy! Is it you, out in the damp? What do you want?"
"I am getting one of the late roses for Margaret," was the answer. "She likes to have a flower to cheer her when she lies awake at night. She says it makes her think of heaven."
"I will get it for you," said Karl. And he chose the best he could in the starlight, and cut it.
"Lucy, I am going over the way," he resumed in a low tone, as they turned to the steps, "and I cannot tell when I shall be back. Hewitt will sit up for me."
Of all audacious avowals, this sounded about the coolest to its poor young listener. Her quickened breath seemed to chafe her; her heart beat as though it would burst its bounds.
"Why need you tell me of it?" she passionately answered, all her strivings for patience giving way before the moment's angry pain.
Karl sighed. "It lies in my duty to do what I can, Lucy: and as I should have thought you might see and recognize. Should the child have a relapse in the course of the night, I shall be there to fetch Moore: there's no one else to go."
Lucy let fall the train of her dress, which she had been holding, gathered round her, and swept across the hall; vouchsafing back to him neither look nor word.
The chamber lay in semi-light: with that still hush pervading it, common to rooms where death is being waited for, and is seen visibly approaching. Mr. Moore's fears had been verified. The infant at the Maze had had a second attack of convulsions, and was dying.
It lay folded in a blanket on its mother's lap. The peaceful little face was at rest now; the soft breathing, getting slower and slower, alone stirring it. Miss Diana, her hat thrown off, sat on her heels on the hearth-rug, speaking every now and then a word or two of homely comfort: the doctor stood near the fire looking on; Ann Hopley was noiselessly putting straight some things in a corner.
With her golden hair all pushed from her brow, and her pretty face so delicate and wan, bent downwards, she sat, the poor mother. Save for the piteous sorrow in the despairing eyes, and a deep sobbing sigh that would arise in the throat, no sign of emotion escaped her. She knew the fiat--that all hope was over. The doctor, who saw the end getting nearer and nearer, and was aware that such ends are sometimes painful to see, even in an infant--the little frame struggling with the fleeting breath, the helpless hands fighting for it--had been anxious that Mrs. Grey should resign her charge to some one else. Miss Diana made one more effort to bring it about.
"My dear, I know youmustbe tired. You'll get the cramp. Let me take it, if only for a minute's relief."
"Do, Mrs. Grey," said the doctor.
She looked up at them with beseeching entreaty; her hands tightening involuntarily over the little treasure.
"Please don't ask me," she piteously said. "I must have him to the last. He is going from me for ever."
"Not for ever, my dear," corrected Miss Diana. "You will go to him, though he will not return to you."
The door softly opened, and some one came gently in. Absorbed by the dying child though she was, and by the surroundings it brought, Mrs. Grey glanced quickly up and made a frantic movement to beckon the intruder back, her face changing to some dread apprehension, her lips parting with fear. She thought it might be one who must not dare to show himself if he valued life and liberty: but it was only Karl Andinnian.
"Oh Karl, he is dying!" she cried in the hasty impulse of the moment--and the dry eyes filled with tears. "My darling baby is dying."
"I have been so sorry to hear about it, Mrs. Grey," returned Karl, who had his wits about him if she had not, and who saw the surprise of the doctor and Miss Diana, at the familiarity of the address. "I came over to see if I could be of any use to you."
He fell to talking to Mr. Moore in an under-tone, giving her time to recover her mistake; and the hushed silence fell on the chamber again. Karl bent to look at the pale little face, soon to put on immortality; he laid his hand lightly on the damp forehead, keeping it there for a minute in solemn silence, as though breathing an inward prayer.
"He will be better off there than here," whispered he to the mother, in turning to leave the chamber. "The world is full of thorns and care, as some of us too well know: God is taking him from it."
Pacing a distant room like a caged lion, was Sir Adam Andinnian. He wheeled round on his heel when his brother entered.
"Was ever position like unto mine, Karl?" he broke out, anger, pain, impatience, and most deep emotion mingling together in his tone. "Here am I, condemned to hide myself within these four walls, and may not quit them even to see my child die! The blackest criminal on earth can call for his friends on his death-bed. When are that offensive doctor and his sister going?"
"They are staying out of compassion to Rose," spoke Karl, in his quiet voice. "Oh, Adam, I am so sorry for this! I feel it with my whole heart."
"Don't talk," said Adam, rather roughly. "No fate was ever like my fate. Heaven has mercy for others: none for me. Because my own bitter punishment was not enough, it must even take my son!"
"It does seem to you cruel, I am sure. But God's ways are not as our ways. He is no doubt taking him, in love, from the evil to come. When we get up above there ourselves, Adam, we shall see the reason of it."
Sir Adam did not answer. He sat down and covered his face with his hand, and remained in silence. Karl did not break it.
Sounds by and by. The doctor and his sister were departing, escorted by Ann Hopley--who must see them out at the gate and make it fast again. Adam was bursting from the room: but his brother put his arm across the entrance.
"Not yet, Adam. Not until Ann is in again, and has the door fast. Think of the consequences if you were seen!"
He recognised the good sense, the necessity for prudence, fierce as a caged lion though his mood indeed was. The bolts and bars were shot at last, and Adam went forth.
In its own crib lay the baby then, straight and still. The fluttering heart had ceased to beat; the sweet little peaceful face was at rest. Rose knelt by her own bed, her head muffled in the counterpane. Sir Adam strode up to his child and stood looking at it.
A minute's silence deep as that of the death that was before him, and then a dreadful burst of tears. They are always dreadful when a man sheds them in his agony.
"It was all we had, Karl," he said between his sobs. "And I did not even see him die!"
Karl took the strong but now passive hands in his. His own eyes were wet as he strove to say a word of comfort to his brother. But these first moments of grief are not best calculated for it.
"He is happier than he could ever have been here, Adam. Try and realize it. He is already one of God's bright angels."
And my young Lady Andinnian, over at Foxwood Court, did not choose to go to bed, but sat up to indulge her defiant humour. Never had her spirit been so near open rebellion as it was that night. Sir Karl did not come in: apparently he meant to take up his abode at the Maze until morning.
"Of coursehe must be there when his child is dying!" spoke she to herself, as she paced the carpet with a step as impatient and a great deal more indignant than those other steps that had paced, that night. "Of courseshemust be comforted! While I----"
The words were choked by a flood of emotion. Bitter reflections crowded on her, one upon another. The more earnestly and patiently she strove to bear andforbear, the more cruelly seemed to rise up her afflictions. And Lucy Andinnian threw herself down in abandonment, wondering whether all pity had quite gone out of heaven.
What Mr. Detective Tatton's future proceedings would have been, or to what untoward catastrophe, as connected with this history, they might have led had his stay at Foxwood been prolonged to an indefinite period, cannot here be known. He remained on. Social matters had resumed their ordinary groove. The Maze was left undisturbed; Mr. Cattacomb was well again; St. Jerome's in full force.
It might be that Mr. Tatton was waiting--like a certain noted character with whom we all have the pleasure of an acquaintance--for "something to turn up." That he was contemplating some grand coup, which would throw his prize into his hands, while to the world and Mrs. Jinks he appeared only to be enjoying the salubrious Kentish air, and amusing himself with public politics generally, we may rest pretty well assured of. But this agreeable existence was suddenly cut short.
One morning when Mr. Tatton's hopes and plans were, like Cardinal Wolsey's greatness, all a-ripening, he received a communication from Mr. Superintendent Game at Scotland Yard, conveying the astounding intelligence that the real Philip Salter had not been in Foxwood at all, but had just died in Canada.
Mr. Tatton sat contemplating the letter. He could not have been much more astonished had a bombshell burst under him. Of the truth of the information there could be no question: its reliability was indisputable. One of the chief officers in the home police force who was in Canada on business, and had known Salter well, discovered him in the last stage of a wasting sickness, and saw him die.
"I've never had such a fool's game to play at asthis," ejaculated Mr. Tatton when sufficiently recovered to speak; "and never wish to have such another. What the deuce, then, is the mystery connected with the Maze?"
Whatever it might be, it was now no business of his; though could he have afforded to waste more time and money, he would have liked very well to stay and track it out. Summoning the Widow Jinks to his presence, he informed her that he was called away suddenly on particular business; and then proceeded to pack up. Mrs. Jinks resented the departure as quite a personal injury, and wiped the soft tears from her eyes.
On his way to the station he chanced to meet Sir Karl Andinnian: and the latter's heart went up with a great bound. The black bag in Mr. Tatton's hand, and the portmanteau being wheeled along beside him, spoke a whole volume of hope.
"Good morning, Sir Karl. You have misled us finely as to the Maze."
"Why, what do you mean, Mr. Tatton?" asked Karl.
"Salter has turned up in Canada. Or, one might perhaps rather say, turned down; for he is dead, poor fellow."
"Indeed!"
"Indeed and in truth. One of our officers is over there, and was with him when he died. It was too bad of you to mislead us in this way, Sir Karl."
"Nay, you misled yourselves."
"A fine quantity of time I have wasted down here! weeks upon weeks; and all for nothing. I never was so vexed in my life."
"You have yourself to blame--or those who sent you here. Certainly not me. The very first time I had the honour of speaking to you, Mr. Tatton, I assured you on the word of a gentleman that Salter was not at Foxwood."
"Well, come, Sir Karl--what is the secret being enacted within the place over yonder?" pointing his finger in the direction of the Maze.
"I am not in the habit of enquiring into the private affairs of my tenants," was the rather haughty answer. "If there be any secret at the Maze--though I think no one has assumed it but yourself--you may rely upon it that it is not in any way connected with Salter. Are you taking your final departure?"
"It looks like it, Sir Karl"--nodding towards the luggage going onwards. "When the game's at the other end of the world, and dead besides, it is not of much use my staying to search after it in this. I hope the next I have to hunt will bring in more satisfaction."
They said farewell cordially. The detective in his natural sociability; Karl in his most abundant gratitude for the relief it would give his brother. And Mr. Detective Tatton, hastening on in the wake of the portmanteau, took the passing up-train, and was whirled away to London.
A minute or two afterwards Karl met his agent. He was beginning to impart to him the tidings about Salter, when Smith interrupted him.
"I have heard it, Sir Karl. I got a letter from a relative this morning, which told me all. The information has taken Tatton off the land here, I expect: I saw you speaking to him."
"You are right."
"As to poor Salter, the release is probably a happy one. He is better off than he ever could have been again in this world. But what on earth put Scotland Yard on the false scent that he was at Foxwood, will always be a problem to me. Tatton's gone for good, I suppose, sir!"
"He said so."
"And Sir Adam is, in one sense, free again. There will be less danger in his getting away from Foxwood now, if it be judged desirable that he should go."
Karl shook his head. There was another impediment now to his getting away--grievous sickness.
That Sir Adam Andinnian, the unfortunate fugitive, hiding in peril at the Maze, had some very grave disorder upon him could no longer be doubtful to himself or to those about him. It seemed to develop itself more surely day by day. Adam took it as calmly as he did other evils; but Karl was nearly out of his mind with distress at the complication it brought. Most necessary was it for Adam to have a doctor; to be attended by one; and yet they dare not put the need in practice. The calling in of Dr. Cavendish had entailed only too much danger and terror.
The little baby, Charles Andinnian, was lying at rest in Foxwood churchyard, within the precincts consecrated to the Andinnian family. Ann Hopley chose the grave, and had a fight over it with the clerk. That functionary protested he would not allot it to any baby in the world. She might choose any spot except that, but that belonged to the Foxwood Court people exclusively. Ann Hopley persisted the baby should have that, and no other. It was under the weeping elm tree, she urged, and the little grave would be shaded from the summer's sun. Sir Karl Andinnian settled the dispute. Appealed to by the clerk, he gave a ready and courteous permission, and the child was laid there. Ann Hopley then paid a visit to the stonemason, and ordered a little white marble stone, nothing to be inscribed on it but the initials "C. A." and the date of the death. Poor Rose had only her sick husband to attend to now.
He was not always sick. There were days when he seemed to be as well, and to be almost as active, as ever; and, upon that would supervene a season of pain and dread, and danger.
One afternoon, when Karl was driving his wife by in the pony-chaise, Ann Hopley had the gate open, and was standing at it. It was the day following the departure of Mr. Tatton. Something in the woman's face--a kind of mute, appealing anguish--struck Karl forcibly as she looked at him. In the sensation of freedom and of safety brought by the detective's absence, Karl actually pulled up.
"Will you pardon me, Lucy, if I leave you for one moment? I think Ann Hopley wants to speak to me."
He leaped out of the little low chaise, leaving the reins to Lucy. Her face was turning scarlet. Of all the insults he had thrust upon her, this seemed the greatest. To pull up at that very gate whenshewas in the carriage! Mr. Smith and his churchwarden-pipe were enjoying themselves as usual at Clematis Cottage, looking out on the world in general, and no doubt (as Lucy indignantly felt) making his private comments.
"He is very ill again, sir," were the few whispered words of Ann Hopley. "Can you come in? I am not sure but it will be for death."
"Almost immediately," returned Karl; and he stepped back to the chaise just in time. Lucy was about to try her hand at driving, to make her escape from him and the miserable situation.
Since the night of the baby's death, Karl and his wife had lived a more estranged life than ever. Lucy avoided him continually. When he spoke to her, she would not answer beyond a monosyllable. As to any chance of explanation on any subject, there was none. It is true he did not attempt any; and if he had, she would have waived him away, and refused to listen to it. This day was the first for some time that she had consented to let him drive her out.
It had happened on their return. Lucy's eminently ungracious manner as he took his seat again would have stopped his speaking, even if he had had a mind to speak; but he was deep in anxious thought. The resentful way in which she had from the first taken up the affair of his unfortunate brother, served to tie his tongue always. He drove in, stood to help her out--or would have helped, but that she swept by without touching him--left the pony to the waiting groom, and walked back to the Maze.
Adam was in one of his attacks of pain, nay, of agony. It could be called nothing less. It was not, however, for death; the sharpness of the paroxysm, with its attendant signs, had misled Ann Hopley. Rose looked scarcely less ill than her husband. Her most grievous position was telling upon her. Her little child dead, her husband apparently dying, danger and dread of another sort on all sides. More like a shadow was she now than a living woman.
"Do you know what I have been thinking, Rose?" said Karl, when his brother had revived. "That we might trust Moore. You hear, Adam. I think he might be trusted."
"Trusted for what?" returned Adam; not in his sometimes fierce voice, but in one very weak and faint.
He was lying on the sofa. Rose sat at the end of it, Karl in a chair at the side.
"To see you; to hear who you are. I cannot help believing that he would be true as steel. Moore is one of those men, as it seems to me, that we might trust our lives with."
"It won't do to run risks, old fellow. I do not want to be captured in my last hours."
Karl believed there would be no risk. Mr. Moore was a truly good man, sensible and benevolent. The more he dwelt on the idea, the surer grew his conviction that the surgeon might be trusted. Rose, who was almost passive in her distress, confessed she liked him. Both he and his sister gave her the impression of being, as Karl worded it, true as steel. Ann Hopley was in favour of it too. She put the case with much ingenuity.
"Sir, I should think there's not a doctor in the world--at least, one worthy the name--who would not keep such a secret, confided to him of necessity, even if he were a bad man. And Mr. Moore's a good one."
And the decision was made. Karl was to feel his way to the confidence. He would sound the surgeon first, and act accordingly.
"Not that it much signifies either way," cried Sir Adam, his careless manner reviving as his strength and spirits returned. "Die I soon must, I suppose, now; but I'd rather die in my bed here than on a pallet in a cell. So, Karlo, old friend, if you like to see what Moore's made of, do so."
"I wish it had occurred to me before," cried Karl. "But indeed, the outer dangers have been so imminent as to drive other fears away."
"It will never matter, bon fère. I don't suppose all the advice in the kingdom could have saved me. What is to be will be."
"Master," put in Ann Hopley, "where's the good of your taking up a gloomy view of it, all at once?That'snot the way to get well."
"Gloomy! not a bit of it," cried Sir Adam, in a voice as cheery as a lark's on a summer's morning. "Heaven is more to be desired than Portland Prison, Ann."
So Karl went forth, carrying his commission. In his heart he still trembled at it. The interests involved were so immense; the stake was so heavy for his unfortunate brother. In his extreme caution, he did not care to be seen going to the surgeon's house, but sent a note to ask him to call at the Court.
It was the dusk of evening when Mr. Moore arrived. He was shown in to Sir Karl in his own room. Giles was appearing with two wax-lights in massive silver candlesticks, but his master motioned them away.
"I can say what I have to say better by this light than in a glare," he observed to the doctor: perhaps as an opening preliminary, or intimation that the subject of the interview was not a pleasant one. And Giles shut them in alone. Karl sat sideways to the table, his elbow leaning on it; the doctor facing him with his back to the window.
"Mr. Moore," began Karl, after a pause of embarrassment, "did it ever occur to you to have a secret confided to your keeping involving life or death?"
Mr. Moore paused in his turn. The question no doubt caused him surprise. He took it--the "life or death"--to be put in a professional point of view. A suspicion came over him that he was about to be consulted for some malady connected with the (evident) fading away of Lady Andinnian.
"I do not suppose, Sir Karl, there is a single disease that flesh is heir to, whether secret or open, but what I have been consulted upon in my time."
"Not disease," returned Karl hastily; finding he was misunderstood. "I meant a real, actual secret. A dangerous secret, involving life or death to the individual concerned, according as others should hold it sacred or betray it."
A longer pause yet. Mr. Moore staring at Karl through the room's twilight.
"You must speak more plainly, Sir Karl, if you wish me to understand." And Karl continued thoughtfully, weighing every word as he spoke it, that it might not harm his brother.
"The case is this, Mr. Moore. I hold in my keeping a dangerous secret. It concerns a--a friend: a gentleman who has managed to put himself in peril of the law. For the present he is evading the law; keeping himself, in fact, concealed alike from enemies and friends, with the exception of one or two who are--I may say--helping to screen him. If there were a necessity for my wishing to confide this secret to you, would you undertake to keep it sacred? Or should you consider it lay in your duty as a conscientious man to betray it?"
"Goodness bless me, no!" cried the doctor. "I'm not going to betray people: it's not in my line. My business is to heal their sickness. You need not fear me. It is a case of debt, I suppose, Sir Karl?"
Karl looked at him for a moment steadily. "And if it were not a case of debt, but of crime, Moore? What then?"
"Just the same. Betraying my fellowmen, whether smarting under the ban of perplexity or of sin, does not rest in my duty, I say. I am not a detective officer. By the way, perhaps that other detective--who turns out to be named Tatton, and to belong to Scotland Yard--may have been down here looking after the very man."
Mr. Moore spoke lightly. Not a suspicion rested upon him that the sad and worn gentleman before him held any solemn or personal interest in this. Karl resumed, his voice insensibly taking a lower tone.
"An individual is lying in concealment, as I have described. His offence was not against you or against me. Therefore, as you observe, and as I judge, it does not lie even in our duty to denounce him. I am helping to screen him. I want you to undertake to do the same when you shall know who he is."
"I'll undertake it with all my heart, Sir Karl. You have some motive for confiding the matter to me."
"The motive arises out of necessity. He is grievously ill; in urgent need of medical care. I fear his days are already numbered: and in that fact lies a greater obligation for us to obey the dictates of humanity."
"I see. You want me to visit him, and to do what I can for him. I am ready and willing."
"He is--mind, I shall shock you--a convicted felon."
"Well?--he has a body to be tended and a soul to be saved," replied the surgeon, curiously impressed with the hush of gravity that had stolen over the interview. "I will do my best for him, Sir Karl."
"And guard his secret?"
"I will. Here's my hand upon it. What would my Maker say to my offences at the Last Day, I wonder, if I could usurp His functions and deliver up to vengeance my fellowman?"
"I may trust you, then?"
"You may. I perceive you are over anxious, Sir Karl. What more assurance can I give you? You may trust me as you trust yourself. By no incautious word or action of mine shall his peril be increased, or harm come nigh him: nay, I will avert it from him if I can. And now--who is he? The sick man at the Maze--to whom Dr. Cavendish was called? Taking one thing with another, that Maze has been a bit of a puzzle in my mind lately."
"The same."
"Ay. Between ourselves, I was as sure as gold that some one was there. Is it Mr. Grey? The poor young lady's husband; the dead baby's father?"
"Just so. But he is not Mr. Grey."
"Who is he, then?"
Karl glanced around him, as though he feared the very walls might contain eaves-droppers. Mr. Moore saw his dread.
"It is a most dangerous secret," whispered Karl with agitation. "You will keep it with your whole heart and life?"
"Once more, I will, I will. You cannot doubt me. Who is it?"
"My brother. Sir Adam Andinnian."
The doctor leaped to his feet. Perhaps he had a doubt of Karl's sanity. He himself had assisted to lay Sir Adam in his grave.
"Hush!" said Karl. "No noise. It is indeed my most unfortunate brother."
"Did he come to life again?--Did Sir Adam come to life again?" reiterated the wondering surgeon in his perplexity.
"He did not die."