by Ellen Wood
Hewitt was sent to Foxwood. It would probably be made the future home of Mrs. Andinnian and her younger son; but at present they had not gone there. For some little time, while Karl was busy in London, Northamptonshire, or elsewhere, he had lost sight of his mother. She quitted the temporary home she occupied, and, so to say, disappeared. While he was wondering what this meant, and where she could be, he received a letter from her dated Weymouth. She told him she had taken up her abode there for the present, and she charged him not to disclose this to any one, or to let her address be known. Just for a moment, Karl was puzzled to imagine what her motive could be in going to a place that she knew nothing of. All at once the truth flashed upon him — she would be as near as possible to that cruel prison that contained her ill-fated son.
It was even so. Adam Andinnian was on Portland
Island; and his mother had taken up her residence at Weymouth to be near him. Karl, who knew not the place, or the rules observed, wondered whether a spectator might stroll about on the (so-called) island at will, or ever get a chance glimpse of the gangs at their labour.
In the month of October, Captain Andinnian — to call him by this title for a short while longer — went to Weymouth. He found his mother established in a small, mean, ready-furnished house in an obscure part of the town. It was necessary for him to see her on matters connected with the Foxwood estate, of which he had now the management; but she had charged him to come to her in as private a manner as he well could, and not to make himself or his name known at the station or elsewhere, unless under necessity. “She is right,” thought Karl; “the name of Andinnian is notorious now.” That was true; and he did not suppose she had any other motive for the injunction.
“But, my dear mother, why are you here?” he asked within five minutes of his entrance, as he looked at the confined walls of the mean abode. “You might at least have been more comfortably and suitably lodged.” —
“What I choose to do, I do,” she answered, in the distant tones of former days. “It is not for you to question me.”
Mrs. Andinnian was altered. Mental suffering had told upon her. The once fresh hues of her complexion had given place to a fixed pallor; the large dark eyes had acquired a fierce and yet restless look. In manner alone was she unaltered, at least to Karl: and as to her pride, it seemed to be more dominant than ever.
“I was only thinking of your comfort, mother,” he replied to her fierce rejoinder. “This is so different from what you have been accustomed to.”
“Circumstances are different,” she said curtly.
“Have you but one servant in the whole house? For everything?”
“She is enough for me: she is a faithful woman.
I tell you that circumstances are not what they were.”
“Some are not — unhappily,” he answered. “But others, pecuniary ones, have changed the other way. You are rich now.”
“And do you think I would touch a stiver of the riches that are my dear Adam’s?” she retorted, her eyes blazing. “Save what may be necessary to keep up Foxwood, and to — to — No,” she resumed, after the abrupt breaking off, “I hoard them for him.”
Karl wondered whether trouble had a little touched her brain. Poor Adam could have no further use for riches in this world. Unless, indeed, in years to come, he should obtain what was called a ticket of leave. But Karl fancied that in a case like Adam’s — Condemnation commuted — it was never given.
Mrs. Andinnian began asking the details of the giving-up of her former home. In answering, Karl happened to mention incidentally the death of their neighbour, Mr. Turner, and his own interview with Rose. The latter’s name excited Mrs. Andinnian beyond all precedent: it brought on one of those frightful fits of passion that Karl had not seen of late years.
“I loathe her,” she wildly said. “But for her wicked machinations, my darling son had not fallen into this dreadful fate that is worse than death. May my worst curses light upon the head of Rose Turner!”
Karl did what he could to soothe the storm he had unwittingly evoked. He told his mother that she would never, in all probability, be grieved with the sight of the girl again, for she was removing to the out-of-the-world district of Cumberland.
The one servant, alluded to by Karl, was a silent-mannered, capable woman of some forty years. Her mistress called her “Ann,” but Karl found she was a Mrs. Hopley, a married woman. That she appeared to be really attached to her mistress, to sympathise with her in her great misfortune, and to be solicitous to render her every little service that could soothe her, Captain Andinnian saw and felt grateful for.
“Where is your husband?” he one day inquired.
“Hopley’s out getting his living, sir,” was the answer. “We have had misfortunes, sir: and when they come to people such as us, we must do the best we can to meet them. Hopley’s working on his side, and me on mine.” —
“He is not in Weymouth then?”
“No, he is not in Weymouth. We are not Weymouth people, sir. I don’t know much about the place. I never lived at it till I came to Mrs. Andinnian.”
By this, Karl presumed that his mother had brought Mrs. Hopley with her when she came herself: but he asked no further. It somewhat explained what he had rather wondered at — that his mother, usually so reticent, and more than ever so now, should have disclosed their great calamity to this woman. He thought the servant must have been already cognisant of it.
“What misfortune was it of your own that you allude to?” he gently asked.
“It was connected with our son, sir. I and my husband never had but him. He turned out wild. While he was quite a lad, so to say, he ruined us, and we had to break up the home.”
“And where is he now?”
She put her check apron before her face to hide her emotion. “He is dead,” was the low answer. “He died a dreadful death, sir, and I can’t yet bear to talk of it. If s hardly three months ago.”
Karl looked at the black ribbon in her cap, at the neat black-and-white print gown she did her work in: and his heart went out to the woman’s sorrow. He understood better now — she and her mistress had a grief in common. Later, he heard somewhat more of the particulars. Young Hopley, after bringing his parents to beggary, had plunged into crime; and then, to avoid being taken, had destroyed himself.
But, as the days went on, Karl Andinnian could not help remarking that there was an atmosphere of strangeness pervading the house: he could almost have said of mystery. Frequently were mistress and maid closeted together in close conference; the door locked upon them, the conversation carried on in whispers. Twice he saw Ann Hopley go out so be-cloaked and be-large-bonneted that it almost looked as though she were dressed for disguise. Karl thought it very strange.
One evening, when he was reading to his mother by candle-light, the front door was softly knocked at, and some one was admitted to the kitchen. In the small house, all sounds were plainly heard. A minute or two elapsed, and then Ann came in to say a visitor wished to speak to her mistress. While Karl was wondering at this — for his mother was entirely unknown in the place — Mrs. Andinnian rose without the least surprise, looked at her son, and hesitated.
“Will you step into another room, Karl? My interview must be private.”
So! she had expected this visit. Captain Andinnian went into his bed-room. He saw — for his curiosity was excited, and he did not quite close the door — a tall, big, burly man, much wrapped up, and who kept his hat on, walk up the passage to the sitting-room, lighted thither by Ann. It seemed to the captain as though the visitor wished his face not to be looked at. The interview lasted about twenty minutes. Ann then showed the man out again, and Karl returned to the parlour.
“Who was it, mother?”
“A person to see me on private business,” replied Mrs. Andinnian, in a voice that effectually checked further inquiries.
The days passed monotonously. Mrs. Andinnian was generally buried in her own thoughts, scarcely ever speaking to him; and
when she did speak, it was in a cold or snappish manner. “If she would but make a true son of me, and give me her confidence!” Karl often thought. But, to do anything of the kind was evidently not the purport of Mrs. Andinnian.
He one day went over to Portland Island. The wish to make the pilgrimage, and see what the place was like, had been in his mind from the first: but, in the midst of the wish, a dreadful distaste to it drew him back, and he had let the time elapse without going. October was in its third week, and the days were getting wintry.
It is a dreary spot — and it struck with a strange dreariness on Captain Andinnian’s spirit. Storms, that seemed to fall lightly on other places, rage out their fury there. Half a gale was blowing that day, and he seemed to feel its roughness to the depth of his heart. The prospect around, with its heaving sea, romantic enough at some times, was all too wild to-day; the Race of Portland, that turbulent place which cannot be crossed by vessel, gave him a fit of the shivers. As to the few houses he saw, they were as poor as the one inhabited by his mother.
In one of the quarries, amidst its great masses of stone, Captain Andinnian halted, his eyes fixed on the foaming sea, his thoughts most bitter. Within a few yards of him, so to say, worked his unfortunate brother; chained, a felon; all his hopes in this world blighted; all his comforts in life gone out for ever. Karl himself was peculiarly susceptible to physical discomfort, as sensitive-natured men are apt to be; and he never thought without a shudder of what Adam had to undergo in this respect.
“Subjected to endless toil; to cruel deprivation; to isolation from all his kind!” groaned Karl aloud to the wild winds. “Oh, my brother, if—”
His voice died away in very astonishment. Emerging from behind one of the blocks, at right angles with him, but not very near, came two people walking side by side, evidently conversing in close whispers. In the cloaked-up woman, with the large black bonnet and black crape veil over her face, Karl was sure he saw their servant, Ann Hopley. The other must be, he thought, one of the warders: and, unless Karl was greatly mistaken, he recognised in his strong, burly frame the same man who had come a night or two before to his mother’s house. They passed on without seeing him, but he saw the man’s face distinctly.
A light dawned on his mind. His mother was striving to make a friend of this warder, with a view to conveying messages, perhaps also, it might be, physical comforts, to Adam: yes, that was undoubtedly the solution of the mystery. But why need she have hidden it from him, Karl?
When he got home that night — for he stayed out until he was tired and weary — Ann Hopley, in her usual home attire, was putting the tea-tray on the table.
“I fancied I saw Ann out to-day,” he observed to his mother, when they were alone.
“She went out on an errand for me,” replied Mrs. Andinnian.
“I have been over to the Island,” continued Karl. “It was there I thought I saw her.”
Mrs. Andinnian was pouring some cream into the tea-cups when he spoke. She put down the small frail glass jug with a force that smashed it, and the cream ran over the tea-board.
“You have been to the Island!” she cried in a voice that betrayed some dreadful terror. “To the Island?”
Karl was rising to see what he could do towards repairing the mishap. The words arrested him. He had again been so unlucky as to raise one of her storms of passion: but this time he could see no reason in her anger: neither did he quite understand what excited it. —
“To-day is the first time I have been to the Island, mother. I could not summon up the heart before.”
“How dared you go?”
“I am thinking of going again,” he answered, believing her question to relate to physical bravery. “And of getting — if it be possible to obtain — permission to see him.”
The livid colour spreading itself over Mrs. Andinnian’s face grew more livid. “I forbid it, Karl. I forbid it, do you hear? You would ruin everything. I forbid you to go again on the Island, or to attempt to see Adam. Good heavens! you might be recognised for his brother.”
“And if I were?” cried Karl, feeling completely at sea.
Mrs. Andinnian sat with her two hands on the edge of the tea-tray, staring at him, in what looked like dire consternation.
“Karl, you must go away to-morrow. To think that you could be such a fool as to go there! This is worse than all: it is most unfortunate. To-morrow you leave.”
“Mother, why will you not place trust in me?” he asked, unable to fathom her. “Do you think you could have a truer confidant? or Adam a warmer friend? I guess the object of Ann’s visits to the Island. I saw her talking with one of the warders to-day — the same man, or I fancied it, that came here the other night. That moment solved me the riddle, and—”
“Hush — sh — sh — sh!” breathed Mrs. Andinnian, in a terrified voice, ringing the bell, and looking round the walls of the room as if in dread that they had ears. “Not another word, Karl; I will not, dare not, hear it.”
“As you please, mother,” he rejoined, feeling bitterly hurt at her lack of trust.
“Have you more cream in the house, Ann!” said Mrs. Andinnian, calmly, when the woman appeared. “And you had better change the tray.”
The meal was concluded in silence. Karl took up a newspaper he had brought in; Mrs. Andinnian sat moodily gazing into the fire. And so the time went on.
Suddenly there arose the distant sound of guns, booming along on the still night air. To Captain Andinnian it suggested no ulterior thought; brought no cause for agitation: but his mother started up in wild commotion.
“The guns, Karl! the guns!” —
“What guns are they!” he exclaimed, in surprise. “What are they firing for?”
She did not answer; she only stood still as a statue, her mouth slightly open with the intensity of listening, her finger lifted up. In the midst of this, Ann Hopley opened the door without sound, and looked in with a terror-stricken face.
“It’s not him, ma’am; don’t you be afeared. It’s some other convicts that are off; but it can’t be him. The plan’s not yet organized.”
And Karl learnt that these were the guns from Portland Island, announcing the escape, or attempted escape, of some of its miserable prisoners.
Well for him if he had learned nothing else! The true and full meaning of what had been so mysterious flashed upon him now, like a sheet of lightning that lights up and reveals the secrets of the darkness. It was not Adam’s comforts they were surreptitiously seeking to ameliorate; they were plotting for his escape.
His escape! As the truth took possession of Captain Andinnian, his face grew white with a sickening terror; his brow damp as with a death sweat.
For he knew that nearly all these attempted escapes result in utter failure. The unhappy, deluded victims are re-captured, or drowned, or shot. Sitting there in his shock of agony, his dazed eyes gazing out to the fire, a prevision that death in one shape or other would be his brother’s fate, if he did make the rash venture, seated itself firmly within him, as surely and vividly as though he had seen it in some fortuneteller’s magic crystal.
“Mother,” he said, in a low tone, as he took her hand, and the door closed on Ann Hopley, “I understand it all now. I thought, simple that I was, that I had understood it before: and that you were but striving to find a way of conveying trifles in the shape of comforts to Adam. This is dreadful.” —
“What is the matter with you!” cried Mrs. Andinnian. “You look ready to die.”
“The matter is, that this has shocked me. I pray Heaven that Adam will not be so foolhardy as to attempt to escape!”
“And why should he not?” blazed forth Mrs. Andinnian.
Karl shook his head. “In nine cases out of ten, the result is nothing but death.”
“And the tenth case results in life, in liberty!” she rejoined, exultantly. “My brave son does well to try for it.”
Karl hid his eyes. The first thought, in the midst of the many tumultuously crowd
ing his brain, was the strangely different estimation different people set on things. Here was his mother glorying in that to-be-attempted escape as if it were some great deed dared by a great general: he saw only its results. They could not be good; they must be evil. Allowing that Adam did escape and regain his liberty: what would the “liberty” be? A life of miserable concealment; of playing at hide-and-seek with the law; a world-wide apprehension, lying on him always, of being retaken. In short, a hunted man, who must not dare to approach the haunts of his fellows, and of whom every other man must be the enemy. To Karl the present life of degrading labour would be preferable to that.
“Do you wish to keep him there for life — that you may enjoy the benefit of his place at Foxwood and his money?” resumed Mrs. Andinnian, in a tone that she well knew how to make contemptuously bitter. The words stung Karl. His answer was full of pain: the pain of despair.