by Ellen Wood
Life for her at this present time seemed very hard to bear. The task she had imposed on herself — to endure in patience and silence — seemed well nigh an impracticable one. The daily cross that she had apportioned herself to take up felt too heavy for mortal frame to carry. Humiliation, jealousy, love, waged war with each other within her, and rendered her very wretched. It needed all the good and gentle and patient principles instilled into her from early childhood, it needed all the strength she was ever praying for, to hold on perseveringly in her bitter path, and make no sign. At times she thought that the silence to which she was condemned must eat away her heart; but a chance occurrence or two showed her that silence was not the worst phase she might have to bear.
On the day after Mrs. Cleeve’s arrival, she was upstairs in her daughter’s chamber. Miss Blake was also there. Lucy had come in, hot and tired, from an afternoon walk to Margaret Sumnor’s, and Aglaé had been summoned to help her to change her silk dress for an unpretending muslin.
“I did not know it was so hot before I went out, or I would not have put on the silk,” observed Lucy. “Sitting so quietly with you all the morning, mamma, in that cool drawing-room, talking of old times, I forgot the heat.”
Mrs. Cleeve made no particular reply. She was looking about her; taking silent notice. The doors of communication to the further chamber stood open, as was usual during the day: Lucy took care of that, to keep down suspicion in the house of there being any estrangement between herself and her husband.
“And you have made this your sleeping room, Lucy, my dear?” observed Mrs. Cleeve.
“Yes, mamma.”
“And that further one is Sir Karl’s! Well, I’m sure you are getting quite a fashionable couple — to have separate rooms. I and your papa never had such a thing in our lives, Lucy.”
Lucy Andinnian grew crimson; as if a flush of the summer heat were settling in her face. She murmured, in reference to the remarks, some words about the nights being so very hot, and that she had felt a sort of fever upon her. The very consciousness of having the truth to conceal caused her to be more urgent in rendering some plea of excuse. Aglaé, whose national prejudice had been particularly gratified at the alteration, and who had lived too long in Mrs. Cleeve’s service to keep in whatever opinion might rise to her tongue’s end, hastened to speak.
“But, and is it not the most sensible arrangement, madame, that my lady and Sir Karl could have made, when the summer is like an Afric summer for the hotness? Mademoiselle here knows that.”
“Don’t appeal to me, Aglaé,” cried Miss Blake, in a frozen tone.
“Yes, yes, Aglaé; I say the fashion is coming up in England; and perhaps it induces to comfort,” said Mrs. Cleeve.
“But certainly. And, as madame sees” — pointing through the little sitting-room to the further chamber— “it is but like the same chamber. When Sir Karl is in that and my lady in this, they can look straight at one another.”
“Aglaé, see to these shoulder-knots,” sharply interposed Lady Andinnian. “You have not put them on evenly.”
“And talk to each other too, if they please,” persisted Aglaé, ignoring the ribbons to uphold her opinion. “Madame ought to see that the arrangement is good.”
“At any rate, Lucy, I think you should have kept to the large room yourself, and Sir Karl have come to the smaller one,” said Mrs. Cleeve.
“It’s the very remark I made to my lady,” cried Aglaé, turning at length to regard the ribbons with a critical eye. “But my lady chose herself this. It is commodious; I say nothing to the contrary: but it is not as large as the other.”
Oh how Lucy wished they would be silent. Her poor flushed face knew not where to hide itself; her head and heart were aching with all kinds of perplexity. Taking up the eau-de-cologne flask, she saturated her handkerchief and passed it over her brow.
“Has my lady got ache to her head?”
“Yes. A little. Alter these ribbons, Aglaé, and let me go.”
“It is because of this marvellous heat,” commented Aglaé. “Paris this summer would not be bearable.”
Aglaé was right in the main; for it was an unusually hot summer. The intense heat began with Easter, and lasted late into autumn. In one sense it was favourable to Lucy, for it upheld her given excuse in regard to the sleeping arrangements.
Miss Blake had stood all the while with in-drawn lips. It was a habit of hers to show it in her lips when displeased. Seeing always the doors open in the day-time, no suspicion of the truth crossed her. She believed that what she had disclosed to Lucy was no more to her than the idle wind, once Sir Karl had made good his own false cause.
A question was running through Miss Blake’s mind now — had been in it more or less since Mrs. Cleeve came: should she, or should she not, tell that lady what she knew? She had deliberated upon it; she had set herself to argue the point, for and against; and yet, down deep in her heart from the first had laid the innate conviction that she should tell. In the interests of religion and morality, she told herself that she ought not to keep silence; for the suppression of iniquity and deceit, she was bound to speak. Had Lucy but taken up the matter rightly, there would have been no necessity for her to have again interfered: neither should she have done it. But Lucy had set her communication at naught: and therefore, in Miss Blake’s judgment, the obligation was laid upon her. Why — how could she, who was only second to the Rev. Guy Cattacomb in the management and worship at St. Jerome’s, and might have been called his lay curate; who prostrated herself there in prayer ever so many times a day, to the edification and example of Foxwood — how could she dare to hold cognizance of a mine of evil, and not strive to put an end to it, and bring it home to its enactors? Every time she went to that holy shrine, St. Jerome’s, every time she came back from it, its sacred dust, as may be said, hallowing her shoes, she had to pass those iniquitous gates, and was forced into the undesirable thoughts connected with them!
If Miss Blake had wavered before, she fully made her mind up now; now, as she stood there in the chamber, the conversation dying away on her ears. Aglaé was attending to the shoulder-knots; Lucy was passive under the maid’s hands; and Mrs. Cleeve had wandered into the little intermediate sitting-room. No longer a dressing-room; Lucy had given it up as such when she changed her chamber. She had some books and work and her desk there now, and sat there whenever she could. Miss Blake stood on, gazing from the window and perfecting her resolution. She thought she was but acting in the strict line of wholesome duty, just as disinterestedly as the Archbishop of Canterbury might have done: and she would have been very much shocked had anybody told her she was only actuated by a desire of taking vengeance on Karl Andinnian. She wanted to bring home a little confusion to him; she hoped to see the young lady at the Maze turned out of the village amidst an escorting flourish of ironical drums and shrieking fifes, leaving Foxwood Court to its peace. But Miss Blake was in no hurry to speak: she must watch her opportunity.
They were engaged to dine the following day at a distance, four or five miles off; a ball was to follow it. When the time came, Lady Andinnian, radiant in her white silk bridal dress, entered the reception-room leaning on the arm of her good-looking husband. Who could have dreamt that they were living on ill terms, seeing them now? In public they were both cautiously courteous to each other, observing every little obligation of society: and in truth Karl at all times, at home and out, was in manner affectionate to his wife.
Two carriages had conveyed them: and, in going, Lucy had occupied one with her father; Karl, Mrs. Cleeve, and Miss Blake the other. Lucy had intended to return in the same order, but found she could not. Colonel Cleeve, unconscious of doing wrong, entered the carriage with his wife and Miss Blake: Lucy and her husband had to sit together. The summer’s night was giving place to dawn.
“I fear you are tired, Lucy,” he kindly said, as they drove off.
“Yes, very. I wish I was at home.”
She drew her elegant white cloak about h
er with its silken tassels, gathered herself into the corner of the carriage, and shut her eyes, seemingly intending to go to sleep. Sleep! her heart was beating too wildly for that. But she kept them resolutely closed, making no sign; and never another word was spoken all the way. Sir Karl helped her out: the others had already arrived.
“Good night,” she whispered to him, preparing to run up the stairs.
“Good night, Lucy.”
But, in spite of Lady Andinnian’s efforts to make the best of things and show no sign, a mother’s eye could not be deceived; and before Mrs. Cleeve had been many days in the house, she was struck with the underlying aspect of sadness that seemed to pervade Lucy. Her cheerfulness appeared to be often forced; this hidden sadness was real. Unsuspecting Mrs. Cleeve could come to but one conclusion — her daughter’s health must be deranged.
“Since when have you not felt well, Lucy?” she asked her confidentially one day, when they were alone in Lucy’s little sitting-room.
Lucy, buried in a reverie, woke up with a start at the question. “I am very well, mamma. Why should you think I am not?”
“Your spirits are unequal, Lucy, and you certainly do not look well; neither do you eat as you ought. My dear, I think — I hope — there must be a cause for it.”
“What cause?” returned Lucy, not taking her meaning.
“We should be so pleased to welcome a little heir, my dear. Is it so?”
Lucy — she had just dressed for dinner, and dismissed Aglaé — coloured painfully. Mrs. Cleeve smiled.
“No, mamma, I think there is no cause of that kind,” she answered, in a low, nervous tone. And only herself knew the bitter pang that pierced her as she remembered how certain it was that there could be no such cause for the future.
But Mrs. Cleeve held to her own private opinion. “The child is shy in these early days, even with me,” she thought. “I’ll say no more.”
One morning during this time, Karl was sitting alone in his room, when Hewitt came to him to say Smith the agent was asking to see him. Karl did not like Smith the agent: he doubted, dreaded, and did not comprehend him.
“Will you see him, sir?” asked Hewitt, in a low tone, perceiving the lines on his master’s brow.
“I suppose I must see him, Hewitt,” was the reply — and the confidential, faithful servant well understood the force of the must. “Show him in.”
“Beg pardon for disturbing you so early, Sir Karl,” said the agent, as Hewitt brought him in and placed a chair. “There’s one of your small tenants dropping into a mess, I fancy. He has got the brokers in for taxes, or something of that kind. I thought I’d better let you know at once.”
Hewitt shut the door, and Karl pushed away the old letters he had been sorting. Sir Joseph’s papers and effects had never been examined yet; but Karl was settling to the work now. That Mr. Smith had spoken in an unusually loud and careless tone, he noticed: and therefore judged that this was but the ostensible plea for his calling, given lest any ears should be about.
“Which of my tenants is it, Mr. Smith?” he quietly asked.
Mr. Smith looked round to be sure that the door was closed, and then asked Sir Karl if he’d mind having the window shut; he felt a bit of a draught. And he shut the glass doors himself with his one hand, before Karl could assent to the proposal, or rise to do it himself.
“It is Seaford the miller,” he answered. “And” — dropping his voice to the lowest and most cautious tone— “it is a fact that he has the brokers in for some arrears of Queen’s rates. But the man has satisfied me that it is but a temporary embarrassment; and I think, Sir Karl, your rent is in no danger. Still it was right that you should know of it; and it has served, just in the nick of time, to account for my object in coming.”
“What is the real object?” inquired Karl, in a voice as cautious as the other voice.
Mr. Smith took a newspaper out of the pocket of his light summer coat; borrowed his disabled hand from the sling to help unfold it, and then pointed to a small paragraph. It ran as follows: —
“Curious rumours are afloat connected with a recorded attempt at escape from Portland Island, in which the unfortunate malefactor met his death. A mysterious whisper has arisen, we know not how or whence, that the death was but a fiction, and that the man is at large.” —
“What paper is it?” cried Karl, trying to force some colour into his white lips.
“Only one in which all kinds of stories are got up,” rejoined Mr. Smith, showing the title of a sensational weekly paper. “The paragraph may have resuited from nothing but the imagination of some penny-a-liner, Sir Karl, at fault for real matter.”
“I don’t like it,” observed Karl, after a pause. “Assume that it may be as you suggest, and nothing more, this very announcement will be the means of drawing people’s thoughts towards it.”
“Not it,” spoke Mr. Smith. “And if it does? — nobody will think it points to Sir Adam Andinnian. Another prisoner has been killed since then, trying to escape.”
“How do you know that?”
“I do know it,” replied Mr. Smith, emphatically. But he advanced no further proof. “It was a curious thing, my getting this paper,” he continued. “Yesterday I was over at Basham, mistook the time of the returning train, and found when I reached the station that I had to wait three-quarters of an hour. The only newspapers on the stand were these weekly ones; I bought this to while away the time, and saw the paragraph.”
“These events, looked upon as chances and errors, are in reality ordained,” spoke Karl dreamily. “What can be done, Mr. Smith?”
“Nothing; nothing, Sir Karl. There’s nothing to do. He is safe enough where he is — even if the rumour did come to be looked into by the law’s authorities. Rely upon it the Maze will never be suspected,”
“I wish to heaven he had never come to the Maze!” was Karl Andinnian’s pained rejoinder.
“It might be better on the whole that he had not,” acknowledged Mr. Smith. “The plan originated with himself and with the late Mrs. Andinnian — and they carried it out.” —
“I wish,” said Karl, speaking upon sudden impulse, “that you would allow me to know how you became connected with this affair of my unfortunate brother — and what you still have to do with it.”
“How I became connected with it does not signify,” was the short and ready answer. “As to what I have to do with it still, you know as well as I. I just watch over him — or rather the place that contains him — and if danger should arise I shall be at hand to, I hope, give him warning and to protect him from it.”
“He ought to be got away from the Maze,” persisted Karl.
“He’d never get away in safety. Especially if there’s anything in this” — striking his hand on the newspaper paragraph. “With my consent, he will never try to.” —
Karl did not answer; but he thought the more. That this man was the true impediment to his brother’s escape; that he was in fact keeping him where he was, he believed with his whole heart. Once Sir Adam could be safe away from the kingdom, Mr. Smith no doubt foresaw that he might no longer enjoy Clematis Cottage to live in, or the handsome sum which he received quarterly. A sum that Mrs. Andinnian had commenced to pay, and Karl did not dare to discontinue. The words were but a confirmation of his opinion. Mr. Smith was Adam’s enemy, not friend; he was keeping him there for his own self-interest: and Karl feared that if Adam attempted to get away in spite of him, he might in revenge deliver him up to justice. In dangers of this secret kind, fear has no limit.
“He could not be as safe anywhere in England as here,” concluded Mr. Smith, as if he divined Karl’s thoughts. “The police would suspect every hole and corner of the country, every town, little and big, before they would suspect his own home. As to the sailing away for another land, the danger of his recognition would be too great both on the voyage and on embarking for it, for him to dare it. He’d be discovered as sure as apple-trees grow apples.”
“Will it be
better to tell him of this?” cried Karl, alluding to the newspaper.
“I think not. Just as you please, though, Sir Karl. Rely upon it, it is only what I suggest — ah emanation from some penny-a-liner’s inventive brain.”
“The paper had better be burnt,” suggested Karl. “The very instant I get home,” said Mr. Smith, putting the paper in his pocket and taking his hat from the table. “I wish I could burn the whole impression — already gone forth to the world. I’ll go out this way, Sir Karl, if you will allow me.”
Opening the glass doors again, he stepped across the terrace to the lawn, talking still, as though continuing the conversation. Other windows stood open, and the agent was cautious.
“I’ll be sure to see Seaford in the course of the day. You may trust to me not to let any of them get behind-hand with their rents. Good morning, Sir Karl.” The agent, however, did not turn into his house.
Deep in thought, he strolled on, up the road, his free hand in his light coat pocket, his head bent in meditation. He wished he could obtain some little light as to this mysterious announcement; he fancied he might be able to. On he strolled, unthinkingly, until he came to St. Jerome’s, the entrance door of which edifice was ajar.
“Holding one of their services,” thought the agent. “I’ll have a look in, and see Cattacomb surrounded by his flock of lambs.”
Mr. Smith was disappointed: for the reverend gentleman was not there. It appeared to be the hour for cleaning the room, instead of one for holding service. Four or five young ladies, their gowns turned up round their waists and some old gloves on, were dusting, sweeping, and brushing with all their might and main; Miss Blake presiding as high priestess of the ceremonies.