Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  The reproaches wrung her heart terribly. In the moment’s repentance, she believed she had judged him more hardly than he deserved. Her tone was gentle, her eyes had tears in them.

  “I have to bear on my side too, Karl. You forget that.” —

  No, he did not forget it. But the temporary anger was pre-eminent just then. A hot retort was on his lips; when the sight of her face, sad with its utter sorrow, struck on every generous chord he possessed, and changed his mood to pity. He crossed over and took her unresisting hands in his.

  “Forgive my words, Lucy: you tried me very much. We have both something to forgive each other.”

  She could not speak; sobs were rising in her throat. Karl bent forward and kissed her passionately.

  “Need we make life worse for one another than it is?” he asked.

  “I cannot help it,” she sobbed. “Don’t blame me, for I cannot help it.”

  “Suppose I take the matter into my own hands, Lucy, and say you shall help it.”

  “You will not do that,” she said, the implied threat restoring her coldness and calmness, though her face turned as pale as the blossoms of the jessamine. “Things are bad enough as they are, but that would make them worse. I should leave your home for good and all — and should have to say why I do so.”

  She knew how to subdue him. This exposure, if she carried it out, might cost his brother’s safety. Karl, feeling his helplessness most bitterly, dropped her hands, and went back to his post at the opposite side of the window.

  “I have not said quite all I wish to say,” he began, in a voice from which emotion had passed. “As I had the day in London before me, I thought I would look after a pony-chaise for you, Lucy, and I found a beauty. It will be home in a day or two.”

  “But you have not bought it?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I did not want one. But it was very kind of you to think of me, Karl,” she added in her gratitude.

  “And there’s a pretty pony to match: a small, quiet, gentle creature. I hope you will like him. I cannot have you running about the place on foot, making yourself ill with the heat.”

  “Thank you; thank you. But I never drove in my life. I fear I should be a coward.”

  “I will drive you until you get used to him. That is, if you will permit me. Lucy, believe me, amidst all my care and trouble, your happiness lies next my heart.”

  On his way to leave the room, he stopped and shook hands with her: perhaps as an earnest of his friendliness. Theresa Blake, walking on the lawn beneath, had seen them conversing together at the window. She thought a taste of Jane Shore’s pillory might not have been amiss for bringing Lady Andinnian to her senses.

  Presently Lucy went down and had tea with Theresa, presiding herself at the cups and saucers by moonlight — for there was little light of day left. Sir Karl did not appear. He was in his room on the other side the house, holding some colloquy with Hewitt.

  “I am going to have a pony-chaise, Theresa.”

  “Oh, indeed,” returned Miss Blake, who seemed in rather a crusty humour. “I thought I heard you say that you did not require one.”

  “Perhaps I may be glad of it, for all that. At any rate, Sir Karl has bought it, pony, and chaise, and all; and they will be down this week.”

  Miss Blake’s face was a scornful one just then, in her condemnation of wrong-doing. “He bribes her into blindness,” was the thought that ran through her mind. —

  “Why are your eyes so red and heavy, Lucy! They were so at dinner.”

  “My eyes red!” artfully responded Lucy. “Are they? Well, I have had rather a tiring day, Theresa; and it has been so very hot, you know. You ought to have waited for the flower-show. It was one of the best I ever saw.”

  “Yes, I should have liked it.”

  “I took home poor Miss Patchett in my fly, from the station,” went on Lucy, who seemed to be running from one topic to another, perhaps to divert attention from herself. “She had been to London to engage a servant, and looked ready to drop with the heat. Did you ever know it so hot before, Theresa?”

  “I think not. Not for a continuancy. Is Sir Karl going to take any tea? There’s nothing else so refreshing these sultry evenings.”

  “He says tea only makes him hotter,” returned Lucy with a smile. “Ring the bell, please, Theresa: you are nearer to it than I am.”

  Giles appeared, in answer, and was sent by Lucy to inquire whether his master would take tea, or not. The message brought forth Karl. The moon was shining right on the table.

  “I’ll drink a cup of tea if you will put in plenty of milk to cool it,” said he. “How romantic you look here, sitting in the moonlight! Thank you, Lucy.”

  “We are glad to do without lights so long as we can in this weather,” observed Miss Blake. “They make the room warmer.”

  He drank the tea standing, and went back again. Lucy sent the tray away, and presently ordered the lights. She then ensconced herself in an easy chair with one of the romances Karl had brought her on the Saturday: and Miss Blake strolled out of doors.

  At first Lucy held the book upside-down. Then she read a page three times over, and could not comprehend it. Ah, it was of no use, this playing at light-hearted ease. She might keep up the farce tolerably well before people; but when alone with herself and her misery, it was a senseless mockery.

  Leaving the book behind her, she went wandering about from room to room. The windows of all were put open, to catch what little air there might be. As she stood in one of the unlighted rooms, Sir Karl passed along the terrace. She drew back lest he should see her, and heard him go into the lighted drawing-room and call her.

  “Lucy!”

  Not a word would she answer. She just stood back against the wall in the dark beyond the curtain, and kept still. He went out again, and began pacing the opposite path in the shade cast by the overhanging trees. Lucy watched him. Suddenly he plunged in amidst the trees, and she heard one of the private gates open and close.

  “He is gone there,” she said, the pulses of her heart quickening and her face taking a ghastly tinge in the moonlight.

  Miss Blake, who had been also lingering in the garden, in some of its shaded nooks and corners, her thoughts busy with Guy Cattacomb and with certain improvements that reverend man was contemplating to introduce at St. Jerome’s, had also seen Sir Karl, and watched his stealthy exit. She immediately glided to another of the small private gates of egress, cautiously opened it, and looked out.

  “Yes, I thought so: he is off to the Maze,” she mentally cried, as she saw Sir Karl, who had crossed the road, walking towards that secluded spot, and keeping close against the opposite hedge. The moonlight was flung pretty broadly upon the road to-night, but the dark hedge served to screen him in a degree. Miss Blake’s eyes were keen by moonlight or by daylight. She watched him pass under the trees at the entrance: she watched him open the gate, and enter. And Miss Blake, religious woman that she was, wondered that the skies did not drop down upon such a monster in human shape; she wondered that the same pure air from heaven could be permitted to be breathed by him and by that earthly saint, The Reverend Guy.

  Some few of us, my readers, are judging others in exactly the same mistaken manner now: and have no more suspicion that we are wrong and they right than Miss Theresa Blake had. —

  CHAPTER XXII.

  With his Brother.

  SIR KARL locked the gate safely, wound himself through the maze of trees, and soon reached the open space before the house. Part of the grass-plat was steeped in light, and he saw Mrs. Grey walking there. He crossed it to accost her.

  “Did you get back yesterday, Rose?” he inquired, after shaking hands.

  “No, not until this afternoon. Rennet kept me. I saw him when I drove there yesterday: but he was then preparing to go out of town for the rest of the day on business, and it was impossible for him to do what was wanted before this morning. So I had to wait in town.”

  “
I wonder we did not chance to travel down together, then!” observed Karl. “I did not return until this afternoon. Would you like to take my arm, Rose, while you walk?”

  “Thank you,” she answered, and took it. She had on the black dress she had worn in London, and her golden hair gleamed with all its beauty in the moonlight. Karl remarked that she leaned upon him somewhat heavily.

  “You are tired, Rose!”

  “I felt very tired when I got home. But Ann Hopley preaches to me so much about the necessity of taking exercise, that I thought I would walk about here for half-an-hour. I have had scarcely any walking to-day; I was so fatigued with the journey and with the shopping yesterday that I had to keep as still as I could this morning. But there was a good deal to do; what with Rennet and some errands I had left.”

  “Where’s Adam?”

  “In-doors. He is complaining of that sensation of pain again. I do not like it at all, Karl.”

  “And while he is lying concealed here he cannot have medical advice. At least I don’t see how it would be possible.”

  “It would not be possible,” said Rose, decisively. “Oh, but I forgot — I have to tell you something, Karl. Whom do you think I travelled with from Basham to Foxwood?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your wife.”

  “My wife!”

  “It is true. I was in the ladies’ carriage alone all the way from London. At Basham a young and elegant lady in pearl-grey silk and white bonnet, with the daintiest parasol I ever saw was put in. An old gentleman — she called him ‘General’ — and some ladies were with her on the platform. We were alone in the carriage, she and I; and I think we looked at each other a good deal. What she thought of me I don’t know; but I thought that she had one of the sweetest and gentlest faces my eyes ever rested on. She had a sweet voice, too, for we spoke a little just as we got to Foxwood.”

  “But did you know her? — did she know you?” interrupted Karl.

  “No, no. I should have had no idea who she was, but that there arose some question about the one fly waiting there, and some one said it had been brought for Lady Andinnian. Karl, if ever I. felt startled in my life, it was then.”

  “Why were you startled?”

  “Don’t you see? ‘Lady Andinnian!’ I took it at the moment to mean myself, and I felt my face turn white at the danger. Fear is quiet; and I am living in it always, Karl. What I thought was, that Adam had sent that fly for me, supposing I might come by that train; and that, in his incaution, or perhaps out of bravado, he had given my true name. Of course nothing could have been more absurd than this fancy of mine — but it was what arose to me. Almost at once I recognized my mistake, and saw how it was — that she was the Lady Andinnian meant, Sir Karl’s wife. I think I said something to her, but I was so confused I hardly know. I only have wondered since that I did not guess who she was at first, from her attire and her beauty.”

  “Lucy did not tell me of this.”

  “Oh dear no, she would not be likely to recall it, or to know me from any other stranger one may meet in travelling. Adam says you love her to excess: I am sure, Karl, I don’t wonder at it.”

  He made no answer. Yes, he loved his wife with a wondrous love: but just now she was trying that love sharply.

  “And about the matter you went up upon?” resumed Mrs. Grey. “Did you succeed in learning anything of Philip Salter?”

  “Not much. I joined you on the grass here to tell you what I did learn, before going in to Adam. Salter has never been retaken: and the police have an idea that he is still in concealment in England. There’s a reward of five hundred pounds out against him.”

  “Why do they think he is in England?” asked Rose, quickly.

  “I don’t know. They would not tell me.”

  “You communicated with the police, then, Karl. You were not afraid?”

  “Not with the police as a body, but with one of their private detectives: a Mr. Burtenshaw. Plunkett and Plunkett gave me a note to him. It was he who said he believed Salter to be still in the country: but the reason for believing it he would not give me.”

  “And did you get him described?”

  “Yes, by the very man who let him escape: a policeman named Grimley: Burtenshaw sent for him. In nearly every particular his description tallies with Smith.”

  “Oh, Karl! he is certainly Salter.”

  “Does Smith wear his own hair?”

  “Yes. At least,” she added, less decisively, “if it were false I think I should not have failed to notice it. It is very dark; his whiskers are nearly black and his hair is only a shade lighter.”

  “Just so. But — I should say Smith was forty.”

  “About that.”

  “Well, Salter, they say, would be now only five-and-thirty. I don’t attach much importance to the disparity!” added Karl: “Salter’s trouble may have prematurely aged him.”

  “What shall you do in it?” she resumed after a pause. “It seems to me that if we could get Smith removed so as to leave Adam, in that sense, free, the half of our dreadful trouble would be over.”

  “I don’t know what I shall do,” replied Karl. “It will not do to stir an inch, as to the bringing it home to Smith, unless I am sure and certain. At present, Rose, it seems to be for me only another care added to the rest.”

  “Karlo, old fellow, is that you?” interrupted a voice from the passage window over the porch. “What on earth do you stay chattering to the wife for? I want you.”

  Karl looked up, nodded to his brother, and went in. Adam was in his customary evening attire, and just as gay as usual. He waited for Karl at the head of the stairs and they went together into the sitting-room that was always used at night. This sitting-room had a second door; one in the paneling, not visible to a casual observer. It communicated with a passage that nothing else communicated with; the passage communicated with a spiral staircase, and that with nobody knew what or where. Had Adam Andinnian been surprised in his retreat by his enemies, it was by that private door he would have made his escape, or tried to do it “Rose says you are not very well, Adam: that you are feeling the pain again,” began Karl. “What do you think it is?”

  “Goodness knows: I don’t,” returned Adam. “My opinion is, that I must in some way have given my inside a deuce of a wrench. I don’t tell Rose that: she’d set on and worry herself.”

  “I hope it is nothing serious — that it will soon pass off. You see, Adam, the cruel difficulty we should be in, if you were to require medical advice.”

  “Oh, bother!” cried Adam.

  “Why do you say ‘bother?’”

  “Because it is bother, and nothing else. When did I ever want medical advice? In general health, I’m as strong as a horse.”

  “When we were young men at home, they used to say I had twice the constitution that you had, Adam, in spite of your strong looks.”

  “Home fallacy!” said Adam lightly. “It was the father used to say that, I remember. For the most part, the preaching that people make over ‘constitution’ is worth no more than the breath wasted on it. The proof of a pudding is in the eating: and the proof of a sound constitution lies in a man’s good strength. I am stronger than you, Karl.”

  “As regards muscular strength, you are.”

  “And what’s muscular strength a proof of, pray, but constitutional strength? Come, old wise-acre!”

  To argue with Adam Andinnian had been always about as profitable as to tell a ship to sail against the wind. So Karl said no more about strength.

  “The chance that such a necessity may arise, Adam, and the difficulty and danger that would attend it—”

  “What necessity?” interrupted Adam.

  “Of your requiring a medical man. Your wife will want one; but that’s different: she is supposed to live here alone, and you will of course take care to keep out of the way at that time. But the other thought does cross my mind anxiously now and again.” —

  “Karlo, old man, you were
always one of the anxious ones. I am content to leave problems alone until they arise. It is the best way.”

  “Sometimes it may be; not always. Of course all these thoughts turn round to one point, Adam — the urgent expediency there exists for your quitting the Maze.”

  “And I am not going to quit it.”

  “The advance of those people on Saturday night; the studied tramp, as I thought it, of policemen, gave me a fright, Adam. Let us suppose such a thing for a moment as that they were coming after you! No earthly aid could have shielded you.”

  “But they were not coming after me, you see; they were but carrying some poor dead man to his home on my estate. The same fear may apply wherever I go.”

  “No, it could not. It could apply to nowhere as it does to here. In some place abroad, Adam, you would be comparatively secure and safe. I am convinced that this locality is, of all, the most dangerous.”

  “If I were already at the same place you mention, wherever that may be — an inaccessible island in the icy seas, say — I should undoubtedly be more out of the reach of English constables and warders than I am now: but as matters stand, Karl, I am safer here, because the danger to me would lie in getting away. I shall not attempt to do it.”

  Karl paused for a few minutes before he resumed. His brother, sitting near the shaded lamp, was turning over the pages of the “Art Journal,” a copy of which Mrs. Grey had brought from London.

  “How came you to know Smith, Adam!”

  “How came I to know Smith!” repeated Sir Adam. “To tell you the truth, Karl, Smith saved me. But for his sheltering me in the time you know of, I should not be at liberty now; probably not in life. Until then he was a stranger.”

  “And for saving you he exacts his black mail.”

  “Little blame to him for it,” returned Sir Adam, with a half laugh.

  “I believe that the man is keeping you here,” continued Karl; “that you dare not go away unless he lifts his finger.”