by Ellen Wood
“Wiser?” interrupted Karl. “I think not. In all things, save one, you have ten times the good plain sense that she has. That one thing, Lucy, I shall never be able to understand, or account for, to my dying day,”
“And, moreover, I was going to add,” continued Lucy, flushing deeper at the allusion, “I am quite sure that Theresa would not heed me, whatever I might say.”
“Well, I don’t know what is to be done. People are mocking at St. Jerome’s and its frequenters’ folly more than I care to hear, and blame me for allowing it to go on. I should not like to be written to by the Bishop of the Diocese.”
“You written to!” cried Lucy in surprise.
“It is within the range of possibility. The place is on the Andinnian land.”
“I think, were I you, I would speak to Mr. Cattacomb.”
Karl made a wry face. He did not like the man. Moreover he fancied — as did Lucy in regard to Miss Blake — that whatever he might say would make no impression. But for this he had spoken to him before. But, now that another was come and the folly was being doubled, it lay in his duty to remonstrate. The whole village gossiped and laughed; Sir Adam was furious. Ann Hopley carried the gossip home to her master — which of course lost nothing in the transit — and he abused Karl for not interfering.
They went to church together, Karl and his wife. It was a thinner congregation than ordinary. Being a grand field-day at St Jerome’s with procession and banners, some of them had gone off thither as to a show. Kneeling by her husband’s side in their pew, Lucy felt the influence of the holy place, and peace seemed to steal down upon her. Margaret Sumnor was opposite, looking at her: and in Margaret’s face there was a strange, pitying compassion, for she saw that that other face was becoming sadder day by day.
It was a plain, good sermon: Mr. Sumnor’s sermons always were: its subject the blessings promised for the next world; its text, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” The tears rose to Lucy’s eyes as she listened. Karl listened too, wrapt in the words. Just for the quarter of an hour it lasted — the sermons were always short the first Sunday in the month — both of them seemed to have passed beyond their cares into Heaven. It almost seemed to matter little what the trouble of this short span on earth might be, with that glorious fruition to come hereafter.
“I am going to stay,” whispered Lucy, as the service ended. A hint to him that he might depart without her.
Karl nodded, but made no other answer. The congregation filed out, and still he sat on. Lucy wondered. All in a moment it flashed upon her that he also must be going to stay. Her face turned crimson: the question, was he fit for it, involuntarily suggesting itself.
He did stay. They knelt side by side together and received the elements of Christ’s holy Ordinance. After that, Karl was on his knees in his pew until the end, buried as it seemed in beseeching prayer. It was impossible for Lucy to believe that he could be living an ill life of any kind at that present time — whatever he might have done.
He held out his arm as they quitted the church, and she took it. It was not often that she did. Thus they walked home together, exchanging a sentence or two between whiles. Karl went at once to his room, saying he should not take anything to eat: he had a headache. Miss Blake had “snatched a morsel,” and had gone out again to hear the children’s catechism, Hewitt said. One thing must be conceded — that she was zealous in her duties.
And so Lucy was alone. She took a “morsel” too, and went to sit under the acacia tree. When an hour or so had passed, Karl came up, and surprised her with tears on her cheeks.
“Is it any new grief?” he asked.
“No,” she answered, half lost in the sorrow her thoughts had been abandoned to, and neglecting her usual reticence. “I was but thinking that I am full young to have so much unhappiness.”
“We both have enough of that, I expect. I know I have. But yours is partly of your own making, Lucy; mine is not.”
“Not of his own making!” ran her thoughts. “Of his own planning, at any rate.” But she would not say a word to mar the semi-peace which pervaded, or ought to pervade, their hearts that day.
“That was a nice sermon this morning,” he resumed, sitting down by her on the bench.
“Very. I almost forgot that we were not close to Heaven: I forgot that we had, speaking according to earth’s probabilities, years and years and years to live out here first.”
“We shall have to live them out, Lucy, I suppose — by Heaven’s will. The prospect of it looks anything but consolatory.”
“I thought you seemed very sad,” she remarked in a low tone. “I had no idea you were going to stay.”
“Sad,’” He laid his hand upon her knee, not in any particular affection, but to give emphasis to his word. “Sad is not the term for it, Lucy. Misery, rather; dread; despair — the worst word you will. I wished, with a yearning wish, that I was in Mr. Sumnor’s heaven — the heaven he described — if only some others could go before me, so that I did not leave them here.”
Lucy wondered of whom he spoke. She thought it must lie between herself and Mrs. Grey. Karl had been thinking of his poor proscribed brother, for whom the glad earth could never open her arms freely again.
“I think what Mr. Sumnor said must be true,” resumed Lucy. “That the more sorrow we have to endure in this world, the brighter will be our entrance to the next I am sure he has a great deal of sorrow himself: whenever he preaches of it he seems to feel it so deeply.”
Karl appeared not to hear. He was gazing upwards, a look of patient pain on his pale face. There were moments — and this was one — when Lucy’s arms and heart alike yearned to encircle him, and ask for his love to be hers again. She cared for him still — oh, how much! — and wished she could awake to find the Maze, and all the trouble connected with it, a hideous dream.
They sat on, saying nothing. The birds sang as in spring, the trees waved gently beneath the blue sky, and the green grass was grateful for the eye to rest upon. On the handsome house lay the glad sun: not a sound of every-day labour, in-doors or out, broke the stillness. All was essentially peace. Except — except within their own wearied breasts.
The bell of Trinity church rang out for service, arousing Lucy from her reverie. She said she should like to attend it.
“What! this afternoon?” exclaimed Karl. “You are not accustomed to go in the afternoon.”
That was true. The heat of the summer weather had been almost unbearable, and Lucy had not ventured to church in it more than once a day.
“It is cooler now,” she answered. “And I always like to go if I can when I have stayed for the communion.”
But Karl held back from it: rather, Lucy thought, in an unaccountable manner, for he was ever ready to second any wish of hers. He did not seem inclined to go forth again, and said, as a plea of excuse, that he preferred to retain the impression of the morning’s sermon on his mind, rather than let it give place to an inferior one. His head was aching badly.
“I do not ask you to come,” said Lucy, gently. “I should like to go myself, but I can go quite well alone.”
When she came down with her things on, however, she found him ready also; and they set off together.
It may be questioned, though, whether Lucy would have gone had she foreseen what was to happen. In the middle of the service, while the “Magnificat” was being sung, a respectable, staid woman entered the church with an infant in her arms. A beautifully dressed infant. Its long white robe elaborately embroidered, its delicate blue cloak of surpassing richness, its veil of lace dainty as a gossamer thread. The attire, not often seen at Foxwood, caught Lucy’s eye, and she wondered who the infant was. It seemed to her that she had seen the nurse’s face before, and began to ransack her memory. In an instant it flashed on her with a shock — it was the servant at the Maze.
She turned her eyes on her husband: not intentionally, but in an uncontrollable impulse. Karl was looking furtively at the woman and child —
a red flush dyeing his face. Poor Lucy’s benefit in the afternoon service was over.
The baby had come to be baptised. Ann Hopley sat down on a bench to which she was shown, just underneath the Andinnian pew. Towards the close of the second lesson, the clerk advanced to her, and entered on a whispered colloquy. Every word of which was distinct to Karl and Lucy.
“Have you brought this infant to be christened?”
“To be baptised,” replied Ann Hopley. “Not christened.”
The clerk paused. “It’s not usual with us to baptise children unless they are so delicate as to render it necessary,” said he. “We prefer to christen at once.”
“But this child is delicate,” she answered. “My mistress, who is herself still very ill, has got nervous about it and wishes it done. The christening must be left until she is better.”
“It’s the baby at the Maze, I think?”
“Yes. Mrs. Grey’s.”
The second lesson came to an end. Mr. Sumnor’s voice ceased, and he stepped out of the reading desk to perform the baptism. Ann Hopley had drawn away the veil, and Lucy saw the child’s face; a fair, sweet, delicate little face, calm and placid in its sleep.
The congregation, a very small one always in the afternoon, rose up, and stood on tiptoe to see and hear. Mr. Sumnor, standing at the font, took the child in his arms.
“Name this child.”
“Charles,” was the audible and distinct reply of Ann Hopley. And Lucy Andinnian turned red and white; she thought it was, so to say, named after her husband. As indeed was the case.
The child was brought back to the bench again; and the afternoon service went on to its close. There was no sermon. When Lucy rose from her knees, the woman and baby had gone. Karl offered her his arm as they quitted the church, but she would not take it. They walked home side by side, saying never a word to each other.
“That was the reason why he wanted to keep me away from church this afternoon!” was Lucy’s indignant thought. “And to dress it up like that! How, how shall I go on, and bear?”
But Lucy was mistaken. Karl had known no more about it than she, and was struck with astonishment to see Ann Hopley come in. It arose exactly as the woman had stated. During the night the child had seemed so ill that its mother had become nervously uneasy because it was not baptised, and insisted upon its being brought to church that afternoon.
Meanwhile Ann Hopley had hurried homewards. Partly to get out before the rest and avoid observation, partly because she wanted to be back with her mistress. After passing the Court gates, in traversing the short space of road between them and the Maze, she encountered Miss Blake coming home from St. Jerome’s. Miss Blake, seeing a baby sumptuously attired, and not at the moment recognizing Ann Hopley in her bonnet, crossed the road to inquire whose child it was. Then she saw it was the servant at the Maze: but she stopped all the same.
“I should like to take a peep at the baby, nurse.”
“It’s asleep, ma’am, and I am in a hurry,” was the answer, given in all truthfulness, not in discourtesy; for it must be remembered than Ann Hopley had no grounds to suspect that this lady took any special interest in affairs at the Maze. “It slept all through its baptism.”
“Oh it has been baptised, has it! At Mr. Sumnor’s church?”
“Yes, at Mr. Sumnor’s. There is no other church in the place but that,” added the woman, totally ignoring St. Jerome’s, but not thinking to give offence thereby.
Miss Blake put aside the lace and looked at the sleeping baby. “What is its name, nurse?”
“Charles.”
“Oh,” said Miss Blake, the same notion striking her, as to the name, that had struck Lucy. “It is Mr. Grey’s name I suppose — or something like it.”
“No, it is not Mr. Grey’s name,” replied the woman.
“Who is the baby considered like?” went on Miss Blake, still regarding it. “Its father or its mother?”
“It’s not much like anybody, that I see, ma’am. The child’s too young to show any likeness yet.”
“I declare that I see a likeness to Sir Karl Andinnian!” cried Miss Blake, speaking partly upon impulse. For, in looking whether she could trace this likeness, her fancy seemed to show her that it was there. “What a strange thing, nurse!”
With one startled gaze into Miss Blake’s eyes, Ann Hopley went off in a huff. The suggestion had not been palatable.
“If he’s like Sir Karl, I must never bring him abroad again, lest by that means suspicion should come to my master,” she thought, as she took the gate key from her pocket and let herself in. “But I don’t believe it can be: for I’m sure there’s not a bit of resemblance between the two brothers!”
“How plain it all is!” sighed Miss Blake, meekly regarding the cross upon her ivory prayer-book as she went over to the Court. “And that ridiculously simple Lucy does not see it! Bartimeus was blind, and so is she. He could see nothing until his eyes were opened: her eyes have been opened and yet she will not see!”
No, Miss Blake, neither could the self-righteous Pharisee see, when he went into the Temple to thank God that he was better than other men, and especially than the poor publican.
St. Jerome’s was prospering. It had taken — as Tom Pepp the bell-ringer phrased it — a spurt A rich maiden lady of uncertain age, fascinated by the Reverend Guy Cattacomb’s oratory and spectacles, came over once a day in her brougham from Basham, and always put a substantial coin into the offertory-bag during the service.
The Reverend Damon Puff found favour too. He had a beautiful black moustache, which he was given to stroke lovingly at all kinds of unseasonable times, his hair was parted down the middle carefully, back and front, and he had an interesting lisp: otherwise he was a harmless kind of young man, devotedly attentive to the ladies, and not overburdened with brains. Mr. Puff had taken up his abode for the present at Basham, and came over in the omnibus. Two omnibus-loads of fair worshippers arrived now daily: there was frightful scuffling among them to get into the one that contained the parson.
But, flourishing though St Jerome’s was, people were talking about it in anything but a reverend manner. Sir Karl Andinnian was blamed for allowing it to go on unchecked — as he told his wife. Had Karl been a perfectly free man, unswayed by that inward and ever-present dread, he had certainly put a stop to it long ago, or obliged Farmer Truefit to do so; but as it was, he had done nothing. Not a single male person attended the services; and most of the ladies who did so were in their teens, or not much beyond them. Karl felt that this was not as it should be: but he had made no move to alter it. The sensitive fear of making enemies swayed him. Not fear for his own sake, but lest it should in some way draw observation on the Maze and on him whom it contained. When the mind is weighed down with an awful secret-danger seems to lie in everything, reasonable and un, reasonable. But Karl found he must do something.
A comic incident happened one day. There came a lady to Foxwood Court, sending in her card as “Mrs. Brown” and asking to see Sir Karl Andinnian. Sir Karl found she was from Basham. She had come over to pray him, she said with tears in her eyes, that he would put a’ stop to the goings-on at St. Jerome’s and shut up the place. She had two daughters who had been drawn into its vortex and she could not draw them out again. Twice and three times every day of their lives did they come over to Foxwood, by rail, omnibus, or on foot; their whole thoughts and days were absorbed by St. Jerome’s: by the services, by cleaning the church, by Mr. Cattacomb’s lectures at home, or in helping Mr. Puff teach the children. Sir Karl replied that he did not know what he could do in the matter, and intimated very courteously that the more effectual remedy in regard to the Miss Browns would be for Mrs. Brown to keep the young ladies at home. They would not be kept at home, Mrs. Brown said with a burst of sobs; they had learnt to set her at defiance: and — she begged to hint to Sir Karl — that in her opinion it was not quite the right thing for a young girl to be closeted with a young man, for half an hour at a time, under plea o
f confession, though the man did write himself priest. What on earth had they got to confess, Mrs. Brown wanted to know, becoming a little heated with the argument: if they’d confess how undutiful they were to her, their mother, perhaps some good might come of it.
Well, this occurred. Sir Karl got rid of Mrs. Brown; but he could not shut his ears to the public chatter; and he was conscious that something or other ought to be done, or attempted. He could not see why people should expect that it lay in his hands, and he certainly did not know whether he could effect anything, even with all the good will in the world. Mr. Cattacomb might civilly laugh at him. Not knowing whether any power lay with him, or not, he felt inclined to put the question to the only lawyer Foxwood contained — Mr. St. Henry.
But oh, what was this petty grievance to the great trouble ever lying upon him? As nothing. The communication made to him by Ann Hopley, of the night watches she had seen, of the stranger who afterwards presented himself at the Maze gate with his questions, was so much addition to his tormenting dread. Just about this time, too, it came to his knowledge through Hewitt, that inquiries were being made as to the Maze. Private, whispered inquiries, not apparently with any particular object; more in the way of idle gossip. Who was putting them? Karl could not learn. Hewitt did not know who, but was sure of the fact. The story told by Mrs. Chaffen, of the gentleman she had seen at the Maze the night she entered it, and “which it was at her wits’ end to know whether he were a ghost, or not,” was circulating round the village and reached Karl’s ears, to his intense annoyance and dismay. Added to all this, was the doubt that lay within himself, as to whether Smith the agent was Philip Salter, and what his course in the matter should be. In his own mind he felt persuaded that it was Salter, and no other; but the persuasion was scarcely sufficiently assured to induce him to act. He felt the danger of speaking a word of accusation to Smith wrongfully — the danger it might bring on his brother — and therefore he, in this, vacillated and hesitated, and did nothing.