by Ellen Wood
“I will, I will.”
“Oh, Karl, it has been a dreadful life for me; you know it has. I began to think that God had forgotten me — how foolish I was! He was full of mercy all the while, and kept me here in safety, and has now changed it all into peace. Listen, Karl! there’s a sound of sweet music.”
Karl could hear nothing but the wind.
“It is the angels singing,” whispered Adam, a smile of ineffable beauty on his face. “They sing on the journey, you know. Good-bye, Karl, good-bye!”
Karl bent his face, his tears streaming, his heart aching. These partings are too bitter to be told of. This was most essentially so.
“Where’s Rose, Karl!”
She was already by Karl’s side. He yielded his place to her, and went down to Ann; and there sobbed over the kitchen fire as a woman might have done.
But in the midst of it all, he could say as his brother had done, “Thank God.” If ever a poor sinful weary man had need to rejoice that he was removed to that better world, it was Adam Andinnian.
Rose’s bell called Karl up again. The last moment was at hand. Ann Hopley followed: and they all stood round the bed and saw him die. The red clouds had dispersed; the sun was just showing itself above the verge of the horizon.
CHAPTER XXI.
Laid to his Rest.
FOXWOOD heard the news. Mrs. Grey’s shakey old gardener was dead, James Hopley. Mr. Moore, when applied to for particulars, went into a learned dissertation on chronic rheumatism, and said that he was not able to save him.
Ann Hopley astonished the undertaker. She gave orders for three coffins: and they must be of the best, she said, if it cost her a hundred pounds. Her poor husband and she had saved money, and she should like to spend it on him.
There was again a battle with the clerk. It had been bad enough when Ann Hopley chose the ground for Mrs. Grey’s little child, within the precincts of that belonging to the Andinnian family; but to insist upon it that her own husband, a servant, should also lie there, was a piece of presumption the equal of which the clerk had never before heard of. However, Sir Karl, not waiting to be appealed to this time, called on the clerk, and said the woman might bury her husband there if she pleased; he did not think it right in people to assume exclusiveness after death, whatever they might do in life. The clerk lifted his hands when Sir Karl’s back was turned: radical notions such as these would tend to demoralize the best conservative community.
It was while his brother was lying dead, that Sir Karl — truly Sir Karl now — heard from his wife. She was ready to come to Foxwood, as Mrs. Cleeve was about to return to Winchester, and she appointed the following day, Tuesday, for Sir Karl to fetch her. It happened to be the day fixed for the funeral, and Karl wrote back to say that he could not leave home that day, but would fetch her on the Wednesday instead. To this he received no reply; and he of course intended to abide by it.
Tuesday came. About twelve o’clock in the day the funeral turned out of the Maze gates; sundry curious ones amid the juveniles being assembled to witness the exit. A funeral was not an every-day event at Foxwood: and, besides, the Maze had been exciting interest of late. It was a simple funeral. The plumed hearse and one mourning coach; the undertaker and carriers walking. In the coach went Ann Hopley, smothered in a hood, with Hewitt to bear her company. Foxwood said it was very neighbourly and civil of the butler: but Miss Blake felt sure he had received private orders from Sir Karl, and she wondered what Sir Karl was coming to.
Now Lucy, Lady Andinnian, looking at things as she had been looking, poor wife, for some time past, was very resentful that Sir Karl would not fetch her on the day she named. She reasoned with herself that his refusal must arise from one of two causes: either he was neglectfully indifferent; or else he had some engagement with Mrs. Grey: for, of deterring occupation, she believed he possessed none. Proudly angry, she determined to take her own way, and return home without him.
Accordingly, on the Tuesday she started with her maid from London. But, like many a one who does things in off-hand inexperience, she made a mistake, and took the wrong train. That is, she took one that did not stop at Foxwood. Lucy discovered this after she was in the carriage, and found they must get out at Basham. Leaving Aglaé and the luggage to wait for the next train, which would not be up for two hours, Lucy took one of the waiting flies, and drove on.
Lucy was full of thoughts and anticipations. She wondered where her husband was, what she should find him doing, and what excuse he would make. It lasted her all the way: and they were close on Foxwood village before anything occurred to arouse her. She woke up to find the driver, who was a Foxwood man, had come very nearly to a standstill, and was staring at a funeral procession just then entering the churchyard.
The first object that caught Lucy’s eye was Hewitt. Hewitt attired as a mourner, and following the coffin. For a moment Lucy’s heart beat quicker, and her gaze was strained: who could it be that was inside? Gradually her eyes took in the whole of the scene: the spectators collected in the distance, watching; the person enveloped in a silk hood and cloak at Hewitt’s side: Mr. Sumnor in his surplice.
All in a moment, as it seemed, just as the clergyman began to read, springing she could not tell from whence, there advanced Sir Karl Andinnian. He was in black attire, but wore neither crape band nor scarf; and it might have been thought he was only an ordinary spectator. Hewitt, however, drew a step back to give his master the place of precedence, as though out of proper respect, as did Ann Hopley: and Sir Karl took off his hat and stood there, close to the coffin, his head bent low.
“How very strange it is!” thought Lucy. “Who can be in the coffin? — and who is the woman in the black silk cloak and hood? There is Mr. Smith, the agent, too! — he is standing near with his hat off now.”
“Lucy! Can it be you? We did not expect you until to-morrow.”
The voice was Miss Blake’s. St. Jerome’s devotees were no more free from curiosity than their inferiors; and a few of them had chanced to be taking a walk past the churchyard just at the critical moment; of whom Miss Blake was one.
“I thought I would come to-day, and not give Sir Karl the trouble of fetching me,” replied Lucy. “Aglaé is coming on from Basham by the next train with the luggage. How are you, Theresa? Will you come inside?”
Miss Blake’s answer was to open the fly door, seat herself by Lady Andinnian, and turn her gaze on the churchyard. The scene bore a charm for her as well as for Lucy.
“Why, that’s Sir Karl there!” she exclaimed in surprise, the spectators’ heads having intercepted her view while on the ground.
“Yes,” assented Lucy. “And there’s Hewitt — and Sir Karl’s agent — and a mourner with her face hidden. Who is it that is being buried, Theresa?”
“Why, it’s only the old gardener at the Maze. As to Hewitt, I suppose he had to go to keep the woman in countenance. The old man was her husband, you know.”
“But what should bring Sir Karl there?”
“And standing first, as though he were chief mourner!” commented Miss Blake, devouring the scene with her condemning eyes, and giving the reins to her thoughts. “I don’t know why he is there, Lucy. There are several things that I have not attempted to understand for some time past.”
“Is not that the part of the churchyard where the Andinnians lie? — where their vault is?”
“It is. But Hopley is being buried there, you see: and that infant, that you know of, was buried there. The clerk is in a fine way over it, people say: but Sir Karl ruled that it should be so.”
Thoughts connected with Mrs. Grey, and the inexplicable manner in which Sir Karl seemed to yield to her humours, even to the honouring of her servants, flashed into Lucy’s brain. It did not tend to appease her previous anger against him.
“Why could not Sir Karl come for me to-day, Theresa?”
“It is of no use to ask me, Lucy. Sir Karl does not explain his motives to me. This funeral perhaps kept him,” added Miss Blake, s
arcastically, unconscious how very near she was to the truth. “After you left he seemed almost to live at the Maze. Last week he was there, as I believe, for a whole day and a whole night. I must speak, Lucy. Out of regard to decency that girl ought to quit the Maze, or you quit Foxwood.”
“Drive on,” cried Lucy to the coachman, in a tone as though the world and all things in it were grating on her. And the man did not dare to disobey the sharp command.
But Miss Blake preferred to get out; and did so. She had said what she did say from good motives: and she took credit for not making worse of the account — as she might have done. Not a word would she say about his being called up in the night — and she knew now that it was to the Maze he was summoned. With her whole heart she pitied Lucy.
“May I be forgiven if my duty ought to lie in silence!” she muttered as she joined the Miss St. Henrys and others in the crowd. “Lucy seems to have no friend about her in the world but me.”
The interment was over. The procession — what was left of it — went its way back again, Hewitt and Ann Hopley side by side in the coach. Sir Karl strolled away over the fields, and presently found himself joined by Mr. Smith.
“So your mission at Foxwood is over,” he sadly cried to the latter. “I have no more need to make believe I want an agent now.”
“Ay, it’s over, Sir Karl. Better for him almost that he had fallen in the fray off Weymouth; that I had never saved him; than have lived to what his life has since been.”
“Better for him had he never come to the Maze,” rejoined Sir Karl.
“It was none of my doing. As you know, sir.”
“No: but you opposed his leaving it.”
“As he was here, I did. I had but his interest at heart, Sir Karl: although I know you have thought the contrary. The chances were that he could not have got away in safety. In his own person he dared not have risked it; and a decrepid figure like Old Hopley’s must have attracted attention. But for that detective’s pitching upon Foxwood to make a hunting place of, I believe Sir Adam would have been most secure here.”
“Well, it is over, with all its risks and chances,” sighed Karl. “He did not forget you when he was dying. His wish was that you should enjoy a moderate annuity during your life: which I have undertaken to pay.”
The agent’s thanks, and they appeared very heartfelt and genuine, were cut short by the approach of Mr. Moore. He joined them as they walked along; and the conversation fell on the illness of the deceased.
“There was no real hope from the beginning, once the disease had set fairly in,” cried the surgeon. “There never is. In Sir Adam’s case, the terrible anxiety he endured day and night brought it on, and caused it to develop with unusual rapidity: there was not a shadow of chance for him.”
“You did not tell me that,” said Karl.
“I was not quite sure of it myself at first: though I suspected it I did not tell you, you say, Sir Karl: well, no, not in so many words: but your own eyes might have seen it as its progress went on. Sir Adam knew it himself, I fancy, as surely as I.”
“Do you remember saying you wished he could have further advice?” asked Karl. “Did not that prove that you had hope?”
“I wished it chiefly for the satisfaction of those connected with him. All the advice in the world could not — as I suspected then, and soon saw — have availed to save his life. We sometimes say of people, death has been a happy release for them. In his case, Sir Karl, it has been most unquestionably so: he is at rest.”
CHAPTER XXII.
Repentance.
DOWN on her knees, in self-abasement, the tears of contrition raining from her eyes, her face scarlet in its agony of shame, cowered Lucy Andinnian at her husband’s feet She would not let him raise her. It seemed to her that a whole lifetime of repentance could never wash out her sin.
The elucidation of the misunderstanding that had kept them apart for months was taking place.
On the day after the funeral, Karl sought his wife in the dressing-room to tell her of what had occurred. She had scarcely spoken a word to him since her return, or allowed him to speak one to her. Very briefly, in half a dozen words, he informed her his brother was dead, and delivered the message Adam had left for her. For a few minutes Lucy’s bewilderment was utter; and, when she did at length grasp somewhat of the truth, her confusion and distress were pitiable.
“Oh, Karl, Karl, do you think you will ever be able to forgive met What can I dot — what can I do to atone for it?”
“You must get up, Lucy, before I say whether I forgive you or not.”
“I cannot get up. It seems to me that I ought never to get up again. Your brother at the Maze! — your brother’s wife! Oh, what must you have thought of my conduct! Oh, Karl, why do you not strike me as I lie!”
Sir Karl put forth his arms and his strength, and raised her to the sofa. She bent her face down on its pillow, to weep out her tears of shame.
“Come, Lucy,” he said, when he had waited a few minutes, sitting beside her. “We shall not arrive at the end in this way. Is it possible that you did not know my brother was alive!”
“How could I know it, Karl!” she asked, amid her streaming tears. “How was I likely to know it!”
“You told me you knew it. You said to me that you had discovered the secret at the Maze. I thought you were resenting the fact of his being alive. Or, rather, of my having married you, knowing that he was.”
“Why should I resent it! How could you think so! Was that the secret you spoke of in Paris the night before our wedding! — that Adam was alive.”
“That, and no other. But I did not know then that he was married — or suspect that he ever would marry. I learnt that fact only during my mother’s last illness.”
“Oh, Karl, this is dreadful,” she sobbed. “What must you have thought of me all this time! I almost wish I could die!”
“You still care for me, then; a little!”
With a burst of anguish she turned and hid her face upon his breast. “I have only loved you the better all the while,” she whispered.
“Lucy, my dear, I say we shall not get to the end in this way. Look up. If you were in ignorance of my brother’s existence, and of all the complications for you and for me that it involved, what then was it that you were resenting?”
“Don’t ask me, Karl,” she said, her face growing scarlet again. “I could not tell you for the very shame.”
He drew a little away, making a movement to put her from him. Never had his countenance been so stem to her as it was now; never could he be so little trifled with.
“If there is to be an explanation between us, Lucy, it must be full and complete. I insist upon its being so. If you refuse to give it now — why, I shall never ask you for it again. Do you not think you owe me one?”
Again she bent her face upon him. “I owe you everything, Karl; I owe you more reparation than I can ever pay. Never, as long as our lives shall last, will I have a secret from you again, heaven helping me. If I hesitate to tell you this, it is because I am ashamed for you to know how foolish I could be, and the wicked thoughts I could have.”
“Not more foolish or wicked, I dare say, than I was for making you my wife. Speak out, Lucy. It must be so, you see, if there is to be a renewal of peace between us.”
Keeping her head where it was, her face hidden from him, Lucy whispered her confession. Karl started from her in very astonishment.
“Lucy! You could think that! Of me!”
She put up her hands beseechingly. “Oh, forgive me, Karl; for the sake of the pain, forgive me! It has been killing me all the while. See how worn and thin I am.”
He put his arm out and drew her to his side. “Go on, my dear. How did you pick up the notion?”
“It was Theresa.” And now that the ice was broken, anxious to tell all and clear herself, Lucy described the past in full: the cruel anguish she had battled with, and her poor, ever-to-be renewed efforts to endure patiently, for his sake and f
or God’s. Karl’s arm involuntarily tightened around her.
“Why did you not speak to me of this at once, Lucy?” he asked, after a pause. “It would have cleared it up, you see.”
“I did speak to you, Karl; and you seemed to understand me perfectly, and to accept it all as truth. You must remember your agitation, and how you begged me not to let it come to an exposure.”
“But I thought you alluded to the trouble about my poor brother; that it was the fact of his being alive you had discovered and were resenting. That was the exposure I dreaded. And no wonder: for, if it had come, it would have sent him back to Portland Island.”
Lucy wrung her hands. “What a miserable misapprehension it has been! — and how base and selfish and cruel I must have appeared to you! I wonder, Karl, you did not put me away from you for ever!”
“Will you go now?”
She knew it was asked in jest: she probably knew that neither would have parted from the other for the wealth of the world. And she nestled the least bit closer to him.
“Karl!”
“Well?”
“Why did you not tell me about your brother when you found I knew nothing, and was resenting it? If I had but known the real truth, we never should have been at issue for a day.”
“Remember, Lucy, that I thought it was what you knew, and spoke of. I thought you knew he was alive and was at the Maze with his wife. When I would have given you the whole history from the first, you stopped me and refused to hear. I wished to give it; that you might see I was less to blame than you seemed to be supposing. It has been a wretched play at cross-purposes on both sides: and neither of us, that I see, is to blame for it.”
“Poor Sir Adam!” she cried, the tears again falling. “Living in that dreadful fear day after day! And what must his poor wife have suffered! And her baby dying, and now her husband! And I, instead of giving sympathy, have thought everything that was ill of her, and hated her and despised her. And Karl — why, Karl — she must have been the real Lady Andinnian.”