 
Transcriber's Notes:
COLLECTIONOFBRITISH AUTHORSTAUCHNITZ EDITION.VOL. 1270.WITHIN THE MAZE BY MRS. HENRY WOODIN TWO VOLUMES. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CONTENTSOF VOLUME I. | ||
| CHAPTER | ||
| I. | Mrs. Andinnian's Home. | |
| II. | Lucy Cleeve. | |
| III. | Done at Sunset. | |
| IV. | The Trial. | |
| V. | Unable to get strong. | |
| VI. | An Atmosphere of Mystery. | |
| VII. | At the Charing-Cross Hotel. | |
| VIII. | In the Avenue d'Antin. | |
| IX. | Down at Foxwood. | |
| X. | Mrs. Andinnian's Secret. | |
| XI. | At the Gate of the Maze. | |
| XII. | Taking an Evening Stroll. | |
| XIII. | Miss Blake gets in. | |
| XIV. | Miss Blake on the Watch. | |
| XV. | Revealed to Lady Andinnian. | |
| XVI. | A Night at the Maze. | |
| XVII. | Before the World. | |
| XVIII. | A Night Alarm. | |
| XIX. | In the same Train. | |
| XX. | Only one Fly at the Station. | |
| XXI. | Hard to Bear. | |
| XXII. | With his Brother. | |
WITHIN THE MAZE.
CHAPTER I.
Mrs. Andinnian's Home.
The house was ugly and old-fashioned, with some added modern improvements, and was surrounded by a really beautiful garden. Though situated close upon a large market town of Northamptonshire, it stood alone, excluded from the noise and bustle of the world.
The occupant of this house was a widow lady, Mrs. Andinnian. Her husband, a post-captain in the Royal Navy, had been dead some years. She had two sons. The elder, Adam, was of no profession, and lived with her: the younger, Karl, was a lieutenant in one of Her Majesty's regiments. Adam was presumptive heir to his uncle, Sir Joseph Andinnian, a baronet of modern creation: Karl had his profession alone to look to, and a small private income of two hundred a year.
They were not rich, these Andinnians: though the captain had deemed himself well-off, what with his private fortune, and what with his pay. The private fortune was just six hundred a year; the pay not great: but Captain Andinnian's tastes were simple, his wants few. At his death it was found that he had bequeathed his money in three equal parts: two hundred a year to his wife, and two hundred each to his sons. "Adam and his mother will live together," he said in the will; "she'd not be parted from him: and four hundred pounds, with her bit of pension, will be enough for comfort. When Adam succeeds his uncle, they can make any fresh arrangement that pleases them. But I hope when that time shall come they will not forget Karl."
Mrs. Andinnian resented the will, and resented these words in it. Her elder boy, Adam, had always been first and foremost with her: never a mother loved a son more ardently than she loved him. For Karl she cared not. Captain Andinnian was not blind to the injustice, and perhaps thence arose the motive that induced him not to leave his wife's two hundred pounds of income at her own disposal: when Mrs. Andinnian died, it would lapse to Karl. The captain had loved his sons equally: he would willingly have left them equally provided for in life, and divided the fortune that was to come sometime to Adam. Mrs. Andinnian, in spite of the expected rise for Adam, would have had him left better off from his father's means than Karl.
There had been nearly a lifelong feud between the two family branches. Sir Joseph Andinnian and his brother the captain had not met for years and years: and it was a positive fact that the latter's sons had never seen their uncle. For this feud the brothers themselves were not in the first instance to blame. It did not arise with them, but with their wives. Both ladies were of a haughty, overbearing, and implacable temper: they had quarrelled very soon after their first introduction to each other; the quarrel grew, and grew, and finally involved the husbands as well in its vortex.
Joseph Andinnian, who was the younger of the two brothers, had been a noted and very successful civil engineer. Some great work, that he had originated and completed, gained him his reward--a baronetcy. While he was in the very flush of his new honours, an accident, that he met with, laid him for many months upon a sick-bed. Not only that: it incapacitated him for future active service. So, when he was little more than a middle-aged man, he retired from his profession, and took up his abode for life at a pretty estate he had bought in Kent, called Foxwood Court, barely an hour's railway journey from London: by express train not much more than half one. Here, he and his wife had lived since: Sir Joseph growing more and more of an invalid as the years went on. They had no children; consequently his brother, Captain Andinnian, was heir to the baronetcy: and, following on Captain Andinnian, Adam, the captain's eldest son.
Captain Andinnian did not live to succeed. In what seemed the pride of his health and strength, just after he had landed from a three years' voyage, and was indulging in ambitious visions of a flag, symptoms of a mortal disease manifested themselves. He begged of his physicians to let him know the truth; and they complied--he must expect but a very few weeks more of life. Captain Andinnian, after taking a day or two to look matters fully in the face, went up to London, and thence
down to Sir Joseph's house in Kent. The brothers, once face to face, met as though no ill-blood had ever separated them: hands were
locked in hands, gaze went out to gaze. Both were simple-minded, earnest-hearted, affectionate-natured men; and but for their wives--to whom, if the truth must be avowed, each lay in subjection--not a
mis-word would ever have arisen between them.
"I am dying, Joseph," said the captain, when some of their mutual emotion had worn away. "The doctors tell me so, and I feel it to be true. Naturally, it has set me on the thought of many things--that I am afraid I have been too carelessly putting off. What I have come down to you chiefly for, is to ask about my son--Adam. You'll tell me the truth, won't you, Joseph, as between brothers?"
"I'll tell you anything, Harry," was Sir Joseph's answer. "The truth about what?"
"Whether he is to succeed you or not?"
"Why, of course he must succeed: failing yourself. What are you thinking of, Harry, to ask it? I've no son of my own: it's not likely I shall have one now. He will be Sir Adam after me."
"It's not the title I was thinking of, Joseph. Failing a direct heir, I know that must come to him. But the property?--will he have that? It is not entailed; and you could cut him out absolutely."
"D'ye think I'd be so unjust as that, Harry?" was the half indignant reply. "A baronet's title, and nothing to keep it up upon! I have never had an idea of leaving it away from you; or from him if you went first. When Adam succeeds to my name and rank, he will succeed to my property. Were my wife to survive me, she'd have this place for life, and a good part of the income: but Adam would get it all at her death."
"This takes a weight off my mind," avowed Captain Andinnian. "Adam was not brought up to any profession. Beyond the two hundred a year he'll inherit from me----"
"A bad thing that--no profession," interrupted Sir Joseph. "If I had ten sons, and they were all heirs to ten baronetcies, each one should be brought up to use his brains or his hands."
"It's what I have urged over and over again," avowed the captain. "But the wife--you know what she is--set her face against it. 'He'll be Sir Adam Andinnian of Foxwood,' she'd answer me with, 'and he shall not soil his hands with work.' I have been nearly, always afloat, too, Joseph: not on the spot to enforce things: something has lain in that."
"I wonder the young man should not have put himself forward to be of use in the world!"
"Adam is idly inclined. I am sorry for it, but it is so. One thing has been against him, and that's his health. He's as tall and strong a young fellow to look at as you'd meet in a summer's day, but he is, I fear, anything but sound in constitution. A nice fellow too, Joseph."
"Of good disposition?"
"Very. We had used to be almost afraid of him as a boy; he would put himself into such unaccountable fits of passion. Just as--as--somebody else used to do, you know, Joseph," added the sailor with some hesitation.
Sir Joseph nodded. The somebody else was the captain's wife, and Adam's mother. Sir Joseph's own wife was not exempt from the same kind of failing: but in a less wild degree than Mrs. Andinnian. With her the defects of temper partook more of the nature of sullenness.
"But Adam seems to have outgrown all that: I've seen and heard nothing of it since he came to manhood," resumed the captain. "I wish from my heart he had some profession to occupy him. His mother always filled him up with the notion that he would be your heir and not want it."
"He'll be my heir, in all senses, safe enough, Harry: though I'd rather have heard he was given to industry than idleness. How does he get through his time? Young men naturally seek some pursuit as an outlet for their superfluous activity."
"Adam has a pursuit that he makes a hobby of; and that is his love of flowers; in fact his love of gardening in any shape. He'll be out amidst the plants and shrubs from sunrise to sunset. Trained to it, he'd have made a second Sir Joseph Paxton. I should like you to see him: he is very handsome."
"And the young one--what is he like? What's his name by the way? Henry?"
"No. Karl."
" Karl?" repeated Sir Joseph in surprise, as if questioning whether he heard aright.
"Ay, Karl. His mother was in Germany when he was born, it being a cheap place to live in--I was only a poor lieutenant then, Joseph, and just gone off to be stationed before the West Indies. A great friend of hers, there, some German lady, had a little boy named Karl. My wife fell in love with the name, and called her own infant after it."
"Well, it sounds an outlandish name to me," cried the baronet, who was entirely unacquainted with every language but his own.
"So I thought, when she first wrote me word," assented Captain Andinnian. "But after I came home and got used to call the lad by it, you don't know how I grew to like it. The name gains upon your favour in a wonderful manner, Joseph: and I have heard other people say the same. It is Charles in English, you know."
"Then why not call him Charles?"
"Because the name is really Karl, and not Charles. He was baptized in Germany, but christened in England, and in both places it was done as 'Karl.' His mother has never cared very much for him."
"For him or his name, do you mean?"
"Oh, for him."
Sir Joseph opened his eyes. "Why on earth not?"
"Because all the love her nature's capable of--and in her it's tolerably strong--is given to Adam. She can't spare an atom from him: her love for him is as a kind of idolatry. For one thing, she was very ill when Karl was born, and neither nursed nor tended him: he was given over to the care of her sister who lived with her, and who had him wholly, so to say, for the first three years of his life."
"And what's Karl like?" repeated Sir Joseph.
"You ought to see him," burst forth the Captain with animation. "He's everything that's good and noble arid worthy. Joseph, there are not many young men of the present day so attractive as Karl."
"With a tendency to be passionate, like his brother?"
"Not he. A tendency to patience, rather. They have put upon him at home--between ourselves; kept him down, you know; both mother and brother. He is several years younger than Adam; but they are attached
to each other. A more gentle-natured, sweet-tempered lad than Karl
never lived: all his instincts are those of a gentleman. He will make
a brave soldier. He is ensign in the -- regiment."
"The -- regiment," repeated Sir Joseph. "Rather a crack corps that, is it not?"
"Yes: Karl has been lucky. He will have to make his own way in the world, for I can't give him much. But now that I am assured of your intentions as to Adam, things look a trifle brighter. Joseph, I thank you with all my heart."
Once more the brothers clasped hands. This reunion was the pleasantest event of their later lives. The captain remained two days at Foxwood. Lady Andinnian was civilly courteous to him, but never cordial. She did not second her brother's pressing wish that he should prolong his stay: neither did she once ask after any of his family.
Captain Andinnian's death took place, as anticipated. His will, when opened, proved to be what was mentioned above. Some years had gone by since. Mrs. Andinnian and her son Adam had continued to live together in their quiet home in Northamptonshire; Karl, lieutenant now, and generally with his regiment, paying them an occasional visit. No particular change had occurred, save the death of Lady Andinnian. The families had continued to be estranged as heretofore: for never a word of invitation had come out of Foxwood. Report ran that Sir Joseph was ailing much; very much indeed since the loss of his wife. And, now, that so much of introduction is over, we can go on with the story.
A beautiful day in April. At a large window thrown open to the mid-day sun, just then very warm and bright, sat a lady of some five and fifty years. A tall, handsome, commanding woman, resolution written in every line of her haughty face. She wore a black silk gown with the slightest possible modicum of crape on it, and the guipure cap--or, rather, the guipure lappets, for of cap there was not much to be
seen--had in it some black ribbon. Her purple-black hair was well preserved and abundant still; her black eyes were stern, and fearlessly honest. It was Mrs. Andinnian.
She was knitting what is called a night-sock. Some poor sick pensioner of hers or her son's--for both had their charities--needed the comfort. Her thoughts were busy; her eyes went fondly out to the far end of the garden, where she could just discern her son against the shrubs: the fairest and dearest sight to Mrs. Andinnian that earth had ever contained for her, or ever would contain.
"It is strange Sir Joseph does not write for him," ran her
thoughts--and they very often did run in the same groove. "I cannot imagine why he does not. Adam ought to be on the spot and get acquainted with his inheritance: his uncle must know he ought. But that I have never stooped to ask a favour in my life, I would write to Sir Joseph, and proffer a visit for Adam, and--for--yes, for me. During that woman's lifetime Adam was not likely to be welcomed there: but the woman's gone: it is two months this very day since she died."
The woman, thus unceremoniously alluded to, was Lady Andinnian: and the slight mourning, worn, was for her. Some intricacy in the knitting caused Mrs. Andinnian to bend her head: when she looked up again, her son was not to be seen. At the same moment, a faint sound of distant conversation smote her ear. The work dropped on her lap; with a look of annoyance she lifted her head to listen.
"He is talking to that girl again! I am sure of it."
Lift her head and her ears as she would, she could not tell positively whose voices they were. Instinct, however, that instinct of suspicion we all feel within us on occasion, was enough.
A very respectable manservant of middle age, thoughtful in face, fair in complexion, with a fringe of light hair round the sides of his otherwise bald head, entered the room and presented a note to his mistress. "Who is it from?" she asked as she took it off the silver waiter. An old waiter, bearing the Andinnian crest.
"Mrs. Pole's housemaid has brought it, ma'am. She is waiting for an answer."
It was but a friendly note of invitation from a neighbour, asking Mrs. Andinnian and her two sons to go in that evening. For Karl, the second son, had come home for a two days' visit, and was just then writing letters in another room.
"Yes, we will go--if Adam has no engagement," said Mrs. Andinnian to herself, but half aloud. "Hewitt, go and tell Mr. Andinnian that I wish to speak with him."
The man went across the garden and through the wilderness of shrubs. There stood his master at an open gate, talking to a very pretty girl with bright hair and rosy cheeks.
"My mistress wishes to see you, Mr. Adam."
Adam Andinnian turned round, a defiant expression on his haughty face, as if he did not like the interruption. He was a very fine man of some three-and-thirty years, tall and broad-shouldered, with his mother's cast of proud, handsome features, her fresh complexion, and her black hair. His eyes were dark grey; deeply set in the head, and rarely beautiful. His teeth also were remarkably good; white, even, and prominent, and he showed them very much.
"Tell my mother I'll come directly, Hewitt."
Hewitt went back with the message. The young lady who had turned to one of her own flower-beds, for the gardens joined, was bending over some budding tulips.
"I think they will be out next week, Mr. Andinnian," she looked round to say.
"Never mind the tulips," he answered after a pause, during which he had leaned on the iron railings, looking dark and haughty. "I want to hear more about this."
"There's nothing more to hear," was the young lady's answer.
"That won't do, Rose. Come here."
And she went obediently.
The house to which this other garden belonged was a humble, unpretending dwelling, three parts cottage, one part villa. A Mr. Turner lived in it with his wife and niece. The former was in good retail business in the town: a grocer: and he and his wife were as humble and unpretending as their dwelling. The niece, Rose, was different. Her father had been a lawyer in small local practice: and at his death Rose--her mother also dead--was taken by her uncle and aunt, who loved both her and her childish beauty. Since then she had lived with them, and they educated her well. She was a good girl: and in the essential points of mind, manner, and appearance, a lady. But her position was of necessity a somewhat isolated one. With the tradespeople of the town Rose Turner did not care to mix: she felt that, however worthy, they were beneath her: quite of another order altogether: on the other hand, superior people would not associate with Miss Turner, or put so much as the soles of their shoes over the doorsill of the grocer's house. At sixteen she had been sent to a finishing school: at eighteen she came back as pretty and as nice a girl as one of fastidious taste would wish to see.
Years before, Adam and Karl Andinnian had made friends with the little child: they continued to be intimate with her as brothers and sister. Latterly, it had dawned on Mrs. Andinnian's perception that Adam and Miss Turner were a good deal together; certainly more than they need be. Adam had even come to neglect his flowers, that he so much loved, and to waste his time talking to Rose. It cannot be said that Mrs. Andinnian feared any real complication--any undesirable result of any kind; the great difference in their ages might alone have served to dispel the notion: Adam was thirty-three; Miss Turner only just out of her teens. But she was vexed with her son for being so frivolous and foolish: and, although she did not acknowledge it to herself, a vague feeling of uneasiness in regard to it lay at the bottom of her heart. As to Adam, he kept his thoughts to himself. Whether this new propensity to waste his hours with Miss Turner arose out of mere pastime, or whether he entertained for her any warmer feeling, was, his own secret.
Things--allowing for argument's sake that there was some love in the matter--were destined not to go on with uninterrupted smoothness. There is a proverb to the effect, you know. During the last few weeks a young medical student, named Martin Scott, had become enamoured of Miss Turner. At first, he had confined himself to silent admiration. Latterly he had taken to speaking of it. Very free-mannered, after the fashion of medical students of graceless nature, he had twice snatched a kiss from her: and the young lady, smarting under the infliction, indignant, angry, had this day whispered the tale to Adam Andinnian. And no sooner was it done, than she repented: for the hot fury that shone out of Mr. Andinnian's face, startled her greatly.
They were standing together again at the small iron gate, ere the sound of Hewitt's footsteps had well died away. Rose Turner had the true golden hair that ladies have taken to covet and spend no end of money on pernicious dyes to try and obtain. Her garden hat was untied, and she was playing with its strings.
"Rose, I must know all; and I insist upon your telling me. Go on."
"But indeed I have told you all, Mr. Andinnian."
Mr. Andinnian gazed steadfastly into Miss Rose's eyes, as if he would get the truth out of their very depths. It was evident that she now spoke unwillingly, and only in obedience to his strong will.
"It was last night, was it, that he came up, this brute of a Scott?"
"Last night, about six," she answered. "We were at tea, and my aunt asked him to take some--"
"Which he did of course?" savagely interrupted Mr. Andinnian.
"Yes; and eat two muffins all to himself," laughed Miss Turner, trying to turn the anger off. Mr. Andinnian did not like the merriment.
"Be serious if you please, child; this is a serious matter. Was it after tea that he--that he dared to insult you?" and the speaker shut his right hand with a meaning gesture as he said it.
"Yes. Aunt went to the kitchen to see about something that was to be prepared for my uncle's supper--for she is fidgety over the cooking, and never will trust it to the servant. Martin Scott then began to tease as usual; saying how much he cared for me, and asking me to wait for him until he could get into practice."
"Well?" questioned Adam impatiently as she stopped.
"I told him that he had already had his answer from me and that he had no right to bring the matter up again; it was foolish besides, as it only set me more against him. Then I sat down to the piano and played the Chatelaine--he only likes rattling music--and sang a song, thinking it would pass the time in peace until aunt returned.
By-and-by I heard my uncle's latch-key in the front door, and I was crossing the room to go out and meet him, when Martin Scott laid hold of my arm, and--and kissed me."
Mr. Andinnian bit his lips almost to bleeding. His face was frightful in its anger. Rose shivered a little.
"I am sorry I told you, Mr. Andinnian."
"Now listen, Rose. If ever this Martin Scott does the like again, I'll shoot him."
"Oh, Mr. Andinnian!"
"I shall warn him. In the most unmistakable words; words that he cannot misconstrue; I will warn him of what I mean to do. Let him disregard it at his peril; if he does, I'll shoot him as I would shoot a dog."
The very ferocity of the threat, its extreme nature, disarmed Miss Turner's belief in it. She smiled up in the speaker's face and shook her head, but was content to let the subject pass away in silence. Adam Andinnian, totally forgetting his mother's message, began talking of pleasanter things.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Andinnian's patience was growing exhausted: she hated to keep other people's servants waiting her pleasure. Her fingers were on the bell to ring for Hewitt, when Karl entered the room, some sealed letters in his hand. A slender man of seven-and-twenty, slightly above the middle height, with pale, clearly-cut features and a remarkably nice expression of countenance. He had the deeply-set, beautiful grey eyes of his brother; but his hair, instead of being black and straight, was brown and wavy. An attractive looking man, this Karl Andinnian.
"I am going out to post these letters," said Karl. "Can I do anything for you in the town, mother?"
The voice was attractive too. Low-toned, clear, melodious, full of truth: a voice to be trusted all over the world. Adam's voice was inclined to be harsh, and he had rather a loud way of speaking.
"Nothing in the town," replied Mrs. Andinnian: and, now that you notice it, her voice was harsh too. "But you can go and ask your brother why he keeps me waiting. He is behind the shrubbery."
Karl left his letters on the table, traversed the garden, and found Adam with Miss Turner. They turned to wait his approach. A half doubt, he knew not wherefore, dawned for the first time on his mind.
"How are you this morning, Rose?" he asked, raising his hat with the ceremony one observes to an acquaintance, rather than to an intimate friend. "Adam, the mother seems vexed: you are keeping her waiting, she says, and she wishes to know the reason of it."
"I forgot all about it," cried Adam. "Deuce take the thorn!"
For just at that moment he had run a thorn into his finger. Karl began talking with Miss Turner: there was no obligation on him to return forthwith to the house.
"Go back, will you, Karl, and tell the mother I am sorry I forgot it. I shall be there as soon as you are."
"A genteel way of getting rid of me," thought Karl with a laugh, as he at once turned to plunge into the wide shrubbery. "Good day to you, Rose."
But when he was fairly beyond their sight Karl's face became grave as a judge's. "Surely Adam is not drifting into anything serious in that quarter!" ran his thoughts. "It would never do."
"Well--have you seen Adam!" began Mrs. Andinnian, when he entered.
"Yes. He is coming immediately."
" Coming!"--and she curled her vexed lips. "He ought to come. Who is he with, Karl?"
"With Miss Turner."
"What nonsense! Idling about with a senseless child!"
"I suppose it is nothing but nonsense?" spoke Karl, incautiously. "She--Miss Turner--would scarcely be the right woman in the right place."
His mother glanced at him sharply. "In what place?--what woman?"
"As Lady Andinnian."
Karl had angered his mother before in his lifetime, but scarcely ever as now. She turned livid as death, and took up the first thing that came to her hand--a silver inkstand, kept for show, not use--and held it as if she would hurl it at his head.
"How dare you, sir, even in supposition, so traduce your brother?"
"I beg your pardon, mother. I spoke without thought."
As she was putting down the inkstand, Adam came in. He saw that something was amiss. Mrs. Andinnian spoke abruptly about the invitation for the evening, and asked if he would go. Adam said he could go, and she left the room to give, herself, a verbal answer to the waiting servant.
"What was the matter, Karl?"
"The mother was vexed at your staying with Rose Turner, instead of coming in. It was nonsense, she said, to be idling about with a senseless child. I--unfortunately, but quite unintentionally--added to her anger by remarking that I supposed it was nonsense, for she, Miss Turner, would scarcely be suitable for a Lady Andinnian."
"Just attend to your own affairs," growled Adam. "Keep yourself in your place."
Karl looked up with his sweet smile; answering with his frank and gentle voice. The smile and the voice acted like oil on the troubled waters.
"You know, Adam, that I should never think of interfering with you, or of opposing your inclinations. In the wide world, there's no one, I think, so anxious as I am for your happiness and welfare."
Adam did know it, and their hands met in true affection. Few brothers loved each other as did Adam and Karl Andinnian. Seeing them together thus, they were undoubtedly two fine young men--as their sailor father had once observed to his brother. But Karl, with his nameless air of innate goodness and refinement, looked the greater gentleman.
CHAPTER II.
Lucy Cleeve
Lingering under the light of the sweet May moon, arm within arm, their voices hushed, their tread slow, went two individuals, whom few, looking upon them, could have failed to mistake for anything but lovers. Lovers they were, in heart, in mind, in thought: with as pure and passionate and ardent a love as ever was felt on this earth. And yet, no word, to tell of it, had ever been spoken between them.
It was one of those cases where love, all unpremeditated, had grown up, swiftly, surely, silently. Had either of them known that they were drifting into it, they might have had sufficient prudence to separate forthwith, before the danger grew into certainty. For he, the obscure and nearly portionless young soldier, had the sense to see that he would be regarded as no fit match for the daughter of Colonel and the Honourable Mrs. Cleeve; both of high lineage and inordinately proud of it into the bargain; and she, Lucy Cleeve, knew that, for all her good descent, she was nearly portionless too, and that her future husband, whomsoever he might turn out to be, must possess a vast deal more of this world's goods than did Lieutenant Andinnian. Ay, and of family also. But, there it was: they had drifted into this mutual love unconsciously: each knew that it was for all time: and that, in comparison, "family" and "goods" were to them as nothing.
"And so Miss Blake is back, Lucy?"
The words, spoken by Mr. Andinnian, broke one of those long pauses of delicious silence, that in themselves seem like tastes of paradise. Lucy Cleeve's tones in answer were low and soft as his.
"She came to-day. I hardly knew her. Her hair is all put on the top of her head: and--and--"
Lucy stopped. "And is of another colour," she had been about to conclude. But it might not be quite good-natured to say it, even to one to whom she would willingly have given her whole heart's confidence. Reared in the highest of all high and true principles, and naturally gifted with them, Lucy had a peculiar dread of deceit: her dislike of it extended even to the changing of the colour of the hair. But she was also of that sweet and generous disposition that shrinks from speaking a slighting word of another. She resumed hastily and with a slight laugh.
"Theresa is in love with Rome; and especially with its cardinals. One of them was very civil to her, Karl."
"About this picnic to-morrow, Lucy. Are you to be allowed to go?"
"Yes, now Theresa's here. Mamma would not have liked to send me without some one from home: and the weather is scarcely hot enough for herself to venture. Do--you--go" she asked timidly.
"Yes."
There was silence again: each heart beating in unison. The prospect of a whole day together, spent amidst glens, and woods, and dales, was too much for utterance.
For the past twelve months, Lieutenant Andinnian's regiment had been quartered at Winchester. On his arrival, he had brought with him a letter of introduction to one of the clergy there--a good old man, whose rectory was on the outskirts of the town. The Rev. Mr. Blake and his wife took a great fancy to the young lieutenant, and made much of him. Living with them at that time was a relative, a Miss Blake. This lady was an orphan: she had a small fortune, somewhere between two and three hundred a year: and she stayed sometimes with the Blakes, sometimes with the Cleeves, to whom she and the Blakes were likewise related.
A novel writer has to tell secrets: not always pleasant ones. In this case, it must be disclosed that the one secret wish of Theresa Blake's life, to which her whole energies (in a lady-like way) were directed, was--to get married, and to marry well. If we could see into the hearts of some other young ladies, especially when they have left the bloom of youth behind, we might find them filled with the same ardent longing. Hitherto Miss Blake's hopes had not been realized. She was not foolish enough to marry downright unwisely: and nothing eligible had come in her way. Considering that she was so very sensible a young woman--for good common sense was what Miss Blake prided herself
upon--it was very simple of her to take up the notion she did--that the attractive young lieutenant's frequent visits to the rectory were made for her sake. She fell over head and ears in love with him: she thought that his attentions (ordinary attentions in truth, and paid to her as the only young lady of a house where the other inmates were aged) spoke plainly of his love for her. Of what are called "flirtations" Theresa Blake had had enough, and to spare: but of true love she had hitherto known nothing. She ignored the difference in their years--for there was a difference--and she waited for the time when the young officer should speak out: her income joined to his and his pay, would make what she thought they could live very comfortably upon. Love softens difficulties as does nothing else in life; before she knew Karl Andinnian, Miss Blake would have scorned the notion of taking any man who could not have offered her a settlement of a thousand pounds a year at least.
But now--what was Karl Andinnian's share in all this? Simply none.
He had no more notion that the young lady was in love with him than that old Mrs. Blake was. If Miss Blake did not see the years she had come to, he did; and would nearly as soon, so far as age went, have offered to marry his mother. To a young man of twenty-six, a woman of thirty-four looks quite old. And so, in this misapprehension--the one finding fresh food for her hopes day by day, the other at ease in his utter unconsciousness--the summer and autumn had passed. At the close of autumn Miss Blake departed with some friends for the Continent, more particularly to visit Paris and Rome. But that it was a
long-since-made engagement, and also that she had so wished to see those renowned places, she would not have torn herself away from the locality that contained Mr. Andinnian.
Shortly afterwards the Cleeves returned to Winchester, after a long absence. They resided without the town, just beyond Mr. Blake's rectory. Lucy Cleeve had been in the habit of spending nearly as much time at the rectory as at home: and it was from the never-tiring training of him and his good wife that Lucy had learnt to be the truly excellent girl she was. On the very day of her return, she and Karl Andinnian met: and--if it was not exactly love at first sight with them, it was something very like it; for each seemed drawn to the other by that powerful, sympathetic attraction that can no more be controlled than explained or accounted for. A few more meetings, and they loved for all time: and since then they had gone on living in a dream of happiness.
There they were, pacing together the rectory garden under the warm May moonlight. The rector had been called to a sick parishioner, and they had strolled out with him to the gate. Mrs. Blake, confined to her sofa, was unsuspicious as the day. Lucy, twenty 'years of age, was looked upon by her as a child still: and the old are apt to forget the sweet beguilements of their own long-past youth, and that the young of the present day can be drifting into the same.
"It is very pleasant; quite warm," spoke Mr. Andinnian. "Would you like another turn, Lucy?"
They both turned simultaneously without a word of assent from her, and paced side by side to the gate in a rapture of silence. Lucy quitted him to pluck a spray from the sweet-briar hedge; and then they turned again. The moon went behind a cloud.
"Take my arm, Lucy. It is getting quite dark."
She took it; the darkness affording the plea; and the night hid the blushes on her transparent cheeks. They were half-way down the walk, and Karl was bending his head to speak to her; his tones low, though their subject was nothing more than the projected party for the morrow; when some one who had approached the gate from the road, stood still there to look at them.
It was Miss Blake. She had that day returned from her continental excursion, and taken up her abode, as arranged, at Colonel Cleeve's. Whether at the rectory or at Colonel Cleeve's, Miss Blake paid at the rate of one hundred a year for the accommodation; and then, as she said, she was independent. It was a private arrangement, one that she insisted on. Her sojourn abroad had not tended to cool one whit of her love for Mr. Andinnian; the absence had rather augmented it. She had come home with all her pulses bounding and her heart glowing at the prospect of seeing him again.
But--she saw him with some one else. The moon was out again in all her silvery brightness, and Miss Blake had keen eyes. She saw one on his arm, to whom he seemed to be whispering, to whose face his own was bent; one younger and fairer than she--Lucy Cleeve. A certain possibility of what it might mean darted through her mind with a freezing horror that caused her to shiver. But only for a moment. She drove it away as absurd--and opened, the gate with a sharp click. They turned at the sound of her footsteps and loosed arms. Mr. Andinnian doffed his hat in salutation, and held out his hand.
"Miss Blake!"
"I came with old John to fetch you, Lucy, wishing to see dear Mrs. Blake," she carelessly said in explanation, letting her hand lie in Karl's, as they turned to the house. "And it is a lovely night."
Coming into the light of the sitting-room you could see what Miss Blake was like--and Lucy, also, for that matter. Miss Blake was tall, upright; and; if there was a fault in her exceedingly well-made figure, it was that it was too thin. Her features and complexion
were very good, her eyes were watchful and had a green tinge; and
the hair originally red, had been converted into a kind of auburn that had more than one shade of colour on it. Altogether, Miss Blake was nice-looking; and she invariably dressed well, in the height of any fashion that might prevail. What with her well-preserved face, her large quantity of youthful hair, and her natty attire, she had an idea that she looked years and years less than her real age; as in fact she did.
And Lucy? Lucy was a gentle girl with a soft, sweet face; a face of intellect, and goodness, and sensibility. Her refined features were of the highest type; her clear eyes were of a remarkably light brown, the long eyelashes and the hair somewhat darker. By the side of the upright and always self-possessed Miss Blake--I had almost written self-asserting--she looked a timid shrinking child. What with Miss Blake's natural height and the unnatural pyramid of hair on the top of her head, Lucy appeared short. But Lucy was not below the middle height of women.
"I wonder--I wonder how much he has seen of Lucy?" thought Miss Blake, beginning to watch and to listen, and to put in prompting questions here and there.
She contrived to gather that the lieutenant had been a tolerably frequent visitor at Colonel Cleeve's during the spring. She
observed--and Miss Blake's observance was worth having--that his good night to Lucy was spoken in a different tone from the one to herself: lower and softer.
"There cannot be anything between them! There cannot, surely, be!"
Nevertheless the very thought of it caused her face to grow cold as with a mortal sickness.
"I shall see to-morrow," she murmured. "They will be together at the picnic, and I shall see."
Miss Blake did see. Saw what, to her jealous eyes--ay, and to her cool ones; was proof positive. Lieutenant Andinnian and Miss Lucy Cleeve were lost in love the one for the other. In her conscientious desire to do her duty--and she did hope and believe that no other motive or passion prompted the step--Miss Blake, looking upon herself as a sort of guardian over Lucy's interests, disclosed her suspicions to Mrs. Cleeve. What would be a suitable match for herself, might be entirely unsuitable for Lucy.
Colonel Augustus and the Honourable Mrs. Cleeve were very excellent people, as people go: their one prominent characteristic--perhaps some would rather call it failing--being family pride. Colonel Cleeve could claim relationship, near or remote, with three lords and a Scotch duke: Mrs. Cleeve was a peer's daughter. Their only son was in India with his regiment: their only daughter, introduced and presented but the last year, was intended to make a good marriage, both as regards rank and wealth. They knew what a charming girl she was, and they believed she could not fail to be sought. One gentleman, indeed, had asked for her in London; that is, had solicited of the Colonel the permission to ask for her. He was a banker's son. Colonel Cleeve thanked him with courtesy, but said that his daughter must not marry beneath her own rank: he and her mother hoped she would be a peeress. It may therefore be judged what was the consternation caused, when Miss Blake dropped a hint of her observations.
The remark already made, as to Mrs. Blake's blind unsuspicion, held good in regard to Colonel Cleeve and his wife. They had likewise taken a fancy to the attractive young lieutenant and were never backward in welcoming him to their house. And yet they never glanced at Lucy's interests in the matter; they never supposed that she likewise could be awake to the same attractions; or that her attractions had charms for the lieutenant. How frequent these cases of blindness occur in the world, let the world answer. Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve would as soon have suspected that Lucy was falling in love with the parish clerk. And why? Because the notion that any one, so much beneath them in family and position as Mr. Andinnian, should aspire to her, or that she could stoop to think of him, never would have entered into their exclusive imaginations, unless put there.
Mrs. Cleeve, dismayed, sick, frightened, but always mild and gentle, begged of Lucy to say that it was a cruel mistake; and that there was "nothing" between her and Mr. Andinnian. Lucy, amidst her blinding tears, answered that nothing whatever had been spoken between them. But she was too truthful, too honest, to deny the implication that there existed love: Colonel Cleeve sent for Mr. Andinnian.
The young man was just coming in from a full-dress parade when the note arrived. It was a peremptory one. He walked up at once, not staying to put off his regimentals. Colonel Cleeve, looking the thorough gentleman he was, and wearing his customary blue frock-coat with a white cambric frill at his breast, met him at the door of his library. He was short and slight, and had mild blue eyes. His white hair was cut nearly close, and his forehead and head were so fair that at first sight it gave him the appearance of being powdered. The servant closed the door upon them.
That Karl Andinnian was, as the phrase runs, "taken to" by the plain questioning of the Colonel cannot be denied. It was plunged into without preface. "Is it true that there is an attachment between you and my daughter? Is it true, sir, that you have been making love to her?"
For a short while Karl was silent. The Colonel saw his embarrassment. It was only the momentary embarrassment of surprise, and, perhaps, of vexation: but Karl, guileless and strictly honourable, never thought of not meeting the matter with perfect truth.
"That there does exist affection between me and your daughter, sir, I cannot deny," he replied with diffidence. "At least, I can answer for myself--that the truest and tenderest love man is, or, as I believe, can be, capable of I feel for her. As to making love to her, I have not done it consciously. But--we have been a great deal together; and I fear Miss Cleeve must have read my heart, as--as----"
"As what, Mr. Andinnian?" was the stern question.
"As I have read hers, I was going to presume to say," replied Karl, his voice and eyes alike drooping.
Colonel Cleeve felt confounded. He would have called this the very height of impudence, but the young man standing before him was so indisputably refined, so modest, and spoke as though he were grieved to the heart.
"And, pray, what could you have promised yourself by thus presuming to love my daughter?"
"I promised myself nothing. On my word of honour as a gentleman, sir, I have not been holding out any kind of hopes or promises to myself. I believe," added the young man, with the open candour so characteristic of him, "that I have been too happy in the present, in Miss Cleeve's daily society--for hardly a day passed that we did not see each
other--to cast so much as a thought to the future."
"Well, sir, what excuse have you to make for this behaviour? Do you see its folly?"
"I see it now. I see it for the first time, Colonel Cleeve.
For--I--suppose--you will not let me aspire to win her?"
The words were given with slow deprecation: as if he hardly dared to speak them.
"What do you think, yourself, about it?" sharply asked the Colonel. "Do you consider yourself a suitable match for Miss Cleeve? In any way? In any way, Mr. Andinnian?"
"I am afraid not, sir."
"You are afraid not! Good Heavens! Your family--pardon me for alluding to it, Mr. Andinnian, but there are moments in a lifetime, and this is one, when plain speaking becomes a necessity. Your family have but risen from the ranks, sir, as we soldiers say, and not much above the ranks either. Miss Cleeve is Miss Cleeve: my daughter, and a peer's grand-daughter."
"It is all true, sir."
"So much for that unsuitability. And then we come to means. What are yours, Mr. Andinnian?"
The young man lifted his head and his honest grey eyes to the
half-affrighted but generally calm face. He could but tell the truth at all times without equivocation.
"I fear you will consider my means even more ineligible than my family," he said. "I have my pay and two hundred pounds a year. At my mother's death another two hundred a year will come to me."
Colonel Cleeve drew down his lips. "And that is all--in the present and in the future?"
"All I can reckon upon with any certainty. When my brother shall succeed Sir Joseph Andinnian, he may do something more for me. My father suggested it in his last testamentary paper: and I think he will do it: I believe he will. But of this I cannot be certain; and in any case it may not be much."
Colonel Cleeve paused a moment. He wished the young man would not
be so straightforwardly candid, so transparently single-minded, putting himself, as it were, in all honour in his hands. It left the Colonel--the mildest man in the world by nature--less loophole to get into a proper passion. In the midst of it all, he could not help liking the young fellow.
"Mr. Andinnian, every word you say only makes the case worse. Two barriers, each in itself insurmountable, lie, by your own showing, between you and my daughter. The bare idea of making her your wife is an insult to her; were it carried into a fact--I condemn myself to speak of so impossible a thing unwillingly--it would blight her life and happiness for ever."
Karl's pale face grew red as his coat. "These are harsh words, Colonel Cleeve."
"They are true ones, sir: and justifiable. Lucy has been reared in the notions befitting her rank. She has been taught to expect that when she marries her home will be at least as well-appointed as the one she is taken from. My son is a great expense to me and my means are limited as compared with my position--I am plain with you, you see, Mr. Andinnian; you have been so with me--but still we live as our compeers live, and have things in accordance about us. But what could you offer Lucy?--allowing that in point of family you were entitled to mate with her. Why, a lodging in a barracks; a necessity to tramp with you after the regiment at home and abroad."
Karl stood silent, the pain of mortification on his closed lips. Colonel Cleeve put the case rather extremely; but it was near the truth, after all.
"And you would wish to bring this disgrace, this poverty, this blight on Lucy! If you----"
"No, sir, I would not," was the impulsive interruption. "What do you take me for? Lucy's happiness is a great deal dearer to me than my own."
"If you have one spark of honour, Mr. Andinnian--and until now I believed you had your full share of it--if you do care in ever so small a degree for my daughter's comfort and her true welfare; in short, if you are a man and a gentleman, you will aid me in striving to undo the harm that has been done."
"I will strive to do what is best to be done," replied Karl, knowing the fiat that must come, and feeling that his heart was breaking.
"Very well. Our acquaintance with you must close from this hour; and I must ask you to give me your word of honour never to attempt to hold future communication with my daughter in any way: never to meet her in society even, if it be possible for you to stay away and avoid it. In future you and Miss Cleeve are strangers."
There was a dead silence. Karl seemed to be looking at vacancy, over the Colonel's head.
"You do not speak, Mr. Andinnian."
He roused himself with a sort of shudder. "I believe I was lost in glancing at the blighted life mine will be, Colonel Cleeve." And the Colonels in spite of his self-interest, felt a kind of pity for the feelings that he saw were stung to the quick.
"Do you refuse to comply with my mandate?"
"No, sir. Putting the affair before me in the light you have put it, no alternative is left me. I see, too, that circumstanced as I am--and as she is--my dream of love has been nothing but madness. On my word of honour, Colonel Cleeve, could I have looked at the matter at first as I look at it now, and foreseen that we were destined to--to care for each other, I would have flown Miss Cleeve's presence."
"These regrets often come late in the day, Mr. Andinnian," was the rather sarcastic answer.
"They have in this case."
"Then I may rely on your honour?"
"You may indeed, sir. But that I see how right and reasonable your fiat is; how essential for Lucy's sake, I could hardly have complied with it; for to part with her will be rending myself from every joy of life. I give you my sacred word of honour that I will not henceforth attempt to hold communication of any kind with her: I will not meet her if I can avoid it. That I should live to say this calmly!" added Karl to himself.
"I expected no less from you, Mr. Andinnian," spoke the Colonel, stiffly but courteously. "I am bound to say that you have met this most lamentable affair in a proper spirit. I see I may rely upon you."
"You may rely upon me as you would rely upon yourself," said the
young officer earnestly. "Should the time ever come that my fortunes ascend--it seems next door to an impossibility now, but such things have been heard of--and Lucy be still free----"
"That could make no alteration: want of fortune is not the only bar," haughtily interrupted Colonel Cleeve. "The present is enough for us, Mr. Andinnian: let us leave the future."
"True. The present is greatly enough; and I beg your pardon, Colonel Cleeve. I will keep my word both in the spirit and the letter. And now, I would make one request to you, sir--that you will allow me to see Lucy for an instant before we finally part."
"That you may gain some foolish promise from her?--of waiting, or something of that kind!" was the angry rejoinder.
"I told you that you might rely upon me," replied Karl with sad emphasis. "Colonel Cleeve, don't you see what a bitter blow this is to me?" he burst forth, with an emotion he had not betrayed throughout the interview. "It may be bitter to Lucy also. Let us say a word of good-bye to each other for the last time."
Colonel Cleeve hardly knew what to do. He did not like to say No; he did not like to say Yes. That it was bitter to one, he saw; that it might be bitter to the other, he quite believed: and he had a soft place in his heart.
"I will trust you in this as I trust you in the other, Mr. Andinnian. It must be good-bye, only, you understand: and a brief one."
He quitted the room, and sent Lucy in. Almost better for them both that he had not done so--for these partings are nearly as cruel as death. To them both, this severing asunder for all time seemed worse than death. Lucy, looking quiet and simple in her muslin, stood shivering.
"I could not depart without begging you to forgive me, Lucy," Karl said, his tone less firm than usual with emotion and pain. "I ought to have exercised more thought; to have foreseen what must be the inevitable ending. Colonel Cleeve has my promise that I will never again seek you in any way: that from henceforth we shall be as strangers. Oh my darling!--I may surely call you so in this last hour!--this is painful I fear to you as to me."
She went quite close to him, her eyes cast up to his with a piteous mourning in their depths; eyes too sad for tears.
"They have told me the same, Karl. There is no hope at all for us. But I--I wish in my turn to say something to you. Karl"--and her voice sank to a whisper, and she put out her hand as if inviting him to take it--"I shall never forget you; I shall never care for you less than I do now."
He did not take her hand. He took her. Almost beside himself with the bitter pain, Karl Andinnian so far forgot himself as to clasp this young girl to his heart: as to rain down on her sweet face the sad kisses from his lips. But he remembered his promise to Colonel Cleeve, and said never a word of hope for the future.
"Forgive me, Lucy; this and all. Perhaps Colonel Cleeve would hardly grudge it to us when it is to be our last meeting on earth."
"In the years to come," she sobbed, her face lying under his wet tears, "when we shall be an old man and woman, they may let us meet again. Oh, Karl, yes! and we can talk together of that best world, Heaven, where there will be no separation. We shall be drawing near its gates then, looking out for it."
A slight tap at the door, and Miss Blake entered. She had come to summon Lucy. Seeing what she did see--the tears, the emotion, the intertwined hands, Miss Blake looked--looked very grim and stately.
"Lucy, Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve have sent me to request you to go to them."
"God bless you, Lucy," he whispered. "God bless you, my best and dearest. Good-bye, for ever."
With what seemed a cool bow to Miss Blake and never a word, for in truth he was unequal to speaking it, Lieutenant Andinnian passed into the hall, caught up his hat and sword that he had left there, and let himself out, buckling on the latter. Lucy had her hands to her face, hiding it. Miss Blake waited.
"My dear Lucy, what am I to say?"
"Tell them that I wish to stay here alone for a few minutes. Tell them that Mr. Andinnian is gone."
Miss Blake, her hard, thin lips compressed with the cruellest pain woman can ever feel, took her way back again. Only herself knew, or ever would know, what this dreadful blow was to her--the finding that she had been mistaken in Karl Andinnian's love. For anguish such as this women have lost life. One small drop, taking from the bitterness, there was--to know that he and his true love had bidden each other adieu for ever.
"Perhaps--in a few weeks, or months to come--when he shall have recovered his folly--he and I may be friends again," she murmured. "Nay--who knows--may even become something warmer and dearer: his feeling for that child can only be a passing fancy. Something warmer and dearer," softly repeated Miss Blake, as she traversed the hall.
"Lucy will come to you presently, Mrs. Cleeve. There's no hurry now: Mr. Andinnian is gone."
"What is Lucy doing, Theresa?"
"Sobbing silently, I think: she scarcely spoke to me. Fancy her being so foolish!"
Mrs. Cleeve went at once to the library. She and her husband were as much alike as possible: mild, good, unemotional people who hated to inflict pain: with a great love for their daughter, and a very great sense of their own importance and position in the world, as regarded pride of birth.
"Oh, Lucy dear, it was obliged to be. You are reasonable, and must know it was. But from my very heart I am sorry for you: and I shall always take blame to myself for not having been more cautious than to allow you to become intimate with Mr. Andinnian. It seems to me as though I had been living with a veil before my eyes."
"It is over now: let it pass," was Lucy's faint answer.
"Yes, dear, it is over. All over for good. By this time twelvemonth, Lucy, I hope you will be happily married, and forget this painful episode in your life. Not, my child, that we shall like to part with you: only--it will be for your own welfare and happiness."
Lucy pressed her slender white fingers upon her brow, and looked at her mother. There was a puzzled, doubting expression in her eyes that spoke of bewilderment.
"Mamma," she said slowly, "I think perhaps I did not understand you. I have parted with Mr. Andinnian, as you and papa wished, and as--as I suppose it was right I should do; I shall never, I hope, do anything against your will. But--to try to make me marry will be quite a different thing. Were you and papa to tell me that you insisted on it, I could only resist: And I should resist to the end."
Mrs. Cleeve saw that she had not been wise. To allude to any such future contingency when Lucy was smarting under the immediate pain of separation, was a mistake. Sighing gently, she sat down and took her daughter's hand, stroking it fondly.
"Lucy, my dear, I will relate to you a little matter of my own early experience," she began in a hushed tone. " I once had one of the affairs of the heart, as they are called. The young man was just as attractive as Mr. Andinnian, and quite worthy. But circumstances were unfavourable, and we had to part. I thought that all worth living for in life was over. I said that I should never care for any one else, and never marry. Not so very long afterwards, Captain Cleeve presented himself. Before he said a word to me, Lucy, before I knew what he was thinking of, I had learnt to like and esteem him: and I became his wife."
"And did you love him?" questioned Lucy, in great surprise.
"Oh dear no. Not with the kind of love I had felt for another--the kind of love that I presume you are feeling for Mr. Andinnian. Such love never comes back to the heart a second time. But, Lucy, my married life has been perfectly successful and happy. Once that great passion is over, you see, the heart is at rest, calmness and reason have supervened. Rely upon it, my dear, your married life will be all the happier for this little experience connected with Mr. Andinnian."
Lucy said no more. She knew. And Mrs. Cleeve thought how dutiful her daughter was.
On the following day, a letter came to the Colonel from Karl. A
well-written and sensible letter; not of rebellion, but of acquiescence. While it deplored his fate in separating from Lucy; it bowed to the necessity that enforced it. A note was enclosed for Lucy: it was unsealed, in case the Colonel should wish, to read before giving it to her. The Colonel did so: he did not fear treason from Karl, but it was as well to be on the safe side and assure himself there was none. It contained only a few words, rather more coherent than Karl's emotion of the previous day had allowed him to speak: and it bade her adieu for ever. Colonel Cleeve sent both notes to his daughter, and then lost himself in a reverie: from which he was aroused by the entrance of his wife.
"Lucinda, that is really a most superior young man: high-principled, true-hearted. A pity but he had rank and money."
"Who is a superior young man?" asked Mrs. Cleeve, not having the clue.
"Lieutenant Andinnian."
CHAPTER III.
Done at Sunset
The warm June sun rode gaily in the bright-blue skies, and the sweet June Roses were in bloom. Mrs. Andinnian, entirely unconscious of the blight that had fallen on her younger son, was placidly making the home happiness (as she believed) of the elder. Had she known of Karl's sorrow, she would have given to it but a passing thought.
There was peace in the home again. The vexation regarding their young lady-neighbour had long ago subsided in Mrs. Andinnian's mind. She had spoken seriously and sharply to Adam upon the point--which was an entirely new element in his experience; telling him how absurd and unsuitable it was, that he, one of England's future baronets, and three-and-thirty years of age already, should waste his hours in frivolous talk with a girl beneath him. Adam heard her in silence, smiling a little, and quite docile. He rejoined in a joking tone.
"All this means, I suppose, mother, that you would not tolerate Miss Turner as my wife?"
"Never, Adam, never. You would have to choose between myself and her. And I have been a loving mother to you."
"All right. Don't worry yourself. There's no cause for it."
From this time--the conversation was in April, at the close of Karl's short visit to them--the trouble ceased. Adam Andinnian either did not meet the girl so much: or else he timed his interviews more cautiously. In May Miss Turner went away on a visit: Adam seemed to have dismissed her from his mind: and Mrs. Andinnian forgot that she had ever been anxious.
Never a word of invitation had come from Sir Joseph. During this same month, May, Mrs. Andinnian, her patience worn out, had written to Foxwood, proffering a visit for herself and Adam. At the end of a fortnight's time, she received an answer. A few words of shaky writing, in Sir Joseph's own hand. He had been very ill, he told her, which was the cause of the delay in replying, as he wished to write himself. Now he was somewhat better, and gaining strength. When able to entertain her and her son--which he hoped would be soon--he should send for them. It would give him great pleasure to receive them, and to make the acquaintance of his heir.
That letter had reached Mrs. Andinnian the first day of June. Some three week's had elapsed since, and no summons had come. She was growing just a little impatient again. Morning after morning, while she dressed, the question always crossed her mind: will there be a letter to-day from Foxwood? On this lovely June morning, with the scent of the midsummer flowers wafting in through the open chamber window, it filled her mind as usual.
They breakfasted early. Adam's active garden habits induced it. When Mrs. Andinnian descended, he was in the breakfast-room, scanning the pages of some new work on horticulture. He wore a tasty suit of grey, and looked well and handsome: unusually so in his mother's eyes, for he had only returned the past evening from a few days' roving absence.
"Good morning, Adam."
He advanced to kiss his mother: his even white teeth and his grey eyes as beautiful as they could well be. Mrs. Andinnian's fond and admiring heart leaped up with a bound.
"The nonsense people write whose knowledge is superficial!" he said, with a gay laugh. "I have detected half a dozen errors in this book already."
"No doubt. What book is it?"
He held it out to her, open at the title-page. "I bought it yesterday at a railway-stall."
"What a nice morning it is!" observed Mrs. Andinnian, as she was busy with the cups.
"Lovely. It is Midsummer Eve. I have been out at work these two hours."