Works of Ellen Wood, page 944
Amidst the injuries Sir Adam received was one to the mouth and jaw. It destroyed those beautiful front teeth of his. After his recovery he sought the services of a clever but not much known dentist named Rennet, went to the pain of having the rest of his teeth extracted, and an entire set of false ones made. Two sets, in fact. The journey Rose took to London, when Miss Blake espied her with Karl, was for the purpose of getting one of these sets of teeth repaired, Sir Adam having broken the spring the night before. The teeth had to be conveyed personally to Mr. Rennet and brought away; for they were too cautious to entrust him with their address.
And now it will be seen how Sir Adam had concealed himself at the Maze. In the daytime he was the toothless, hump-backed, infirm old Hopley, working at his garden with enlarged knees and tottering steps: as soon as dusk came on, his false padding was thrown of with his smock frock and coarse clothes, and he was the well-bred gentleman, Sir Adam Andinnian, in his evening attire and with his white and even teeth. His assumed rôle was maintained always during the day; his meals were taken in the kitchen to be safe in case of any possible surprise, Ann attending upon him with all respect The delay in admitting Nurse Chaffen, kept waiting once on the wrong side of the kitchen door, was caused by “Hopley’s” taking out his set of teeth and putting on his broad-brimmed hat: for it was convenient to assume the teeth during the short period devoted to dinner. The deafness was of course assumed as an additional precaution. Thus he had lived, in a state of semisecurity, tending his flowers and occupied with the care of his garden generally, an employment that he loved so well. The day that General Lloyd’s party went in, Karl was transfixed with apprehension and amazement to see Hopley showing himself. Adam enjoyed it: it was so like him to brave things; and he feared no danger from a pleasure party like that Well, I think that is all that is needed in the way of explanation; and we can go on. Karl was looking at the digging with regretful eyes.
“You ought to be glad to see me at work again, Karl, instead of groaning over it,” cried Sir Adam.
“And so I should be, Adam, only that I fear you will feel its effects unpleasantly by and by.”
“I asked him not to do it, but he only laughed at me,” said Rose.
“Somebody must do it. I can’t see the garden quite neglected. Besides, if I am well enough to work there’s no reason why I should not. I am not sure, Karl, but I shall cheat you now.”
“Cheat me?”
“By getting well. What should you say to that?”
“Thank heaven for it: and do my best to get you away to a place of safety.”
“By George, old fellow, I don’t know that I shan’t. I am feeling as blithe as a bee. Rose, take yourself a trifle further off, out of the mould.”
He was throwing about the spadefuls almost as well as he had ever thrown them in his strength. Rose was cheated into something like hope, and her face for the moment lost its sadness.
“I wish to goodness I had a draught of beer,” cried Adam. “Where’s Ann, I wonder.”
Karl went to fetch it. Ann Hopley shook her head at the idea of hope, when Karl spoke of it as she gave him the beer.
“You never saw any person, who was to live on, have the look in his face that he has, sir.”
“He looks fairly well to-day.”
“And so he will at times to the last, as it strikes me. I have had a good deal of experience in illness, sir. As to his talking about getting well — why, sir, you know what he is: saying this and that without meaning it. There’s no doubt he feels pretty sure himself how it will be.”
Karl sighed as he went back with the beer. Yes, there was no real hope.
That same night — or rather on the following morning, for the dawn was more than glimmering — Karl in his bed began to dream that he was out in a shower of hail. It seemed to be falling with great violence: so much so that a sharper crash awoke him. Lying awake for a moment and questioning where he was, he found the noise to be reality. The hail was beating on the chamber windows.
Was it hail? Scarcely. It was crashing but on one window, and only came at intervals. It sounded more like gravel. Karl rose and opened the window. Smith the agent stood underneath. A prevision of evil shook Karl as he leaned out.
“He is very ill indeed, sir,” said Smith in the lowest whisper possible to be heard, and extending his finger to indicate the Maze. “Mr. Moore’s there and thinks it will be for death. I thought you would like to know it.”
“How did you hear it?” asked Karl.
“Ann Hopley ran over and knocked me up, that I might go for the doctor.”
“Thank you,” replied Karl. “I’ll be there directly.”
Now it so happened that for some purposes of cleaning — for the Court was not exempt from those periodical visitations any more than the humble dwelling of Mrs. Chaffen — Miss Blake’s chamber had been temporarily changed to the one next to that recently occupied by Lady Andinnian. Miss Blake was in the habit of sleeping with her window open; and, not being asleep at the time, she had heard Mr. Smith’s footsteps and the crashes at Sir Karl’s window. Of course she was curious as to what could cause the noise, and at first thought of housebreakers. Had Mr. Smith chanced to turn his head in the right direction during the colloquy with Sir Karl, he might have seen an elaborately night-capped head peeping forth cautiously.
“Why, it is Mr. Smith!” thought Miss Blake, as he walked away. “What an extraordinary thing! He must have been calling up Sir Karl.”
Listening inside as well as out, Miss Blake heard the bell that was in Hewitt’s chamber ring gently; and, after a minute or two, the latter proceeding to his master’s room. Then they both went down together, and Hewitt let Sir Karl out at the hall door, and came upstairs again. Miss Blake, after a good deal of self-puzzling, arrived at the conclusion that the affair must be in some way connected with poachers — who had been busy on the land latterly — and returned to her bed.
With death on his face, and a look of resignation than which nothing could be more peaceful, lay Sir Adam for the last time. His weary life, with all its bitter turmoil, was nearly at an end; night here was closing, morning there was opening. Karl’s grey eyes were wet as he bent over him.
“Don’t grieve too much,” said Adam with a smile, as he put his cold hand into Karl’s clasp. “You know how much better off I shall be. Rose knows it”
“You were so full of hope yesterday, Adam.”
“Was I? It cheated the wife into a few hours of pleasantness, and did its mission. I did not think I took you in. Why, Karlo, I have just been waiting from day to day for what has now come: moreover, I have seen how much best it all is as it is than anything else would be. I would not accept life if you’d give it to me, unless the whole time since that Midsummer Eve could be blotted out”
Karl swallowed a sob.
“You don’t know what it has been, Karl. No one can know what it is to live under a hanging sword, as I have, unless they experience it. And few in this world can do that It was all a mistake together. The shooting of Scott when I ought to have horsewhipped him; the escape from Portland; the taking up my abode here; everything: and these mistakes, Karl, have to be worked out I have paid for mine with life.”
Karl did not answer. He was only nervously pressing the wasted hand in his.
“It is all, I say, for the best. I see it now. It was best that the little lad should go; it is best that I should; it is best that you should be the true owner of Foxwood. It would have been too much of a complication otherwise. The boy could never have put forth a claim to it while I lived; and, after that, people might but have pointed their scornful finger at him as the son of a convict I thank God for taking him.”
“Should you talk so much, Adam?”
“I don’t know. A man in my condition, about to leave the world behind, prefers to talk while he can. You will take care of my wife, Karl. There was no settlement, you know, and—”
“I will take care of her to the best of my power, Adam,” came the earnest interruption. “She shall have a proper and suitable jointure as the widowed Lady Andinnian.”
“No, Karl; not that. She and I have talked over the future at odd moments, and we do not wish it. Rose does not mean to acknowledge her marriage with me, or to live in any kind of state in accordance with it. She will be Mrs. Grey to the end. Unless, indeed, any occasion were to arise, such as a tarnishing breath of scandal brought against this past period of her life. Then, of course, the truth must be declared, and you, Karl would have to come forward and testify to it I leave that in your hands.”
“With every surety,” assented Karl.
“A few hundreds a year, say four or five, are all that she will want from you, or take. Her late uncle’s money must come to her sometime, and that of itself would be almost enough. She purposes to live a retired life with her aunt; and I think it will be the happiest for her. In my desk, Karl, you will find a paper in my handwriting, setting forth all these wishes of hers and mine; it will serve as a direction for you. — No,” he went on, after a pause, “for her own peace, the world must never know her as Lady Andinnian. She dreads it too much. See you not the reason? She would have to stand before the public convicted of perjury. That past trial is rarely out of her mind, Karl — when she appeared falsely as Miss Rose Turner. The foolish things people do in their blindness! It was my fault. Her fault lay only in obeying me: but your charitable people would not accept that as an excuse. Be it as it may, Karl, Rose’s life henceforth will be one of modest position, and strict retirement Ann Hopley goes with her.”
Looking at the matter from all points of view, it might be, as Sir Adam said, for the best.
“And you will be Sir Karl in reality as well as in seeming, brother mine; and Foxwood will be your true home and your children’s after you. That is only justice. When you arranged to marry Lucy Cleeve, you deemed yourself to be the inheritor, and she deemed it. My death will set all right. And now about Smith, Karl. The man did me a great service, for I should have been retaken but for him; and he has been faithful to me since. I should like you to allow him something in the shape of an annuity — a hundred and fifty pounds a year, or so. Not the cottage: he will not stay in this neighbourhood when I am gone. It was through me that his arm got injured: which, of course, partly incapacitates him for work; and I think I am bound to provide for him.”
“It shall be done,” said Karl. “Ungrudgingly.”
“I have mentioned it in the paper, and the sum. He — he — he—”
Sir Adam’s hesitation was caused by faintness. He broke down, and for the time said no more. Nor did he recur to the subject again.
The day went on, Adam partially sleeping through it. At other times he lay in a kind of stupor. Mr. Moore attended at intervals; but nothing further could be done. At dusk Hewitt came over for a last sight of his old master; for a last farewell: and he sobbed bitterly as he said it.
Karl did not go home — at which Miss Blake was in much private wonder. Discarding the poacher theory, she shrewdly suspected now that he must be at the Maze, taking the opportunity of his wife’s absence to play the gay bachelor away from home. She asked Hewitt, she questioned Giles; Giles knew nothing, Hewitt fancied Sir Karl might be “detained at Basham” on some business.
And so, the night set in. When quite awake Adam had the full possession of his senses, and exchanged a few words, sometimes with his wife, sometimes with Karl. About three o’clock he fell into a calm sleep. Karl watched on; Rose, weak and sick and weary, dropped into a doze in a distant chair. Ann Hopley was in the kitchen below.
Save for the faint sighing of the wind as it swept round the house, stirring the branches of the trees, there was no sound to be heard. Stillness reigned unbroken in the dying chamber. How many of us have kept these watches! But who has kept them as this was being kept by Karl Andinnian!
With that bitter aching of the heart known but to few, and which when felt in its greatest intensity is the saddest pain the troubles of the world can give, Karl sat gazing on his brother. In his love for him, every pang endured by Adam in the past was a sting for him, every hazard run had reflected on him its dread apprehension. He sat thinking of what might have been; looking on what was: and an awful regret, than which nothing like unto it could be ever again experienced, tore at his heart-strings for the wasted life, cut short ere it had reached its prime. More than willingly in that moment would Karl have given his own remaining days to undo what his brother had done, and to restore to him freedom and honour. It might not be. Adam’s course was run: and he was passing away in obscurity from the world in which he had virtually no longer a place. Never for a moment did the immunity from perplexity it would bring to himself or the release from the false position he had been compelled to assume, occur to Karl; or, if it did, it was not dwelt upon: all of self and self-interest was lost in the regret and grief for his brother. He saw Adam living at Foxwood Court with his wife; its master; held in repute by men; he saw himself settled near with Lucy; his fortunes advanced by his brother’s aid to a position not unacceptable to Colonel Cleeve; he saw his mother alive still and happy: a united family, enjoying comfort the one with the other. This might have been. His mother dead of a broken heart; Adam, dying before his eyes, an escaped fugitive; his own life blighted with pain and sorrow unutterable for Adam’s sake, his wife estranged from him — this was what was. Be you very sure that no earthly pang could be keener than that despairing heart-ache felt by Karl Andinnian.
How many a night at that still hour had Adam lain in his terror, listening to this moaning wind with supernaturally quick ear, lest it should be only covering other sounds — the approach of his deadly enemies! How many times in a night had he quitted his bed, his heart beating, and stolen a cautious peep beside the blind to see whether they might not be there, in battle array, waiting until the dawn should come and they might get in to take him! Ah, it was all at an end now; the fever, and the fear, and the wasting restlessness. Why! if the men were drawn up round his bed, they would not care to touch him. But the terror from force of habit stayed with him to the last.
He started up. How long he had slept, and how the night was going, Karl in his abstraction hardly knew. Adam’s eyes looked somewhat wild in the shade of the night-light, and he put up his feeble hand.
“What is it?” asked Karl gently.
“I thought they were here, Karl; I saw them in the room,” — he whispered — and his eyes went round it. “They had muskets I think. Was it a dream?”
“Nothing but a dream, Adam. I am with you. Rose is asleep in the arm-chair.”
“Ay. I have not dreamt of them for a week past Stay by me, Karlo.”
Karl would have risen to administer some cordial: but Adam was holding his hand in a tight grasp; had shut his eyes, and seemed to be dropping asleep again.
He slept about half-an-hour, and Karl’s imprisoned arm went from a state of pins and needles into the cramp. When Adam awoke, there was a smile on his face and a peaceful rest in his eyes. He was quite collected.
“Karl, I dreamt of them again: but they had turned to angels. They were here, all about my bed. Oh Karl, I wish you could see them as I saw them! you’d never be afraid of anything more in this world. What’s that?”
Karl turned round: for Adam’s eyes were fixed on something or other behind him. He could see nothing save a streak of light, herald of the dawn, that came in at the side of the blind.
“Do you mean the light, Adam? It’s the dawn breaking.”
“Ay. My dawn. Draw up the blind. Karl.”
Softly, not to awake Rose, Karl drew it up. Rose-coloured clouds, heralds of a beauteous sunrise, flooded the East. Adam lay and gazed at it, the smile on his face changing to a rapt look that seemed to speak of heaven, more than of earth.
“It will be better there than here, Karl. For me.”
“Better for all of us.”
“I am very happy, Karl. The world is fading from me: heaven opening. Forgive me all that I have cost you.”
Karl’s heart and eyes were alike full.
“Just as the men who had troubled me were changed into angels, so my fear has changed to rest The angels are about the bed still, Karl; I know they are; waiting for me. The same lovely light shone on them that is shining yonder; and they told me without words that they were come to bear me up to God. I read it in their tender faces — so full of pitying love for me. It won’t be so very long, Karl: you’ll come later.”
Karl’s tears were falling on the up-turned face.
“I should like to have seen your wife, Karl; just once. Tell her so, with my love. Ask her to forgive me the worry I know I have caused her.”
