An Atmosphere of Mystery.
It seemed to Mrs. Andinnian and to her son, Karl, that trouble like
unto theirs had never yet fallen upon man. Loving Adam as they did,
for his sake it was more than they knew how to bear. The disgrace and
blight to themselves were terrible; to Karl especially, who was, so to
say, only entering on life. There are some calamities that can never
be righted in this world; scarcely softened. This was one. Calamities
when we can only _bear_, bear always here; when nothing is left us but
to look forward to, and live on for, the next world, where no pain
will be. In Karl's mind this was ever present.
The bare fact of the selling-out was to Karl Andinnian a bitter blow.
He was attached to his profession: and he had been looking forward to
finding, in the active discharge of its duties, a relief from the
blank left by the loss of Lucy Cleeve. Now he must be thrown utterly
upon himself; an idle man. Everyone was very kind to him; from the
Commander-in-chief, with whom he had an interview, downwards evincing
for him the truest respect and sympathy: but not one of them said,
"Won't you reconsider your determination and remain with us?" His
Royal Highness civilly expressed regret at the loss Her Majesty would
sustain in so good a servant; but he took the withdrawal as a matter
that admitted of no question. There could be none. Captain Andinnian's
only brother, escaping the gallows by an accorded favour, was working
in chains on Portland Island: clearly the captain, brave and unsullied
man though he individually was, could but hasten to hide his head in
private life.
It was a happy thing for Karl that he had plenty of business on his
hands just now. It saved him in a degree from thought. Besides his own
matters, there were many things to see to for his mother. The house in
Northamptonshire was given up, its furniture sold, its household,
except Hewitt, discharged. Karl was on the spot and saw to it all.
Whilst there, he had rather a struggle with himself. His natural
kindliness of feeling prompted him to call and see Miss Turner:
personally he shrunk from it, for he could not forget that it was
through her all the misery had happened. He did violence to his
inclination, and called. The young lady seemed to be in very depressed
spirits, and said but little. The event seemed to have tried her much,
and she was pale and thin. During the interval that had elapsed since
the trial, her uncle, to whom she was much attached, had died. She
told Karl that her aunt, Mrs. Turner, intended to remove at once to
her native place, a remote district of Cumberland: Rose supposed she
should have to remove with her. Mr. Turner had left a very fair amount
of property. His wife was to receive the interest of it for her life;
at her death the whole of it would come to Rose. As Karl shook hands
with her on leaving, and wished her well, something he said was taken
by her as alluding to the unhappy tragedy, though he had intended
nothing of the sort. It had a strange effect upon her. She rose from
her seat, her hands trembling; her face became burning red, then
changed to a ghastly whiteness. "Don't speak of it, Captain
Andinnian," she exclaimed in a voice of horror; "don't hint at it,
unless you would see me go mad. There are times when I think that
madness will be my ending." Again wishing her well; he took his
departure. It was rather unlikely, he thought, that their paths would
cross each other again in life.
Hewitt was sent to Foxwood. It would probably be made the future home
of Mrs. Andinnian and her younger son; but at present they had not
gone there. For some little time, while Karl was busy in London,
Northamptonshire, or elsewhere, he had lost sight of his mother. She
quitted the temporary home she occupied, and, so to say, disappeared.
While he was wondering what this meant, and where she could be; he
received a letter from her dated Weymouth. She told him she had taken
up her abode there for the present, and she charged him not to
disclose this to any one, or to let her address be known. Just for a
moment, Karl was puzzled to imagine what her motive could be in going
to a place that she knew nothing of. All at once the truth flashed
upon him--she would be as near as possible to that cruel prison that
contained her ill-fated son.
It was even so. Adam Andinnian was on Portland Island; and his mother
had taken up her residence at Weymouth to be near him. Karl, who knew
not the place, or the rules observed, wondered whether a spectator
might stroll about on the (so-called) island at will, or ever get a
chance glimpse of the gangs at their labour.
In the month of October, Captain Andinnian--to call him by this title
for a short while longer--went to Weymouth. He found his mother
established in a small, mean, ready-furnished house in an obscure part
of the town. It was necessary for him to see her on matters connected
with the Foxwood estate, of which he had now the management; but she
had charged him to come to her in as private a manner as he well
could, and not to make himself or his name known at the station or
elsewhere, unless under necessity. "She is right," thought Karl; "the
name of Andinnian is notorious now." That was true; and he did not
suppose she had any other motive for the injunction.
"But, my dear mother, why are you _here?_" he asked within five
minutes of his entrance, as he looked at the confined walls of the
mean abode. "You might at least have been more comfortably and
suitably lodged."
"What I choose to do, I do," she answered, in the distant tones of
former days. "It is not for you to question me."
Mrs. Andinnian was altered. Mental suffering had told upon her. The
once fresh hues of her complexion had given place to a fixed pallor;
the large dark eyes had acquired a fierce and yet restless look. In
manner alone was she unaltered, at least to Karl: and as to her pride,
it seemed to be more dominant than ever.
"I was only thinking of your comfort, mother," he replied to her
fierce rejoinder. "This is so different from what you have been
accustomed to."
"Circumstances are different," she said curtly.
"Have you but one servant in the whole house? For everything?"
"She is enough for me: she is a faithful woman. I tell you that
circumstances are not what they were."
"_Some_ are not--unhappily," he answered. "But others, pecuniary ones,
have changed the other way. You are rich now."
"And do you think I would touch a stiver of the riches that are my
dear Adam's?" she retorted, her eyes blazing. "Save what may be
necessary to keep up Foxwood, and to--to-- No," she resumed, after the
abrupt breaking off, "I hoard them for him."
Karl wondered whether trouble had a little touched her brain. Poor
Adam could have no further use for riches in this world. Unless,
indeed, in years to come, he should obtain what was called a ticket of
leave. But Karl fancied that in a case like Adam's--Condemnation
commuted--it was never given.
Mrs. Andinnian began asking the details of the giving-up of her former
home. In answering, Karl happened to mention incidentally the death of
their neighbour, Mr. Turner, and his own interview with Rose. The
latter's name excited Mrs. Andinnian beyond all precedent: it brought
on one of those frightful fits of passion that Karl had not seen of
late years.
"I loathe her," she wildly said. "But for her wicked machinations, my
darling son had not fallen into this dreadful fate that is worse than
death. May my worst curses light upon the head of Rose Turner!"
Karl did what he could to soothe the storm he had unwittingly evoked.
He told his mother that she would never, in all probability, be
grieved with the sight of the girl again, for she was removing to the
out-of-the-world district of Cumberland.
The one servant, alluded to by Karl, was a silent-mannered, capable
woman of some forty years. Her mistress called her "Ann," but Karl
found she was a Mrs. Hopley, a married woman. That she appeared to be
really attached to her mistress, to sympathise with her in her great
misfortune, and to be solicitous to render her every little service
that could soothe her, Captain Andinnian saw and felt grateful for.
"Where is your husband?" he one day inquired.
"Hopley's out getting his living, sir," was the answer. "We have had
misfortunes, sir: and when they come to people such as us, we must do
the best we can to meet them. Hopley's working on his side, and me on
mine."
"He is not in Weymouth then?"
"No, he is not in Weymouth. We are not Weymouth people, sir. I don't
know much about the place. I never lived at it till I came to Mrs.
Andinnian."
By this, Karl presumed that his mother had brought Mrs. Hopley with
her when she came herself: but he asked no further. It somewhat
explained what he had rather wondered at--that his mother, usually so
reticent, and more than ever so now, should have disclosed their great
calamity to this woman. He thought the servant must have been already
cognisant of it.
"What misfortune was it of your own that you allude to?" he gently
asked.
"It was connected with our son, sir. I and my husband never had but
him. He turned out wild. While he was quite a lad, so to say, he
ruined us, and we had to break up the home."
"And where is he now?"
She put her check apron before her face to hide her emotion. "He is
dead," was the low answer. "He died a dreadful death, sir, and I can't
yet bear to talk of it. It's hardly three months ago."
Karl looked at the black ribbon in her cap, at the neat
black-and-white print gown she did her work in: and his heart went out
to the woman's sorrow. He understood better now--she and her mistress
had a grief in common. Later, he heard somewhat more of the
particulars. Young Hopley, after bringing his parents to beggary, had
plunged into crime; and then, to avoid being taken, had destroyed
himself.
But, as the days went on, Karl Andinnian could not help remarking that
there was an atmosphere of strangeness pervading the house: he could
almost have said of mystery. Frequently were mistress and maid
closeted together in close conference; the door locked upon them, the
conversation carried on in whispers. Twice he saw Ann Hopley go out so
be-cloaked and be-large-bonneted that it almost looked as though she
were dressed for disguise. Karl thought it very strange.
One evening, when he was reading to his mother by candle-light, the
front door was softly knocked at, and some one was admitted to the
kitchen. In the small house, all sounds were plainly heard. A minute
or two elapsed, and then Ann came in to say a visitor wished to speak
to her mistress. While Karl was wondering at this--for his mother was
entirely unknown in the place--Mrs. Andinnian rose without the least
surprise, looked at her son, and hesitated.
"Will you step into another room, Karl' My interview must be private."
So! she had expected this visit. Captain Andinnian went into his
bedroom. He saw--for his curiosity was excited, and he did not quite
close the door--a tall, big, burly man, much wrapped up, and who kept
his hat on, walk up the passage to the sitting-zoom, lighted thither
by Ann. It seemed to the captain as though the visitor wished his face
not to be looked at. The interview lasted about twenty minutes. Ann
then showed the man out again, and Karl returned to the parlour.
"Who was it, mother?"
"A person to see me on private business," replied Mrs. Andinnian, in a
voice that effectually checked further inquiries.
The days passed monotonously. Mrs. Andinnian was generally buried in
her own thoughts, scarcely ever speaking to him; and when she did
speak, it was in a cold or snappish manner. "If she would but make a
true son of me, and give me her confidence!" Karl often thought. But,
to do anything of the kind was evidently not the purport of Mrs.
Andinnian.
He one day went over to Portland Island. The wish to make the
pilgrimage, and see what the place was like, had been in his mind from
the first: but, in the midst of the wish, a dreadful distaste to it
drew him back, and he had let the time elapse without going. October
was in its third week, and the days were getting wintry.
It is a dreary spot--and it struck with a strange dreariness on
Captain Andinnian's spirit. Storms, that seemed to fall lightly on
other places, rage out their fury there. Half a gale was blowing that
day, and he seemed to feel its roughness to the depth of his heart.
The prospect around, with its heaving sea, romantic enough at some
times, was all too wild to-day; the Race of Portland, that turbulent
place which cannot be crossed by vessel, gave him a fit of the
shivers. As to the few houses he saw, they were as poor as the one
inhabited by his mother.
In one of the quarries, amidst its great masses of stone, Captain
Andinnian halted, his eyes fixed on the foaming sea, his thoughts most
bitter. Within a few yards of him, so to say, worked his unfortunate
brother; chained, a felon; all his hopes in this world blighted; all
his comforts in life gone out for ever. Karl himself was peculiarly
susceptible to physical discomfort, as sensitive-natured men are apt
to be; and he never thought without a shudder of what Adam had to
undergo in this respect.
"Subjected to endless toil; to cruel deprivation; to isolation from
all his kind!" groaned Karl aloud to the wild winds. "Oh, my brother,
if----"
His voice died away in very astonishment. Emerging from behind one of
the blocks, at right angles with him, but not very near, came two
people walking side by side, evidently conversing in close whispers.
In the cloaked-up woman, with the large black bonnet and black crape
veil over her face, Karl was sure he saw their servant, Ann Hopley.
The other must be, he thought, one of the warders: and, unless Karl
was greatly mistaken, he recognised in his strong, burly frame the
same man who had come a night or two before to his mother's house.
They passed on without seeing him, but he saw the man's face
distinctly.
A light dawned on his mind. His mother was striving to make a friend
of this warder, with a view to conveying messages, perhaps also, it
might be, physical comforts, to Adam: yes, that was undoubtedly the
solution of the mystery. But why need she have hidden it from him,
Karl?
When he got home that night--for he stayed out until he was tired and
weary--Ann Hopley, in her usual home attire, was putting the tea-tray
on the table.
"I fancied I saw Ann out to-day," he observed to his mother, when they
were alone.
"She went out on an errand for me," replied Mrs. Andinnian.
"I have been over to the Island," continued Karl. "It was there I
thought I saw her."
Mrs. Andinnian was pouring some cream into the tea-cups when he spoke.
She put down the small frail glass jug with a force that smashed it,
and the cream ran over the tea-board.
"You have been to the Island!" she cried in a voice that betrayed some
dreadful terror. "To the _Island_?"
Karl was rising to see what he could do towards repairing the mishap.
The words arrested him. He had again been so unlucky as to raise one
of her storms of passion: but this time he could see no reason in her
anger: neither did he quite understand what excited it.
"To-day is the first time I have been to the Island, mother. I could
not summon up the heart before."
"How _dared_ you go?"
"I am thinking of going again," he answered, believing her question to
relate to physical bravery. "And of getting--if it be possible to
obtain--permission to see _him_."
The livid colour spreading itself over Mrs. Andinnian's face grew more
livid. "_I forbid it, Karl_. I forbid it, do you hear? You would ruin
everything, I forbid you to go again on the Island, or to attempt to
see Adam. Good heavens! you might be recognised for his brother."
"And if I were?" cried Karl, feeling completely at sea.
Mrs. Andinnian sat with her two hands on the edge of the tea-tray,
staring at him, in what looked like dire consternation.
"Karl, you must go away to-morrow. To think that you could be such a
fool as to go _there!_ This is worse than all: it is most unfortunate.
To-morrow you leave."
"Mother, why will you not place trust in me?" he asked, unable to
fathom her. "Do you think you could have a truer confidant? or Adam a
warmer friend? I guess the object of Ann's visits to the Island. I saw
her talking with one of the warders to-day--the same man, or I fancied
it, that came here the other night. That moment solved me the riddle,
and----"
"Hush--sh--sh--sh!" breathed Mrs. Andinnian, in a terrified voice,
ringing the bell, and looking round the walls of the room as if in
dread that they had ears. "Not another word, Karl; I will not, dare
not, hear it."
"As you please, mother," he rejoined, feeling bitterly hurt at her
lack of trust.
"Have you more cream in the house, Ann?" said Mrs. Andinnian, calmly,
when the woman appeared. "And you had better change the tray."
The meal was concluded in silence. Karl took up a newspaper he had
brought in; Mrs. Andinnian at moodily gazing into the fire. And so the
time went on.
Suddenly there arose the distant sound of guns, booming along on the
still night air. To Captain Andinnian it suggested no ulterior
thought; brought no cause for agitation: but his mother started up in
wild commotion.
"The guns, Karl! the guns!"
"What guns are they?" he exclaimed, in surprise. "What are they firing
for?"
She did not answer; she only stood still as a statue, her mouth
slightly open with the intensity of listening, her finger lifted up.
In the midst of this, Ann Hopley opened the door without sound, and
looked in with a terror-stricken face.
"It's not _him_, ma'am; don't you be afeared. It's some other convicts
that are off; but it can't be him. The plan's not yet organized."
And Karl learnt that these were the guns from Portland Island,
announcing the escape, or attempted escape, of some of its miserable
prisoners.
Well for him if he had learned nothing else! The true and full meaning
of what had been so mysterious flashed upon him now, like a sheet of
lightning that lights up and reveals the secrets of the darkness. It
was not Adam's comforts they were surreptitiously seeking to
ameliorate; they were plotting for his escape.
His escape! As the truth took possession of Captain Andinnian, his
face grew white with a sickening terror; his brow damp as with a death
sweat.
For he knew that nearly all these attempted escapes result in utter
failure. The unhappy, deluded victims are recaptured, or drowned, or
shot. Sitting there in his shock of agony, his dazed eyes gazing out
to the fire, a prevision that death in one shape or other would be his
brother's fate, if he did make the rash venture, seated itself firmly
within him, as surely and vividly as though he had seen it in some
fortuneteller's magic crystal.
"Mother," he said, in a low tone, as he took her hand, and the door
closed on Ann Hopley, "I understand it all now. I thought, simple that
I was, that I had understood it before: and that you were but striving
to find a way of conveying trifles in the shape of comforts to Adam.
This is dreadful."
"What is the matter with you?" cried Mrs. Andinnian. "You look ready
to die."
"The matter is, that this has shocked me. I pray Heaven that Adam will
not be so foolhardy as to attempt to escape!"
"And _why_ should he not?" blazed forth Mrs. Andinnian.
Karl shook his head. "In nine cases out of ten, the result is nothing
but death."
"And the tenth case results in life, in liberty!" she rejoined,
exultantly. "My brave son does well to try for it."
Karl hid his eyes. The first thought, in the midst of the many
tumultuously crowding his brain, was the strangely different
estimation different people set on things. Here was his mother
glorying in that to-be-attempted escape as if it were some great deed
dared by a great general: _he_ saw only its results. They could not be
good; they must be evil. Allowing that Adam did escape and regain his
liberty: what would the "liberty" be? A life of miserable concealment;
of playing at hide-and-seek with the law; a world-wide apprehension,
lying on him always, of being retaken. In short, a hunted man, who
must not dare to approach the haunts of his fellows, and of whom every
other man must be the enemy. To Karl the present life of degrading
labour would be preferable to that.
"Do you wish to keep him there for life--that you may enjoy the
benefit of his place at Foxwood and his money?" resumed Mrs.
Andinnian, in a tone that she well knew how to make contemptuously
bitter. The words stung Karl. His answer was full of pain: the pain of
despair.
"I wish life had never been for him, mother. Or for me, either. If I
could restore Adam to what he has forfeited by giving my own life, I
would do it willingly. I have not much left to live for."
The tone struck Mrs. Andinnian. She thought that even the reflected
disgrace, the stain on his name, scarcely justified it. Karl said
a few words to her then of the blight that had fallen on his own
life--the severance from Lucy Cleeve. She told him she was sorry: but
it was quite evident that she was too much preoccupied with other
things to care about it. And the sad evening passed on.
With the morning, Weymouth learnt the fate of the poor convict--it was
only one--who had attempted to escape, after whom the guns were let
loose like so many blood-hounds. He was retaken. It was a man who had
attempted escape once before, and unsuccessfully.
"The plans were badly laid," calmly remarked Mrs. Andinnian.
She did not now insist upon Karl's quitting her: he knew all; and,
though he could not approve, she knew he would not do anything to
frustrate. The subject was not again brought up: Mrs. Andinnian
avoided it: and some more days wore on. Karl fancied, but could not be
sure, that the other attempt at escape caused the action of this to be
delayed: perhaps entirely abandoned. His mother and Ann Hopley seemed
to be always in secret conference, and twice again there came
stealthily to the house at night the same warder, or the man whom Karl
had taken for one.