Mrs. Andinnian's Secret.
"Will you take anything, Sir Karl?"
The question came from Hewitt, who had looked in to ask for orders for
the morning, arousing his master from a curious train of thought.
"I don't mind a drop of hot brandy and water, Hewitt. Half a glass.
Something or other seems to have given me the shivers. Is it a cold
night?"
"No, Sir Karl; the night's rather warm than cold."
"Has my mother any particular trouble or worry upon her, Hewitt, do
you know?" he asked, as he mechanically watched the mixing of the
spirit and water. "She seems to be very much put out."
"I have noticed it myself, sir; but I don't know what the cause is,"
was the answer. "For my part, I don't think she has been at all
herself since Sir Adam's death. Loving him as she did--why, of course,
sir, it was a heavy blow; one not to be got over easily."
"And that's true, Hewitt. How many servants have you here?" resumed
Karl, asking the question not really with any particular care to know,
but simply to turn the subject.
"There's me and two maids, sir."
"You and two maids!" echoed Karl, in surprise. "Yes, sir, me and two
maids. That's all; except the out o' door gardeners."
"But that's not enough for Foxwood. It is only what we had in
Northamptonshire. How does the work get done? Why does my mother not
keep more?"
"My mistress says she can't afford more, Sir Karl," returned Hewitt,
who seemed sore upon the point, and spoke shortly.
"But she can afford more," returned Karl, impulsively; "a great many
more. Her income is a large one now."
Hewitt rubbed his bald head with an air of perplexity. Karl spoke to
him of things that he would not have entered on with any less esteemed
and faithful servant. Hewitt had been so long in the family that he
seemed like an old confidential friend. From his boyhood's days, Karl
had looked up to Hewitt with respect The man stood before his master,
as if intending to wait and see him drink the brandy-and-water.
"There can be no debts, you know, Hewitt," spoke Sir Karl, hastily.
Hewitt did not evince any surprise whatever at the implied suggestion.
It seemed to be rather the contrary.
"I have fancied that my mistress had some embarrassment on her mind,
sir, such as debt might cause," was the rejoinder, much to Karl's
astonishment. "I have fancied her money goes somewhere--though I
should never hint at such a thing to anybody but you, sir; nor to you
if you had not asked me. Perhaps Sir Adam left some debts behind him."
"No, he did not, Hewitt. Any debts left by Sir Adam would have been
paid out of the estate before it came to me. Plunkett and Plunkett
informed me at once that there were no debts at all: except the costs
of the trial."
"Then it must be some that have cropped up since: that is, the claim
for them," surmised Hewitt. "It is what I've thought myself, Sir
Karl."
"But why have you thought it?"
"Well, sir, one can't help one's thoughts," answered Hewitt, falling
away from the question--but not intentionally. "One evening, sir, when
my mistress seemed fit to die with trouble, I asked her if anything
had happened to vex her: and she answered--after looking at me sternly
in silence--No, nothing fresh; only some sorrow of a good many years
ago. It was the evening after that gentleman called, Sir Karl: a
gentleman who came and stayed with her ever so long."
"What gentleman?" asked Karl.
"Some stranger, sir; I didn't know him. He came up to the house and
asked for Mrs. Andinnian. I told him (they were my general orders)
that Mrs. Andinnian was not well enough to see visitors. Oh, indeed,
he said, and asked to come in and write a note. I was standing by when
he began to write it, and he ordered me to the other end of the room:
I suppose he feared I might look over. It seemed to me that he wrote
but one or two words, Sir Karl; not more: quite in a minute the paper
was folded and sealed--for he told me to light the taper. 'There,'
said he, 'take that to Mrs. Andinnian: I think she'll see me.' My
mistress was very angry when I took it to her, asking why I disobeyed
orders; but when she opened it, her face went deadly white, and she
bade me show the gentleman up to her sitting-room. He was there about
two hours, sir."
Karl thought this rather strange. "What sort of man was he, Hewitt?"
"A well-dressed gentleman, sir; tall. He had had a hurt to his left
arm, and wore it in a black silk sling. When he took it out of the
sling to seal the note, he could hardly use it at all. It was that
same evening after he had been, sir, that my mistress seemed so full
of trouble: a great deal more so than usual."
"Did you hear his name?"
"No, sir, I didn't hear his name. A tray of luncheon was ordered up
for him; and by the little that I heard said when I took it in and
fetched it away, I gathered that he was a gentleman applying for the
agency of your estate."
"But I do not require an agent," cried Karl in some wonder.
"Well, sir, I'm sure that's what the gentleman was talking of. And my
mistress afterwards said a word or two to me about the place being
neglected now Sir Karl was absent, and she thought she should appoint
an agent to look after it."
"But the place is not neglected," reiterated Karl. "How long was this
ago?"
"About three weeks, Sir Karl. I've not heard anything of it since, or
seen the gentleman. But my mistress seems to have some secret care or
uneasiness, apart from the death of Sir Adam. She seems always to be
in an inward worry--and you know how different from that she used to
be. It has struck me, Sir Karl, that perhaps that stranger came to
prefer some claims left by Sir Adam."
Karl did not think this likely, and said so. But neither of them could
be at any certainty.
"I wish you would write to me from time to time during my absence,
Hewitt, and let me know how my mother is," resumed Karl, dropping the
unsatisfactory subject.
"And that I will with pleasure, Sir Karl, if you will furnish me with
an address to write to."
"And be sure, Hewitt, that you send to me in any trouble or sickness.
I wish my poor mother's life was a less lonely one!"
Hewitt shook his head as he left the room. He felt sure that his
mistress would never more allow her life to be anything but a lonely
one: the light of it had gone out of it for ever with her beloved son.
Sir Karl went up to his chamber shortly. Before he had well closed his
door, a maid knocked at it, and said Mrs. Andinnian wished to see him.
Karl had supposed his mother to be in bed: instead of that, he found
her standing by the fire in her little sitting-room, and not
undressed.
"Shut the door, Karl," she said--and he saw that her face was working
with some painful emotion. "I have been debating a question with
myself the better part of this evening, down stairs and up--whether or
no I shall disclose to you the trouble that is upon us: and I have
resolved to do so. Of two evils, it may, perhaps, be the least."
"I am very glad indeed, my mother."
"Hush!" she solemnly said, lifting a warning hand. "Speak not before
you know. Glad! It has been consideration for you, Sir Karl," she
added, in that stern and distant tone that so pained him, "that has
alone kept me silent. You have no doubt been thinking me unnaturally
cold and reserved; but my heart has been aching. Aching for you. If I
have not loved you with the passionate love I bore for your poor
brother--and oh, Karl, he was my firstborn!--I have not been so
neglectful of you as you may imagine. In striving to keep you away
from Foxwood, I was but anxious that your peace should not be
imperilled earlier than it was obliged to be."
"Let me hear it mother. I can bear it, I daresay."
"You may _bear_ it, Karl. A man can bear most things. But, my son, I
dread to tell it you. You will regard it as an awful calamity, a
frightful perplexity, and your spirit may faint under it."
Karl smiled sadly. "Mother, after the calamities I have undergone
within the past year I do not think Fate can have any worse in store
for me."
"Wait--and judge. Your anger will naturally fall on me, Karl, as the
chief author of it. Blame me, my son, to your heart's content: it is
my just due. I would soften the story to you if I knew how: but it
admits not of softening. What is done cannot be undone."
Mrs. Andinnian rose, opened the door, looked up and down the corridor,
shut it again, and bolted it. "I do not need to fear eaves-droppers in
the house," she observed, "and the doors are thick: but this secret is
as a matter of life or death. Sit down there, Karl,"--pointing to a
chair opposite her own.
"I would rather stand, mother."
"Sit down," she reiterated: and Karl took his elbow from the
mantel-piece, and obeyed her. He did not seem very much impressed with
what he was about to hear: at least not to the extent that her
preparation seemed to justify. Each leaned forward, looking at the
other. Mrs. Andinnian had her arms on the elbows of her chair; Karl's
were crossed.
"First of all, Karl, you will take an oath, a solemn vow to God, that
you will never disclose this secret to any human being without my
consent."
"Is this necessary, mother?"
"It is necessary for you and for me," she sharply answered, as if the
question vexed her. "I tell you nothing unless you do."
Karl rose, and took the oath. Resuming his seat as before, he waited.
No, she could not say it. They sat, gazing at each other, she in
agitation, he in expectancy; and for a minute or two she literally
could not say what she had to say. It came forth at last. Only four
words.
Only four words. But Karl Andinnian as he heard them sprang up with a
cry: almost as the ill-fated man Martin Scott had sprung, when shot to
death by his brother.
"Mother! This cannot be true!"
Mrs. Andinnian went over to him and pushed him gently into his chair.
"Hush, Karl; make no noise," she soothingly whispered. "It would not
do, you see, for the household to be alarmed."
He looked up at his mother with a kind of frightened gaze. She turned
away and resumed her seat. Karl sat still, tumultuous ideas crowding
on him one after another.
"You should have disclosed this to me before I engaged myself to
marry," he cried at last with a burst of emotion.
"But don't you see, Karl, I did not know of your intended marriage. It
is because you have informed me of it to-night that I disclose it
now."
"Would you have kept it from me always?"
"That could not have been. You must have heard it some time. Listen,
Karl: you shall have the story from beginning to end."
It was one o'clock in the morning, before Karl Andinnian quitted his
mother's room. His face seemed to have aged years. Any amount of
perplexity he could have borne for himself, and borne it calmly; but
he did not know how to grapple with this. For what had been disclosed
to him ought to do away with his proposed marriage.
He did not attempt to go to bed. The whole of the rest of the night he
paced his room, grievously tormented as to what course he should take.
The wind, howling and raging around the house--for it was one of the
most turbulent of nights--seemed but an index of his turbulent mind.
He knew that in honour he was bound to disclose the truth to Colonel
Cleeve and Lucy; but this might not be. Not only was he debarred by
his oath; but the facts themselves did not admit of disclosure. In the
confusion of his mind he said to his mother, "May I not give a hint of
this to Lucy Cleeve, and let her then take me or leave me?" and Mrs.
Andinnian had replied by demanding whether he was mad. In truth, it
would have been nothing short of madness.
What to do? what to do? In dire distress Karl Andinnian strode the
carpet as he asked it. He might make some other excuse, if indeed he
could invent one, and write to break off the marriage--for, break it
off to their faces he could not. But, what would be the effect on
Lucy? Colonel Cleeve had not concealed that they gave her to him to
save her life. Were he to abandon her in this cowardly and heartless
manner, now at the eleventh hour, when they were literally preparing
the meats for the breakfast table, when Lucy's wedding lobe and wreath
were spread out ready to be worn, it might throw her back again to
worse than before, and verily and indeed kill her. It was a dilemma
that has rarely fallen on man. Karl Andinnian was as honest and
honourable a man as any in this world, and he could see no way out of
it: no opening of one. He might not impart to them so much as a hint
of the dreadful secret; neither could he inflict the stab that might
cost Lucy's life: on the other hand, to make Lucy his wife, knowing
what he now knew, would be dishonour unutterable. What was he to do?
What was he to do? There was absolutely no loophole of escape, no
outlet on either side.
Karl Andinnian knelt down and prayed. Man, careless, worldly man,
rarely does these things. He did. In his dire distress he prayed to be
guided to the right. But all the uncertainty came back as he rose up
again, and he could not see his course at all. Very shortly Hewitt
knocked at his door: saying it was time for Sir Karl to get up, if he
would catch the passing train. When Sir Karl came forth Hewitt thought
how very quickly he had dressed.
"It is a rough morning, sir," said Hewitt, as he opened the hall door.
"Ay, I can hear that. Farewell, Hewitt."
Delayed a tide by the non-controllable winds and waves, Sir Karl
reached Paris only on the evening of the eleventh. He drove at once
from the station to the Avenue d'Antin, and asked to see Lucy in
private. Torn by conflicting interests, he had at length resolved to
sacrifice his own sense of honour to Lucy's life. At least, if she
should not decide against it.
She was looking radiant. She told him (in a jest) that they had
considered him lost, that all had prophesied he had decamped and
deserted her. Karl's smile in answer to this was so faint, his few
words were so spiritless and subdued, that Lucy, a little sobered,
asked whether anything was the matter. They were standing on the
hearth-rug: Karl a few steps apart from her.
"What should you say if I had deserted you, Lucy?"
"I should just have said Bon voyage, monsieur," she answered gaily,
never believing the question had a meaning.
"Lucy, my dear, this is no time for jesting. I have come back with a
great care upon me. It is a fact, believe it or not as you will, that
I had at one time determined to desert you: to write and give you up."
There was no immediate answer, and Karl turned his eyes on her. The
words told home. Her blanched face had a great terror dawning on it.
"Sit down, Lucy, while you listen to me," he said, placing her in a
chair. "I must disclose somewhat of this to you, but it cannot be
much."
Remaining standing himself, he told her what he could. It was a most
arduous task to speak at all, from the difficulties that surrounded
it. A great and unexpected misfortune had fallen upon him, he said;
one that from its nature he might not further allude to. It would take
away a good deal of his substance; it ought in short to debar his
marriage with her. He went on to tell of the conflict he had passed
through, as to whether he should quit her or not, and of his final
resolve to disclose so much to her, and to leave with her the
decision. If she decided against him, he would invent some other plea
to Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve for breaking off the marriage; or let the
act appear to come from her, as she should will. If she decided for
him, why then----
"Tell me one thing, Karl," she said as he broke down. "Has this matter
had its rise in any dishonour or ill-doing of yours?"
"No," was the emphatic rejoinder. "I am as innocent in it, and until a
day or two ago, was as unconscious of it as you can be. You need not
fear that, Lucy."
"Then on your part you need not have doubted me, Karl," she said, the
glad tears rising to her eyes with the intensity of her relief. "It
was cruel of you to think of a separation now. I am yours."
"Lucy, look fully into the future. At least as fully as these
indefinite words of mine will admit of. I hope--I trust--that no
further complication may come of it; that it may be never known
to the world. But it may, and probably will, be otherwise. A great
calamity may fall upon us; in the world's eyes we should both be
dishonoured--_dishonoured_, Lucy; I through others, you through me."
"I am yours; yours for all time," was the reiterated answer.
"Very well, Lucy. So be it. But, my darling, if that blow should fall,
you may repent of your marriage with me. I know your parents would
repent it for you."
"Hush, Karl!" she whispered, rising from her seat to the arms opening
to receive her. "_I_ repent? That can never be. My dearest friend, my
almost husband, I am yours for weal or for woe. Have you forgotten the
vows I shall take to you to-morrow in the sight of God? For richer for
poorer, for better for worse."
"God bless you, Lucy! May God bless and protect us both." And as Sir
Karl held her to him, his frame shook with its own emotion, and a
scalding tear fell on her face from an aching heart.
The second week in March, just as nearly as possible a month after the
marriage, Sir Karl Andinnian received at Florence, where he and his
wife were staying, a telegram from Hewitt at Foxwood. It stated that
Mrs. Andinnian was ill with some kind of fever; it had taken a
dangerous turn, and her life might be a question of a few hours.
As quickly as it was practicable for them to travel, Sir Karl and Lady
Andinnian reached Paris. Mrs. Cleeve and Miss Blake were still there;
the Colonel was in London. The Cleeves had let their house at
Winchester, and could not yet get back to it. Sir Karl left Lucy with
her mother: not daring, as he said, to take her on to Foxwood, lest
the fever should be infectious. The change in Lucy was wonderful: her
cheeks were plump and rosy, her eyes told their own unmistakable tale
of happiness. Mrs. Cleeve could do nothing but look at her.
"We did well to give her to him," said she to Theresa. But, for
answer, Miss Blake only drew in her lips. The sting had not left her.
"O Karl, my darling, don't stay long away from me!" whispered Lucy,
clinging to him in the moment of his departure. "And be sure take care
of yourself, Karl, and do not run any risk, if you can help it, of the
fever."
With many a sweet word of reassurance, murmured between his farewell
kisses of passionate tenderness, Karl answered her. To part with one
another, even for this short and temporary space of time, seemed a
great trial.
A change for the better had taken place in Mrs. Andinnian, when Karl
arrived at Foxwood. She was in no immediate danger. Mr. Moore, the
surgeon at Foxwood, informed him that he must not trust to this
improvement. The fever had in a degree subsided, but her state of
prostration was so great that he feared she might yet die of the
weakness. Karl inquired the nature of the illness: Mr. Moore replied
that it was a species of low fever more than anything else, and
appeared to have been induced chiefly by the sad state of mind Mrs.
Andinnian had been brought into, grieving over the fate of her elder
son. Dr. Cavendish of Basham (the neighbouring market town) had
attended regularly with Mr. Moore. Sir Karl at once telegraphed to
London for a physician of world-wide reputation. When this great
doctor arrived, he only confirmed the treatment and opinion of the
other two; and said that nothing could well be more uncertain than the
recovery of Mrs. Andinnian.
Karl wrote these various items of information to his wife in Paris,
and showed her how impossible it was that he could quit his mother
during the uncertainty. Lucy replied by saying she should think very
ill of him if he could; but she begged him to allow her to come to
Foxwood and help him in the nursing, saying she was not afraid of the
fever. She added a pretty and affectionate message to Mrs. Andinnian
that she would find in her a loving daughter. The same post brought
Karl a letter from Mrs. Cleeve, who evidently _was_ afraid of the
fever. "_Do_ you take precautions for yourself, dear Sir Karl, and
_do_ you fumigate all letters before you send them out?" Such was its
chief burthen.
Karl believed there was no danger from the fever: but, alas, he dared
not have Lucy. He had reached Foxwood only to find more complication
than ever in the unhappy secret disclosed to him by his mother. Only a
word or two dropped by her--and in her weak, and sometimes semi-lucid
state, he could not be sure she would not drop them--and Lucy might
know as much as he did. Besides, there was no establishment at Foxwood
sufficient to receive Lady Andinnian.
Hour after hour, day after day, he sat by his mother's bedside. When
they were alone, she could only whisper of the trouble she had
disclosed to him. Karl felt that it was wearing her out. He told her
so, and she did not deny it. Never for a moment did she let the
subject rest: it filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else
in the world.
Karl felt that death would inevitably end it: and he watched her grow
weaker. The strain upon his own mind was great. Brooding over the
matter as he did--for, in truth, to think of any other theme was not
practicable--he saw what a wrong he had committed in marrying Lucy.
Sir Karl's only interludes of change lay in the visits of the medical
men. Dr. Cavendish came once a day; Mr. Moore twice or thrice. The
latter was rather brusque in his manner, but kindly, keen, and
sensible. He was plain, with a red face and nose that turned up; and
brown hair tinged with grey. The more Karl saw of him, the more he
liked him: and he felt sure he was clever in his calling.
"It is a great misfortune that Mrs. Andinnian should have taken poor
Sir Adam's death so much to heart," Mr. Moore one day observed to
Karl, when he found his patient exhausted, restless, in all ways
worse. "While she cultivates this unhappy frame of mind, we can do
nothing for her."
"Her love for my brother was a great love, Mr. Moore; quite passing
the ordinary love of mothers."
"No doubt of that. Still, Sir Karl, it is not right to let regret for
his death kill her."
Karl turned the conversation. He knew how wrong were the surgeon's
premises. Her regret for his brother's death had been terrible: but it
was not that that was killing Mrs. Andinnian.
The days went on, Mrs. Andinnian growing weaker and weaker. Her mind
had regained unfortunately all its activity: unfortunately because she
had not strength of body to counterbalance its workings. Karl had a
great deal to do for her: consultations to hold with her and letters
to write; but even yet he was not admitted to her full confidence.
During that night's interview with her, when he had learned so much,
he had enquired who the gentleman was that had called and taken
luncheon. Mrs. Andinnian had declined to answer him, further than it
was a Mr. Smith who had applied for the agency of Sir Karl's estate.
Hewitt informed him that Mr. Smith had called again the very day
succeeding Sir Karl's departure. He had held a long interview with
Mrs. Andinnian, and she had never been well since that hour.
It was very strange: strange altogether. Karl now found out that Mr.
Smith had been appointed the agent, and had had a house side by side
with Foxwood Court assigned to him as his residence. The information
nearly struck Karl dumb. He felt sure there was more behind, some
inexplicable cause for this: but no more satisfactory explanation
could he obtain from his mother. "_She_ was ill, _he_ was going to
live abroad, therefore it was necessary some responsible person should
be on the spot to look after things," was all she said. And Mr. Smith
arrived at Foxwood and took up his abode: and Sir Karl did not dare to
forbid it.
To Karl's intense surprise, the next letter he had from his wife was
dated London. They had left Paris and come over. With his whole heart
Karl hoped they would not be coming to Foxwood; and in his answering
letter he talked a good deal about the "fever."
As to himself, he was wearing to a shadow. One might surely have
thought he had a fever, and a wasting one. In writing to Mrs. Cleeve
he admitted he was not well; and she wrote him back four pages full of
instructions for fumigation, and beseeching him not to come to them.
There is nothing like trouble to wear out a man.
The event that had been prognosticated by the doctors and feared by
Karl took place--Mrs. Andinnian died. In the midst of praying for a
few days' longer life, she died. Only a few days, had run her
incessant prayer; a few days! Karl's anguish, what with the death, and
what with the weight of other things, seemed more than he could bear.
Mrs. Andinnian's grave was made close to that of her son Adam: and the
funeral was a very quiet one.
Karl remained at Foxwood, ostensibly fumigating the house and himself
preparatory to joining his wife in town. He looked as much like a
skeleton as a man. Mr. Moore noticed it, and asked what was coming to
him.
One day Mr. Smith, the agent, called, and was shown in to Sir Karl.
The interview lasted about twenty minutes, and then the bell was rung.
"Is the gentleman going to remain here as your agent, sir?" enquired
Hewitt, with the familiarity of an old servant, when he had closed the
door on the guest.
"Why, yes, Hewitt, while I am away. My mother appointed him. She
thought it better some one should be here to act for me--and I suppose
it is right that it should be so."
Freely and lightly spoke Karl. But in good truth Mr. Smith fairly
puzzled him. He knew no more who he was or whence he came than he had
known before; though he did now know what his business was at Foxwood.
Mr. Smith's conversation during the interview had turned on the
Foxwood estate: but he must have been aware Sir Karl saw all the while
that his agency was only a blind--a blind to serve as a pretext for
his residence at Foxwood. The two were playing a shallow part of
pretence with one another. Mrs. Andinnian had fixed the amount of
salary he was to receive, and Sir Karl meant to continue the payment
of it. Why?--the reader may ask. Because Sir Karl dared not refuse;
for the man knew too much of Mrs. Andinnian's dangerous secret: and it
lay in his power to render it more dangerous still.
At length Sir Karl went up to London to rejoin his wife. Lucy gave a
startled cry when she saw him--he was looking so ill; and Mrs. Cleeve
accused him of having had the fever. Karl turned it off lightly: it
was nothing, he said, but the confinement to his mother's sick-room.
But Miss Blake, who was growing very keen in her propensity for making
the world better than it is, could not understand two things. Why Karl
need have lingered so long at Foxwood, or why he could not have had
his wife there.