Miss Blake gets in.
Still no signs of the Rev. Guy Cattacomb. The morning following the
night told of in the last chapter rose bright and sunny. Miss Blake
rose with it, her energetic mind full of thought.
"I wonder how I am to begin to keep house?" said Lucy with a laugh,
when she got up from the breakfast table, her cheeks as bright as the
pink summer muslin she wore. "Do I go into the kitchen, Theresa?"
"You go with the cook to the larder," replied Theresa, gravely. "See
what provisions remain in it from yesterday, and give your orders
accordingly. Shall I go with you this morning, Lady Andinnian?"
"I wish you would! I wish you'd put me in the way of it. In Paris,
when I was going to be married, mamma regretted she had not shown me
more of housekeeping at home."
"You have, I believe, a careful and honest cook: and that is a great
thing for an inexperienced mistress," said Miss Blake.
"As if cooks were ever dishonest in the country!" cried Sir Karl,
laughing--and it was the first laugh Miss Blake had heard from his
lips. "You must go to your grand London servants for that--making
their perquisites out of everything, and feeding their friends and the
policeman!"
"And then, Karl, when I come back, you will take me about everywhere,
won't you?" whispered Lucy, leaning fondly over his shoulder as Miss
Blake went on. "I want to see all about the grounds."
He nodded and let his cheek rest for a moment against hers. "Go and
order your roast beef. And--Lucy!"
His manner had changed to seriousness. He turned in his chair to face
her, his brow flushing as he took her hands.
"You will not be extravagant, Lucy--" his voice sinking to a whisper
lower than hers. "When I told you of that--that trouble, which had
fallen upon me and might fall deeper, I said that it would cost me a
large portion of my income. You remember?"
"Oh Karl! do you think I could forget? We will live as quietly and
simply as you please. It is all the same to me."
"Thank you, my dear wife."
Theresa stood at the open hall door, looking from it while she waited.
"I was thinking," she said, when Lady Andinnian's step was heard,
"that it really might be cheaper in the end if you took a regular
housekeeper, Lucy, as you are so inexperienced. It would save you a
great deal of trouble."
"The trouble's nothing, Theresa; and I should like to learn. I would
not think of a housekeeper. I should be afraid of her."
"Oh, very well. As you please, of course. But when you get your whole
staff of servants, the house full of them, the controlling of the
supplies for so many will very much embarrass you."
"But we don't mean to have our house full of servants, Theresa. We do
not care to set up on a grand scale, either of us. Just about as papa
and mamma live, will be enough for us indoors."
"Nonsense," said Miss Blake.
"We must have a coachman--Karl thinks he shall take on Sir Joseph's;
the man has asked to come--and, I suppose, one footman to help Hewitt,
and a groom. That's all. I think we have enough maids now."
"You should consider that Sir Karl's income is a large one, Lucy,"
spoke Miss Blake in a tone of lofty reproach. "It is absurd to take
your papa's scale of living as a guide for yours."
"But Sir Karl does not mean to spend his income: he has a reason for
saving it."
"Oh that's another thing," said Miss Blake. "What is his reason?"
The young Lady Andinnian could have punished her rebellious tongue.
She had spoken the hasty words "he has a reason for saving it" in the
heat of argument, without thought. What right, either as a wife or a
prudent woman, had she to allow allusion to it to escape her lips? Her
rejoinder was given slowly and calmly.
"My husband is quite right not to begin by spending all his income,
Theresa. We should both of us think it needless extravagance. Is this
the kitchen? Let us go in here first. I must get acquainted with all
my places and people."
The business transacted, Lucy went out with Karl. Theresa watched them
on to the lawn and thence round the house, Lucy in her broad-brimmed
straw hat, and her arm within her husband's. Miss Blake then dressed
herself and walked rapidly to St. Jerome's. Some faint hope animated
her that Mr. Cattacomb might have arrived, and be already inaugurating
the morning service. But no. St. Jerome's was closely shut, and no Mr.
Cattacomb was there.
She retraced her steps, lingering to rob the hedges of a wild
honeysuckle or a dog-rose. This non-arrival of Mr. Cattacomb began to
trouble her, and she could not imagine why, if he were prevented
coming, he had not written to say so. Reaching the Maze, Miss Blake
woke up from these thoughts with quite a start of surprise: for the
gate was open and a woman servant stood there, holding colloquy with
the butcher's boy on horseback: a young man in a blue frock, no hat,
and a basket on his arm. A middle-aged and very respectable looking
servant, but somewhat old-fashioned in her appearance: a spare figure
straight up and down, in a black-and-white cotton gown and white
muslin cap tied with black ribbon strings. In her hand was a dish with
some meat on it, which she had just received from the basket, and she
appeared to be reproaching the boy on the score of the last joint's
toughness.
"This hot weather one can't keep nothing properly," said the boy, in
apology. "I was to ask for the book, please, ma'am."
"The book!" returned the woman. "Why I meant to have brought it out.
Wait there, and I'll get it."
The boy, having perhaps the spirit of restlessness upon him, backed
his steed, and turned him round and round in the road like a horse in
a mill. Miss Blake saw her opportunity and slipped in unseen. Gliding
along the path, she concealed herself behind a huge tree-trunk near
the hedge, until the servant should have come and gone again. Miss
Blake soon caught sight of her skirts amid the trees of the maze.
"Here's the book," said she to the boy. "Ask your master to make it up
for the month, and I'll pay." And shutting and locking the gate, she
retreated into the maze again and disappeared.
When people do covert things in a hurry, they can't expect to have all
their senses about them, and Miss Blake had probably forgotten that
she should be locked in. However--here she was in the position, and
must make the best of it.
First of all, she went round the path, intending to see where it led
to. It was fenced in by the garden wall, the high hedge and shrubs on
one side, by the trees of the maze on the other. Suddenly she came to
what looked like a low vaulted passage built in the maze, which
probably communicated with the house: but she could not tell. Its door
was fast, and Miss Blake could see nothing.
Pursuing her way along the walk, it brought her round to the entrance
gate again, and she remembered Tom Pepp's words about the path going
round and round and leading to nowhere. Miss Blake was not one to be
daunted. She had come in to look about her, and she meant to do it.
She plunged into the maze.
Again had she cause to recall Master Pepp's account,--"Once get into
that there maze and you'd never get out again without the clue." Miss
Blake began to fear there was only too much truth in it. For a full
hour in reality, and it seemed to her like two hours, did she wander
about and wander again. She was in the maze and could not get out of
it.
She stood against the back of a tree, her face turning hot and cold.
It took a great deal to excite that young woman's pulses: but she did
not like the position in which she had placed herself.
She must try again. Forward thither, backward hither, round and about,
in and out. No; no escape; no clue; no opening: nothing but the same
interminable trees and the narrow paths so exactly like one another.
"What will become of me?" gasped Miss Blake.
At that moment a voice very near rose upon her ear--the voice of the
servant she had seen. "Yes, ma'am, I'll do it after dinner."
Unconsciously Miss Blake had wandered to the confines of the maze that
were close on the house. A few steps further and she could peep out of
her imprisonment.
A small, low, pretty-gabled house of red brick. A sitting-room window,
large and thrown open, faced Miss Blake; the porch entrance, of which
she could get a slanting glimpse, fronted a grass-plat, surrounded by
most beautiful flower-beds, with a greenhouse at the end. It was a
snug, compact spot, the whole shut in by a high laurel hedge. On the
grass stood the woman servant, spreading some bits of linen to dry:
Miss Blake made them out to be cambric handkerchiefs: her mistress had
probably been speaking to her from the porch, and the answer was what
she heard. An old man, with either a slight hump on his back or a
dreadful stoop, was bending over a distant flower-bed. He wore a wide,
yellow straw hat, and a smock-frock similar to that of the butcher's
boy, only the latter's was blue and the old man's white. His hair was
grey and he appeared to be toothless: but in his prime he must have
been tall and powerful. Miss Blake made her comments.
"What an extraordinary solitude for a young person to live in! But
what choice flowers those look to be! That toothless old man must be
the gardener! he looks too aged and infirm for his work. _Why_
does she live here? There must be more in it than meets the eye.
Perhaps----"
The soliloquy was arrested. The door of the sitting-room opened, and a
young lady entered. Crossing to the window, she stood looking at
something on the table underneath, in full view of Miss Blake. A fair
girl, with a delicate face, soft damask cheeks, blue eyes, and hair
that gleamed like threads of light gold.
"Good gracious! how lovely she is!" was Miss Blake's involuntary
thought. Could this young girl be Mrs. Grey?
The young lady left the window again. The next minute the keys of a
piano were touched. A prelude was played softly, and then there rose a
verse of those lines in the "Vicar of Wakefield" that you all know so
well, the voice of the singer exceedingly melodious and simple:
"When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray----"
Miss Blake had never in her life cared for the song, but it bore now a
singular charm. Every word was distinct, and she listened to the end.
A curious speculation crossed her.
Was this young girl singing the lines in character? "Heaven help her
then!" cried Miss Blake--for she was not all hardness.
But how was she, herself, to get away? She might remain there unsought
for ever. There was nothing for it but boldly showing herself. And, as
the servant was then coming back across the lawn with some herbs which
she had apparently been to gather, Miss Blake wound out of the maze,
and presented herself before the woman's astonished eyes.
She made the best excuse she could. Had wandered inside the gate,
attracted by the mass of beautiful trees, and lost herself amidst
them. After a pause of wondering consideration, the servant understood
how it must have been--that she had got in during her temporary
absence from the gate when she went to fetch the butcher's book; and
she knew what a long while she must have been there.
"I'll let you out," she said. "It's a pity you came in."
Very rapidly the woman walked on through the maze, Miss Blake
following her. There were turnings and twistings, amid which the
latter strove to catch some clue to the route. In vain. One turning,
one path seemed just like another.
"Does your mistress live quite alone here?" she asked of the servant.
"Yes, ma'am," was the reply, more civilly spoken--for, that the
servant had been at first much put out by the occurrence, her manner
testified. "She's all alone, except for me and my old man."
"Your old man?" exclaimed Miss Blake questioningly.
"My husband," explained the woman, perceiving she was not understood.
"He's the gardener."
"Oh, I saw him," said Miss Blake. "But he looks quite too old and
infirm to do much."
"He's not as old as he looks--and he has a good deal of work in him
still. Of course when a man gets rheumatics, he can't be as active as
before."
"How very dull your mistress must be!"
"Not at all, ma'am. She has her birds, and flowers, and music, and
work. And the garden she's very fond of: she'll spend hours in the
greenhouse over the plants."
"Mrs. Grey, I think I have heard her called."
"Yes, Mrs. Grey."
"Well now--where's her husband?"
"She's not got a hus-- At least,--her husband's not here."
The first part of the answer was begun in a fierce, resentful tone:
but at the break the woman seemed to recollect herself, and calmed
down. Miss Blake was silently observant, pondering all in her
inquisitive mind.
"Mr. Grey is travelling abroad just now," continued the woman. "Here
we are."
Yes, there they were escaped from the maze, the iron gate before them.
The woman took a key from her pocket and unlocked it--just as Sir Karl
had taken a key from his pocket the previous night. Miss Blake saw now
what a small key it was, to undo so large a gate.
"Good morning," she said. "Thank you very much. It was exceedingly
thoughtless of me to stroll in."
"Good day to you, ma'am."
Very busy was Miss Blake's brain as she went home. The Maze puzzled
her. That this young and pretty woman should be living alone in that
perfect seclusion with only two servants to take care of her, one of
them at least old and decrepid, was the very oddest thing she had ever
met with. Miss Blake knew the world tolerably well; and, so far as her
experience went, a man whose wife was so young and so lovely as this
wife, would wish to take her travelling with him. Altogether, it
seemed very singular: and more singular still seemed the stealthy and
familiar entrance, that she had witnessed, of Sir Karl Andinnian.
Meanwhile, during this bold escapade of Miss Blake's, Lady Andinnian
had gone out on a very different expedition. It could not be said that
Lucy had no acquaintance whatever at Foxwood before she came to it.
She knew the vicar's eldest daughter, Margaret, who had occasionally
stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Blake at Winchester: the two clergymen were
acquainted, having been at college together. On this morning Lucy had
started to see Miss Sumnor; walking alone, for Karl was busy. The
church, a very pretty one, with a tapering spire, stood in its
churchyard, just through the village. The vicarage joined it: a nice
house, with a verandah running along the front; a good garden and some
glebe land.
On a couch in a shaded room, lay a lady of some thirty, or more, years
of age; her face thin, with upright lines between the eyebrows,
telling of long-standing trouble or pain, perhaps of both; her hands
busy with some needle-work. Lady Andinnian, who had not given her
name, but simply asked to see Miss Sumnor, was shown in. She did not
recognize her at the first moment.
"Margaret! It cannot be you."
Margaret Sumnor smiled her sweet, patient smile, and held Lady
Andinnian's hand in hers. "Yes it is, Lucy--if I may presume still to
call you so. You find me changed. Worn and aged."
"It is true," candidly avowed Lucy, in the shock to her feelings. "You
look altogether different. And yet, it is not three years since we
parted. Mrs. Blake used to tell me you were ill, and had to lie down a
great deal."
"I lie here always, Lucy. Getting off only at night to go to my bed in
the next room. Now and then, if I am particularly well, they draw me
across the garden to church in a hand-chair: but that is very seldom.
Sit down. Here, close to me."
"And what is the matter with you?"
"It has to do with the spine, my dear. A bright young girl like you
need not be troubled with the complication of particulars. The worst
of it is, Lucy, that I shall be as I am for life."
"Oh Margaret!"
Miss Sumnor raised her work again and set a few stitches, as if
determined not to give way to any kind of emotion. Lady Andinnian's
face wore quite a frightened look.
"_Surely_ not for always, Margaret!"
"I believe so. The doctors say so. Papa went to the expense of having
a very clever man down from London; but he only confirmed what Mr.
Moore had feared."
"Then, Margaret, I think it was a cruel thing to let you know it. Hope
and good spirits go so far to help recovery, no matter what the
illness may be. Did the doctors tell you?"
"They told my father, not me. I learnt it through--through a sort of
accident, Lucy," added Miss Sumnor: who would not explain that it was
through the carelessness--to call it by a light name--of her
stepmother. "After all, it is best that I should know it. I see it is
now, if I did not at the time."
"How it must have tried you!"
"Oh it did; it did. What I felt for months, Lucy, I cannot describe. I
had grown to be so useful to my dear father: he had begun to need me
so very much; to depend upon me for so many things: and to find that I
was suddenly cut off from being of any help to him, to be instead only
a burden!--even now I cannot bear to recall it. It was that that
changed me, Lucy: in a short while I had gone in looks from a young
woman into an aged one."
"No, no, not that. And you have to bear it always!"
"The bearing is light now," said Miss Sumnor, looking up with a happy
smile. "One day, Lucy, when I was in a sad mood of distress and inward
repining, papa came in. He saw a little of what I felt; he saw my
tears, for he had come upon me quickly. Down he sat in that very chair
that you are sitting in now. 'Margaret, are you realizing that this
calamity has come upon you from God--that it is His will?' he asked:
and he talked to me as he had never talked before. That night, as I
lay awake thinking, the new light seemed to dawn upon me. 'It is,
it is God's will,' I said; 'why should I repine in misery?' Bit by
bit, Lucy, after that, the light grew greater. I gained--oh such
comfort!--in a few weeks more I seemed to lie right under God's
protection; to be, as it were, always in His sheltering Arms: and my
life is happier now than I can tell you of, in spite of very many and
constant trials."
"And you manage to amuse yourself, I see," resumed Lucy, breaking the
pause that had ensued.
"Amuse myself! I can assure you my days are quite busy and useful
ones. I sew--as you perceive, resting my elbows on the board; see,
this is a pillowcase that I am darning. I read, and can even write a
note; I manage the housekeeping; and I have my class of poor children
here, and teach them as before. They are ten times more obedient and
considerate, seeing me as I am, than when I was in health."
Lucy could readily believe it. "And now tell me, Margaret, what
brought this illness on?"
"Nothing in particular. It must have been coming on for years, only we
did not suspect it. Do you remember that when at the rectory I never
used to run or walk much, but always wanted to sit still, and dear
Mrs. Blake would call me idle? It was coming on then. But now, Lucy,
let me hear about yourself. I need not ask if you are happy."
Lucy blushed rosy red: she was only too happy: and gave an account of
her marriage and sojourn abroad, promising to bring her husband some
day soon to see Miss Sumnor. Next, they spoke of the new place--St.
Jerome's, and the invalid's brow wore a look of pain.
"It has so grieved papa, Lucy. Indeed, there's no want of another
church in the place; even if it were a proper church, there's no one
to attend it: our own is too large for the population. Papa is grieved
at the movement, and at the way it is being done; it is anything but
orthodox. And to think that it should be Theresa Blake who has put it
forward!"
"The excuse she makes to us is that she wanted a daily service."
"A year ago papa took to hold daily service, and he had to discontinue
it, for no one attended. Very often there would be only himself and
the clerk."
"I do not suppose this affair of Theresa's will last," said Lucy,
kindly, as she took her leave, and went home.
Karl was out at luncheon, but they all three met at dinner: he, Lucy,
and Miss Blake. Lucy told him of her visit to Margaret Sumnor, and
asked him to go there with her on his return from London, whither he
was proceeding on the morrow. Miss Blake had not heard of the
intention before, and inquired of Sir Karl whether he was going for
long.
"For a couple of days; perhaps three," he answered. "I have several
matters of business to attend to."
"I think I might as well have gone with you, Karl," said his wife.
"Not this time, Lucy. You have only just come home from travelling,
you know, and need repose."
Miss Blake, having previously taken her determination to do it,
mentioned, in a casual, airy kind of way, her adventure of the
morning: not however giving to the intrusion quite its true aspect,
and not saying that she had seen the young lady. She had "strolled
accidentally" into the place called the Maze, she said, seeing the
gate open, and lost herself. A woman servant came to her assistance
and let her out again; but not before she had caught a glimpse of the
interior: the pretty house and lawn and flowers, and the infirm old
gardener.
To Miss Blake's surprise--or, rather, perhaps not to her surprise--Sir
Karl's pale face turned to a burning red. He made her no answer, but
whisked his head round to the butler, who stood behind him.
"Hewitt," he cried sharply, "this is not the same hock that we had
yesterday."
"Yes, Sir Karl, it is. At least I--I believe it is."
Hewitt took up the bottle on the sideboard and examined it. Miss Blake
thought he looked as confused as his master. "He plays tricks with the
wine," was the mental conclusion she drew.
Hewitt came round, grave as ever, and filled up the glasses again.
Karl began talking to him, about the wine in the cellar: but Miss
Blake was not going to let her subject drop.
"Do you know this place that they call the Maze, Sir Karl?"
"Scarcely."
"Or its mistress, Mrs. Grey?"
"I have seen her," shortly replied Karl.
"Oh, have you! When?"
"She wrote me a note relative to some repairs that were required, and
I went over."
"Since you were back this time, do you mean?"
"Oh no. It was just after my mother's death."
"Don't you think it very singular that so young a woman should be
living there alone?"
"I suppose she likes it. The husband is said to be abroad."
"You have no acquaintance with the people?" persisted Miss Blake.
"Oh dear no."
"And going in with a key from his own pocket!" thought Miss Blake, as
she drew in her lips.
"Foxwood and its inhabitants, as I told Lucy, are tolerably strange to
me," added Sir Karl. "Lucy, you were talking of Margaret Sumnor. What
age is she?"
He was resolute in turning the conversation from the Maze: as Miss
Blake saw. What was his motive? All kinds of comical ideas were in her
mind, not all of them good ones.
"I'll watch," she mentally said. "In the interests of religion, to say
nothing of respectability, _I'll watch_."