Only a Night Owl.
The wide window of the upper sitting-room at the Maze was thrown open
to the night air. Gazing forth from it, stood Sir Adam Andinnian and
his wife. He was in his usual evening dress, that he so obstinately
continued to persist in assuming in the teeth of remonstrance: she
wore a loose white robe and a blue cashmere shawl over it. She looked
delicately fragile, very weak and ill still; and this was the first
day that she had left her chamber for any length of time. There was no
light in the sombre room: before light was allowed to come in, the
window would be closed and the shutters shut for the night.
Not a word was being spoken between them. She had not long come into
the room. A great terror lay on both their hearts. At least, it did on
hers: and Sir Adam had grown to feel anything but easy. The
suspicions, that appeared to be attaching themselves to the Maze
outside the walls, were producing their effects on the comfort of the
inmates within: and perhaps these suspicions were feared all the more
because they did not as yet take any tangible or distinct form. That a
detective officer was in the neighbourhood looking about, Adam had
heard from his brother; and that it was the same man who had been seen
by Ann Hopley watching the house in the moonlight and who had boldly
presented himself at the gate the next day demanding permission to
enter, Sir Adam had no doubt whatever of. Karl, too, was taking to
write him notes of caution.
Brave though he was, he could not feel safe. There was not a moment of
the day or night but he might see the officers of justice coming in to
look for him. His own opinion was, that he should be able to evade
them if they did come; to baffle their scrutiny; but he could not feel
quite as easy as though he were on a bed of rose-leaves. In
consequence of this apprehension, the ears of himself and his wife
were ever on the alert, their eyes rarely went off the watch, their
conscious hearts never lost the quick beat of fear. It was enough to
wear them both out.
Can the reader really realize, I wonder, what the situation was?
Can he only imagine one single hour of its terrors, or picture its
never-ceasing, prolonged doubt and agony? I think not. It cannot be
adequately told of. Behind and before there was the awful vista of
that dreadful Portland Island: look which way they would, nothing else
presented itself.
A gentle breeze suddenly arose, stirring the trees outside. Never an
unexpected sound, however faint, was heard, but it stirred their
beating hearts; stirred them to a fast, fluttering, ugly throbbing. It
was but the wind; they knew it was only that: and yet the emotion did
not subside quickly. Rose had another great anxiety, separate and
apart: perhaps he had it also in a degree, but he did not admit it. It
was on the score of her husband's health. There could be no doubt that
something or other was amiss, for he had occasional attacks of pain
that seemed to arise without any explainable cause. Ann Hopley, who
considered herself wise in ailments, declared that he ought to see a
doctor. She had said it to her master ineffectually; she now began to
say it to her mistress. Sir Adam laughed when his wife was present,
and ridiculed her advice with mocking words of pleasantry; but Ann
Hopley gave nothing but grave looks in return.
The fact was, she knew more than Rose did: more than Sir Adam intended
or would allow his wife to know. One day, going to a part of the
grounds where she knew she should find her master, she discovered him
on the ground amidst the trees in a fainting-fit, his face of a
bluish-white. Some acute pain, or spasm, sharper than he had ever felt
before, had caused him to lose consciousness, he said, when he
recovered; and he threatened the woman with unheard of pains and
penalties if she breathed a word to her mistress. Ann Hopley held her
tongue accordingly: but when Rose was about again she could see that
Adam was not well. And the very impossibility of calling in a medical
man to him, without arousing curiosity and comments that might lead to
danger, was tormenting her with its own anxiety.
"The baby sleeps well to-night, Rose."
"He has slept better and has been altogether easier since he was
baptised," was her answer. "It is just as though he knew he had been
made a little Christian, and so feels at rest."
"Goose!" smiled Sir Adam. "Don't you think you are sitting up too
late, you young mamma?"
"I am not tired, Adam. I slept well this afternoon."
"It is later than perhaps you are aware of, Rose. Hard upon ten."
"Would you like to have lights!" she asked.
"No. I'd rather be without them."
She also would rather be without them. In this extended cause for fear
that was growing up, it seemed safer to be at the open window looking
out, than to be shut up in the closed room where the approaches of
danger could neither be seen nor heard. Perhaps the same kind of
feeling was swaying Sir Adam.
"You are sure you are well wrapped up, Rose?"
"Certain. And I could not take cold in this weather. It is like summer
still."
All around was quiet as death. The stars shone in the sky: the gentle
breeze, that had ruffled the trees just before, seemed to have died
away. Breaking just then upon the stillness, came the sound of the
church clock at Foxwood, telling its four quarters and the ten strokes
of the hour after it. The same quarters, the same strokes that Miss
Blake also heard, emerging from Dame Bell's cottage. The husband and
wife, poor banned people, stood on again side by side, they hardly
knew how long, hushing the trouble that was making a havoc of their
lives, and from which they knew there could be no certain or complete
escape so long as time for him should last. Presently he spoke again.
"Rose, if you stay here longer I shall close the window. This night
air, calm and warm though it is, cannot be good for you----"
She laid her warning hand upon his arm. The ears of both were quick,
but he was speaking at the moment, and so she caught the sound first.
A pause of intense silence, their hearts beating almost to be heard;
and then the advance of footsteps, whether stealthy ones or not, might
be distinctly traced, coming through the maze.
"Go, Adam," she whispered.
But, before Sir Adam could quit the room, the whistle of a popular
melody broke out upon the air, and they knew the intruder was Karl. It
was his usual advance signal. Ann Hopley heard it below and opened the
heavily barred door to him.
"You are late to-night, sir."
"True. I could not come earlier, Ann: it was not safe."
Poor Karl Andinnian! Had he but known that it was not safe that night,
later as well as earlier! That is, that he had not come in unwatched.
For, you have understood that it was the night mentioned at the close
of the last chapter, when his interview with Mr. Strange had taken
place on his return from London, and the detective and Miss Blake had
subsequently watched him in.
"Now then, Karl," began Sir Adam, when the room was at length closed
and lighted, and Ann Hopley had gone down again, "what was the
precise meaning of the cautionary note you sent me to-day?"
"The meaning was to enjoin extra caution upon you," replied Karl,
after a moment's hesitation, and an involuntary glance at Rose.
"If you have anything to say and are hesitating because my wife is
present, you may speak out freely," cried the very _un_-reticent Sir
Adam. Rose seconded the words.
"Speak, Karl, speak," she said, leaning towards him with a painful
anxiety in her tone. "It will be a relief to me. Nothing that you or
any one else can say can be as bad as my own fears."
"Well, I have found out that that man is a London detective," said
Karl, deeming it best to tell the whole truth. "He is down here
looking after an escaped fugitive. Not _you_, Adam: one Salter."
"One Salter?" echoed Sir Adam, testily, while Rose started slightly.
"Who's he? What Salter? Is there any Salter at Foxwood?"
"It seems that the police in London have been suspecting that he was
here and they sent this detective, who calls himself Strange, to look
after him. Salter, however, cannot be found; there's no doubt that the
suspicion was altogether a mistake; but, unfortunately, Strange has
had his thoughts directed to the Maze, and is looking after it."
"After me?" cried Adam.
"No. I do not believe there exists the smallest suspicion that you are
not in the family vault in Foxwood churchyard. He fancies some one is
concealed here, and thinks it must be Salter."
"But why on earth should his suspicions be directed to the Maze at
all?" demanded Sir Adam, with a touch of his native heat.
"Ah, why! We have to thank Moore for that, and your own incaution,
Adam, when you allowed yourself to be seen the night he brought Nurse
Chaffen in. It seems the woman has talked of it outside; telling
people, and Strange amid the rest, that it was either a real gentleman
in dinner attire, or a ghost in the semblance of one. Some have taken
unhesitatingly to the ghost theory, believing it to be a remnant of
the Throcton times; but detectives are wiser men."
"And so this man is looking after the Maze!"
"Just so. He is after Salter, not after you."
Sir Adam made no immediate observation. Rose, listening eagerly, was
gazing at Karl.
"Is it _sure_ that Salter is not in the place?" she asked in a low
tone. "That he has not been here?"
"Quite sure, Rose. The idea was a misapprehension entirely," replied
Karl, returning her meaning glance. "Therefore, you see," he added, by
way of giving what reassurance he could, "the man you have so dreaded
is not on the track of Adam at all; but on the imaginary one of
Salter."
"One scent leads to another," broke forth Sir Adam. "While the fellow
is tracking out Salter, he may track out me. Who's to know that he has
not a photograph of Adam Andinnian in his pocket, or my face in his
memory?"
"I should like to ask him the question, whether he knew Sir Adam
Andinnian personally; but I fear I dare not," remarked Karl. "A
suspicion once awakened would not end. Your greatest security lies in
their not knowing you are alive."
"My only security," corrected Sir Adam. "Well, Karl, if that man has
his eyes directed to the Maze, it puts an end to all hope of my trying
to get away. Little doubt, I suppose, but he is watching the outer
walls night and day; perhaps with a dozen comrades to help him."
"For the present, you can only stay where you are," acknowledged Karl.
"I have told you all this, Adam, to make you doubly careful. But for
your reckless incaution I would have spared you the additional
uneasiness it must bring."
"Even though the man does know me, the chances are that he would not
find me if he came in," mused Sir Adam aloud. "With my precautions,
the task would be somewhat difficult. You know it, Karl."
"Yes, but you are not always using your precautions," returned Karl.
"Witness you here, sitting amidst us openly this evening in full
dress! _Don't_ do in so future, Adam! conceal yourself as you best
can--I beseech it of you for the love of Heaven. When this present
active trouble shall have subsided--if in God's mercy it does so
subside--why then you may resume old habits again. At least, there
will not be so much risk: but I have always considered them
hazardous."
"I'll see," assented Sir Adam. Which was a concession from _him_.
"Be on your guard day and night. Let not one moment of either season
find you off it, or unready for any surprise or emergency. Strange
talked about applying for a search-warrant to examine the house.
Should he do so, I will warn you of it, if possible. But your safer
course is to be looking for the enemy with every ring that the bell
gives, every breath that stirs the trees in the labyrinth, every sound
that vibrates on the air."
"A pretty state of things!" growled Adam. "I'm sure I wish I never had
come here!"
"Oh that you had not!" returned Karl.
"It's my proper place, though. It is. My dear little son, heir to all,
ought to be brought up on his own property. Karlo, old fellow, that
remark must have a cruel ring on your ear: but I cannot put the child
out of his birthright."
"I should never wish you to do it, Adam."
"Some arrangement shall be made for the far-off future; rest assured
of that, and tell your wife so. In any case, Foxwood will be yours for
one-and-twenty years to come, and the income you now enjoy, to keep it
up with. After the boy shall be of age----"
"Let us leave those considerations for the present," interrupted Karl.
"All of us may be dead and buried before then. As for me, I seem not
to see a single step before me, let alone a series of years."
"Right, Karl. These dreams lay hold of me sometimes, but it is worse
than silly to speak of them. Are you going?"
"Yes. It is late. I should not have come in to-night, but for wishing
to warn you. You will try and take care of yourself, Adam?" he
affectionately added, holding out his hand.
"I'll take care of myself; never fear," was Sir Adam's light answer as
he grasped it. "Look here, brother mine," he resumed, after a slight
pause, and his voice took a deeper tone. "God knows that I have
suffered too heavily for what I did; He knows that my whole life, from
the rising up of the sun to its going down, from the first falling
shade of night's dark curtain to its lifting, is one long, unbroken
penance: and I believe in my heart that He will in His compassion
shield me from further danger. There! take that to comfort you, and go
in peace. In your care for me, you have needed comfort throughout more
than I, Karl."
Retaining his brother's hand in his while Karl said good night to
Rose, Adam went down stairs with him, and beyond the door after Ann
Hopley had unbarred it. It was only since the advent of the new fears
that these extra precautions of barring up at sunset had been taken.
"Don't come out," urged Karl.
"Just a step or two."
Karl submitted: he felt secure enough against active danger to-night.
But it was in these trifles that Adam's natural incaution betrayed
itself.
"Karl, did you tell all you knew?" he began as they plunged into the
maze. "Was there more behind that you would not speak before the
wife?"
"I told you all, Adam. It is bad enough."
"It might be worse. Suppose they were looking after me, for instance,
instead of this fellow Salter! I shall baffle them; I don't fear."
"Adam, you shall _not_ come farther. If the man got in one night, he
may get in another. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, dear old anxious fellow!"
"Go in, and get the door barred."
"All right. A last good night to you!"
Karl walked on, through the intricacies of the maze. Adam stood
listening for a moment, and, then turned to retrace his steps. As he
did so, the sharp dart of pain he was growing accustomed to went
through him, turning him sick and faint. He seized hold of a tree for
support, and leaned against it.
"What on earth can be the matter with me?" ran his thoughts after it
had subsided, and he was getting out his handkerchief, to wipe from
his brow the cold drops of agony that had gathered there. "As Ann
Hopley says, I ought to see a doctor: but it is not to be thought of;
and less than ever now, with this new bother hanging over the house.
Hark! Oh, it's only the wind rustling the leaves again."
He stayed listening to it. Listening in a dreamy kind of way, his
thoughts still on his malady.
"I wonder what it is? If the pain were in a different direction I
might think it was the heart. But it is not _that_. When my father was
first taken ill of his fatal illness, he spoke of some such queer
attacks of agony. I am over young for his complaint, though. Does
disease ever grow out of anxiety, I wonder? If so----"
A whirl and a rustle just over his head, and Sir Adam started as
though a blow had struck him. It was but a night owl, flying away from
the tree above with her dreary note and beating the air with her
wings; but it had served to startle him to terror, and he felt as sick
and faint again as he did just before from the physical pain. What
nerves he possessed were on the extreme tension to-night. That Adam
Andinnian, the cool-natured equable man, who was the very opposite of
his sensitive brother Karl, and who had been unable to understand what
nerves were, and to laugh at those who had them--that he could be thus
shaken by merely the noise of a night bird, will serve to show the
reader what his later life had been, and how it had told upon him. He
did not let this appear, even to those about him; he kept up his old
rôle of cool carelessness--and in a degree he was careless still, and
in ordinary moments most incautious from sheer want of thought--but
there could be no doubt that he was experiencing to the full all the
bitter mockery, the never ceasing dread and hazard of his position. In
the early days, when the attempted escape from Portland Island was
only in contemplation, Karl had foreseen what the life must be if he
did escape. An existence 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 fellowmen, and of whom every other man must be the
necessary enemy. Even so had it turned out: Adam Andinnian was
realizing it to the full. A great horror lay upon him of being
recaptured: but it may be questioned whether, had the choice been
given him, he would not rather have remained a prisoner than have
escaped to this. Even as he stood there now, in the damp still night,
with all the nameless, weird surroundings of fancy that night
sometimes brings when the spirit is in tune for it, he was realizing
it unto his soul.
The glitter of the stars, twinkling in their dusky canopy, shone down
upon him through the interstices of the trees, already somewhat
thinning their leaves with the approach of autumn; and he remained on,
amid the gloom, lost in reflection.
"I should be better off _there_," he murmured, gazing upwards in
thought at the Heaven that was beyond; "and it may be that Thou, O my
God, knowest that, in Thy pitiful mercy. As Thou wilt. Life has become
but a weary one here, full of pains and penalties."
"Master!" came to him in a hushed, doubtful voice at this juncture.
"Master, are you within hearing? My mistress is feeling anxious, and
wants the door bolted."
"Ay, bolt and bar it well, Ann," he said, going forward. "But barred
doors will not keep out all the foes of man."
Meanwhile Karl had got through the maze; and cautiously, after
listening, let himself out at the gate. No human being, that he could
discern, was within sight or hearing; and he crossed the road at once.
Then, but not before, he became aware that his agent, Mr. Smith, was
in that favourite spot and attitude of his, leaning his arms on the
little garden gate, his green glasses discarded--as they generally
were after sunset.
"Goodnight," said Karl in passing. But some words of the agent's
served to arrest his progress.
"Would you mind stepping in for one moment, Sir Karl? I wanted to say
just a word to you, and have been watching for you to come out."
"Is it anything particular?" asked Karl, turning in at the gate at
once, which Mr. Smith held open.
"I'll get a light, sir, if you will wait an instant."
Karl heard the striking of a match indoors, and Mr. Smith reappeared
in the passage with a candle. He ushered Karl into the room on the
left-hand; the best room, that was rarely used.
"This one has got its shutters closed," was the explanatory remark. "I
generally keep the others open until I go to bed."
"Tell me at once what it is you want," said Karl. "It is late, and I
shall have my household wondering where I am."
"Well, Sir Karl, first of all, I wish to ask if you are aware that you
were watched into the Maze tonight?" He spoke in the lowest whisper;
scarcely above his breath. The agent's one servant had been in bed at
the top of the house long before: but he was a cautious man.
"No. Who watched me?"
"Two people, sir. One was Miss Blake, the lady staying with you at the
Court; the other was a confounded fellow who is at Foxwood for no
good, I guess, and is pushing his prying nose on the sly into
everything."
"Do you mean Mr. Strange?"
"That's the name: a lodger at Mother Jinks's. He and the lady watched
you in, Sir Karl; they stood close by the gate among the trees; and
then they walked off down the road together."
Karl's pulses beat a shade more quickly. "Why should they have been
watching me? What could be their motive?"
"Miss Blake did not intend to watch--as I take it. I saw her coming
along with a sharpish step from the direction of that blessed St.
Jerome's, late as it was--Cattacomb may have been treating his flock
to a nocturnal service. When she was close upon the Maze she must have
heard your footsteps, for she drew suddenly behind the trees to hide
herself. After you were in, she came out of her shelter, and another
with her--the man Strange. So he must have been hidden there
beforehand, Sir Karl: and, I should say, to watch."
Karl was silent. He did not like to hear this. It seemed to menace
further danger.
"I went in to warn Sir Adam against this man," he observed; "to tell
him never to be off his guard, day or night. He is a London
detective!"
"What--Strange is?" exclaimed the agent, with as much astonishment as
his low tones allowed him to express. "A London detective, Sir Karl?"
"Yes, he is."
Mr. Smith's face fell considerably. "But--what is he doing down here?"
he inquired. "Who's he after? _Surely_ not Sir Adam?"
"No, not Sir Adam. He is after some criminal who--who does not exist
in the place at all," added Karl, not choosing to be more explicit,
considering that it was the man before him whom he had suspected of
being the said criminal, and feeling ashamed of his suspicions now
that they were dispelled, and he had to speak of it with him face to
face. "The danger is, that in looking after one man the police may
come upon the track of another."
The agent nodded his head. "But surely they do not suspect the Maze?"
"They do suspect the Maze," replied Karl. "Owing to the tattling of
the woman Mr. Moore took there--Nurse Chaffen--they suspect it."
Mr. Smith allowed a very unorthodox word to issue through his closed
teeth, applied not only to the lady in question, but to ladies in
general.
"The man Strange has been down here looking after some one whom he
can't find; who no doubt is not in the neighbourhood at all, and never
has been," resumed Karl. "Strange's opinion, however, was--and
is--that the man is here, concealed. When he heard Chaffen's tale of
the gentleman she saw in evening dress at the Maze, but whom she never
saw again and therefore concluded he was hidden somewhere about the
house not to show himself to her, he caught up the notion that it was
the man he was after. Hence his suspicions of the Maze, and his
watchings."
"It's a very unfortunate thing!" breathed the agent.
"You see now, Mr. Smith, how much better it would have been if Sir
Adam had never come here. Or, being here, if he had been allowed to go
away again."
"He can't attempt it now," was the quiet retort of the agent. "With a
detective's eyes about, it would be only to walk straight into the
lion's mouth."
"Just so. We all know that."
"I wish to heaven I _could_ get him away!" spoke the agent
impulsively, and it was evident that his heart was in his words.
"Until now I believed he was as safe here as he could be elsewhere--or
safer. What the devil brings a confounded detective in this quiet
place? The malignant fiend, or some implacable fate must have sent
him. Sir Karl, the danger is great. We must not shut our eyes to it."
Alas, Karl Andinnian felt that, in a more cruel degree than the agent
could. It was _his_ work; it was he who had brought this hornet's nest
about his unfortunate brother's head. The consciousness of it lay
heavily upon him in that moment; throat and tongue and lips were alike
parched with the fever of remorse.
"May I ask you for a glass of water, Mr. Smith?" broke next from the
said dry lips.
"I'll get it for you in a moment, sir," said the agent, rising with
alacrity.
Karl heard another match struck outside, and then the steps of the
agent retreating in the direction of the pump. In his restlessness of
mind he could not sit still, but rose to pace the room. A small set of
ornamental book-shelves, hanging against the wall, caught his
attention: he halted before it and took down a volume, mechanically,
rather than with any motive.
"Philip Salter. From his loving mother."
The words met Karl's eyes as he opened the book.
Just for a moment he questioned whether his sight was deceiving him.
But no. There they were, in a lady's hand, the ink dry and faded with
time. It was Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress."
"_Is_ it Salter, after all?" mentally breathed Karl.
Mr. Smith came in again with the glass of water as the doubt was
running through Karl's mind. Thanking his agent for the water, he
drank it at a draught, and sat down with the book in his hand.
"I have been amongst your books, you see, Mr. Smith. A sound old
volume, this."
"So it is, Sir Karl. I dip into it myself now and then."
"Did you know this--this Mr. Philip Salter?"--holding the book open at
the words.
For answer the agent threw his eyes straight into Karl's face, and
paused. "Did _you_ know him, Sir Karl?"
"I never knew him. I have heard somewhat about him."
"Ay, few persons but have, I expect," returned the agent, with a kind
of groan. "He was my cousin, sir."
"Your cousin!" echoed Karl.
"My own cousin: we were sisters' sons. He was Philip Salter; I am
Philip Smith."
Karl's eyes were opened. In more senses than one.
"The fool that Philip Salter showed himself!" ejaculated Philip
Smith--and it was evident by the bitter tone that the subject was a
sore one. "I was in his office, Sir Karl, a clerk under him; but he
was some years younger than I. He might have done so well: none of us
had the smallest idea but what he was doing well. It was all through
private and illegitimate speculation. He got into a hole where the
mire was deep, and he used dangerous means when at his wits' end to
get himself out of it. It did for him what you know, and it ruined me;
for, being his cousin, men thought I must have known of it, and my
place was taken from me."
"Where is he now?" asked Karl.
"I don't know. Sometimes we think he is dead. After his escape, we had
reason to believe that he got off to Canada, but we were never made
certain of it, and have never heard from him in any way. He may be in
some of the backwoods there, afraid to write."
"And this was his book?"
"Yes. Most of his small belongings came into my hands. The affair
killed his mother: broke her heart. He was all she had, save one
daughter. Sir Karl, do you know what I'd do if I had the power?"
fiercely continued Smith. "I would put down by penal laws all these
cursed speculators who, men of straw themselves, issue their plausible
schemes only to deceive and defraud a confiding, credulous public; all
these betting and gambling rogues who lay hold of honest natures to
lure them to their destruction. But for them, Philip Salter had been
holding up his untarnished head yet."
"Ay," assented Karl. "But that will never be, so long as the greed of
gold shall last. It is a state of affairs that can belong only to a
Utopian world; not to this."
He put out his hand to Philip Smith when he left--a thing he had never
done voluntarily before--in his sensitive regret for having wronged
the man in his heart: and went home with his increased burden of
perplexity and pain.