Works of Ellen Wood, page 893
She saw her future; saw it all laid out before her as on a map; and her face took a blank look, betraying mortification and despair. No more ravishing toilettes or French waiting maids; no more costly dinner-givings, or magnificent kettle-drums. Mrs. Bede Greatorex and society must henceforth live tolerably far apart. The home she had so despised, this that she was now being turned from, would be a very palace compared to the lodgings in Boulogne.
“To prolong this interview will not be productive of further result,” spoke Mr. Greatorex, taking a step towards the door. “I must beg to remind you that friends are waiting for me.”
“And my clothes, that I left here? And the ornaments that were mine?”
“Everything belonging to you has been packed ready for removal. The cases shall be all sent to whatever place you may name.”
She turned away without another word. Mr. Greatorex rang the bell. Outside, sitting underneath one of the white statues, near the small conservatory, was the French maid, inwardly railing against the want of politeness of these misérable Anglishe. Trusty Philip had warned her that she need not go up higher.
The cab drove away with them, and Mr. Greatorex returned to the dining-room with a relieved heart.
“She is done with at last, thank Heaven! Let us have tea together, Roland,” he added, with a hearty smile. “Lady Yorke will take off her bonnet, and make it for us; as she did when she was my little friend Annabel Channing.”
* * * * *
Copy of the letter received by Judge Kene from Bede Greatorex.
“As you know so much, Sir Thomas, I owe it to you and to myself to afford some further explanation. You have shown yourself a true friend: add to the obligation, by imparting the details I now write to Henry William Ollivera.
“When I was despatched to Helstonleigh on that fatal mission, I was engaged to be married to Louisa Joliffe, and loved her passionately. The engagement had existed several months, but it was at her request kept a secret to ourselves. After delivering the message and business I was charged with to John, we sat on, in his room, talking of indifferent matters. I said that I should spend the evening with the Joliffes: John laughed a little, and said perhaps he should. One word led to another, and at last he told me, premising it must be in confidence, that he was engaged to Louisa. I thought he was joking; my answer annoyed him; and he went on to say things about Louisa’s love for him and their future marriage that nearly drove me wild. What, I hardly know now. It seemed to me that he had treacherously stepped in to strive to take my bride from me, to win her for himself, my one little ewe lamb. We recriminated on each other: she had deceived us both, but neither of us suspected it then: and we felt something like rival tiger cats; at least I know I did. Whenever my Spanish blood got up I was a madman — as you may remember, Kene, for you saw me so once or twice in earlier days — I was nothing else that wicked evening. At some taunt of his, or it sounded like one to me, I took up the pistol, that lay on the table underneath my hand, and fired it at him. Before Heaven, where I shall so soon stand. I declare that I had no deliberate intention of killing him. I did not know whether the pistol was loaded or not. I do not even think I knew what I was doing, or that I had caught up the pistol: in my mad rage I was conscious of nothing. The shot killed him instantaneously, even in the midst of his cry. I cried out too — with horror at what I had done; my passion faded and I stood still as he was. Before I crossed the step or two his succour, I saw that he was dead. How horribly I have repented since that I did not fling open the door and call out for assistance, none, save myself, can know. Self-preservation lies instinctively within us all, and I suppose that stopped me. Oh, the false coward that I have since ever called myself! — the years of concealment and misery it would have saved! All I thought of then, was — to get away. A short while I listened, but no sound told that any one had been within earshot; I softly opened the door to escape, putting out my head first to reconnoitre; and — found myself nearly face to face with a man. He stood on the stairs in an attitude of listening, and our eyes met in the gas-light. I never forgot his; they seemed to shine out from a mass of black hair; those same eyes afterwards puzzled my memory for years. When the eyes of my subsequent clerk, Mr. Brown, had used to strike some unpleasant chord on my memory, but what I could not fathom, I never connected them with those other eyes; for Brown had put off his disguise then, and looked entirely another person. Ah, Kene! don’t you see the obligation I lie under to this man, George Winter? Not at that moment did he know I had committed murder, but in a short period of time, as soon as the newspapers supplied details of the night’s doings, he could but become aware of it. Had a doubt remained on his mind, when he entered our office and knew me for Bede Greatorex, the thing must have been made clear to him as daylight. To shield me he has remained under a cloud himself: I hope my father will reward him. Even when he was giving his evidence before you and the rest, he told a lie to save me. For he said that when he saw the face at the door it was after the departure of Mr. Bede Greatorex. It was my face he saw, Kene; no other. All through these years he has watched my misery; and in his great compassion for what he knew my sufferings must be, has been silently lightening life to me where he could. But, to go back to the time.
“I should think we gazed at each other for the space of half a minute, the man on the stairs and I: the fright of seeing some one there nearly paralysed me; and then I went in again and shut the door. It was perhaps the sight of him that caused me to attempt to throw the suspicion off myself: certainly I had not thought of it before. I put the pistol on the carpet by the chair, as if it had fallen from John’s right hand; and next, looking about on the table, I found the unfinished letter, and added the lines you know of. I seemed to be doing it in a dream; that it was not myself but somebody else, and all in a desperate hurry, for I grew afraid of stopping. Then it occurred to me to put out the lamp; I don’t know why; and, upon that, I went out resolutely, for I did not like the dark. Luck seemed to be against me. As I opened the door this second time, some young man (not the first) was passing by. Instinct caused me to turn round and make believe to be speaking to John. What words I really said, I should never have remembered but for hearing the young man, Alfred Jones, repeat them at the coroner’s inquest. They served me more than I thought: for Alfred Jones unconsciously took up the natural supposition that John was also speaking to me; this version went forth to the public, and it was assumed that what happened, happened after my departure. There’s no doubt that it was the chief element in throwing suspicion off me. He showed me out of the house, and thenceforward I had to try and act the part of an innocent man. I went to the Star and Garder and drank some brandy-and-water; I went thence to Mrs. Joliffe’s: how I did it all, with that horrible thing upon me, I have never known. I said a few cautious words to Louisa, and by her answers, I felt sure that John’s boast had been (at least in part) a vain one. As I returned up High Street, some tradesman was standing just within his side-door. He did not know I saw him. Halting, I looked at John Ollivera’s windows, just opposite, and said something to the effect that John must have gone to bed — all for the man to hear me. Just afterwards I met you, Kene, — do you remember it? You were going to call on John, but I said he had gone to bed and the people of the house, too, I supposed, as there was no light to be seen. I shrunk from the discovery, and would fain have put it off for ever. What a night that was for me! As I had stirred the tea at Mrs. Joliflfe’s, as I stirred the brandy-and-water at the hotel, John’s face seemed to be in the liquid, staring up at me. In the dark of the bed-room, after the candle had burnt out, I saw him in his chair, just as I had left him. I had not dared to ask for a night-light, lest it might excite suspicion: how could I answer for it that the hotel would not get to learn I was not in the habit of burning one?
“You know the rest: the discovery and the inquest that followed. Did I act my part well, Kene? I suppose so, by the result. That day — the first — you were with me when we examined John’s desk: it was advised that I should look over his letters for any clue that perhaps they might show to the motive of his self-inflicted death. The large bundle of letters, Kene, came I found from Louisa Joliffe, and poor John’s was no vain boast: she had been all to him that she had professed to be to me, and a traitor to both.
“Why did I marry her, you will naturally ask. Ah, why! why! Because my love for her fooled me into it: because, if you will, I was mad. When we met again, months afterwards, the passion that I thought I had killed within me, rose up with ten-fold force, and I yielded to it. To do so was not much less sinful (looking at it as I look now) than the other and greater crime. I saw it even as I stood with her before the altar, I saw it afterwards clearer and clearer. But I loved her even in spite of my better judgment; I love her even yet: and I have striven to do my duty by her in all indulgence, to shield her from the cares of the world.
“And there’s my life’s history. Oh, Kene, if I have been more sinful than other men, my merciful God knows what my expiation has been. Can you even faintly picture it to yourself? From a few minutes after the breath went out of poor John’s body, my punishment set in. It was only fear just at first; it was the bitterest remorse afterwards that ever made a wreck of mortal man. I am not a murderer by nature, and John and I were dear friends. My days have been one long, wearing penance: regret for him and his shortened life, dread of my crime’s discovery; one or the other filling every moment: remorse and repentance, repentance and remorse: and that it has been so is owing to Heaven’s mercy. Not an hour of the day or night, but I would gladly have given up my own life to restore his. After the first confused horror had passed, I should have declared the truth at the time but for my mother’s sake: in her state of health it would have killed her. When she died, the time had gone by for it: I had my father and my wife to consider later, and remained perforce silent. My father has thought my bodily health failed: in one sense so it did, for I have been wasting away from the first, dying slowly inch by inch.
“And that’s all, Kene. When you shall have heard news of my death — it will be with you very close upon this letter — disclose the whole to Henry William Ollivera. With regard to my father, I leave the matter to you. If he in the slightest degree suspects me — and I can but think he must, after Winter’s confession, and from the easy acquiescence he gave to my coming on the Continent for an indefinite period — then tell him the whole. Heaven bless you all, and grant you the peace that can spring alone of Jesus Christ’s atonement! I have dared to think it mine for some little time now.
“BEDE GREATOREX.”
When the tidings of Bede’s death reached him, Sir Thomas Kene went out to seek an interview with Mr. Ollivera. The clergyman read the letter, and bent his head in prolonged silence.
“After all, I suppose John’s grave will have to remain undisturbed,” spoke the Judge. “Winter cleared his memory.”
“Yes; better so, perhaps,” was the slow, thoughtful reply. “If I had never before been thankful that I read the burial service over him, I should be so now. You see, I was right, Kene. God be merciful to us all, for we are miserable sinners!”
WITHIN THE MAZE
A NOVEL
This novel was first published in 1872. The ‘Maze’ of the title is the name of a cottage on the estate, which is home to the main characters – the Andinnian family. The plot revolves around the repercussions of the imprisonment of Sir Adam Andinnian for murder.
Throughout the Victorian era, Wood’s novels were translated into many languages, including Russian. Interestingly, Leo Tolstoy, in a 9 March 1872 letter to his older brother Sergei, noted that he was "reading Mrs. Wood's wonderful novel In the Maze".
Title page of the first edition
CONTENTS
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCLUSION.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
Mrs. Andinnian’s Home.
THE house was ugly and old-fashioned, with some added modern improvements, and was surrounded by a really beautiful garden. Though situated close upon a large market town of Northamptonshire, it stood alone, excluded from the noise and bustle of the world.
The occupant of this house was a widow lady, Mrs. Andinnian. Her husband, a post-captain in the Royal Navy, had been dead some years. She had two sons. The elder, Adam, was of no profession, and lived with her: the younger, Karl, was a lieutenant in one of Her Majesty’s regiments. Adam was presumptive heir to his uncle, Sir Joseph Andinnian, a baronet of modern creation: Karl had his profession alone to look to, and a small private income of two hundred a year.
They were not rich, these Andinnians: though the captain had deemed himself well-off, what with his private fortune, and what with his pay. The private fortune was just six hundred a year; the pay not great: but Captain Andinnian’s tastes were simple, his wants few. At his death it was found that he had bequeathed his money in three equal parts: two hundred a year to his wife, and two hundred each to his sons. “Adam and his mother will live together,” he said in the will; “she’d not be parted from him: and four hundred pounds, with her bit of pension, will be enough for comfort. When Adam succeeds his uncle, they can make any fresh arrangement that pleases them. But I hope when that time shall come they will not forget Karl.”
Mrs. Andinnian resented the will, and resented these words in it: — Her elder boy, Adam, had always been first and foremost with her: never a mother loved a son more ardently than she loved him. For Karl she cared not. Captain Andinnian was not blind to the injustice, and perhaps thence arose the motive that induced him not to leave his wife’s two hundred pounds of income at her own disposal: when Mrs. Andinnian died, it would lapse to Karl. The captain had loved his sons equally: he would willingly have left them equally provided for in life, and divided the fortune that was to come sometime to Adam. Mrs. Andinnian, in spite of the expected rise for Adam, would have had him left better off from his father’s means than Karl.
There had been nearly a life-long feud between the two family branches. Sir Joseph Andinnian and his brother the captain had not met for years and years: and it was a positive fact that the latter’s sons had never seen their uncle. For this feud the brothers themselves were not in the first instance to blame. It did not arise with them, but with their wives. Both ladies were of a haughty, over-bearing, and implacable temper: they had quarrelled very soon after their first introduction to each other; the quarrel grew, and grew, and finally involved the husbands as well in its vortex.
Joseph Andinnian, who was the younger of the two brothers, had been a noted and very successful civil engineer. Some great work, that he had originated and completed, gained him his reward — a baronetcy. While he was in the very flush of his new honours, an accident, that he met with, laid him for many months upon a sick-bed. Not only that: it incapacitated him for future active service. So, when he was little more than a middle-aged man, he retired from his profession, and took up his abode for life at a pretty estate he had bought in Kent, called Foxwood Court, barely an hour’s railway journey from London: by express train not much more than half one. Here, he and his wife had lived since: Sir Joseph growing more and more of an invalid as the years went on. They had no children; consequently his brother, Captain Andinnian, was heir to the baronetcy: and, following on Captain Andinnian, Adam, the captain’s eldest son.
Captain Andinnian did not live to succeed. In what seemed the pride of his health and strength, just after he had landed from a three years’ voyage, and was indulging in ambitious visions of a flag, symptoms of a mortal disease manifested themselves. He begged of his physicians to let him know the truth; and they complied — he must expect but a very few weeks more of life. Captain Andinnian, after taking a day or two to look matters fully in the face, went up to London, and thence down to Sir Joseph’s house in Kent. The brothers, once face to face, met as though no ill-blood had ever separated them: hands were locked ill hands, gaze went out to gaze. Both were simple-minded, earnest-hearted, affectionate-natured men; and but for their wives — to whom, if the truth must be avowed, each lay in subjection — not a mis-word would ever have arisen between them.
“I am dying, Joseph,” said the captain, when some of their mutual emotion had worn away. “The doctors tell me so, and I feel it to be true. Naturally, it has set me on the thought of many things — that I am afraid I have been too carelessly putting off. What I have come down to you chiefly for, is to ask about my son — Adam. You’ll tell me the truth, won’t you, Joseph, as between brothers?”
“I’ll tell you anything, Harry,” was Sir Joseph’s answer. “The truth about what!”
