Works of Ellen Wood, page 941
“Of course he must be there when his child is dying!” spoke she to herself, as she paced the carpet with a step as impatient and a great deal more indignant than those other steps that had paced, that night. “Of course she must be comforted! While!”
The words were choked by a flood of emotion. Bitter reflections crowded on her, one upon another. The more earnestly and patiently she strove to bear and forbear, the more cruelly seemed to rise up her afflictions. And Lucy Andinnian threw herself down in abandonment, wondering whether all pity had quite gone out of heaven.
CHAPTER XVIII.
News for Mr. Tatton.
WHAT Mr. Detective Tattoos future proceedings would have been, or to what untoward catastrophe, as connected with this history, they might have led had his stay at Foxwood been prolonged to an indefinite period, cannot here be known. He remained on. Social matters had resumed their ordinary groove. The Maze was left undisturbed; Mr. Cattacomb was well again; St. Jerome’s in full force.
It might be that Mr. Tatton was waiting — like a certain noted character with whom we all have the pleasure of an acquaintance — for “something to turn up.” That he was contemplating some grand coup, which would throw his prize into his hands, while to the world and Mrs. Jinks he appeared only to be enjoying the salubrious Kentish air, and amusing himself with public politics generally, we may rest pretty well assured of. But this agreeable existence was suddenly cut short.
One morning when Mr. Tatton’s hopes and plans were, like Cardinal Wolsey’s greatness, all a-ripening, he received a communication from Mr. Superintendent Game at Scotland Yard, conveying the astounding intelligence that the real Philip Salter had not been in Foxwood at all, but had just died in Canada.
Mr. Tatton sat contemplating the letter. He could not have been much more astonished had a bombshell burst under him. Of the truth of the information there could be no question: its reliability was indisputable. One of the chief officers in the home police force who was in Canada on business, and had known Salter well, discovered him in the last stage of a wasting sickness, and saw him die.
“I’ve never had such a fool’s game to play at as this,” ejaculated Mr. Tatton when sufficiently recovered to speak; “and never wish to have such another. What the deuce, then, is the mystery connected with the Maze!”
Whatever it might be, it was now no business of his; though could he have afforded to waste more time and money, he would have liked very well to stay and track it out. Summoning the Widow Jinks to his presence, he informed her that he was called away suddenly on particular business; and then proceeded to pack up. Mrs. Jinks resented the departure as quite a personal injury, and wiped the soft tears from her eyes.
On his way to the station he chanced to meet Sir Karl Andinnian: and the latter’s heart went up with a great bound. The black bag in Mr. Tatton’s hand, and the portmanteau being wheeled along beside him, spoke a whole volume of hope.
“Good morning, Sir Karl. You have misled us finely as to the Maze.”
“Why, what do you mean, Mr. Tatton?” asked Karl.
“Salter has turned up in Canada. Or, one might perhaps rather say, turned down; for he is dead, poor fellow.”
“Indeed!”
“Indeed and in truth. One of our officers is over there, and was with him when he died. It was too bad of you to mislead us in this way, Sir Karl.”
“Nay, you misled yourselves.”
“A fine quantity of time I have wasted down here! weeks upon weeks; and all for nothing. I never was so vexed in my life.”
“You have yourself to blame — or those who sent you here. Certainly not me. The very first time I had the honour of speaking to you, Mr. Tatton, I assured you on the word of a gentleman that Salter was not at Foxwood.”
“Well, come, Sir Karl — what is the secret being enacted within the place over yonder?” pointing his finger in the direction of the Maze.
“I am not in the habit of enquiring into the private affairs of my tenants,” was the rather haughty answer. “If there be any secret at the Maze — though I think no one has assumed it but yourself — you may rely upon it that it is not in any way connected with Salter. Are you taking your final departure?”
“It looks like it, Sir Karl” — nodding towards the luggage going onwards. “When the game’s at the other end of the world, and dead besides, it is not of much use my staying to search after it in this. I hope the next I have to hunt will bring in more satisfaction.”
They said farewell cordially. The detective in his natural sociability; Karl in his most abundant gratitude for the relief it would give his brother. And Mr. Detective Tatton, hastening on in the wake of the portmanteau, took the passing up-train, and was whirled away to London.
A minute or two afterwards Karl met his agent. He was beginning to impart to him the tidings about Salter, when Smith interrupted him.
“I have heard it, Sir Karl. I got a letter from a relative this morning, which told me all. The information has taken Tatton off the land here, I expect: I saw you speaking to him.”
“You are right.”
“As to poor Salter, the release is probably a happy one. He is better off than he ever could have been again in this world. But what on earth put Scotland Yard on the false scent that he was at Foxwood, will always be a problem to me. Tatton’s gone for good, I suppose, sir?”
“He said so.”
“And Sir Adam is, in one sense, free again. There will be less danger in his getting away from Foxwood now, if it be judged desirable that he should go.”
Karl shook his head. There was another impediment now to his getting away — grievous sickness.
That Sir Adam Andinnian, the unfortunate fugitive, hiding in peril at the Maze, had some very grave disorder upon him could no longer be doubtful to himself or to those about him. It seemed to develop itself more surely day by day. Adam took it as calmly as he did other evils; but Karl was nearly out of his mind with distress at the complication it brought. Most necessary was it for Adam to have a doctor; to be attended by one; and yet they dare not put the need in practice. The calling in of Dr. Cavendish had entailed only too much danger and terror.
The little baby, Charles Andinnian, was lying at rest in Foxwood church-yard, within the precincts consecrated to the Andinnian family. Ann Hopley chose the grave, and had a fight over it with the clerk. That functionary protested he would not allot it to any baby in the world. She might choose any spot except that, but that belonged to the Foxwood Court people exclusively. Ann Hopley persisted the baby should have that, and no other. It was under the weeping elm tree, she urged, and the little grave would be shaded from the summer’s sun. Sir Karl Andinnian settled the dispute. Appealed to by the clerk, he gave a ready and courteous permission, and the child was laid there. Ann Hopley then paid a visit to the stone-mason, and ordered a little white marble stone, nothing to be inscribed on it but the initials “C. A,” and the date of the death. Poor Rose had only her sick husband to attend to now.
He was not always sick. There were days when he seemed to be as well, and to be almost as active, as ever; and, upon that would supervene a season of pain and dread, and danger.
One afternoon, when Karl was driving his wife by in the pony-chaise, Ann Hopley had the gate open, and was standing at it. It was the day following the departure of Mr. Tatton. Something in the woman’s face — a kind of mute, appealing anguish — struck Karl forcibly as she looked at him. In the sensation of freedom and of safety brought by the detective’s absence, Karl actually pulled up.
“Will you pardon me, Lucy, if I leave you for one moment? I think Ann Hopley wants to speak to me.”
He leaped out of the little low chaise, leaving the reins to Lucy. Her face was turning scarlet. Of all the insults he had thrust upon her, this seemed the greatest To pull up at that very gate when she was in the carriage! Mr. Smith and his churchwarden-pipe were enjoying themselves as usual at Clematis Cottage, looking out on the world in general, and no doubt (as Lucy indignantly felt) making his private comments.
“He is very ill again, sir,” were the few whispered words of Ann Hopley. “Can you come in? I am not sure but it will be for death.”
“Almost immediately,” returned Karl; and he stepped back to the chaise just in time. Lucy was about to try her hand at driving, to make her escape from him and the miserable situation.
Since the night of the baby’s death, Karl and his wife had lived a more estranged life than ever. Lucy avoided him continually. When he spoke to her, she would not answer beyond a monosyllable. As to any chance of explanation on any subject, there was none. It is true he did not attempt any; and if he had, she would have waived him away, and refused to listen to it This day was the first for some time that she had consented to let him drive her out.
It had happened on their return. Lucy’s eminently ungracious manner as he took his seat again would have stopped his speaking, even if he had had a mind to speak; but he was deep in anxious thought. The resentful way in which she had from the first taken up the affair of his unfortunate brother, served to tie his tongue always. He drove in, stood to help her out — or would have helped, but that she swept by without touching him — left the pony to the waiting groom, and walked back to the Maze.
Adam was in one of his attacks of pain, nay, of agony. It could be called nothing less. It was not, however, for death; the sharpness of the paroxysm, with its attendant signs, had misled Ann Hopley. Rose looked scarcely less ill than her husband. Her most grievous position was telling upon her. Her little child dead, her husband apparently dying, danger and dread of another sort on all sides. More like a shadow was she now than a living woman.
“Do you know what I have been thinking, Rose?” said Karl, when his brother had revived. “That we might trust Moore. You hear, Adam. I think he might be trusted.”
“Trusted for what?” returned Adam; not in his sometimes fierce voice, but in one very weak and faint.
He was lying on the sofa. Rose sat at the end of it, Karl in a chair at the side.
“To see you; to hear who you are. I cannot help believing that he would be true as steel. Moore is one of those men, as it seems to me, that we might trust our lives with.”
“It won’t do to run risks, old fellow. I do not want to be captured in my last hours.”
Karl believed there would be no risk. Mr. Moore was a truly good man, sensible and benevolent The more he dwelt on the idea, the surer grew his conviction that the surgeon might be trusted. Rose, who was almost passive in her distress, confessed she liked him. Both he and his sister gave her the impression of being, as Karl worded it, true as steel. Ann Hopley was in favour of it too. She put the case with much ingenuity.
“Sir, I should think there’s not a doctor in the world — at least, one worthy the name — who would not keep such a secret, confided to him of necessity, even if he were a bad man. And Mr. Moore’s a good one.”
And the decision was made. Karl was to feel his way to the confidence. He would sound the surgeon first, and act accordingly.
“Not that it much signifies either way,” cried Sir Adam, his careless manner reviving as his strength and spirits returned. “Die I soon must, I suppose, now; but I’d rather die in my bed here than on a pallet in a cell. So, Karlo, old friend, if you like to see what Moore’s made of, do so.”
“I wish it had occurred to me before,” cried Karl. “But indeed, the outer dangers have been so imminent as to drive other fears away.”
“It will never matter, bon frère. I don’t Suppose all the advice in the kingdom could have saved me. What is to be will be.”
“Master,” put in Ann Hopley, “where’s the good of your taking up a gloomy view of it, all at once? That’s not the way to get well.”
“Gloomy! not a bit of it,” cried Sir Adam, in a voice as cheery as a lark’s on a summer’s morning. “Heaven is more to be desired than Portland Prison, Ann.”
So Karl went forth, carrying his commission. In his heart he still trembled at it. The interests involved were so immense; the stake was so heavy for his unfortunate brother. In his extreme caution, he did not care to be seen going to the surgeon’s house, but sent a note to ask him to call at the Court It was the dusk of evening when Mr. Moore arrived. He was shown in to Sir Karl in his own room. Giles was appearing with two wax-lights in massive silver candlesticks, but his master motioned them away.
“I can say what I have to say better by this light than in a glare,” he observed to the doctor: perhaps as an opening preliminary, or intimation that the subject of the interview was not a pleasant one. And Giles shut them in alone. Karl sat sideways to the table, his elbow leaning on it; the doctor facing him with his back to the window.
“Mr. Moore,” began Karl, after a pause of embarrassment, “did it ever occur to you to have a secret confided to your keeping involving life or death?”
Mr. Moore paused in his turn. The question no doubt caused him surprise. He took it — the “life or death” — to be put in a professional point of view. A suspicion came over him that he was about to be consulted for some malady connected with the (evident) fading away of Lady Andinnian.
“I do not suppose, Sir Karl, there is a single disease that flesh is heir to, whether secret or open, but what I have been consulted upon in my time.”
“Not disease,” returned Karl hastily, finding he was misunderstood. “I meant a real, actual secret. A dangerous secret, involving life or death to the individual concerned, according as others should hold it sacred or betray it.”
A longer pause yet Mr. Moore staring at Karl through the room’s twilight.
“You must speak more plainly, Sir Karl, if you wish me to understand.” And Karl continued thoughtfully, weighing every word as he spoke it, that it might not harm his brother.
“The case is this, Mr. Moore. I hold in my keeping a dangerous secret. It concerns a — a friend: a gentleman who has managed to put himself in peril of the law. For the present he is evading the law; keeping himself, in fact, concealed alike from enemies and friends, with the exception of one or two who are — I may say — helping to screen him. If there were a necessity for my wishing to confide this secret to you, would you undertake to keep it sacred? Or should you consider it lay in your duty as a conscientious man to betray it!”
“Goodness bless me, no!” cried the doctor. “I’m not going to betray people: it’s not in my line. My business is to heal their sickness. You need not fear me. It is a case of debt, I suppose, Sir Karl!”
Karl looked at him for a moment steadily. “And if it were not a case of debt, but of crime, Moore? What then!”
“Just the same. Betraying my fellowmen, whether smarting under the ban of perplexity or of sin, does not rest in my duty, I say. I am not a detective officer. By the way, perhaps that other detective — who turns out to be named Tatton, and to belong to Scotland Yard — may have been down here looking after the very man.”
Mr. Moore spoke lightly. Not a suspicion rested upon him that the sad and worn gentleman before him held any solemn or personal interest in this, Karl resumed, his voice insensibly taking a lower tone.
“An individual is lying in concealment, as I have described. His offence was not against you or against me. Therefore, as you observe, and as I judge, it does not lie even in our duty to denounce him. I am helping to screen him. I want you to undertake to do the same when you shall know who he is.”
“I’ll undertake it with all my heart, Sir Karl. You have some motive for confiding the matter to me.”
“The motive arises out of necessity. He is grievously ill; in urgent need of medical care. I fear his days are already numbered: and in that fact lies a greater obligation for us to obey the dictates of humanity.”
“I see. You want me to visit him, and to do what I can for him. I am ready and willing.”
“He is — mind, I shall shock you — a convicted felon.”
“Well? — he has a body to be tended and a soul to be saved,” replied the surgeon, curiously impressed with the hush of gravity that had stolen over the interview. “I will do my best for him, Sir Karl.”
“And guard his secret?”
“I will. Here’s my hand upon it What would my Maker say to my offences at the Last Day, I wonder, if I could usurp His functions and deliver up to vengeance my fellow-man!”
“I may trust you, then!”
“You may. I perceive you are over anxious, Sir Karl. What more assurance can I give you! You may trust me as you trust yourself. By no incautious word or action of mine shall his peril be increased, or harm come nigh him: nay, I will avert it from him if I can. And now — who is he! The sick man at the Maze — to whom Dr. Cavendish was called! Taking one thing with another, that Maze has been a bit of a puzzle in my mind lately.”
“The same.”
“Ay. Between ourselves, I was as sure as gold that some one was there. Is it Mr. Grey! The poor young lady’s husband; the dead baby’s father!”
“Just so. But he is not Mr. Grey.”
“Who is he, then!”
Karl glanced around him, as though he feared the very walls might contain eaves-droppers. Mr. Moore saw his dread.
“It is a most dangerous secret,” whispered Karl with agitation. “You will keep it with your whole heart and life!”
“Once more, I will, I will. You cannot doubt me. Who is it!”
“My brother. Sir Adam Andinnian.”
The doctor leaped to his feet. Perhaps he had a doubt of Karl’s sanity. He himself had assisted to lay Sir Adam in his grave.
“Hush!” said Karl. “No noise. It is indeed my most unfortunate brother.”
“Did he come to life again? — Did Sir Adam come to life again?” reiterated the wondering surgeon in his perplexity.
“He did not die.”
