Read Ebook: Within the Maze: A Novel Vol. 1 (of 2) by Wood Henry Mrs

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Ebook has 1948 lines and 90815 words, and 39 pages

But when he was fairly beyond their sight Karl's face became grave as a judge's. "Surely Adam is not drifting into anything serious in that quarter!" ran his thoughts. "It would never do."

"Well--have you seen Adam!" began Mrs. Andinnian, when he entered.

"Yes. He is coming immediately."

"With Miss Turner."

"What nonsense! Idling about with a senseless child!"

"As Lady Andinnian."

Karl had angered his mother before in his lifetime, but scarcely ever as now. She turned livid as death, and took up the first thing that came to her hand--a silver inkstand, kept for show, not use--and held it as if she would hurl it at his head.

"I beg your pardon, mother. I spoke without thought."

As she was putting down the inkstand, Adam came in. He saw that something was amiss. Mrs. Andinnian spoke abruptly about the invitation for the evening, and asked if he would go. Adam said he could go, and she left the room to give, herself, a verbal answer to the waiting servant.

"What was the matter, Karl?"

"Just attend to your own affairs," growled Adam. "Keep yourself in your place."

Karl looked up with his sweet smile; answering with his frank and gentle voice. The smile and the voice acted like oil on the troubled waters.

"You know, Adam, that I should never think of interfering with you, or of opposing your inclinations. In the wide world, there's no one, I think, so anxious as I am for your happiness and welfare."

Adam did know it, and their hands met in true affection. Few brothers loved each other as did Adam and Karl Andinnian. Seeing them together thus, they were undoubtedly two fine young men--as their sailor father had once observed to his brother. But Karl, with his nameless air of innate goodness and refinement, looked the greater gentleman.

Lingering under the light of the sweet May moon, arm within arm, their voices hushed, their tread slow, went two individuals, whom few, looking upon them, could have failed to mistake for anything but lovers. Lovers they were, in heart, in mind, in thought: with as pure and passionate and ardent a love as ever was felt on this earth. And yet, no word, to tell of it, had ever been spoken between them.

It was one of those cases where love, all unpremeditated, had grown up, swiftly, surely, silently. Had either of them known that they were drifting into it, they might have had sufficient prudence to separate forthwith, before the danger grew into certainty. For he, the obscure and nearly portionless young soldier, had the sense to see that he would be regarded as no fit match for the daughter of Colonel and the Honourable Mrs. Cleeve; both of high lineage and inordinately proud of it into the bargain; and she, Lucy Cleeve, knew that, for all her good descent, she was nearly portionless too, and that her future husband, whomsoever he might turn out to be, must possess a vast deal more of this world's goods than did Lieutenant Andinnian. Ay, and of family also. But, there it was: they had drifted into this mutual love unconsciously: each knew that it was for all time: and that, in comparison, "family" and "goods" were to them as nothing.

"And so Miss Blake is back, Lucy?"

The words, spoken by Mr. Andinnian, broke one of those long pauses of delicious silence, that in themselves seem like tastes of paradise. Lucy Cleeve's tones in answer were low and soft as his.

"She came to-day. I hardly knew her. Her hair is all put on the top of her head: and--and--"

Lucy stopped. "And is of another colour," she had been about to conclude. But it might not be quite good-natured to say it, even to one to whom she would willingly have given her whole heart's confidence. Reared in the highest of all high and true principles, and naturally gifted with them, Lucy had a peculiar dread of deceit: her dislike of it extended even to the changing of the colour of the hair. But she was also of that sweet and generous disposition that shrinks from speaking a slighting word of another. She resumed hastily and with a slight laugh.

"Theresa is in love with Rome; and especially with its cardinals. One of them was very civil to her, Karl."

"About this picnic to-morrow, Lucy. Are you to be allowed to go?"

"Yes, now Theresa's here. Mamma would not have liked to send me without some one from home: and the weather is scarcely hot enough for herself to venture. Do--you--go" she asked timidly.

"Yes."

There was silence again: each heart beating in unison. The prospect of a whole day together, spent amidst glens, and woods, and dales, was too much for utterance.

For the past twelve months, Lieutenant Andinnian's regiment had been quartered at Winchester. On his arrival, he had brought with him a letter of introduction to one of the clergy there--a good old man, whose rectory was on the outskirts of the town. The Rev. Mr. Blake and his wife took a great fancy to the young lieutenant, and made much of him. Living with them at that time was a relative, a Miss Blake. This lady was an orphan: she had a small fortune, somewhere between two and three hundred a year: and she stayed sometimes with the Blakes, sometimes with the Cleeves, to whom she and the Blakes were likewise related.

A novel writer has to tell secrets: not always pleasant ones. In this case, it must be disclosed that the one secret wish of Theresa Blake's life, to which her whole energies were directed, was--to get married, and to marry well. If we could see into the hearts of some other young ladies, especially when they have left the bloom of youth behind, we might find them filled with the same ardent longing. Hitherto Miss Blake's hopes had not been realized. She was not foolish enough to marry downright unwisely: and nothing eligible had come in her way. Considering that she was so very sensible a young woman--for good common sense was what Miss Blake prided herself upon--it was very simple of her to take up the notion she did--that the attractive young lieutenant's frequent visits to the rectory were made for her sake. She fell over head and ears in love with him: she thought that his attentions spoke plainly of his love for her. Of what are called "flirtations" Theresa Blake had had enough, and to spare: but of true love she had hitherto known nothing. She ignored the difference in their years--for there was a difference--and she waited for the time when the young officer should speak out: her income joined to his and his pay, would make what she thought they could live very comfortably upon. Love softens difficulties as does nothing else in life; before she knew Karl Andinnian, Miss Blake would have scorned the notion of taking any man who could not have offered her a settlement of a thousand pounds a year at least.

But now--what was Karl Andinnian's share in all this? Simply none. He had no more notion that the young lady was in love with him than that old Mrs. Blake was. If Miss Blake did not see the years she had come to, he did; and would nearly as soon, so far as age went, have offered to marry his mother. To a young man of twenty-six, a woman of thirty-four looks quite old. And so, in this misapprehension--the one finding fresh food for her hopes day by day, the other at ease in his utter unconsciousness--the summer and autumn had passed. At the close of autumn Miss Blake departed with some friends for the Continent, more particularly to visit Paris and Rome. But that it was a long-since-made engagement, and also that she had so wished to see those renowned places, she would not have torn herself away from the locality that contained Mr. Andinnian.

Shortly afterwards the Cleeves returned to Winchester, after a long absence. They resided without the town, just beyond Mr. Blake's rectory. Lucy Cleeve had been in the habit of spending nearly as much time at the rectory as at home: and it was from the never-tiring training of him and his good wife that Lucy had learnt to be the truly excellent girl she was. On the very day of her return, she and Karl Andinnian met: and--if it was not exactly love at first sight with them, it was something very like it; for each seemed drawn to the other by that powerful, sympathetic attraction that can no more be controlled than explained or accounted for. A few more meetings, and they loved for all time: and since then they had gone on living in a dream of happiness.

There they were, pacing together the rectory garden under the warm May moonlight. The rector had been called to a sick parishioner, and they had strolled out with him to the gate. Mrs. Blake, confined to her sofa, was unsuspicious as the day. Lucy, twenty 'years of age, was looked upon by her as a child still: and the old are apt to forget the sweet beguilements of their own long-past youth, and that the young of the present day can be drifting into the same.

"It is very pleasant; quite warm," spoke Mr. Andinnian. "Would you like another turn, Lucy?"

They both turned simultaneously without a word of assent from her, and paced side by side to the gate in a rapture of silence. Lucy quitted him to pluck a spray from the sweet-briar hedge; and then they turned again. The moon went behind a cloud.

"Take my arm, Lucy. It is getting quite dark."

She took it; the darkness affording the plea; and the night hid the blushes on her transparent cheeks. They were half-way down the walk, and Karl was bending his head to speak to her; his tones low, though their subject was nothing more than the projected party for the morrow; when some one who had approached the gate from the road, stood still there to look at them.

It was Miss Blake. She had that day returned from her continental excursion, and taken up her abode, as arranged, at Colonel Cleeve's. Whether at the rectory or at Colonel Cleeve's, Miss Blake paid at the rate of one hundred a year for the accommodation; and then, as she said, she was independent. It was a private arrangement, one that she insisted on. Her sojourn abroad had not tended to cool one whit of her love for Mr. Andinnian; the absence had rather augmented it. She had come home with all her pulses bounding and her heart glowing at the prospect of seeing him again.

But--she saw him with some one else. The moon was out again in all her silvery brightness, and Miss Blake had keen eyes. She saw one on his arm, to whom he seemed to be whispering, to whose face his own was bent; one younger and fairer than she--Lucy Cleeve. A certain possibility of what it might mean darted through her mind with a freezing horror that caused her to shiver. But only for a moment. She drove it away as absurd--and opened, the gate with a sharp click. They turned at the sound of her footsteps and loosed arms. Mr. Andinnian doffed his hat in salutation, and held out his hand.

"Miss Blake!"

"I came with old John to fetch you, Lucy, wishing to see dear Mrs. Blake," she carelessly said in explanation, letting her hand lie in Karl's, as they turned to the house. "And it is a lovely night."

Coming into the light of the sitting-room you could see what Miss Blake was like--and Lucy, also, for that matter. Miss Blake was tall, upright; and; if there was a fault in her exceedingly well-made figure, it was that it was too thin. Her features and complexion were very good, her eyes were watchful and had a green tinge; and the hair originally red, had been converted into a kind of auburn that had more than one shade of colour on it. Altogether, Miss Blake was nice-looking; and she invariably dressed well, in the height of any fashion that might prevail. What with her well-preserved face, her large quantity of youthful hair, and her natty attire, she had an idea that she looked years and years less than her real age; as in fact she did.

"I wonder--I wonder how much he has seen of Lucy?" thought Miss Blake, beginning to watch and to listen, and to put in prompting questions here and there.

She contrived to gather that the lieutenant had been a tolerably frequent visitor at Colonel Cleeve's during the spring. She observed--and Miss Blake's observance was worth having--that his good night to Lucy was spoken in a different tone from the one to herself: lower and softer.

Nevertheless the very thought of it caused her face to grow cold as with a mortal sickness.

"I shall see to-morrow," she murmured. "They will be together at the picnic, and I shall see."

Miss Blake did see. Saw what, to her jealous eyes--ay, and to her cool ones; was proof positive. Lieutenant Andinnian and Miss Lucy Cleeve were lost in love the one for the other. In her conscientious desire to do her duty--and she did hope and believe that no other motive or passion prompted the step--Miss Blake, looking upon herself as a sort of guardian over Lucy's interests, disclosed her suspicions to Mrs. Cleeve. What would be a suitable match for herself, might be entirely unsuitable for Lucy.

Colonel Augustus and the Honourable Mrs. Cleeve were very excellent people, as people go: their one prominent characteristic--perhaps some would rather call it failing--being family pride. Colonel Cleeve could claim relationship, near or remote, with three lords and a Scotch duke: Mrs. Cleeve was a peer's daughter. Their only son was in India with his regiment: their only daughter, introduced and presented but the last year, was intended to make a good marriage, both as regards rank and wealth. They knew what a charming girl she was, and they believed she could not fail to be sought. One gentleman, indeed, had asked for her in London; that is, had solicited of the Colonel the permission to ask for her. He was a banker's son. Colonel Cleeve thanked him with courtesy, but said that his daughter must not marry beneath her own rank: he and her mother hoped she would be a peeress. It may therefore be judged what was the consternation caused, when Miss Blake dropped a hint of her observations.

Mrs. Cleeve, dismayed, sick, frightened, but always mild and gentle, begged of Lucy to say that it was a cruel mistake; and that there was "nothing" between her and Mr. Andinnian. Lucy, amidst her blinding tears, answered that nothing whatever had been spoken between them. But she was too truthful, too honest, to deny the implication that there existed love: Colonel Cleeve sent for Mr. Andinnian.

The young man was just coming in from a full-dress parade when the note arrived. It was a peremptory one. He walked up at once, not staying to put off his regimentals. Colonel Cleeve, looking the thorough gentleman he was, and wearing his customary blue frock-coat with a white cambric frill at his breast, met him at the door of his library. He was short and slight, and had mild blue eyes. His white hair was cut nearly close, and his forehead and head were so fair that at first sight it gave him the appearance of being powdered. The servant closed the door upon them.

That Karl Andinnian was, as the phrase runs, "taken to" by the plain questioning of the Colonel cannot be denied. It was plunged into without preface. "Is it true that there is an attachment between you and my daughter? Is it true, sir, that you have been making love to her?"

For a short while Karl was silent. The Colonel saw his embarrassment. It was only the momentary embarrassment of surprise, and, perhaps, of vexation: but Karl, guileless and strictly honourable, never thought of not meeting the matter with perfect truth.

"As what, Mr. Andinnian?" was the stern question.

"As I have read hers, I was going to presume to say," replied Karl, his voice and eyes alike drooping.

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