Within the Maze: A Novel, Vol. 1 (of 2)Wood, Henry, Mrs.
General
Within the Maze: A Novel, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
English fiction -- 19th century
But to this he could get no answer. Whether Mrs. Andinnian knew, or
whether she did not know, she would not say. The one fact--that Mr.
Smith held the dangerous secret, and must be conciliated, was quite
enough, she said, for Karl Mr. Smith had Adam's safety and interest at
heart, she went on to state; he wished to be near the Maze to watch
over him; and she had given him the pretty cottage opposite the Maze
gates to live in, calling him Sir Karl's agent, and appointing him to
collect a few rents, so as to give a colouring of ostensibility to the
neighbourhood. In vain Karl remonstrated. It was useless. The ground
seemed slipping from under all their feet, but he could do nothing.
After all, poor Mrs. Andinnian did not live to see her most beloved
son. Anxiety, torment, restlessness, proved too much for her, and
brought on the crisis sooner than was expected. On the very day after
she died, the tenants came to the Maze--at least, all the tenants who
would be seen openly, or be suspected of inhabiting it. They arrived
by the last evening train; Mrs. Grey and her attendants, the Hopleys;
and took two flies, which were waiting in readiness, on to the Maze;
the lady occupying one, Hopley and his wife the other. How Adam
Andinnian reached the place, it is not convenient yet to state.
In the course of the next evening, Karl Andinnian went over to the
Maze and saw his brother. Adam was much altered. In the fever, which
had supervened on his injuries received at the escape, he had lost his
hair and become pale and thin. But his spirits were undaunted. He
should soon "pick up" now he was in the free open country air and on
his own grounds, he said. As to danger, he seemed not to see it, and
declared there was less risk of discovery there than anywhere else.
Karl could play the grand man and the baronet for him at Foxwood--but
he meant, for all that, to have a voice in the ruling of his own
estate. Poor Karl Andinnian, on the contrary, saw the very greatest
danger in the position of affairs. He would have preferred to shut up
Foxwood, leaving only Hewitt to take care of it, that no chance of
discovery should arise from either servants or other inhabitants
there. But Sir Adam ruled it otherwise; saying he'd not have the Court
left to stagnate. Hewitt was in the secret. It might have been neither
expedient nor practicable to keep it from him: but the question was
decided of itself. One evening just before Mrs. Andinnian's death,
when Hewitt had gone to her sick-room on some errand at the dusk hour,
she mistook him for Karl; and spoke words which betrayed all. Karl was
glad of it: it seemed a protection to Adam, rather than not, that his
tried old servant should be cognizant of the truth. So Karl went
abroad again with his wife, and stayed until his keeping aloof from
Foxwood began to excite comment in his wife's family; when he deemed
it more expedient to return to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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