There was peace in the home again. The vexation regarding their young lady-neighbour had long ago subsided5 in Mrs. Andinnian's mind. She had spoken seriously and sharply to Adam upon the point--which was an entirely new element in his experience; telling him how absurd and unsuitable it was, that he, one of England's future baronets, and three-and-thirty years of age already, should waste his hours in frivolous7 talk with a girl beneath him. Adam heard her in silence, smiling a little, and quite docile8. He rejoined in a joking tone.
"All this means, I suppose, mother, that you would not tolerate Miss Turner as my wife?"
"Never, Adam, never. You would have to choose between myself and her. And I have been a loving mother to you."
"All right. Don't worry yourself. There's no cause for it."
From this time--the conversation was in April, at the close of Karl's short visit to them--the trouble ceased. Adam Andinnian either did not meet the girl so much: or else he timed his interviews more cautiously. In May Miss Turner went away on a visit: Adam seemed to have dismissed her from his mind: and Mrs. Andinnian forgot that she had ever been anxious.
Never a word of invitation had come from Sir Joseph. During this same month, May, Mrs. Andinnian, her patience worn out, had written to Foxwood, proffering9 a visit for herself and Adam. At the end of a fortnight's time, she received an answer. A few words of shaky writing, in Sir Joseph's own hand. He had been very ill, he told her, which was the cause of the delay in replying, as he wished to write himself. Now he was somewhat better, and gaining strength. When able to entertain her and her son--which he hoped would be soon--he should send for them. It would give him great pleasure to receive them, and to make the acquaintance of his heir.
That letter had reached Mrs. Andinnian the first day of June. Some three week's had elapsed since, and no summons had come. She was growing just a little impatient again. Morning after morning, while she dressed, the question always crossed her mind: will there be a letter to-day from Foxwood? On this lovely June morning, with the scent10 of the midsummer flowers wafting11 in through the open chamber12 window, it filled her mind as usual.
They breakfasted early. Adam's active garden habits induced it. When Mrs. Andinnian descended13, he was in the breakfast-room, scanning the pages of some new work on horticulture. He wore a tasty suit of grey, and looked well and handsome: unusually so in his mother's eyes, for he had only returned the past evening from a few days' roving absence.
"Good morning, Adam."
He advanced to kiss his mother: his even white teeth and his grey eyes as beautiful as they could well be. Mrs. Andinnian's fond and admiring heart leaped up with a bound.
"The nonsense people write whose knowledge is superficial!" he said, with a gay laugh. "I have detected half a dozen errors in this book already."
"No doubt. What book is it?"
He held it out to her, open at the title-page. "I bought it yesterday at a railway-stall."
"What a nice morning it is!" observed Mrs. Andinnian, as she was busy with the cups.
"Lovely. It is Midsummer Eve. I have been out at work these two hours."
"Adam, I think that must be the postman's step," she remarked presently. "Some one is going round to the door."
"From Karl, perhaps," he said with indifference14, for he had plunged15 into his book again.
Hewitt came in; one letter only on the silver waiter. He presented it to his master. Adam, absorbed in his pages, took the letter and laid it on the table without looking up. Something very like a cry from his mother startled him. She had caught up the letter and was gazing at the address. For it was one that had never before been seen there.
"Sir Adam Andinnian, Bart."
"Oh my son! It has come at last."
" What has come?" cried he in surprise. "Oh, I see:--Sir Joseph must be dead. Poor old fellow! What a sad thing!"
But it was not exactly Sir Joseph's death that Mrs. Andinnian had been thinking of. The letter ran as follows:--
"FOXWOOD, June 22nd.
"DEAR SIR,-I am truly sorry to have to inform you of the death of my old friend and many years' patient, Sir Joseph Andinnian. He had been getting better slowly, but we thought surely; and his death at the last was sudden and quite unexpected. I have taken upon myself to give a few necessary orders in anticipation16 of your arrival here.
"I am, Sir Adam, very sincerely yours,
"WILLIAM MOORE.
Sir Adam Andinnian."
The breakfast went on nearly in silence. Mrs. Andinnian was deep in thoughts and plans. Sir Adam, poring over his book while he ate, did not seem to be at all impressed with the importance of having gained a title.
"When shall you start, Adam?"
"Start?" he returned, glancing up. "For Foxwood? Oh, in a day or two."
" In a day or two!" repeated his mother, with surprised emphasis. "Why, what do you mean?"
"Just that, mother."
"You should be off in half an hour. You must, Adam."
"Not I. There's no, need of hurry," he added, with careless good humour.
"But there is need of it," she answered.
"Why? Had Sir Joseph been dying and wished to see me, I'd not have lost a single moment: but it is nothing of the kind, poor man. He is dead, unfortunately: and therefore no cause for haste exists."
"Some one ought to be there."
"Not at all. The Mr. Moore who writes--some good old village doctor, I conclude--will see to things."
"But why should you not go at once, Adam?" she persisted. "What is preventing you?"
"Nothing prevents me. Except that I hate to be hurried off anywhere. And I--I only came back to the garden yesterday."
"The garden!--that's what it is," resentfully thought Mrs. Andinnian. He read on in silence.
"Adam, if you do not go, I shall."
"Do, mother," he said, readily. "Go, if you would like to, and take Hewitt. I hate details of all kinds, you know; and if you will go, and take them on yourself, I shall be truly obliged. Write me word which day the funeral is fixed17 for, and I will come for it."
Perhaps in all her life Mrs. Andinnian had never resented anything in her favourite son as she was resenting this. She had looked forward to this accession of fortune with an eager anxiety which none could suspect: and now that it was come, he was treating it with this cool indifference! Many a time and oft had she indulged a vision of the day when she should drive in to take possession of Foxwood, her handsome son, the inheritor, seated beside her.
"One of my sons ought to be there," she said, coldly. "If you will not go, Adam, I shall telegraph to Karl."
"I will telegraph for you," he replied, with provoking good-humour. "Karl will be the very fellow: he has ten times the head for business that I have. Let him act for me in all things, exactly as though it were he who had succeeded: I give him carte blanche. It will save all trouble to you."
Sir Adam Andinnian declined to be shaken out of his resolve and his inertness18. In what might be called a temper, Mrs. Andinnian departed straight from the breakfast-table for the railway-station, to take the train. Her son duly accompanied her to see her safely away: she had refused to take Hewitt: and then he despatched a telegram to Karl, telling him to join his mother at Foxwood. Meantime, while these, the lady and the message, went speeding on their respective ways, the new baronet beguiled19 away the day's passing hours amidst his flowers, and shot a few small birds that were interfering20 with some choice seedlings21 just springing up.
Lieutenant22 Andinnian received the message promptly23. But, following the fashion much in vogue24 amidst telegraphic messages, it was not quite as clear as daylight. Karl read that Sir Joseph was dead, that his mother was either going or gone to Foxwood; that she was waiting for him, and he was to join her without delay. But whether he was to join her at her own home and accompany her to Foxwood, or whether he was to proceed direct to Foxwood, lay in profound obscurity. The fault was not in Sir Adam's wording; but in the telegraph people's carelessness.
"Now which is it that I am to do?" debated Karl, puzzling over the sprawling25 words from divers26 points of view. They did not help him: and he decided27 to proceed home; he thought his mother must be waiting for him there. "It must be that," he said: "Adam has gone hastening on to Foxwood, and the mother is staying for me to accompany her. Poor Uncle Joseph! And to think that I never once saw him in life!"
Mr. Andinnian had no difficulty in obtaining leave of absence: and he started on his journey. He was somewhat changed. Though only a month had gone by since the severance28 from Lucy Cleeve, the anguish29 had told upon him. His brother officers, noting the sad abstraction he was often plunged in, the ultra-strict fulfilment of his duties, as if life were made up of parades and drill and all the rest of it, told him in joke that he was getting into a bad way. They knew naught30 of what had happened; of the fresh spring love that had made his heart and this earth alike a paradise, or of its abrupt31 ending. "My poor horse has had to be shot, you know"--which was a fact; "and I can't forget him," Mr. Andinnian one day replied, reciprocating32 the joke.
The shades of the midsummer night were gathering33 as Karl neared the house of his mother. He walked up from the terminus, choosing the field-path, and leaving his portmanteau to be sent after him. The glowing fires of the departed sun had left the west, but streaks34 of gold where he had set illumined the heavens. The air was still and soft, the night balmy; a few stars flickered35 in the calm blue firmament36: the moon was well above the horizon. This pathway over the fields ran parallel with the high road. As Mr. Andinnian paced it, his umbrella in his hand, there suddenly broke upon his ears a kind of uproar37, marring strangely the peaceful stillness of the night. Some stirring commotion38, as of a mass of people, seemed to be approaching.
"What is it, I wonder?" he said to himself: and for a moment or two he halted and stared over the border of the field and through the intervening hedge beyond. By what his sight could make out, he thought some policemen were in front, walking with measured tread; behind came a confused mob, following close on their heels: but the view was too uncertain to show this distinctly.
"Some poor prisoner they are bringing in from the county," thought Mr. Andinnian, as the commotion passed on towards the town, and he continued his way.
"This is a true Midsummer Eve night," he said to himself, when the hum of the noise and the tramping had died away, and he glanced at the weird39 shadows that stood out from hedges and trees. "Just the night for ghosts to come abroad, and---- Stay, though: it is not on Midsummer Eve that ghosts come, I think. What is the popular superstition40 for the night? Young girls go out and see the shadowy forms of their future husbands? Is that it? I don't remember. What matter if I did? Such romance has died out for me."
He drew near his home. On the left lay the cottage of Mr. Turner. Its inmates41 seemed to be unusually astir within it, for lights shone from nearly every window. A few yards further Karl turned into his mother's grounds by a private gate.
Their own house looked, on the contrary, all dark. Karl could not see that so much as the hall-lamp was lighted. A sudden conviction flashed over him that he was wrong, after all; that it was to Foxwood he ought to have gone.
"My mother and Adam and all the world are off to it, no doubt," he said as he looked up at the dark windows, after knocking at the door. "Deuce take the telegraph!"
The door was opened by Hewitt: Hewitt with a candle in his hand. That is, the door was drawn42 a few inches back, and the man's face appeared in the aperture43. Karl was seized with a sudden panic: for he had never seen, in all his life, a face blanched44 as that was, or one so full of horror.
"What is the matter!" he involuntarily exclaimed, under his breath.
Ay, what was the matter? Hewitt, the faithful serving man of many years, threw up his hands when he saw Karl, and cried out aloud before he told it. His master, Sir Adam, had shot Martin Scott.
Karl Andinnian stood against the doorpost inside as he listened; stood like one bereft45 of motion. For a moment he could put no questions: but it crossed his mind that Hewitt must be mad and was telling some fable46 of an excited brain.
Not so. It was all too true. Adam Andinnian had deliberately47 shot the young medical student, Martin Scott. And Hewitt, poor Hewitt, had been a witness to the deed.
"Is he dead!" gasped48 Karl. And it was the first word he spoke6.
"Stone dead, sir. The shot entered his heart. 'Twas done at sunset. He was carried into Mr. Turner's place, and is lying there."
A confused remembrance of the lights he had seen arose to Karl's agitated49 brain. He pressed his hand on his brow and stared at Hewitt For a moment or two, he thought he himself must be going mad.
"And where is he--my brother!"
"The police have taken him away, Mr. Karl. Two of them happened to be passing just at the time."
And Karl knew that the prisoner he had met in custody50, with the guardians51 of the law around and the trailing mob, was his brother, Sir Adam Andinnian.
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1
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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6
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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proffering
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的现在分词 ) | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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wafting
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的现在分词 ) | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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inertness
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| n.不活泼，没有生气；惰性；惯量 | |
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beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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seedlings
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| n.刚出芽的幼苗( seedling的名词复数 ) | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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severance
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| n.离职金；切断 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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reciprocating
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| adj.往复的；来回的；交替的；摆动的v.报答，酬答( reciprocate的现在分词 )；（机器的部件）直线往复运动 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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firmament
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| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
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uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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42
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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44
blanched
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| v.使变白( blanch的过去式 )；使（植物）不见阳光而变白；酸洗（金属）使有光泽；用沸水烫（杏仁等）以便去皮 | |
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bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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48
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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