Karl Andinnian smiled. "You have not lost the old habit, Adam--the putting yourself into a heat for nothing. I came over this evening to have some serious talk with you. Do sit down."
"Yes do, Adam," added his wife, turning to him; "you will get the pain in your hip again. Do you wish me to go away?" she added to Karl, as she prepared to gather up her working materials.
"No, no, Rose: it's only the old story, I know--the wanting to get rid of me," interposed Sir Adam, sitting down himself. "Stay where you are, wife. Now for it, Karl.--Wait a moment, though" he added, ringing the bell.
It was answered by the same staid, respectable-looking servant seen by Miss Blake; the same confidential woman who had lived with Mrs. Andinnian at Weymouth--Ann Hopley.
"Ann, I am as thirsty as a fish," said her master. "Bring up a bottle of soda-water and a dash of brandy."
"Yes, sir," she replied--not daring now or at any other time to give him his title.
He opened the soda-water himself when it was brought, put in the brandy, drank it, and sat down again. Karl Andinnian began to speak, feeling an innate certainty that his words would be wasted ones.
But some explanation of the past is necessary, and it may as well be given here.
When Karl Andinnian went down from London to Weymouth upon the news of his brother's attempted escape and death, he found his mother in a dreadful state of distress--as already related. This distress was not put on: indeed such distress it would not be possible to assume: for Mrs. Andinnian believed the public accounts--that Adam was dead. After she had despatched Karl to Foxwood to make arrangements for the interment, the truth was disclosed to her, Sir Adam had escaped with life, and was lying concealed in Weymouth; but he had been terribly knocked about in the scuffle, and in fact had been considered dead. By the careless stupidity of one of the warders, or else by his connivance, Mrs. Andinnian never entirely knew which, he was reported at the prison as being dead--and perhaps the prison thought itself well rid of so obstreperous an inmate. The warders had said one to another from the time he was first put there, that that Andinnian gentleman had "mischief" in him. Further explanation may be given later on in the story: at present it is enough to say that Adam Andinnian escaped.
When Mrs. Andinnian arrived with the body (supposed to be her son's) at Foxwood, she then knew the truth. Adam was not dead. He was lying somewhere in great danger; they would not, from motives Of prudence, allow her to know where; but, dead he was not. Not a hint did she disclose of this to Karl; and he stood by her side over the grave, believing it was his brother that was placed in it. She called him Sir Karl; she never gave him a hint that his succession to the title and estates was but a pseudo one; she suffered him to depart in the false belief. Perhaps she did not dare to speak of it, even to him. Karl went abroad, re-met Lucy Cleeve, and became engaged to her. He caused the marriage settlements to be drawn up and signed, still never dreaming that he had no legal right to settle, that the revenues were not his. Only when he went down to Foxwood, a day or two before his marriage, did he become acquainted with the truth.