Within the Maze: A Novel, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Mrs. Henry Wood

The Reverend Damon Puff found favour too. He had a beautiful black moustache, which he was given to stroke lovingly at all kinds of unseasonable times, his hair was parted down the middle carefully, back and front, and he had an interesting lisp: otherwise he was a harmless kind of young man, devotedly attentive to the ladies, and not overburdened with brains. Mr. Puff had taken up his abode for the present at Basham, and came over in the omnibus. Two omnibus-loads of fair worshippers arrived now daily: there was frightful scuffling among them to get into the one that contained the parson.

But, flourishing though St. Jerome's was, people were talking about it in anything but a reverend manner. Sir Karl Andinnian was blamed for allowing it to go on unchecked--as he told his wife. Had Karl been a perfectly free man, unswayed by that inward and ever-present dread, he had certainly put a stop to it long ago, or obliged Farmer Truefit to do so; but as it was, he had done nothing. Not a single male person attended the services; and most of the ladies who did so were in their teens, or not much beyond them. Karl felt that this was not as it should be: but he had made no move to alter it. The sensitive fear of making enemies swayed him. Not fear for his own sake, but lest it should in some way draw observation on the Maze and on him whom it contained. When the mind is weighed down with an awful secret, danger seems to lie in everything, reasonable and unreasonable. But Karl found he must do something.

A comic incident happened one day. There came a lady to Foxwood Court, sending in her card as "Mrs. Brown" and asking to see Sir Karl Andinnian. Sir Karl found she was from Basham. She had come over to pray him, she said with tears in her eyes, that he would put a stop to the goings-on at St. Jerome's and shut up the place. She had two daughters who had been drawn into its vortex and she could not draw them out again. Twice and three times every day of their lives did they come over to Foxwood, by rail, omnibus, or on foot; their whole thoughts and days were absorbed by St. Jerome's: by the services, by cleaning the church, by Mr. Cattacomb's lectures at home, or in helping Mr. Puff teach the children. Sir Karl replied that he did not know what he could do in the matter, and intimated very courteously that the more effectual remedy in regard to the Miss Browns would be for Mrs. Brown to keep the young ladies at home. They would not be kept at home, Mrs. Brown said with a burst of sobs; they had learnt to set her at defiance: and--she begged to hint to Sir Karl--that in her opinion it was not quite the right thing for a young girl to be closeted with a young man, for half an hour at a time, under plea of confession, though the man did write himself priest. What on earth had they got to confess, Mrs. Brown wanted to know, becoming a little heated with the argument: if they'd confess how undutiful they were to her, their mother, perhaps some good might come of it.

Well, this occurred. Sir Karl got rid of Mrs. Brown; but he could not shut his ears to the public chatter; and he was conscious that something or other ought to be done, or attempted. He could not see why people should expect that it lay in his hands, and he certainly did not know whether he could effect anything, even with all the good will in the world. Mr. Cattacomb might civilly laugh at him. Not knowing whether any power lay with him, or not, he felt inclined to put the question to the only lawyer Foxwood contained--Mr. St. Henry.

But oh, what was this petty grievance to the great trouble ever lying upon him? As nothing. The communication made to him by Ann Hopley, of the night watches she had seen, of the stranger who afterwards presented himself at the Maze gate with his questions, was so much addition to his tormenting dread. Just about this time, too, it came to his knowledge through Hewitt, that inquiries were being made as to the Maze. Private, whispered inquiries, not apparently with any particular object; more in the way of idle gossip. Who was putting them? Karl could not learn. Hewitt did not know who, but was sure of the fact. The story told by Mrs. Chaffen, of the gentleman she had seen at the Maze the night she entered it, and "which it was at her wits' end to know whether he were a ghost, or not," was circulating round the village and reached Karl's ears, to his intense annoyance and dismay. Added to all this, was the doubt that lay within himself, as to whether Smith the agent was Philip Salter, and what his course in the matter should be. In his own mind he felt persuaded that it was Salter, and no other; but the persuasion was scarcely sufficiently assured to induce him to act. He felt the danger of speaking a word of accusation to Smith wrongfully--the danger it might bring on his brother--and therefore he, in this, vacillated and hesitated, and did nothing.

Do not reproach Karl Andinnian with being an unstable or vacillating man. He was nothing of the kind. But he was living under exceptional circumstances, and there seemed to be risk to his unfortunate brother on the left hand and on the right. If discovery should chance to supervene through any rash step of his, Karl's, remorse would never cease from racking him to the end of his bitter life.

[CHAPTER VII.]

At Lawyer St. Henry's.

Lawyer St. Henry sat at his well-spread breakfast table. He was a little man with a bald head and good-natured face, who enjoyed his breakfast as well as all his other meals. Since his nieces had considered it necessary to their spiritual welfare to attend matins at St. Jerome's, the lawyer had been condemned to breakfast alone. The sun shone on the street, and Mr. St. Henry sat in a room that faced it. Through the wire blinds he could see all the passings and re-passings of his neighbours; which he very well liked to do; as well as the doings of Paradise Row opposite.

"Hallo!" he cried, catching sight of a face at Mrs. Jinks's parlour window, "Cattacomb's not gone out this morning! Puff must have come over early to officiate. Thinks he'll take it easy, I suppose, now he's got an underling: no blame to him, either. The girls will be dished for once. Nobody goes down with 'em like Cattacomb."